by K H Lemoyne
Tomorrow was soon enough to deal with reality and the threat to their lives.
CHAPTER 17
Turen roped his arm around Mia’s hips and snagged her back to the bed before she could slide into her bathrobe. Sunbeams angled across the delicate curve of her back and illuminated the twin dimples punctuating either side of her tailbone. He buried his face against one, rubbed his cheek against the soft skin, and kissed the sweet spot.
“If it hadn’t been for the baby, would you have let me find you?” he asked.
Her body shifted with her hesitation, but he held her firm.
“You were very determined in detailing the consequences of being caught by your people. I tried to respect your wishes.” Her voice had dropped an octave to a quiet, sad register. “The baby gave me the courage I needed to fight for you.”
An honest answer. Mia had evidently learned hard lessons from her marriage. Painful, unnecessary lessons offering her no understanding of the mating bond his people experienced.
No. That wasn’t true. She understood commitment better than most of his kind. Her trust of him flourished from instinct. Her acceptance of him, especially given their difficulties, made her extraordinary. She’d returned to him repeatedly, had delved into areas foreign to the nature of humans and battled his past and prejudices. Her courage and strength had forced him beyond his people’s dictates. His throat tightened as he pressed another kiss to her skin.
She was the one clear decision in his life. Yet she had been steps ahead of him at every turn, giving him back hopes he’d long ago discarded.
“You shouldn’t have had to fight for me.” He kept his head close to her body. “I came for you. I’m yours. Always remember that. Salvatore’s edict only made it imperative I eliminate the threats to you first.”
She started to turn in his arms. He held her instead and licked the side of the dimple, close to her spine, until she shivered.
“What did you do?”
He kissed his way to the slope of her neck. “What did you feel?”
“Do it again.”
With a chuckle, he stroked the small mark on her body with his thumb, rubbing circles, alternating pressure.
“Oh.” She gasped and wiggled in his grasp. “That feels so—”
“Come, I’ll show you.” With a quick move, he sprang from the bed and tugged her to the bathroom. A frown marred her brows as he pulled her to his chest and nodded over her shoulder to the bathroom mirror. “Look.”
Under her scrutiny, his hand stroked over the mark. Her fingers dug into his shoulder as a shiver convulsed along her body.
Mia took a deep breath and pushed him away, needing confirmation with her own eyes. The turn was awkward, the spot almost out of her vision, and she had to hitch her hip on the counter to get a closer look. The tiny faint blue swirl of lines and curves were no larger than a quarter. A mushroom of heat spiraled through every nerve at his touch. The tiny sparks cascaded in climaxes beneath her muscle and skin. Now she understood his reluctance to let her touch his mark last night. “Do you feel the same—”
The curve of his lips claimed arrogance, and the rise of an eyebrow signaled promise. She moved a bit farther back, not wanting the promise to take hold quite yet.
“I didn’t have much control last night.” The warmth of his breath feathered across her ear. “My plans for you weren’t intended to be quick. You fracture my control.”
“Just me?”
The eyebrow dropped, and his hands slid around her hips, bringing her in full contact with his body. “Only you, ever.”
She sucked in a deep breath and leaned closer, allowing his fingers to play across the lines of the mark, holding back her response against the whirl of sensations the touch flamed.
He planted a kiss on her forehead. “Let me guess, you’ve read about these, too.”
“Sort of.” She ducked her head and turned for another check. “I can’t see it very well, though. Could you take a picture?”
His mouth dropped open and the brow went up again, but he gave her a nod. Hurrying before he had time to change his mind, she slipped from his arms and back to the bedroom to dig through the drawers in her bureau.
With minimal instruction, she indicated how to take the shot and waited patiently while he adjusted and knelt to get a good angle. It wasn’t until his kisses started along the cheeks of her derrière and his fingers teased the mark that she caught his intent. One halfhearted laugh and she spun out of his grasp. “I guess I’m lucky it’s not imprinted on my forehead.”
“Marks are usually in discreet places,” he said with a grin. “At least on women.”
“This stays on me forever?”
“Consider yourself branded for life, my gift to you.” He swiped at her again, and she danced out of his reach. Grabbing her robe, she slid one arm in and raised a finger of warning to the wicked expression on his face. She turned the camera in her other hand. It took a little enhancement to view the lines, a graceful blend of flames and letters, matched in perfect miniature to those on him.
He held the other side of her robe for her and kissed her bare shoulder before the material covered it. She tossed the camera onto the bed and deliberately brushed her fingers across his mark. The quick shiver of her own body’s response took her by surprise. She halted her question at the expression on his face. His half-lidded gaze and the deep, quick inhale acknowledged the sensations went both ways for both marks.
With a chuckle, she brushed over him again. “Hmm, so many possibilities.”
He grasped her fingers, brought them to his teeth, exacting a slow, hard nip. “Don’t start what you’re not going to finish.”
She withdrew her fingers and roped the sash of her robe. “Oh, I’ll finish this later. It’ll be fun making you beg for a change.”
“This evil side to your personality disturbs me, Mia.”
