by L. L. Foster
She had a duty, not only to herself, but to the person now suffering, the person being bled dry. Straining, her feet heavy and her heart clenched, she took two more steps.
The skies lit up. Nature did a full display, sending a bolt of electricity to splinter the air while a cannonade of thunder shook the ground beneath her feet. Gaby’s world squeezed in, turned black and bleak and empty of free volition.
For as long as she could remember it had been this way. Father Mullond, the man who had taken her in and tried to assist her, God rest his soul, had blamed the manner of her mother’s death for the irrational fear.
A deadly lightning strike had stolen her mother’s heartbeat. As her heart had stopped beating, Gaby came into the world—an orphan.
It was a fucked-up way to be born, and had set the tone for a life that deviated from any kind of normalcy.
Whether it was an honest recollection from birth or a learned fear from the stories told her by foster parents, she didn’t know. She fucking well didn’t care. Storms paralyzed her. Fear was fear, and for Gaby Cody—paladin, warrior against evil—it was unacceptable.
And still, she couldn’t get her fucking limbs to move.
Icy rain soaked through her meager clothes, chilled her down to her bones, and prickled her flesh. She could have stood there and died except that she heard the moan.
Not a loud moan. Not a piteous cry that others would have detected. It was faint with weakness, a meager tone that depicted resignation to death.
“Oh God.” Fighting the fear with everything she had, Gaby stumbled forward. Her muscles cramped; her thoughts were wild and scattered. But that sound drew her and she inched closer to it, closer to that deteriorated structure that once might have been a home.
Empty windows framed lush spiderwebs filled with bloated white eggs.
Dead moths littered the pathway, mixed with brittle leaves and some broken beer bottles.
All around the house, a murky aura of misery and malevolence shimmered in and out of the dank air.
The evil lurked inside, doing its foul work.
Another crack of electricity split the skies with a fantastic display of light and power. Gaby collapsed against the side of the house, her eyes going unseeing again. No, not now. God, please not now.
But the rain pounded down in a deafening deluge as the heavens thundered and crashed. Terror pervaded her every limb.
How long she slumped there, shivering and useless, she didn’t know. It felt like an eternity. She hated herself and her weakness, hated that someone suffered while she did nothing.
And then warmth enfolded her; lips touched her temple and she knew.
“Luther?” The whisper was strained, barely audible. His nearness cleared her vision and she saw again that tragic aura circling the house . . . and fading.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you.” He lifted one of her hands and put it under his shirt, against the heat of his powerful chest and the reassuring thump of his steady heartbeat. His forehead rested against hers. “I don’t like it when you leave me, Gaby.”
She didn’t know if he meant physically leaving him—which she had done—or emotionally leaving him—which she also had done. She swallowed the bitterness of defeat and whispered so faintly that her voice barely carried over the violence of the storm, “Can you hear him?”
Luther went on alert, jerked around, searching the vacant area. When he saw no one, he turned back to Gaby, his big hands clasping her upper arms with urgency. “Who?”
“Inside. He’s . . . inside. In terrible pain.” This close to Luther, the awful gripping trepidation eased and her voice gained strength. “He’s sinking into the abyss, Luther. You have to hurry.”
He tilted her back to study her face, and she felt his alarm.
Because he believed her.
His trust helped to strengthen her, too. “Hurry, Luther.”
“Where is he, Gaby? Inside where?”
She turned her head enough to look at the blackened, empty front window of that forsaken home. “There.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “He doesn’t have much longer to live.”
Luther’s beautiful brown eyes flashed with comprehension. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right back.” He settled her down on the stoop and reached for the door. The knob turned, and a harsh wind jerked it from Luther’s hand, crashing it against a crumbling wall. Plaster and dust rose into the damp, chilled air, caught in the wind, and swirled away.
Gun drawn, Luther ventured into the tenebrous core of evil.
