As she stretched out the kinks in her back, she noted that her aches and pains from yesterday had all but disappeared. Oh, certain unaccustomed places were sore still, but they were the kind of aches that made a thoroughly pleasured woman smile secretly to herself. She didn’t dare run the shower and risk waking Malach, so she cleaned up as best she could, scrubbing her armpits and swiping between her legs with a damp flannel.
Her panties had been shredded beyond repair when Malach had ripped them off her, so she donned her dress and smoothed out the creases. It’d have to do. She finger-combed her hair and gave herself one final check in the mirror. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup and the panda-circles of smudged mascara. She looked young and fresh-faced. Even her eyes sparkled. And, lack of panties aside, it wasn’t obvious she’d indulged in a night of indescribably incredible no-strings-attached sex with a complete stranger. Somehow she’d half-believed the soul-consuming passion she’d experienced might have emblazoned itself upon her face.
She delved into her bag and found the bus-fare she’d tucked away… along with the box of unused condoms. The cold hard reality check was like a slap in the face. She pushed it away. She didn’t want to face the fact she’d had unprotected sex with her first ever client.
But Malach wasn’t exactly a client, was he?
No, he was more like a hulking great lapse in judgment. She’d get herself tested for STDs, though, just in case.
She peeked out the bathroom door. Safe.
Heart in her mouth, she snuck past the bed, snagging her sandals from the rubbish bin as she passed. It was a bit of a hike to the bus stop and she figured even heelless they were better than no footwear at all. She could only trust the material of her dress wasn’t too transparent, and that once outside, there would be no inconvenient—and highly embarrassing—gusts of wind.
She opened the suite’s door just enough to squeeze through and paused, glancing back at the sleeping man.
“Thanks, Malach,” she whispered, and blew him a kiss. “Thanks for more than you could ever know.” Then she pulled the door quietly closed behind her, shutting away this interlude of her life forever.
As she traveled down in the lift, she told herself she had no regrets at leaving him. It might have just been sex to him but he’d treated her well—despite believing she was an experienced prostitute. And although the unusual circumstances of their meeting left her still in the crap monetarily, she kinda hoped Malach would get shod of all this supernatural woo-woo business with Pieter and gain his freedom.
He’d suffered badly at Pieter’s hands, and Francesca’s too, for that matter. Whatever he’d done to bring himself to Pieter’s attention, Jade believed Malach had been punished enough. He deserved some happiness in his life. And maybe, just maybe, she might have helped him heal—just as he’d helped her overcome her hang-ups about sex.
But whatever the future held for Malach, Jade had things to do. Like finding another client. Preferably someone who’d stick around and pay her this time.
“Good morning, miss,” one of the hotel reception staff said. She waved at him as she pushed through the hotel exit and out onto the street.
The cool morning air hit her like an almost physical blow and a sense of urgency tore through her. Her instincts screamed at her to go straight home. Now. She knew she had to obey, but she didn’t know why.
As she awkwardly half-ran to the bus-stop, holding her dress down so as not to flash anyone, she became hyper-conscious of her pendant. It felt unusually warm and heavy, dangling as always from its cheap silver chain and resting just between her breasts. Her skin tingled and some impulse made her squint down at it.
Her vision filled with red.
She stumbled to a halt, gasping for breath, almost hyperventilating with shock. With shaking hands she raised the pendant to her face. She squeezed her eyes shut, counted to three, and then looked again.
She wasn’t seeing things. The green jade of her pendant was no more. The stone was now red. And not just any shade of red, a darkly-rich crimson that reminded her of freshly spilled blood.
Red jade.
The knowledge seared her senses. And as she stared at the stone, previously blocked memories crashed in on her. She remembered why she’d agreed to meet with “Mr Stone”. And she remembered who she’d done it for.
Mei!
Her heart twisted and bile rose in her throat as she suffered the anguish of discovering her sister’s illness all over again. Cursing Pieter to suffer an eternity in Hell, she broke into a run.
