Carry On Wayward Son (2 page)

“Yes, ma’am.” With steadier hands, Claire opened the sandwich and picked it up. “Lily’s sandwiches seem to be our personal panacea.”

“She does make a damn fine one. And you are about to become personally acquainted with them. And with the protein smoothies from the juice bar, and ice cream, and steak, and every other fine, fatty, calorie-laden food I can throw down you.” Pushing hair off her forehead, she fought to keep her voice even. “Finding you on the floor like that scared the hell out of me.”

“Annie.” Putting down the sandwich, Claire took her hand. Even her fingers felt fragile. The lack of rings should have told Annie something was wrong; Claire always wore several, changing the crystals depending on the time of year, or personal issues. They probably didn’t fit. “I am sorry. All of this snuck up on me. I’ve been focused on trying to accept, well, everything. I don’t know how to be a mortal, I don’t know how having a soul will change me, I don’t know how the hell I am going to tell Simon what I am—what I was. And I will have to tell him. Eventually. That really frightens me, more than I want to think about.”

“And you could have shared all of this—before I found you face-planted on the floor.”

“You’re angry. And right.” With a sigh, she let go of Annie and leaned back, looking exhausted. “My only excuse is that I spent more years alone than with others. And that friendship—real friendship—is so new to me, I am still unsure of parameters.”

“Wow.” Claire actually
believed
there was some kind of boundary in their friendship. Time to set the record straight. “Simple—there aren’t any. I will never stand you up when we make plans—unless Eric wants hot jungle sex. And I will tell you why I’m standing you up, so you can be envious of said jungle sex and wish me plenty of it.”

The laughter warmed her. She stood, moved behind Claire and wrapped both arms around her shoulders. “You are the sister of my heart, and I couldn’t love you more if you were my blood.”

“Annie—”

“I’m not done.” Claire’s hand reached up, closed over hers. “I want you to be there for my wedding, alive and kicking, and I want you there for the kids Eric and I are going to make. I want you there for the rest of our lives, Claire, and damn it, I won’t settle for less.”

“I don’t know what—thank you,” she whispered, her voice thick with tears. “Just—thank you, for always being my slap in the face,” Annie laughed, her own tears shimmering just below the surface. “And for being the sister I never thought I would have. I promise you,” turning, she framed Annie’s face, her own stained with tears. “I will dance at your wedding, laugh with your children, and love you until my last breath.”

“Okay—here comes the waterworks.” Laughing, Claire hugged her, the strength in her arms surprising, and hopeful. “Time to eat.” Kissing her forehead, Annie eased out of the embrace. “I will open the store, and you will go home as soon as you’re done. Nope,” she held up her hand, stopping Claire’s protest. “You get to play hooky—for today. But tomorrow, young lady, I expect you here bright and early. We have Halloween to sell. Eat. Go home.”

“You command, I obey.”

“Good to see the pecking order is understood.”

Annie strode to the front door, leaned her forehead against the cool glass for a long moment, settling her temper, her fear.

Whatever it took, she would get Claire strong again.

*

C
laire dreamed of Marcus that night, exhausted and unable to protect herself.

She watched him walk under a moonless sky, heard the ocean before she saw it. With the desert at his back, the sea at his feet, he looked up, spoke to her.

“I miss you, witch. I ache to touch you, to be with you, even when I know it is best if I stay away, let you live your life without the trouble I would bring to it.”

“Marcus.” She heard herself whisper it, knew she slept, dreamed—even as the sand shifted under her bare feet. “Trouble is my life. Always has been. It didn’t start when I met you—and it will hardly stop if you don’t come back.” Stepping to him, she laid one hand on his cheek. “Please come back.”

He closed his eyes. “I have—unfinished business.”

“The trial.”

He looked at her, dark eyes narrowed. “How do you—”

“Vision. I saw you fighting someone—training with him. Jamal.”

“Claire.” His hand covered hers. “I was thinking of you. I never meant to draw you in—”

“I believe you. This time. I know that first vision, the day you walked into my shop, was a taunt. A dare. Look at me—I am Jinn, with my irresistible charm, and what are you going to do about it? You have to know that arrogance is part of your appeal.”

