She turned from Zero and happened on Mace. He studied her with the intensity one gives a freshly polished gemstone. She knew what he was thinking, that maybe Vessler pushed her beyond the point of no return. Could she ever come back to him out of that strange blackness she’d sunk into?
She ached for him, but it hadn’t been her choice to leave Viennesse in the first place. He’d—they’d—all pushed her away. Even Will, the only one she thought she could count on to be objective. Her gaze narrowed slightly, and she was sure Mace noticed the change. He always reacted when she showed some sign of strength. She took a careful breath and tried to ignore the poker in her side. “Wow, you all seem so worried.” She hadn’t meant for her tone to be sardonic, but hearing her voice caused a spike of pride.
“Of course we were worried,” Winter said. “We didn’t know what Vessler would do to you. Nikki, there’s something we need to tell you.”
She froze for a moment, trying desperately to remember what had just happened beyond “something horrible.” She and Damon were fighting. On the lawn. Mace and Raven were there. Her eyes fanned to the two of them for a moment—both still fresh from the fight—but neither offering any clue. What had happened? Her head was aching, make that pounding, out rhythmic blasts to her brain. She pressed her hands to her temples and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Nikki, I know this must be difficult, but—”
Movement around her. Tension in the air. Mace’s voice. “That’s enough.” Then he was there, hovering and reaching around her to lift her into his arms like she was some broken china doll. “No more talk until she rests.”
She didn’t want to go with Mace. She’d pushed him away at the beach house, though now she couldn’t remember why she’d been so angry. Everything was blurry, and she wondered if she’d been drugged.
A stiff voice, filled with irritation, ended her thought. “We need to know what happened. This can’t wait, Mace. We need answers.” Well, whatever happened, it has Zero all worked up.
“No!” Mace’s words so abrupt, she squeezed her eyes tighter. “Not. Another. Word. Until. She. Rests.”
And he swept her from the room and up the stairs. Rescued. Again.
Chapter 23
Welcome back,” Mace said as Nikki turned and stretched. He looked like he’d been sitting in the chair by a window for some time. “How’s your side?”
She yawned and looked down at the covers. “Okay, I guess. Not as bad.”
“Going to be sore for a few days if your kidney is bruised.”
She nodded and noticed the movement of her hair against the pillow. She chanced a quick peek to the right and to the left. Hair fanned around her. Had he done that as she slept? She remembered being angry with all of them—including Mace— but now she just felt relieved to be here. Safe.
He rose and stood with his back against the door. Her sentry, her guard. And she doubted any being—regardless of its origin—would be able to penetrate the wall of Mace. She watched his hands fist. Not angrily; this was a motion she’d seen many times. He’d contract, then flex his fingers, and then they were usually touching her somewhere. As if the digits had a will of their own and wouldn’t resist, no matter what his mind said. She realized she was anticipating his touch. But Mace just smiled down at her and clamped his hands behind his back.
She hoped her disappointment wasn’t too easy to read. But of course, it was. Mace seemed to have an instant translator where she was concerned. “Looks like I need a babysitter after all.”
“Is that what you think of me?”
“You tend to order me around a lot.” Where had that come from? Then again, she couldn’t deny it.
He sank onto the bed. “Remember on the boat when I told you my judgment is all messed up where you’re concerned?”
She nodded. “I do, but I don’t want to be locked in a cage.”
“Nikki, your life is more important than we ever imagined. From the beginning I’ve felt the urgency to protect you. But I don’t want to lock you up in any way. If anything, I want to help you fly. But you’re like a bull …” He ran his hands through his hair.
“A bull?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, but you’re constantly taking on risks, trying to test the boundaries.”
“That’s who I am, Mace. And it’s not going to change.”
“I don’t want it to change. That’s what I love about you. But you’re also called to be a leader. And a leader doesn’t always get to do what he wants.”
She was called to be a leader? Seriously? With pounding surety, his words rang true and scared her. “That’s why it feels like you’re constantly pushing me but at the same time holding me back?”
He shrugged. “I guess. I’ve never thought of it that way. Leading isn’t easy. You have to make the hard choices. It’s seldom the thing you want.”
A new respect for Mace sifted into her system. With all his infuriating stop signs, he was really trying to prepare her to move forward.
She needed to change the subject. “You saved me, didn’t you?”
The lines of his face contorted for a moment, then the tension smoothed. “You were doing all right on your own.”
“I don’t know what happened. There was this blind rage that just overtook me. Damon, he … he …” Her voice cracked and her throat closed.
With a sigh, Mace reached toward her and allowed his index finger to trail along her hairline, coercing stray strands from her face.
Instinctively, she knew he intended to discuss the obvious: her, Damon, what happened. She’d have to somehow guide the conversation into a different direction, because she needed to sort the vivid things she’d dreamed while he stood guard at her door.
She forced out the words. “Raven is downstairs. Is he staying here? Are things back to normal?”
The index finger slid to her chin and moved silently back and forth beneath her bottom lip. She really wished he’d stop that. It made it difficult to continue.
“He spends a lot of time with Dr. Richmond and at the lab these days.”
“The lab?”
