by Donya Lynne
The world spun for a second, and Trace staggered backward until his butt met the back of the same chair Cordray had used as a hip support a moment ago. Brak was here? How . . .? Why . . .?
His dismay must have shown on his face as he wordlessly glanced back up at Micah, because Micah stepped forward and planted his palm reassuringly on Trace’s shoulder.
“Your brother came here looking for you,” he said. “He’s been here about a week. He’s desperate to see you.”
Trace nodded numbly. He was desperate to see Brak, too, but since feeling Brak’s presence in King Bain’s dungeon, the sewage he’d stored away in the catacombs of his mind had begun to seep into the forefront of his gray matter. What would happen when Trace actually saw Brak? Maybe a face to face wasn’t such a good idea right now.
He’d thought he’d lost his entire family two centuries ago. That not only had his mother died, but his father and Brak, too, even though his gut had told him they’d lived.
Now, nothing was as it seemed. He was glad for that, but knowing his father and brother had survived did little to ease his guilt, and everything to bring the events of the past back to his thoughts. Memories he’d kept tucked away for decades were resurfacing. He was even remembering the details he’d long forgotten. The acrid smell of smoke, the roaring, crackling sounds of wood popping against the intense heat, the scent of burning flesh.
Trace slammed his eyes shut as his mother’s tormented face, shrouded by smoke and soot, reached from beyond the grave and slammed into his mind front and center. She was screaming, the fire consuming her.
It was his fault. All his fault. He’d done this to her. To all of them. His arrogance and carelessness had caused them all so much pain. So much sorrow. Dizziness overtook him, and it felt like his soul was lifting from his body as he spun downward.
“Trace?” Micah’s voice cut through the sudden turmoil. “Shit! Trace? Are you okay? Open your eyes, buddy. I’ve got you. Just open your eyes.”
He blinked several times, wincing against the light, until finally he peered up at Micah’s concerned face.
He was on the floor. As in, he’d passed out or had some seizure-like episode and fallen flat-backed onto the carpet.
Micah gazed down at him, wide-eyed, his expression both confused and concerned.
“Are you okay?” Micah pressed closer, examining him.
Sam stood behind Micah, the fingers of one hand over her mouth, the fingers of the other pressed worriedly against the back of Micah’s shoulder.
“Is he okay?” she asked.
Cordray stood to the side, her slender, black brows bunched over her eyes. Even she appeared concerned. Maybe he rated higher than amoeba piss with her, after all.
“I’m fine.” He tore his gaze away from Cordray’s and clapped his hand into Micah’s outstretched one.
A moment later, he was on his feet again, dazed, his hands trembling. He rubbed them together, trying to hide the physical effects of what had just happened. But when his gaze met Cordray’s again, he knew she’d seen everything.
She had been inside his head and borne witness to how he’d killed his own mother.
Chapter 10
No one said a word as they congregated in the kitchen.
Sam plucked the bacon and sausage from the skillet and set it on a serving platter, working mechanically, as if she were trying not to stir up the tension still lacing the air. Beside her, Micah removed a waffle from the waffle iron and added it to the stack on an oversized plate as he cast Trace yet another wary glance, as if he feared at any moment Trace would fall back into whatever hellish episode he’d experienced a few minutes ago.
Several feet away, Cordray sipped a cup of coffee.
Everyone was keeping their distance.
Just like when he was a kid. Everyone had thought him a freak then, too, giving him a wide berth.
His gaze flicked cautiously toward Cordray without meeting her eyes. In his periphery, he could see her rubbing her hand up and down her arm as if she were soothing a rash.
Maybe Cordray was treating him like a leper, but God bless her little black heart, she hadn’t uttered a peep about what she’d seen in his thoughts. If anything, she almost seemed compassionate. Or maybe understanding was a better word, because compassion wasn’t something Trace associated with Cordray. Either way, it felt like they’d made a connection. A bizarre, twisted, fucked-up connection, but a connection nonetheless. One where a silent promise had been made that she wouldn’t reveal what she’d seen, and he would show his gratitude by not baiting her further.