“I prefer to think of it as supreme confidence.”

Her laughter surrounded them. “Of course you do.” The humor faded, and she eased her hand free. “Whatever you think you have to face, let it go. You paid the price, and more, for your wife’s death—”

He backed away from her. “You do not know—”

“Then tell me.”

Instead of retreating, he caught her arms and lifted until she stood on tiptoe. “I lost her because she trusted, and when I was accused of killing a man, she defended me. I was not there to protect her, Claire.” He let her go, and she stumbled backward, the cool surf curling around her feet. “She insisted on protesting my innocence, when all evidence pointed to my guilt. I was not there, so they took her life instead.”

“God—Marcus, that was not your doing.” Claire wanted to touch him, but the grief that poured off him kept her at a distance. “The guilt for her death is on the heads of the men who—”

“I killed him.” He spun away from her, stared up at the sky. “He discovered what I was, and I killed him for it.”

She understood, more than anyone else could, the desperation, the need that led to murder as necessity. She’d done it herself, when she roamed the earth, alone, before she locked away the demon. Discovery of what she was meant worse than death, and murder was the lesser evil for her.

“Did she know?” Marcus looked at her, his eyes shattered. “Did Karana know—what you are?”

He shook his head. “Jinn were hunted then, hunted and tortured for the wishes we supposedly could grant our captor.” Swallowing, he kept his gaze on her. “I didn’t tell her, in order to keep her safe. I never should have tied her to me, never should have been selfish enough to—”

“Love her? Want a life with someone who looks at you and sees their whole world?” She moved forward, tracking him as he retreated. “I never had that. In all the centuries I wandered, exiled from what I had been, from those who understood what I was, I never found what you had with her. I never loved—never knew how. Until I met Annie. Until I met you.”

“No, Claire—”

“I’m in love with you, Marcus.” She hated the tears that thickened her voice, slipped down her face. “It doesn’t matter that you are only God knows where. The distance doesn’t change how I feel. It simply hurts more.”

Before she could take another breath he had her in his arms. With a choked sob she wrapped herself around him, pressed her face against his throat. Warm skin, that subtle, exotic scent of him, the silk of his wild hair—all of it assaulted her senses. She drew him in, and all the nerves, all the pain of his absence eased.

His deep, sand rough voice caressed her. “I never meant to pull you toward me, not when I had no right to—”

Claire cut off his protest by kissing him. After an endless moment he responded, hauling her off her feet. She fisted both hands in his hair and held on as he deepened the kiss. Heat spiraled through her, along with the need that had hounded her since he left.

With a gasping breath he broke off the kiss, lowered her to the sand and backed away. Water wrapped around her feet, reminded her of home. It also cooled the fire he had ignited in her. Again.

“It took both of us, Marcus. And I don’t regret a moment.”

He stepped to her, laid one hand on her flushed cheek. “And it seems I am destined to love determined women.” Her heart lurched at his words—then leapt when he laid his lips on hers, kissed her with such tenderness it left her aching. He made his way across her cheek, kissed her temple, and pulled her in, resting his chin on the top of her head. “So delicate, but so powerful.”

“Not anymore.”

“You will be, Claire. It is inside you, and will only take the right hand to free. I can feel it, crouching behind the wall that demon built to protect you.”

She jerked against him. “How—I never told you Azazel blocked my power.”

“I guessed as much, when you told me how he put himself between you and Lucifer at the gates of Hell.”

“You see too much, don’t you?” Leaning back, she met the dark eyes. “See too much and keep it inside.”

“It is my nature.”

“No—it is who you are.
What
you are would use that knowledge for his own gain. But
you
, Marcus,
who
you are keeps you from hurting people.”

“Gods.” He laid his forehead against hers. “You make me this . . . better man. By believing in me as you do.” Kissing her forehead, he slid one hand down her left arm, fingers closing over the leather band on her wrist. “Hiding it?”

“Fewer questions.”

