Born to Darkness

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Safe?” Anna asked, hardly daring to believe.

  “She escaped,” he told her. “I showed her the way to one of our safe houses, downtown. A team of Greater-Thans is already on their way to meet her. They’ll bring her back to OI.”

  Anna couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Oh, thank God,” she said again. “We should go, too. We should be there—”

  He was already shaking his head. “It’s not safe. Once they realize she’s gone, they’re going to come looking for you.”

  “Why me?” Anna asked. She didn’t understand.

  “Because you’re special, too,” he told her. God, you’re so beautiful …

  He was inside of her head—of course he was. This entire encounter was taking place in her mind. Or maybe they were in his mind—she couldn’t be sure.

  And then Anna didn’t particularly care as he leaned in, just a little, and brushed his lips across hers.

  She’d kissed him before, although not as herself. She’d been part of his memory of his long-dead girlfriend.

  But this, now, was him kissing her. Specifically. Intentionally. Longer this time. Deeper. But no less sweetly. She closed her eyes and let herself be filled with happiness even as she let herself be thoroughly, deliciously kissed.

  Nika was coming home, and this incredible, magical man thought Anna was special—and when he kissed her like that, she could believe that she was.

  She was strong, she was smart—and she was no longer completely on her own. The relief was powerful.

  “Come on,” Joseph whispered, and Anna opened her eyes as he pulled her up and off of the couch, and then up the stairs and …

  They didn’t use the door this time. She must’ve blinked as he pulled her through the wall, because they were suddenly in his childhood bedroom.

  He must’ve seen her hesitation, because he said, “This is okay, right?”

  And it was okay. It was very okay. Except … “It’s been a while for me,” she admitted.

  “Me, too,” he told her. “It’s been a very long time. You’re the first woman I’ve ever brought here. The only woman I’ve wanted in this way …”

  He put his arms around her, pulling her hair back to kiss her neck, her throat, and she could feel his arousal, and it was okay. It was more than okay as she pressed herself back against him.

  He pulled her T-shirt up and over her head and she laughed, but then there was that oddness again—a sensation of time slipping. Or maybe she’d just blinked again, but now she was completely naked, and he was, too. And God, he was gorgeous—tall and lean, all hard muscles and smooth, pale skin … His body was beautiful, and he smiled at her with equal admiration in his eyes, and she crawled across the bed to kiss him.

  And that weird time slip happened again—just a heartbeat or a blink—and Anna was astride him, riding him, with his body already buried deep inside of her. And she heard herself cry out—dear God, it felt so good—but despite that, she found herself wanting to stop, to go back, rewind. She’d missed that first moment of joining, that sensation of ultimate trust, of unbearable, unstoppable passion, as he’d first pushed himself home, as she’d first taken him within. And she wanted to feel that, to remember it always, but it was already gone. She’d missed it.

  But then she forgot her regret as he sat up to wrap his arms around her, to kiss her, to rock himself inside of her. And she heard herself cry out as she felt herself start to come, and he was right with her. “Oh, my God,” he said as he pulled her back with him onto the bed, as he bucked against her, as he covered her mouth again with his, and kissed her.

  Except he said it again, “Oh, my God.” And even through the exploding pleasure and haze of her orgasm, Anna realized that he couldn’t have said those words that clearly with his tongue in her mouth. And as he went limp with his own release, she turned her head and …

  Joseph Bach, fully dressed in the jeans and sweater he’d been wearing back in his office, was standing in the far corner of the room. His eyes were wide, and the look of horrified disbelief on his face would’ve been funny, if it wasn’t so utterly un-funny.

  And just like that, Anna woke up.

  One second she was naked, in a bedroom with two Joseph Bachs, one fully dressed and the other as naked as she was and smiling up at her from between her still-trembling thighs.

  The next, she was lying on the leather couch in his office, and he was sitting as far back as he possibly could in a chair that was beside her, looking at her with that very same expression of horror that the fully clad Bach had had on his handsome face.

