Seared [Pain & Love 1] (BookStrand Publishing Romance)

by Ashlei D. Hawley

  “Wow,” Reyna said with a shake of her head as she hopped lightly over a puddle that would have drenched her shoes. “Yeah, not exactly what I was probing for there. Though, wow.” She shook her head again and continued with, “I mean about me, this life, things that have happened…Judith.”

  Reyna sensed Tyler’s withdrawal when she mentioned her daughter’s name and it raised silent mental alarms for her. He was hiding something.

  “I’ve told you everything I can,” he answered carefully. “Everything that matters. What more do you want me to say?”

  Reyna tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and bit her lip. She shrugged imperceptibly and said, “Oh, nothing specific. I was just wondering. I wasn’t the most open originally. I thought I might have missed something.”

  “I love you,” Tyler said as he stopped her and ran a hand over her hair. “I haven’t said it exactly that way, but I love you. You need to trust me for a while, Reyna, and I swear things will work out for the best.”

  Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, Reyna gave Tyler an uneasy smile and pulled her hand out of his before she started to walk again. The streetlight above them brightened momentarily, and then extinguished itself. The one behind them, when Reyna turned to look, blinked out, as well. The more they walked, the more streetlights reacted to them. One out of the group that was off flared to life as they passed beneath. Once they made it to the end of the street, Reyna saw the lights they had originally affected were now returned to their previous states. She had a feeling the reverse would happen once they made their way back to the safe house.

  “Nothing more about Judith?” Reyna pressed finally. She hated to be so specific, so suspicious, but she had to know. She wanted to think her dream was just a dream, but she simply knew otherwise.

  A firm frown pressed itself into Tyler’s face and he said softly, “Nothing more.”

  Wanting to turn away from the conversation that was upsetting her, Reyna suddenly asked, “Hey, where’s my car?” Somewhere in the fuzziness of her unconscious brain, she seemed to remember that one of the people who’d abducted her were going to take it. She hadn’t commented about it the whole time they’d been at the hospital, but she hoped that Tyler would know.

  “Oh,” Tyler said in a vaguely startled tone of voice. “Yeah, it was left at the pharmacy you were taken from. It might still be there, or maybe the cops did something with it.” He didn’t really know. He’d been far too focused on the state and location of his mate to care for her vehicle. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think.”

  “It’s all right,” Reyna said with a forced smile. “I’m sure Mallory will know, and we’re supposed to see her tomorrow.”

  “Reyna,” Tyler said in a soft voice. He wanted to say something to her, to tell her, but he didn’t know himself exactly what he’d tell her, what he could promise her with any certainty. So instead of what he wanted to say, he said, “Do you want to watch the sunrise? It should be coming up pretty soon now.”

  Reyna’s smile came easier at his question and she nodded. “I want to hit the corner store first, though,” she admitted. “I’m not as awake as I thought and I think I could use some caffeine.”

  Tyler silently blessed his mate’s presence of mind and happily matched her pace. When he slipped his hand into hers, she didn’t fight or break the contact. A stranger’s eyes watched their progression, but focused more on the flickering streetlights above the couple than Tyler and Reyna. Even without seeing the evidence, she already knew full well who they were and where to find them. She knew the information would be well-received by the people she worked for. As she pulled her car out of an unaware neighbor’s driveway and drove in the direction away from where Tyler and Reyna were walking, Lydia McKinney decided the time had come to earn her dues once again. She memorized the address of the safe house Tyler and Reyna were occupying and put her cell phone to her ear as she drove. The day was going to be a busy one.

  Chapter Eleven

  Nine in the morning was criminally early to be up, Mallory complained silently. Especially after she’d been up well after two a.m. shopping to help Reyna and Tyler feel a bit more settled in the safe house. Then her dad had called at the ungodly hour of seven a.m. to wrangle her into helping him pick up Reyna’s car for him. The Hunters worked predominantly at night, he’d said, so he tried to keep their operations confined to mostly daylight hours. Stupidly early, awful daylight hours. She was supposed to drop Reyna’s car off at her home, gather some stuff up for her, and then call her dad to come pick her up. He wasn’t on shift, so he said he’d be at the Home Depot nearby and would come when she called for him.

