STEP (The Senses)

by Paterson, Cindy

  What the hell did she say to that? Why were you put in this Rest? Who is this Gemma? Why were you screaming? What happened in your past? Nothing sounded appropriate, so she just remained quiet.

  “Waleron woke me this morning,” Kilter said as he stared through the windshield down the well-lit Queen Street.

  Delara’s jam obviously had more power than she’d anticipated, considering he’d put someone as strong as Kilter into this Rest-like state.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for you. To be . . . shit, I just should’ve been here for you. I screwed up.”

  That sure didn’t sound like the Kilter she knew and she did a double-take to make certain he didn’t have a twin. She had to admit she didn’t know the guy very well, but in the time they’d been together she’d been at her most vulnerable and he had been crass, rude and controlling. Did he have another side to him?

  Don’t get caught up in this, her brain kept repeating like a broken record. “I can’t be around you, Kilter. It reminds me of what I left behind. It’s taken a long time to get here, and one step in the wrong direction is ten steps back.” She paused. “You’re the wrong direction.” She choked on the last few words. She had no choice. Denying her feelings for Kilter was safe. For both of them.

  “Bullshit.” He gave her a warning glance when she went to open the door and she sighed, settling back in the plush black leather. Give him the courtesy of a few more minutes. “Wrong direction or not, you’re stuck with me.”

  “What gives you the right to demand anything from me?”

  “I saved your goddamn life.”

  “Oh, so we’re back to that again. Great. I escape one leech for another. Just my luck.” The words slipped across her tongue, and hearing them made her want to take them back. He didn’t deserve that. He was nothing like Anton and yet she’d just put him in the same category. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  He was silent, eyes peering out the windshield while his jaw clenched and his hands gripped the steering wheel. She knew her words had hurt him and she could do nothing more than apologize. He either accepted it or not.

  He leaned across her lap and threw open the door.

  “Kilter, I—”

  “Don’t,” he warned. “I need time to cool off.”

  She hesitated. He had a mask of cold bitterness stretched across his tense face. She’d sensed from the beginning that this guy had past issues that bordered on her own and she managed to wedge the broadsword further into his self-hate. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “Go inside, Rayne” he ordered.

  She slid from the car and closed the door. An ache settled in the pit of her stomach as she walked to the gallery door. She knew that behind his crude words he had a good heart. But right now, she had her own problems to deal with. Having Kilter’s past demons around her would only make recovery that much harder.

  But every step from the car was more difficult. Her body rejected walking away, and her heart was bleeding a sappy song. So, she had a thing for him. Admit it. But don’t live it. He’ll only drag you into his world. One she was fighting to forget.

  ****

  “Damn it.” He’d screwed up royally.

  He wanted to run after her, grab her and kiss her again. The sane side of him knew that was exactly the opposite of what she needed. He’d seen it from the first moment he laid eyes on her again. Her strength and determination unwavering under his stare.

  She looked hot and his loins damn well knew it. The woman had put on a good twenty pounds, filling out to a healthy weight. One that he could hold and touch and . . . he was off his rocker. She wanted nothing to do with him. He was everything she’d run from, controlling, demanding, and an asshole.

  How the hell did he manage to get into this mess? One promise. He made one promise and for that he’d become a crazed lunatic who couldn’t get her out of his mind. Why the hell did he care what happened to her? She was standing on her own two feet. She was in recovery and didn’t need him latching on to her like a bloodsucking leech.

  Anger penetrated his body and mind with shadowed memories lingering from Rest. Waking to discover six months had passed and having no clue if Rayne lived or died. Haunted by the memory of Gemma, her scream matching that of Rayne’s on the roof of the building. Past becoming present, his mistakes being thrown into him over and over again. He was reeling in emotions that he’d kept locked away for over a hundred years and he’d taken it out on Rayne. Christ, what was wrong with him?

  ****

  Rayne had no idea why she was balling her eyes out. Okay, she did know and didn’t want to admit it. He had to act like a ruthless barbarian—rude, abrupt and insensitive. Way to screw with the already damaged emotions.

  She slammed her fist into her pillow. She’d tried for the past six months to get him out of her system, yet still he lingered like a cowbell around her neck. He had so much pain inside him that letting her in was an impossible feat. Kilter hid behind cold crass words as if he were frightened of showing that he cared. She laughed to herself at the notion of Kilter being scared of anything.

  None of this mattered; she needed stability and Kilter was the epitome of unstable.

  She wiped the tears with the back of her hand and sniffled. She’d learned to express herself over the past few months. The numbness had dissipated with the weight gain and the wounds opened and bled, but she’d never felt better. The pale gauntness of her skin was gone and instead a darker tone had come alive, not quite as dark as Delara’s beautiful complexion, but an olive hue. Her hair was thicker, luxurious, and best of all the panic attacks had waned.

  Rebecca had commented on the changes, how with the weight gain came the confidence and a desire to live and enjoy life. It felt as if she had woken from a dream—no, a nightmare of blackness and shadows. Panic ate away at the weak, exactly why it had latched onto her like fishhook. She knew she still had a ways to go, and it was a constant struggle to remain positive when she looked in the mirror, but no longer did she feel like a failure when she looked at her reflection.