Not that he needed her pity, but since she didn’t seem eager to expose his secret, maybe he could cut her some slack. She was normally so eager to use his thoughts against him, so if she was willing to scratch his back on this, he could scratch hers. Because anyone who knew his deepest and darkest and still kept his or her mouth shut at least deserved a chance.
“So,” Micah said, eyeing him as he set the plate of waffles on the breakfast bar, “let’s try this again.” He retrieved the platter of sausage and bacon and set it down beside the waffles. Despite eating a bowl of cereal barely thirty minutes ago, Trace’s stomach growled as he glanced at the sausage links. “Brak wants to see you. Today if poss—”
The cordless phone on the kitchen counter rang, cutting him off.
Micah cursed. “Goddamn if we can’t get this shit out on the table without some kind of interruption.” He snatched the phone and briefly frowned at the caller ID before pressing the phone to his ear. “Micah Black.”
Trace stole a sausage link and bit it in half, wondering if seeing Brak was such a good idea, given the nosedive he’d taken a few minutes ago as thoughts of his brother awoke memories of his mother’s death.
He was still contemplating the idea when Micah’s expression froze and pure rage rose in his eyes.
“What?” The word shot from Micah’s throat like a bullet. “Someone broke into my apartment! How? When?”
Sam nearly dropped the pitcher of warm syrup she was carrying to the breakfast bar. She rushed forward. “What? Broke in?”
Trace swallowed the bite of sausage before he’d barely had a chance to chew it.
Cordray shifted beside him and uttered a curse under her breath. When Trace turned toward her, she bowed her head into her hand, covering half her face. She peeked sideways at him. From her guilty expression, it was clear she’d known about the break-in and had forgotten to tell Micah.
Looked like he’d be scratching her back sooner than expected if Micah tried to kill her in the next five minutes.
Micah paced to the end of the counter with the barely bridled aggression of a bull preparing to charge. His neck was as rigid as a two-by-four, his gaze intense. His free hand curled into a fist.
Trace glanced at Cordray again. “Did you know about this?” he said quietly.
She sighed then nodded once. “I was there. It’s where I got this.” She pointed to a small, nicely healed cut on her lip.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Micah’s apartment had been burgled, and Cordray hadn’t even thought to let them know?
She dropped her hand to her lap. “Honestly, I didn’t even think about it. I was more concerned—”
“With me. You were more worried about how Micah broke your precious code of conduct and took me without your permission, right?”
“No, I—”
“Nice, C.” He scowled at her and let out a perturbed sigh as he shook his head then looked away. Shit, but scratching her back was going to be damn hard to do when she was always pissing him off. “Why am I not surprised?”
“It was an honest mistake.”
“Mistake my ass.”
Micah stopped pacing and slammed his palm against the counter. “This happened this morning, and you’re just now calling me?” He paused and scowled as if he didn’t like what he was hearing. Then he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone and looked at the black screen. “My mobi
le was off.”
Of course he would have turned off his mobile. The last thing Micah would have wanted was for his phone to ring and interrupt him while he was working him over in his dungeon.
Micah hit the power button and waited. Trace pressed forward and peered at the screen. When it came to life, it lit with several missed-call notifications.
Shit. This was bad.
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” Micah said. Then he disconnected and tossed the phone on the counter.
“What happened?” Sam stepped forward as Micah made a break for the stairs.
He barely slowed down as he replied, “Someone broke into my apartment.”
Sam called after him, “Did they take anything?”
Trace’s gaze shot toward Cordray. “Did they?”
* * *
Cordray’s heart jolted as all eyes turned toward her.
Micah froze in his tracks. “Wait . . . what?” He looked between her and Trace and back again as he took a menacing step toward her. “Why is Trace asking you if the thief took anything?”
Trace warily rose from his barstool as if preparing to make like a barricade. “She was there.”