  Mallory continued to grumble as she sipped carbonated, highly-caffeinated fountain soda from a large cup. It felt like lightning in her blood and she loved the feeling. Mallory wasn’t one for coffee, but she couldn’t get enough of pop. These early mornings required copious amounts of the life-sustaining fluid.

  Pulling into Reyna’s driveway, Mallory hit the switch for the garage door and pulled the other woman’s vehicle smoothly into the mostly bare space. She wondered if the rest of her house was like that—all neat, tidy, and economical—and decided the probability was nearly absolute. Reyna was a neat freak. She probably even had her underwear drawer organized by color or brand. Which would make things all the easier for her, Mallory admitted silently. She was going to pick some things up for Reyna in case she’d gotten the wrong size for things. She thought she was a pretty good guess with clothing, but there was always the possibility that she’d estimated incorrectly.

  Letting herself in through the door in the garage, Mallory stepped into a very clean kitchen that smelled of bleach and dish soap. She admired the space, but didn’t linger too long. In her house, dishes filled one side of the sink and the floor desperately needed washing. She was pretty sure one didn’t smell bleach and lemon when they entered. The possibility was higher that they might smell the nauseatingly sweet odor of moldy cheese. She had a problem with cleaning, she acknowledged as she moved onto the living room and passed through it quickly, heading toward where she thought the master bedroom might be. She had a problem, but everyone had their problems. Reyna’s might have been that she was anal, but Mallory wouldn’t hold it against her.

  The master bedroom was nowhere near as neat as the rest of the house and Mallory took a moment to wonder why. The blankets were all over the floor and the space had the lingering energy of a fight or…Mallory smirked. Apparently Tyler and Reyna hadn’t thought to take care of things after they’d had a tumble. Well, good for them, Mallory concluded. Reyna needed a good man to tumble her every now and then, and Tyler was perfect for the job whether the stubborn woman wanted to admit it or not.

  Mallory made quick work of shoving things from drawers into a small, compact brown leather suitcase she found in Reyna’s closet. Against Mallory’s suspicions, her clothing was not organized in any perceptible way. It made Mallory feel not as bad about shoving things helter-skelter into the suitcase as she would have had she seen a closet organized by the ROYGBIV system of rainbow colors. Some people did that. She really expected that Reyna would have been one of them.

  While she added as much clothing to the suitcase as she could physically fit, another stranger to the home wandered through it. Mallory was in Reyna’s house as a friend trying to do a favor. The other woman was an intruder trying to learn about her enemy.

  The uninvited guest occasionally pushed at the corner of the plastic-rimmed eyeglasses that covered brilliantly colored eyes. They were nearly golden and their shine was encouraged by the radiance of her thick hair. It looked as though she’d commanded rubies to be melted down and forged into her cascading locks and as she looked like a goddess, it wasn’t exactly as far-fetched an idea as one might think.

  Her name was Lydia McKinney and she was comfortable in her own, sexy skin. She was flame in a person suit after all, and she lived in a world where a pair of contacts could make a mere human look as exotic as she did
naturally. Without fear, she blended into their world. The real problem came from her own.

  Sighing, Lydia ran one hand over Reyna’s couch. She wasn’t psychic, so she couldn’t identify any lingering traces of energy or emotion from the piece, but she just liked to touch things. She was a creature obsessed with the textile aspect of the world. She liked to touch as she liked to breath. She moved to the front door—where she’d come in from—and again saw the congealed blood, dark with age and spilled unnecessarily. She turned her sensitive nose away from the smell and changed her direction toward the back of the house.

  Mallory stopped her task, going from activity to absolute motionlessness in the space of a breath. There was someone else in the house. She sensed an enormous energy and a unique soul. The person had such strong mental barriers that Mallory couldn’t even discern a gender. She felt an aggressive assuredness about the person’s aura, though, so she voted male for the intruder. Was it one of the Hunters, she wondered? Were they trying to decide if Reyna had come back after she’d been released from the hospital? And what would they do if they found Mallory there instead?

