The growl of a big engine moving fast rumbled in the distance and headlights glowed around the bend.
“Please be Priest.” Elise thumbed the light on her phone, waited until the vehicle rounded the corner, then waved it overhead. Priest or not, she wasn’t risking either of them adding hit-and-run to the list of damages.
“Get off the road.” Tate’s voice was the last thing she’d expected to hear, and as low as it was, she almost missed it over the increasing roar from the vehicle moving closer. Quiet or not, the command behind his words was pure alpha. “Not protected.”
The wards. They only went as far as the road and with Tate out for the count she had zero protection.
She still wasn’t moving. “Priest is on his way.”
“Get off the road.”
“I’m not leaving. Tell me where you’re hurt.”
He tried to move, pushing up on one forearm and bracing the other low on his hips. One leg seemed to cooperate, but the one closest to the ground didn’t budge.
“Tate, no!”
“You need to get back on our property.”
“I need you to stay still. Is it your leg? Your hip?”
The car rounded the curve and raced toward them.
Still stubbornly trying to get up, Tate dragged himself in front of her, his painful groan knifing through her.
“Tate, stop it. It’s Priest.”
Sure enough, Priest’s black Tahoe screeched to a halt on the opposite side of the road.
Priest had barely gotten both feet out of the truck before Tate started in again. “Get her back behind the wards.”
“I’m fine,” Elise said, grateful to see Katy hurrying around the hood to join them.
“Someone was watching her house,” Tate bit out to Priest. “A woman. A Honda, I think. Newer. Black or dark blue, maybe.”
One look from Priest said he not only wanted her back behind the wards as bad as Tate did, but had a mind to make it happen no matter Tate’s condition. “Go. I’ll take care of him.”
“No.”
Katy crouched beside Elise, her voice calm and compassionate despite the wild energy spinning around them. “They need to focus, Elise. Until you’re safe, that’s not going to happen with either of them.”
“He’s hurt.”
“Elise?” Her mother’s voice drifted across the highway over the engine’s steady idle. “What happened?” She hesitated mid-stride across the road, spied Tate sprawled on his side in front of her, then high-stepped it the rest of the way there. “My God, Tate. Are you okay?”
“Fine. Get Elise to the house.” Tate looked from Jenny to Elise, his eyes obviously glazed with pain and his chest heaving. “Please.”
“Go,” Katy said. “Priest and I will get him in the truck and up to your house. We’ll call a healer. He’ll be fine, but loading him up without hurting him more than necessary is going to take some time and neither of them are going to focus as long as you’re off protected land.”
“Elise...” Tate clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Okay. I’m going.” She forced herself to stand and take a step back. The pulsating connection that had guided her to him in the first place vibrated with a silent fury, fighting the distance she created with every step. Even the weight of her mother’s arm around her shoulders and her comforting scent didn’t help. Only made her want to trade it for Tate’s strength. To drown in his woods-and-earth scent and feel his skin against hers.
Tucked tight to her mother’s side, she made the long trek back to the house on adrenaline-shaken legs, the gravel and sharp debris that had been so inconsequential to her bare feet only minutes before now a brutal punishment.
“Just breathe, Elise.” Her mother hugged her closer and smoothed her hand up and down her arm. “He’ll be just fine. You’ve seen for yourself what the clan’s healers can do, and Tate’s in nowhere near the condition Kallie was a few weeks ago.” She tried to guide Elise to the porch swing.
Elise shrugged it off and paced the length of the railing, her gaze rooted to the soft glow from Priest’s Tahoe at the end of the drive. “We had Meara here for Kallie. Vanessa’s the next strongest healer we have, and I pissed her off. Even if she’s good enough to fix whatever’s wrong with him, she might refuse to help.”
“Then we’ll deal with it. Tate’s strong. He was wide-awake and ready to do battle if it meant getting you back inside Priest’s wards. Fear is just skewing your perspective.”
Fear? Fear was chump change compared to the emotion roiling around in her gut. To the razor-sharp sting cutting beneath her skin. The way he’d been able to move, any debilitating spinal injury was unlikely, but there was no telling what internal damage he might have suffered.
“Have you bonded with him, Elise?”
It was a reasonable question. Especially the way she’d been ripped out of a dream and guided to him. “I don’t know.” She’d felt something. That much was certain. But there was a part missing, too. Invisible puzzle pieces she was too terrified to look at. She squeezed the porch rail and stared down the driveway, willing the steady headlights to move. Strained her ears for the elevated sound of an engine in motion. “He wants me to move in with him.”
Her mother moved in beside her. “It’s where you’re supposed to be, sweetheart.”
An hour ago, she might have argued. Might have pushed for slowness and more time, but after tonight—after clawing through the dread she’d awoken with and clawing through the terror now—now she knew better. “I don’t understand it. Not any of it.” She swallowed hard and met her mother’s compassionate gaze. “But I don’t want to fight it either. It feels right.”
“But you’re worried about me.”
Her vision blurred through a surge of tears and her lips trembled. “You’re the only one who’s ever been here for me. The only one who understood the stuff at school. The things I struggled with. You were always there for me.” Her breath hitched and a tear slipped free. “But when you needed me, I didn’t believe you.”
