“You think you can do that?”
“I can try. Turns out avoiding attachments really is a pretty effective mechanism for avoiding grief. You can’t lose what you don’t care about, right? But it’s a half-life. It’s empty. I don’t want to be empty anymore. I want this. I want you. For however long I can have you. Say it again.”
“I love you,” she breathed into his mouth as his lips captured hers in a tender kiss. When he drew away at last, he shifted his body, exposing the text inked on his ribcage. Elle ran a fingertip gently along the lines.
“Is this French? What does this say?”
“He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man. It’s a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a French aristocrat and writer. Basically, it means we never truly lose people as long as they live on in our hearts. I believed that once but I guess I let myself forget for a while.”
“Well, I don’t plan on becoming a memory anytime soon, but just in case, maybe I should work on giving you something to remember.” Elle narrowed her eyes.
“Ah, sweetness, you already have, you have no idea how much. But, hey, if you feel the need to put a little more effort into it, you won’t get any arguments from me,” he growled, tugging her hair to bring her lips down to his.
Elle lost herself in the rough touch of his hands, the feel of sleek muscle rippling beneath warm satin where her hands rested on his chest, the light scrape of his beard against her throat as he nuzzled there. Her heart raced at the way he breathed her name into her mouth before recapturing her lips.
“The bed would be a lot more comfortable,” he murmured against her mouth.
“M’kay,” she nipped at his lower lip with her teeth before pushing up from his chest. “Let’s…” Elle froze halfway to her feet and grabbed for the throw, wrapping it around herself with a shriek. “There’s someone out there!”
“Where?” Dimitri came to his feet in one fluid movement, pushing her behind him at the same time.
“The terrace,” she gasped in a shaky voice. “There’s someone out there watching us.” Gripping his shoulder, she felt the tension in him, but as she leaned to peek around him, his muscles eased under her hand.
“Galen,” he announced with a grunt. “Relax, the windows are tinted. He can’t see a thing.”
Dimitri bent and gathered up her clothes, pressing them into her arms and jerking his chin in the direction of the hallway. “Go ahead and get dressed.”
Snagging his pants from the floor, he poked his legs into them and yanked them up over his hips before moving toward the sliding doors. Elle clutched her things against her chest with one hand while holding the throw around her with the other and hurried in the direction he’d indicated.
Dimitri stepped to the glass, cranked the latch to the left, and slid open the door, moving aside as Galen stepped in dragging two suitcases behind him.
“Thanks, brother. I appreciate this. I know Elle will, too.” Dimitri grabbed the luggage Elle abandoned at the hotel that morning and placed it to the side, waving Galen to a chair and heading toward the kitchen. “Beer?”
“Sure. Found them in the manager’s office. Don’t think anyone had time yet to help themselves to anything.” Galen unzipped his leather jacket and dropped his ass into the chair. Stretching his long legs out in front of him, he crossed one booted foot over the other and reached for the beer Dimitri offered, taking a long pull. “Thanks.”
“It’s probably just clothes. She’s too smart to have left anything of value behind. They give you any trouble about claiming them?”
“Hard to say since I didn’t exactly ask,” Galen chuckled and Dimitri joined in as he dropped onto the sofa.
“So what’d you find out?”
“You just assume it’s been such a quiet night I went and checked out Gatewick’s compound?” Galen arched a brow in Dimitri’s direction.
“Well, let’s see… you’re here on a luggage delivery mission, parked on your ass, and drinking a beer so, yeah, I figured maybe you had some time on your hands.”
“Point taken.” Galen tipped the bottle in Dimitri’s direction with a grin before tilting it to his lips again. “Well, the place was right where Elle said it was. According to the sign, it’s an embryonic cryogenic storage facility.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient?” Dimitri’s lip curled.
“Well, it sure as hell gives him easy access doesn’t it? If he’s the one keeping the records, who’s going to notice if he helps himself to a frozen embryo or two for his own personal use? On the surface, the place looks like any other commercial building. But, something doesn’t add up. I couldn’t sense any mental activity, even though I saw at least two men enter the building while I watched. It was like the door closed behind them and they dropped off the grid.”
“The lab and living quarters are constructed below ground,” Elle announced woodenly as she shuffled back into the room in bare feet, her face flushed. Dimitri shifted on the sofa to make a space for her but she veered away and chose the chair next to the sofa and across from Galen instead. “From the inside, you can’t tell the living space is anything other than a real house. Very cozy, actually, but in reality it’s more like a secured bunker. I guess I should have thought the whole set-up was odd, but for years I never had any notion my home was any different from anyone else’s and when I did figure it out, Gatewick explained it away as a necessary evil required for security purposes.”
“You think that area is blocked somehow?”
Elle shrugged as though it made no difference to her one way or another.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Elle jumped and turned wide eyes in his direction as the thought he sent registered in her mind. He’d known as bound mates they would be able to communicate telepathically but he’d simply forgotten to mention it to Elle. He figured she’d have to forgive his oversight since it was her fault he’d been so pleasantly distracted in the first place. Just thinking of how pleasantly distracted got him hard as steel all over again. Instead of answering, she simply pressed her lips together and shook her head slightly before turning her attention back to Galen. Dimitri frowned. While there might be a lot of things he’d yet to learn about his mate, he knew her well enough to know when she was avoiding a question.