The second he left her, coldness and despondency mauled back into Gaby, sending pain into her restricted lungs, narrowing her sight to pinpricks of indistinct light.
Sometime after tunnel vision had closed in on her, Luther rushed back outside. He gathered her close even as he snapped out orders into his radio. The festering fear made it difficult for Gaby to focus, but she grasped that he wanted his partner, Ann Kennedy, to join him, and an ambulance.
When he said, “And bring some tools—something to cut through chains and locks,” Gaby stirred. Chains? Locks?
Voice grim, Luther added to Ann, “Yeah, you heard me right. The poor bastard is shackled down tight to the floor.”
By the time the street filled with police cars, lights, and sirens, the storm had turned fierce beyond anything Gaby had ever experienced.
Was this a precursor to her life with Luther?
Did God want her to understand the folly of trying to cultivate a relationship?
Concentrating on that thought, along with Luther’s nearness, gave her a means to ward off the phobia. To his credit, Luther managed to do his job and watch over her at the same time. Did he expect her to run off screaming? Or to interfere, as she wanted to do?
He’d seen her in a storm only once before. After this, he’d never forget the effect it had on her.
Shame at the insidious weakness bit into her, but even that couldn’t shake the last residue of panic. She was cursed, in more ways than one.
Chapter 2
Frustration decimated Luther’s last ounce of patience. The ferocity of the storm didn’t help, hampering everything that needed to be done, inhibiting the forensic work. More than two hours passed before he could get Gaby into his car to take her home.
All the while he’d given orders—overseeing the nearly wasted body into an ambulance, assigning a few uniformed cops to keep watch, directing others within the old house—and at the same time, tried to help Gaby. Unsure of how she might react, he hadn’t wanted her out of his reach. That meant the only way to get her out of the rain was to take her just inside the house.
She’d sat in a dusty corner, eyes unfocused, pulse racing. Fear held her as securely as the chains held their victim.
Even like this, in a state of sheer panic, she remained untouchable by most. Ann had tried to speak with her, but got no response. Only when he could put aside his duty and touch her did she show any sign of comprehension.
How someone could live with such a debilitating fear, he couldn’t imagine. For someone of Gaby’s dominating character, it’d be the worst of handicaps. She was a doer, someone who wanted and needed to help others. When fear held her back, it would be unbearable.
Was her phobia of storms due in part to her many years under foster care? Not that Luther could entirely blame people who’d only wanted to help a little girl and instead had gotten a preternatural child with immeasurable abilities few would ever understand or accept.
Seeing the barren perception in her eyes twisted Luther’s heart. Only the very certain belief that Gaby would resent herself more if he hadn’t done his job had kept him from removing her from the scene earlier. But he had fulfilled his duty as a detective and now he wanted to concentrate on her.
When they were both safely ensconced in his car, he kicked on the heater and rubbed her thigh. “Gaby? We’re going home now.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed, but she didn’t reply.
He drove away from the scene. Rain
drenched her clothes and he realized he needed to get her warm and dry. She shivered in misery—and so much more.
“The guy we found . . . he was as close to death as I’ve ever seen anyone.” Why he kept talking, Luther wasn’t sure, but he wanted her to know how she’d helped. “Thank you for leading me to him.”
A shiver ran through her, but she didn’t reply.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Luther said, “so I don’t know if he’ll make it. But if he does, he has you to thank.”
Gaby frowned a little, either in disagreement, or in surprise that she’d heard him, that his voice had registered beyond her palpitating despair.
Understanding Gaby as he did now, he could easily guess how she’d hate her inability to act. He felt a desperate need to reassure her. “I know how hard this is for you. But you got him help, Gaby. You pushed past the fear and made sure we knew about him.”
Her lashes fluttered, her mouth tightened the tiniest bit.
“You’re the most courageous person I know, and that’s saying a lot, given the honorable men I’ve worked with.” He glanced at her, rubbed her leg again while steering one-handed. “I don’t know if we got to him in time, though. I’ve never seen anyone so white or weak. Another hour and he’d have been dead.”
