What rubbed me wrong was the idea of running to him with the information about Malcolm, as if I couldn’t handle the douchebag on my own.
And what pissed me off was the knowledge that I couldn’t.
“Kit?”
“What?” I growled.
She didn’t answer right away and I forced myself to open my eyes, turn my head to look at her. She sat twirling her straw in her glass, staring off into nothing. When she sensed my gaze, she looked up. “You’re as stubborn as Gran said you were.” She gave me a slight shrug and a smile, looking a little sheepish. “I hadn’t thought anybody could be that headstrong. Not when it came to her.”
“Your grandmother wasn’t exactly a pushover.”
“No.” Marie shook her head, sadness in her eyes. “She was like a wall—one made of English oak, stone and iron—solid and durable. There are days I find myself reaching for the phone to call her, just to talk. I still can’t believe she’s gone. I’d always thought she’d be here to care for any children I might have. She outlived my mother, you know. She’s…she was that powerful. Now it seems the line will die with me.”
There was sorrow and acceptance in those words. I couldn’t decide what made them more heartbreaking, but I thought it was the simple acceptance, that knowledge that she was likely the last of her family.
“I’m sorry.”
Marie shook her head. “No. Please. Don’t…” She waved a hand. “Gran knew her time was coming. Looking back, I can see that. She was preparing me in her own way. She…worried. I’ve spent so much of my life wrapped up in this world and in my career, I haven’t made a life for myself and that worried her. I always thought she was just being a nag. But I understand now.”
With a heavy sigh, she turned to me, offering her hand.
Reluctantly, I accepted.
Her palm was surprisingly calloused, and her grip was strong. “You are not alone. I can tell you’re reluctant to confide in him, but you need to get over that. This isn’t about some petty rift between you and another headhunter for the Assembly. Malcolm is a man on a mission and you should know how dangerous men like him can be. Talk to Damon, Kit.”
Marie rose from the small table tucked into what the landlord had jokingly referred to as a dining nook. After smoothing her skirt down, she looked around the apartment. “This is a nice place, Kit. But it’s not a home anymore. Go there…talk to Damon. And when you do…” She paused, taking a deep breath before continuing. “Ask him about the meeting he had with the wolf alpha and Malcolm at the assembly two nights past.”
“What?” Okay, that caught my attention.
“I can’t speak of it,” she said, her words calm. “It isn't my place.”
“You just spoke of it.” I was tempted to grab her, shake her.
And when she’d turned to go, I did reach out, catching her arm. But that was all I did. Her bones felt fragile under my hand and I reminded myself, human…then I looked into her eyes and saw the echo of the woman who’d befriended me, cared for me when she’d had no reason to even help me.
“I merely suggested you question your lover.” With a polite nod, she nearly twisted out of my grip and walked away. “Remember, Kit. You’re not alone anymore.”
Chapter Eight
You’re not alone anymore.
Those were the words that lingered with me, long after she left.
Not alone.
Sitting there in my living room with the slowly fading glow of the wards, I pondered what I’d learned, what she’d said, what was coming. The wards had started to settle at some point since she’d left, but I couldn’t say when and when they finally went to sleep, the absence of their soft hum in the back of my mind left me feeling oddly empty.
But I wasn’t. Even now, as I felt him coming, I could still hear her voice.
Or maybe it was because I felt him coming that I heard her saying those words again.
You’re not alone…
I’d always had a keen awareness of him, and shifters in general, but over the past year, I’d developed what felt like a surreal ability to lock in on him and if he was anywhere even close, I could tell, and I could feel him, just like I did now. He was still a ways off, but I was tuned in on him and could feel his approach, bit by bit.
He must be on foot.
Closing my eyes, I stayed on the floor, just waiting.
When he knocked at the door, I closed my eyes and sighed. “Come on in.”
“It’s locked,” he said through the door.
“You’ve got a key, right?”
