It was best to leave Trish and her soft, motherly nature with the kid. Besides, Micah needed to rest. He had a nasty gash in his skull and four bleeding wounds across his shoulder where the Goblin had taken a swing at him. And just because she wasn’t the mothering type, it didn’t mean she couldn’t worry about him. “Don’t take your time playing taxi driver though, Micah needs some first aid.”
Trish smiled her pleasant enigmatic smile, as if oblivious to Jacquelyn’s mega uptight tone. “He’ll be fine until I get back, won’t you dear?”
Micah was perched in the front seat of Trish’s truck, sandwiched next to the hitch hiker teen and he nodded in response, too quiet and withdrawn for Jacquelyn’s peace of mind. He hadn’t spoken to anyone since Trish showed up, and she was afraid that she’d pushed him too far. Not everyone learns to swim the first time they’re thrown in the deep end.
As the truck bounced along the old country road, Jacquelyn tapped her fingers against the butt of the Glock, the thrump, thrump, thrump set her mind at ease so she could think. The Goblin had known about her Fury trouble, obviously. Vengeance and violence had a tendency to draw in an abnormal share of supernatural creatures, like sharks scenting after blood.
At least the kid was safe, and Micah, well, relatively unscathed. She could chalk the night up as a success. But Jacquelyn wondered, as the truck approached Trish’s house, why it didn’t feel so much like a win? “I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes?” she asked Trish as she helped Micah out of the front seat.
“Less than.” Trish shifted into reverse, edging the truck back before Jacquelyn had a chance to close the door. “Get him cleaned up and make him a cup of tea. I’ll be back to get Micah’s head on straight.”
Jacquelyn closed the door, and Trish turned the truck around and headed back toward the highway. She looked up at Micah, his gaze fixed on the front porch. Looking at anything but me, she mused. He must be pretty pissed. A Waerd’s life wasn’t for everyone, in fact, it’s probably why the Sentry stole them as babies. No one would volunteer for this job. And a Bearer’s life couldn’t be much better, weeding through emotions, trying to untangle his own from everyone else’s. A pang of sympathy tore at her heart. Micah hadn’t asked for any of this, but he sure as shit was neck-deep in it now.
“Do I come off as a pussy or something?” Micah asked as Jacquelyn followed him slowly up the front steps.
“What? No. Why would you ask that?”
“I’m not trying to pry or anything, but Christ, do you have to feel so sorry for me? Seriously, it’s a little emasculating.”
Empaths. Might as well be freaking mind readers. “I guess it’s my turn to be sorry, then.” Jacquelyn rushed ahead of him to open the front door and he glowered.
Acknowledging his injured state wasn’t helping his macho attitude. Ugh. Men. She walked into the living room in front of him, because holding the door open was only going to help his case against her. “I don’t think you’re a pussy,” she remarked. “You shouldn’t have been out there tonight, though. It would have been better for you if I’d eased you in. It’s just that—”
“If we hadn’t gone out there, that kid could’ve died. I’m not okay with that. You did what you had to do, and you shouldn’t worry about how I will or won’t deal with any given situation. Was I freaked out? You bet your ass. Anybody would be after seeing an honest-to-god Goblin for the first time. Sort of shatters your illusions of reality, you know? But I recovered. And it didn’t sit right with me, hiding behind that tree watching you out there.”
“Why? Because you wanted in on the action?” That was Finn’s issue with letting her take the lead. He seemed to like getting his hands dirty. Maybe Micah did, too.
“No.” Micah locked his eyes with hers. “Because you shouldn’t be risking your life alone. It was dangerous, and stupid. Don’t do it again.”
Searching for something, anything that would tell her he was joking, that he’d been more concerned with his ego than her safety, she came up empty. His face was etched with concern, his eyes large and serious, probing hers as well. What was he looking for there?
“So what you’re saying,” Jacquelyn started, turning toward the kitchen, “is that we’re partners and I should treat our relationship as such?”
He walked behind her, and she pulled out a chair at the dining room table. “That’s what I’m saying.”