He took her left hand, lifted it to his mouth and let his warm breath soothe the iciness away. He saw her eyelashes flicker again, and her tongue came out to moisten her bottom lip.
That encouraged Luther. “He’s an addict, Gaby, like the other, with plenty of track marks. But I saw nothing to say he’d been deliberately bled.”
Her struggle to focus left her voice raw and deep. “He was.”
“Okay.” Thrilled to hear her voice, Luther squeezed her fingers. “I believe you.”
The car grew almost uncomfortably warm, but he didn’t turn down the blower. The fact that she’d spoken proved that some of her abyssal terror had waned. “Once the doctors have looked him over, they’ll call me. We can confirm things then.”
“They won’t know where to look.” Her expression pinched in pain, and she closed her eyes a moment to concentrate. “You’ll have to insist.”
Again he said, “Okay.” He couldn’t help but smile a little, mostly with relief. Bossiness crept back into her manner, reassuring him that she’d be her old self in no time.
With her free hand, she toyed with the choker he’d bought her, the choker she never removed. “I fucking hate storms.”
“I noticed.” Her grumbling delighted him; her acceptance of his gift thrilled him more. The choker was the only jewelry she ever wore. “It’s better now that we’re in the car, out of it?”
She nodded, and turned her face away.
Though she remained too tense, and far too pale, Luther let it go, content to touch her as he drove cautiously along the roads until he finally turned into his driveway. “Want me to pull into the garage?” He usually didn’t, but if it’d make things easier for Gaby, he didn’t mind.
She stared out the window, filled her lungs with a very deep, fortifying breath, and—without replying—opened her door and got out.
A gigantic lightning bolt ripped apart the sky and crackled along the ground. Deafening thunder shook the air around them.
Gaby froze again.
“Damn it.” Luther rushed around to her, gathered her close, and led her inside. She’d again retreated into herself, into some safe haven where he couldn’t reach her. Luther wanted to howl at the storm for doing this to her, and he wanted to go back into her past and find everyone responsible for ever hurting her.
“Come here, Gaby. Let me help you.”
When he tugged on her arms, she moved as directed, but with a zombielike void of comprehension. On the tile entry, they both dripped puddles. Luther locked the door and turned to her. Her colorless lips trembled.
A tidal wave of emotion rose to choke him.
Luther hugged her close, rubbed her chilled arms, and kissed her throat. She didn’t thaw at all. He needed to get her warm, and fast, but he couldn’t. Not while she wore cold, rain-soaked clothes.
Kissing her made him feel better, and even now, with her being so emotionally wounded, the taste of her satisfied something deep inside him, something he’d never experienced with any other woman.
Though Luther’s ardor grew, Gaby didn’t make a single sound, and he hated that. “To hell with it.” He knew what he wanted to do, knew the best way to reach her.
Leaving her for only a moment, he went to the adjacent living room and closed the drapes, and then turned on the television. Maybe if she couldn’t see and hear the storm, it wouldn’t bother her so deeply.
Gaby stood frozen where he’d left her as he went down the hall to the guest bathroom to gather up a few towels. When he returned to her he smoothed her dark hair away from her face. With his heart pounding, he kissed her mouth and, little by little, her icy lips thawed.
“Gaby.” His mouth still touching hers, he looked at her, and then covered her left breast with his palm.
Her eyelashes fluttered, so he kissed her again, deeper this time, as he cuddled her breast.
It appalled Luther that he was turned on while she stood paralyzed by terror. Maybe it was seeing her quiescent for a change instead of defiant, maybe it was that for once she didn’t scald him with her acerbic disdain.
Whatever logic he applied, he shook with wanting her. Lust roughened his voice as he spoke. “Let’s get you out of these wet clothes and warmed up.”
For most women, what he was about to do would be unethical in the extreme, even illegal. But for Gaby, it was the only way he knew to help her.