“Galen didn’t see a thing, if that’s what has you worried.”
“Are those my suitcases?” Elle jumped up suddenly and moved toward the luggage still sitting by the windows.
“Yeah, I asked Galen to get them from the hotel.” Dimitri frowned harder, pushing up from the sofa to his feet. What exactly crawled up her ass in the last five minutes? “It’s too risky for either of us to be seen at your place at the moment and I thought you might like to have some of your own things.”
“Thank you, Galen. That was very nice of you.” She threw the words over her shoulder without turning around, thus missing Galen’s casual shrug, and ignoring Dimitri completely. “In fact, since I have something to change into now, I think I’d like to take a shower if you don’t mind.”
“Why would I mind?”
Elle shrugged, bent to unzip the larger of the suitcases, and dug through the contents, tugging out a pair of faded jeans and an oversized sweatshirt. Tossing them on the floor beside her, she dug into an inside pocket for undies, then gathered everything together and rose to her feet. Dimitri came up right behind her, blocking her path, but she simply stepped around him as though he were a piece of inconveniently placed furniture.
“Thanks again, Galen. Now if you’ll excuse me?” Without so much as a glance in Dimitri’s direction, she spun on her heel and hurried down the hall toward the bathroom with the urgency of someone being pursued by demons.
What the hell?
Chapter Sixteen
Elle barely registered the low buzz of conversation behind her as Galen prepared to take his leave. She rushed into the bathroom, closed and locked the door, and
leaned against it, allowing her clothes to slip from her trembling fingers to the floor. Dimitri’s bathroom was surprisingly large for a city apartment, sleek and modern, chrome and granite, but Elle was far too distracted to appreciate the designer elegance or the alluring scent of leather, soap, and Dimitri permeating the space. When Galen appeared and she’d hightailed down the hall to dress, she’d initially stumbled into the second bedroom that Dimitri apparently used as a studio. When he’d said he painted a little as a way to endure loneliness, he may have been just a bit too modest. He was good, beyond good, really. It wasn’t so much that she’d been surprised to discover his incredible talent. It wasn’t that she was dumbfounded by his ability to flawlessly capture life-like realism. No, it was the subject of the portrait leaning against the studio wall which caused her pulse to race and her heart to doubt everything they’d just shared. No wonder Dimitri had found her past so easy to swallow. He’d probably known the truth all along.
Elle held her breath and swallowed hard over the painful lump in her throat as Dimitri’s measured tread approached the door. She simply could not comprehend misjudging him so completely. He couldn’t have simulated the actual binding. She’d felt the sensation and knew it was real. But just because they were meant for one another in some convoluted cosmic destiny didn’t mean he actually had to feel anything for her. That could be faked. Had she really let her desire for love and acceptance—and okay, her desire for Dimitri—blindly lead her down a fools’ path to a land of lies only to discover she was a means to an end, yet again? God, would she never learn?
Elle gasped and awkwardly knuckled the moisture from her eyes as the doorknob rattled. Whatever happened, she would never give him the satisfaction of knowing how deeply his subterfuge had wounded her.
“Elle, open the door.”
“I’m getting in the shower,” she croaked in a voice, that even to her own ears, sounded thick with tears.
“The shower isn’t going anywhere. Now open the door and talk to me.”
“Why don’t you just go out with Galen and kill something? I really don’t want to talk to you right now.”
Elle heard him draw in and blow out a deep breath and then suddenly he was in the bathroom, standing right in front of her.
“Hey, that’s not fair!”
“I never claimed to be fair. Now what’s your problem?”
Elle bit her lip and risked a glance at his face. His brows were drawn together, pleating his forehead and somehow combining impatience, exasperation, and tenderness all in one expression. Her stomach somersaulted at the genuine concern she saw in his eyes, and then she hardened her heart and straightened her spine. What was her problem? She was smart and resourceful and wrote stories about strong, independent heroines who didn’t wait for the hero to come along and make life worth living. Well, she could be that way too, right? So maybe she’d fallen hard for a big, ass-kicking angel with a soft spot he kept carefully hidden, but apparently, she’d given him too much credit. Even angels could have a secret agenda. It wasn’t like betrayal was a new experience. She could suck this up just like she’s sucked up everything else in her life. She would survive. She always had.
“Fine, you want to know what my problem is? I saw the painting.” Pouting and biting her tongue wouldn’t solve a thing. He wanted to know, then fine. She would call him on it and let him explain it. If he could.
His brows lowered even further. “So, let me get this straight. You’re pissed I have a hobby?”
“Don’t be deliberately obtuse, Radchenko. No wonder you came back night after night. Guardian Angel, my ass. It was never about me, never about my nightmares, was it? It was always about you and gaining revenge for what you’d lost. Did it ever enter that big, thick skull of yours that you could have simply asked me? It would have been a lot kinder than leading me to believe you actually cared.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ll be deeply insulted and completely pissed once I figure out what you’re talking about.”
