Farrah sat up with difficulty—every muscle in her body lit up with fiery pain—and wrapped her arms beneath Oliver’s arms and around his back.
As quietly as she could, she dragged Oliver’s body back, away from the line of demons as they shuffled around in preparation for attack. When Farrah’s back met stone, she followed it away until she hit a corner.
Gasping from exertion and the sobs she could no longer contain, Farrah cuddled Oliver close, burying her face in his neck.
A short distance away, the forces clashed suddenly. The sound of steel against steel sent chills up Farrah’s spine. As screams filled the air, Farrah began to sob in earnest. Who was screaming? Who was winning? Stuck here in a black void with the man who had died for her in her arms, Farrah knew nothing. Could anticipate nothing. Could defend nothing.
“Farrah!”
Her head jerked up. “Anahita?”
A pebble scuttled right in front of her, and a hand landed on Farrah’s. She jumped and cried out.
“It is me,” the angel said softly.
“They killed him,” Farrah blurted, unraveling at an alarming rate in the presence of an ally. “They killed him!”
Anahita said nothing, and Farrah realized she’d been hoping the angel would tell her Oliver would come back to life. Just like he had hundreds of other times.
She did not.
“There is no time now,” Anahita said. “We must get you out of here.”
Farrah clutched desperately at Oliver’s body. “Get us both out of here!”
After a slight hesitation, Anahita said, “Of course,” in a tone that could only be described as careful.
There was a rustle of cloth, and then Anahita was gathering Farrah and Oliver into her arms, helping Farrah to lift Oliver’s heavy bulk. “I cannot take you together.”
“Him first,” Farrah said immediately.
The angel said nothing for a moment. Finally, “Farrah.”
“No!” Farrah spat. “You take him first or you drag me kicking and screaming, and that will certainly draw attention to us.”
Anahita sighed. Oliver’s dead weight completely left Farrah’s frame, and she reached out frantically until she found him cradled in Anahita’s arms. “Back into that corner,” the angel ordered, “and do not move until I return.”
Farrah obeyed immediately, not wanting to give the angel any excuse to change her mind. A breeze brushed across her face, and Farrah knew the angel had vanished.
What had to be less than ten seconds later, Anahita reappeared and wrapped her arms around Farrah’s shoulders.
Farrah stiffened and pressed against the angel for a moment. “He is safe?”
“He is safe,” Anahita answered.
Farrah relaxed, and the stone beneath her feet softened, then vanished.
29
Three days later
If one more person told Farrah it may be time to consider burying Oliver, she was going to stab them—a very real threat considering she still clutched Oliver’s knife in her hand.
She’d left Oliver’s side only to address the most pressing human needs in the past few days—something that was happening less and less as Farrah refused…well, everything. No food. No sleep.
Her body was shutting down, but she could not bring herself to act in any other way.
Someone must stay by Oliver’s side and guard him, she rationalized, and she would trust no one but herself with such a task.
The hand that did not hold the knife was intertwined with Oliver’s. Farrah’s thumb continuously brushed over his knuckles, so, at first, she did not notice when his skin warmed.
But she certainly noticed when his fingers, which had been still for days, twitched in her hand.
The knife she held clattered to the floor. Farrah jerked to her feet and scrambled to the door, tripping on myriad things along the way. She swung her head out into the hallway and bellowed, “Abilene!” before returning to Oliver’s bedside mere moments later.
“Oliver,” she breathed, nearly climbing the man in his hospital bed. She jostled him as she sat next to his hip, and he groaned.
“Oliver!” Farrah cupped his face with both hands, her thumbs brushing over his closed eyelids.
His eyelashes fluttered.
“What’s going on?” Abilene asked, suddenly at Farrah’s side.
“I told you he would survive!” Childish, she knew, but she was just so happy, she couldn’t contain herself.
