Hold Me If You Can

by Stephanie Rowe

  Finish the drawing.

  Nigel ignored the command. He didn’t need to draw anymore. He’d gotten what he needed. He placed his hands on Pascal’s chest and a rosy glow filled Pascal. The kid coughed, and then his chest heaved as air rushed back into his lungs.

  “And we have liftoff,” Nigel announced.

  “Nigel,” Christian shouted. “The lip gloss is leaking.”

  Nigel saw the tube lying on the floor, pink liquid oozing out of the end. “Shit!” He grabbed it and shoved the lid on, but there were already a dozen kitties perched on cabinets. “This is why men should never play with makeup.”

  “No shit. You’re on your own now,” Christian said as the room filled with the screams of demons coming to life. “Take care of our boy, and I’ll handle these guys.”

  “I’m on it.” Leaving Christian to play, Nigel forced more energy into Pascal, and he found an insidious black taint inside the warrior’s body. “There’s some kind of poison inside him.”

  “Clear it,” Christian ordered as he took down three demons with one swipe.

  “I’m on it.” But he’d never seen it before. He needed to figure out how to clear it—

  Finish the drawing.

  Nigel lunged for the sketchpad. He had to finish the drawing. The answer lay within the picture. He sketched until Pascal’s form was complete, and peace and rightness surged through him. Nigel tossed the pad aside and palmed Pascal’s chest. Power poured from his hands into the warrior. Nigel’s energy plunged into the poison, shredded it easily, and well-being rushed back into Pascal’s body.

  Pascal’s green eyes snapped open.

  Nigel grinned. “Welcome back, buddy—”

  “Oh, man!” Pascal paled, looking past Nigel. “Tell me I’m hallucinating.”

  “Holy mother of hell,” Christian muttered. “This isn’t good.”

  Nigel turned. A glittering, diamond-shaped hole was forming in the wall. A portal to the Den. In his house! Nigel leapt to his feet as the woman who’d been Angelica’s all-star apprentice for the last hundred years appeared in the doorway.

  Mari’s brown hair was still streaked with blond highlights, but gone were tight jeans and stack-’em-high Tshirts. Instead, she was wearing a navy blue suit and all-business heels, and there was a confident set to her shoulders that hadn’t been there before she’d taken over after Angelica’s incarceration.

  This was not the needy, weak apprentice who had manipulated Christian and betrayed them all. This was a woman who would fight from the front lines, and she had taken control in Angelica’s absence.

  Excellent. Because the chicks had been altogether too boring before.

  “Mari. What do you want?” Nigel allowed daggers to ease from his fingertips as Mari waved cheerfully at him, holding a piece of paper in her hand. On it was his drawing of Pascal.

  Nigel grabbed his sketchpad off the ground and saw that the picture of Pascal was still there. But Mari was holding the exact same image in her hand.

  “Get her!” Christian charged the hologram, sword blazing, but when he tried to tackle her, he went right through Mari’s image without doing anything more than causing her image to flicker.

  “It’s a hologram,” Nigel called out. “She’s not real!” Which was good. Murdering the woman in cold blood wouldn’t be the best therapy Christian could find. You know, given that they were all pretty much hardwired not to harm women in any way, even those decidedly lacking a reciprocal set of morals.

  Christian whirled around. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not her. It’s just her image.”

  Christian swore and slammed his sword through the image in frustration. Yeah, old girlfriends were a real drain on a man’s ability to get up and go. But Nigel sensed that something else was bothering Christian, something that ran a whole lot deeper. Because Christian was, quite simply, not the type to harm a woman. Even Mari. Even a hologram of her. Not once. Not ever. No matter what.

  “Hey, dudes. A little help, maybe?” Pascal called out.

  Nigel glanced over at him and was surprised to see he was apparently being dragged by some unseen force straight toward Mari, who was gripping the drawing tightly in her hand. “Whoa. She’s trying to take you through the portal?” Damn. That just wasn’t acceptable. Invading his digs and stealing his peeps? He shot a hard look at her. “No chance, Mari. You don’t get to have us anymore.”

