Avalon

by Shiloh Walker

  Spinning around to face him, she sneered. “The hell you didn’t. Why in the hell else did you fuck me? It sure as hell wasn’t because you really wanted me. If you’d wanted me—” Zoë cut her words off before she could stay the rest, before she could say, you would have stayed.

  She wasn’t going to let him know, damn it, how bad it had cut at her when he left.

  “Oh, grow up,” he snarled. He came around the couch after her and she dodged away from him. Narrowing his eyes, he leaped over the couch, catching her arms. “I fucked you because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You were in my every thought. And I couldn’t fucking handle it. That’s why I left.”

  Her eyes widened. When he touched her, whatever barrier kept her mind from seeing into his cleared, just a little, and she could feel what lay inside him. Could feel that…no, she told herself, shaking her head. Lies. Nothing more than lies. Slamming her shields into place, she shut herself away from him, away from the warmth and the promise that she had once almost believed in.

  “Wow. Way to deal,” she said, her voice thick. “You feel something, so you run away. And you tell me to grow up. Let me go, Micah.”

  “Why? Too hard to not believe me when I’m touching you? You told me once…that’s the only time my thoughts are clear to you, when I’m touching you. Well, I’m touching you now…can you feel what I’m feeling? Do you know what’s going on inside my head?” he asked, eyes intent.

  She stared up at him, closing herself off. She didn’t want to know what was going on inside his head, didn’t want to feel anything.

  “I told you to let me go,” she said, tugging against his hold as he skimmed one hand up her arm, tracing the line of her neck before cupping the back of her head.

  Micah didn’t seem to hear her. “Damn, you’re so beautiful. How can you be even more beautiful than you were before?”

  Her belly tightened as his fingers tangled in her hair. “Stop it, Micah,” she whispered, but despite the words, she rose up on her toes, already thinking of how he tasted, how he kissed. Her nipples tightened and the lace that cupped her breasts suddenly felt too rough, abrading her tender flesh.

  “Why?” he murmured. “You want me touching you. I may not be the amazing Zoë who knows your every thought, but I know that look in your eyes.”

  Unable to breathe, she simply stood there as he lowered his mouth to hers, swallowing down her soft, strangled, “Micah,” and drank from her, pushing his tongue inside her mouth with a hungry growl. The desperate shields she’d flung up to protect herself from him fell into shambles around her and she was lost in the heat and strength of him.

  Missed you, Zoë.

  The words echoed in his mind, leaving her no choice but to hear them as he wrapped his arms around her, cuddling her against his chest, nestling his hips against hers.

  His cock pressed against her belly, burning her through the layers of their clothes. Heat…how had she forgotten his heat? People were colors, shapes, and images to her, but so many seemed cold and lifeless, even as she tried to see the life inside them.

  But Micah—he had been alive from the first day, alive and hot, like a flame, warming her to the core. She had been so cold since he left…

  Since he left.

  With a ragged gasp, she shoved back, scrambling out his arms as reality reasserted itself.

  He went to pull her back up against him and she evaded him.

  “Don’t.” Holding up her hands, Zoë backed away and this time, she managed to put some serious force into her words. “I meant it, Micah. Just…don’t.”

  Without waiting for a response from him, she turned around and moved over to the window. With her back to him, she missed seeing the flash in his hands and the way his spine stiffened.

  I just can’t let him touch me, she told herself.

  If he didn’t touch her, she could be calm. In control.

  She heard him shifting behind her and she fired him a hot look. “Stay over there.”

  He quirked a brow at her and asked, “For how long?”

  She laughed, the sound odd and false in the room. Licking her lips, she rubbed at her arms as the cold swept back over her body. Her voice only wobbled a little when she spoke again. “If you want a rational discussion, stay over there. Otherwise, I’ll make you stay and I’ll vacate the premises—you won’t be able to find me for months. If ever.”

  She narrowed her eyes as she studied him, seeing how he took the threat.