“Yeah, he’s been watching Vess— He’s watching Omega. Things are as back to normal with Raven as they can be. Before today we’d been taking turns sitting outside the gate of Vessler’s mansion.”
“For me,” she said, voice so soft it could have been an echo. “What kind of guardian would I be if I didn’t?”
Nikki stared at the door for a long time. “You rescued me twice today.”
The perfect face flashed a frown. “Twice?”
She nodded. “Downstairs.”
His jaw tightened. “Yeah, about that—”
Nikki lifted her fingertips to his lips to stop his words. It worked. Mace was almost always leveled by her touch. The tightening of his lips beneath her fingers, the quickening of his breath as he exhaled puffs that landed on the back of her hand, the look in his brilliant-blue eyes …
With great force, Nikki pushed all that aside. Everything had changed. Everything. The weight of that pressed against her shoulders like the safety harness of a roller coaster that spun and tossed you from side to side then left you inverted.
His breathing slowed and remained steady—Mace was always steady—but somehow comfortable now, as if he’d eased into a warm pool. When her gaze touched his, she saw it—relief and awe and joy all rolled into one package. He tried hard to contain his emotions, but she’d studied him as much as he had her. The cadence of his voice, the soft sound of his breathing, the firm feel of his battle-toughened hands that could turn to silk against her skin. He was pulling her into that place of quiet safety that she only knew with Mace.
She looked away.
But that moment of eye contact told her everything she feared. Nothing stood in their way now.
What Mace couldn’t understand was that at the same time a new wall stood in their path. One that rose higher than ever before. He couldn’t know, and she couldn’t blame him for that. But, oh, she wanted to. I
t would make this so much easier.
“We need to talk about … you.” His lips brushed against her fingertips as he spoke.
Nikki’s eyes drifted shut in an attempt to capture and seal the emotion he was giving off. What would it be like to simply feel? To be allowed a sensation separate from all the pain attached to it? She didn’t know. And unfortunately, she was about to give up her one chance of learning, as she knew what Mace was talking about. They needed to discuss who and what she was. The day’s adventure was a blur, but tiny portions flickered with crystal clarity in her mind. Nikki wasn’t human. She’d heard Mace and Raven say it. And if her suspicion was correct, it was the worst kind of trick. Because it meant her actions in the next few days would ensure her ticket to hell.
“How is she?” Vegan asked as she handed a cup of coffee to Mace.
“Resting again.”
Vegan motioned with a dip of her head to Zero, who widened his eyes in question. She dipped her head again, a little more forcefully.
“Sorry, dude, for pushing her earlier,” he conceded on an exhale.
“It’s all good, Zero.” Mace stared into the depths of the coffee mug. Things should be good. Should be better on every level, and yet …
“What’s wrong, Mace?” Winter asked. A blanket of her long, dark hair framed her face, and when combined with the way she sat arrow-straight on the couch she looked like a portrait from a different time. No, not just seemed; Winter belonged in a different time. Her perfect posture, her manners, the frequent glints of wisdom in her golden eyes. How long had she lived? What had she endured?
Mace hadn’t given much thought to the hundreds of years that stretched before him. That now stretched before him and Nikki.
Nikki was raised by humans. And the confines of human life rested within a hundred or so years. But that limit became meaningless when he watched her eyes change. Why wouldn’t she talk about the fact that she was a Halfling? She’d deliberately shut him down, even though he’d seen in her eyes she knew.
When Winter repeated the question, he stared at her a moment before answering. “It’s Nikki. She wouldn’t talk about what happened on the lawn with Vessler.”
Heads nodded. But they didn’t understand. This went beyond a need to adjust. There was a fierce determination in Nikki’s eyes, a resolution in the set of her jaw, and the hint of a departure in her touch. Nothing had been spoken. Words wouldn’t have been as loud.
But one thing Mace knew for certain: he was no closer to claiming the female that was his match than he had been on the day they met.
“She just needs time, Mace,” Winter said.
“Well, time’s the one thing she’s got plenty of now.” He couldn’t help the bitterness that crept into his voice. He should be laughing; instead, he felt like the girl he loved had been dealt one mammoth of an unfair hand. And to make matters worse, she was about to bluff the dealer.
Glimmer stood. “Let’s go home. We girls have to at least keep up the illusion normal people live in that apartment downtown.” She tilted her head toward the stairs. “Nikki will probably sleep the rest of the night, but we should be here for her in the morning … You know, for support.”
Several sets of eyes turned to Glimmer and widened.
“What?” she barked. “She’s one of us now.”
“Let’s do something nice for her,” Vegan added. “Maybe a party.”
Zero mumbled something about girls and rolled his eyes.
“Yeah,” Glimmer agreed. “We’ll think of something on the way home.”
But Mace wasn’t in a mood to enjoy any sort of get-together. Everything he’d dreamed of and never thought he could have was slipping away, before he even got a chance to enjoy it.
By the following morning, Nikki was rested and full of questions. She had to be careful though. She wanted answers, but only answers to the right inquiries. Maybe if she was careful that no one uttered what she was, it would sort of make a loophole big enough to slip her eternity through. Because of all the things she was uncertain of, one thing remained clear: she had to find—no, she had to hunt—the man responsible for killing her mom and dad. If her parents were alive today, they could explain this mess to her. Were they the same as she was? Could they have hidden their true identity for her entire life?