  She didn’t respond. She just kept watching Pascal, who’d grabbed onto the footboard of his bed, hanging on with impressive strength for someone who’d been almost dead a few minutes ago. But they were warriors. They did shit like that.

  Nigel stiffened, not liking the intensity of Mari’s stare. How had she opened the portal in his place anyway?

  “She shouldn’t be here.”

  “Unfortunately, she’s not.” Christian leaned on his sword, still looking overly disgruntled that he couldn’t grab Mari by the hair and drag her out of the portal. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone get sucked into a portal through a drawing.”

  “Impressive,” Pascal agreed, still hanging on tightly. “Maybe we should sell tickets?” His voice grew more strained. “I gotta say, though, going back to party with Mari isn’t my first choice. I mean, she’s hot and all that, but she is my buddy’s ex-girlfriend and all. Violates man code to do her.”

  Christian barked with strained laughter. “She’s all yours, newbie.”

  “Don’t really want her, actually.” Pascal gasped as one hand slipped off the footboard.

  “Fight it, man. I’m coming.” Nigel loped across the room and grabbed Pascal’s wrist. “I’ve got you—”

  Pascal was ripped out of his grasp. “Hey!” Nigel lunged after his comrade as Pascal tumbled across the room toward Mari and the hell that they’d all suffered for so long. Crap! What was going on?

  Christian swore, and both warriors lunged for Pascal’s outstretched hands. “Hang on,” Nigel ordered. His fingers brushed against Pascal’s. “Got him!”

  Pascal met his eyes, a stricken look on his face. “First time ever that I didn’t get pleasure over you being wrong.” Then he was torn away from Nigel and sucked through the portal.

  “Pascal!” Christian dove into the portal, but it shut too quickly, and Christian crashed to the floor, empty-handed. Except, of course, for his sword. He swore and whirled toward Nigel. “You trapped him.” His skin was even tighter across his face, his eyes sunken. “You sent him back!”

  “I know.” A hundred and fifty years of sensitivity training had made Nigel able to admit when he’d screwed up. He had no clue how that could have happened, but it had. He swore and slammed his fist into the wall. “She had to have tainted the paper. Or the markers. Or maybe it was my healing.” Christian had nearly been broken when he’d been yanked back. Not another one. Not Pascal. “I’m going in after him.”

  “You can’t go in there by yourself.” Christian gripped Pascal’s footboard, his skin undulating with metal as Christian fought to keep control. “I’m going with you.” There was agony, fury, fire, and a deep, deep terror on Christian’s face. What could bring that level of fear to a man so immortal and so fierce that even the demons ran from him?

  “No. You can’t go back in.” Nigel knew Christian was in bad shape. No way could he ask his teammate to return to the Den. It was too much, too soon. “It’s my responsibility.” Hell, yeah, it was his responsibility. He’d committed one of their own back to hell. Shit! His job was to take care of everyone, not bring them down!

  Christian shook his head. “Blaine and Jarvis won’t be back from their cruise for two weeks. You need backup, and I’m going in with you. We’re getting him back.”

  “I can handle it.” Nigel grabbed a Sharpie and a paper off the table and began to sketch Christian’s torment. He was so pissed and frustrated he couldn’t focus. Two minutes with the pen and he’d be able to create a strategy.

  “What are you doing?” Christian demanded.

&nb
sp; “I’m drawing. Need to clear my head.” He added the lines of strain around his teammate’s mouth—

  “Stop!” Christian ripped the sketchpad out of his hand. “I won’t let you send me back to the Den, too. Draw something else.” The tip of Christian’s sword touched his jaw. “Not me.”

  Nigel stared at Christian. “You think I drew him back into the Den.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Shit. Was that possible? Of course it was. Better not to take the chance. They all knew what Mari would do to have another chance at Christian. “Yeah, okay. I’ll draw something else.” Natalie’s face flashed in his mind and he smiled. Oh, yes, he knew who to draw. The delicate visage of a woman with haunted green eyes, living with a fear so deep she didn’t sleep. The passion in her eyes, the sensual way her body moved when she was doing something as simple as getting milk out of the fridge.

  A sense of peace settled over him as he began to sketch. That delicate upturned nose, those full lips—

  “Look at what you’re drawing,” Christian said quietly.