“Oh, my God,” Abilene muttered. The doctor’s clothing rustled as she began examining Oliver, and Farrah scooted back only marginally, now covering Oliver’s hand with both of hers.
“Come on, love,” Farrah whispered.
Abilene’s rustling ceased for a moment and then started again. Farrah herself was momentarily shocked that the first time she audibly admitted her feelings for Oliver was in front of a witness while he lay unconscious.
Think about it later. “What’s happening?” Farrah asked.
“He’s…definitely alive.”
Farrah made an impatient noise. “I knew that part.”
“Well,” Abilene said, “if past experience with Oliver coming back to life is any indicator, he should be coming around any second.”
Farrah smiled so wide her cheeks ached.
“Would you like some privacy?” Abilene asked softly. “I can wait right outside the door if you need me.”
“Yes,” Farrah blurted, not caring that her cheeks immediately flushed.
Abilene squeezed Farrah’s shoulder, and then left the room.
Farrah scooted forward, laying Oliver’s arm across her thighs and weaving the fingers of both her hands into his hair. “Oliver, wake up for me.
She brushed her thumbs over his closed eyelids again and jumped a bit when they moved. Oliver groaned, and then, his warm, calloused hand enclosed her wrist.
Farrah gasped and sobbed at once.
“Farrah?” Oliver asked.
“Yes, love, it is me.”
“Mmm,” he hummed sleepily. “Love.”
She cupped his cheek and sighed, content for the first time in several days.
All at once, his muscles tensed. “The demons!” he shouted. He jerked upright, nearly dumping Farrah on the floor, and she scrambled to maintain her balance.
“They’re gone!” Farrah said quickly. “We’re safe.”
A pause. “Gone?”
Farrah sat again and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Leaning forward, she found his neck with her lips. Unable to resist, she pressed a kiss there. “Yes,” she whispered.
He shuddered, and Farrah’s arms tightened reflexively. “We’re safe,” he repeated.
“Very,” she assured him, placing another kiss slightly higher on his neck.
His head tipped back. “Woman.” His voice rumbled against her breasts. “Keep that up and you will not be safe at all.”
She smiled against his skin. “Promise?”
He growled. Goosebumps erupted all over her skin. He crushed her to him and flipped them over, somehow managing to get his hips between her thighs in the process.
She moaned at the thick erection pressed against her clit.
“That’s my girl,” Oliver whispered a second before claiming her lips in a thorough kiss. As he thrust his tongue against hers, his hips began to move in the same rhythm until she was helpless to do anything but follow along.
A coil was already tightening in her stomach, and she clutched desperately at his biceps in an attempt to slow her body’s reaction. To draw it out.
He broke the kiss. Moved his lips to her ear. Farrah’s nipples hardened in anticipation of whatever dirty thing he would whisper this time. “Call me love again,” he demanded.
She moaned. Not what she was expecting. At all. It was so much better. “Don’t stop,” she begged. “Love.”
He made an appreciative noise deep in his chest and palmed her ass so hard it was more a slap than anything. “Again,” he commanded, tilting her hips and thrustin
g against her harder.
“Oliver!” she cried.
A deep, masculine chuckle. “Screaming my name?” he whispered in her ear. “Not what I asked for, but I’ll take it.”
His hips picked up the pace. His breaths rushed against her dampening skin before he inexplicably slowed. “Baby,” he moaned. “I’m so sorry.”
Farrah’s brows drew together. “What?”
“I was a dick. God, I’m sorry.”
She had a hard time placing his sudden apology before she remembered what had happened before Hell. His accusations. The fruit.
“Oh,” she said softly, her hold on his arms slackening.
His thrusts stopped. He pulled back, kissing her cheek as he did so. “I know, down in my soul, you had nothing to do with those who hurt me. I don’t want revenge anymore. I don’t need it. Finding you was the best thing that could have happened to me.”
Farrah sucked in a breath. “Revenge?” He…thought she had intentionally put him in a death cycle?
