“Are you in love with someone else?” Steffy asked as she leveled a hard gaze at Hudson.
Not wanting to discuss this anymore, I went for a change of subject. “Let’s get class going. I’d like to spend some time with JP today. Ben was nice enough to take him to the park again today so that I could—”
At the mention of my son, a tickle in the air around me occurred and I knew he was place-jumping to me, despite Ben’s best efforts to stop it. Laughing, I spun and found a grinning little boy appearing next to Hudson, a stuffed wolf under one arm, a sippy cup in his hand.
There was another flash and Ben appeared, looking disheveled. “I swear I’m going to find a way to bind that power on him.”
“Please do,” I said, bending to pick up my son only to find him wanting Hudson to lift him.
Hudson picked him up and adjusted the stuffed wolf. JP nuzzled against Hudson’s neck and looked at me with sleepy eyes. Ben moved up behind him and rubbed JP’s back. “Someone is sleepy. We had lunch at the park and then we played with bubbles there. I think he’s ready for a nap.”
“So he found a Guardian to make that happen,” Shona said, laughing.
Grinning, I winked at her. “It looks as though I can exhale for a bit. Hudson is a regular Mary Poppins. Who knew,” I said, my voice shaking slightly due to the overwhelming emotions flooding through me. My time was so limited. Every passing day took me closer to my end. Soon my son would be alone.
“We’re all here to help, Ryan. He’s our boy too, just like you’re our little Ryan.”
Sighing, I put my arms out. “Group hug, girls. Shona is ruining you all.”
I glanced at Hudson, and something moved over his face that I couldn’t read. “You’re okay with me helping with him, right, Ryan? I don’t mind at all. Trust me, I’m the right man for the job.”
“I can understand if this is too much for you. You end up guarding two people, one of whom keeps calling you daddy. You end up on diaper duty and caring for a toddler two nights in a row.” Putting my arms out, I went to take James-Porter from him. JP buried his face into Hudson’s chest. “I’m sorry that he won’t stop.”
“He’s fine, Ryan. More than fine.”
Steffy took the diaper bag that had appeared when Ben arrived and set it on the edge of the stage. She turned and hopped over a wire that was there for the sound system. She winced a bit as she landed wrong on her foot.
“Lift your pant leg,” I said.
She did. I gasped when I saw her purple ankle. “Steffy, how did this happen?”
She didn’t answer me.
Becky moved forward and looked at me sheepishly. “Steffy wanted to surprise you by learning that one routine you showed us. The one you said we’d be able to do by the time we were ready to go out on our own. She didn’t want to tell anyone that she got hurt, because then Jude wouldn’t let her come to training.”
Dropping down, I put my hand on her ankle, smiling as I pumped energy through her ankle. Steffy gave me a questioning look. I sighed. “Ask what’s on your mind.”
“Shona said you’re the one who made Jude put the course in that allows you to call forth the demons and fight in front of us. Because it shows us what vampires look like in their demon form and what the lycans and weres look like as they shift. Is that true?”
I nodded and gave her a loving smile.
Wendy tapped my shoulder. “My mom says that Jude never used to let the slayers in training see that stuff. She said he made her group wait until they were shadowing other slayers in the field to see all of that. She said he listens to you because he’s still sweet on you.”
Biting back a laugh, I tipped my head. “I think Jude understands since he met me what can happen when someone is told about these things all their life but never actually sees one of them until they’re all alone and don’t understand it all.”
LeAnne ran up and pushed in next to Wendy. “Is it true? Did you get attacked and not know about them?”
“Okay, how about we talk about something else?” Tess intervened in an attempt to help me out.
I put my hand up and stopped her. “LeAnne, how do you know about that?”
She looked around at the other girls. “We all know…well, we kind of know. Sasha’s older sister dated this one vampire, but she didn’t know he was one at first, and he used to ask her to meet you.” LeAnne bit her lip and shrugged. “She caught on that he wasn’t what he said he was and hogtied him.”