The tension in the room grew tighter than a virgin’s vagina as Micah’s gaze scorched hers. “You were there?”
She’d been in enough fights to know that if she so much as flinched, Micah would pounce. Keeping her movements slow and controlled, she glanced at Trace and Sam then back at Micah.
“Yes.” She jutted out her chin, owning her guilt even though she felt bad about not telling him sooner. She should have, but her mind had been elsewhere.
She glanced at Trace again. He was totally fucking up her ability to function.
Micah’s eyes burned with aggression. “You were there. You knew someone had broken into my apartment, and yet you said nothing?” As the word snapped from between his clenched teeth, he pressed ominously forward.
She took a measured step back, not wanting to provoke him. “Yes. I’m sorry.” God, this was humiliating. Her face felt ten degrees hotter than the rest of her body, and thanks to Trace’s proximity, she was keenly aware of how it felt when blood filled her cheeks. She would have rather remained ignorant to the physical sensations of embarrassment.
Micah shook his head in disgust. “You’re sorry?” He turned toward Trace and Sam. “She’s sorry. Can you believe that shit?” He faced her again. “You fucking hypocrite. You knew someone had broken into my apartment and said nothing, and yet you come here . . . to my house . . . and have the goddamn nads to harass me about taking Trace out of that hellhole without your goddamn consent? You’ve got some nerve.”
His anger was justified, but it was too late to go back to the moment Micah walked around the corner as she sat with Sam on the couch sipping tea to say, “Hey, by the way, your apartment was burgled.”
Besides, it had been daytime. The sun had been out. It wasn’t like he could have left. So, really, by forgetting about the break-in, she’d spared him and everyone else unnecessary stress.
“How many times do you want me to say I’m sorry, Micah.”
“Maybe if you said it like you meant it I might believe you.”
Insufferable bastard.
She set her jaw and locked gazes with him for a long, tense moment. “I said I was sorry. I meant it.” Apologies felt all wrong on her tongue, but they felt even worse on her conscience. As someone who knew what it felt like to be let down, she didn’t like putting others in a similar position. Having to apologize meant she’d done just that.
Micah began to turn away as he started for the stairs again. “Yeah, well, your apology is for shit, Cordray.”
She glared at his back. She deserved his ire, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. “I forgot, okay? It’s done. You know about it now.”
Micah whipped back around and jabbed his index finger toward her. “I could have known about it ten hours ago.”
“And done what? It’s not like you could have gone anywhere ten hours ago!” She flung her arm toward the curtained windows. “The sun was out!”
“I could have sent someone over from AKM.”
“Please.” Cordray scoffed, bobbing her head to the side as she glanced at Sam. “Would Micah really have been content to send someone else to his apartment when he would have been stuck here?”
Sam’s gaze danced between her and Micah. “Ummm . . .”
“Leave her out of this,” Micah said, blasting forward. “You don’t get to use my mate against me, not when you’re the one who fucked up.”
“She does make a good point, though,” Sam said cautiously.
Micah scowled at her then turned his aggression back on Cordray. “You should have told me. End of story.”
She refused to back down. “I did you and everyone else here a favor by not telling you.”
“How do you figure?”
She gestured toward him as if the answer should be obvious. “You would have driven us all insane if I had. Look at you. You’re about to blow out of your skin as it is. If I’d told you ten hours ago, you would have been cooped up inside, unable to leave because of the sun, storming around here like a pissed off rhino. You wouldn’t have slept, nobody else would have slept, and you sure as hell wouldn’t have been able to fuck Sam to delirium for three hours.”
Sam blushed and ducked her head.
“Yeah, I heard the two of you!” Had she ever! Listening to Micah and Sam go at it had been torture, given how much she’d thought about doing the same thing to Trace over the past couple of weeks. “My point is, you would have been fucked up, and you would have fucked up the rest of us, and we would all be a lot more sleep deprived right now, so how about you cool off so we can get to your place and figure out who this asshole is?”