  A knock sounded.

  Her heart pitter-pattered. She jumped out of bed and quickly checked herself in the mirror, straightening her now-wrinkled emerald gown. Okay, red puffy eyes were not her friend, but Kilter had seen her looking far worse.

  She walked down the stairs to the back door as he knocked for the third time. Impatient. Just like Kilter, she thought as she threw open the door and was met with two white fangs.

  Chapter 16

  Find a reason for her to live.

  Wow, Waleron; make my life a little easier, why don’t ya.

  Damien tenderly cleaned Abby’s hands, wincing at the raw flesh. He meticulously washed the wounds and dressed them, as he did every morning after she’d passed out from her night of ranting and raving. Okay, pleading, crying and begging too. And that was far worse than the anger.

  After he applied the salve, then bandages, he went to leave when her voice stopped him.

  “Don’t.”

  She never woke this early in the morning, he was anal about schedules and he damn well knew her schedule like clockwork. Wake at ten. Hungry—if she could keep it down—at noon, then sleep for a few more hours. Pyscho woman at eight or nine. Generally, he’d clean her wounds again in the late afternoon—when she was most cooperative for some reason. The calm before the storm.

  Her hand reached out and her fingers curled around his palm. They were childlike, delicate, and yet he had the scars to prove how damaging they could be. Her eyes were glassy and red-rimmed, and he yearned to pull her into his arms and take her pain away. He’d do anything to take it for his own.

  “Damn, Abby, don’t look at me like that.”

  She reached up and rested her palm on his cheek. He nearly fell off the bed onto his ass with the sudden warm gesture, but her eyes locked him in place, which kept him from making a complete fool of himself.

  “What’s the date?” she asked.

  “What
?”

  “The date?”

  “October third. Why?”

  She nodded, turning away. “It’s time, Damien,” she whispered. “I can’t do this. This is my fault. I should have never . . . I thought I could but . . . the pregnancy, then . . .”

  That jolted him back to being semi-sane, and it did land him on his ass he struggled to get away from her as fast as possible. He saw it, in her eyes, the resolution, the finality of what she was asking.

  She wanted him to kill her.

  “No!” he shouted. “Fuck no.” He scrambled to his feet and began to pace the length of the floor. “No. Do you hear me? Absolutely not.” He kept his head down, unable to look at her calm patient eyes that were Abby, not the raving one, the one that was resigning herself to death. “Are you mad? Do you know how long we’ve been here? Do you have any clue what you’ve survived? What I’ve survived. And now suddenly you wake up all sane and calm and decide that, yeah, Damien, you can kill me now. Jesus, Abb, don’t even ask me something like that. You have no right to ask me to do something like that.”

  “Damien,” she whispered, probably because her throat was hoarse from the night before. “Damien.”

  When she called his name a third time, he stopped pacing and looked over at the bed.

  “Will you talk to me? For a little while. You know, before I become a bitch again.” Abby gave a half-smile and he wasn’t sure if he trusted it. Her thirst for blood was stronger than her own willpower, no matter how much goodness she had left inside.

  Maybe if he talked to her he could find out what she loved. Give her a shred of hope to overpower the poison that was leaking religiously through her veins. One flicker of hope. That was all he needed. All she needed.

  Against his better judgment, he walked over to the side of the bed and sat, but it was awkward with his back half towards her, so he leaned against the headboard and stretched his legs out on the bed. A vulnerable position, but it was early morning and she’d be pretty weak.

  What he didn’t expect and, nearly sent him over the edge of the bed once more, was her sliding up against him and resting her head on his chest.

  He was about to get up when she said, “I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. So quiet and uncertain of yourself.” He snorted; he’d never been uncertain about anything in his life. She was either delusional or was thinking of someone else. “I remember the way you glanced at the other people around, watching what they were doing as they chose their fruits. You picked up the peach with your hand and gave it a squeeze. I remember thinking, wow, he is so gentle. The complete opposite of your expression.” Her head lay heavy on his chest, her check pressed against his ribs. “You put it back and then picked up another. You sure needed help picking out a peach.” He remembered thinking that the peaches were all crap. “I was about to come over, but you suddenly changed your mind. You threw down the peach as if it had herpes and picked up an apple instead, then strode down the aisle to the checkout.”

  “I never liked peaches,” Damien lied.

  He felt the corner of her lips curve upwards and he slowly lowered his arms—which he’d aptly placed behind his head to keep himself from doing exactly what he was going to do now—and placed his hand on top of her head. He didn’t stroke, didn’t caress, just rested his hand on her head and he felt the smile again.

  “You were attracted to me though,” she said. He grunted back his smile. “It didn’t take much more than dropping my basket and a quick spell to get the coke to explode, and I had your attention.”

  “You did that on purpose?” Damien asked, having honestly thought Abby had dropped her basket by accident. “Productive.”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes it gets me into trouble. Like now.” She was quiet for a minute, her breathing matching his. “I never anticipated you falling into bed with me. You’d know I was a witch as soon as you touched me. Why did you, Damien?”