“Sit, so I can clean you up before Trish gets back.” She grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and a washcloth from a drawer. “If you’re going to be hanging around for a while, and if you plan on flexing those Bearer’s muscles, I can agree to be a fair and equitable partner.” Turning on the tap, Jacquelyn waited for the water to get warm, her back to Micah. She filled the bowl and wet the cloth, ringing out the excess. “I guess we better see how thrashed your shoulder is…”
As she turned to face him, her jaw went a little slack. And her legs. And her spine. In fact, her entire body felt a little like Jell-O. He sat at the table, his shirt tossed over the back of the chair. Michelangelo’s David would be green with envy if he could see Micah without his shirt. Her eyes trailed from his perfectly sculpted shoulders, down the ridges of his abs. A smile played on his lips as he watched her, bemused. She pulled up an emotional barrier, lest he sense her lustful appreciation of his torso and cleared her throat. With all of the charm of a nervous thirteen year-old, she set the bowl on the table, sloshing warm water over the side. “Ready for me to clean your battle wounds?”
“I’m at your mercy,” Micah replied, but the playful glint disappeared from his eyes, replaced by a smoldering heat. And it scared the shit out of her.
Jacquelyn forced the air out of her lungs in a huff, realizing that the only way to get close enough to clean the lacerations was to stand between his legs. Stepping closer, she positioned herself, the inside of his thighs brushing up against her. “Sorry to invade your space, but I need to get close to clean these.”
Micah’s lids drooped over his eyes and his head tilted back, away from her face which was positioned just above his left shoulder. The gashes weren’t terribly deep, he wouldn’t need more than a little TLC from Trish. Though a Bearer couldn’t heal himself, he could be healed by another, and Trish was the most powerful Bearer Jacquelyn had ever met. Healing Micah wouldn’t take an eyelash’s bat of energy. With gentle swipes, she washed the blood from his skin, rinsing the rag in the warm water before she wrung it out. She traced a finger along the jagged cuts, careful to stay away from the red, puffy flesh already showing signs of infection. “Does it hurt?”
Jacquelyn looked down at Micah, his eyes closed and his face calm. He could’ve been asleep, his breathing was so even and relaxed. “Believe it or not, I’ve been hurt worse.” He peeked through one eye and smiled.
A rush of pleasure shot through her body and her stomach fluttered as though a thousand butterflies had taken flight. Yup, just like a thirteen year old. Jacquelyn rubbed the back of her hand against her cheek as if rubbing away the blush she was sure had settled there. Waerd’s didn’t blush, and they sure as hell didn’t get goddamned starry-eyed over a cute—oh, who was she kidding? Micah was gorgeous. Whether his shirt was off or not.
He shifted in his seat, sitting up straighter and he pressed his legs together, momentarily pinning her against him. Jacquelyn sucked in a breath, unable to release it, and searched her mental cache of meditation techniques to try and slow her racing heart. “I think that’s clean enough until Trish gets back.” She dropped the cloth in the bowl and swished it around. “But I need to look at your head.”
“Go ahead,” Micah murmured, his voice low and just a little lazy as if he were about to fall asleep.
“I—I uh, need to get behind you to look at it,” Jacquelyn stammered, leaning away from his bare chest. An internal argument had begun and she was slowly talking herself into taking another stab at cleaning the cuts that crossed the left quadrant of his chest. You know, just to make sure they were really, really clean. Her finge
rs stretched out toward a muscled pec… “Whoa!” She started back, forcing him to relax his legs and let her retreat. “Can you give me a second? I just remembered… Um… Yeah… I’ll be right back.”
Micah sat up straight, his gaze alert as he winced, massaging his shoulder just above the wounds. “What’s the matter?” His eyes darted across the confines of Trish’s dining room. “Is someone here?”
“No,” Jacquelyn answered with a sigh. Just you, me, and your beautiful body. She wished she could slap herself across the face, snap herself out of whatever insanity had possessed her. “I’m a little dizzy, that’s all. Happens sometimes, you know, coming down off the adrenaline high from the hunt. I need some air. I’ll be right back.”
She took the door that led from the kitchen to the back porch. “What are you thinking?” she asked aloud, bringing the heel of her palm to her forehead. “Get your shit together, Jax. Micah is off limits. You just broke up with Finn a month ago for shit’s sake! What are you doing?”