I laughed and tried to hide it behind a cough. Shona did the same thing.
“Anyways, she beat him up until he told her why he wanted to meet you so bad. He told her that he wanted to meet the Blessed One. The one who was attacked by more of the darkness’ head generals and warriors than he could count. The one who—” She stopped, clearly uneasy about going on.
Becky stepped in to help out. “The one who didn’t even know they were real. And the one who was being attacked by vampires while her…umm…I don’t remember the rest.”
I smiled and looked up at Shona. “They’ve grown up a lot, haven’t they? They’re trying to find a tactful way to ask me about what happened.”
“Yeah, Ry. But you don’t need to bring that up if you don’t want to. You still don’t sleep right at night.”
I rubbed Steffy’s ankle lightly. “There you go.”
Steffy looked down at her ankle and drew in a sharp breath. “It’s fixed. I thought it was broken.”
“It was,” I said softly. I didn’t have a lot of spare energy, but what I did have could be harnessed into healing power for others—not myself.
No.
The Powers were too big of dicks to let me have that ability.
Steffy’s mouth dropped. “You are the Blessed One!”
13
Chapter 13
“I’m just me, honey. And to answer the questions you all are thinking but are afraid to ask for fear of hurting me—”
Shona moved forward. “Anyone want to play with my sword collection? Juggle knives? Anything?”
“It’s okay, Shona. They have every right to ask me this and I’d rather they hear it from me instead of some back-alley vamp who is probably still spreading it around the city.”
LeAnne shook her head. “Oh, no. Sasha’s sister dusted him and put the ashes in a baggie for you just in case it was true.”
Reaching out, I stroked her cheek. “Well, that was very sweet of her. I never really thought of starting a collection of ashes, but that might be fun. I’ll tell you what, when you all finish with us and Jude assigns you somewhere, you go ahead and do that for me. I promise I’ll keep them.”
“Come on, girls, I’ll even bring out the double-edged swords,” Shona said, clearly desperate to save me from having to answer them about the attack.
“Shona, I said it was fine and I mean it.”
Becky touched me lightly. “Did that happen to you?”
I nodded slowly, smiling gently. “Yes, honey, it did. You see, I wasn’t lucky like you all are. I didn’t get to come to Jude’s and learn how to do things like protect myself. You should all value every minute of what he does to assure you know how to stay alive.”
They all gasped. “You never learned how to do anything when you were our age?”
“Little things, but only if they involved escaping. I wasn’t permitted to learn anything but that. The big guys who run the show were afraid if I was exposed to violence at an early age, I’d be a monster when I was older. They had a date selected, one they knew my mate and I would meet on. I’d been trained all my life to let my sister fight the battles and to stay alive so that my mate would then take over and fight for me when I was older.”
Putting my hand out, I called upon my power and brought up an image of Eliza. The girls all gasped.
“You have a twin?” Jolie asked. “She has darker hair.”
“I had a twin, yes. That’s Eliza, or Liza if you knew her well. Her hair is black because she dyed it. She was a bit dark, but I lo
ved her for that. We were extremely close. She said she was my temporary Guardian until my real one, my mate, would come for me when I was twenty. She told me that The Powers sent two of us to be born, one to be the Blessed One,” I teared up a bit, “and one to be her protector until she wasn’t needed anymore. I had a lot of problems with this. To me she was priceless. To The Powers That Be, she was expendable. It’s enough to make me want to hate them. Sometimes I do, but not enough for me to turn to the side of bad.”
Shona bent down and touched my shoulder. I patted her hand and gave her a warm smile. “They only allowed Liza to teach me how to get away, how to stay alive. According to her, I needed to stay alive and get to my mate, who would then protect me, teach me to control my powers, teach me to protect myself, but most of all, take away the pain I have every day.”
“Pain?” Pennie asked.
