Luc came inside and knelt by Krell. His hand came up, rested by mine. “I saw in his mind. All the memories…Jacques.” A spasm of grief tightened his face and he whispered, “I cannot believe what Cosette did…”
I covered his hand with mine. Some of those memories I had never shared. I hadn’t wanted him to know, and now he knew anyway. “It is over,” I said.
He turned his hand over, gripped mine. “Over,” he echoed. Then he tugged his hand away and stood. “I saw it in his mind as he was leaving. He hasn’t remembered how to shield, or perhaps he never learned. I do not know. But I saw it, heard it all. He remembered who I am, that we’d been wed. And he thought I had died. Then he saw that I still lived and he…” Luc shrugged. “He wouldn’t stay. It felt to me like he couldn’t. He thinks we are together, and it hurts him.”
“Oh, shit,” I muttered, my gut clenching. I looked at Luc and saw the pain he tried to hide. No matter what, I was hurting these two men.
Luc combed his hand through my hair. “Go, Perci. Find him.”
“Luc—”
He pressed his finger to my lips. “Go,” he said again.
And I went.
The door closed behind Perci before Sina said a word. Luc knew it was coming. Unspoken words carried a weight, a heavy one.
“You still love her.”
Luc made his way to the window, relying on the imagery he’d gleaned from his link with Krell. Before he answered, he opened it and leaned out, breathing in the fresh sea air. He thought he might like to walk the beach for a while. Perhaps.
Sighing, he turned back to Sina. “Whether I love her or not changes nothing. She doesn’t love me, and more than anything, I need her to be happy. And at peace.”
“So selfless,” Sina said. “Always so selfless.”
“If I was selfless, I would have walked away from her years ago, instead of taking whatever scraps she would give me. But because I kept clinging to a useless hope, I held her tight and neither of us healed.” Luc shook his head. “Both of us are to blame, Sina. I don’t know why you are so angry with Perci, but it ends. Now.”
Then he turned and strode away.
As he left her alone in the room, Sina turned to look out the window.
Such a clueless man. He’d loved a woman for years. And Sina had loved him for years. Why shouldn’t she be angry? Of course, he had never seen it. Nobody saw it. And that was how it would remain. It was safer that way. Much, much safer.
Chapter Fourteen
It was hard to trail him. I’d been after him for weeks. Two, at least. Maybe three. I was losing track, and running on too little sleep. I think it had been four days since I’d slept, and almost a week since I’d eaten. Where was he and how was he moving so fast?
He was still too new. He shouldn’t be able to move like this. But he did. I followed the ache in my heart, knowing it would lead me to him.
Before it had been a burn…a buzz. Now it was pain, hot and lashing.
I was in Maine now and somehow, I wasn’t surprised. The ocean seemed to draw him, and right now, the wild, turbulent waters echoed the chaos in my heart. It would echo his as well. And when the tears clogged my throat, I knew I was close. I pulled off the road and found myself close to the shore.
There was a small, rickety looking cabin, but he wasn’t in there. The path under my feet kept trying to crumble as I headed down to the rocky beach.
I saw his silhouette even from nearly half a mile away, and I knew the exact moment he sensed me. I was almost a quarter mile away when he did, and I wondered if he would leave. It would be harder for me to catch him now, but damn it, if he thought he’d just run away…
But all he did was turn and watch me approach. Words crowded my head, leaped into my throat. What was I supposed to say?
Why in the hell did you leave like that?
I’m not married. Technically, both of us died so the marriage was null, but I wanted it more official and we’re not married, haven’t been for more than three centuries. Is that why you left?
Are you angry?
The distance between us closed all too soon, and I found myself standing in front of him and staring into those misty, beautiful eyes…and I had no idea what to say to him.
He broke our little staring contest and turned away, looking back out over the water.
“I don’t need a trainer. So run on back to Will and tell him you tried. You did your job. You can go back to your husband now and leave me the hell alone.”
