by Bryn Donovan
“Stop looking at me like that.” Her confusion and nerves made her voice come out sharp.
He looked away, the muscles of his jaw clenched, and his frustration hit her in the gut. It was so stupid. He wanted her and cared about her, and for years, she’d longed for him.
It couldn’t hurt to at least kiss him. Could it?
CHAPTER SIX
The door opened without anyone knocking. Damn it, Michael thought as he turned around. Jonathan held the door open for Cassie, who bobbed in on her crutches.
“Hi, sit down,” Val said quickly.
Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed her. When everything felt so wrong, it was hard not to pursue one thing that felt right.
And he wasn’t the only one feeling it. If she chose not to do anything about it, that was her prerogative. But with that maybe, she’d given him a flicker of hope, and it was maddening.
Jonathan and Cassie sat down on the couch between Michael’s chair and Valentina’s, Jonathan sitting the closest to him—which irritated him. He looked a lot like Michael, but he had all his memories and a clear understanding of his surroundings and other people. It was too easy to think of Jonathan as a version of himself without the damage, the humiliating lack.
Valentina said, “Jonathan’s going to try to bring you into his psyche. Once you’re in, I’m going to link in. Or I’ll try to. Subsummation is new for us, so we’re not sure how it works.”
“I don’t know if it’ll work at all,” Jonathan said. “But let’s give it a try.”
She said, “Okay. Michael, close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths.” He obeyed. Jonathan took his hand, and he stiffened but stopped himself from pulling away, bracing himself for the same pain he’d experienced the first time. Valentina’s voice, light and sweet, wafted over him. “Relax.”
Something in the air around him changed, like white noise abruptly giving way to silence. He smelled burning candles.
Valentina asked, “How are you?”
He opened his eyes. She stood next to Jonathan in semi-darkness, and she was asking him, not Michael. “Fine.” His face was lit with triumph.
They stood in the ruins of a cathedral bathed in colored light that streamed through the high stained-glass windows. The sky that showed through the missing half of the ceiling was deep blue—twilight, or the beginnings of an early dawn. Hundreds of candles burned all around them, filling the air with their scent. Books and pages lay on the floor like fallen leaves.
This was Jonathan’s soulscape. A statue loomed above him in the sanctuary—a pair of lovers, locked in an erotic embrace. Hardly what one expected to see in a church, yet it seemed perfectly harmonious here. Peering closer at the faces, he realized the statue depicted Jonathan and Cassie.
He looked away. It was too personal, being here, and it made him feel manipulated. Another statue depicted two medieval warriors, shields and swords in hand, back to back as though surrounded by foes, and beyond that was the figure—rendered in grotesque and remarkable detail, for stone—of a man being consumed by flames.
Jonathan said, “We’ll look at a few of my memories that you share. Let’s start with you on a mission.”
A scene appeared in one of the stained-glass windows. He and Jonathan stood in the darkened hallway of someone’s home. “Irving, Texas,” Jonathan said as in the memory, he and Michael advanced silently toward a closed door. He lifted a finger, and the memory paused. “This guy was summoning an evil mirror spirit, a flaga, to tell him the future. He won a huge bet at the Kentucky Derby, won the state lottery a week later—that’s what tipped off the Diviners.”
Feeling contrary, Michael asked, “Why did we care? Someone’s got to win, right?”
“He used child sacrifices to summon the demon in the mirror.” A wave of cold nausea rolled through Michael as Jonathan continued. “Our mission was to break the mirror while the flaga was in it, verify the guy’s guilt, and dispatch him.”
Michael frowned. “You mean murder him.”
“I mean execute a child killer.”
“But how would you know for sure? You would go into his head.” Michael answered his own question.
“Exactly.” Jonathan allowed the memory to continue.
In the frame of the stained-glass window, Michael and Jonathan burst into the room. A man stood with his back to them in front of a mirror, and the hideous inhuman face in it contorted into an expression of rage. Michael grabbed the man from behind, nudging the barrel of a gun into his temple, while Jonathan swung a tire iron into the mirror.
A split second before the explosion of glittering shards, a shadow figure, larger than a man and hunched like a misshapen gorilla, dove out of the glass and into the man Michael held hostage.
The possessed man, with a surge of demonic speed and strength, wrested the gun out of Michael’s hand and sent him flying into a wall. Valentina winced as he landed in a heap on the floor. Jonathan advanced, and the demon in a human body raised his hand, causing the gun to fly out of Jonathan’s possession. But behind him, Michael had scrambled to his feet. He rushed the possessed man and with smooth efficiency snapped the man’s neck. The body crumpled to the floor.
Jonathan ended it with a flick of his fingers, the window becoming stained glass again. “Pretty impressive, right?”
Michael didn’t remember it, and he wasn’t sorry, because it had looked brutal. “Do you have one from earlier? One with Valentina in it?”
She cringed. “No, don’t do that.”
“Then one from when I was a kid. With Mom and Dad. I have a mom, right?”
“Yes,” Jonathan answered immediately, but the tension in his jaw and shoulders suggested that he didn’t want to.