He pressed his lips to the skin above her band before he let her go and stepped back, out of reach. “It is time for you to wake, my heart. Time to let me go.”

Her heart constricted. “Marcus.” She started to step toward him. The water curling around her feet turned solid, holding her in place. “What the—”

“Forgive me for bringing you to me, even in a dream. I needed to see you, touch you, one last time.”

“Marcus, don’t do this—”

“All I ask is that you do not try to find me. You deserve so much more than I can offer, Claire.” He retreated, toward the darkness beyond the sand. “Don’t hold me in your heart when I don’t belong there.”

“Marcus!” Claire fought to break free of the water that had turned to clear cement around her feet. He kept walking, head lowered, hair flying around his shoulders. “I won’t let you say goodbye this way—Marcus, please . . .”

Tears lodged her voice in her throat. She stopped her battle with the liquid trap, dropped to her knees—and kept falling, though the sand and into darkness.

*

S
he woke crying, her legs tangled in the sheets.

Sitting, Claire pushed hair off her face, wiped the tears she couldn’t seem to stop. It was a dream, but it was real. Marcus had been real. And his goodbye had been heartbreaking.

She jerked herself free of the sheets and limped to the bathroom, turned on the faucet and bathed her face, her neck in cold water. Every inch of skin felt feverish, sensitized. But under that fever she felt cold, ice cold, all the way to the bone. Turning away from the image she didn’t want to see, she headed back into the bedroom.

With shaking fingers she stripped off her nightgown, gave the cool air a chance to dry her skin before she pulled on her heavy robe and huddled on the edge of the bed.

The sensible Claire had said goodbye to Marcus when he left, and meant it. The hopeful Claire—the part of herself she didn’t know existed until people like Annie invaded her life—that Claire held on to the conviction he would come back to her, that he would need to come back to her. It was that Claire who sat on the bed, shattered, trembling.

She understood now why people avoided relationships, becoming attached to another person, falling in love. The inevitable break was devastating, the pain like nothing she had ever felt. She wanted to hurt someone, just so she would hurt less.

“God above,” she whispered, pulling herself back from the emotional brink with a jerk that left her breathless. “I won’t let him do this to me.”

Standing, she made her way to the kitchen, pulled down her tin of chamomile tea, filled the electric kettle and plugged it in. The simple, familiar task of making tea helped calm her, smoothed out the raw edge of her pain. And gave her room to think.

She carried her tea to the living room, stretched her right leg out on the sofa. It ached, a vicious throb where Eric broke the bone. She still wondered if it hadn’t healed completely because he was under her cousin Natasha’s influence when he injured her. Not that it mattered, but she had always bounced back pretty quickly, when she still had her power, no matter how deeply she buried the part of herself that was the demon.

But even the pain she felt during that brief, desperate battle was a shadow next to this.

She made a deal with herself—she had until she finished her tea to rant, brood, cry, wail, whatever she needed to feel or express. Then she was done.

Done with the grieving.

TWO

H
umming
Monster Mash
, Claire reached up to hang another bat in the window display, then stood back to assess.

She loved Halloween—and not for the obvious reasons attached to her name, or her reputation as the local witch. For her, it was all about the kids.

Their laughter as they ran from door to door, the costumes that ranged from an old sheet to designer worthy, the joy and excitement they left in their wake. All of it had her decorating weeks earlier than she needed, just to see the anticipation. And keeping a stash of candy under the counter for those bold enough to ask.

Now, with Halloween tomorrow, she put aside the vision, the dream, and embraced the sheer fun of the holiday. Already, the preparation eased the weight of the fist pressed against her heart. She stood back, assessing what she hoped would be the last touches to her window—

“More decorations? Jeez, Claire, did you leave any for the rest of town?”

She turned to find Annie leaning against the front counter, arms crossed and a wicked smile on her face.

“A few. And look who’s talking about overkill—this is, what, your fifth costume change in as many days?”

Annie twirled, her heavy black cloak belling out around her. Above the silky velvet, her short blonde curls were brighter than sunlight. “I came as myself today. A witch.”