And it doesn’t feel good.
Sometimes those shields are almost too confining. It’s like living out your life in bubble wrap.
Curious, I glanced at him. Up until four days ago, Michael and I had never worked together before. Matter of fact, I went out of my way to avoid him. Up until tonight, the powers that be had seen fit to let me do it.
Up until he showed up in the parking lot at the club four nights ago, I hadn’t seen him in more than three hundred years.
The last time I’d seen him was in London, almost a year to the day after my rather…unfortunate…demise.
I’d been working with Will at the time and was finally settling into the strange new life. Will had taken me to see a play, but I can’t remember the name of it. The only clear memory of that night was Michael.
Seeing his face—it had been such a shock.
Part of me had hoped he had come looking for me, but I’d discarded that idea quickly enough. After all, nobody knew what had become of me, so there was no way, logically, he could have been looking for me.
Still, part of me had hoped.
I’d mentally rehearsed what I would tell him as he came up to me, but then I’d caught sight of the silver chain around his neck. Nothing at all like what he would have worn. Nothing.
And it was exactly like the chain I wore. The one with the pendant on it. A silver disc, etched with wings.
Part of me died that night. He was one of us. Which meant…he’d died. It was how one went from human to Grimm. Through death’s door and then back again.
I didn’t give him a chance to say anything. Instead, before he could get close enough for us to speak, I had run. He hadn’t followed and I hadn’t seen him until he’d shown up here in Sandusky.
One might think it unlikely, but shortly after seeing him in London, I left Europe. I traveled to the colonies in 1706 and I’ve been here ever since, save for the odd trip to Italy or France every now and then. According to the gossip grapevine, Michael spent most of his time drifting between Europe and Asia.
Until now, our paths had simply never crossed.
I didn’t know all that much about him, not anymore. But then again, maybe I had never really known all that much about him to begin with.
“So what is your gift?” I asked him. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard.”
Michael slipped me a sidelong look. In the darkness, his green eyes seemed almost black, and his face was unreadable. In a quiet, low voice, he asked. “Are you sure you want to know?”
Uh—oh. Going by the grim tone in his voice, it wasn’t going to be a nice one. Some of us didn’t have good gifts. Mine wasn’t fun—it was a pain in the ass, and very often a pain in the heart.
But my gift didn’t make other Grimms back away from me.
“Mind control.” His voice was carefully empty, flat.
Too empty. Too flat.
I gaped at him. “Did you just say mind control?”
Michael didn’t bother answering me. He knew I had heard him well enough.
Dazed, I settled back in my seat and just stared out into the night.
Mind control.
My friend, Greta, she can force people to do what she wants for short periods of time. But it comes with a cost to her. Anytime she uses her gift she ends up with a rousing headache. That’s enough to keep her from abusing it.
But it wasn’t the same as mind control. She only controlled their bodies.
If Michael’s gift was mind control, he could control the body…and the mind. He could make people into his willing slaves.
I swallowed the knot in my throat. Poor guy. The rest of us probably treated him like a leper.
“Can you use it on us?”
We’re not automatically immune to each other’s gifts, you know. I don’t know why it’s like that. Maybe because on the most basic level we are still human. With me, I can use part of my gift on other Grimms. I can feel their emotions, but I can’t reflect back at them all that well.
Reflecting works best on humans, but not just any old human. Nope, my gift tends to work better on the tainted humans—those who’ve been dabbling with demons but haven’t gone too far yet.
I’m handy that way. If I can get to them soon enough, while they still have enough of their humanity left, I can show them what they’re turning into. I can push it back on them. Sometimes that’s all it takes for them to back away. Once they back away, their minds are their own again—the demons can’t touch them.
I realized Michael hadn’t answered me yet. I shifted in my seat, carefully holding my skirt down to keep it from riding up any higher. Not that it was possible. It was a good thing the panties matched the dress.
Propping my arm on the back of the seat, I stared at him. “So, can you?”
Michael’s mouth twisted in a bitter smile. Somewhere deep inside, I realized it hurt to see that smile on his face. His gift made him unhappy. And that made me unhappy.
Even though, logically, I shouldn’t give a damn if he was unhappy or not. Why should I care? After all this time, why should it matter?
“I don’t know.” He flicked a glance at me and shrugged. “I’ve never tried. What would be the point? We’re all on the side of the angels after all. Right?”
“Actually, we are the angels.”
He glanced at me again and this time, his eyes lingered. On my face and along my body. “You look more the temptress than the angel,” Michael told me.
After all he’d done, after the hell I’d gone through, there was no reason that should made me feel so weak, so needy, so hungry. It didn’t make sense.
But in a way, it made perfect sense. Only Michael could affect me like this. Only Michael.
Nobody had ever made me feel like he had—apparently he could still make me feel that way.
I decided I didn’t like that knowledge. Once more, I shifted in the seat, turning so I stared out the window. I rested my arm on the door and tried to figure out how this happened. I tried to figure out how he could still affect me.