A question came into Michael head for perhaps the tenth time. “You called our father. Why won’t he come to see me? I was dead, and now I’m alive. He won’t book a flight?”
Jonathan frowned. “It’s complicated. He’s comandante in Granada. It’s hard to get away. And he’s upset about you not having memories…because of what happened to Mom.”
Dread rose in Michael. “What happened to her?”
Jonathan’s features tightened with pain. “She was destroyed on a mission. Not killed, but…her mind is gone.”
“Like me.”
“No, worse. She can’t talk to anyone. I don’t think she can hear anyone.”
“Show me what happened.” He gestured to the stained-glass windows.
“I can’t.”
Fury rose in him—at his own ignorance, at Jonathan’s stubbornness, at the shitty life they wanted him to accept. “Show me!”
“It’s not in my memories. I wasn’t there.”
He couldn’t see his father or even a memory of his mother. All he had was a brother who apparently saw him as supernatural cannon fodder, even after he and their own mother had been ruined by their suicidal missions.
Valentina’s eyes filled with sorrow. She told Jonathan, “Break the connection.”
He looked about to argue and then let out a harsh sigh. Everything went black.
They all sat in Valentina’s office again. Jonathan dropped Michael’s hand, got up, and paced to the corner of the room. Cassie looked from him to Michael, lost.
Michael shook his head as though he could dislodge the craziness from it. “I think the best thing is for me to strike out on my own.”
Jonathan spun around. “What?”
“I barely have a family, apparently, and I don’t want to be in your fucked-up demon fight club.”
“Jonathan’s your family,” Cassie snapped.
He ignored her. “Give me a couple hundred bucks and a trip to the nearest town and let me start over. I’ll figure something out.”
But then he wouldn’t see Valentina again. The thought tore at him.
“No,” Jonathan said. “This is where you belong.”
“Why, so I can become a vegetable like your mom?”
“Don’t talk about Mom that way.” His voice carried a
note of threat, and Cassie stiffened in her seat.
“I don’t even know her. But come on, it sounds like she would’ve been better off dead.”
Valentina’s head swiveled toward Cassie in alarm. Shit. He’d forgotten about not making Jonathan’s girlfriend angry.
Jonathan took a long step toward him. Michael jumped to his feet.
Valentina darted between them, facing Jonathan, which made him stop short. “You don’t want to fight with him. You just got him back.”
“Did I?” Bitterness filled his voice. He shook his head and sat back down next to Cassie.
Valentina asked her, “Do you think—”
“No, we’re fine,” Cassie said. Michael took this to mean that no lions or tigers would be coming by to rip his head off. Her voice was sullen, though, and she avoided looking at him.
“You could’ve picked a better memory,” Michael said. “Or if that’s the best one, I don’t want to remember.”
“You have lots of happy memories,” Valentina said firmly.
She was so good. And she’d kept things from escalating. He really couldn’t cut and run, even if he could figure out a way—not while she was here. It would upset her.
After a few moments, Jonathan said, “I showed you that memory to remind you who you were.”
“A Knight,” Michael muttered.
“Someone who gets hit hard and gets up again. Someone who’s always had my back. Like I’ve always had yours.”
Well. He hadn’t thought of it that way. He looked down, feeling a stab of unwelcome regret.
Cassie told him, “At least we know one thing. You can do this with people besides me.”
“A lot of good it does,” Michael said.
“It’s okay,” Val said. “Dr. Holst will figure this out.”
Michael wondered if she really believed it.
*
Later that day, Michael submitted to an EEG with variables Dr. Holst had requested—questions for him to answer, responses to images. Immediately, he hated everything about the test: the cold, gritty gel they dotted on his scalp, having to sit still while they pasted all the electrodes onto his head, and feeling subhuman, like an overgrown lab rat, once he was all hooked up.
When he was finished, two guards led him out of the hospital wing and to a guest suite on another floor he would share with Valentina. She would be there later, they said, and go with him to dinner.
The suite had two beds divided by a steel half wall and an adjoining bathroom stocked with thick white towels. In a small steel dresser he found a dozen or so items of clothing in his size: jeans, tee shirts, sweat pants, and a hooded sweatshirt, along with socks, underwear, and shoes.
His hair was still matted and sticky from the test. He got up and went into the bathroom, undressing as he went.
As the warm water ran over him, he tried to tell himself that this would be over soon. He would remember who he was, and he’d have people’s trust and respect, and a place in the world. He’d be like everyone else instead of a freak.
He filled his hand with green, herbal-scented shampoo from the wall dispenser, scrubbed away the disgusting sticky paste, and rinsed out all the lather. As he worked the conditioner into his hair, he listened to hear if Valentina had returned yet.
He imagined her joining him in the shower. The water would run in rivulets over her full breasts, and he’d lather and wash every inch of her, down to her pretty toes…except the intimate parts of her that were too sensitive for soap. He could attend to those in other ways. Maybe he’d kneel down on the hard tile and run his tongue right up the heated channel of her virgin pussy. The water would be lashing over them, but so what? He wouldn’t drown—and anyway, there were worse ways to die. Maybe she’d grip his shoulders, and he’d hear her whimper. She was too short to have sex in the shower, but once she was rinsed off, he could pick her up and set her big, gorgeous ass down on a towel on the long counter next to the sink, urge her to wrap her legs around him, and thrust deep into her honeyed heat.
