Learn more about Shannon Dermott and The Cambions Series at: http://www.shannondermott.com
Beg for Mercy is available now
Intentions By Airicka Phoenix
The card gaped at me. A single word and a series of numbers marred the rectangular cardboard. They called to me, pouring reason into the black void blanketing all hope.
Outside, fury boiled the heavens into dark cyclones of vengeance. Fat raindrops plummeted to the ground, shattering like glass across the pavement and bursting against the windows. The storm raged as though feeling the injustice prodding on me. I had no choice.
My thumbs, nails jagged, skin torn and bleeding from hours of abuse beneath my teeth, moved over the buttons on the phone. I held my breath.
Please don’t be there! My head begged, too sensible, too rational to believe such an impossibility existed.
Please be there! My heart begged, too weak, too scared to take another beating.
Bile roiled in the pit of my stomach. Cold sweat gelled on my spine, pooled beneath my arms and slicked the plastic clutched desperately to my ear—dialing… dialing… dialing. My grasp trembled.
Please God… please…
“This damn well better be good!” A female voice lanced through the rope tethering my tongue to the roof of my mouth.
Even though I’d memorized everything on the card, I glanced at it. I wet my dry, stiff lips. “I’m Tessa Haines. I’m looking for Kieran. Is he—?”
There was a grunt, the rustle of fabric, the squeak of a bed frame, and I winced. My eyes darted to the clock above the stove — 11 a.m. — an acceptable time to call a person on a weekday… wasn’t it?
“I didn’t sign up for this shit…,” the woman griped, sounding unusually distant from the receiver as if she were carrying it away from her. “Kieran… Kieran! Some girl’s on the phone!”
The phone struck something. It sounded muffled. There was more rustling, more squeaking, an exchange of words too far away to be heard and then… the voice.
It was male, thick with sleep and power. It sliced through the line separating us with a husky moan that rocked me to the core. I momentarily forgot where I was or why I was even holding the phone. That single guttural sound caressed the walls of my skull, rich and smooth like melted chocolate, and I wanted to drown in it. I wanted to bathe in it, sleep and die in it. I wanted to close my eyes and beg him to do it again.
“Hello?” So beautiful. So… hot! God how could a single voice be so dangerous?
Words I’d learned from infancy melted away and poured from my ears. I couldn’t even remember my own name.
“Hello?” Bed springs jingled. Sheets whispered, and I had an unexpected image of pale skin, cut and carved from ivory into defined lines of muscle, broad shoulders, tapered waist, gorgeous abs and bulging biceps draped lazily by yards of silk. “If you’re wondering, the answer is yes!” his voice dropped to a torturous purr. “I am naked.”
The phone struck the linoleum with a deafening clutter and spiraled under the table.
I was swearing and diving in after it before it even had a chance to stop spinning. I prayed it hadn’t hung up. I prayed it had.
“Hello?” My voice hitched, torn from my lungs, breathy and anxious.
“There you are.” The words were low… dreamy, edged with amusement.
The floor was a melted pool of lava and I was sinking fast. “I—I’m sorry. I…”
His chuckle reverberated through my soul. “No worries. I get that reaction a lot. What’s your name?”
This is a bad idea! The voice in my head cautioned. A better solution would have been to hang up, burn the card and scatter the ashes.
“Tessa,” I heard myself whisper, hypnotized — could a person even be hypnotized over the phone? I shook myself free of the spell he’d woven around me like a shroud. “Tessa Haines. I—I got your number from my neighbor, Tammy Lachey. She said you could help me.”
There were several minutes of agonizing silence so sharp I felt it poking holes in my resolve. I wondered if he’d forgotten; if I’d made a mistake. If this had all been a waste of time.
“There’s a coffee shop between Alice and Dunbar. Do you know it?”
“No,” I whispered, my heart cracking loudly in my chest. “But I’ll find it.”
“Meet me there tonight at nine,” he paused, then finished with, “Be sure this is what you want, Tessa. Be very sure.” With his warning hot in my ear, the line went dead.
