Eliana

by Evey Brett

  Without taking time to think, he slid the needle into a vein and depressed the plunger. He held his breath…and waited.

  He didn’t know what to expect, but nothing wasn’t it. Several minutes passed, but he felt no different than before.

  Maybe it takes time. There were eleven vials left, after all.

  “Kon? You’re taking forever in there. Everything all right?”

  “Coming.” Hastily, Kon flushed the toilet and stashed the case before joining Dane in bed. A pang of guilt jabbed him for keeping a secret from Dane, but he didn’t want anyone interfering.

  Not even the man he loved.

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning, Kon watched the weather report on the news, wondering about the wisdom of heading out into what was looking to be a massive storm. The weatherman gestured toward the masses of white clouds and low temperatures and pontificated about possible snow accumulation.

  “We’re going out in that?” Dane asked.

  Kon shook his head. “We’ll wait.”

  Yet when he broached the subject to Eliana, she stomped her cane on the ground and glared at him. “I’m going. Today. If you won’t drive me, I’ll take the bus.”

  He was willing to bet she’d be stranded at the station due to the storm, but if he was smart, he’d let her find out for herself. He’d done plenty for her. There was no reason to endure the stress and risk of driving through a blizzard to aid a young woman who adamantly refused his help.

  Yet every good Sensitive knew what his partner or patient needed. She could deny him all she wanted—but she needed him and Dane, and not just to get her to South Dakota. She evidenced hurt in everything from the way she walked to her avoidance of being touched. Kon knew he could help—if only he could find a way to convince her.

  She’d grabbed the duffel bag he’d found for her new clothes and stood in the doorway, holding it. Kon met her gaze, struck once more at how affected he was by her fierce determination. He fought the urge to drop to his knees and beg for her attentions. She wasn’t ready. She might never be, but he could hope.

  * * * *

  With a skeptical Dane in tow, he threw the bags into the trunk of a silver sedan, one of five the enclave kept for business use. Eliana climbed into the backseat so she could sit sideways and stretch her bad leg. Kon knew she was in pain but she hadn’t uttered a word of complaint.

  Ordinarily Dane preferred to drive, but Kon had more experience in snow and didn’t offer the keys. He pulled out of the enclave’s parking garage. Outside, the sky was filled with dark clouds. Flakes of snow dotted the windshield.

  As they headed up I-25 and out of the city, the flakes grew thicker and the drivers progressed more slowly. Not that northern Colorado had much of interest to look at. It was flat, and with the increasing snow flurries, he couldn’t see much of it anyway. Eliana wore the down jacket Kon had procured for her and shivered despite the additional warmth from the car’s heater. Dane slouched in the passenger seat, humming or singing in tune to the radio.

  They crawled along the highway through Greeley and beyond. Dump trucks filled with salt and gravel loosed their contents on the road. More than three hours into their drive, they reached highway exits for Cheyenne, Wyoming. Kon pulled off. The car fishtailed as he navigated the curve.

  A strangled sound came from the backseat. A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed Eliana white and petrified. Kon didn’t blame her; his own heart thudded from nerves as he struggled to control the car. He stopped at a red light, and when it turned green, the tires spun for a second before finding purchase. He carefully eased his way down the snow-covered street in search of a hotel.

  Dane twisted around to look at their passenger. “First time in a blizzard?”

  Eliana nodded.

  Kon hunched down as he fought to see through the windshield wipers slicing madly back and forth. “We’re going to stop soon, all right?”

  Eliana didn’t answer. Kon spotted the glowing red sign for an extended-stay hotel and pulled in. To his relief, a family diner and a gas station shared the parking lot. They wouldn’t starve.

  In short order, he’d procured adjoining rooms from a bored front-desk clerk. “Bring back some food,” he told Dane. “I’m going to get Eliana settled.”

  Cold and stress leaked from Eliana, yet she was determined to make her way across the parking lot already high with slush and snowdrifts. Thick hair plastered against her face. The cane slipped. She stumbled and pitched forward.