Absently, I reached up and touched the medallion that lay against my skin under my dress. It was cool, despite the fact that I still have a 98.6° body temperature. Usually the things only warmed up when we were summoned.
Silently, I asked, Why did you send me here, Will?
There was no answer, but I hadn’t expected one.
Me. Michael. Both of us together. Was there a reason for it? Will knew who Michael was. Hell, I think most of Grimms knew who we both were. Michael had been a minor figure in history, but still he was a royal. Those of us who had been around when he’d lived had heard the tale of the prince who disappeared only days before he was to wed.
He was a minor mystery in the pages of history—the mortal world had no idea what had become of him. All history knew was that he had disappeared and his family never saw him again.
Will knew who Michael was, and Will knew what he meant to me. More, Will knew the uglier bits of my past—how I’d ended up in the hands of a Grimm to begin with. Will’s hands, to be precise.
What are you up to, Will?
Despite what others might think, he wasn’t a cruel man and he would not have placed Michael and me together without good reason.
Unlike a lot of my fellow Grimms, I actually knew Will fairly well. He was the one who had found me barely clinging to life. I was bordering on unconsciousness at the time, slipping in and out of awareness, hovering near death. I’d been raped and then beaten within an inch of my life.
I had run away from my life, from my broken heart. Doing so nearly killed me… Well, it had killed me. But Will got to me in time, and before I was too far out of his reach he had offered me the Choice.
My old life had ended that night. Actually, it had ended the day I discovered Michael’s true identity.
Even if I hadn’t run away, my life would’ve changed.
Contrary to the fairy tale, it had been a good life.
My stepmother hadn’t mistreated
me. Forget what the books might say. I wasn’t treated like a scullery maid. I only had the one stepsister, and she’d been a friend to me as well as a sister.
We had grown up together. I’d even known of her betrothal. She’d been betrothed to Michael from childhood.
The problem was that I met Michael without knowing who he was. I had met him, fallen in love with him, and I believed he had loved me. As a baron’s daughter, I hadn’t been a bad catch.
But my stepsister was the daughter of a duke. Further up in the hierarchy than me, and with a nice, fat dowry… A much better catch.
By the time I discovered who he was, we were already lovers.
To be fair, Michael hadn’t known who I was either. He was too honorable a man to chase after the stepsister of his future wife. And it’s not as ridiculous as it might sound, the two of us having never met.
You know all of those spirited heroines you read about in historical romances? I could’ve been modeled after one of them—or rather, they could’ve been modeled after me. I was more interested in riding my horses, reading and hunting than in court life. I avoided it at all costs and my family had allowed me to get away with it.
Perhaps that was why I was so naïve, so…hopeful about life in general. I didn’t know what real life was, even if I did understand pain, trauma, tragedy…loss.
I had been pampered and protected my whole life, first by my father, and then by his new wife and my new sister. They’d coddled me, protected me, loved me. Outside the circle of their love, I had no idea what real life was, what the real world was like.
Not until the year I met Michael, the summer we traveled north to the royal family’s summer estate. At the end of the summer, my stepsister, Marguerite, was to wed. While she was busy with court life, I was out riding or sneaking into the library for books.
The library was where I met Michael.
It’s a familiar story. Boy meets girl. Boy flirts with girl and girl flirts back. We’d known each other a week the day we became lovers. We’d been out riding. I’d slipped away from my rooms, leaving a message with my servant that I would be out riding—yet again.
What I didn’t tell them was that I was meeting a man, a dashing, charming man.
If I hadn’t begged off attending the first ball, I would have known who he was…and I would have stayed away from him. I never would have fallen in love with him and I never would have made love to him. In all honesty, other than that summer spent at the estate and the upcoming wedding, we wouldn’t have seen much of each other.
Our lives would have been so much different, so much easier…if only I’d attended that first damn ball.
Once Marguerite had married Michael, she would’ve gone to live with him. I would’ve seen them sporadically, but I would’ve kept my distance. You have no idea how often I’ve thought about things, how I could have avoided the heartbreak if I’d just gone to the first stupid ball. But I hadn’t wanted to dress in some fine gown and spend the night making small talk and giggling with the other ladies.
The miles sped by as I lost myself in my memories. I could remember some of it as clear as crystal…as clear as a glass slipper. Like the day I put my heart in his hands. In the hours we had spent together, he hadn’t once mocked me for my boyish way of dressing, nor had he teased me for my love of books. He seemed to understand my distaste for court life. He had seemed to understand me.
I had hopes in my heart that he would even understand the secret I’d shared with only a few other people.
I don’t even think he had set out to take advantage of me.
Advantage—there was no advantage taken. I guess I should be honest about that. He hadn’t taken advantage of me—I’d given myself to him, freely and quite happily.
Tears burned my eyes and there was a knot in my throat.
“We should not do this…” he had told me.
That’s what he’d said…to the girl I’d once been. Another lifetime ago.
1704
“Why not?” Elle whispered, staring up into dark, mysterious green eyes. How her heart raced when he looked at her…when he smiled at her. He had given her so much pleasure and she wished to give it to him as well.