“Talking to yourself, sounds like.” Trish’s voice broke through the darkness as she stepped onto the porch. “He’s a good-looking young man, isn’t he?”
“Who?” Jacquelyn asked, deadpan.
“You know damn good’n well who.” Trish just loved to give her a hard time, and Jacquelyn had left the door open for her teasing. “Don’t beat yourself up for being attracted to him. If I was forty years younger, I’d be trying hard to make him notice me.”
“If you were forty years younger, you wouldn’t have to work at all to get his attention,” Jacquelyn pointed out.
Trish walked past her and opened the door. “You’ve got that right,” she said with a wink, closing it behind her.
Trish wasn’t who Micah expected to see walk back through the door. She took off her jacket and draped it on one of the dining room chairs before giving him an affectionate smile. “Sorry to disappoint you, dear.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you should know by now that you can’t fool a Bearer. It takes a lot of practice to learn how to mask your feelings. She’ll be in shortly, I imagine.” Trish filled a tea kettle from the tap and set it on the stove. “I thought I told her to make you some tea. That girl never listens.”
Micah sat quietly, looking toward the door. He’d promised not to pry into Jacquelyn’s feelings, but it was hard not to when she broadcast them like a reader board running with bright red letters. What she didn’t know, was that the racing pulse, laced with both curiosity and desire wasn’t far from what he’d been feeling too. At times, he couldn’t differentiate between her emotions and his. But when she’d stood between his legs, bending so close he couldn’t ignore the sweet scent of her skin, it had been his own heart that picked up in rhythm and his own breath that came quick though he sat still as a statue while she cleaned his wounds.
“Whew!” Trish interrupted his thoughts, slamming a cupboard door shut. “If it gets any steamier in here, I’m going to have to open a window.” She dropped a teabag in a mug and set it on the table. “You need to learn how to put a wall up. I’m not the only other empath in town, kiddo.”
Jacquelyn wasn’t wrong; having someone pry into your feelings was damned annoying. “I’ve been running for a long time, Trish.” Micah’s voice was low as he shared his secrets. “Even when I was standing still. This is the first time in my entire life I’ve ever felt like stopping.”
“Maybe you just needed to find your place in the world. Fate leads the way, we have only to follow.” The teakettle whistled, and Trish lifted it from the burner, the shrieking wail fading like the Banshee’s cry. She poured the steaming water into the mug and slid it across the table to him.
“What was she like when Fate brought her here?” he asked, staring toward the door.
Trish laughed, “A smart-mouthed know-it-all. Not much different than she is now.”
“I can see that.” He sipped from the mug. “I’ve never met anyone like her. She’s…”
“Strong,” Trish said, the laughter gone from her voice. “Determined. A force to be reckoned with. Powerful. Everything they taught her to be. Remember that when your thoughts turn soft and mushy. Even a fetching young thing like Jacquelyn can be ruthless, despite her soft features and womanly body. She is a tool against evil and good at what she does. I’ve never seen a better hunter. We’re lucky to have her.”
“Even though she’s basically a slave? Conditioned and brainwashed and forced to do this job?” There was more to her than what Trish saw: a cold, calculating killer. He’d seen her softer side, felt her soul. Most of what she showed on the outside was an act. A hard crunchy shell to protect the soft, gooey center.
Trish leveled her gaze on him and her storm-gray eyes boiled with warning. “We do what must be done to protect innocents from evil. She was born to do what she does. Chosen. We all have our lots in life and this is hers. I’d hardly call serving the greater good slavery, would you?”
“She was taken from her family. Forced to live in a facility where she was trained like some sort of guerilla combatant. She’s never known anything else because they made sure she wouldn’t. They made her a killer,” Micah raised a challenging brow. “And they didn’t even give her a choice in the matter. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.”
“She did not become a killer, dear.” Once again Trish’s voice adopted the grandmotherly tone that was an oxymoron to her words. “She was born a killer.”
“No one is born to kill,” Micah argued. “They trained her, guided her thinking in the direction they wanted it to go. It’s an accident of misfortune that she wound up in the life she did. And that’s all there is to it.”