  Wasn’t that the question of his immortal life. Because he’d been leaving to go back to Florida and knew he’d never see her again? Because she was sexy as hell and there was no strength on this universe that could have made him walk away from her? He liked to believe that he had just needed to get laid, but that was just an outright lie.

  “Damien?” she asked.

  “You should get some sleep,” he replied. Avoidance was the best option.

  She remained quiet for five minutes and he’d thought she’d fallen asleep when she spoke again.

  “What if I remain like this? I mean, never changing, but never being . . . well, normal. You can’t stay here babysitting me forever.”

  His hand automatically flexed into a fist in the bed sheets. “We’ll just take it day by day okay? That’s all I can handle, so we’ll see how each day goes and not keep track of how long it takes.” Yeah, like he could do that. He should take his own advice.

  “Liam. Is he looking for me?”

  “Not that I’m aware.” He spoke to Jedrik every week to keep him posted on the situation and Liam had been quiet as a mouse.

  “Strange,” she mumbled. She rubbed her cheek against his hip and he gritted his teeth to keep his loins in check. She sighed. “I find it odd that he didn’t come after us. Don’t you find that odd?”

  “No. Not if he knew who I was. He’d have been stupid to come after me.”

  She laughed and he swore his heart did a double beat at the sound he hadn’t heard since that day in the grocery store. The day they’d met and then had sex all through the night.

  “Cocky, arrogant and . . . not too shabby in bed.”

  “Shabby?” he stuttered with disbelief. He might have taken fewer than a dozen women to his bed in the two centuries he’d lived, but he was better than not too shabby. They’d done a marathon and then some.

  “I’ll never regret it.” Her voice was soft. “That night we had. Even if we lost something precious from it.” This was the first time she’d mentioned the loss of her child, and he felt a tug on his heart. Her child? No, it’d been their child. “Hey, Damien. I don’t think you should be near me anymore.”

  He was about to move away from the comfort of her body and then stopped. Maybe this would be a mistake, but he really had nothing to lose. He did something he’d never tried before— he held her closer, his arm coming around her back and his other curling in the palm of her hand that rested beneath her chin “What if we try and ride this one out together?”

  He didn’t need to see the tears to know she was crying, he felt the wetness on his shirt and his own eyes welled up. He silently prayed for the strength to carry this girl through another day.

  ****

  The instant Rayne saw the flashing white fangs she tried to slam the door, but his hand shoved into it, knocking her backwards off her feet, and she tumbled to her butt onto the hardwood floor.

  “Well, well, well, what do we have here? A present wrapped in a stunning emerald gown.” He kicked the door closed behind him and turned the bolt. She scuttled back on her hands, pushing with her feet until her back hit the wall, then crawled to her feet as he continued his approach.

  He stopped inches from her, leaning forward, placing his hands on the wall on either side of her head. A strong scent of black licorice plowed into her and she turned her head away. “I was not informed of how alluring you are. A mistake perhaps on his part. I was told to bring you back alive, but he said nothing about taking a taste.” He laughed at her shocked expression. “What? You’ve never been tasted by one of us?” She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. “It only hurts for a minute then—” he licked his lips, “—you feel weak. Unless of course, we drink too much, then you die.”

  No, her mind screamed. She wasn’t going back to being used. Not now. Not ever. His hand came up and she jerked her head away as he tried to brush a strand of hair aside.

  “One taste, sugar.”

  She made a cry deep in her throat and he chuckled.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you.” He ran his finger d
own the column of her throat and her stomach wretched with despair.

  No. This wasn’t happening. Six months. She’d only had six months and now . . . no, she’d rather die.

  She reacted, using the heel of her hand and shoving upwards into his nose.

  He shouted in agony as he stumbled backwards, holding his nose. She ran from the room, gripping the walls for support as her whole body trembled with alarm. She banged into the kitchen table and a glass went falling to the floor and shattered.

  Run, her mind screamed.

  Kilter.

  Oh God, if only she hadn’t pushed him away.

  “You bitch!” His shout came from right behind her, and she screamed as he dove and landed on top of her and they went sprawling into the glass-laden floor. Pain sliced her chest and legs as slivers cut through her dress into her skin.

  He took a handful of hair and jerked her head back. “I was going to be nice. Now I’m not.” He got to his feet, dragging her up with him. “Outside now,” he said.

  He shoved her ahead of him and she stumbled into the wall. Scream. Scream until your lungs bleed.

  Rayne screamed at the top of her lungs. He pulled her around, clamping his hand over her mouth as he slammed her head into the wall.

  Roarke had told her about one spot to use against Ben if he ever got too close. She raised her knee as hard as she could.

  He went down in a distorted shriek of agony. Vampire or not, they all had the same equipment.

  Rayne pushed him backwards with a hard shove in the chest and ran for the back door. Open, damn it. Open. She struggled with the bolt. Which way? Her hands shook so badly. It finally clicked and she flung it open.

  The night air slammed into her. She ran out into the back alley. A muttered oath and a grunt came from behind as he came after her.

  She kept running.

  She staggered as something hit her leg. It was a sharp burning pain that took her leg out from under her, and she fell to the unforgiving pavement.