Immortal Cascade 10 Immortal Phoenix

by Carol Roi

  "Blair?"

  "Right here, angel. It's okay, you're safe." He held out his hand to her, unsure if she would take it. She looked at it for a moment, and he had the feeling he was undergoing some kind of test. He must have passed, because she launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around him and holding on tightly. He hugged her back, stroking her hair, murmuring softly to her, feeling her trembling slow and finally fade away. Pressing a kiss to her temple, he said, "Must have been some dream."

  Dee groaned against his neck. "Oh, goddess, Lobo, it was awful. I felt so helpless, so out of control. Things were happening to me and I didn't know why, and I couldn't stop it."

  She slumped against him, and he tucked her head under his chin, adjusting his hold on her, rocking her gently. "Sounds pretty much like what you've been going through the past few days, what we've all been going through. It's all over now, though."

  He felt her shake her head against his chest. "You don't understand. It's not over, not for me."

  Tightening his arms around her, Blair asked, "What do you mean?" He felt a shudder run through her.

  "Something's coming. Artemis…Artemis told me. I can feel it, like a prickle on the back of my neck. Something's going to happen, people are going to get hurt unless I can stop it." Her fingers twisted in the fabric of his T-shirt.

  A cold chill passed over the guide, making him shiver. He'd never seen her this upset, this frightened. "Dee, it's going to be okay. Whatever it is, we'll handle it. You won't go through it alone."

  "Promise?"

  He rubbed her back. "I promise. Come on now, let's try and get some more sleep. We both need it." Blair lay down on the mattress and she curled up next to him, her head on his shoulder, her arm across his chest. It took them a long time to go back to sleep.

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  Yawning, the Phoenix stretched, then seated herself in the chair in front of the window that faced 852 Prospect. Her decision to push back her plans until Connor and Ellison were out of the hospital had allowed her the luxury of sleeping in. Picking up a mug from the small table next to the chair, she inhaled the rich aroma, then sipped the strong coffee. Pulling her notebook into her lap, she glanced through the addresses she had jotted down. They would all have to be checked out, of course, but she was beginning to think a site outside the city limits would work the best. Still, she had plenty of time to make sure everything was perfect.

  Setting her cup down, she steepled her fingers in front of her chest and took several deep, centering breaths, then stretched out her hearing, filtering through the noise until she heard the click of a lock and two familiar voices.

  "Do you have any plans for this afternoon, Dee?" Blair asked.

  "No, not really. Megan said she doesn't want to see me back at the hospital again today. I thought I would spend some quality time with you. I'd like to get in a workout, too. I've gone too long without one."

  "I'll join you. Just give me a couple of minutes to get changed." The sound of a phone ringing interrupted them. "I think that's mine."

  One door closed and another opened. "Hello. Oh, hi, Mom. You're leaving so soon? You don't have to. Jim and I don't blame you for any of this." There was silence on his end for a few moments. "Dinner, yeah, I can do dinner. Oh, hey, Dee is back from Washington. Can I invite her to come along? I really want the two of you to meet." Another pause, then he said, "Okay, the Cascade Hilton restaurant at 7 PM. We'll be there. Bye, Mom. I love you."

  The Phoenix smiled to herself and picked up the phone. Time to stir things up a little. She punched in a number and the call was quickly answered. "How soon can you get to Cascade? Good, good, I have a job for you…."

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  Blair flopped down on the workout mat next to his lover, breathing heavily. His bare chest was covered in sweat and his muscles ached, but he felt good, cleansed, like the physical exertion had driven away the demons that haunted him. He gazed at Dee lying flat on her back, her arms crossed over her bare midriff, a line of perspiration soaking through the front of her sports bra. She seemed truly relaxed for the first time in several days, and he hoped the exercise had gotten rid of whatever had been bothering her.

  As he watched, one blue eye opened and came to rest on him. Giving him a smile, she said, "Have I ever told you how beautiful you are, Lobo?"

  Blair felt his cheeks grow hot. "No, not lately."

  She sat up, one hand reaching out to stroke lightly over his chest. "Well, you are." He shivered at her touch, the air surrounding them suddenly charged with electricity. She leaned in, her lips brushing against his in a nibbling kiss that swiftly turned deep and powerful. When she pulled away, Blair gasped for breath, every nerve ending in his body singing. Her mouth moved on to his neck, and he tilted his head back, exposing his throat. An image of a wolf rolling on his back, baring his neck to his mate in the ultimate display of trust flashed through his mind. Her teeth gently closed over his Adam's apple, and he growled low in his throat in response, then gasped as she sucked on his shoulder, marking him as hers.

  Dee undid the tie holding his hair back, then buried her face in it, moaning quietly. Blair ran his hands down her back, feeling her rise up onto her knees and straddle him. She pushed him back so he rested on his elbows, then bent over him, her hands and mouth working their way teasingly down his body. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the pleasurable sensations, the world narrowing to the two of them and the bond they shared.