He was pathetic. And rock hard. He had to either stop thinking about this or take himself in hand, and the latter seemed like a bad idea when she might show up at any moment.
He turned the water down to freezing and let it run over him for a couple of minutes, trying to think about non-sexy things. Slugs. How the experimental injections would give him diarrhea. Then he got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist, and walked out to see her sitting on the bed.
Her eyes widened and she looked him up and down, taking in his almost-nakedness. Then she cast her gaze downward, her cheeks darkening in a blush.
Michael swallowed a grin. He didn’t want to embarrass her further, but he couldn’t help but be amused—and delighted—that his virginal angel was checking him out. “Am I late for dinner?”
“What? Oh.” She shook her head. “Nic can’t meet with us till eight now. He had to help out with a curse in a prison camp.”
It took Michael a moment to put all of that together. “Nic’s having dinner with us?”
“Him and Jonathan. He’ll talk to us about the trip to Saint Augustine.”
“Okay.” His eyes were drawn to her full mouth and then the alluring valley between her breasts, and he imagined kissing her there, feeling the satiny texture of her skin beneath his lips.
No, a cold shower and gross thoughts hadn’t helped at all.
Act normal. But with an empath, that wouldn’t do any good, anyway.
I should get dressed.
But he couldn’t bring himself to after the way she’d looked at his body. He sat down in the chair nearest the bed. “What will Saint Augustine be like? Will we have time to walk on the beach?”
She looked away. “With those treatments, you might not even feel like it.”
“What if they don’t work? Will you still like me?”
“You know I will.” Her voice came out in a husky whisper.
Every part of him came alive. “Enough to be my girlfriend?” The words came out of his mouth before he’d considered them.
She didn’t respond.
He shouldn’t have said it. Was she angry? He was trying to figure out how he fit into this world, into other people’s lives, and he felt so alone. His body was straining for her, aching to be of use, and he kept the towel in place around his waist. She got up and headed toward the door, and his heart dropped.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Val locked the door to the suite so no one would interrupt them. Behind her, Michael’s dejection morphed into hope.
The word “girlfriend” had made a delicate ache blossom in her chest. Michael had never had a steady girlfriend in his life. His feelings frightened her. It was too good.
Enough was enough. He didn’t have his memories, but he was still a man, intelligent and able to make his own decisions. And if he got cured later and regretted becoming involved with her…well, she didn’t know anyone who hadn’t been hurt by love. Jonathan and Cassie both had heartbreak in their past, and now they shared the kind of connection and commitment that people dreamed about.
“I want to be with you,” she said. She sat back down on the edge of the bed. Her heart hammered painfully, and she dared to meet his eyes. “I’m scared.”
“Scared of me? Why?”
“That you’ll be disappointed in me, or—”
“What? Not possible.” The certainty in his voice drove out much of her fear. His gaze traveled over her body, almost as intense as a physical caress. The thought of his hands on her made heat spiral through her blood.
“Come on, Valentina.” He dragged out her name in a sensual rumble that went right through her. “I’ll do everything you like.”
She would’ve had to have been made of stone to not be tempted. “I don’t know what I like,” she breathed.
His eyes lit up and he smiled, boyishly eager. “Let’s find out.”
But he’d want to go too far. “I don’t think I’m ready for everything.”
H
e moved closer to where she perched on the edge of the bed and crouched at her feet, looking up at her. She took in a sharp breath. “Are you worried about getting pregnant?”
She shook her head. “I take birth control.”
“How come? Bad periods?” He leaned his head on her knee, being cute on purpose, like an adopted puppy. “Or were you just waiting to have your chance with me, and now you’re nervous?”
“Excuse me?”
He gave her a look of pretended innocence. “You said you had a crush.”
“I never should’ve told you that!” His low, sexy chuckle made her flush hot all over. “The former,” she added. “It’s bad even with the pill.”
“Ah, that sucks.” He lifted his head up again, looking more serious. “I’ll go so slow,” he promised. “I won’t push you to do anything.”
His caring and longing wrapped around her. Cautiously, as if he didn’t want to send her flying away like a bird, he rose to sit next to her on the bed.
He was already aroused, and it was even harder now not to stare. Bronze body hair dusted his well-defined chest and made a trail down his firm, rippled belly. It seemed impossible that he’d had been destroyed, only to come back together so perfectly. She’d known he was a beautiful man—everyone knew it—but the sight of him, this close to her and thrumming with sexual hunger, made her breath shake in her lungs.
She trusted him, without question. Still, she squirmed. “What if it leaves you…unsatisfied?”
He laughed and looked down. “I’m already there.” The towel around his hips had come undone.
She’d seen penises before, of course. At El Dédalo, nudity was common enough: formally in ritual, informally in public celebrations and in the private psyches she entered. And thanks to an adolescent fascination with manga, she’d probably seen more than her share of cartoon drawings of them, some of them wildly unrealistic—which had probably been one of the reasons for said fascination.
But she’d never seen an erect penis up close.