He hesitated, then I heard the locks being disengaged. I opened my eyes as the door swung open. Damon stood there on the doorway, eying me with caution. “Your wards are up.”
“You’ve been here often enough. They know you.” I was too tired to get up. Not physically. Just…emotionally. Mentally. I was going to have to go head to head with somebody like Malcolm, it seemed. How pathetic was it that I wanted to throw myself on the floor and kick my feet while screaming… I don’t want to?
“I don’t care if the wards know me or not,” Damon said, glancing sideways at them. “I know them, too. They bite.”
“So bite back.” Closing my eyes, I let my head fall back on the couch. “Besides, since they do know you, they shouldn’t fight you too hard.”
“Nice to know.” He blew out a breath. I heard it, sensed the frustration, and the determination. Some might have turned away.
But Damon took one slow step forward, then another.
The crackling hiss of power filled the air as the wards snapped to life.
Magic and energy crawled all over me.
Despite the weight of exhaustion, I found myself opening my eyes to watch just as he took another step. His mouth went tight, the only sign that the wards affected him at all. The drain of their power on his strength had to be tremendous, but he kept walking, slow and steady, then, with a brilliant shattering of light, the wards yielded and let him go.
I blinked, caught offguard by the display.
“Justin must have put something extra into them,” I commented. “They’ve been acting up all day.”
Damon rotated his neck and pulled his shoulders back, stretching. A deep sigh escaped him as he shut the door. “They’re a bitch now, I’ll say that.” He came to my side then, and without pause, he dropped to his knees next to me. “What’s happened?” he asked bluntly. “Something’s hurt you.”
“Not really.”
He didn’t argue, but when he sat next to me and draped his arm around my shoulders, I knew he wasn’t done with it, either. Snuggling into the hard, muscled lines of him, I closed my eyes again and tried to resist the urge to just…sleep. Hide from it all.
You’re not alone anymore…Marie’s voice, like an echo of her grandmother’s.
“Child, you suffer from an excess of great stupidity or great bravery. I’m not sure which.”
“Oh, fine,” I grumbled under my breath.
“I didn’t say anything,” Damon said, sounding amused.
“Not talking to you.” Grousing, I pushed away from him and got up to pace.
“We’re the only two here…unless you’ve picked up a ghost,” Damon pointed out.
The comment hit a little closer to home than I liked. It seemed like Es’s ghost was hovering at my very back.
When I didn’t respond, Damon’s tension pricked, stinging the air that was still heavy with the magic of my wards. “Kit, you didn’t pick up some sort of ghost, did you? Can you?”
“How would I know?” Shoving my hair back, I paced to the far end of the living room, then back, finally stopping to look at him from a couple of feet away. He slumped down far enough that he when he reached out, he could grasp my ankle. As he closed long fingers around my bare skin, I resisted the urge to give in to a physical sort of distraction.
It would help…for a while.
But then all of this would still be here.
“I’ve never had a run in with a gh
ost,” I said, sinking to my knees, my eyes holding his.
“Then what’s going on?”
He’d slid his hand from my ankle to my calf. Now it rested on my mid-thigh and when I didn’t answer right away, he rolled forward and hooked his forearm around my waist, dragging me to him. “Talk to me, Kit.”
“You met with Dair last night at the Assembly. Why didn’t you tell me?” The accusatory words sounded too much like an attack and I didn’t like it.
“I meet with Dair quite a bit.” He stroked his thumb across my skin, eyes hooded. An arrogant mask settled over his face, making it hard for me to see much of anything beyond it.
But I didn’t have to. He’d pulled himself in and now I couldn’t feel anything from him. Earlier, I’d sensed his worry, his caution.
Now he was a blank void, wearing the mask of the Alpha, the one that pissed me off to all hell and back.
Except this time, he was wasting his time. He did this when he was hiding something but thanks to Marie, I already knew what he was hiding.
Grabbing his wrist, I tugged it away from my face, then slowly rose, escaping his intimate hold. “I already know who you met with, Damon. There’s no point in pussy-dancing around it.”