Steffy nodded and a tear fell down her cheek. “Yeah, I didn’t tell anyone but Aunt Shona when I found Ryan lying on the floor in the office not that long ago.”
I glanced at Shona, confused. She nodded. “Ry, I didn’t want you upset someone else knew.”
Steffy stared up at me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. You kept begging someone to open the link more so you could make sure JP was taken care of. But whoever you were talking to wasn’t answering back.”
I forced a soft smile to my face. “Honey, Cowboy never answers back. And now is a very good time to remind you all if anything ever happens to me like that again, or worse, you’re not to touch my bare skin. Get one of your advisors. If Jude is close, get him first or even Hudson. Both can touch me without being hurt,” I looked at Shona and bit my lower lip, “I wear a necklace that is on a long chain so it will go over my head to help keep someone from having to rub against my skin to unclasp it.”
Shona kissed my forehead. “I can tell them all later, Ryan.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine.” I smiled at the girls. “If James-Porter is with me, pull your sleeve down to cover your skin with something. Take the chain off my neck, give it to him and order him to find his daddy. He’ll vanish, like I can do, and he’ll go to his father. Jude can find him. If I’m alone, just let me lie there.”
Becky frowned. “But why does that happen, Ryan? Why can’t we touch you if we find you hurt?”
“I’ll pull every weapon I have out. Let’s go—” Shona looked at me and her eyes glistened a bit.
“You’ll turn them into Dirty Harry by the end of the day,” I said laughing.
Shona glanced away with tears in her eyes. “I really don’t want to listen to how my best friend in the entire world depends on a man’s link with her to have her heart even beat and that he’s got the connection almost completely closed now. You’re starving to death because without his energy you can barely eat or drink and you almost never sleep anymore, except for Hudson showing up here and making you. If I see you sitting with your head back, I stop in my tracks because I’m afraid to know if you’re resting or gone.”
Her head dropped down as she averted her gaze. “Ben and Tess are the same way. Jude lurks in doorways scared to death that today will be the day your mate closes the link all the way, or that some other thing is going to show up and want you dead for having the First as a mate. Each day you wake up anymore is a blessing. You know it too. You know that at any minute you could drop again. I’ll tell them later, Ryan. I can’t go into this and put on a happy face. Not when I know the only reason you didn’t fight having a Guardian around is because you feel that bastard closing the link more and more every day.”
I let out a soft laugh though nothing was funny.
Shona stared at me with wide eyes. “Ryan, how is this funny? That’s why you only spend three hours a day at the most away from JP because you know that each time you see him may be your last.”
I shrugged and laughed again. “I know. And you’re right. I didn’t fight Franco about having Hudson here because I can feel…uhh…I need his help. I was laughing because as much as you didn’t want to tell them, you told them every bit of it, Shona.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, Ryan. I didn’t mean to…” She looked up towards Hudson and back at me. “I am so sorry.”
“I would have told the girls at some point soon so they’d understand not to touch me or try to help me in any way, and so they’d know to send James-Porter to his daddy. If Hudson is going to be around I might ask him to keep the ring on him so that no one would be hurt by touching me. The last thing I want to do is drain the life force of someone who is trying to help me.”
“Daddy like his ring?” James-Porter asked of Hudson. “Ring finds Daddy too. Love Daddy.”
Looking up, I found Hudson staring at me. Unshed tears filled his eyes as James-Porter kissed his cheek. Hudson looked at him with so much raw emotion that it moved me. “Daddy loves you, big boy.”
“Daddy is a wolf. JP is a wolf.”
Hudson let out a strained laugh. “Yes. Daddy is a wolf and JP is a wolf too. Grrr.”
JP’s eyes flashed to amber and then back. “Grr.”
I gasped.
Hudson kissed JP’s cheek and then rubbed his face to JP’s neck. “Grrr.”
JP cackled with laughter.
I sighed. It was important JP understood Hudson wasn’t his father. “Sweetie, Hudson is just—”
Tess gasped and stared at us with wide eyes. Knowing she could read James-Porter’s thoughts, I worried. “Why am I suddenly nervous?”