  Slowly, he slid his hands into his pockets and leaned back against the wall.

  He was taking her seriously.

  Good.

  It took her two attempts before she finally managed to say, “I’ve got the odd feeling that Morraine is a threat to society again.”

  “You always were a quick study, babe,” Micah said, his voice soft, almost sad.

  If I was a quick study, I would have run far and fast the minute the first agent showed up at my door, she thought. Turning her back on him, she stared out the window at the sanctuary she had built for herself over the years. She had felt safe here. Lonely, but safe. Now that was gone.

  “He’s out,” she whispered, forcing a slow breath into her tight lungs.

  “Yes,” Micah said.

  Turning back to him, she stared at him, fighting the urge to run upstairs, pack a bag and do what she’d threatened—run. Run hard, far, fast.

  Either that…or throw herself at him and let him take care of her, believe in whatever promises—lies—he might offer.

  Zoë had done that once. She’d loved him, let herself need him. Then she’d found out he’d just been using her—he’d destroyed her.

  She couldn’t risk it again. “So they want me to help capture Morraine again?” she asked quietly.

  “Not exactly. But kind of,” he said obliquely.

  “That doesn’t sound very decisive,” she said, a tiny bit of amusement darting through her. “Since when does FBI answer questions like that?”

  An odd flutter of tension quivered in the air. He reached up, flicking his raven black hair out of his silver eyes. Those eyes cut into her, seeing straight through her.

  The tension thickened and she fought the nerves that always rose inside her when she was subject to strong emotion.

  “What?” she asked quietly. “What is it?”

  “It’s not the FBI that sent me here,” he said flatly. “They turned Morraine over to another authority— I’m here because of them.”

  Licking her lips, she puzzled that one out. “Another authority?” she finally asked.

  He nodded. “They are actually…well, they are a government agency, but they deal with anything…out of the ordinary,” he said finally.

  “Like me,” she guessed, her voice flat. Walking over to the couch, she lowered herself onto the plush, plum purple cushions, drawing her knees to her chest.

  “Yes. I never knew about them. They tend to be very low-key, I’m told. They would have taken care of Morraine, but then they saw us recruit you, and they are familiar with you,” Micah said, his voice sounding a little edgy. And she didn’t need to even guess at why.

  She was the why. Nothing she hated more than being watched, examined, investigated…she had spent most of her childhood in a place that was more like a lab than a home. “They know about Zeneri.” Clenching her hand into a fist, she resisted the urge to jump up and bash her hand through the wall.

  “Yes. I got some information out of one of them—I think Zeneri might have been one of the guys who started their unit up.”

  Her voice was a bare whisper as she asked, “And Hollister?”

  “No. He was an unknown to them. I got the idea that the woman in charge was…ah…displeased. I said his name and her eyes turned to ice. Made the mention that you certainly had the right to kill him, but she almost regretted none of him was left for them to deal with.”

  “So they know I killed him,” she muttered, dragging a hand through her hair and climbing from the chair. “How
fucking long have they been watching me?”

  Micah shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said quietly.

  Anger sizzled through her veins, but she tamped it down as she met his eyes and nodded slowly. “With Morraine, once I came into the picture, they didn’t see the need to step up and risk exposing themselves?” she hazarded.

  He nodded. “Basically. Of course, once we had Morraine, they took over. My superior at the time wasn’t happy. Sanders about had an apoplectic fit, I hear. Of course, I just found all this out yesterday,” he said, shaking his head.

  “I never knew any of this,” he repeated. “I was led to believe he was dead, the same as you.” And the helpless fury he felt at that threatened to spiral out of control as he stared at her, seeing the fear in her eyes. He wanted, more than anything, to take her someplace safe, someplace where she’d never know fear or pain again.

  But he couldn’t. Not yet. They could stop that sick piece of shit.

  For good.