A short, choked laugh escaped him.
I shot him a dark look.
His face was benign, eyes calm. “It’s pussy-footing, Kit. Although if you want to dance…”
“I’m about five seconds from throwing something at you,” I advised him. “And the only projectiles in reach are the ones I carry on me—all sharp. I think one even has Night on it—it might be fun to put your big, furry ass out for a few hours.”
He chuckled, but I kept on talking.
“I could give you a hair cut. Shave cut little designs into your scalp. Maybe even pierce your ears. I’ve got some silver hearts that would look darling on you.”
“You can pierce whatever you want, baby girl,” Damon said, still looking like he wanted to chuckle.
Leaning against the table, I picked up the longer blade I’d removed when I took my boots off earlier. “Whatever? Really?” I slid my gaze down and studied his crotch. He sat with one knee drawn up, the other leg stretched out in front of him.
As he realized where my thoughts had gone, I had the pleasure of seeing him blanch. This time, I laughed.
He was in front of me before the sound even had a chance to echo around the room for the first time. “Such a mean streak,” he whispered against my mouth before catching the lower lip between his teeth and tugging.
“You’re the one who was laughing at me.” I pushed at his chest.
“With you, Kit. It was with you.”
“Yeah.” I hunched my shoulder up as he pressed his mouth to my neck. “Except I wasn’t laughing.”
A moment later, he had me sighing and I was a breath away from a moan as he tugged at the zipper of my jeans—
Then—
“Hey!” Working my hands in between us, I shoved him back. He went, but only because he wanted to. “Dirty trick, big guy.”
He gave me a look of sheer innocence. “What? What did I do?”
“You’re trying to distract me.” I tugged my shirt down only to realize at some point, he’d already gotten my bra unfastened. Swearing, I adjusted that and moved so that the table now separated us. “Not funny, Damon.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.” He tugged at his jeans and went to stretch out on the couch, watching me with heavy lidded eyes.
“I already know you met with Malcolm. And apparently, you’re distracted—that makes me think you’re worried about something,” I said, pacing closer to him. “Or you’d figure out how I know.”
His nostrils flared and his body tensed.
He didn’t move from that lazy, slumped position, but his lids lifted and the dark pupils of his eyes flared, darkening his deep gray eyes to near black. “You’ve talked to him…and Marie. Both in one day. I didn’t know you even knew them. Ambitious, kitten. You investigating me again?”
I curled my lip at him. “Funny.”
“I’m not laughing.” He reached up and caught the front of my jeans, tugging hard enough that he pulled me off balance and I ended up falling onto his lap.
He wrapped both arms around me, holding me tight even when I tried to wiggle into a less-awkward position.
“Damn it, you’re a caveman, sometimes,” I said, jabbing him into the gut and twisting around until I was somewhat comfortable. He relented and loosened his grip, letting me sit straddling his lap. “For the record, I am not laughing either.”
Jabbing him in the chest, I added, “No, I’m not investigating you, you dumb ass. He’s telling me that he wants me to do a job—says there’s a blade he wants me to find.”
Damon blinked, the action so slow it was almost comical. He did it a second time, then just simply closed his eyes and shook his head.
“You’re not taking the job,” he said after almost a full minute of silence.
I gave him a withering look. “You’d do better to reword that, pal, because if I even thought you were trying to dictate how I could work and who I could work for, the two of us would be having the fight to end all fights, right before I kicked your ass out of my apartment, for like…forever.”
But if I expected those words to bring about any apology, clearly, I was mistaken.
Slowly, in a move that somehow conveyed all the power in his big body, Damon rose to his feet. His hands hung loose at his sides as he studied me, head cocked. “If Marie was here talking to you, and if you’ve been talking to Malcolm, I’m assuming you’ve already figured out a crucial detail.”
“Just what detail is that, big guy?” I asked, chin going up.