Jenny pulled her into a hug and tucked her face in the crook of her neck, the slow, calming stroke of her hand against the back of her head comforting as only a mother’s touch could be. “It’s okay, Elise. You did the best you could. You thought what most sane people would think with what I was able to show you. It’s over. And just because you’re living with Tate doesn’t mean we’re not together.” She paused a beat. “I don’t want you missing even a second of what I lost. When you worry about me, think about that instead.”
Headlights swept across the front porch and the throaty rumble of Priest’s Tahoe coming down the drive punched Elise’s heartbeat back into top gear. He hadn’t even put the truck in park before she jerked the back door open.
Nothing.
And no one in the passenger’s seat where Katy should have been.
“Where is he?”
Priest slid out of the driver’s seat with far too much calm for her liking and rounded to the back hatch. “I checked him before I moved him. No internal injuries that I could sense, but his hip’s mangled.” He popped the hatch and her breath caught.
Tate lay flat on his back, out cold, with Katy beside him.
She started to scramble inside, but Priest cut her off, leaning in and carefully hauling Tate into his arms. “What happened to him?”
“I knocked him out.”
“You what?” She hurried after him, following him through the front door her mother held open and up the stairs.
“I knocked him out.”
“It’s not what you think,” Katy added from tight behind Elise. “Priest’s magic gives him control of his clan. The pain would’ve been too much for him otherwise.”
Priest paused at the top of the stairs long enough for Elise to slide ahead of them and through the door to her room. Only when Tate was laid
out on her bed and she was next to him did her heart find a heavy yet regular rhythm. “Have you called Vanessa?”
Rather than answer, Priest toed off his boots.
Kateri studiously avoided Elise’s gaze.
“Priest, what are you doing? You need to call Vanessa.”
Her mother must have sensed the odd mood in the room, because she took a few steps backward toward the door.
Down to his bare feet, Priest peeled off his shirt, displaying the mass of rugged tribal tattoos along his shoulders and back. He faced her, but his focus was solely on Tate, and the look he aimed at him was angry frustration. “I’m not calling Vanessa.”
“What? Why?”
Kateri lifted her head and locked stares with Priest. A feminine warning shared without a word spoken.
Priest sighed and shifted his gaze to Elise. “Because I promised him I wouldn’t. He doesn’t trust her and doesn’t want her hands on him.”
“That’s insane. She’s the best healer we’ve got nearby.”
“And he’s a mated Volán male. He’d take his own life before he betrayed you.”
“That’s not betraying me. That’s keeping me from going insane.” She redirected to Kateri. “Give me your phone. I’ll call her.”
“No.” Priest padded to the bed and rolled his shoulders, the action combined with his appearance making it look like he was prepping for a fight rather than healing anyone. “His timing is shitty, but I made him a promise and I’ll keep it.”
“What do you mean his timing is shitty? It’s not like he planned this.”
“Someone’s nearing their soul quest,” Katy said. “Priest knows when they’re close. He started sensing one a few hours ago.”
To hell with soul quests. Right now, all she cared about was Tate and somehow containing the explosive anger burgeoning behind her sternum. “Then call Vanessa! You already said your skills weren’t as good as a healer’s. Are you even sure you can fix this bad of an injury?”
“Oh, I can fix it.” He kneeled on the bed beside Tate’s hip and assessed him for a second. “It just won’t be as good as what you’ll be capable of.”
“Not exactly helpful since I don’t have my magic! And you don’t even know if I’ll be a healer.”
“Tate thinks you will.”
“But you’ll have already healed the bones.”
He gripped each of Tate’s hips and met her gaze. “Then I’ll break them again and you’ll do it right.”
“You’re nuts.”
Priest refocused on Tate, then closed his eyes.
“Priest—”
Katy cut her off with a grip on her shoulder, a caring yet tight hold, as though she wasn’t entirely sure Elise wouldn’t launch across the bed and keep Priest from his work. Her voice was quiet and close to Elise’s ear. “It’s what Tate wants. Trust him. Trust Priest.”
She felt more than saw her mother move in behind her. Her touch mirrored Katy’s on Elise’s other shoulder, but the intensity was softer. Encouraging. “It’ll be okay, Elise. We’ll deal with the rest later.”
An odd stillness settled on the room, the same she’d felt when Meara had worked on Kallie, but with a different edge. A commanding, otherworldly presence.
Elise squeezed her mother’s hand. Forced herself to breathe.
And waited.
Strung one anxious minute after another for what felt like eternity. Bit by bit, the anger that had set aside the deep fatigue she’d woken with ebbed and the lethargy wove its way back into her muscles. Lulled and coaxed her to give in. To stretch out next to her mate and surrender to sleep.
Her body trembled, and her eyes burned, so much so she couldn’t tell if the silvery glow drifting along Tate’s body was a figment of her imagination, or Priest’s magic at work. She blinked over and over, but the odd aura only grew. Thickened into a mist that called to her.
“Elise?”
Her mother’s voice.
Then others. A mix of masculine and feminine tones carried on words that made no sense.