  Kon caught her. Without asking, he scooped her into his arms.

  Rage marred her pretty face. “Put…me…down.”

  “Or what?” Kon asked innocently.

  “Or I’ll strangle you.” She wrapped her hands around his throat.

  “Try it. I don’t think you’re strong enough.”

  To his amusement, she did try, but between her chilled fingers and her inability to use the weight of her body, she lacked the pressure necessary to restrict his airway. He laughed.

  She slapped him.

  Pleasure rushed through him, a sensation so sweet he couldn’t stop a murmur of appreciation.

  With a hiss of annoyance, she slapped him again.

  A second shaft of pleasure set his cock straining against his pants. Hell. He shouldn’t be doing this, encouraging her while she was helpless—almost—in his arms with no idea of what her mistreatment was doing to him.

  At the door, he set her down so he could use the key. She limped in without a word and Kon went to fetch the bags. When he let himself into the room, Eliana hadn’t moved. She stood there, dripping and shivering and leaking terror from the journey through the snow.

  Kon dumped the bags to the side. “Eliana?”

  Eliana shook her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you drive.”

  “Never mind. We’re safe and warm, which is all that matters for now.” When she made no effort to move, he shed his boots and jacket, then delicately gripped the zipper of her coat and slid it down. She didn’t protest as he hung the coat on the back of the chair to dry, then settled her on the love seat and knelt to take off her boots.

  He grabbed a towel from the bathroom and a spare blanket from the closet. She still trembled, staring vacantly ahead as he wrapped the blanket around her and toweled the melted snow from her hair. So he’d found the girl’s weakness—she panicked when control was taken from her. No wonder she fought so hard to maintain it.

  A rush of cold air heralded Dane’s arrival. He stomped the snow from his boots and shook his wet head. “Damn. That’s some storm.” Then he fixed his gaze on Eliana and frowned. “Is she all right?”

  “The drive wore her out.”

  He set the plastic bags on the table, then shucked his boots and coat. “Got all kinds of stuff at the gas station. Popcorn, licorice, milk, coffee…”

  Kon watched in amazement as Dane unloaded a pile of goodies. Since this room had a small kitchen with dishes included, they’d be able to make whatever they needed. Dane had ensured they would be full of food and… “Beer?”

  “Thought it might pass the time.” He popped the top of a can. The beer fizzed.

  Eliana jerked at the sound. A trigger; Kon caught an image of a middle-aged man, her stepfather most likely, guzzling beer as he groped her. She pulled away from Kon and lurched unsteadily to her feet. “I’m going to my room.”

  “I’ll get the door,” Kon said. He went outside and through Eliana’s room. As soon as he unlocked the adjoining door, she brushed past him.

  “Thank you.”

  He moved out of the way just as she slammed the door shut.

  * * * *

  Eliana shivered, reluctant to admit she was cold because Kon’s arms were no longer around her.

  Stupid. I don’t need him. Except he’d been so warm and comfortable, she wouldn’t have minded staying there awhile longer.

  A hot shower—not nearly as nice as the one in her previous room—warmed her up. When she came out, a pil
e of food had been left on the table: coffee, tea, a carton of milk, a roll of chocolate-covered doughnuts, three kinds of candy bars, and a bag of sunflower seeds. A foam container held a Monte Cristo sandwich and a plastic tub of jelly. Suddenly hungry, she put the sandwich on a plate and in the microwave to heat.

  The most amusing item on the table was a plastic snow globe stamped WYOMING on the bottom. When she turned it upside down and then righted it, plastic snow fell around a picture of a cowboy riding a bucking horse. She was touched by the gift, loathe as she was to admit it. No one had gotten her anything for the sake of being silly before.

  She changed into her flannel nightclothes, glad to have pajamas rather than a nightgown—another one of Kon’s eerily correct guesses about her preferences. Settling in bed with her dinner, she flipped through the TV channels, avoiding any and all mentions of the weather, until she landed on the local public station—and Kon.

