by S. L. Gray
"You wouldn't know until it's too late. You'd never see them coming."
"But you would?" She heard the disbelief in her voice and managed somehow not to grimace when she saw his shoulders tense. "I'm sorry." She took a breath. "I don't mean to offend you, but I'm not sure what’s real and what I made up in some sort of panic. I need—" She reconsidered her words, watching his fingers curl and flex. "I'm asking you to explain. In small words. Please?"
His jaw worked, muscle bunching and relaxing as he chewed an answer. His gaze lifted to hers. He gave a faint nod.
Then sat back. "The men you saw tonight, weren't. Men," he clarified. "They were creatures. Marionettes. If things had gone their way, you'd be dead and they'd have been gone before you hit the floor. No mess, no fight, no screaming and no one to remember seeing them. They make good assassins."
Melanie's blood went cold. It took two tries to make words come out again. "I don't understand. Who'd want to kill me?"
"Everyone's got enemies."
She shook her head slowly. "I don't. I don't know that many people here. I haven't been in the city long enough. I can't think of anyone I've insulted or hurt in any way."
"Maybe it's not someone you know."
Melanie paused. "Then how could I be any sort of threat? Don't you have to know someone pretty well to want to kill them?" There was another question to regret, judging by the shadow that slid through his gaze. She tilted her head. "Why do I feel like I'm having half a conversation?"
Kade made a low sound that could have been a growl. He certainly moved like a caged animal as he stood again and headed toward the door. There wasn't a lot of room in here for pacing. He looked like he'd give it a shot anyway. "There's a lot to tell you and not much time." He shoved a hand through his hair again, making pieces stick up here and there. Melanie's fingers itched with the urge to tuck them down. Traitors.
"You work with artifacts, right?" Now he had his hands at his waist, a very superhero pose. Which went well with daring rescues from disappearing men. "Putting them back together."
Melanie shook herself. Pay attention. "Restoring them," she corrected, nodded, then frowned. "How did you know?"
Kade went on as if she hadn't asked. "You got a new shipment today, didn't you? Straight out of Egypt. Broken pottery, old linen, that kind of thing."
Melanie narrowed her eyes. "If you're not going to answer, I don't think I want to, either. I don't have to," she insisted. "I haven't done anything wrong."
She had him there. Triumph thrilled through her when whatever he was going to say stuck in his throat. "I'm not accusing you. You got a shipment, right? Broken pottery—"
"And old linen. This is insane. You really have been following me, haven't you? Who are you, Mr. Kade? Really?"
His lips quirked like he might smile, but his expression didn't warm and the solemnity never left his eyes. He leaned forward from the waist as if to make sure she understood the weight of his answer. "Someone who really wants you to put the pieces back together."
She'd been about to point out his skill at being vague when she suddenly thought she understood. Oh no. Curiosity and confusion were replaced by a pulse of dull anger. Of course. She should have figured him out before now. She'd been warned this might happen while she trained, but she'd never been approached. Not until tonight.
Well. If he thought she was a sell-out, that it would be this easy to get her to ruin her whole career, he had no idea who he was dealing with.
She bit back a rush of fierce words and ignored the flutter of nerves. She stood and brushed past him to unlock and open the door. "Never mind. This is a mistake. I think it's time for you to go."
One step forward and two steps back. Kade locked his jaw to keep from grinding his teeth. "We just got here."
"Yes." Melanie's chin dipped enough to give a nod toward polite manners. Other than that, she pretty clearly wasn't in the mood to be friendly any more. "You were very kind to walk me back and see me safely home, but as you can tell, I'm fine now." When he didn't move, she opened the door even wider. "Good night, Mr. Kade."
They should have sent someone else. Someone who had an inkling of how to deal with people in general and women in particular. Or just this woman. Kade studied her, the stiffness of her posture and her unflinching stare, and he tried, really tried, to swallow his temper. If she wasn't going to listen, how was he supposed to help?
