by Dale Mayer
And that she could do that subconsciously when he didn’t want her to, and he wasn’t capable of stopping her or inciting it… Well, that just made him mad.
But this…today…it wasn’t possible.
But it had happened. She’d actually tried to dismantle a block. She couldn’t do it of course. She wasn’t strong enough. But she was spreading her wings. Accessing her power. Testing him.
He laughed in sudden joy. Oh my. He hadn’t seen that coming. It was late for her. Most people developed way earlier. Then he might have had a hand in that. He could crush her puny efforts like a bug beneath his feet or he could let the little chrysalis be born and let the butterfly learn what the air really smelled and felt like – then he could crush her like the bug she was.
At that he broke into a huge booming laugh.
This was exactly what he needed. Life had been so damn boring for so long.
Finally something to make it exciting.
Who’d have thought it would be the little nuisance he’d kept at his side all these years.
Chapter 22
Hannah opened her eyes. She’d had the most horrible nightmares ever. Lord. Even now it felt like her world was on the verge of collapsing. And she couldn’t do anything about it. As if she’d put something into motion and there was no going back even though she needed there to be a reverse gear. And as if understanding this moment would come, that reverse gear had been removed in preparation.
Dear God, what had she done?
She lay on a bed. In a strange room. It looked like her old bedroom. She frowned. How long had she been here? Surely she hadn’t gone home for a visit, had she? She and her father were hardly on speaking terms. Then again it was just the two of them. At least she thought so.
Her mother’s face loomed big and beautiful in her mind. She smiled even as tears came. “Mom,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” said a strong male voice. “She’s in a happier place now.”
Hannah frowned. “Trevor, why are you in my bedroom.”
“You’re not there. You’re visiting all the memories you released through the blocks being destroyed.”
She let his words drift through her subconscious. Blocks. Destroyed. Visiting her memories. They made sense and yet at the same time they made no sense. Who could possibly make sense of any of this?
“Open your eyes.”
“They are open.”
“Now open your physical eyes.”
She froze and slowly, ever so slowly, opened her real eyes. And found him staring down at her. Instantly memories flooded into her world. “Oh my God. What happened at the end?”
“I tried to stop you, but it seems like the person who put the newer blocks in your system is still alive. Still cognizant and so very aware of you.”
“He tried to stop me from wiping out the blocks?”
“Yes.”
With Trevor’s help, she sat up then made it to her feet where she slowly walked around the room. Her legs cramped and ached. She shook them out several times to loosen the tension in the muscles. “I feel like I’ve done several massive hard sprints,” she admitted.
“That’s the energy shifts. You were looking into some of the memories you regained.” He paused then asked, “Did you see anything interesting?”
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I just saw my bedroom. As if frozen in time. It was the exact same little girl room I remember from a long time ago.”
“And yet surely it changed through your teenage years? Becoming something else.”
She nodded. “It was painted mint green and lavender when I was fourteen.”
“But this image was from earlier?”
“Around eight.”
“Interesting,” he said it in such a low flat tone, she looked at him sharply.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Were you alone in the room,” he asked, his gaze searching. “What was the mood? The overall atmosphere?”
“Flat. Empty. Still. Like I was in there but not. Kind of like when we were in grayscale.”
“But you were alone?”
She nodded. “I was. At least I think I was. I was staring at the bed but not on it.”
“Okay.” He appeared to be happy with that answer.
She wasn’t. “What were you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid that something happened to you there, and you’ve been blocking it all this time.”
She shook her head. “I doubt it. I was protected every minute of the day.”
“Right. This nanny of yours. Do you remember her name?”
“Susie.” The name popped out of her mind. “No idea what the last name was.”
“I’ll see if I can find her,” he said. “It might be helpful to talk to her.”
“She’s dead.”
He froze.
“Another dead woman in your father’s world?”
“She died of an overdose,” she said. “At least that’s what I was told.”
He pulled out his notebook and a pen and jotted down something. “Okay. You liked her though?”
“Yes, I did. She was friendly. Young. Playful.”
“Good. At least you had wonderful memories with her.”
“I did. She was with the guard who’d been on duty when my mother drowned.” Only the last bit came out slowly as if she wasn’t as sure. “Or maybe she was there earlier then brought back again. Or that’s what I was told. I don’t know. I’m definitely confused on that timeline. That big block is starting to mess me up.”
“Honey, that block has been there for a hell of a long time. It’s not starting to do anything. You are regaining your power. You are shifting things now and that’s what’s ‘messing’ you up.”
“So this is a good thing?” she asked, cautiously taking her cue from the humor in his voice.
“It’s very good.” He grinned. “There is something that surprises me. Over the last couple of days I’ve known you, you are always hungry. Yet this morning, you ate normally and so far you don’t appear to be screaming for more food yet?”
“Food? Ha, I’m so damn hungry,” she cried. “I didn’t see you buy much,” she confessed, “and I didn’t want to eat it all on you. But if there is any chance of having food like ten minutes ago…”
He laughed and stood up.