  The station was in the middle of their spring pledge drive, evidenced by the phone numbers scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Kon held a microphone and strode across a small stage before a studio audience, giving a lecture about energy healing.

  Eliana paid less attention to Kon’s words than to the faces of the audience. The women—and several of the men—seemed as entranced by his appearance as she was. He was as beautiful on screen as he was off.

  A polite knock came from the adjoining door. Eliana sighed, not wanting to see either Kon or Dane, but said, “Come in.”

  Kon entered alone, wearing a T-shirt and plaid pajama pants. The simple outfit did little to dull his appearance. “I just wanted to see how you…” His voice faded as his gaze landed on the screen. “Oh. That old thing.”

  She pointed at the TV. “That’s where I’ve seen you before. You’re famous.”

  Kon shrugged. “Not really. I just did the one show. I didn’t expect it to take off like it did. Now there are books and CDs to go with it. I use the royalties to support my clinic.”

  “Clinic?”

  “Alternative healing for those who aren’t able to afford it otherwise. Some of my colleagues offer massage and acupuncture. I do sessions like that.” He waved at the screen.

  On the show, Kon stood next to a woman lying on a massage table. He asked the woman if she had any aches or pains, and she replied that her shoulder had been bothering her for months to the point that she could hardly move her arm and that none of her doctors could find a cause. Kon asked her to demonstrate her range of motion. She tried, but as soon as she lifted her arm her face contorted into a mask of pain which couldn’t have been faked. In a soothing voice, Kon asked her to relax. At first he did nothing more than place his hands on either side of her shoulder; then he gently began to manipulate the arm, moving it in a greater range of motion. Little by little, the lines of pain in her face eased.

  Eliana turned to the real-life man. “Is that for real?”

  His face mirrored the compassion of his on-air persona. “Do you want to find out?”

  She turned her head away from him, unable to meet that sympathetic gaze. Part of her craved his touch and not just because the constant pain was wearing her down. Another part wanted him to go to hell—but most of that was because she didn’t want to fall for a man she’d be saying good-bye to in a couple of days. “Fine.”

  “Lie down on your back, then.” She did, and he arranged her, exquisitely careful of where and how he exerted pressure. “This will hurt a little, but you’ll feel better at the end, I promise.”

  She shrugged, so used to pain that more wouldn’t matter. Kon took his time, feeling around her hip and leg and then manipulating the joint to test the range of motion. And for a while it did hurt the way he both dug his fingers deeply into her abused muscles and moved her hip. Teeth clenched, she did her best not to let the agony show.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” Damned if she was going to cry uncle. It wasn’t the pain that bothered her as much as the encroaching memories.

  “Want to tell me how it happened?”

  “None of your damn business.”

  “It is, if I’m trying to make you feel better. One of my teachers said every illness and injury has a spirit and story behind it. It helps to find out what it is, because then we can work with it. My friends in South Dakota will tell you the same thing. The hospital only treated the broken bones and organs, not the emotions.”

  She let out a long, slow breath. Kon was a slick one, urging her to say things she’d only told the cops and social workers. “My little brother had just gotten off the bus in front of our house. I heard gunfire, and I told him to hurry. But when he got to my arms, he…” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “His back was sticky. As soon as he reached me, he went limp in my arms. I held him and screamed and ran toward the house, but they shot me. They shot my sister in the head. She’ll never walk or talk again.”

  “Who were they?” He bent her knee and gently eased her leg over her chest. It hurt but was bearable.

  “My stepfather was involved in a bad drug deal. He didn’t pay up, so they shot us in retaliation. The police never caught them. My stepfather disappeared. He probably crossed the border into Mexico. My siblings were put into foster care, but I was eighteen and in the hospital for weeks.” Kon dug his fingers into a particularly bad area. Pain jabbed her hip and leg and spread all the way up her side. “Damn it, that hurts.”

