The Barrier Between (Collector Series # 2)

by Stacey Marie Brown

  He flipped me on my back, my legs curling tight around him. This went past desire or want. Our breaths were quick as his fingers moved down between my legs, opening me. He barely touched me, and my nails burrowed into his back.

  “Now... please,” I begged, bucking against him.

  He slid down my body then back up, slipping into me. I gasped. There was slight pain as the Viking filled me. He rocked forward, stealing another breath from me. Then again. Holy hell. My body was reacting as though I had never experienced real sex before. I felt myself tighten around him, and a deep moan erupted from his throat. Pleasure so intense flickered through me as he plunged deeper into me, our rhythm picking up pace. My legs and nails dug into him. “More... harder.” I could not seem to get close enough, to have enough of him. He thrust deeper, harder, until my eyes leaked with water. I still wanted more.

  Friction built, creating an even more desperate need for each other. He tilted me toward him and drove in harder. A cry escaped my lips as I felt my climax coming. My eyes could no longer focus nor could I breathe. I heard him swear, and he pushed my bent leg toward my shoulder. The movement tipped him in farther and with one more deep thrust, everything exploded. Both of us cried out. He drove in once more and ripples of pleasure rocked me. He released inside me, quaking my body again. Every breath I took sent another small orgasm through my limbs.

  We laid together, breathing deeply. I had been right: sex with him would not be something I could come back from untouched.

  ELEVEN

  We carried on for the rest of the night, only pausing for a moment before our mouths would find each other again. The energy from the all-night party swirled in the room, throbbing to the point I could sense my body absorbing it. Energy was addicting, even to humans, but this was different. It was replenishing me. Feeding me. Taking on more fae qualities was no longer the worst thing in the world to me. My fear was not developing more fae traits; it was taking them away from Ryker. Finally around dawn, exhausted and spent, we fell asleep.

  When my lids eventually lifted, sunlight splayed through our windows. The pulled-back curtains let in too much light for my sensitive head. I grunted and dug my face into the pillow. Damn whiskey.

  It was already hot and sticky, which was not helping me feel better. The sheet clung to my bare skin, and I smelled of sex and sweat. Images of me tangled with Ryker came flooding into my mind. Picking up my head, I peered over at him. He slept on his back, the crook of his elbow covering his eyes. The sheet only lay across his lower torso, but it did not disguise what was underneath. Or how the material tented up. Instinctually I responded to it, wanting to crawl on top of him, feel him inside me again.

  I sucked in a gulp of air and turned away. The morning light and blistering headache brought an end to the dream we indulged in last night. In the shelter of darkness we could hide from our fear, prejudices, and guilt and act out our passions under the influence of hormones and alcohol. But what if he felt different today? What if he took one look at me and realized his mistake? I was not Amara. Not the girl he really wanted, but I was here and available... and willing. We had been through a lot and relied on each other through some extreme situations. After a while you could mix up those emotions, mistake them for more than what they were.

  He will leave you, Zoey. You know it is only a matter of time. They always do.

  The inner voice pushed me to my feet. Panic and the need to pee took me to the bathroom. I grabbed a clean, folded sheet off the table left for us by the maid and wrapped it around me. I cracked the bathroom door open, tiptoed inside, and closed it quietly behind me.

  “Well, well, well.” Sprig’s voice banged against my skull. I jumped and spun around to see the brown furball sitting on the edge of the tub. “So... how are you this morning?” His tiny ears wiggled as his forehead went up and down in a mocking tease.

  “Sprig,” I warned him.

  “Surprised you are walking.”

  I gripped my forehead. Talking and thinking felt heavy to my brain.

  “Seems the human and the Wanderer worked out their differences after all. All night long. And quite loudly I may add.”

  “Sprig, is it at all possible you can choose this morning not to want to talk to me?” I begged, turning myself to the mirror. I cringed at my image. My hair was so knotted and tangled, it looked like a purple Muppet was sitting on my head. Black mascara ringed my eyes, but a glow colored my cheeks. A lightness and joy lit up my aura, like a girl who had the most incredible sex of her life and who had been so thoroughly satisfied she couldn’t even think straight. Against my will a smile pulled my mouth.

