Touched (Sense Thieves)

by Corrine Jackson

  He drove through town and parked at the cliff near where we’d had the bonfire a lifetime ago. For once, he didn’t open my car door but waited for me to follow him down the path to the waterfall. It had grown progressively colder as the sun began its descent in the sky, and I trailed after him through the deserted wilderness, feeling hesitant as shadows claimed the last of the light.

  No longer frozen, the waterfall tumbled into a creek that had morphed into a small pond. Asher stopped when he reached a small incline by the waterfall, picked me up with an arm around my waist, and shot up the small slope in a dizzying blur of movement until we stood on the hill above the water. I was dropped back on my feet next to a bench made of the rough, angular pieces of a broken rock.

  Asher’s open demonstration of speed and strength shocked me. I understood why the Protectors had won the War: The Healers would never have seen them coming.

  Striding several steps away in the space of a heartbeat, Asher watched me and listened to my thoughts. Barren leafless trees surrounded us, while behind us and to the sides a slant of earth hid us from the view of anyone who ventured to the waterfall. In front of us, a twisted tree trunk framed the blue axis of ocean and sky. We were isolated in the growing darkness, and for some reason that fact made me nervous enough to raise my defenses.

  “Finally, you show some sense.”

  Asher’s voice resonated with anger and something more—despair. I could feel a chasm opening between us. My voice broke when I asked, “Why did you bring me here?”

  His eyes looked almost black in the shadows. “Few people come here after sunset, and we needed a private place to talk.”

  “About?”

  “You. You seem to think you’re invincible because you have this ability to heal yourself. You haven’t grasped how dangerous Protectors are, how easily we could kill you. That’s my fault because my feelings clouded my judgment. I didn’t want you to be afraid of me, but it’s time I make you understand.”

  Another test, I realized. “I already know what you can do with your energy. I’m not an idiot.”

  He looked larger, his shoulders wider, when he stood with his feet braced apart and his hands loose at his side. The danger I sensed reminded me of my encounter with Gabe, and I grasped what Asher had been suppressing around me. “Healers didn’t lose the War because Protectors stole their energy. That was a lucky windfall for those of us who desired immortality,” he taunted, as if he included himself in that number.

  He wanted to scare me, but I’d learned never to show fear. I stepped toward him, and Asher’s eyes narrowed in warning. “I don’t believe you. You already told me how you became immortal. It was an accident.”

  “Accident or not, I killed one of your kind, Healer.” His voice sounded silky with threat and the hair on the back of my neck rose. “Or maybe it wasn’t an accident at all. Maybe I lied to get close to you, to feel human again.”

  Knowing what my fears were, he could twist them. “I get what you’re trying to do, but it won’t work.” I heard the uncertainty in my tone when he began to circle me as if considering the best angle of attack. “Asher, stop it. This isn’t funny. You’re mad because you want me to be some meek girl waiting around for a man to save her. Been there, done that. Never again.”

  He shook his head and hissed in frustration. “We’re not playing games here. This isn’t about you being female, and God knows, I’d never call you meek. Your life is at stake, though, and you’re up against an enemy you can’t possibly beat alone.”

  “I’m not defenseless like the other Healers. You know I can hurt people with my power.”

  An uncharacteristic sneer curled his lips. “Your power won’t matter because you have to be in pain for it to work, and if you’re hurt, you’ve already lost. You are the Protectors’ dream come true or worst nightmare, any way you look at it—pain and mortality. When they come for you, they won’t come alone. Do you think you can take more than one at a time? And what about Ben, Laura, and Lucy? Can you save them, too?”

  “Leave them out of this!” Remembering how my grandmother died made my stomach lurch.

  “Why? The Protectors won’t. You can bet on that. Don’t you see? There’s a reason the Healers worked with Protectors. You need me, but I can’t protect you from yourself. I don’t know how else to make you see. This isn’t about pride—yours or mine. You can’t do this alone.”