  The foreign entity drew closer and Mallory had seconds to choose what she would do. She silently placed the full suitcase in the closet and looked around for a hiding place. If they were actively searching, she’d be done for but if it was just a quick perusing, she might have a chance. She slid under the bed on the side where the discarded blankets were piled up, hoping they would block her from view if anyone took a quick look inside the room. The space she squeezed into was an extremely tight fit, barely allowing her room to breathe. She closed her eyes and attempted to force herself to become invisible and—failing in that goal—at least silent and unnoticeable.

  Lydia glanced into Reyna’s bedroom and fought the urge to walk inside and touch all of the other woman’s things. She didn’t allow herself to know anyone, to get close to anyone she might eventually have to betray, but she liked to think she knew some people through the things she saw that belonged to them. She couldn’t help at least checking out the bathroom.

  From one tiny exposed sliver of space between the blankets and bed frame, Mallory saw a tall woman with extraordinary coloring move through Reyna’s room and enter the bathroom that was attached. Feeling as though she was sunk, Mallory thought for sure that the stranger was searching every inch of space for signs of Reyna. As soon as she turned back and thought to go through the bedroom more thoroughly, Mallory knew she would be discovered.

  Lydia ran one hand down Reyna’s mirror. It was clean, streak free, and had no soap or chemical residue on it. Either she never teased her hair with product or she cleaned it often to keep it so sparkling and clear. The bathroom was designed to be elegant and economical, and what it contained bespoke Reyna’s character. She saved medicines, creams, and lotions of all kind. She enjoyed lightly scented candles in varieties like clean linen and ocean breeze, not the flowery and overpowering ones.

  Mallory watched the stranger touching Reyna’s mirror, her collection of bottled lotions and creams, her sink handles and cream colored towels and wondered to herself, “What the hell?” The woman didn’t seem to be searching for Reyna at all. Instead, she was fondling all of her things like some kind of weird, highly specific fetishist who liked handling the intimate articles of women on the run.

  Mallory hoped the woman wouldn’t want to touch Reyna’s clothing like she was touching her soap dispenser. If she went through Reyna’s drawers, she would notice that several of the items were missing. Then, she might find the suitcase and even if she wasn’t expecting anyone to be in the house, she might begin to suspect that she was not alone.

  “Please go away,” Mallory begged silently. Feeling it wouldn’t hurt, she prayed as well. God, just make her leave. Remind her of an appointment. Make her hungry. Just get her out of here!

  Finding no immediate answer to her silent pleas, Mallory began to feel cramped and claustrophobic. She could only shallowly breath in the unsurprisingly dust bunny free air for so much longer. She hadn’t hidden under a bed since she was a child, and she had no desire to revisit her miserable track record for hide and seek.

  Finished with the bathroom, Lydia turned to leave the small room. She whisked through Mallory’s bedroom without a second glance at any of the items within. She was about to move onto Reyna’s at-home office, which was the room she really wanted to explore and become intimately familiar with, but her phone suddenly chirped. The annoying ringtone was the only way she could usually be called out of her private musings or more important activities to pay attention to whomever might be trying to get her on the line.

  “Yes,” Lydia said as she drew her phone up to her ear. She adjusted her eyeglasses once more, pressing at the corner in a delicate way that was actually more practiced than natural. Her voice was also something she’d worked at. Soft, sultry, and aloof, Lydia often sounded annoyed and amused all at once.

  She listened to the speaker on the other line as Mallory strained to listen to what Lydia would say in response. Mallory wanted to figure out who the woman was and what she was doing in Reyna’s house.

  “I already gave you the address,” Lydia said in a tone that veered more toward the annoyed side of her range. She must have been asked to repeat it, Mallory, guessed, because the unnaturally beautiful redhead sighed in irritation and rattled off the address once more.