~~~
Malach awoke with the sun, as he always did—or rather, as he’d always done before the crystal had taken him.
He reached out a hand for her and felt…. Nothing but cool sheets.
He didn’t bother to verify what he already knew: he was alone in the hotel room.
He rolled onto his back and lay staring at the ceiling. He could hardly blame her for leaving him. Gods knew, watching a man scream until he was hoarse and sob like a child as he relived the horror of the crystal would be enough to scare off even the most resilient of women. And Jade….
Jade might pretend to be a woman who could take whatever life threw at her and toss it right back, but he sensed the vulnerability that she tried so very hard to hide from a man used to gauging an opponent’s weakness and ruthlessly exploiting it. Her worldly façade had cracked momentarily when she wept over the shoes that had been a mother’s last gift to her daughter. It had split wide open when she cradled him in her arms while he clutched her like a lifeline and used her presence—used her—to help him push back the nightmares. And if he’d been a decent man, he’d have whispered his thanks into the pillow, and left her to live her life and eventually forget the man who’d taken her virginity while half-believing her a whore.
But Malach was not a decent man. He was desperate. So desperate that he had vowed to take his own life rather than suffer a third imprisonment in that gods damned crystal. He was not a coward so he would wait until the bitter end, and if it seemed certain that he and Jade had little or no chance of passing the Testing, he would ensure his own death before the Testing took place. Because once the crystal took him, even the choice of dying by his own hand would be stripped from him. Along with his sight, his hearing, his ability to feel…. But not his ability to suffer. No. Never that.
The shadows of his nightmares threatened to smother him and he fixed an image of Jade in his mind. In the dead of night, as she’d hugged him to her and soothed the fear that had gripped him and emasculated him, he’d felt something he’d never thought to feel again: hope. Jade had given him that—the young woman he’d treated like a whore. And to Malach, it was a gift beyond price.
He dug his fingertips into his temples to ease the insistent throb of his magical connection to Jade. He welcomed the ache, knowing it was a compass of sorts, and as soon as he exited the hotel, it would direct him to her. The Crystal Guardian left nothing to chance, for Malach knew the old man was just as trapped by his spell as the men he’d be-spelled into his cursed crystals. Pieter would be denied rest until each Crystal Warrior had found redemption—or destroyed himself in the process.
Jade was important to them both—more important than she knew—and he felt a pang of guilt for what he must put her through. Even now he could picture her vividly, curled in his arms, a smile curving her lips as she’d slumbered. So trusting. So very young.
If he’d been given the chance to bid for her on the Choosing Block, he would have left her to the likes of Kyan, a ladies’ man who could charm a desert fox out of its lair and any woman yet born—no matter how virtuous—out of her clothes. Jade was too vulnerable, too untried, too untouched by the ugliness of the world, whereas Malach was a battle-hardened soldier. Even discounting her age they were an ill-matched pair.
Now he had but four weeks to convince her that she loved him.
Four weeks to learn to live again, to try and banish Francesca forever from his heart and find it inside h
imself to truly love an exquisite, hot-tempered girl who hadn’t hesitated to stand up to him and speak her mind. A girl who’d soothed him when the nightmare threatened to overwhelm him and strip him of his sanity, and then tiptoed from their room while he slept, hoping not to have to face him again.
Four weeks until they faced the Testing.
He barked a laugh. So be it. Pieter had never once suggested it would be easy.
~~~
Chapter Six
Jade’s chest was heaving with exertion and her breath reduced to short, painful pants by the time she reached her house. She unlocked the front door of the old three-bedroom family villa that’d been left to her and Mei when their parents died, and sagged against the doorframe to catch her breath. She had looked into re-mortgaging the house to pay for private specialist care, but Mei had summarily scotched that brilliant plan, saying the cost of going private would eat up all their funds and they’d be unable to meet the payments and end up out on the streets. Ditto with selling up. She wouldn’t hear another word about it.
