The Third Kiss

by Kat Colmer

  He was up and charging in a terrifying blink of an eye.

  Almost on me. I swiveled on one foot. The other shot out, connecting with the guy’s face as he lunged. The force of the kick sent him staggering back a few paces. It also sent me backside first into the large puddle.

  I gasped. Pain knifed my wrist, making my eyes water. But fear had me upright with the next breath. No time to run. He was too close.

  He grabbed me by my belt, jerked me up against him. So close I could see the near pupil-less violet of his eyes. The unnatural sight spurred me on.

  I hooked my hands over his, tugged down sharply. I felt some give, grabbed his fingers, pushed in on his wrist, and twisted hard. He went down with a hiss. Next a crushing knee to his face, then I turned.

  And tore out of there.

  “Cora!”

  I froze, spun around. No! Beth stood in the alleyway beside the building, terror flooding her face as she took in the gravity of the situation.

  My eyes flicked frantically from her to my attacker, who was…getting up off the ground? How is that even possible? That kick had broken bone.

  “Get out of here!” I yelled at her. If I moved now I had a good chance of making it to the gate at the other end of the parking lot. But Beth was glued to the spot, shock or fear anchoring her where she stood.

  In front of me, the guy was now standing. If not for the dark line of blood trickling from his nose, I would have doubted my knee had even connected. He wiped the blood with the back of his broad hand, then casually examined the smear as though surprised to see it there. Then he looked up, violet eyes locking on mine.

  I know those eyes. He was the too-perfect-to-be-real guy from the pool party and the café. The feral smile that spread across his face had me backing up toward the car. Cold water had soaked through my dobok pants, and my heart smashed against my rib cage as fear clawed at my windpipe. I fought for control of my breathing and braced myself for a fresh assault.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jonas

  “Hey, can’t talk right now. You know what to do after the beep. Bye.”

  Fan-fricking-tastic. Now Beth wasn’t answering her phone, either. Her last text said something about intercepting Cora after her tae kwon do class, but that had been more than half an hour ago, so why wasn’t she answering her damn phone?

  Palm beating an impatient rhythm on the steering wheel, I eyeballed the traffic lights. Turn green already! If Stefan thought I’d been useless yesterday, I didn’t want to know what he thought of today’s performance. Between texting Beth and trying to get the prof on the phone, I’d been about as useful as a condom on a eunuch. Saying my mind was elsewhere was an understatement.

  I shifted in the driver’s seat, the Guardian letter in my back pocket burning a hole in the denim. The urge to pull it out again, to make sure the last coil was still intact, was constant. I swear, I’d checked on the coil so many times today I was bordering on obsessive-compulsive. The change in the coil was…unsettling, but my biggest fear? The last coil disappearing. And with it, all traces of Cora’s friendship.

  Turn green, damn it! I gripped the steering wheel, the skin stretching white across my knuckles. Since Beth had made me prod the beast of possibility between Cora and me, it had reared its stubborn head and wouldn’t stop growling. Just the thought of something other than friendship where Cora and I were concerned made me break out in a cold sweat. But the prospect of her telling me she couldn’t stand to be anywhere near me set my insides on fire, reducing my gut to a vat of burning acid.

  Cold sweat or acid? Both options equaled torture. But it was all moot since nothing seemed to have changed. Or had it?

  Turn gree— Finally! I slammed my foot on the accelerator and sped the last stretch home. Two minutes later the Mazda screeched to a stop in our driveway—centimeters behind a police car. The blue and red lights on the roof sent a wave of dread washing over me. Last time I’d seen those colors in my driveway, my life had come off its hinges for the second time in four months. I didn’t think I could survive a third.

  I swallowed, wiped shaking, damp palms on my pants, and forced myself to move toward the front door.

  “Is there anything else you can remember, Miss Hammond?” The police officer was scribbling on a notepad as I walked into the living room. Aunt Helena stood beside him, tugging at the scarf around her neck. In front of them, Beth sat on the couch, her arm around Cora. It was the sight of Cora, arms wrapped around herself, a blanket draped across her shoulders, that pumped a dose of ice water through my veins.