  She blinked up at him, disoriented and uncertain of what had just happened.

  “Um,” he said, turning slightly away from her, and reaching up to scratch the back of his head. “That was … not a nightmare. So, that’s good, at least.”

  “Oh, shit,” she said. “That was a dream? I was having a dream?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “That was … Yeah.”

  She sat up. “All of it?”

  He nodded.

  “So, you didn’t find Nika?” Her disappointment at that news choked her.

  “No, I found her,” he reported, still looking shell-shocked.

  “But you told me that you found her and that she’s escaped and … She hasn’t escaped,” Anna concluded. “Shit. Shit. That was really just a dream?”

  Joseph nodded again. “She’s alive,” he told her, which would have been far better news if her dream version of him hadn’t already told her that her sister had escaped. “And we’re definitely moving closer to getting her out. It’s not going to be easy though. She’s incredibly powerful—that’s true, which is great on the one hand. On the other, she’s completely raw—untrained—and she’s got so many shields in place, that when I’m in her head, I can’t simply read her memories.”

  The way he could do with Anna. The way he’d no doubt done with her memories of that dream she’d had about having sex with him. Oh, God … “I’m so sorry,” she said. “It seemed so real. God, what is wrong with me?”

  “Nothing,” he said quickly. “You’re human, so you dream about … all kinds of things.”

  “Obviously, I want to have sex with you,” she said. “And for the record, you’re not the only one who’s surprised by that little revelation. I’m kind of stunned, too. In my dream, you seduced me, by the way. It was your idea to go upstairs.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “No! Shit!” she said again. “I’m not trying to blame you. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on in my mind that I should—obviously—want you to do … that. I mean, you’ve been great. You’re amazing, you are. And I really do like you. A lot. Apparently more than I thought.”

  “Dreams aren’t necessarily reflections of things that we want,” he pointed out.

  “Nice attempt at a save,” Anna said. “We can certainly play it that way, if you like.”

  He laughed at that, but she could tell he was still extremely embarrassed.

  “Just for the record,” he said. “Under other circumstances—”

  “Oh, God,” she said, closing her eyes. “Please don’t.”

  “But considering the current circumstances, I can’t,” Bach told her, “ever be more to you than a friend.”

  Oh, good. Her humiliation was now complete.

  “Right now, though, I, um, have to go,” he told her. “Stephen Diaz brought in Devon Caine. I need to go down to Security and attempt to get inside of his head, see if we can’t locate Nika that way. And just so you know, I made sure she was sleeping before I left her, because she grabbed onto me as a lifeline pretty quickly. I want to get back to her as soon as possible. It helps her to not be alone.”

  Anna nodded, her heart sinking. “Does that mean I’ll need to go to sleep again?”

  “Yes. When I get back,” he told her. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, that’s okay,” she said. “Maybe this time I can dream that we do a little S&M, B&D, whips-and-chains thing. A
nd yes, I’m kidding.”

  He laughed, but it was a shade nervously. “I’m glad you see the humor of the situation.”

  “It’s a laugh riot,” she agreed.

  “As soon as I can get Nika to lower her shields,” Bach tried to reassure her, “I can teach her a few things that … With luck and her natural talent, I’ll be able to establish direct contact with her—and keep that contact open twenty-four/seven. At that point, I’ll no longer need your help.”

  And somehow, hearing that news—which should have been great—instead disappointed her. What was wrong with her? Anna nodded. “May I come with you? Down to Security?”

  A great big, giant no was in his eyes, but he said, “If you like.”

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I know that the last thing you probably want right now is the nympho following you around—”

  “I don’t think that,” he said. “And you shouldn’t either. People dream about sex all the time—I think it’s the third most common dream. Right after flying and teeth falling out. And there are definitely reasons—quite a few, in fact—that would make you … form an attachment. To me. It’s not that surprising, Anna. And it’s not that big of a deal.”