I set the phone down on the counter with an unsteady hand and wondered what I’d gotten myself into, wondered if it was too late to take it back.
No. I couldn’t take it back. I couldn’t. I had to do this. Whatever he asked, whatever he wanted, I would pay it because I had no other choice. I was weak and desperate and willing to do anything—everything to save the only person who had ever meant anything to me.
My hand came away wet when I rubbed at my face. I swiped quickly at the tears, streaming without my knowledge down my cheeks, disgusted with myself; crying wasn’t going to change anything. I had to be stronger. I had to take charge of the situation.
“Focus, Tessa!” I scolded, bracing myself as I left the kitchen.
Beams of pale gold slashed through the windowpanes, holding the darkness at bay. Bits of dust clung to the shards, sparkling and swirling like tiny dancers when I passed through them on my way to the stairs.
Great-grandmother, the only family I had left, lay in her enormous four-poster bed, looking like a small child lost in an ocean of blankets. She sat propped against pillows, skin so white it was nearly translucent. Machines bleeped from the hidden cabinets cut into the mahogany walls behind her. As much as I hated the sound, hearing it came with a sense of relief.
“Grandma Lou?” I edged quietly into the room soaked with the pungent stench of medication and sickness.
“I ain’t dead yet, child,” she croaked, eyelids as thin as onion skin still closed. “You can speak louder.”
I tiptoed across the antique carpet to stand at the foot of her bed. “Did I wake you?”
She shifted, worming her frail body higher. Eyes that had once been a flawless blue opened. Like everything else about her, they too had faded with the passing of time, becoming a dull gray against the sallow of her face.
“Wasn’t sleeping,” she said. “Got plenty of time for that when I die.”
I hated when she talked like that. I never could understand how she could take death so lightly. How she could be so welcoming for it to come. A part of me hated her for it. Didn’t she know she’d leave me behind when she finally left? Wasn’t she a little sad about it? It seemed to me as though she couldn’t wait to be rid of me. She wouldn’t have been the first. I never knew my father and my mother, when asked to choose between their only child and drugs; they decided crack didn’t pee itself or cry. Grandma Lou raised me since I was one, after my mother dumped me on the doorstep in a battered car seat and said she’d be back. That was sixteen years ago. Never saw her once. It was the kindest thing she’d ever done for me. But Grandma Lou was nearly a hundred. She’d never see my eighteenth birthday.
“I might have found someone to help make you better,” I told her. “This guy helped Tammy’s mom after they found out she had cancer. I think—”
“Cancer ain’t age, child,” she interrupted, voice crackling like paper under careless hands. “You can’t stop age. It’ll come for you whether you’re expecting it or not.” Her child-like chest shuddered with her sharp intake of air. Her eyes squeezed closed. The machines bleeped a little louder, a little faster. Then calmed. Her eyes opened again. “You shouldn’t be worried about me anyhow. I’ve made peace with my maker. It’s time you do the same. You need to stop finding ways to keep me here. I need to move on, and you need to start thinking about your own life. Maybe even fall in love—”
“I don’t want to fall in love,” I said as I always did. “I don’t—I can’t lose you, grams!”
“Bless you, child
! Don’t—” She succumbed to a fit of coughing that seized her entire body. The machines went crazy. I was around the bed at a run, snatching up a glass of water off the nightstand and pressing it to her thin lips. She took a sloppy sip. Water trickled down her chin, dampening the front of her nightdress. I didn’t pull away until she sat back and looked at me. “Don’t let life slip past you, girl. You’ll regret it when you get to where I am.”
I set the glass down and perched a hip on the mattress next to her. “Do you have lots of regrets?”
She closed her eyes and leaned back against her pillows. She was quiet for so long I nearly thought she’d fallen asleep.
“I only regret I don’t have more to regret,” she said at last.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
Her faded blue eyes met mine. “Make mistakes, Tessa. Seize every opportunity. Don’t let yourself walk away wondering what if. You’ll never get that chance again if you waste it. And when it’s your time, accept your next chapter with grace.” Her fingers were brittle twigs wrapped in tissue-paper-like skin when she took my hand. “I don’t want to stay. I am ready to go.”