He didn't work with a partner and he didn't want this case. If only he could convince himself he didn't care what happened to her. He exhaled a breath of laughter. "Suit yourself."
Her lips thinned as if he'd insulted her. Hell, maybe he had, but it wasn't by intent. "I don't see what's so funny." Her chin lifted higher.
"And I don't know what I did wrong." Kade spread his hands like a shrug. "What'd I say that's got your back arched up like a pissed-off cat? You wanted answers."
"I got them," she said crisply. "I should have known before I asked." She straightened her shoulders. He hadn't noticed the slouch or thought she could possibly hold herself tighter. "I'm not interested in selling to you, Mr. Kade. I'm being polite and not calling the police. Take the out you've been offered and go. Please," she added with the hint of a smile that looked like it must hurt.
"Selling?" She'd confused him again. "The artifacts?"
Another nod. "I don't deal in black-market goods. Just talking to a man like you puts my job in jeopardy."
"A man like me."
"A broker." She said the word like she'd tasted rotten eggs.
Now it was Kade's turn to take offense. "I'm not here to buy anything." He could feel the skin between his eyebrows crease again. "What you have isn't for sale. I want them put back together. I represent a lot of people who do, but I'm not a broker and I'm not a thief. If I was that kind of man, I wouldn't have bothered saving your life."
"Wouldn't you? It'd be a good way to get me to trust you."
"So I could screw you over again? I can be an asshole, but I'm not that bad."
"But that's the point. I don't know you. You turn up out of the blue, play hero, and now I'm just supposed to, what? Let you run my life? Do you have references? A business card, at least?"
He laughed without thinking. He ignored the flare of indignation in her eyes. "My reference is the fact I tracked you down before anything happened to you. My business card says I just saved your life. Jesus. Are you this paranoid with everybody?"
She was still scowling at him. She took a breath to speak. Closed her mouth, took another, then glared and slammed the door. She stalked past him and back to the couch, where she sat, gripped the edge of the cushion like she might fall off and stared hard at nothing.
"This is crazy." The words came out a whisper. He heard her take the next breath. It whistled going in. Another followed, then a third, each one shorter than the last. "I don't want to die. I can't breathe."
Kade came around the couch and dropped to a knee on the floor in front of her. This was something new. She sucked in another short breath with an audible wheeze.
He scanned the room. There were shadows, yes, but nothing moved within them. No intruders. If this was another attack, how had they gotten to her? Something in the water she drank? Was Dalton in on this?
"Kade." She snatched for his hand and held on hard. "Purse," she gasped, then pointed. Her lips were pale.
He followed her finger, springing to his feet when he spotted her bag. She yanked it from his hands when he got close enough and dug through it frantically until she came up with a small cylinder which she put between her lips and squeezed.
The puff of air sounded loud but took almost immediate effect. "Asthma," she croaked when she could a moment later. She held up the inhaler. "Sorry."
Asthma. Kade heaved his own breath of relief. Not poison, not an attack. Asthma. And he'd been calling her paranoid. He pushed off the floor and claimed the spot on the couch beside her. "You had me worried," he confessed between her quieter breaths.
She m
anaged a wan smile. "Me too." When she could breathe silently again, she asked, "The men. The ones who attacked me. They really blew away?" Her eyes were dark, color absorbed by her pupils. She wasn't seeing him now, though she looked at him. Looked through him. Kade could almost see the night’s adventure replaying in her eyes. She blinked and her gaze refocused. She came back to the present with a jolt. "I thought I'd imagined it. That impossible things looked like they were happening because I was nervous. Scared." She made an apologetic face.
He should comfort her somehow, he knew. He should let her believe she'd made things up, imagined herself in danger where no threat existed. But he'd taken that path before. When his father and brother asked him if things were under control, he'd told them he could protect them and keep them out of harm's way. It hadn't worked then. It wasn't likely to work now.