  Nigel saw that he’d drawn Christian’s face again. Not Natalie. “What the hell?” He flipped the page again, his soul getting restless. He needed to draw to pull himself together. He envisioned Natalie’s lovely energy, the sparkle in her eye when she’d been in the moment of joy, the anguish in her face when she realized she was dying. The flush of her cheeks, the way she would watch him across the room, so aware of his every move—

  Christian ripped the paper out of his hand. “Look.”

  He’d drawn Christian again. “Son of a bitch.”

  “Mari wants me, and somehow she’s compelling you to draw me, just like she did with Pascal.”

  Draw Christian.

  It was the same voice in his head as before.

  Holy shit. Christian was right. Mari was manipulating his drawing. He had to stop. But even as he thought it, a burning need seared through him at the thought of not drawing. It was his salvation. It was how he cleared his mind enough to go into battle. It was how he summoned his healing arts. He needed a clear mind to rescue Pascal, and he wouldn’t get there without his art. It was exactly as Natalie had said, that his art was a part of his soul.

  But she had no idea how truly important it was. He absolutely could not afford to be without the respite that his art gave him. But as he looked at Christian’s eyes staring at him from the paper on the floor, he knew he couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t draw. Sweat beaded on his brow at the thought of being without it. “No, I can handle this. She can’t control me—”

  “Hell, man!” Christian ripped the pen out of his hand, and Nigel saw he’d started to draw Christian on his own palm.

  Christian raised his sword to Nigel’s throat. “I love you, man, but I can’t go back. Not on her terms.” Tension rippled his body. “It’ll haunt me for centuries to do it, but if you try to draw me again, I’ll cut off your hands and pray you figure out how to regrow them.”

  Nigel swore and bunched his fist. Was he that weak that he couldn’t stop himself from drawing Christian? And who would be his victim after that? Blaine? Jarvis? He was a danger to them all. But without his art, he was an even greater danger. To them, to Natalie, to anyone he cared about. “I can do it. I need to draw—”

  “I don’t trust Mari.” Christian’s face was hard, but there was sympathy in his eyes. “You’ve got no chance if she’s decided to use you.”

  Nigel swore. A hundred and fifty years had taught them very clearly the limitations of their power against Mari and Angelica. Christian was right.

  Christian nodded. “We have to preempt her now.” He tapped his sword against Nigel’s wrists. “Give me permission.”

  “No.” He shoved Christian’s blade aside. “She wins if you take away my weapons.”

  Christian hesitated, then slowly lowered his sword. “Get help, then. Someone who can be louder in your head than Mari.”

  They didn’t have time for this. They needed to get Pascal back fast. Every minute he spent there was hell. “I can outtalk Mari—”

  “You really want to take that chance?”

  Nigel swore. Pascal was already gone. Christian was next. Did he dare risk it? His soul needed to draw anyway, and with Mari pushing at him… “Shit.”

  Christian nodded. “That about sums it up.”

  Who the hell could shut down Mari’s voice in his head? Alleviate his need to draw? He needed to focus his mind so he could strategize and think of a solution. To give him the peace that art gave him without actually picking up the pen. Natalie’s face flashed in his mind, and Nigel itched with the need to draw her. If he could have five minutes with her image, he could clear his head enough to find an answer. Natalie could help him, she could… Holy shit. Natalie could really help him. And not just by being an image he drew to calm himself.

  Natalie Fleming had a gift, a special gift that was exactly what he needed. But hell, he couldn’t ask her for help. She was the last person he dared to think about even when he had his art to keep him calm. Without it? Shit. She would be in such danger.

  He couldn’t risk her.

  But without her, he couldn’t save his team. He swore and lunged for the door. “I’ll meet you in an hour.”

  Christian frowned. “Where are you going?”

  “I gotta go see about a girl.” A girl who should be on her way to a safe haven in the tropics. A woman he’d sworn not to endanger by getting close to her. A beautiful soul that he would put in jeopardy with every second in her presence.

  He couldn’t afford to turn to her for help. Not for her sake. Not for his.

  But he couldn’t afford not to. God keep you safe from me, Natalie.

  But he knew that God couldn’t keep anyone safe. Not from him.