“There are no accidents, Micah, only Fate.” Trish took the bowl of water tinged with his blood and the rag, placing them in the sink. “Now, let’s get rid of these cuts before the infection sets in. Goblin scratches are toxic.”
Trish briskly rubbed her hands together, kind of a Karate Kid moment, before placing her palms on his lacerated shoulder. Daniel San, there are no accidents, only Fate. He would have laughed, but honestly, Trish had sort of killed his cheerful mood. Tingling warmth crept over his skin as it traveled into the open wounds, both relaxing and invigorating. Tiny pulls, uncomfortable like the sensation of having stitches removed, tugged at his flesh, and he turned his head toward his shoulder. Sparkling light, muted and barely visible, hovered above Trish’s soft, withered hands. She pulled away, the quarter inch-deep cuts closed and healing, save thin white lines to betray the injury.
“Wow.”
Trish nodded in agreement. “Not bad. I’ve heard your healing abilities are pretty impressive as well.”
“I guess so. I’ve never consciously done it, though.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance. Injury comes with the job. A Bearer is a healer, both emotionally and physically, and necessary to a Waerd’s success. Not only does our magic help the hunter locate her prey, but we carry her emotional burden, allowing her to do her job effectively. And if she’s hurt, we fix that, too.”
“Jacquelyn doesn’t like the emotional prying,” he remarked.
“No, I suppose she doesn’t.” The sound of the diesel truck roaring to life carried to Micah’s ears and faded into the distance. He let out a heavy sigh. “She left, didn’t she?”
Trish smiled, but her face looked tired, for the first time showing her age. “I’d better take a look at your head, and then you should get some sleep.” She laid a hand on his shoulder, and he looked down at the white lines of his injuries that faded away to smooth flesh. “Don’t worry, dear. Tomorrow’s another day. And Fate knows best.”
“I hope so.” Micah’s gaze wandered toward the door. I hope so.
Chapter 15
JACQUELYN STARED AT the dark brown espresso dripping into the silver demitasse cup. She hadn’t slept at all the night before after basically stealing Trish’s truck and driving home. There was no way in hell she’d have been able to go back into the house, t
hough. A thousand lessons on emotional control couldn’t have prepared her for what she’d felt standing close to Micah, feeling his warm breath against her neck while she cleaned the wounds on his shoulder.
“Jax, you wanna hand me that?” Bree’s irritating morning voice felt like screws driving into Jacquelyn’s skull. Unemployment might not be as bad as she thought.
She handed over the tiny cup of espresso, emptying the basket and loading it with fresh grounds. Bone-tired and annoyed, the last thing she wanted to be doing today was making coffee. Furies were loose in her town, and it was only a matter of time before someone else wound up dead. And she still had no clue who controlled them. Too bad that damned Goblin ruined his value as an informant when he jumped Micah. A bullet in the head had been the only way to safely control the situation.
“Hey, Jack-lyn!” Pete’s eager face popped up in front of her, hovering at the top of the espresso machine like some kind of nerdy ghost. “How’s it going?”
She fixed her best customer-service smile on her face—the one she reserved for mornings when she just couldn’t stand being at work—and started the brew cycle. “Hi, Pete. How are you?”
“I’m good.” He flashed his game show host smile. “But I haven’t seen you in a couple of days.”
“Oh, yeah, well, I’ve been pretty busy. Helping Trish Whitney out at her ranch.” What was it about small towns that if someone hadn’t seen you for a couple of days they got concerned? It’s not like she’d been abducted by aliens or anything.
“That’s nice of you.” Despite his attempt at looking upbeat, Pete appeared more exhausted than Jacquelyn felt. Hollow eyes, sunken cheeks, sallow skin. Well, sallow-er skin. “Yeah, well…” She poured brewed espresso into a paper cup, and poured milk into a container to steam. “She’s all alone out there and I like it at her place. The view is spectacular. Plus, she feeds me. It’s a fair trade.” Ha. As if Trish needed help with anything. Although, the food was a nice bonus. She wondered, as she took the pitcher of milk and put it under the steamer nozzle, what Pete would say if she told him she’d killed a Goblin not far from Trish’s house last night. That’d keep the town gossip rolling along.
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