What does he want in return? She recalled begging Oliver to tell her the truth after witnessing his death for the first time. The whole truth. When he told her he only wanted to sleep with her, he’d…lied.
And she’d believed him. Even after learning the hard way not to believe or trust anybody. She felt her face blanch.
“I didn’t mean to kill the mood,” he murmured.
She pushed at his shoulders. “Let me up.” No wonder she hadn’t been able to guess what he was wanting. He’d accused her of something she hadn’t even known was an issue. How could she have forgotten everyone had an angle? How could she!
Oliver rolled off of her, but only to lay at her side and gather her to his chest. Farrah stiffened. She couldn’t think this close to him, and her chest ached so badly she couldn’t breathe.
“Shh.” Oliver smoothed her hair back from her forehead. “Baby, tell me who her is?”
Farrah’s head kicked back. Her? “Who?”
“In the phone call,” Oliver said. “You found a her. I want to help you.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Farrah blurted. She jerked from his arms and sat up so quickly she was nearly sick. How could she have forgotten? “My mother!”
30
Oliver loathed the silent treatment. Never had it bothered him as much as it did right now, however. After screeching My mother with so much emotion that Oliver had winced, Farrah refused to speak another word to him.
She’d launched herself from the bed and out the door before he could even call her back. Not that it would have mattered.
Like a genius, he’d reminded her why she should hate him, and it had worked. Oliver was hot on Farrah’s heels now as she stormed toward their apartment. Nothing he said to her made her slow down or answer him, so he’d stopped talking and focused on getting his sluggish legs to work.
Abilene was next to him, trying desperately to convince him to return to his bed after being dead for three days.
He couldn’t wrap his mind around that, so he didn’t even try. When Abilene dared to tug at Oliver’s wrist, he snapped. “Abilene, stop!”
Now, Farrah turned. Turned on him. “Don’t you dare talk to her like that,” she spat, suddenly a hellcat.
“It’s okay.” Abilene backed away with hands raised, seeming reticent now that she realized she’d become part of a lovers’ spat. “I’m just going to go back to the medical wing.” She looked at Oliver. “You know where to find me when storming around like you haven’t been dead goes tits up, ‘k?”
Oliver turned back to Farrah without acknowledging Abilene’s order. Now that she was facing him, he decided to press his luck. “Where are we going?”
Her face twisted, and she spun around, headed toward the apartment faster than ever. “We aren’t going anywhere.”
That’s what she thought. He wasn’t leaving her again. Ever.
He did a double take at the crazy, proprietary thought, and then another one when he didn’t emotionally melt down at the idea.
When he followed her into the apartment, she went straight to the bedroom, and before she even walked over to the plant in the corner, he knew what she was doing.
“The fruit was for your mother, wasn’t it?”
“No. I was planning on turning it over to your worst enemies. Cackling whilst I did.”
Salty. Despite the grim circumstances, he found himself smiling. He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She stiffened and made sure to point her face away from him.
“Baby,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you I’m sorry as many times as you want.” If possible, she stiffened even more, but her head jerked in his direction enough for him to see her furrowed brows. Her lips were pursed. He was reaching her, whether she wanted him to or not.
“I want to help,” he said. “Where is she?”
“I will never tell you my secrets,” she hissed. Her expression darkened. She muttered something, jerking in his arms with each word.
“What was that?” Oliver asked softly.
“What do you want in return!” she nearly shouted at him. “Just tell me. I’m so weary of having to guess and then being wrong. So…very…wrong.”
He hadn’t thought he could feel worse. He swore beneath his breath, tightening his arms until she grunted. “I don’t want anything.”
“You lie.”
He closed his eyes. This was the damage he’d done to their relationship. He had no one to blame but himself. How to prove it to her? When he couldn’t readily come up with an answer, all that lightness he’d been sailing on since waking in her arms vanished. He had to admit that…he may have lost her. Truly lost her. And, worse, he deserved to.