  Especially not Natalie Fleming.

  Chapter 4

  Still reeling from her failure with Dick Small and his flaccid rod-o-love, Natalie shuffled numbly across the store and flipped the sign on the door to Closed just as a police officer reached for the door handle. She met his gaze, and she saw the hopelessness in his eyes, the broken visage of a man who couldn’t figure out how to be a man on his own.

  “Please don’t close,” he said quietly. “Please.”

  She hated feeling useless. But she wasn’t going to humiliate anyone else until she could figure out what was wrong with her. “I’m so sorry.”

  “But I need your help—”

  “I can’t.” She forced the door shut on him and leaned her back against the glass, steeling herself against his pleading requests. Her soul was screaming at her to help him. She was supposed to be his angel of virility. And she had to let him down.

  Ella cocked her head, her gaze sympathetic. “Girl, you’re in bad shape, aren’t you?”

  Natalie eyed the iPad sitting on Ella’s lap and thought of her life being splayed out for public consumption in Ella’s dissertation. “This really isn’t the time for an interview. I have to figure some things out. I—”

  “I’ve been there.”

  Natalie frowned. “Been where? Unable to give a man erection assistance?”

  Ella smiled. “Oh, no, I can’t say I’ve ever been fortunate enough to affect men’s sexual performance on a regular basis. But I’ve been in a pretty bad place.”

  Yeah, sure. This PhD candidate looked like she was far above such mundane things as failure to deliver the big boner or being stalked by demons with eating disorders. “You mean you were about to die ahead of your time? Failed to live up to your destiny? Unable to do what your soul is screaming at you to do?”

  Ella nodded. “Yeah, pretty much. Only I was praying to die and couldn’t make it happen.”

  Well, that wasn’t an answer she heard every day. “Really?” Natalie looked more carefully at Ella. The prim and proper schoolmarm outfit, the straight brown hair in a pristine bun, the elegant and subdued makeup weren’t what Natalie would expect a hedonism professor to wear. Maybe a flamboyant grass skirt. Or a scarlet red body s
uit. Platinum blond hair. Not this tightly wrapped example of how to suppress every piece of passion in your soul.

  “Really.” Ella set the computer aside. “Listen, Nat… Can I call you Nat?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Natalie moved closer, lured by the friendly lean to Ella’s shoulders. By the welcoming warmth in her eyes. With her only remaining sister now spending most of her time with her new man, Natalie missed the companionship of another woman. “What happened?”

  Ella shook her head. “Oh, no, you don’t want to hear my story.” She gave a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “But I just wanted to tell you that sometimes life seems to be more than we can handle, but it’s really not. There’s always a way, even when it seems like there isn’t.” She picked up a chocolate bar and sniffed it. “The key thing is not to give up. Take action, even if it’s little steps. It helps, it really does.”

  Natalie perched on the chair next to Ella. “I don’t even know who I am right now. I feel like I’m floundering.” Yes, she was alive, but after twenty-five years of being haunted by her curse, waiting to die, now that she had a chance to start over, she almost felt like she didn’t know where to begin. She was envious of Nigel, who always seemed to be so at peace as long as he had a pen in his hand.

  “You?” Ella raised her brows. “You’re one of the most powerful Mystics I’ve ever run across. You’re this amazing talent with this great business. Don’t forget that.”

  “But I’m not powerful!” But it did feel good to have someone telling her she wasn’t a total loser. “I couldn’t even influence a human just now.”

  Ella squeezed Natalie’s hand, genuine, urgent concern in her voice. “Play with your chocolate. Try to influence an ant. Anything it takes to keep moving forward. Action begets action.” She balanced the chocolate bar on the tip of her index finger and began to spin it. “Watch.”

  It whirled around in a dizzy circle. “Never abandon forward motion,” Ella said. “If you do, that’s when you crash. So much harder to get going, to find hope again. Even if you feel like you’re spinning in circles at least you’re moving.” Ella flicked the end of the spinning bar and it flew off her finger, spiraling through the air as it soared across the store, landing on the floor and sliding another ten feet before it came to a rest beside a vintage candy machine. “See? Even running in circles can launch you forward. Always keep moving. Always.”