  “Okay, then,” she told him. “I’d like.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Mac stood with her eyes closed on the sidewalk where Nika Taylor had been abducted.

  It wasn’t going well—Shane could tell that just from watching her, just from the way she was standing.

  Shoulders hunched as if against a cold wind, even though the early evening was still quite warm, she was clenching her teeth—along with every cell in her body.

  Shane moved closer. Spoke quietly. “How can I help?”

  Mac opened her eyes and looked at him, and she didn’t even bother trying to hide her bitter disappointment. “You can’t,” she said, as she headed back to the car, where Charlie was idling at the side of the busy street. “I got nothing.”

  “You said that might happen,” he reminded her as he followed. “That these kinds of emotional disturbances are more likely to dissipate in the open.”

  “Please don’t try to make me feel better,” she said. “I’m pissed. I thought this would work, now that I’m a Sixty-two, and I really don’t want your gee-gosh-and-golly optimism right now. So just … go help some old lady cross the street.”

  “Wow,” Shane said. “That was pretty bitchy.”

  “Get used to it,” she said shortly, climbing into the backseat. “Or better yet, get lost.”

  He climbed in after her. “Look, I know you’re really upset,” he started.

  “Let’s get the hell back to OI,” Mac told Charlie.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He met Shane’s eyes briefly and sympathetically in the rearview mirror before he pulled away from the curb.

  “Mac,” Shane said, and she turned to him.

  “Please, I need to close my eyes. Just for a few minutes. I need … silence.”

  Shane nodded. Fair enough.

  So they rode in silence through the busy city streets, finally pulling onto the Mass Pike, where Charlie kicked it into high gear.

  They’d traveled nearly the entire way back to OI before Mac spoke again.

  “You know, if this had worked?” she said with her eyes still closed. “If I’d’ve been able to find Nika that easily? I was actually going to do it. I was going to sacrifice us both for the greater good of mankind. But it didn’t, so congratulations. We’re done. I’m cutting you free.”

  “What?” Shane said.

  “You heard me.” She opened her eyes and looked at him, and great, the icy stranger was back.

  But he’d come to know Mac pretty damn well over the past few days, and he knew that the ice was just a front to hide her inner terror.

  “The experiment, part one, is officially over,” Mac told him. “Thank you very much. On to part two.”

  “Part two,” he repeated warily.

  Mac raised her voice slightly. “Charlie, you wanna hook up? Be my little lab partner, see if you can’t raise my integration levels sufficiently, via the exchange of some bodily fluids?”

  “Mac, come on,” Shane said. “Don’t embarrass the kid. Charlie, ignore her, she’s not serious.”

  “Yes, sir.” Charlie turned on the radio and kicked their speed higher, even as he pulled onto the off-ramp that meant they were nearly home.

  Home. Funny how Shane had come to think of OI as home after such a short amount of time.

  “I’m dead serious,” Mac was saying. “How do I know that you’re the only person who can raise my integration levels until I try raising them with someone else?”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m not the first man you’ve slept with,” Shane pointed out, trying to keep his voice even.

  “But you’re the first man I’ve slept with while checking my levels,” she countered. “If I want to be thorough, and as a scientist, I do—”

  “How about as a human being?” Shane asked, because he was starting to believe that she wasn’t just being an asshole. He was starting to believe she might actually do it—that her fear had pushed her over the edge and was making her actively try to ditch him. And what better way to do it, than this? “How about as a woman?”

  “I’m a Greater-Than,” she said as if that were a counterargument. “Don’t worry, Charlie. One of the new Potentials will be happy to participate.”

  “So you’re just going to have sex with a stranger,” Shane said, as they pulled up to OI’s gates.

  “You were a stranger when I first had sex with you,” she pointed out, as up front Charlie desperately started singing along with the song that was playing on the radio.

  “But I’m not a stranger anymore,” Shane argued.