“The painting you dim-wit! Did you honestly think I’d never find out? “
Dimitri’s brows flew in the opposite direction as though a light bulb had suddenly come on over his head and the tension in his posture visibly eased.
“Oh, that! Well damn, it wasn’t some deep, dark secret, but I could hardly carry it around in my wallet to show you, either.” The man grinned audaciously, but it quickly faded to a look of uncertainty as she continued to glower at him. “Frankly, I didn’t expect you to get upset being my subject. I take it you don’t like it? Maybe I should paint you wearing my T-shirt?”
“What in the hell are you talking about?” Elle ground out through teeth clenched so tightly her jaw was beginning to ache.
Dimitri dropped his chin to his chest and pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger. “Okay, let’s try this again. What in the hell are you talking about?”
“Chen! The big honking portrait of Chen in your studio!”
“What?”
A deep growl clawed its way out of Elle’s chest as she spun and wrenched the door open. Then she stomped across the hallway into the studio as Dimitri followed slowly behind. Her stomach churned like an industrial mixer and she swallowed back the bile, praying she wouldn’t embarrass herself by actually being sick. She couldn’t be mistaken about the face in the portrait, a face she knew as well as her own. She couldn’t believe he was going to play dumb and expect her to buy it. But dear God, she wanted to. If everything they’d shared was nothing but a ploy, she knew it would destroy something inside her she might never recover.
“Well?” She demanded as she halted in front of the canvas, annoyed to realize her voice was shaky and not nearly as firm and defiant as she’d intended.
“Well what?” Dimitri roared, throwing his hands in the air. “If you have something to say, just spit it out. Never was much good at games.”
“This…this,” she gestured at the portrait of an Asian man in a red silk tunic covered by an armor vest constructed of small rectangular bronze plates laced together in horizontal rows. “He’s Jebe, the Fallen you’ve been hunting for hundreds of years isn’t he? I guess you’d like me to believe it’s a coincidence that these days he’s known as Justin Chen, the man behind the money behind John Gatewick. You knew! You knew the truth about me all the time, didn’t you? I’m nothing more to you than a way to get to him!”
Dimitri froze and the eyes looking out at her were suddenly the cold, dead stare of a venomous snake.
“You know this man?” He barely whispered the words, but the tone was lethal.
“Don’t pretend that comes as a surprise. All those nights, sitting in the dark, seeing my nightmares, examining my memories. I thought…” Elle’s voice cracked. “I hoped you kept coming back because you were beginning to care about me, when all the time you were just looking for a way to get to him.”
For long, painful heartbeats, he continued to regard her with that hard angry stare. Then something flared in the depths of his dark eyes.
“If you regret what just happened, Arabella, say so. You don’t have to fabricate excuses to push me away. I’m going out for a while. Do not leave this apartment,” Dimitri growled before turning to leave.
“That’s it?” Elle cried in devastated disbelief. “You aren’t even going to deny it?”
“No.”
“I…see.” Feeling as though someone had just kicked her in the stomach, Elle resisted the urge to wrap her arms around herself and double over from the pain. She’d offered him everything, and he was walking out the door. She refused to let him see how deeply she was hurting. If pride was all she had left to call her own, then by damn she’d hang onto it with ragged, bloody fingernails.
“Actually it’s pretty clear you don’t see at all. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Do not leave this apartment.”
“What do you care?” Elle tossed her head defiantly. “You got what you wanted. There really isn’t any point in me sticking around, is
there?”
“Baby, I’m a patient man, but you’re really pushing right now. I’ll be back in a couple of hours, by which time I may have cooled down enough to talk to you about this. But right at this moment? Not so much. Go take a shower and go to bed. Or don’t. Just stay inside.” Without another word or glance, he stalked from the room and seconds later the front door slammed with enough force to rattle the walls.
Once he was gone, Elle gave up all pretense of control and allowed her trembling legs to buckle beneath her. Alone on the cold, hard floor of the empty studio, she hugged her knees to her chest. Dropping her forehead onto them, she let the tears come. She was dumbfounded at his departure. Wondering how she could have misjudged him so completely, she was unable to believe she’d trusted in someone’s love only to discover she’d been nothing but a pawn in a game she’d never agreed to play. Again. As the tears soaked through the knees of her jeans, she gasped for breath over the thick plug of grief clogging her throat and desperately wished for the familiarity of Kat’s apartment where she could wrap herself in her mind-numbing misery, sensing somehow Kat would know how to make her feel better. She’d no sooner pictured the place in her mind when with a whoosh of air and a dizzying ribbon of light, she found herself sitting on the floor of the McAllister’s living room. She picked her head up and looked around slowly, stunned to realize she’d somehow managed to fade without knowing how or having the slightest inkling she was able to do so. How the hell had that happened?
“Oh my God, my eyes!” Elle screeched as Kassian McAllister strolled casually out of the kitchen with a bottle of beer in one hand and a bottle of water in the other, wearing nothing but a smile that quickly morphed into a shocked scowl.
“Where in the hell did you come from?” Deftly transferring both bottles to one hand, he snatched the chenille throw from the back of the sofa and held it strategically in front of himself.
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