  “I saw that, Bhean.”

  “Saw what?” I forced the smile off my face.

  Sprig jumped down, scuttled across the room, and jumped in the sink. He sat back on his legs, his head tilted. “You like him. I mean really, really like him.”

  Protecting myself was instinct. I’d always kept people from learning my weaknesses. And my feelings toward Ryker were the ultimate vulnerability to me. Yes. I liked Ryker... probably more than liked. But I would not be the first to express it. It would be too much for me to lose if he did not feel the same. My problem was I either kept people at arm’s length or handed them over my heart. Two people prior to Ryker had succeeded in breaking down my walls. Two people. Ever. And both left me.

  “No.” I shook my head. “It was purely sex. An itch we both needed to scratch.”

  Sprig crossed his arms. “I don’t believe you. It was more than an itch. It always has been with you two.”

  My tangled hair bounced as I continued to deny Sprig’s words. “We were drunk.” He will go back to Amara. You know he will. “It was a mistake.” It almost hurt to say those words, but I couldn’t seem to stop them. For my own protection I had to convince myself it was the truth. I could not fall for a fae. No way.

  Thankfully, Sprig’s attention span was worse than a gnat’s. “So... can we have breakfast now?” He bobbed up and down on his legs. “I’m soooo hungry. Oh, can we please go to Izel’s. I have to have those Peruvian pancakes, with honey... but make sure it’s not the ones with bananas on top.” His lip curled. “Because I don’t like those. Oh! Or we can go to the churro vendor on the street. He makes the best churros. I like min—”

  “Sprig?” I leaned over the sink, letting my head drop. The weight of it throbbed in my ears, along with his incessant yammering. “Shut up, please.”

  “Oh, did someone not get a good night’s sleep?” A tiny hand patted my head. “Maybe if you went to bed before dawn. Or didn’t keep the entire building awake with sounds only dying animals make.”

  “Get out.” I pointed at the door.

  He snickered and jumped off the sink. He opened the bathroom window. “But we are getting breakfast, right?”

  “Go!” He chirped and swung out of the window. I heard him enter the window in the bedroom.

  After I dealt with my bladder, I heard movement in the next room. Ryker was up. If only I could hide out in the bathroom the rest of the day. I had to face him, and it was better to see the truth in his eyes than prolong it.

  I took in a shaky breath, tightened the sheet around me, and opened the door. He stood with his back to me, his hair, free from the braids, lay soft around his shoulders. He was buttoning his cargo pants. His broad back was still unclothed and bore red nail marks down it.

  It was embarrassing recalling the many times he had me clawing, begging, and moaning. It was a side of me I never showed. Before, I wouldn’t have let a man know he could possess me so completely. With Ryker it wouldn’t stay hidden.

  The world underneath my feet was unstable, and I hated it. He had broken past many of my walls. He knew more about me than anyone else in the world. It was a dangerous place.

  “Hey.” My voice came out fragmented and soft.

  He glanced over his shoulder. My deepest fears slammed into me, breaking in shards through my gut. His face was hard. Cold. Distant.

  �
��Hey.” He nodded and returned to buttoning his pants.

  My legs shifted nervously. Oh damn, we ruined it. We finally had some sort of alliance, a partnership, and in one drunken night we destroyed everything.

  “I’ll go use the community shower down the hall. You can have this one,” he said, his voice void of emotion. He walked over to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. I stood in the bathroom doorway, watching him. His eyes never lifted as he grabbed some fresh clothes.

  “Okay. Thanks,” I muttered.

  He nodded, grabbed a towel off the table, and left the room. The instant he closed the door, liquid prickled under my lids.

  “Think you two need a time-out again.” Sprig munched on some dried mango chips he’d left on the TV.

  I bit so hard into my lip, the metallic taste of blood coated my tongue. I yanked open the middle drawer and grabbed some clothes.

  “Breakfast?” Sprig yelled out as I slammed the bathroom door, rattling the room. I fell back against the door, my hand cupped over my mouth. I would not cry. “So... is that a maybe?” Sprig called.