  When he came back to himself, Blair found they were still lying on the mat in the studio, limbs tangled together, Dee's head resting on his chest. He trailed a hand through her hair, wondering if a chapter on the mating rituals between Sentinels and Guides might make a good addition to his dissertation, or perhaps a whole dissertation in itself. When he was with her, it was like nothing he'd ever experienced before. At first he'd thought it was just love, that it hadn't been this way with anyone else because he'd never really been in love before. But he was slowly beginning to realize it had more to do with their spiritual bond than anything else. The sex thing was great in and of itself, but he was coming to believe that it was a physical way of strengthening an emotional connection, which didn't make it sound so different than two ordinary people in love after all. And yet it was…he frowned, puzzling over his idea, wondering if perhaps he wasn't too close to the subject matter…and then he remembered there was no more dissertation, no more academic life, no more anthropology.

  Sensing the change in his mood, Dee raised up enough to look him in the face. "Lobo, what's wrong?"

  Blair shook his head. "Nothing really. Just forgot for a second that the research is over. That it's all over."

  Leaning down, she kissed him softly, then said, "It's not over, Blair, it's just changed. It's been changing from the start, you've just now noticed. You were born to be a Guide, just as Jim was born to be a Sentinel. Anthropology was just the road you took to get you here." She ran the back of her fingers over his cheek. "When I saw you for the first time, I was…in awe. I knew right away what you were, and that you were new to your calling, untrained and uncertain. But you never let that stop you. You did what you had to do to be Jim's partner, to be his guide, his shaman. You weren't afraid to ask for help, and what you've learned has made you more focused, and helped you understand how the Sentinel/Guide thing works. But you've always had the talent, Blair, this has always been your destiny."

  He gazed up at her, feeling the niggling disappointment over the loss of his academic future leave him. Anyone could be an anthropologist, only he could be Jim's Guide. "Damn, I love you," he said, a grin spreading across his face, then he frowned. "But I'm still unemployed."

  Her eyes sparkled. "I have an idea that will solve that problem. How would you like to go into business with me?"

  "You already have a job, at Rainier."

  She met his confused gaze. "You
think I'm going to stick around after what Edwards did to you? Any professor that gives a damn about the confidentiality of their research and their research subjects will be hitting the road, myself included. Chances are she's going to take some serious heat from the academic community, in the long run, probably more than you will. I see her actions as a clear violation of my teaching contract. I may stay until the end of the school year, depending on a number of variables, how Megan and Jim's recoveries go, this thing in DC, by the way, I have to go back tomorrow, and you."

  He chewed his lip, toying with a strand of her hair. "What kind of business?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know, one with flexible hours. I've been thinking of opening up a dojo, kind of like Duncan's, only here in Cascade. Or may an antique shop specializing in Pre-Columbian art. I've done security work in the past, too, that's an option."

  "But what about my work with Jim? Without the dissertation thing, there's no way I can still be an observer at the PD."

  "That's something you'll have to take up with Captain Banks, once he's out of the hospital. But I would think that if they can't find a way for you to stay with Jim, that he would make the choice to be with you."

  Blair shook his head. "I don't know. Jim was born to be a cop, I think."

  "He was born to be a Sentinel; being a cop is just one way to utilize his abilities for the good of the tribe. It isn't the only way. But enough of this. We'll have to all sit down together and discuss our options. Right now, I need a shower, and so do you." Getting gracefully to her feet, Dee gave him a hand up from the floor.

  "All of us? Our options? Jim and I are the ones with the problem, not you and Megan. Since when does that include you?"

  Giving him a gentle push toward the stairs, Dee replied, "Since that moment in the spirit world where you and Jim supported my bonding with Megan. Our lives are irrevocably interwoven; what affects you, affects us."

  Blair considered that for a moment, then shrugged. Who was he to argue with her? He would leave that up to Jim. As she entered the bathroom, he remembered what he had forgotten to tell her. "Oh, Dee, we're having dinner with my mom tonight…" He wasn't quick enough to dodge the towel she threw at him.

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  "Knock, knock. You awake?"

  Jim opened his eyes to find Megan standing in the doorway of his hospital room in pajamas and a robe, her right arm in a sling. "Yeah, I'm awake. Come on in. Are you sure you should be up and about?"

  The companion gave him a grin. "Probably not, but I wanted to see how you were doing. I checked on Simon before I came down here. He's on a lot of drugs, and is pretty out of it." She took a seat in the chair beside the bed. "How's your leg?"

  "Hurts," he replied with a slight smile, "I'm scheduled for surgery tomorrow, then it'll be a few more days to a week before they'll let me go home. How's your injury?"

  Megan adjusted the lay of the sling across her chest. "Same as yours, hurts. Doctor says he might let me out by the weekend, but Dee's going back to Washington tomorrow. I'm not sure I'll be able to manage on my own. I may have to impose on Sandy."

  Jim shook his head sheepishly. "Sorry, I asked Blair to go to DC with Diandra. Don't look at me that way; it seemed like a good idea at the time."

  "No, no, I'm not saying it was wrong, just a tad inconvenient. And…a little out of character." She quirked an eyebrow at him.

  The sentinel looked down at his hands for a long moment. "Look, Megan, I know I haven't been the nicest person to be around the past few days…" He winced a little at her snort of disbelief. "I just thought it would be better for Blair to get away for a while. And Dee's good for him; if anyone can--"

  "Help him get over the hell you've put him through, it's her?" The expression that crossed Jim's face made Megan regret her harsh words.