It was as if she’d reached into my chest and torn out my heart. The pain was staggering. I couldn’t get to my feet fast enough. I couldn’t move away far enough.
“Tessa…”
I didn’t stop. Like a coward, I fled.
****
At 8:45, in Grandma Lou’s prehistoric 1957 Chevy Bel-Air, I pulled into an empty spot across from a brightly lit cafe. Loopy letters on the bay window labeled it The Corner. I killed the engine, pocketed the keys and climbed out, my stomach twisting in unnatural ways.
My sneakers crunched on wet pavement as I jogged across the deserted street. A breeze carrying the late scent of rain swept around me, blowing tendrils of dark copper across my face. I shook my head, throwing the strands back over my shoulder. I reached the glass door and swung it open.
The heavy scent of coffee, pastries and pine cleaner swirled around me. The alluring fragrance poured into my lungs, injected into my weary system. My lashes closed as I basked in the stuff before I opened them again and focused on the room at large.
It was spacious with a scatter of square tables in soft, lemon-meringue yellow. A U-shaped counter took up most of the left corner. A pimply boy stood behind it, half asleep on his feet. He perked when I stepped inside. Aside from the pair of us, there were no other customers. My heart sank a little; I’d been hoping Kieran would already be there.
I claimed a corner table overlooking the door and waited, and while I waited, I second guessed myself.
It wasn’t right, I knew that. I knew grandma had already lived her life, had raised a kid and had watched as he’d had his own kid. She had lived to see everyone in her family die. Had watched her granddaughter — my mother — fail at life. Had watched me be born. She no longer had anything else to live for really. But she had me, didn’t she? Wasn’t that reason enough to live a little longer? I was only seventeen. I had no idea what was going to happen if she left before I turned eighteen. And maybe it was selfish, but I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want her to die.
“Tessa?” Low and husky, my name poured over me like liquid honey.
A warm shiver caressed my spine, stealing my breath. My head jerked up, my eyes wide.
Rows of straight, white teeth gleamed as firm lips bowed into an irresistible grin. The soft lights painted over sharp cheekbones, a square jaw and a crooked nose that would have seemed odd on any other face, but somehow managed to give this one a reckless appearance. A large hand lifted and swept back thick, dark fringes from eyes so pale, they could have been white. The soft material of his black shirt stretched with the fluid motion, straining over a broad chest. His free hand remained tucked into the pocket of his black jeans. He looked nothing like I’d imagined. I wasn’t even sure my imagination was creative enough to imagine someone like him. He was just too gorgeous, too beautiful, too… dangerous to be real.
“You’re Kieran?” My hands flew up to my gapping mouth, horrified. “That was rude! I’m so sorry!”
He shrugged wide shoulders. “No worries. Apparently I sound taller on the phone. It throws people off.”
His six feet was tall enough, in my opinion.
“I just wasn’t expecting you to be so…” Why couldn’t I shut up?
One thick, dark eyebrow lifted. “So… charming? Handsome… sexy?” The last part was said with a sly wiggle of his eyebrows.
Embarrassment burned my cheeks. “Young.” He didn’t look a day over eighteen.
His grin was devastating. “I’m an old soul.” His gaze burned into mine as he took in my face. I was suddenly aware of every flaw, every blemish on my pale skin, my freckles, my red hair, my green eyes that were just a little too wide for the contours of my oval face. Then there was the zit on my chin that I’d been picking at all morning. I was sure it was as red and swollen as Rudolph’s nose and equally impossible to miss.
“You are Tessa, right?” he asked.
I pulled my thoughts together, mentally shaking my head and dismantling the fog settling heavily over my brain. “I’m sorry. Yes. I’m Tessa.”
A large palm with long fingers was extended to me from across the table. “Kieran Krause.”
I hesitated long enough to inconspicuously wipe my palm on my thighs, leaving sweat stains on my jeans. Slowly, I slipped my hand into his, watching, mesmerized as his fingers coiled around mine, swallowing my hand entirely.