  “Yeah, because now I’ve known you all of … what is it? Two days. You know, I think I’ll set it up like speed dating. Put the interested Potentials around the edges of a room. I can sit on their laps, one at a time, have a little conversation, see who makes my levels rise just from the body contact—”

  “Okay, now you’re just being cruel,” Shane said, as the gate finally opened and Charlie raced up the hill. “Knock it the fuck off.”

  “It was an experiment,” she reminded him. “And I’m telling you that your part of it ended. If it means my levels drop back to fifty, so be it.”

  “I know I signed that paper,” he told her, “and maybe that makes you think that it’s just about the sex for me, but it’s not.”

  “What,” she said, leaning hard on her sarcasm and tough bitch attitude. “You’re going to sit there and try to make me believe that you love me?”

  “Why not?” Shane said. “You’re sitting there and trying to make me believe that you don’t.”

  Mac laughed, but it came out sounding far more like a sob. “This isn’t about me, it’s about you. You say it doesn’t matter, but it does.”

  “What doesn’t matter?” he asked. “When did I say—”

  “My talent,” she cut him off. “You’re not sitting in this car with me because you want to.”

  They were back to this.

  Okay.

  At least now Shane knew the source of her fear. “We’ve had this conversation before, and I respectfully disagree.”

  “And I respectfully point out that I’m sitting here, treating you like shit, yet you have absolutely no desire to run away.”

  Charlie, however, did just that after pulling into the parking lot and slamming the car into park. He was out of there.

  “That’s just fucked up,” Mac continued.

  “No, it’s not,” Shane said, as he watched Charlie run for his life toward the main OI building, “because I happen to think you’re worth fighting for. Because I know you don’t mean what you’re saying. I know you.”

  “No, you don’t!”

  “Yeah, I do,” he said.

  “Oh!” she said shouting so loud that Charlie glanced back at them before he pulled open OI’s door. “Damn it! You
’re not going to walk away, you fool, regardless of how badly I treat you, because of what I do to you with my stupid fucking powers!”

  “I’m not going to walk away, because I like what you do to me,” Shane said.

  “Do you?” she shouted. “You do, huh? That’s because you’re thinking with this.” She reached over and grabbed him right through his pants, and okay, yeah, he was already aroused. He couldn’t ride in a car with this woman without getting turned on. So sue him.

  And God, he loved her touch, but he caught her wrist and pulled her hand away. “I’m sorry, you’re not allowed to touch me like that if you really do intend to ditch me.”

  “But that’s my point,” she said, breaking. “I don’t need to touch you. You know what I can do without even touching you …?”

  She hit him with a wave of her voodoo that was so incredibly strong, it was all he could do not to reach for her. And Jesus, he’d thought he’d been hard before, but now he was a rock.

  “Okay,” he ground out between clenched teeth, “I get your point.”

  “No, you don’t,” Mac said, and even though he would never have believed it possible, she ramped her power up even higher.

  “Oh, shit,” Shane said, as he came, just suddenly, just right there, in the car, in his pants, without her even looking at him, let alone touching him. “Shiiit. Holy shit …”

  It was mind-blowing just how good it felt. In length and intensity, it was, without a doubt, the big one, and it left him gasping and spent.

  “Okay,” he said, when he could once again finally speak. And wow, now he was a total mess. And awesome—in order to get inside, he was going to have to go through security, take off his jacket, and get wanded. That was going to be awkward. “All right. Now I know, for an absolute fact, that I love you.”

  “Oh, fuck you,” Mac said and opened the car door, obviously intending to bolt.

  Shane caught her arm. “I’m not done.”

  “Yeah,” she said, struggling to break free. “You are. You’re really that shallow—”

  “I know that I love you,” he told her, speaking loudly over her, “because as great as that was, with your voodoo cranked to eleven? It didn’t come close to what I feel when we’re together, when we make love. Frankly, it doesn’t even rate, Michelle, compared to what I feel when you get your head out of your ass long enough to smile at me.”