All he had was the truth in an answer. "They were real, but so am I. Don't have to be afraid of me. I'm on your side, remember? You just have to put those artifacts back together. As soon as possible."
She shifted her weight, then leaned against him. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder and sighed. He felt her posture soften as she trusted him to hold her up. After a moment, he slid his arm around her shoulders and she nestled closer.
"I can't even tell you for certain what all we've got. What are you expecting me to find?"
"A tablet." That was all he knew. It didn't feel like enough. "Broken, you know. There'll be writing and probably a lot of pieces. It's important that you find them all."
She tilted her head to look up at him. "What's on this tablet that's so important? How big a tablet, for that matter? What sort of writing?" Her voice steadied. "What you and I think when we hear that word is very different than what an ancient culture would have used. They could put a lot of writing on something very small."
"I don't know." It frustrated him. Some secrets just got in the way. "Nobody does, one hundred percent. That's the problem. Once it's reassembled, we'll know it for what it is."
"But it could have passed you by." She frowned, sitting up a little. "If you don't know what you're looking for—"
Kade cut her off. "Trust me when I say that the second this thing resurfaced, bells and whistles went off. We didn't miss it. We know it's here, but what it looks like..." He spread his hands again. "I'm not a historian."
"You're a bodyguard." Her expression changed, softened somehow. Kade didn't know what she thought when she looked at him now, but he liked the way it chased the worry out of her eyes.
"Yeah," he agreed with a little smile. "More or less."
"But you're like them."
That was a one-two punch. Lower his guard, then go for the gut. "Not a chance, not ever. Not like them." The ferocity of his words made her flinch and pull away. He made himself lower his voice. "People in the IU would call me a guardian, but bodyguard works. It's my job to make sure no one hurts you." And despite the fact that he still didn't want the responsibility, it was his and he would do his job until she was safe.
She studied him another moment then seemed to make a decision. "I owe you my life." She moved before she'd finished speaking, leaning in close to brush her lips against his cheek. He'd turned his head to argue that she didn't owe him anything, and she caught the corner of his mouth instead.
It felt like being touched by the low current of a live wire. His awareness of her, not as a project, but as an attractive woman blazed back with force. The scent of her hair surrounded him again and the depth of the almost-green in her eyes drew him in as surely as if he'd clasped his hands and dove. Completing the kiss, turning his head that last little bit that made their mouths fit together didn't take thought or planning. It just happened.
They both realized it couldn't at the same moment.
She pulled back, pressing a hand against her lips. The look she gave him wasn't betrayal. It was suspicion and surprise.
Kade left the couch. It took every ounce of will not to dive for the shadows and put some distance between them. What was he thinking? The problem was, he hadn't thought. He'd just reacted. He knew better. He couldn't make mistakes and he wouldn’t get attached. Not to her. Not to anyone.
"Which one's the bathroom?" He'd started down the hall before he asked. He could put a door between them, at least. Get himself under control and get back to work.
"The second," she answered. "On the right. The light's outside."
"Thanks." He didn't touch the light switch, just stepped inside and closed the door. The darkness wouldn't bother him. The darkness brought him peace.
Chapter Six
No matter how she tried to get comfortable, Melanie couldn’t sleep. No, that wasn’t exactly true. She dozed in fits, dropping off just long enough that her dreams kicked in and reminded her of the evening’s excitement. Not that she thought she’d ever forget. The sound of the gun going off woke her every time.
She was still breathing, though. That had to count for something, given the way her lungs had been acting up lately. Asthma had been the bane of her childhood, keeping her from doing too many things. As she grew up, she’d learned to control it, to know her limits and how far she could push before she gave in to her body’s demands. She took her medicine like clockwork and always had an inhaler nearby, just in case.
She’d reached for it more often in the last week than the several months before. Something had her stressed and trigger-happy.
Something like the man sleeping on her couch.