  There was an awkward silence between them for a moment, then Jim said, "Yeah, I guess that's about it."

  Megan sighed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that the way it sounded. It's just that…I still don't understand why you did what you did. I mean, after all this time, I thought you trusted him, I thought you trusted us. For god's sake, Jim, the four of us are bound, our souls intertwined. And yet the moment something threatens you, threatens all of us, you turn on us. Hell, Dee didn't know that anything was wrong until Blair showed up on our doorstep. Jim, I'm your friend, Dee's your friend, Sandy's your soulmate. Together we might have fixed this, found some other resolution. Instead you shut us out, made Sandy feel that he had to sacrifice himself to save you. I just have a hard time reconciling that with the Jim Ellison I thought I knew."

  Jim didn't say anything, but she could see the muscles in his jaw twitching, and he avoided meeting her gaze.

  "Come on, Jim. You had to have a reason, a good reason, to turn against Sandy, to believe that money and fame could ever mean more to him than his friendship, his bond with you. For that matter, you knew he was writing about you all along. You agreed to it. So his dissertation found a much wider audience than his review board, so what? You know how the media is these days; you would have been the flavor of the day until the next Hollywood starlet got a boob job, or a rapper got arrested. You could have just rode it out, let it blow over. Instead you acted like Sandy had planned things this way, like he would actually take that publisher up on his offer." The more she talked about it, the more frustrated she became. Getting to her feet, she walked over to the window, peering out into the gloomy, drizzly afternoon. When Jim still hadn't responded, she prodded further. "What is it you're so afraid of? What has the macho soldier turned cop shaking in his boots? What is it you can't handle?"

  Jim could hold his tongue no longer. "Okay, so I was afraid! I saw my worst fears coming true! I wasn't a person anymore, I was some kind of superhero, some kind of freak!"

  Megan whirled back toward him, moving to the end of the bed, staring him in the face. "Being called a freak? That's what you were afraid of? In case you hadn't noticed, Jimbo, we're all bloody freaks! Look at me, I'm a woman doing a man's job, I'm companion to a champion. Look at Dee, she's nearly 3,000 years old along with being a sentinel. Look at Blair, he's an egghead, a throwback to the 60's, a Jew, his girlfriend spends her spare time killing others of her kind, and his soulmate is a stubborn, jackass sentinel freak! Never mind the fact that by John Q Public's standards we're all heathens, what with the spirit guides and visions, and mystical mumbo-jumbo. What in the hell do you think normal is? There is no such thing!"

  She watched Jim close his eyes and run a shaking hand over his face, his jaw clenched so tightly she was surprised she hadn't heard his molars crack. When he finally spoke, she had to strain to hear him. "That's enough, Connor. I know I fucked up."

  Megan tried, but the anger, the hurt wouldn't let go of her, and it exploded again in her next words. "Then why in the hell couldn't you say that to Sandy, to me, to Dee? Do you know what she told me this morning? That she was going to offer herself up in your place, give Chancellor Edwards the Sentinel she wanted so that Blair wouldn't be ostracized by the academic community, then she planned to conveniently 'die' to hide her immortality. She was willing to give up her life here for Blair, for you. She was willing to leave the man she loves behind to save you from your 'fear.' She was willing to leave me behind if it came to that. Do you know what that would have done to her? Without a Companion, it would have been only a matter of time before she lost control of her senses and went insane. You know what would have happened then, she would have been an easy target for any other Immortal. But Blair wouldn't let her do it, just as he couldn't let you be hurt by something that was nobody's fault, just a combination of good intentions on Naomi's part and greed on Sid's. He laid his life down for you, Ellison, just as I would offer up my neck to spare Dee's. But that's where the similarities end, because I know with all my heart that Dee wouldn't let me go through with it. She would either suck it up and take it, or if there were no other option, she would go down wi
th me. She wouldn't leave me stranded!"

  She swiped at the tears that had begun falling mid-tirade, feeling her anger finally fading. She looked up at Jim to find his eyes glistening with tears as well. "I'm sorry, Megan, I'm sorry. I don't know how I managed to screw things up so badly. I just…I just felt blindsided, and couldn't ever get my feet under me, catch my breath, regroup. I fell right back to blaming my senses, and by extension Blair, for everything that was happening to me. I'm sorry. I know that doesn't make it right, I know that, but I didn't know what else to do."

  Moving to the side of the bed, Megan reached out and grasped his hand. "Do you know what you have to do now?"

  He blinked slowly, then shook his head. "I apologized to Blair. Well, it wasn't the best apology in the world; it wasn't nearly enough, but--"

  She squeezed his hand to get his attention. "You need to accept who you are, Jim, what you are. You're a Sentinel, a person blessed with heightened senses, a protector of the people, a good guy, a white hat. Yes, that comes with a great deal of responsibility, but as Dee says, the Fates don't hit us with more than we can bear. You have these senses because you're the only person who could handle them, who could do what needs to be done. But every time you fight them, every time you wish you were 'normal', you and everyone around you suffers."