  “You don’t know that.” My hoarse whisper betrayed my fear.

  “I’m one Protector,” he warned in a silky voice. “See if you can stop me, Healer.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Asher crouched down, and a moment later an arm wrapped around my neck from behind and yanked me off my feet. I never saw him move, but he had me in an unbreakable hold, cutting off my air supply for a heartbeat before the heat of his body vanished.

  My lungs rushed to suck in air, while adrenaline and fear kicked in when I twisted about to find empty space where he’d been seconds before. Memories of Dean stalking me mixed with the threat of Protectors attacking my family.

  “Too slow, Healer. You’re looking in the wrong place.”

  I turned towards his voice, but only a small breeze stirred the air where he’d been. His speed made it impossible to track him through the shadows.

  “I could kill you. It would be so easy to take what I want.” Raw emotion infused his guttural words as if he spoke his darkest fear.

  A hand brushed my arm and retreated with my scarf. On his next pass, the scarf looped around my waist, binding my arms to my side until the material fell to the ground. Reason fought with panic, and one thought surfaced. This was Asher, my Protector.

  “You’re wrong. You wouldn’t hurt me.” The conviction in my voice didn’t slow my galloping heartbeat. If he wanted to attack, I’d be powerless to stop him.

  “Wouldn’t I?”

  Fingers sifted through my hair, and I shivered. Again, the air stirred where he should have stood when I swung around. He stalked me, forcing me to play prey to his predator, to demonstrate the superior strength and speed of Protectors. Fear threatened to overwhelm me. I’d be useless to protect myself, let alone my family.

  Asher appeared in front of me, a fierce expression tightening his features. “No, Remy. Not useless. You have to be smart. Don’t use your powers unless it’s as a last defense. You have senses we don’t. Use them!”

  I heard the desperation and grief in his voice and realized he’d heard me, even through my guard. His thoughts appeared transparent, too, though I couldn’t read his mind. It killed him to know he frightened me. Always he fought his desire to be near me, worried he’d hurt me with his hunger to feel more, to be more human. My sacrifice on the ferry had terrified him, and he risked everything to show me I couldn’t stick my head in the sand.

  I would need more than my powers to stay alive if the Protectors came for me. When they came for me. I had to stop reacting and start thinking. My shoulders squared, and I blocked him out of my mind. Knowing the truth helped me regain a measure of calm to fight back—to fight for him because I could feel him slipping away, distancing himself to protect me.

  Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and stood very still. Only an immortal could have heard my soft whisper. “Come and get me, Protector.” Then I waited.

  Seconds later, a breeze tousled my hair, and my nostrils filled with Asher’s woodsy scent. Warm breath fanned my face, and whatever he’d been about to do was stalled when I closed the space between my breath and his to brush a gentle kiss on his mouth.

  A stirring reminder that I knew he had feelings for me.

  A soothing reassurance of my feelings for him.

  He disappeared in an instant with a gasp of shocked fury. Too late. He’d betrayed his feelings when his hard lips had softened against mine for a millisecond.

  “What are you doing, Remy? Fight back!”

  “I am.” I lowered my guard, leaving myself wide open to his attack.

  You won’t hurt
me.

  A tree shook as if he’d struck it in rage.

  You won’t hurt me.

  The ground trembled when he threw a massive rock, and it shattered into bits of stone and dust.

  You won’t hurt me.

  His cry of outrage served as my lone warning before he tackled me, knocking me to the ground. My mind registered that Asher tempered his strength and cushioned the fall with his body, rolling us so he landed on top. My body registered that a man larger and stronger than me pinned me to the grass, and I was caught between instinct and reason. A week ago, a day ago, five minutes ago, terror would have won, and I would have fought my attacker in a red haze of fury and fear. A scream bubbled up in my chest fighting to claw its way out of my throat, and it took everything I had to remember Asher held me.

  You won’t hurt me.