  “No, that’s it,” Cora whispered and shook her head.

  “In that case, I’ll leave now. But don’t hesitate to contact the station if you can think of anything else,” the officer said and closed his notepad.

  “What happened?”

  They all turned to look at me. When Cora’s wide eyes met mine, shards of shock in the hazel, the need to wrap my own arms around her was all-consuming. Instead, I sank into the armchair next to the couch and raked my gaze over her body for any signs of injury. Cora’s dobok pants hung wet and dirt-splattered from her knees down. Her face ashen, she held an ice pack to her right wrist. No blood visible anywhere, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t hurt. Sometimes the worst wounds weren’t immediately noticeable.

  “My nephew, Jonas,” Aunt Helena explained to the police officer as she walked him out of the room.

  “Cora, what happened?” I asked again. I couldn’t stop myself—I leaned forward and gently wiped some dirt from her cheek. Her skin was cold against my fingers.

  “A guy tried to grab me,” she said, “in the parking lot after class.”

  My fist clenched. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No, not really.” She held up her right hand. “I think I sprained my wrist, but that’s all.”

  A knot loosened somewhere in the pit of my stomach, but it wasn’t enough. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d moved to sit beside her. I needed to touch her, to know she really was all right. My hand reached out to her injured wrist. “Let me see.”

  She held her arm out to me, and I gently cradled it in my lap. Her wrist was swollen but not much. I brushed careful fingertips over her pulse point, then up into her palm, and left my hand there, mindful not to put pressure on her injury.

  I looked back up at her. “Any idea who it was?”

  She threw a quick glance at the living room door before bringing her eyes back to mine. A quick nod. “The guy from the café.”

  “Stefan?”

  “No,” Beth said. “Hot Creepy Guy.”

  I frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “Not too many guys with eerie purple eyes and pin-prick pupils,” Cora said.

  So help me, next time I saw those eyes, I’d make sure their owner ended up purple. All over.

  “Tell him,” Beth said, cutting short my revenge fantasy.

  My eyes immediately zeroed in on Cora’s face. “Tell me what?”

  She wouldn’t meet my gaze. She shifted on the couch, pulled at the blanket on her shoulders, but wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  “Cora, tell me what?”

  “The guy was strong, that’s all.” Her tone was laid back, dismissive.

  But she still wouldn’t meet my damn eyes.

  Beth snorted. “She kneed him in the face and he barely had a nosebleed.”

  “People have different pain thresholds,” Cora said.

  Beth lurched forward on the couch so she could look past Cora directly at me. “We’re talking reconstructive surgery, knee-to-nose, kind of move. Anyone else would have been out cold!”

  Cora finally looked up at me. The steel in her eyes dared me to argue Beth’s point.

  “I’m telling you, he was not…normal,” Beth continued. “For whatever reason, when I showed up, he chose to walk away. If he hadn’t, I’m positive we wou
ldn’t be sitting here.”

  Beth’s words set off a prickling of apprehension at the base of my skull. The loaded look that followed sent the pins and needles all the way down my spine; we were both thinking the same thing. This shit just got very real.

  Cora’s eyes widened. “Be serious, Jonas. None of this means—” The leather creaked as she swiveled to face me. “You of all people should know that a knee to the nose doesn’t guarantee a knockout.” She hardened the steel in her eyes, but I caught the quiver in her voice. Small as it was, it was enough to tell me Cora was losing her battle to keep from believing the unbelievable.

  “We need to speak with Professor Scholler and read those journals from cover to cover, find out what’s going on,” Beth said just as the hurried clicking of Aunt Helena’s heels approached down the hallway.

  When she came back into the room, fatigue and worry pulled at Aunt Helena’s face. “The police are doing everything they can. Hopefully the license plate number will help find him soon.”

  If Beth’s and my suspicions were right, they were better off never finding him.