I scowled at him. “I’m not here because of Will. And for your information, Luc hasn’t been my husband in over three hundred years. We were divorced before it was the in thing to do.”
If I hadn’t been watching him so closely, I wouldn’t have seen it, wouldn’t have seen how his shoulders went rigid, wouldn’t have heard his harsh intake of breath.
And as quickly as that, he relaxed and shrugged. “Whatever. I don’t want a trainer and in case nobody clued you in, I’ve done this gig before. I was doing it before you were even a thought, princess, so I think I can handle it. Now get the hell away from me.”
“Are you trying to piss me off?” I asked. “Or does it just come naturally?”
He looked back at me. “No. I’m not trying. I just want you gone. So…go.”
His eyes…they were so fucking cold. Glacier cold. It hit me square in the chest. I could have screamed it hurt so bad, and that was when I realized.
I did love him.
I’d been wrong when Sina asked me. I couldn’t grow to love him, because I already did. But he didn’t want me here. Karma…talk about karma. As the pain twisted inside my heart, I pasted a false, bitter smile on my face. “Yeah, fine.”
He didn’t want me here. He didn’t want me. Oh, the irony. Luc had been wrong.
Sadly though, I knew I wasn’t going to get much relief by pointing that out to him. As I made my way across the sharp, jagged rocks, I focused every last bit of energy I had on that single task.
I didn’t think about anything else, because I couldn’t.
The rocks, they were all that mattered.
And then I was clear of the rocks…but there was the path ahead. It was a twisty path, and eroding something terrible. I didn’t want to fall, right? So I concentrated on that. Just that. After all, it wouldn’t do for me to fall, because the way my luck was going, I’d break my ankle and then I’d be stuck here long enough to get Will out to set it. Stuck here with Jack—
I hissed out a breath.
Don’t think about him.
Just like that, he was in front of me.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, his craggy, rough face darkened in a snarl.
I edged around him and tossed back over my shoulder, “Nothing. Going now.”
The path. Focus on the path. And after that, I’d find something else—
Jack’s hand, hard and hot, closed around my arm and swung me around.
“What’s wrong?”
I stared at him. What’s wrong? He wanted to know what was wrong. I spent three weeks trailing after him, I find him, and he pushes me away and he wants to know what’s wrong.
But I wasn’t going to tell him that I’d just realized I was in love with him. He didn’t get that from me. He didn’t care enough. Carefully, I said, “Nothing is wrong. Would you let me go, please?”
He shook me, staring down at me with intense eyes. Eyes that glowed. Shit. His gift. It was his gift—
“Don’t tell me that,” he muttered. He laid a hand on my cheek. “You’re hurting somewhere. I feel it. What’s wrong?”
Hurting.
I jerked back, so hard and fast I ended up on my butt with the sharp rocks digging into my tender flesh. Now I had some real physical, if somewhat minor pain.
But that wasn’t the pain he’d felt.
No. Oh, shit, no.
Shoving to my feet, I skirted around him. “I’m not hurting,” I told him.
“Yeah, you are.”
I sneere
d at him. “You a healer now? Fine. I just gouged my ass on the rocks over there. You come kiss it and make it better.”
“Perci—”
He tried to reach for me again, but I was prepared this time. Yeah, he was fast. But I was just as fast. I moved away, evading him. I stood with the cliff at my back as I faced him. The wind slashed across my face, stinging my eyes.
“You have a nice life, Jack. Sorry you got stuck with this deal again—I know you didn’t want it.” Then I started the climb up, moving as fast as I could. And it was pretty damn fast. It should have been fast enough. But even as fast as I was, he caught me. I was nearly to the top, but he still caught me.
“Wait,” he muttered, catching me and crowding up against me on the narrow trail.
“Sorry. I need to be gone.”
“Why?” he asked baldly. “You just got here.”
“Yeah, and you just told me to get the hell out.”
He didn’t even respond to that, he was too busy staring at me, like he’d see something on me, in me. Why was he staring at me? “Damn it, what do you want?”