  Mallory nearly gasped aloud but saved herself in the last instant. The address the stranger had told whoever was on the other line was for the safe house Reyna and Tyler were currently at. If this woman was dangerous, which Mallory assumed she was, the fact that she knew where the psychic’s charges were was a very consternating one. Tyler and Reyna were assuredly in danger, but now Mallory was sure the danger knew where to find them. She had to get to them and warn them. If only the damn woman would leave!

  Lydia moved down the hallway, still talking on the phone, and Mallory decided it was her chance. If the stranger decided to come back down the hallway now, she’d probably see Mallory, but Mallory didn’t think she had any choice. She had to get out and warn Tyler and Reyna before the red-haired woman knew anyone else was aware of the threat she posed to them.

  Grabbing the suitcase noiselessly, Mallory secured her grip on it so it wouldn’t shift and make noise. She peeked around the threshold of Reyna’s bedroom and couldn’t see anyone in the hall. The stranger appeared to have entered one of the two rooms down the hallway. Mallory could no longer hear her talking on the phone, and that bothered her. At least the woman’s voice had been a way for Mallory to locate her, as she couldn’t pierce the stranger’s psychic shields to save her life.

  Making a break for it, Mallory crept out of Reyna’s bedroom and snuck down the hall. She was light on her feet, but not the world’s most graceful creature. Honestly, she’d have a fair run at being crowned the exact opposite. Her clumsiness betrayed her in the worst instant as she kicked the edge of a table that sat nestled against the arm of Reyna’s couch. If that wasn’t bad enough, the suitcase hit the same table directly after, insuring that even if Mallory’s stubbed toe hadn’t garnered her notice, the second inescapable slam would not be ignored.

  The stranger’s head popped out from Reyna’s at-home office and her fantastically golden eyes widened in surprise behind her large glasses. Mallory had a moment to appreciate how downright gorgeous the other woman was before the flaming color of her hair seemed to take over her entire body. The woman who charged at her from down the hallway was literally on fire.

  It was so time to go.

  Mallory ran for her life, yelping as a jet of flame hit a wall to her right. It scorched the skin of her arm and she frantically patted the flame out. The smell of burning hair panicked her, as did the pounding of enraged footfalls behind her. The woman was fast and she was magical and Mallory was just a simple psychic. How could she compete against the female human torch?

  Skidding around the kitchen corner, Mallory burst through the garage doo
r with an outrageous amount of force, further injuring her burned arm. She threw herself into her car as the woman came out right on her heels, roaring in fury that shook the walls of the garage and seemed impossibly large to have been issued from human lungs. Mallory forced Reyna’s key into the ignition with shaking hands as she tossed Reyna’s suitcase in the passenger seat. She peeled out of the garage, thankful that she hadn’t closed the door. Another blast of superhot flame flared out from the burning woman and slammed into Reyna’s vehicle. Had it been a direct hit, Mallory was certain the damn door would have melted off. As it was, the fire destroyed the paintjob, but Mallory was still able to drive the vehicle away from the insane, flaming stranger and tear down the street. She had to get to Tyler and Reyna.

  Dousing her flames, Lydia grumbled at the state of her things. Her clothes were history and once again, she had flambéed her fucking phone. Worse, those had been her favorite pair of glasses.

  Stalking proudly to her vehicle, which she’d parked on Reyna’s curb, Lydia displayed not a hint of concern that she was brazenly naked in full view of the neighborhood. She opened her passenger door and grabbed her bag of essentials. From within she pulled a spare set of clothing, shoes, a second pair of glasses (though they weren’t as fashionable as her others had been) and a cheap little mobile phone with a finite amount of minutes on it. She pressed the memorized phone number that she knew would connect her to Jerry, as the man identified himself, and began to dress herself briskly.

  “We have problems,” she said without preamble. “If you want your otherworlders, I suggest you get there with haste. There’s a pretty little alarm bell on her way to them now.”

  She and Jerry disconnected without another word between them. Lydia, now fully dressed, saw a gawking teenage boy across the road and gave him a flirty wave before blowing him a kiss. She’d bet it was the highlight of his year.

  Hopping in her driver’s seat, Lydia started her car, slipped her spare glasses on, and floored it.