Trying not to let him see her hands shaking, she pushed up on her toes and kissed him. He tasted of wine and the oranges he had brought. It had been a fine meal—in Elle’s mind, it was a far finer meal than the royal banquets she was supposed to be attending.
“Elle…” He groaned her name as he pulled away. He eased back away from her hands and paced away, putting a careful distance between them.
Elle cocked her head and studied him. “Why shouldn’t we do this?”
He shot her a dark look. “You are a lady. You well know the answer to that. You should…” His voice trailed off and then his face took on that silent, closed look that so many donned when speaking to an unwed, young woman.
“I am a lady…an unwed one. I should not speak of matters between a man and woman, at least not until I am wed.” She made a face and said, “I know my own mind. If I wish to kiss a man, I will.”
She moved to stand beside him, conscious of the fact that she was alone with a man, something that rarely happened. Even at home, when she went hunting or riding, there was usually another with her. She was alone with this man and he made her heart race.
She linked their hands and looked at him from under her lashes. “You have kissed me before and it seemed you enjoyed it. Have I bored you then?”
“I do not believe it possible to be bored when you are near,” he said quietly. Michael cupped her face in his hands and lowered his head until their mouths were but a breath apart.
“Then why shouldn’t we do this? Why shouldn’t I kiss you now?”
The look in his eyes had her heart trembling with eagerness…and fear. “There comes a time when a man wants more than kisses from a pretty girl.”
“I see.” And she did. She rested a hand on his chest, just above his heart, and then gave him one of the coquettish smiles she’d seen used by some of the ladies at court. “Does that mean you do not want more with me?”
“Darling girl, I’ve thought of little else since I saw you sneaking out of the library, your face all dusty and your arms full of books.” He caught her lower lip between his teeth and nipped it lightly. “But this isn’t wise…it isn’t fair. Not to you.”
But she had always been stubborn. Trailing a hand down his chest, she caught one of his hands and lifted it to her breast. She’d worn breeches to ride and even if she had desired to wear a corset, she couldn’t very well wear one to ride in. She went without one as often as possible and the shirt she wore proved little barrier.
“It is up to me to decide what is fair, is it not?”
Chapter Five
“Elle?”
The sound of Michael’s voice made for a very effective wake-up call. I straightened and glanced over at him, startled to realize we had already arrived at the club.
“Are you well?” he asked, his voice stilted. “You have been rather quiet.”
I gave him a breezy smile and lied through my teeth. “Oh, I’m wonderful. Just planning how to handle tonight.”
“You do not lie well. Even after all this time.” He watched me with shrewd eyes.
“My thoughts are my own, Michael. Let’s just leave them that way.”
A faint smile curled his lips. “Do you know that I can remember looking at your face and being able to read you like an open book? Every emotion you felt, every thought you thought, one could see it in your eyes. Not as easy to read now as you used to be, but I don’t need to read you to understand what you are thinking. But you don’t have to worry—I won’t use it on you.”
It took a minute to figure what he was talking about.
Then I understood. His gift. I just shook my head. “Michael, that’s the least of my concern. I’m not worried about that at all.”
“Why not? I tried to force you to my will before.”
&nbs
p; I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please. There’s a big difference between offering to set me up as your mistress and forcing me to do your will.”
I wanted to get out of the car, but he reached out and stopped me. Long, slender fingers wrapped around my wrist, his thumb stroking back and forth over the soft inside. “I never meant for you to run. I never meant to chase you away. If I had realized that was what would happen…” His voice trailed off and he sighed, letting me go. “I am sorry.”
Nervous, I reached up to toy with my medallion only to remember it was under my dress. Couldn’t risk having a succubus see it after all. So instead, I smoothed down my skirt and looked all around, looking anywhere but him. “Michael, you didn’t make me run. I did it all on my own. It was my foolishness that led me to my fate.”
“I threatened you. You were frightened.”
“Let’s not forget foolish and naïve.” I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about this. It’s old history.”
I climbed out of the car and waited for him to join me. As he walked around the car, I stared at the club and braced myself.
I didn’t want to go in there. Not at all. In a few minutes, I’d walk into that club, wade through that morass of envy, loneliness, guilt and need—emotions I was all too familiar with.
Michael joined me and I waited for him to offer his arm as he had the past four nights. But he didn’t. He moved in front of me, staring down at me. “I would undo it if I could. Do you believe that? Can you?”
I studied his face. Physically, he looked the same as he did the last time I had seen him… Exactly the same. Those mysterious green eyes, a face as beautiful as an angel’s, and a mouth that would tempt a saint. But he wasn’t the same man. There was a heaviness to him, a grief.
And I was still naïve, I realized. Because I’d convinced myself I shouldn’t care if he hurt, that I wouldn’t be bothered by his sadness.
I’d let myself believe that time could change how I felt for this man, even though deep inside I knew otherwise.
No Prince Charming: Grimm's Circle, Book 2 Page 5