He sank his forehead to her shoulder and blew out a breath. “I…don’t know what to do,” he confessed in a small voice. “Farrah, you’re ripping my heart out here.”
She made a noise. “You have no right to say that to me.”
“You’re right, but there it is.” He brushed his cheek against the smooth fabric of her tunic. “I wish you could feel what I feel right now. You’d be convinced. To be so sure of someone—ready to start your life with them—only to have them so sure they don’t want you.” He released a shuddering breath. “I’d die a million times over to convince you to just give me another chance if I could.”
***
Her shoulders slackened slightly, and she pulled away from him before he could feel it and assume she was softening as much as she was. She softened; it would not change her mind. She could not afford to forget again. “There is no need for that,” she whispered. She sighed. “Truthfully, Oliver, I simply cannot trust anyone. It is not only because you hurt me. It is because everyone hurts me.”
She bent down and retrieved the fruit, slipping it into her head scarf. “I must leave,” she said softly, preparing for him to tell her no.
She did not want to hurt him. Was not sure she would be able to.
There was a tentative touch to her hand, and then his fingers wove through hers. “Farrah…please let Anahita take you.”
She jolted. He was…agreeing? Not that she needed his compliance, but it was…unexpected. “She would do that?” Farrah tried to keep her excitement at bay. The amount of time the angel could cut from her journey—
“She would if I asked her to.”
Farrah frowned. “You would do that?”
“I would do anything for you, Farrah.” He squeezed her hand, and before she could ask, he said, “I want nothing in return. I promise.”
She could feel her skepticism in the twist of her features, and he, no doubt, could see it, too. “You want me to be with you.”
“Of course I do!” He stepped into her personal space. She felt it in the way a charge seemed to run along her entire body. “That does not mean that anything good I do for you is contingent upon that end.” He brushed his fingers down her cheek, and Farrah sucked in a breath. “People do things for other people. And people want things. They’re not always conn
ected.” His fingers stopped at her collarbone. “And when…love…is involved—” He’d hesitated but a moment on that word. “—they definitely aren’t.”
His thumb stroked her pulse. “Farrah, I will always do things for you, and I will always want you with me. What you do in response to either of those is incidental to the fact that I will feel that way for the rest of my life.”
She was biting her lip so hard, she worried she’d draw blood.
“I will go get Anahita,” he said softly, his breath stirring her hair.
When the door closed behind him, a tear fell from each eye.
31
Kabul, Afghanistan
Farrah stood, hands clenched together, in front of the house that held her mother. Anahita had left her side just moments before, and already, Farrah’s heart was in her throat. It had been a more gracious gesture than Farrah could have hoped for—especially after spurning a man the angel seemed very fond of—that Anahita had volunteered to check out the mansion to find her mother’s location. If she could, Anahita promised to simply transport her mother here.
A charge in the air, and Farrah knew Anahita was back. “Is my mother—”
“I do not have her with me.”
Thoughts rioted within her. So many reasons Anahita would be unable to rescue her mother.
“I can see you panicking, but there is no reason to worry. That is not why I do not have her with me.”
Farrah’s brow furrowed. “Then, why—”
“The situation is…not what you anticipated.”
Farrah placed a hand over her heart.
“I told you not to be anxious,” Anahita chided quietly.
“Just tell me!” Farrah snapped.
“Farrah,” Anahita said, placing her hand on Farrah’s shoulder, “your mother is not being held against her will. Nor is she a servant.”
“Not a servant,” Farrah parroted.
“She appears to be—” Anahita paused for a moment “—the mistress.”
“What?”
“And a very happy one as well.”
“How did you find her?” Farrah asked quickly. None of this made sense.
“She was sitting at the table with a man she was obviously fond of. They were eating a large breakfast. He touched her hand gently. She smiled at him.”
Of Blind Fate (Operation: Middle of the Garden Book 5) Page 22