“I’d be so damn grateful,” she added with an exaggerated moan.
“Then let’s leave the energy work for the moment and top you back up.” He held out a hand and waited for her as she jumped up to grab it.
“And go shopping for more?” she asked earnestly. “We really didn’t buy much. Now that we know I have money, I can buy the next load.”
“I’ve got money of my own and I can afford to feed my wife just fine,” he scolded her gently. At the entrance to the kitchen, he swung her around and pulled her into his arms. With his free hand he nudged her chin up and with a smile, he bent his head.
And kissed her.
*
He hadn’t meant the kiss to be anything other than a fun, hey it’s great to see your progress, congratulations, type of kiss. But even though he’d dropped a couple on her forehead and maybe one or two on her lips, he hadn’t really kissed her before. Not like the kind of kiss he’d been planning to give her down the road when life calmed and if the attraction building between them continued. He never wanted her to be wary of him or to be wishing he’d disappear in the wilds. Which given the circumstances in which they’d met was always a possibility. He was a nice guy now, but he carried a lot of guilt over his earlier days.
So he might be someone she’d like – eventually when she got to know him.
Only…when she threw her arms around him and kissed him back enthusiastically, all his good intentions went out the window. And he kissed her like he really wanted to. Not like she was hurting and needing comfort, but like a passionate woman in his arms who wanted so much more.
But did she? Or was she respondin
g to the stimulus of the moment, her success so far. Their proximity. And of course, the fact that he’d saved her from an ugly end. And so much more.
Then he couldn’t think as she deepened the kiss.
All he wanted was to take her back upstairs and show her what a bed for two was really made for.
She shivered in his arms.
And that’s where he had to pull back. Damn it. She’d been through a lot recently. He wanted her, but he wanted her to be whole and not to say he’d taken advantage of her.
A light sigh escaped her lips as he eased back. She reached up, brushed his lips with her own then stepped back and smiled at him. “Nice to see you’re a great kisser.”
He swallowed his surprise but couldn’t stop the wave of red climbing up his neck. “I’m glad you think so.” He smirked. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
And that was a different issue altogether. Had she had boyfriends? If so how come they hadn’t been mentioned yet? Nor shown up in any research. Yet she had said that her father and Will had done their best to stop her from seeing anyone.
“Yeah, well, my guards made sure I didn’t get much experience,” she said gaily as she walked into the kitchen. “But I did manage to sneak in a few relationships. Although the guys were more likely in it for the thrill.”
He could imagine. But kept his mouth shut. “What about after you grew up?” he asked quietly. “You’ve been living on one of your father’s estates for a long time. So free, but not free.”
“I have and I’ve had several boyfriends, but they tended to not last longer than a few months. Usually Will or Father got wind of it and put a stop to it. I actually asked one to marry me so I could get the hell away. He lived in Norway and at the time I thought naively that would be far enough away.” This time her laugh was bitter. “But it wasn’t. My father scared the poor guy and paid his flight out of the country and back to his homeland. It didn’t matter he was working for an engineering company. He left in a heartbeat.”
She didn’t say it but he could see her mentally adding, and left me behind.
“Not too many can stand up to that kind of threat, and your father is a master at intimidation.”
“Isn’t he though?” She stood in the kitchen and glanced around. “See, I know that good stuff comes out of this room. That there is a room like it in every house, but I really don’t know how to get my hands on the finished product.”
He snickered and set about bringing out the fixings for big sandwiches. “What did you live on while you were alone?”
“I had a housekeeper.”
He rolled his eyes at that.
“At least in the beginning. Then when it was just me, I did a lot of takeout. I tried to make several egg dishes, but it was hard,” she cried. At a chocking sound, she turned and studied his face suspiciously. “Are you laughing at me?”
“Hell, no. Cooking eggs is hard?” He managed to imitate the long drawn out way she’d said the word. Then he cracked up laughing.
She glared at him then glanced at the fixings on the table and said, “I can manage a sandwich though.”
“Go for it.”
She sat down and enthusiastically made up four. He hoped he was getting two of them but from the intent look on her face, he figured she was thinking to have three of them herself.
While she worked, he brought out the fruit he’d bought and washed a selection to create a quick fruit platter. He carried it over to the table.
“Oh pretty.”
“Not so much. But edible.” He reached over and popped a bite of watermelon in his mouth.
A few minutes later they were munching through the sandwiches. She’d cut them into quarters and placed them on a larger plate to share.
After a few moments, she sat back and smiled up at him. “Starting to feel better already.”
“Good.” He smiled and reached for a second piece but his internal alarm system twinged. He narrowed his gaze and looked inward. “Someone is hunting you…”
“That’s okay,” she said. “That’s my father and Will. They are always hunting me.” She grinned. “Why do you think I keep my energy so tight to my body? That’s my mother’s doing. She said I needed to do that to stop others from always being able to track me.” She waved her hand toward the window. “Apparently, those outside can’t find me as easily when I do that.”