Her shirt stuck to her skin as he wrestled it up and over her head. It hit the tiled foyer with a sodden plop. Luther looked at her, at her small breasts and her nipples drawn tight by cold, and knew he was a goner.
Using one of the towels, he squeezed excess water from her hair and then dried her torso. And because he couldn’t help himself, he kissed her again, on her soft, pale lips, her nose, her chin.
“I’ll have you warm soon, I promise.”
The waistband of her loose, worn jeans curled outward from her thin frame, exposing her narrow hip bones and a tantalizing navel within a concave belly. Around her waist, Luther saw the thin leather belt that held her lethal blade in a sheath concealed at the small of her back. The stark reminder of who Gaby was, and what she did, didn’t faze him. He knew her, and he accepted her.
Cautious, because Gaby could be unpredictable at the most unexpected times, Luther unfastened and removed the sheathed knife from her person. Her lips firmed and her brows pinched, proof that even while in a stupor, she didn’t like losing her knife.
Keeping his gaze on her, he placed the weapon on the hall table for safekeeping. “It’s okay. No one is here but us. The knife’s not going anywhere, I promise.”
The suffocating fear had such a stranglehold on Gaby that she offered no further challenge or protest. Now, at this particular moment, she looked small and feminine and vulnerable when normally those terms could never be applied to her.
The chilly room gave her a shiver, and Luther’s gaze again went to her exposed breasts. For only a few seconds, he covered each breast, cuddled her, gave her his warmth. Then he forced himself to keep his brain on task.
Yes, he planned to pay plenty of attention to those pert breasts, but not yet. First he wanted her more comfortable, and that meant removing the rest of her clothes—and his.
Going to one knee, he slipped off her sandals, thinking to himself that with the cooling weather, she’d need some different, warmer outfits.
When she’d moved in, she insisted on having her own room—not to be apart from him, but for privacy of other matters.
What those matters might be, Luther didn’t yet know. Gaby would tell him in her own good time.
To accomplish his plans of getting closer to her, he’d gladly given her the spare room. Refusing his help, she’d carried in a few small box
es and a larger trunk that held God only knew what. She’d stowed it all in the room. Maybe she had some warmer clothes in there.
After she came around, he’d ask her.
Her soaked-through jeans, even a size too large, proved tricky to get down her hips. But once Luther had them to her knees he discovered her lack of panties.
Damn. He’d forgotten her rush in dressing, and her general lack of modesty. Gaby gave no more notice to her body than she did her attire. She lacked any real grasp of her sexual appeal.
He was only a man, and he wanted her, had wanted her for a long time. Seeing her naked again, her fair skin teased with goose bumps, tested his control.
On his knees in front of her, Luther reached around her body to palm one firm cheek. He wanted to kiss her belly—and more—but Gaby made a small sound that jerked him back to reality.
Standing in a rush, he grabbed a towel and dried off the rest of her body, lingering on that sweet ass, and over her belly, between her thighs. By the time he wrapped the towel around her, he had enough heat to warm them both.
Naked except for the towel and choker, Gaby stood there before him and did nothing.
“Hang on, honey. Let me get rid of my clothes, too, and then we’ll get . . . comfortable.”
Saying it caused his dick to flex, to stiffen, but he couldn’t help that either. He’d made up his mind and it was the only way he knew to break the spell.
He stripped his clothes with swift urgency, putting his badge, gun and holster, cell phone, radio, and wallet on the table by her knife. Seeing the items side by side gave the differences in their lives a harsh reality.
He had everyday items used by most of society to stay in touch with others, to label him as a cop, and to defend. For Gaby, there was nothing to identify her, nothing to communicate with; she had a honed blade meant to kill, period.
Luther refused to ponder the contrasts.
Leaving the soppy pile of clothes in his entryway, he took Gaby’s arm and drew her to the couch with him. He drew her down onto his lap and covered them both with a soft throw.