  “No, I could never hurt you,” an unsteady voice murmured in my ear.

  His weight disappeared as he rolled us until my softer curves rested on top of his harder muscles, but he made no other move to touch me. Every breath he took lifted me, and his rapid heartbeat slowed to its abnormal pace beneath my ear. I’d never felt closer to another person. Asher’s arms closed about me in a tight embrace, and I tangled my fingers in his hair.

  When my pulse slowed, I lifted my head to peer down at his tortured expression. Then, I punched him in the arm as hard as I could.

  “Damn it, Remy!”

  He rubbed his arm under my glare. “Don’t you ever do that to me again. Not ever.”

  “I won’t. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have scared you like that. I didn’t know how else to make you see . . .”

  “Not that. I’m in danger, and you showed me what I didn’t want to see. Next time, try talking to me. I’m a fairly reasonable person.”

  He frowned in confusion. “Then what?”

  I placed a hand on each of his sandpaper cheeks and framed his face. “Try to scare me away. I don’t care if you think I’m safer without you, you jerk. We’re in this messed-up situation together. If you want out, say so and we’ll end this right now.” The hard edge to my words dared him to lie and say he didn’t care for me.

  His eyes shadowed with familiar pain at my unguarded nearness, but his arms didn’t release me. The night air felt cool on my back, and I savored the heat that sank into me from chest to feet where we touched. “I know this is a mistake, Remy, but I don’t think I could leave you now if I tried. God help us both, I’m in love with you.”

  His words eased the knot of tension that had formed inside me. I wasn’t in this alone.

  “A Protector and a Healer. Can you imagine what they’d say if they knew?” We both mused on that in silence for a moment, and then our soft laughter filled the air.

  My head dropped to his shoulder, and my eyes grew heavy when Asher’s fingers tugged through my hair, brushing away bits of grass. “I’m sorry I scared you. When you acted as if the danger to your life was nothing, I reacted without thinking.”

  “Why?” My voice sounded huskier than usual to my own ears.

  “You terrify me,” he said in a fervent whisper. “For the last century, there hasn’t been a single person who’s touched me. When I learned I’d never age, I convinced myself that my heart had been cut out along with my senses.”

  “I don’t understand. Most people want to be young forever.” My fingers traced from his chin to his Adam’s apple, and his words vibrated through my chest, my fingers, and my mind.

  “They’re wrong. Immortality is a curse. Humans are supposed to die. It’s the fear of death that gives meaning to our lives—knowing that what’s precious to you could be taken away at any time makes every minute, every thing mean more. When every day is the same, you become numb.”

  “But you must’ve experienced amazing things!”

  “I have, but knowledge and experience don’t make up for what I lost. A century ago, any hope I had of a normal life—marriage, children, a future—went up in smoke. Protectors can’t stay in one place too long. We don’t form attachments outside the family because it would be too dangerous. We’re ghosts living a shadow of a life.”

  Attachments, he’d said. He meant love. I couldn’t imagine living as long as he had without human affection. These last hellish years of my life had been a drop of water in a pond compared to his life. “There must’ve been people you loved.” It wasn’t an accusation, but a fact. You couldn’t live in Blackwell Falls without knowing that Asher had dated more than his share of girls. And those were only the ones I knew about.

  I felt more than saw his smile. “That’s part of the lie. A way we fit in. We decide what they gossip about, the questions they ask. In the beginning, I had mortal friends and family, but I learned that loving a human means watching them die, while I have all the time in the world to grieve for them. You’re the first I’ve loved.”

  Neither of us said what we thought. If there wasn’t a cure for immortality, Asher would one day watch me die. Sooner rather than later, if the Protectors came for me.

  Asher pushed me up to face him. “You need tools to protect yourself. I’m not saying I’m backing off, but you should know how to handle yourself in a fight. I’ll teach you, if you like.”

  I nodded because I couldn’t question his logic. If I’d been able to protect myself before now, maybe I could have stopped Dean.