  My response was to bang my head into the door—repeatedly.

  TWELVE

  Dressed and clean, the three of us headed for Izel’s. We’d been there a few times since the first morning. It was family owned and some of the best food I ever had. My hangover was dying for nutrients, but my stomach coiled with hurt and rejection.

  Ryker and I didn’t speak or look at each other unless it was necessary. The coldness between us was obvious with the two of us sitting there and not talking.

  The people here were a lot more open to primates hanging around, but they still didn’t like them sitting at a table. The staff would shoo the monkeys away, deeming them a nuisance to the patrons. Sprig sat in my bag, a plastic baby bib around his neck. The way he ate, we needed hazmat suits, but this was all we had.

  “If you ‘accidently’ bite me again, I will bite back this time,” I threatened him. He had become a little overzealous in eating the last time we had come here.

  “And she will too.” Ryker sipped at his orange juice.

  A blush colored my cheeks. In anger I had bitten him when we first met. It wasn’t why I turned red. Teeth marks, my teeth marks, were currently bruised along his neck and shoulder reminding me of the previous night. And morning. Even with hurt anchoring me down, the need to crawl over the table and straddle him in the middle of the restaurant gripped me so powerfully I had to dig my nails into my palms to stop myself. He had awakened something in me that did not want to be suppressed any longer. It wanted more.

  I swallowed and focused on Sprig. My back was to the customers, so I could feed Sprig easier. Ryker liked being the one to face the door.

  “Give me the damn pancake.” Sprig strangled the edges of my bag.

  “When they get here.” I put my finger to my lips.

  Izel was the woman who originally opened the diner, but she had passed away several years before. The daughter, Melosa, now cooked and ran the place along with her three daughters, two sons, and husband. She was in her late fifties, with short, dark hair, and big brown eyes. She ran the restaurant like every guest was sitting at her own dining room table. She took pride in every dish and would probably be insulted if we didn’t finish everything on our plates. We always did. I think it was the reason she took an instant liking to us. She welcomed our monstrous appetites and appreciation of her food. It was enough for her to look past her automatic suspicion of newcomers and to treat us like locals.

  Melosa rounded the corner; our plates lined up her arms. The aroma of hot crepes and butter filled my nose. Sprig chirped and rattled my bag back and forth in excitement. I settled my hand on his head.

  She smiled down at him and set my plate in front of me. She had caught me feeding him the second time we had eaten here. She ignored the fact I had a monkey as long as I kept him in my bag and out of sight of tourists and other patrons. I knew we were walking a precarious line. The moment Sprig got overexcited and spoke without thinking, it would be over. She, along with Tulio the bartender, would come after us with pitchforks.

  She placed Ryker’s dishes in front of him, everything divided into separate small plates. I don’t know when she learned of his quirk. It probably was one of the first times when either she saw me switch with him or saw him push his food into different corners so they wouldn’t touch.

  Melosa was the first human woman, aside from me, Ryker genuinely smiled at. She winked at him every time she went by. When she learned we weren’t “together,” she paraded all three of her daughters over to him. She would probably try her sons next.

  Today, she stopped, peering at us. Her gaze darted back and forth between us, taking in my beard-burned face and the bites on his neck.

  A flood of Spanish rolled off her tongue in a giddy cadence, too fast for me to pick it up. My Spanish was good, but I still couldn’t understand most of what she said. She gave my hand a squeeze, winked at Ryker, and took off for the kitchen.

  “Give me, give me, give mmmmeeeeee.” Sprig grabbed for the plate.

  I tore off a piece of soft warm dough. Butter and honey dripped off the pancake onto my hand. My mouth watered. Sprig nipped at my finger then chomped down on the piece. He emitted a blissful sigh.

  “What did she say?” I slanted my head toward Melosa’s fleeting frame.

  Ryker cut into his stack. He liked his only with butter.

  “She gave us an old Peruvian blessing, wishing us love and a full house.” He kept his attention on his breakfast.

  “Oh.” I picked up my fork.

  Everything was awkward now. The sex had been unbelievable, but if it meant we lost our friendship, I’d lose him. I couldn’t say it had been worth it.