But there was one voice among them she wanted to hear. Needed to hear.
The mist surrounded her. Blinded her with its brilliance.
“Give in, Elise.”
There it was. Tate’s warm baritone voice. So far away, but awake and safe.
“Yes, I’m safe. You can let go now.”
Let go? And how had he known her thoughts?
Her body shifted, unseen hands lifting and cradling her inside the silver nothingness that surrounded her.
Tate’s scent surrounded her. His warmth a comforting blanket despite the vast unknown. “Sleep, mihara. Just give in. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Sleep.
Sleep was good.
Necessary.
The first step.
Toward what she had no clue, but Tate was here. Safe and holding her close.
She closed her eyes, sighed at the instant relief and surrendered to the dark.
Chapter Fifteen
The clock was missing. Why that was the first thing she noticed in Dr. Nilson’s office was truly weird. Even more bizarre than what she was doing here. She hadn’t visited the Lafayette psychologist who’d helped her after high school in well over a year. Maybe more.
The maroon carpet beneath the fluffy tan couches looked newer than when she’d been here before, but the doc’s desk was just as scattered with folders and books she often loaned out to clients as it always was. Outside the small window above the doctor’s desk, the world was pitch dark. Not even a hint of moonlight to show the other professional buildings that made up the complex where her office was housed.
Odd. Elise couldn’t remember ever visiting Dr. Nilson at night. And where was the doc anyway?
Priest’s voice startled her out of her wonderings. “Who’s Dr. Nilson?” Sprawled casually in the couch perpendicular to her own, he didn’t seem the least bit fazed at being in a strange doctor’s office with her.
But he hadn’t been there a few seconds ago. “Why are you here?”
“To help you.”
“At my shrink?”
His mouth quirked in a wry smile that did little to ease the fatigue lining the outer edges of his eyes. “I don’t think they like to be called shrinks.”
No. They didn’t. At least Dr. Nilson didn’t. Especially since every time Elise had used it in the past had been as a negative reflection of her need for counseling. “How do you even know Dr. Nilson? Did she call you or something?”
“In a manner of speaking. But I don’t think this is going to be a regular session.”
Great. More weirdness to pack onto all the other weirdness. “Why not?”
Soft footfalls sounded on the stairs outside the door.
Priest picked up on the sound as well, his gaze shifting to the door briefly before he met her eyes once more. “Because the soul quest I sensed tonight was yours, Elise. You’re not in reality. You’re in the Otherworld.”
The light.
The need for sleep.
Tate.
Elise shot to her feet, her heart jolting hard enough it could have propelled her into motion if panic hadn’t already handled the job on its own. “Where’s Tate? You’re supposed to be taking care of him.”
The door opened behind her, filling the room with an energy that stole her breath. The sweet, soft voice that had talked her through countless experiences and feelings drifted in along with it. “Your mate is fine. Perfectly healed, holding your physical form close, and beside himself he can’t be here for you.”
The same voice, yes, but definitely not Dr. Nilson. There was too much power beneath the message. A larger than life compulsion to obey even though no command had been spoken.
Elise turned, both terrified and intrigued as to who or what she’d find behin
d her.
Dressed in simple black slacks, a fitted white blouse with a cowl neck and sensible black shoes, the resemblance to her doctor was perfect. Right down to her chestnut hair styled in a chin-length bob and her impish smile.
“You’re the Keeper?” Elise said.
“I am.” With the same professional grace she’d come to expect from her counselor over the many sessions they’d spent together, the Keeper motioned toward the couch behind Elise. “Have a seat and let’s get started.”
Surprising even herself, Elise refused the command. “What did you mean by Tate being perfectly healed? Priest said he couldn’t handle the full extent of his injuries on his own.”
“She intervened,” Priest answered instead. “Used my energy as a conduit and healed him for you.”
“For me?” She looked to the Keeper. “Why?”
The Keeper angled the wingback behind her desk so it faced the couches, sat and crossed one leg over the other. She clasped her hands patiently in her lap. “Your will is exceptionally strong. It was either intervene or wait longer than I wanted to meet Cara’s granddaughter face-to-face.” She cocked an imperial eyebrow and eyed Priest across the room. “Not to mention, the idea of one of my warriors suffering through a second round of pain didn’t sit well with me.”
“You made the bonds and our males the way they are,” he fired back, clearly not the least bit intimidated. “Don’t be surprised when we dig in our heels and honor what you give us.”
The Keeper smirked, an appreciative gleam in her eye, when she turned her gaze to Elise. “And that is why I picked him.” She dipped her head toward the couch behind Elise. “Now, sit. Your mate might be good physically, but his agitation is painful to watch.”
The mere idea of Tate anything but confident and grounded dropped her like a stone to the couch behind her. Though, this time, she stayed perched on the edge, ready to bolt if the situation warranted. She gripped her knees, just now realizing the two sizes too large tan cargo pants she had on were the same ones she’d relied on years ago to help hide her figure. The simple olive tunic she wore with it did the same and added to the unimpressive colors designed to fade into the background. It’d been years since she’d worn something so unflattering and, with it, came a host of old emotions.
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