  “Just a little more,” Kon said. His hands were warm, tingling, where they touched her. She felt the heat and agony siphon away as if down a drain. Then, finally, release.

  The relief nearly brought tears to her eyes. She breathed deeply, something she hadn’t been able to do for months. If the man could make her feel this good, she was willing to let him do almost anything else to her. “How did you…?”

  “It’s what I do.” He moved his hands with unnerving accuracy, stopping as if by magic over the very spots her stepfather had hit or kicked her on the nights his manhood failed. Kon’s hand paused over her belly. “You were pregnant.”

  Her breath caught.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.” He folded his hands in his lap.

  Eliana stared at him, thoroughly unnerved. “How the hell do you know all this? You were holding back on that show, weren’t you?”

  “Some things aren’t meant to be so public.” He met her gaze. “What I have is like intuition, only deeper. I’ve trained to be very aware of movement and what it means. Beyond that, there’s an energy running through each of us. Qi, prana, or whatever you’d like to call it. I can sense if a part of someone is off-balance and, if I’m able, how to fix it. This,” he said, tracing the thick scar through her shirt, “is an outward sign you’ve been hurt, but there is unease inside as well. The trauma is caused by more than a bullet.”

  The idea that such a thing could be possible intrigued her. She stroked her belly where once life had dwelled within. “I was pregnant twice. The first was a miscarriage at three months. The bullet ended the second along with the chance for any more.” She’d been under too much stress to develop much of an attachment to either child. Under the circumstances, it was probably better they hadn’t been born, but a fair amount of guilt and sadness remained.

  “Were you willing?” He rested his hand atop hers.

  She shuddered. “If I didn’t, my stepfather would have gone after my sister. At least I wasn’t related to the bastard.”

  “Brave girl,” Kon murmured. “Such a fighter.”

  “Bravery had nothing to do with it. I couldn’t leave my brothers and sisters alone with him.” She wondered where her remaining siblings were. Since she was of legal age, she could have sought custody, but she had no job and no prospects. It had been wrenching to let them be swallowed up by the system, but at least they would have food and shelter. “Tell me the truth. That night you found me— That man—”

  “He’s gone. You don’t have to worry about him.”

  The continuing vaguene
ss irritated the hell out of her. She sat up and grabbed his chin as if he were a stubborn child. “Stop it. I want the truth, and I want it now. That man wasn’t a man. You know what it was, so tell me.”

  His face softened into the compassionate expression she couldn’t stand. “I don’t want to frighten you.”

  “Nothing scares me. Nothing.”

  “Not even a blizzard?”

  She took a deep breath, working hard to keep from punching him. “Tell me before I have to beat it out of you.”

  For a brief, nerve-racking moment, she thought she’d misread him, that threatening him was the absolute worst thing she could do. Then he smiled, small, enigmatic.

  Her heart raced. The idea was preposterous, yet she had a sudden, alluring image of Kon naked and on his knees, offering his body for whatever punishment she decided to give.

  Embarrassed, she pushed him away. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. Thank you for whatever it is you did.”

  “You’re welcome.” He bent down and kissed her forehead. Her skin burned as if the heat had gone from his hands to his mouth. “Don’t be afraid to wake me if you need anything.”

  Kon left. On television, announcers clamored and cajoled for donations. Eliana turned it off. She fell asleep, unable to shake the sensation that Kon remained spooned protectively behind her.

  Chapter Ten

  Morning light peeked through the dingy hotel curtain. Kon stared at it, trying to recall a dream about Eliana. His groin was tight, cock hard and aching, but there were no definite memories, only a vague, pleasant feeling that Eliana had been in his arms all night.

  “Present for me?” Dane fondled Kon’s cock, then thrust the covers aside for easier access. Kon hardly had time to draw a breath before Dane licked the length of his shaft and swallowed it whole. The luscious sucking, along with Dane’s murmurs, took Kon to the brink. Kon shuddered as he spent himself within the moist heat of Dane’s mouth—but it wasn’t Dane he was thinking of.