Nikki seized the railing and slipped down the stairs to find Will waiting for her in the living room. A sweet scent wafted from beneath the kitchen’s swinging door, and male and female voices mingled together as well. It sounded as if they were arguing.
Will put down his paper. “Did you sleep?”
“Some,” she said, rubbing her hands on her thighs. “Thanks for letting me crash here.”
“Of course.”
She dropped onto the couch beside the giant teddy bear of a man … er, angel. “How could I not know?” she asked, careful to avoid the word, and hoping Will would pick up on that little fact. “How could you not know?”
“Male Halflings reach the age of accountability in their teen years. For each it’s different. Raven was barely seventeen when he tapped in. Mace was seventeen as well. Vine, my early bloomer, was fifteen. Halfling females tend to reach the age of accountability around eighteen, sometimes nineteen or even twenty.”
“Vegan, Glimmer, and Winter. Do they live with a heavenly angel like the Lost Boys?”
“Females are raised to the age of accountability by Xians— do you know what a Xian is?”
She nodded. “Yes, Mace explained it to me once. They’re humans who are tuned in to the supernatural realm, right?”
“Yes. Since females tap in later, they are raised by Xians with a heavenly angel overseeing their lives. They are usually grown—college-aged—when they tap in. So they live together, but a heavenly angel doesn’t need to be there as well. Winter, Vegan, and Glimmer have their own apartment downtown. But there’s still an overseeing angel.”
“Why haven’t I seen their angel?”
“The girls were placed in my care. I’m the overseeing angel now.”
“Oh.”
He studied her for a long time before launching deeper into the discussion. “In your case, Vessler kept an eye on you, and when you began to show the signs, he threw his plan into high gear.”
Vessler. She knew him as her godfather, her protector. Some protector. He tried to kill me on my own front lawn. “Show what signs?”
“First, it was fortunate for him that you’d become a Seer. It made tapping into the supernatural realm easy. He’d simply drop something before your eyes that would cause you to draw. You’d sketch what your mind saw, not realizing it was actually in the other realm.”
“That’s why the hell hounds showed up in the woods the first day I met Mace, Raven, and Vine?” It seemed like it had happened to another Nikki.
“Exactly. Hounds can kill you or torment you to the point of—”
She held up a hand to stop him. “Yes, I know.” Mace had explained their capabilities on the night she first met Zero in his secret underground hideout. “So all that time Vessler was making me into a monster like him.”
“Yes, with fear as his wingman. But you’re not like him, Nikki. Not physically, emotionally, or genetically.”
Not like him. Oh, but she was about to be. She forced her thoughts away. There was time, lots of time, to put her plan into motion. “What am I, Will?” It was not a question to be answered; Nikki made that clear by the tone of her voice. Her gaze drifted to the window, where the sun’s rays warmed the yard beyond. But a bleak indifference closed around her. The same one she felt over and over at Vessler’s house, like a dark veil shading her world. She actually detested the heat the sun offered. Even the green grass and gently swaying trees repulsed her. They were liars, acting as if the world was a beautiful place, when all the while they’d sat back and watched its ugliness time and again. This morning she hated the sun for shining. “I just don’t understand how I couldn’t know.”
“You’ve told me time and agai
n lately that you don’t feel like yourself. Remember, on the boat? Mace and Raven said the same thing. You’ve been sensing something, something evil.”
She laughed without humor. “Yeah, I didn’t expect it to be me.”
“You are not evil, Nikki. You have fallen blood streaming through your veins, yes. But it is your choices that determine what your soul reaps.”
That fallen blood drained from her face and right to her feet.
Will must have sensed it was too much for her to take in, so he shifted the conversation. “Mace and Raven both shared instances where you said you could feel their emotions. You killed a hell hound with your bare hands. That’s hardly human.”
“That was a long time ago. And right before that, I got burned in the laboratory fire and Mace didn’t,” she argued. “So how could he and I be of the same species?”
“Having angelic abilities and being able to utilize them are two different things. A Halfling must tap into her angelic power.”
She leaned forward. This could help her execute her plan.
“First, abilities arrive a little at a time. If you were to be burned now—”
She gasped softly. “I did get burned while at Damon’s beach house. Except I didn’t. Krissy’s hand blistered instantly. Mine didn’t even turn red.”
“And I would venture to say your eyesight has improved drastically.”
Nikki grabbed a throw pillow and hugged it. She thought of the clarity of Mace’s face when he stood at the water’s edge and she on the balcony. Every detail was in sharp focus. “It has.” But even farther back, her eyesight had been strong. “When we first went to visit Zero in the underground, Mace said, ‘I bet you need a light,’ but my eyes had adjusted.”
Will smiled. “No, they didn’t.”
She frowned. “They did. I could see everything. All I needed was that little bit of light.”
“There was no light to adjust to. You were seeing in the dark. Once the door to the surface is closed, it’s pitch-black in the tunnel.”
Guardian Page 22