  We ate in silence, my attention mostly on getting dough into Sprig’s mouth fast enough. In the middle of one of his bites, his head fell back and his mouth opened as he began to breathe deeply. Out like a light.

  I took the unchewed food from him and wiped the sticky honey and butter off his hands and mouth before placing him at the bottom of my bag.

  “You act like a mother.” Ryker’s voice jolted me.

  “What?”

  Ryker tilted his head toward the bundle in my bag. “Were you like this with your sister?”

  The chair scraped the tile as I leaned back into it. “Yeah. Joanna wasn’t going to take care of her. It was up to me. At thirteen I was Lexie’s mother and sister.”

  “Taking care of people... it comes naturally to you.” It was a statement.

  “I did what I needed to survive. For both Lexie and me.” I cleared my throat. “And I still failed.”

  “You didn’t fail.”

  “My sister’s dead. You don’t call that a failure?”

  “Like my sister?” He crossed his arms, inclining back.

  “No. It’s not what I meant.”

  “You can take the blame for your sister, but I can’t for mine?”

  Losing our sisters in eerily similar situations only linked us together even more. There were few people who could really understand what it felt like to watch your house burn with someone you love inside it and not be able to save them. Self-blame was another thing we shared. I could see how it wasn’t his fault, but with myself, I couldn’t see it as clearly. We actually had much in common, and I didn’t want to lose him. If it meant putting my pride aside, I would have to deal.

  I sat up, about to say something. Ryker halted the words in my throat. His body was rigid and his eyes were on something behind me.

  Oh no

  I wrenched around in my seat, ready to stand and run. Ryker had yet to move from his chair, which was the only thing anchoring me to my spot. I spotted the glow of aura, the fae at the door, one I recognized from a few days ago. Croygen. But by then it was too late. Spikes of adrenaline and fear rushed through my veins. I slammed my lids together so I wouldn’t puke as wind whipped at my ponytail.

  My tender head and stomach did no
t respond to the sudden trip. The second I opened my eyes and recognized the rumpled unmade bed and spewed clothes on the floor, I ran for our bathroom. My breakfast was coming back for a visit.

  “What a waste. Those were amazing pancakes, and you simply tossed them into the toilet.” Sprig wiggled free of my bag and climbed out next to me.

  My lids narrowed as I flashed him a glower.

  “Oh, sprite spit, now you are bleeding.” Sprig pointed at my face.

  I touched my nose, and my fingers came away dripping red. I squeezed my eyes, rubbing my temples. A part of me still hoped Daniel was wrong, and the truth about seers was incorrect. But the nosebleeds were getting worse.

  The sensation of Sprig’s feet and hands on my leg tickled my bare skin. I felt toilet paper being pushed against my face. My lashes lifted as he shoved the wad unceremoniously up my nose. I took the paper and dabbed it at the pooling blood.

  “Thank you.”

  Sprig nodded.

  I waited a few moments, but like the last dozen times, the nosebleed wasn’t followed by a blinding headache, for which I was grateful. The change had to mean something, and it probably wasn’t good. Whatever defect was in my brain had probably grown past the headaches and was preparing me for death.

  I pushed to my feet and went over to the sink, brushing my teeth and splashing water on my face. Today felt insufferably humid. Clouds were moving in, keeping the heat stagnant over the town. Adjusting my tank top and shorts, I walked out of the bathroom. I wanted to crawl back into bed, feeling exhausted, but I pressed on.

  “Where are you going?” Sprig sprinted after me.

  “To find Ryker.”

  “Right.” Sprig leaped onto the bed. “Where did we leave him this time?”

  “Izel’s.” I lifted my eyebrow. “Remember? Where you practically had sex with the pastry dish?”

  A blissful expression exploded over Sprig’s features. Then he looked down and his features turned to horror. “Ugh! Speaking of sex.” He hopped back and forth on each foot as if the bed was burning him. “It reeks of you two. You are going to have to burn this bed.” He jumped for the TV. He sat, frantically wiping at his feet. “Oh, oak sap! I need to be disinfected now,” he whimpered.