He stared at her in surprise. “So you keep your energy close to stop your father from finding you?”
“Well, it slows him down but doesn’t stop him completely.” She picked up her third piece of sandwich and stared at it happily. “Honestly, between you and me, I think Will is the most dangerous.”
“What about the other security guard? Isn’t he as dangerous?”
“George is, but I don’t get the same sense of menace from him I do Will. Then again, Will cultivates that image. Loves to project that dark, deadly image. Wants others to see him as the alpha in any situation.”
“Except around your father.”
“Well, he takes on the alpha protector. Whereas I see him more like a grizzly bear on a rope. My father uses him like a tool, and Will likes to believe he thinks independently. George is always there but in the background. Not bothered about fighting the other two for position. Will can’t do Father’s job and Father isn’t interested in taking on Will’s role. One is the aging patriarch and the other the upstart. But it works for them.”
He didn’t quite know what to say, but as an assessment it was fairly accurate. And it showed she had a greater insight than he’d expected.
Chapter 23
She loved food. That’s just all there was to it. But she’d enjoy this moment more if Will wasn’t on the hunt. She could feel her energy snugging in tighter as Will reached out mentally for her. Damn that man. Why couldn’t he find someone else to torment?
“I’ve never told anyone before – about how I hold my energy in. It seems so minor.” She shrugged. “You guys are seriously talented.”
“That’s not easy or simple to do,” Trevor said seriously. “Your aura actually appears as if you are in a coma or dying within the next hour.”
She blinked. “Say what?”
“You heard me.” He grinned. “Stefan and Dr. Maddy were amazed when they saw you for the first time. It’s one of the reasons Stefan was so fast to get you help when you arrived bleeding and hurt at his door.”
“Sure, but he’d have seen I was fine in other ways.”
“He reacted to the low energy and poured his into your system to try and save you.”
She had to consider that. “Would I have felt his energy surge?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
“At the time I didn’t feel much but shock,” she said candidly. “That he was someone I was supposed to have attacked. And that made no sense to me. I’m very non-confrontational.”
“You’ve never mentioned it before.” Trevor sat back and stared at her. “Stefan told me what you said though.”
“What’s to say,” she said quietly. “I don’t know any more than you. It’s yet another mystery I can’t explain.”
He nodded and continued to eat. She studied his bent head. “What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know what to think,” he said. “It’s disturbing to think you had thoughts of killing my friend in your head, but I do understand that they might not have been your thoughts.”
At that she stared down at the last bite of her sandwich in her hand, the mouthful she was working on still churning her insides. “Can people do that? Put thoughts in your head?”
“Yes, absolutely. Not easily and not often. But it happens.”
“So what, I walked past someone who thought he’d killed Stefan – and on a whim he dumps that knowledge on me?” Her voice was on a note of incredibility.
“That’s one possibility.” He picked up a strawberry and popped it into his mouth. When it was gone, he added, “It’s also possible someone could have deliberately planted th
at idea and sent you to Stefan’s house as a warning.” He took a deep breath. “Or you walked into someone’s grayspace and they saw you, could communicate with you. Someone who wants Stefan dead.”
“Are there people like that?” she asked in a hushed whisper.
He snorted. “Stefan helped put dozens of serial killers behind bars and has been attacked by dozens of assholes in the last year alone. So that you were seeing him and thinking you’d killed him already has implications on many levels.”
“Oh boy.” She stared at him, mouth open.
“As you can see, whatever is going on in your head is of great interest to all of us.”
“So—” and a shard of agony split through her head. She cried out and dropped her sandwich, both hands reaching up to clasp her head. “Make it stop…”
“Make what stop,” Trevor cried. Racing to her side, he clasped his hands over hers, and instantly the pain eased. She shuddered as he continued to work. Whatever he was doing was helping to ease the pressure.
“What was that all about?” he asked when the tension in her shoulders eased and she slumped in place.
“It’s Will. He’s hunting me.”
“We know that. Is this headache part of the defense mechanism?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting. Crippling you with pain, actually makes you vulnerable to whatever Will is up to.” He sat back down and studied her face.
“I’d like to know how he is tracking you. Do you know?”
“No, I’m sure you’re going to say it had something more to do with the energy blocks in my system or that he was finding a way to track me on a different dimension or something.”
“That’s definitely what he is doing. How interesting that your mother understood.”
“And yet like you said, this system cripples me more than it helps me.”
“And like you said, she died when you were little and likely thought she had lots of time to teach you more.”
“What did you do that the pain eased so quickly?” Hannah asked, rotating her neck. “Does it stop Will from finding me?”
“I removed the building pressure of energy in your head. It’s probably caused by conflict between the need to remove these issues and the need to keep everything in place to protect you,” he said absently. “And no, it doesn’t stop Will. I can put an energy security alarm around the house, but the large amount of energy will possibly attract him to the house, letting him know exactly where you are.”