Tess smiled and looked relieved. “Umm, I’m sorry. Residual shock. I didn’t know the little guy realized all he does. Makes sense. Imprinted on him. Umm, Ryan, why don’t you go ahead and give Hudson the necklace now for safe keeping?”
“But James-Porter keeps calling—”
“Oh, worry about that later.”
Shrugging, I looked at Hudson. “Would you mind keeping it with you?”
Closing his eyes slightly, he pulled me into him and pressed his mouth to my ear. “I’m here. I’ll keep our family safe and you’re not leaving me.”
I kissed his cheek lightly and whispered back to him, “As romantic as that sounds, you just walked in on all of this. I’m just your charge. A charge you didn’t want. Remember?”
“Don’t, Ryan. I can help.”
I let my magik filter over the “little ears” in the room. They didn’t need to be part of the conversation.
“My mate is the only one who can fix it for good. You say you know him, but the fact you don’t have him standing here with us now to fix it says you know he’s worthless too.”
“Ryan, I need to talk to you—”
I cut him off. “I don’t want to talk to him or see him, Hudson. It’s probably too late for me anyways.”
“Why don’t you want to see him?”
“Because he told me he loved me and swore he’d come for me when it was time. He swore he’d keep the link open for me to get to him, to find him, just in case he didn’t remember. He said all kinds of things but never did one of them. He closed the link almost all the way about an hour after I sent him back. He never came when he was supposed to and I couldn’t find him anywhere when I needed him most. And he’s never once been there for me since then. He moved on with his life, and I tried to do the same.”
Hudson looked as though I’d punched him in the gut. It made my stomach clench. The thought of him being upset didn’t sit well with me and I couldn’t explain why. Giving in, I nodded. “I’ll tell you what. You can know what I know about him. If you know him then I’ll consider setting up a meeting for you and Jude to take JP to meet Cowboy, but I don’t want him in my life, Hudson.”
Wrapping his arm around me, Hudson held so tight that I thought he’d pop my head off. “Ryan.”
“You keep being this sweet to me and I’ll really believe you’re Cowboy. Then I’ll deck you and let Shona have at you. I’d really hate to hate you, Hudson.”
“You hate me, err, him?” he asked, his voice neutral.
“Almos
t. I know you probably think less of me for that, but I’ve gone through a lot because he didn’t come through on his end. I’ve suffered everyday needlessly because he has the link between us practically locked down. Hudson, I don’t want to leave JP without a mother, but I don’t get a choice. When Cowboy finally closes the link, I’ll die. See, my life, my son’s safety, all ride on a man who turned his back on me after years of being around one another every day.”
He shifted slightly and closed his eyes a bit. “Ryan, if…umm…suppose I know exactly how to get him here, how would he go about opening the link?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. But I know it would have to be done slowly because more is not better when it comes to me. If the link suddenly opened full blast, it would have the same effect on my system as shutting it completely.” I rubbed Hudson’s chest.
“Ryan?” Hudson asked, his voice thick with emotion.
“Yes.”
Kissing the top of my head, he gave me a quick squeeze. “Did you ever love him?”
“Umm, this isn’t something—”
“Shh,” he whispered. “I need to know.”
“I loved him more than anything in the world. But that wasn’t returned. So here I am. And I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Hudson. I want to enjoy the time I have left with my son.”
“I can do that and so much more, honey. You just have to let me.”
“I don’t know if I can,” I said, sighing.
Dropping the magikal barrier between us and the girls, I put my arms out. “Are we having a party or what?”
The girls stood there, somber looks upon all their faces. I scrambled to find a way to make them all feel better. It hit me. “It wasn’t all bad. Here. I’ll show you a kind of fun moment from when I was young.”
Truth was, only half the moment was good. The rest sucked.
14
Chapter 14
Crossing Hudson Page 13