He turned and slid into his jeans, giving her a prolonged view at his well-muscled backside, proving he could dish out the punishment as well as she could. Caught off guard, she found herself back in his arms with his lips nuzzling at her neck.
“You’re right, later.” Mia forced herself to push him away. “The mark reminded me there’s something I need to show you.” Not something she wanted to do, but the delivery of the information wouldn’t get easier with time.
She linked her fingers with his and led him into her office. While they waited for the computer to boot, she handed him the police files from Tucson. He gave them a cursory flip-through but shook his head and handed them back. “These are from your collaboration with the crime reporter.”
“You’ve been checking up on me?”
“I made sure no one else can,” he said, his jaw tense and his eyes dark with concern.
Mia nodded absently. “Did you ever meet the man Isabella found to help get in contact with Xavier?”
He looked away and back. “They were gone by the time I got there. I’ve learned a fair amount about Marco since then, seen older photos, nothing recent.”
“Would you have recognized him—if he was one of your people?”
Turen frowned and straightened in his seat. “I can usually tell, yes.”
“Could you tell with Maitea?”
His eyes opened wider, but he hesitated. That he hadn’t considered Maitea’s background was obvious. Given the Guardians’ limited access to information on their past, they’d probably considered Maitea a lost Guardian, never questioning the premise once she appeared with Xavier at the Sanctum as his mate. A foregone conclusion once made, never reconsidered.
“Where is this going?”
Mia inserted the thumb drive and brought up the autopsy photos, motioning him closer. “These are difficult to see, but bear with me. I’d rather not explain because I need your gut reaction.” She grasped his hand for a second, not willing to produce a trite apology.
She opened the pictures of Isa’s mark she’d created, not seeing a need to expose the woman’s dead naked bod
y to Turen’s view. He’d known Isa, had been raised with her. The evidence of her death would only make the wound rawer. With the cop, she had no choice, and she felt Turen tense beside her at the sight of the figure.
“Definitely him. I’m missing the point.” He nodded, a harsh tone deepening his voice.
She opened the enhanced pictures. “These are the shots I sent in the emails to Xavier, the ones that provoked him to come to the park. I only sent Isa’s to your people. However, to Xavier, I sent both. So he’d know I had proof.” She enlarged the picture of the cop’s tattooed body she’d outlined and displayed it beside the image of Isa’s mark.
Turen leaned forward, his gaze riveted to the images. She suspected he was doing the same thing she had, trying to dismiss the obvious as coincidence.
“Go back. Show me his image again. Please.”
She did, and after a few minutes, he sat back in his chair with a heavy sigh and stared at her. Every line on his face carried grief. “You’re incredibly good at ferreting out information.”
She gave him a sad smile. “There’s more.”
Part of her wanted to forgo the rest of this exercise, but perhaps somewhere in the pain it would give Turen some peace. She opened the two pictures of the translucent images of the victims, Marco’s and Isa’s wounds marked by Mia in blue. She didn’t have a choice but to show the full naked shots, though most of what showed was their outlines and the horrific blue slashes.
“Mason’s theory couldn’t be officially substantiated because the medical examiner died in an accident soon after finishing his report.” Mia layered Marco’s image over Isa’s, like one piece of glass on top of another. “The marks on Isa’s hands and Marco’s arms suggest they were wrapped around each other when she was attacked.” She reversed the phantom images, a clear correlation obvious in the wounds aligning through Marco into Isa’s body.
Turen closed his eyes, yet not before Mia saw her own soul-wrenching pain and regret mirrored there. He’d confirmed her assumption. Isa and Marco were mates, and if only for those last brutal moments, Isa had tried to fend off the attacks to Marco with her hands and arms, even as he tried to shield her.
She closed the files. Turen slid his arm around her and buried his face in her hair.
“There’s one more thing.” She hated this. It was like gouging him with hot irons, but he needed to know. Once done, they could move on to harder things.
He nodded. His motion didn’t release his hold on her a fraction of an inch, though he remained silent and waited.
“Given her powers and folding ability, it stands to reason that she either couldn’t fight this individual or knew it wouldn’t do any good.”
***
Mia flipped on the slow cooker and watched the garage doors. Turen had been out there for several hours. She’d left him to his own devices. He needed time to digest her information and begin to deal with his grief, now compounded by the loss of another mated pair of his people. Even harsher was the likelihood one of their own had perpetrated the murders with cold, brutal calculation.
He had been out there long enough.
Reaching the garage doors, she swung them wide and looked around at the accumulated pile of metal odds and ends at the edge of her sword practice area. With her growing middle, she’d let her practice slide, but these piles were fresh and Turen sat in the middle, focused on his inspection.
“Recycling for me?”
He looked up in surprise and gave her a soft smile. “Have I been out here so long?”
She sat on one of the nearby boxes. “Couple hours. So this is—”
“Some will be melted down and the rest will be the basis for modules to maintain a security perimeter around your property. We need a bit more space than just the house. This won’t interfere with humans, only provide a shield against detection from my people.” He paused, evidently sensing her concern. “Once it’s up, you won’t even know it’s there. It will blend.”