Mei was supposed to listen to Jade—her elder sibling—and do whatever Jade said, right? It was Jade’s job to protect Mei, to get her through whatever life threw at her now their parents were gone. Only Jade sucked at this parenting thing, and often suspected Mei was trying to protect her. She harbored the sneaking suspicion Mei had refused to sell or mortgage the house because she wanted Jade to have it when she was… when she was….
When she died.
But Jade was not going to let her baby sister die. Not while she had a single breath left in her body.
She snuck inside, trying to act nonchalant—like she hadn’t broken a land speed record running the last block from the bus stop. Or been coerced into spending the night in a hotel and having raunchy sex with a complete stranger. Not to mention having all memories of just why she’d been prepared to sell herself for money temporarily wiped from her brain and even forgotten her own sister! How’n the heck could she begin to explain all that?
She couldn’t. So her plan was to check on Mei and hope for the best. If she was lucky, she’d be able to grab a shower and change before her sister woke and demanded explanations. If she was unlucky, and Mei was already awake, she’d have to hope she could pull off a convincing lie.
She managed a grand total of five steps up the hallway before she was busted.
“Finally! So nice of you to ring, Jade.” Grace’s cool tones seemed to lower the ambient temperature indoors by at least five degrees. She stuck her head through the living room doorway and subjected Jade to the sort of narrow-eyed scrutiny that would make a grown man quail.
Jade winced at the intensity of her friend’s expression as Grace marched toward her. Yikes. She was in for it now.
She noted Grace’s pink satin pajamas and matching robe and the imminent bollocking fled from her mind. She immediately assumed the worst. “Gracie! What are you doing here? Mei called you, didn’t she? God! How could I not have been here for her when she needed me? She’s all right, isn’t she? Please tell me she’s all right. I’ll never forgive myself for—”
“Ouch! Quit that, will you?”
Jade glanced down at her hands, aghast to find herself clutching Grace’s wrists so hard that her fingernails had left little half-moon-shaped marks in Grace’s skin. She didn’t even remember moving. She released Grace to rake trembling hands through her hair. “Sorry, Gracie. God. I’m so sorry. Where’s Mei?”
Grace rubbed the feeling back into her wrists. “Relax, she’s fine. Still sleeping like a baby—unlike moi, your best friend in the entire world, who sure as hell could do with more beauty sleep.” She broke off her lecture to push her glasses down her nose and peer at Jade over their electric blue rims. “You don’t look too hot,” she said. “Come sit down before you fall down.”
Wobbly-kneed with relief that Mei was okay, and that Grace had obviously forgiven her for going AWOL, Jade didn’t press the point. She allowed Grace to propel her through the doorway and steer her toward the sofa. She sank into the squishy cushions and tried to summon the energy to steel herself for the inquisition she suspected would be next on Grace’s agenda.
Grace plopped onto the sofa beside her. “Holy moley, you look right royally shagged! Keep you busy, did he?”
“Grace!” Even the tips of Jade’s ears went hot as she stared at her friend, wondering how Grace could know what she’d gotten up to.
Calm down, Jade. She couldn’t possibly know about Malach. No way.
Grace’s laughter tinkled like a bell. She leaned over to chuck Jade under the chin like an adult would do to a small child. “Kidding! That’s more like it. You needed some color in your cheeks. You were so pale I was starting worry I’d have two invalids to nurse.”
“Huh? I thought you said Mei was okay?”
“She is. God, Jade. You need to chill, all right?”
The spot just behind Jade’s eye sockets started to throb, and she half-wished Pieter would appear and banish her headache again… right before she strangled him with her bare hands for dragging her into this whole mess and putting the mind-whammy on her.
Grace patted her hand. “You sit here and get your story straight in your head, while I get you a cuppa and some toast.”