“The prick is dangerous.”
“Newsflash—I knew that quite some time ago. I didn’t need to talk to Marie, or him, to figure that out. I steer clear of him anyway.”
Stalking close, Damon reached out and hooked his hand around my neck, drawing me to my toes as he hipped his head. “Then why are we having a problem here?”
I bit his lower lip, using that as a distraction. It almost worked.
The knee I tried to drive up between his knees worked better.
Still, between the two, I was able to twist away from him and evade his grasp as I moved farther away. As he turned toward me, blood welling on his lip, I held up a staying hand. “We’re about to have even bigger problems if you don’t calm the hell down,” I warned him.
He held his position, watching me with glittering eyes as he swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. The small smear of blood that remained, he cleared with a flick of his tongue. “We’re going to have a reckoning about this soon enough, you got that?”
“I’m scared.” I curled my lip at him, mostly to piss him off—I was plenty pissed myself. “Do you honestly think I’m stupid enough to work for him? He’s either fae or an ancient—or both—and you think I’m that crazy, even after what went down with Puck?”
Damon’s brows shot up, then slowly, his face relaxed. “You know what he is.”
“Please.” Smoothing my shirt down, I tried to settle myself, but the anger buzzing off him was taking on an erotic edge and that was affecting me in very, very unsettling ways. “Give me some credit. I realize I haven’t been around the block as many times as you have, old man, but I’m not exactly an idiot.”
He rocked back on his heels, still eying me narrowly. “Since you know what he is and you’ve already said you don’t plan to work for him…what’s the problem?”
“You!” Huffing out a breath, I crossed my arms over my chest. “You big ass, you don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do! You’re not my alpha! You’re not my sugar daddy, my boss or my master. I love you, Damon, but you don’t get to control me—I don’t obey your orders but you think you can growl and snarl at me and I’ll meekly obey, after all this time?”
I shook my head and looked past his shoulder, not sure what else I needed to say. “If
that’s what you think…”
“Hell, Kit.”
The word came out full of such irritation, it was almost funny.
Almost.
I shot him a look from the corner of my eye, then went back to staring at the wall. The empty space that had once held my weapons had been filled with delicately drawn images Chang had give me. Cranes and pandas, tigers and dragons, they were simple, fitting the efficient style of my apartment and taking away that emptiness left by the missing weapons.
Now I focused on one particular image. It was of a tiger, prowling at the base of a mountain. The peak was shrouded in mist.
Then both the tiger and the mist was cut from my view as Damon stepped in front of me.
“I hit alpha level before I was your age, Kit. I’ve been ordering and bossing people around since younger than that,” he said, mouth tight. “Even when I was pretending to be Annette’s lackey, I was still in charge of a fuckton of people. I’m not used to asking people for anything.”
Inclining my head, I waited.
“You don’t know how to give a damn inch,” he murmured, cupping my cheek in his hand.
I stayed quiet, still waiting. He wasn’t getting the easy way out on this.
“I’m sorry.” He lowered his head, rubbing his lips against mine. I caught the coppery hint of blood, still lingering there, but I didn’t turn away. “Let’s try this again. Kit…please tell me that you’re not going to work for Malcolm. He’s dangerous. I’m sure you know that.”
Smothering a laugh, I shook my head and pulled back enough to look into his eyes. “Even when you try to ask, you somehow manage to make it into an order. But at least that was an effort.” Rising onto my toes, I met his eyes. “No. I won’t be working for him—like ever. Believe it or not, I know how dangerous he is. I’m probably more aware than you are of just how dangerous he is.”
Brow pressed to mine, Damon blew out a slow, controlled breath.
“Good, then. I’m sorry.”
His hands restlessly kneaded my waist and my skin began to burn with all the caged, pent-up energy that sizzled off him. Sliding my hands to his chest, I moved them down. His heart bumped hard and fast against my palm.
Haunted Blade (Colbana Files Book 6) Page 7