  His soft laugh raised goose bumps on my skin. “Today didn’t exactly go how I planned.”

  The wool of his sweater felt pleasantly rough against my cheek. “Yeah, it was great until my powers freaked out on you.”

  He sighed. “I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t understand why it happened now.”

  “Like you said, we’re changing each other. We’ve been using our defenses less and less. Hardly at all today, and this was the longest we’ve been together.”

  “We need to set some rules about touching.”

  “Like?” The idea of restrictions between us irritated me.

  “We can touch, but . . . nothing else . . . when we both have our guard down.” When I raised my head to protest, he curved a hand around my neck to force my gaze to meet his direct stare. “I mean it, Remy. If you don’t agree, I’ll walk away right now. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you from hurting yourself to protect me. Even if it kills me to stay away.”

  He meant it. He would leave me if I didn’t agree to his terms. “But what if you’re hurt? We both have to have our guard down for me to heal you.”

  “My injuries heal on their own. It takes longer than with help from your powers, but it’s a side effect of being near you. Even my burned hand would’ve healed on its own. I didn’t know at the time how your powers worked, or I never would’ve let you heal me.” Strong arms shook me a little. “You don’t have to save me. I’m not Anna. I can take care of myself.”

  The words echoed mine. It wasn’t fair to insist he respect my ability to defend myself when I wouldn’t give him the same courtesy. “Okay. So what now? Where do we go from here?”

  He twined his fingers through mine. “I’d like you to come to my house tomorrow. We can start your training. And maybe Gabe and Lottie will have an idea about what’s happening between us. Will you come?”

  I already knew Gabe and Lottie didn’t like me. Asher picked up on my trepidation and misunderstood the reason. “They won’t hurt you. They know how I feel about you.”

  Embarrassed by my fear, I didn’t correct him. “I trust you. I’ll come.”

  His lips moved in my hair, and silence reigned for a long moment. “I need to get you home.”

  I turned my nose into his chest and breathed him in one last time before letting him go. “You’re right. Ben was great today, and I don’t want to push my luck.”

  With his help I stood, and he put a hand on my lower back to guide me down the incline. One of his brows rose when I shot him a nervous glance. “I can’t believe you carried me up here. You’ve been holding out on how strong you are.”

  Asher�
�s grin held a hint of superiority. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Without warning, he bent and threw me over his shoulder and shot down the hill. In seconds, we arrived at the car and he set me on my feet next to the open passenger door. An amused grin tilted his lips as he waited for my reaction, and his nearness undid me, stealing my breath away. His smile faded, replaced by intense longing.

  With one step forward, he crowded me into the “V” of the opened car door with his body, blocking my exit with one hand on the door and the other on the roof of the car, not quite touching me. He leaned forward and caressed my cheek with his own, whispering in my ear, “Keep your guard up, okay?”

  It was nearly impossible to speak, but I managed to whisper back, “Yes.”

  Asher’s breath trailed along my jaw to my neck. He placed one sweet kiss on my collarbone, and his mouth found its way back to my lips. This time when he kissed me there was only the heat of his skin against mine. Sparks flared, but they had nothing to do with my being a Healer or him a Protector. These flashes were little explosions under my skin wherever he touched me. I took the single step forward that brought my body flush with his and slid my arms around his neck. My stomach clenched, my pulse quickened, and for a moment his lips hardened against mine.

  When he grabbed my hands and set me away from him, it took a long moment for the fog to clear from my mind. I thought I imagined the green shocks of light shooting between our hands until I glimpsed the wince of pain on Asher’s face. My confusion disappeared, and I realized my walls had slipped. I tried to pull my hands from his to ease his pain, but he wouldn’t let me go.

  His eyes blazed at me with a power that had me yearning to step into the fire again.

  “Your defenses, Remy.”

  I grimaced and reinforced them. “Sorry about that.”