“What’s hurting you?” he demanded and his eyes looked slightly wild. “You’re not still hurt, are you? Damn it, it’s been more than three weeks.”
More than three weeks.
Those words circled around in my head as he reached up, touched my face, tipped my head back and peered down at me. His touch, his nearness, it numbed me, dazed me, made it so hard to think.
But I had to think. Damn it. Tearing free from him, I back away, edging closer and closer to the edge of the trail. If I got to my damn car, it wouldn’t matter how fast he was. None of us moved faster than cars. We might be a little more than human, but we were basically still human under the fancy trappings we’d been given, and we weren’t prone to things like Superman’s skills of “faster than a speeding bullet”.
“I’m not hurt,” I said, forcing the words out through a tight, raspy throat. “I’m not hurt and you can stop worrying…although why in the hell you feel the need, I don’t know.”
“If you’re not hurt, why does it feel like something inside me is…” His voice trailed away and he stared into my eyes.
Broken.
He didn’t say it out loud.
But he didn’t need to. He felt broken inside because he was feeling my pain. And I was broken inside. Shit.
I slammed up heavy, thick mental shields, layering them as thick as I could and hoping it would block him. Empathy—why in the hell had they gifted somebody like him with empathy?
I had to get away before he figured it out. Damn it. I was going to leave here with something intact, and the only thing I had left was my pride.
“I’m fine,” I said again with a sharp-edged smile. “Chances are you didn’t have this gift before…” And I was still trying to get my mind wrapped around that. “It’s all new and weird and more when you change over. So it takes a while to adjust. So you stay here and adjust and have fun with it. Ciao.”
I turned on my heel and rushed for my car.
I had my hand on the fucking handle when he reached over my shoulder and slammed down on the door. I jerked against him and he shoved the door with so much force, I saw the metal crumple under his hand.
“Damn it, Jack.”
“Why are you here, Perci?”
Desperately, I jerked on the door. I needed to get away. Now.
He brought a hand up and curved it over my hip. “This pain, it’s just in one place, you know. Right in my heart. Like somebody has a knife there, twisting it. But you aren’t hurt there.” He lowered his head, pressed his mouth to my shoulder.
A shudder wracked me from head to toe.
“If it’s not something I can see, then what was I feeling? And why can’t I feel it now?” He pressed his lips to my hair. “What’s going on, Perci?”
“You’re too new to your gift,” I snapped. “Nothing’s going on. Learn your gift, how to use it. And take your hands off me.”
But he didn’t. All he did was breathe me in. Strangely…I felt that.
“I don’t really want to take my hands off you, Perci.”
He dipped his head and kissed my nape. The brush of his mouth against my flesh jolted through me, making my nerve endings sizzle and my knees weaken. My heart slammed against my ribs, beating at a speed that might have been dangerous had I still been completely mortal.
Too damn bad—passing out just then might have been handy.
“You wanted me gone, Jack,” I said, keeping my voice hard and flat, even though all I wanted to do was melt against him. “Now I want to be gone. I’ve got things to do, people to see, and it’s easier for me to do that if you would let go.”
“People to see…like Luc?” Big, rough hands curled over my shoulders. His voice was a ragged snarl in my ear as he said, “You know what it did to me when I saw him? It was like somebody had punched a hole into my chest and just ripped my heart out. I remember, you know—that other life. I remember the way you used to watch him, how he watched you. It was…beautiful, and even though it hurt me then to see it, it was what you needed. And all I could think was that you belonged with him, you needed that beauty back. I hate myself for thinking I had taken what belonged to another man…and I kept wondering why in the hell you didn’t tell me.”
“There was nothing to tell—not to you, at least, Jack. Luc and I don’t belong together.” I blinked back my tears, struggled to maintain whatever shields I could to keep him from feeling my anguish. This was torment. This was hell. And I wanted, more than anything that blissful numb state I had known for years. It was better than this. Better than this gut-wrenching agony. Keeping my voice neutral, I stared off over my car as I said, “Luc and I aren’t the people we used to be. What happened during our mortal lives, at the end of them, changed us—too much and we can’t go back to who we were. A part of me has known that ever since it happened, and Luc has come to see it as well.”