It wasn’t fair to lay all the blame at Kade’s feet, of course. For starters, she’d known him less than twenty-four hours. Unless he could time travel, he couldn’t be responsible for all of her attacks. The reason he’d come to find her, though? The things that had tried to kill her tonight? Those she could and did blame.
Which was still crazy. She was being stalked by shadows. What sort of responsible adult believed in the things that went bump in the night? Melanie preferred to deal with the world of cold, hard facts.
Or at least in the rules that made up the world she lived in. Art couldn’t always be measured on a scale, but the steps to produce it often could. She could test the pigments on a canvas to find the proportion of each ingredient. She could inspect a pottery fragment and pinpoint where in the world they’d gathered the clay.
Kade probably had ways to track the shadow creatures. He’d obviously known what they were the instant he saw them, not drawn in by the illusion of harmlessness that had first entranced her. She’d been ready to march right up to help them. And if she had? The reward for her soft-heartedness would have been a sudden death.
“And on that cheery thought,” she murmured, pushing the covers back. If she wasn’t going to sleep, she didn’t want to be stuck beneath them, unable to move. Even on a good night, she could tangle herself in the blankets so badly it took five minutes to get untied in the morning. Kade probably would have stripped the covers off entirely and ordered her to sleep on the bare mattress, on the off chance she’d need to move. Then again, a heavy blanket might make a good deterrent. She could fling it over an assailant’s head. Blind them temporarily, maybe knock them down. That would show Kade she could do something more than stand there and wasn’t entirely defenseless. She could stall them. She could run.
She had to stop thinking about it. On any other restless night, she would have gone out to the living room, put something mindless on the TV and let it drone her back to sleep. She could listen to the radio or simply walk laps around the apartment. Tonight, she felt like she should stay in the room. He was probably still on high alert. If she made a sound, he’d come crashing through the door, ready to fight off whatever had come to harm her.
She wished she didn’t find the idea quite so appealing.
There was definitely something wrong in her head. Yes, Kade was handsome, but she hadn’t let him stay so she could ogle him or turn him into some kind of heroic fantasy. She’d let him stay because he knew how to fight the monsters.
Of course,
she’d helped, at Hannadays. Granted, at his prompting, and not without a few stumbles over the unfamiliar words on her part, but she’d helped banish or destroy or disintegrate the shadow-men. If they came back, she could shout those words again and at least buy herself a little time. She hoped.
Of course, now that she was thinking about what she might do if faced with another attack, she realized she was sitting in a very dark room. Alone. She’d never been afraid of the dark as a child. She preferred well-lit sidewalks but she’d traveled down more than a few roads with no street lamps to light the way. She couldn’t remember ever feeling like she ought to look over her shoulder.
She felt it now. She leaned for the lamp on her nightstand, switching it on with a very sharp snap. She squinted against the light until her eyes adjusted. Once they did, she wasn’t sure she’d made the right choice.
In a room full of darkness, all shadows looked the same. Now, with some of them pushed back by the glow, others seemed to huddle in the farthest corners. She imagined them leaning together, whispering about how she’d disturbed them. Why couldn’t she leave well enough alone, they’d ask. Well, if she wanted to play it that way, they’d just bring the fight back to her.
Her heart beat a little too quickly now. Sometimes she hated her imagination. Sometimes it gave her just the push she probably needed to get over ridiculous fears and stop watching when she could act.
“All right,” she said, slipping off the bed. She turned to face those too-dark corners, though she stayed in the light. “I’m not going to be afraid of simple shadows. There’s nothing in here that can hurt me. Nothing would dare.”
True to her belief, nothing stirred. Nothing made a sound. The shadows in the corners stayed where they were. She took a deep breath. Good.
“But if you did dare,” she went on, “I’d be ready. You won’t catch me off guard again.” There was still no movement. She was talking to nothing. No one heard her boast of bravery but it made a difference to her. She could feel her pulse slowing down. “It’s like that saying: fool me once? You won’t get a second chance.”