“I’m not worried about intrusion. How are you going to reconstruct all this metal?”
He rested a hand on one knee, surveyed the garage and then back at her. “I’ll show you if you tell me what all these burn marks are on the floor, and this.” He held up her attorney’s courier packet with the details of the lawsuit for Alex’s lover.
“I’m not discussing that.” She motioned to the packet with a quick flick of her hand.
He stared at her for several seconds, finally gave a nod, and pitched the packet back onto the pile of junk at the far side of the garage.
“The marks are the result of following your training routines.”
Two of his fingers rolled in a circle to spin her explanation forward. “Go on.”
She bit her lip, took a deep breath, and held up her hand. The focus and control, which had eluded her for the first several weeks of training, proved fluid now, with the exception of moments of stress. She closed her eyes until the image of her palm was clear in her mind and opened them again to finalize control. A tiny flame, purple, pink and green striped, swirled like a candy cane and issued forth as she aimed toward a free spot on the concrete and released the fire.
At Turen’s loud, deep laugh, she crossed her arms and glared at him. This was her best effort, controlled and precise. How dare he laugh at her?
Two long steps and he pulled her to him before she had time to work up any anger. “I’m not laughing at you, Mia. Cross my heart.” He leaned back to stare at her. “I suspected it was something like that. You lit into Xavier in the park, didn’t you?”
She pursed her lips and snorted. “He was pushing me too hard, and I got a little unnerved. It was only a small spark.”
A quick, wide grin split his face.
“I tried to hold it in because I didn’t understand it and hadn’t mastered control. I didn’t want the others to know and assume I was more dangerous than I was.”
He tilted his head and brushed his fingers down the side of her cheek. “And now you’ve figured it out?”
The image of the mark on her back flashed through her mind, the one she hadn’t been able to find by herself, and glanced at his face. “It’s your power.”
He moved back several feet across the garage and gestured to her, his hand extended. “Send me a flame.”
The sparkle in his eyes held an almost boyish excitement. She bit back a rise of concern and glanced from the scorch marks on the floor to his hand.
Palm held up to her, he nodded again in encouragement. “Trust me, love, you won’t hurt me.”
With a longer breath this time, she closed her eyes to focus and then opened them again. The curl of flame, the dance of colors, all responded to her beckon. Concentration narrowed to the center of his hand, she released her flame. The erratic path, unfortunately, announced her reluctance to get the flame near him. The flickering rainbow jogged to his hand, changed to a brilliant orange, raced around his torso, and engulfed him, head to toe.
She screamed his name and rushed forward, prepared to beat the flames with her hands.
“Mia.” The fire disappeared. She was in his arms, shaking uncontrollably, his hand cupping her head to his chest. “It’s okay, love. It doesn’t hurt me. I’m fine.”
The image stayed with her. She gripped his shirt, refusing to let go as she struggled to breathe and infuse calm. “It’s terrifying to see. I didn’t think—”
He kissed her hair and stroked her back until the trembling eased.
“It’s part of me.” Tipping her chin, he searched her face for a response. “Now it’s part of you too, though I’ve never had a crayon box of colors.”
His smile widened with her swat to his shoulder.
“Don’t you dare make fun of me.”
“On my honor, I wouldn’t dare. I’m amazed you managed to get control of the ability.” He pulled her close again. “I had to do it alone, and it took me years.” He whispered the last into her hair, regret thick in his tone.
She wasn’t about to let him go
down a path of guilt. “I didn’t do this alone. Those marks are from me going through every instruction you gave me. Over and over and over. It was—disturbing the first time it happened.” She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “I figured maybe I could use it and not be so weak if I showed up in Xavier’s compound again. The control has gotten easier.”
He rubbed his thumb along her jaw. “Love, there is nothing weak about you. Your will is stronger than anyone I know.”
“Would it hurt the baby?”
He started to answer and hesitated. “I don’t know. My instinct would be to say no. He’s a part of us. What doesn’t hurt us shouldn’t hurt him, especially until he reaches maturity, but…” He shook his head. “I just don’t know.”
“Being with you has changed me. Will it change him, too?”
He pulled back, concern obvious in his cool gray eyes. “It must be difficult to suddenly have so many strange things to deal with.”
“Remember, not a china doll.” She reached up and patted his cheek. “I can’t say it hasn’t taken some getting used to, though nothing in my life has changed that wasn’t for the better.”
“You’re not a normal human anymore. Most people don’t like to be different.”
What, he was saving her from herself now? “Is it so hard to have superhuman powers?”
Turen looked into her eyes with a sadness she wouldn’t have expected from her sarcastic remark. “Mia, these changes give more power, but they don’t come with added wisdom to counter needs for anger and vengeance. That’s something each one of us works very hard to control. Harm. Death. They carry a heavy weight, no matter how justified.”
She leaned closer. “Do you regret your abilities?”
He closed his eyes for a brief second and then met her gaze again; certainty rested there. “No, they’re part of me.”
He unwound one of her fingers still tightly gripping his hand and brought them to his lips. The gesture gave her courage to ask more. “Was Isa’s power related to music?”