He tugged on my shoulders, tried to make me face him, but I couldn’t do that—wouldn’t. Swallowing the knot in my throat, I added, “And like I said, Luc and I haven’t been married in years. So you weren’t fucking a married woman. You haven’t sullied your precious honor.”
I still didn’t understand completely what had happened, but I knew back during my mortal life, honor had been important to Jacques. It would matter to Jack as well. Thinking he had been sleeping with a married woman had probably been weighing on him. Although if he had been sleeping with a married woman, and I’d kept that secret—the sin would have been mine, not his.
Men. I swear, they made no sense.
“You think this is just about honor?” A harsh, grating laugh escaped him. “Yeah, I don’t like the idea of fucking a married woman, but it was more than that…and damn it, will you look at me?”
This time, when he tried to turn me around, there was enough force in it. It was going to look pretty foolish if I resisted. I didn’t want him knowing why I resisted, after all. Didn’t want him feeling anything from me, didn’t want him guessing that it hurt too damn much to look at him.
Setting my jaw, I turned around and met his eyes. Even though I’d prepared myself, my heart still leaped, still jumped and danced inside my chest. And now that I knew, I could see it…Jacques. Yes, the face was different, and the body…but those eyes. Those eyes were the same, and as I stared into them, I knew the soul was the same as well.
Jacques.
He’d frightened me, intimidated me in that first life.
Dear God, how was this possible…
But there really wasn’t any need to ask that. I’d learned that nothing was impossible, not really. After all, here I was…some three hundred years after I’d been born. I’d fought things that never should have existed. Why shouldn’t I be standing in front of the man who’d fought to protect me all those years ago?
“You’re hiding something,” he muttered, lifting a hand to touch my cheek.
I turned my head aside, e
vading that light touch—couldn’t let him touch me now. Not now. From the corner of my eye, I saw his fingers curl into his palm, watched until his hand fisted and fell away.
As I looked back at him, I fixed an impassive mask firmly in place. But it didn’t do much good. He was one of us. He could hear my heart rate, could hear the miniscule catches in my breathing that I couldn’t regulate, no matter how hard I tried.
He lifted an arm, braced it over my shoulder and rested his hand on the car behind me. I felt surrounded by him and it did bad, bad things to my mental state. Bad, bad… As my heart accelerated, I saw his eyes widen, watched the misty gray of his pupils darken.
“What’s going on, Perci?” He didn’t touch me, but he leaned in close, so close I could feel his heat all along my body. “What are you hiding from me?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” I said. “You want me gone, right? So get out of my way.”
Those sad, sad eyes… They’d gutted him, right from the first. But now they weren’t sad. They were carefully, deliberately blank—just like everything else about her.
If it wasn’t for her jacked-up heart rate and the slightly erratic cadence of her breathing, Jack would have thought he was staring at a stone statue. That was how much emotion Perci showed—how much emotion she put out.
It was too fucking much—from the moment she’d stepped foot on his beach, he’d felt the pain radiating from her, like a vicious, burning wound, and then, as quick as a blink, it was all gone.
In the back of his mind, a voice whispered the answer, but he didn’t want to listen to that voice. He wanted the answer from her, because then he could trust it.
“I wanted you gone because it hurts too much to look at you and think about how you belong to somebody else,” he said slowly, forcing the words through a tight, tight throat. He didn’t want to tell her that, didn’t want to strip himself so completely bare.
Staring into her dark eyes, he lifted a hand and rested it on her waist. “I saw Luc and it was like everything inside of me just ended. I knew what would happen—somehow, I just knew. You’d be back with him and your world would be right again. I…my head’s been fucked up since then, can you get that?”
Tarnished Knight: Grimm's Circle, Book 4 Page 13