  Permanently. In the only way that would work. He didn’t trust a jail to hold Morraine. Micah had every intention of killing the sick fuck, but without Zoë, he’d never get close.

  Turning, he took a step toward her.

  She tensed, even though she was facing away.

  “Expect me to keep my distance the entire time I’m here, Zo?”

  When she finally faced him, the stark emptiness on her face was like a punch. Maybe she was right—he was the one who needed to grow up. He’d run away from her, from them…from what they were. And he’d missed her. Missed the way she felt against him, missed the way her skin smelled, that wry, caustic humor and the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed.

  Everything…everything about her, even that skeptical look in her eyes.

  He took another step toward her.

  “Don’t.” She shook her head again.

  Micah made himself stop. He wanted to fight this out, do something to remove the barrier between them, but they didn’t have much time. “There’s more,” he said quietly.

  “There always is with you.”

  There was a trace of her old humor in her voice.

  “Morraine is coming after you,” Micah said quietly.

  For a second, she didn’t understand.

  But then she did and he was glad he’d moved closer, because he was barely able to catch her when her legs buckled. Pulling her up against him, he said, “I don’t want to hear this shit about keeping my distance, Zo. Not now.”

  She didn’t say anything. He doubted she even heard him as she sat trembling in his arms, her body eerily cold.

  Minutes passed.

  “Zoë.”

  She just sat there, not even blinking.

  “Zoë!” He forced her to look at him and finally, she focused on his face.

  She licked her lips, her gaze bouncing off him. “He’s…Morraine escaped. He’s coming after me.”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded then. “That’s why you’re here.”

  Part of him wanted to deny it—he wanted to say he was there for her.

  But it wouldn’t help. “Yes.” He pulled her close and she tried to pull back.

  No. Not this time. “Stop trying to be so strong, Zoë,” he said. I’m not letting go this time. If nothing else, the strength of his thoughts would get through if even she didn’t hear his words. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “You can’t promise that. I’m not okay from last time.”

  Lifting his head, he cupped her chin in his hand, forcing her to meet his eyes. “It will be okay—because you’re stronger than he is. He took one bad blow and he snapped. You’ve taken everything he’s thrown at you, all the bullshit you had to endure as a kid, and you’re still whole, still you. You’re strong—you’re brave.”

  “You’re wrong.” She closed her hand around his wrist and this time, when she tried to break free, he let her.

  She rose and moved a few feet away. “You’re wrong, Micah,” she said again. Then with five simple words, she destroyed him. “But I’m not whole anymore.”

  So exactly what did one do when you were supposed to be bait, she mused as she stared out the window.

  This was surreal. How could it be happening again?

  The nightmares still robbed her of sleep, all too often. Morraine would kill randomly, violently, with such pleasure…and he hadn’t always used his own body.

  More than once he’d used his telepathic skills take over the mind of another, and had used that other body to kill.

  A husband killed his own wife.

  A cop killed two fellow cops.

  Guilty…but not guilty.

  The husband had killed himself once Morraine finally released the hold on his mind. But the cop, Morraine had killed him, squeezing an unseen fist around his brain until it killed the poor guy, blood flowing from his eyes, his nose, mouth and ears. Zoë woke up screaming from the memories. Because Morraine had tangled their minds together as he tried to take over her thoughts, blending them with his own. Now every horrible thing he had done in life, she had the echo of the memory inside her head.

  Those memories had damn near broken her.

  Zoë wasn’t whole anymore. The only thing that surpassed her fear of Morraine was her hatred of him.

  The hatred was what had given her the strength to track Morraine down. But she had done it her way, not the way the FBI agents kept telling her to do.

  Once it was over, seeing Morraine plummet over the edge of the cliff, she had thought maybe the nightmares would stop. But they hadn’t.

  They never would, she suspected.

  She would just have to deal with it.

  And pray that monster didn’t add to the nightmares.