  Hands on hips, Aunt Helena walked over to stand in front of us. Her gaze fell on Cora. “But while that man is out there and your father is away, you’re staying here. We’ll contact your father first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Cora sat bolt upright, the blanket falling off one of her shoulders. “Dad doesn’t need to know until he gets back. There’s nothing he can do anyway and I don’t want him to worry. I’m okay, really.”

  Aunt Helena’s expression hardened. “Cora, if I were him I’d want to know. I’d want to be here.”

  “I know, but he’ll overreact. He always does. It’s better I tell him when everything’s settled down, and they’ve maybe even caught the creep.” Cora bit her lower lip and Aunt Helena’s expression softened.

  “Well…all right, but you need to tell him the minute he calls, regardless of how far the police are with their investigation. In the meantime, I don’t want you going anywhere on your own.” She turned her gaze on me. “Can you cancel your shifts at the café this week? I’d feel a lot better if you stayed with Cora until her father gets back.”

  Redundant question—I wasn’t leaving Cora’s side. “Done.”

  Cora stiffened beside me. “Really, Ms. Leander, that’s not necessary. I’ll be okay here with Beth.”

  “Beth won’t be here. She’s coming into the office with me tomorrow.”

  To say Beth looked surprised would have been an understatement. “What? No, I’m not. I don’t have a shift tomorrow.”

  Helena turned to her. “You do now. At least Jonas and Cora have some self-defense skill. You don’t. I believe your exact words were, ‘Brown isn’t really my color’ when given the chance to grade for your next belt. So you’re coming with me.” She turned back to Cora. “Either Jonas stays with you or I call your father. Take your pick.”

  Cora’s silence gave Aunt Helena her answer. “Good. So there’s no problem. I’ll go make up the bed in the guest room.” With that she strode out the door.

  Beth got up and kicked the living room door shut with her foot. “Just because I don’t like the Karate Kid thing doesn’t mean I can’t use what I remember.” She swiveled back to face us. Then stood there, eyes narrowed, just staring.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You two.”

  I pulled a face. “Us two what?”

  She pointed at my lap, where I still cradled Cora’s hand. “You’re here.”

  Did she have a delayed case of shock or something? But a second later it hit me: Cora next to me. Her hand in mine. No rejection. No repulsion. No distance.

  I snapped my head up and found Cora’s eyes. They mirrored the turmoil I knew swam in my own. My pulse picked up speed.

  As though burned, Cora snatched her hand out of mine and bolted off the couch. “This isn’t… This doesn’t mean that…” She took a shaky breath and, as she exhaled, a mask of determination slid over her face. “Clearly the curse hasn’t worked because you and me”—she waved her uninjured hand back and forth between us—“nothing’s changed.” Chin thrust forward, her eyes found mine, daring me to challenge her.

  Beth snorted.

  “What?” Cora and I both snapped at my sister.

  Beth glanced first at me, then at Cora, then shook her head. “This is going to be interesting.” She grasped Cora’s good arm. “Come on, let’s go next door and get some of your stuff.” She threw me a knowing look over her shoulder. “The two of you can sort this out in the morning.”

  Cold sweat, on my palms, the back of my neck, prickling the skin along my spine. The beast of possibility was wide awake, snapping and snarling, digging up the bones of a long-buried fear. I wasn’t sure I could avoid facing the animal for much longer.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cora

  Sleep. What a joke. I lay in the Leanders’ guest bedroom, watching the fluorescent numbers tick over on the digital alarm clock next to the bed. They were dark red, dark enough to appear almost violet when I squinted at them in my insomnia-induced state.

  Demons.

  Groth Maar.

  They…existed.

  They were tangible. Real.

  No matter how much I tried to reason them away, they were there. Not just the figment of overactive imaginations.

  I turned my back on the clock and faced the wall. The blank wall. Where was Madam Curie when I needed her? She’d set this straight and remind me that demons were a scientific impossibility.