Micah glared at her. “What’s this we shit?” He turned away as if dismissing her and started for the stairs again. “I don’t want you anywhere near me.”
“Have it your way, asshole, but I saw the guy. I fought with him. I know what happened.” Micah was still walking away from her, so she decided to pull out the show stopper. “I know what he took.”
Micah halted on the first stair and flashed her a vicious glance. “What? What did he take?”
“You want to know?” She crossed her arms and gave him a moment to reconsider. “Then I go with you.” For her, finding Skeletor was personal. He’d bested her in a fight, and that was hard to do. She wanted in on the hunt to find him so she could wash the bad taste of defeat out of her mouth by kicking his ass.
Micah’s jaw clenched as he glared back at her. “You’re pushing your luck, female.”
“Get used to it.” She turned toward Trace. “You, too, because afterward, you’re coming with me.”
Strained silence gripped the air for several seconds.
Then Trace pushed away from the counter as he folded a pair of sausage links inside half a waffle. “Fine. I’ll get my things.”
Micah started to protest. “No, Trace. You—”
Trace held up his hand and stopped him. “She’s not going to let up until I go, so let’s just do it.”
“But, you’re not ready.”
Trace stuffed half the waffle taco into his mouth as he clapped Micah on the shoulder reassuringly and started up the stairs. “I’ll be fine,” he said around a mouthful of food.
Micah watched him go then turned his gaze on Cordray. “If anything happens to him—”
“He’ll be fine, Micah. I’ll take good care of him for you. Now get dressed so we can get going.”
Cordray was ready to get back to the ranch and her kids, and the sooner they left Micah’s house and did recon on his apartment, the sooner she could get home.
Shaking his head and still fuming, Micah darted up the stairs and disappeared, leaving Cordray alone with Sam.
The two stared at each other for a moment, then Sam began putting food away and cleaning up the kitchen.
“You really should have told m
e about the apartment,” Sam said quietly, unplugging the waffle iron.
“I know. I’m sorry.” There was that damn word again.
“Why didn’t you?”
She had no excuse. At least none she wanted to share. This morning, she’d been so consumed with her conflicted feelings for Trace that everything else had slipped her mind. All her mental energy had been devoted to tamping down her emotions and a kind of desire she hadn’t felt in eight centuries.
She sat on the barstool Trace had vacated. She could still feel the tingle of his presence. “I forgot.” She lowered her eyes and smoothed her hands over the edge of the counter just to have something to do.
Sam sighed then flipped on the faucet.
This morning, Sam had almost felt like a friend. They’d chattered and laughed over tea and told stories to one another. Now, a sense of loss compounded the tormented thoughts already ping-ponging inside her mind. Loss of newfound friendship and the hope that went along with it that maybe, just maybe, she could lead a semi-normal life.
“You like him, don’t you?”
Startled, Cordray lifted her head to find Sam standing in front of her. She hadn’t even heard her approach.
She frowned. “What do you mean? Like who?”
The corners of Sam’s mouth ticked upward. “Trace.” She said his name as if her attraction to him was as obvious as ice at the North Pole.
Cordray’s heart skipped a beat, and she sucked in her breath as her shoulders stiffened.
Sam’s clover-colored irises brightened as she smiled and scooped the silverware she’d laid out for breakfast into her palm. “Thought so.”
Cordray gaped at Sam’s back as she dropped the silverware into a drawer then began loading dishes into the dishwasher. Sam knew. Somehow Sam had figured out what she’d tried so hard to hide.
Clever female.
She only hoped that Micah and Trace weren’t as perceptive as Sam, and that Sam knew how to keep her mouth shut.
Chapter 11
Glass crunched under Micah’s feet as he surveyed his apartment’s living room. The place was packed with CPD detectives, police officers, members of building management, and one guy from security. They were making enough noise for an army and may as well have been scratching their balls for all the good they were doing.