His touch was raw electric flames searing up my arm. I gasped at the sheer intensity that threatened to consume me.
But far too quickly, he let go, jerking a nod to the chair across from me. “May I?”
“Oh!” I stuffed my tingling hand into my lap. “I’m sorry! Yes. Please.”
The chair legs squealed against the checkered linoleum as he dragged it back. I watched him fold his tall frame into the seat. He passed another hand through his hair. The strands swept back from his prominent brow and just as quickly flopped back into place when he released. Something silver glinted around his right wrist.
“I’m epileptic,” he said, catching me staring at his medical bracelet.
I quickly dropped my gaze to the table. “I’m sorry.”
He leaned back in his seat. “As you should be. It is all your fault after all.”
It took me a moment to realize he was teasing me. Fingers of heat crept into my cheeks. My lips twitched, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I watched his fingers drum on the surface between us, nails jagged, bitten to the quick and crusted with blood. I glanced down at my own deformed nails and almost laughed at the similarity.
“So, Tammy gave you my number?” He broke the silence.
I nodded. “I asked how her mom got rid of the cancer so quickly and she gave me your card,” I explained.
His head bobbed slowly. “What did she tell you?”
My shoulder jerked in a shrug. “Only that you helped. That you removed the cancer.”
His hand lifted. The bracelet gleamed as it caught the light. He picked at his thumbnail with his teeth. He seemed to realize what he was doing and quickly stuffed both hands under the table. His gaze flittered away from mine. A faint flush darkened his cheeks.
“I do that, too,” I whispered, not sure why — maybe because I didn’t want him to be embarrassed. I lifted a hand to show my butchered nails.
The corner of his mouth twisted upwards. “Not the worst habit to fall victim to, I suppose.” He became serious. “Did she tell you how it works?”
“Only that you help… for a price.”
“My price isn’t for everyone,” he said.
“I’ll pay it!” I said at once. “Whatever it is.”
Slow deliberation narrowed his eyes and I wondered if it was wise to let him see just how desperate I was.
“Who is it?”
“Pardon?”
He folded his arms over his chest. “The person you’re trying
to help. Who is it?”
I bit my lip, eyes falling to the table. “My great-grandmother.”
His eyebrows flickered up in surprise. “What does she have?”
I shook my head. “She doesn’t have anything. She’s almost a hundred years old.”
He seemed to hesitate before saying, “You know I can’t stop death, right?”
Anxiety twisted knots inside me. “You helped Tammy’s mom. She was dying.”
“That was different.” He shifted forward in his seat, dropping his voice so as not to be heard by the boy reading behind the counter. “I can cure most diseases, mend the odd broken bone, patch up a bruise or scrape, but I can’t actually stop the person from aging.”
“How are you able to do what you do?” I asked.
He drew back. “It’s just something I’ve always been able to do. I can’t explain it. But I do know that what you’re asking… I can’t.”
“Can you at least try… please?” My voice hitched. Hot tears threatened to spill. “I’ll pay you! Just… try!”
He sighed, combing his fingers through his hair. “I can’t promise—” His palm came up when I opened my mouth to speak. His pale eyes bore into mine. “I need you to really hear me, okay?”
I nodded, hope boiling up inside me like a dame ready to explode. He must have seen it in my eyes, because he groaned, rubbing a hand over his face.
“Tessa,” he said slowly, carefully, like someone afraid of breaking a child’s heart. “I can’t stop your grandma from dying, do you understand? I can’t stop that. But I can take away any pain she may be having, make the passing… smoother.”
That wasn’t what I wanted! Yes, I wanted her not to be in pain. Yes, I wanted her to go comfortably. But I wanted her to live! Then a thought occurred to me; it was the pain that kept her bedridden. It was the pain that made her weak. Maybe if she wasn’t in pain, she’d get better.
“Okay!” I said, focusing on Kieran once more. “Take her pain away.”
His eyes narrowed warily. “You understand that I can’t keep her from dying, right?”
Midnight Surrender: A Paranormal Romance Anthology Page 9