  Or maybe she wouldn’t. After all, she and her husband attended a séance or two in the name of parapsychological research.

  Why me? What did the Groth Maar want with me?

  I pulled the sheet tighter around my body. There was no point speculating. The professor’s journals better have some answers tomorrow.

  Violet eyes weren’t the only ones keeping me from a decent REM sleep. No, a second set kept my own pair from closing.

  Gray-blue.

  Kicking off the covers, I tossed on the bed for the millionth time and faced my second problem.

  I didn’t shun him.

  Didn’t feel the need for distance. Didn’t have an overwhelming compulsion to run in the other direction when I saw him.

  Crap.

  Think, what did the journals say? If an Eros Guardian chose well, chose someone drawn to more than his “outward charm,” he had a chance at love. Okay, it made sense that I’d be drawn to more than Jonas’s outward charm; I’d known him since forever. I was immune to whatever it was that drew others to him like love-drunk moths to a flame. He was just Jonas, for crying out loud. Nose wedged between the pages of a novel or chasing the black lines at the bottom of a swimming pool. And he knew me, the real me. Even after a whole year on the other side of the globe, he knew what made me tick, knew which buttons to push, and which to leave alone.

  But love?

  Us?

  I punched the pillow, shooting an arrow of pain up my arm. Blasted wrist.

  I flipped back to stare at the wall. Moonlight snuck silvery fingers through the venetians and drew lines on the blank canvas just centimeters from my nose.

  Okay. So maybe, if I was completely honest with myself, I felt a minuscule, hadron-sized kernel of attraction toward Jonas. Hard not to after that darn kiss. The guy had talent. Why was I surprised? He was committed to his practice.

  Séance attendee or not, I was convinced, where this was concerned, Madame Curie would have pointed out physical attraction was just that: a biologically driven attraction to the physical, to healthy genetic cues like good facial symmetry and broad shoulders. It was an instinctual factor of mating behavior. It wasn’t love. And it was dangerous to think it was.

  I took a deep breath.

  I can handle this. It’ll pass.

  Like all thing
s based on the insubstantial. Once it did, Jonas and I could get on with what was real and built on a solid foundation: our friendship.

  When the not-quite-purple clock numbers ticked over to two a.m., I’d had enough. I climbed out of bed and padded quietly down the stairs into the kitchen. Just enough moonlight came in through the window, so I didn’t bother turning the kitchen light on. I could make Nesquick in the dark. No need to wake anyone else.

  I opened the fridge door and grabbed for the milk.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” Jonas’s voice came from somewhere behind me.

  I spun around, teetered. The milk bottle slipped from my grasp. Before I had a chance to react, Jonas was out of his chair. He caught the bottle with one hand, then steadied me with the other.

  “Holy crap, Jonas! I’m kind of over people creeping up on me.” I gulped a few breaths and concentrated on calming my fugitive heartbeat.

  Concern etched lines over his face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He rubbed a hand up and down my arm. The action was meant to soothe. Instead, his fingers left traces of heat on my skin. My PJs consisted of a tank top and pajama shorts. Nothing outrageous. They covered more than most swimmers at a Jess Tanner pool party, but right now I felt too exposed, too vulnerable.

  “No, I couldn’t sleep,” I snapped and stepped around him to get a mug. Also, to put some distance between us. It was dark in the kitchen, but there might as well have been a floodlight on his bare chest and shoulders. Curse you, summer heat. At least he’d pulled some shorts over his boxers.

  “Don’t blame you. You’ve had a hell of a day,” he said.

  When I turned back around, I found him leaning against the kitchen counter, watching me with something unfamiliar in his tired eyes. He pointed at the mug and Nesquick in my hand. “Want me to do that for you?”

  “Ah, no thanks. I’m good.” I concentrated on finding a spoon in the utensil drawer. Focus. I needed something to focus on. Otherwise I’d stand there, staring at his abs, fighting the urge to explore the dips and shadows left by the moonlight. I took a breath. I can handle this. It’s just biology.