  Micah hadn’t had to draw a picture for her to figure it out. They had to stop Morraine, and this time for good. What better mouse to use in such a trap, besides one with very deadly teeth? And the mouse he blamed for being caught to begin with.

  With a wry twist of her lips, she had to admit she felt very much like a mouse. A cornered, trapped one. It was when she felt the most terrified that her own deadly powers spiraled out of control.

  That strength, born of fear, had saved her before. It had been enough then.

  Would it be enough now?

  Kyle Morraine wasn’t a psychopath, despite what Micah and all his fellow FBI buddies thought. And the nameless “authority” Micah had mentioned. She had no doubt they had questioned, examined and tested him thoroughly, then assigned Morraine to some neat little slot that made the men in white jackets feel more secure and organized in their world.

  But some things had no label. Not sociopath, not psychopath, not schizophrenic.

  The only label that fit Morraine was evil.

  He’d been born evil.

  Zoë should know. After all, she had grown up with him. Both of them, along with ten other children, lived at the Zeneri Institute. Supposedly it was a place for emotionally troubled, neglected youth.

  In reality, it was a lab. The youths were talented, gifted children whose parents had basically sold them to Craig Zeneri. Zeneri hadn’t exactly been evil—he never set out to hurt any of them or cause them pain, and he provided for them very well.

  Some might have thought they led a rather posh life—so long as they did as they were asked.

  When they didn’t…well, imposed isolation to a gifted, over-imaginative youngster was pure torment. So they learned quickly, did as they were asked, paid attention in class and participated in the daily lab sessions.

  But then Zeneri died. Somebody else came in. She was fifteen when she came face to face Draven Hollister. Fifteen the first time he tried to rape her.

  She had been a bad target for his experimental theory. What happens to a young mind, one already a freak of nature, when put through traumatic experience?

  He’d tried Becka next. But the pyrokinetic had been as dangerous as the telekinetic.

  He even tried drugs to suppress their gifts, but nothing
cleared a drug fog like terror and panic. The only thing that might have worked would have been completely rendering them unconscious—and how could that terrify them properly?

  There were no females left—Becka and Zoë thought it would be okay.

  They were wrong.

  Kyle was the youngest, at thirteen, and a rather pretty boy. Maybe that was why Hollister chose him. Kyle Morraine was also the weakest, more easy to frighten into submission.

  It was a very short time, though, that Hollister had him.

  One night, two boys slid out of their room, tripping the locks that Hollister had been led to believe held them in at night. They came to Zoë and Becka—the two most dangerous children—and asked for help. Who better to help fight a monster than a pyrokinetic, like Becka…or a telekinetic, like Zoe?

  They would break out.

  They would kill if they had to. In the end, that was exactly what had happened.

  They had fought back, Zoë had killed him, and they all ran away from the place that had become their prison.

  Too bad they hadn’t acted a little sooner. The night they’d broken out, when they’d gone to get the last child, they’d found Kyle with Hollister. The bastard had brutalized the young boy—raped and beaten him just to see what would happen to a gifted mind under such trauma.

  “Your fault!” Kyle had screamed at her. “You could have helped me!”

  If she had known, she would have. But Kyle had always been quiet, keeping to himself, staring at everybody around him with dark, distrustful eyes. And the fact was she didn’t like him. There was something creepy about the boy—and he liked to kill things. She had seen it, even blacked his eye because of it.

  Kyle Morraine had always been evil. As she walked down the stairs, she did have to wonder if what might have been different if she had known, if she had been able to save him from Hollister.

  But a more logical part of her whispered, He was born evil…nothing would have been different.

  “You okay?”

  She jerked, startled, as she tore herself out of the past. Turning, she stared at Micah, blinking away her daze. “Yeah,” she said quietly.

  Spinning away from the window, she moved away from the window, rubbing at her arms. “As okay as can be expected, I guess.” Hearing the hollow ring in her voice, she forced a ghost of a smile and asked, “Did you finish checking in with mommy and daddy?”