Jade warily eyed her friend. “I’m not hungry. And what d’you mean ‘get my story straight’? There’s nothing to get straight. I met up with my, uh, interviewer. We talked for a bit and then he left. End of story.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really. And how come you’re here, Gracie? Where’s Erica?”
“I’m here because Erica couldn’t make it, and I—”
“I can’t believe that Erica would let us down like that at the last minute. Shit.” Jade clenched and unclenched her fists, beyond angry at herself for leaving Mei before the caregiver had arrived. But Erica had called to say she was running a bit late, and Mei hadn’t wanted Jade to be late for her “interview”, and Jade couldn’t see any harm in it at the time. Erica had never been a no-show before.
She chewed her thumbnail. “But why didn’t Mei ring me?”
“Duh. You don’t have a cell phone, so even if she had tried to ring you—”
“She could have left a message with the hotel’s reception,” Jade muttered, even though she knew she’d never have thought to check with reception because she’d been so very certain Erica would arrive soon after she’d left.
“I told Mei I was meeting a guy at his hotel for the job interview. She knew what hotel it was—I wrote it down for her.” And she’d hated lying to Mei even more than she’d hated having to lie to Grace.
“A job interview in a hotel room? Sometimes I wonder about you, Jade Liang. If I’d known you were planning on meeting him in his room instead of a public place like the bistro or a café, I’d have chewed you out big-time. Thank God this guy was above board and wasn’t a serial rapist or something. Look, I know you, J. You’d have been too shy to front up to some stuck-up staff member at that swanky hotel reception desk and ask for messages. If you owned a cell phone, however….” Grace had the whole “You really should listen to me” expression down pat.
“I hate it when you’re right.” Not that a cell phone would have worked any better than the hotel suite’s phone but it sure would have helped afterward when Jade had been so panicked about her sister.
“Anyway, Mei didn’t ring me, I rang her,” Grace was saying. “And although your little sister is quite capable of looking after herself, we decided it’d be a good idea if I came over and kept her company until you got home from your big day out.” A knowing little smile crossed her face. “And just to clarify—not to mention satisfy my prurient curiosity—what was he like? He must have been something else if you stayed out all night and didn’t get a chance to ring home. C’mon, J. Spill! I’m dying, here.”
Jade sucked in a deep breath and prepared to lie her butt off. No way could she tell Grace what she’d really been planning to do. Her best frie
nd would have a fit of epic proportions. “It was nothing exciting, Gracie. I was just, uh, delayed. Got accidentally locked in the hotel suite, would you believe, and the phone wasn’t working in the room, so we—I—couldn’t call anyone.” That much was true at least.
“I see.” Grace levered herself up from the sofa and stood hands on hips, staring down her nose at Jade.
Grace might be a blonde, statuesque, Malibu Barbie lookalike—if Malibu Barbie’s wore trendy prescription glasses, that is—but her knack at dealing with her often difficult private patients was legendary, and she really knew how to make a person squirm. Jade tried her best not to cringe beneath that eagle-eyed stare but it was a losing battle. “I had to wait until a maid arrived this morning before I could get out of the hotel room,” she said.
“Riiight. As I’ve said a thousand times before, you really need a cell phone.”
“All right already! Preaching to the converted, here.”
“I’ll buy one for you.”
“No. I can manage.”
“J, this is no time to be stubborn. This is important. This is about your safety. Like I said before, what if he’d been a nutter?”
“He wasn’t.” God. She would never be able to tell Grace the truth.
“Yeah, I know. Luckily for you, you seem to have got off scot-free—if you don’t count misplacing your panties while you were trapped overnight in that nasty hotel suite.”
Jade tweaked the skirt of her dress further down her thighs and willed herself not to blush. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“It’s not that hard to miss, given the way your dress is clinging to you. Someone stole them, huh? While you weren’t looking? That’s some trick.”
“I, uh, really did misplace them. I had a shower and—”
“A-ha. Well, hope you had lots of fun misplacing them.” Her smirk was far too knowing for Jade’s comfort.
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