Centaur Rivalry (Touched Series Book 3) (13 page)

I was shocked.  Her story
explained all the security at her estate.  She didn’t even know me but wanted to keep me safe.  Grandma should have been more jaded after everything she had gone through – but she wasn’t.  What about Camille?  She was in as much danger as I was.

Again, as if she had read my thoughts, her expression soured.  “I offered your sister the same protection
, and she disgraced me.  She ran away telling lies to all who would listen of her mistreatment at my hands.”

Bile rose up from my stomach.  Grandma was right.  It would just be she and I.  We were all we had left.  My father had phoned me and warned me to be careful of Grandma.  Camille told me not to trust Dad or Grandma, but as I look
ed at what she’d done to my house – Camille was the one I couldn’t trust.  That loser Drake she was with stole my arrow right in front of me.  Hatred bubbled up from within.  I knew who I could trust, and she was the little old lady who had shown me nothing but kindness since I met her.

“I’ll do whatever you need me to do, Grandma.”

A smile spread wide on her face.  “Good.  I knew I could count on you.  We need to find Camille.”

Not what I had expected her to say.  “What?  After what she did?  Why would we want to find her?”

“She is unstable.  We need to get her help.  Your mother made her this way.  Maybe there is a chance we can get her some counseling.  Will you help me find her?”

“I’ll do anything you ask of me, but I don’t want to see her.
”  I was ashamed that I would be so attached to material things, but I needed to be honest.  “She destroyed everything I had.”

She patted my arm, and I could have sworn
there was a twinkle in her eye.  “Don’t you worry about a thing.  You won’t have to talk to her.  Just help me find her . . . , so I can make sure she is safe.”

Grandma was a saint.  After everything her kids and Camille had put her through, she still wanted to help them.  My priorities changed in that moment.  Roger had always told me to look out for number one.  I could feel my heart grow as I would now be looking out for this sweet old lady
, too.

“How do we find her?  Credit card receipts?”

“You are her twin.  You are Chiron twins.  The two of you share a bond that allows you to find each other no matter where the other is.  Open that connection and tell me where she is.”

My eyes widened.  Was she serious?  Open what connection?

“Close your eyes.”  I did as I was told, but had no idea what she was talking about.  “You’ve seen pictures of her.  Can you visualize her face?”

I could.  It was strikingly similar to my own.  We shared the same brown eyes and brown hair.  Grandma kept a picture of her in my room at the house. 
In the picture, her hair was over her shoulders, and she wore a white t-shirt with a stunning sapphire necklace.  When I’d seen the picture, I remember thinking the combination was odd:  the necklace looked like something to wear with an evening gown, not a simple white t-shirt.  I thought back to the picture and could remember it with remarkable clarity.

“Good.  You have her image, now, reach out with your mind.  She is close.  Where is she?”

She’s close?  She trashed my house but didn’t skip town?  Why would she stay?

“Do not waste your energy trying to find answers.  Just tell me where she is.”

My eyes snapped open.  Had I said that out loud?  Grandma was staring at me, and I didn’t recognize her look.  Tentatively, I answered, “I don’t know how to find her.”

“Yes, you do.  I have a twin brother as well.  Until we severed ou
r connection, we could find each other anywhere in the world.  You have the same connection.  Use it.  Help me . . . to help her.”

There was a desperation in Grandma’s voice.  After everything Camille had put her through, it was hard to believe she still wanted to help her.
  “You have a twin?  But you severed your connection with him?”

Grandma looked nervous.  Maybe I’d struck a chord with her.  She’d been so open with all my questions
, but something told me severing her connection with her twin must have been painful.

Her body relaxed, “Zethus killed our parents.  I could no longer stand the thought of any connection with him
, so I terminated it.”

I was wrong.  Grandma had had more tragedy in her life than anyone I had ever met. 
Compared to a brother who murdered her parents, maybe Camille wasn’t so bad in her eyes.  Grandma said she held a prestigious position in the Centaur community.  Maybe it was too much for those around her to handle.  Maybe they had all cracked under the pressure.  Her words “
I’m stronger than I appear
,” resonated in my head.  I would do anything she needed, for as long as she lived.  Grandma had lived through too many betrayals.

I closed my eyes again, concentrating on Camille’s picture from Grandma’s house.  I thought of the few times I’d talked to her on the phone and the way her voice sounded.  I tried to make her words come back to me.  I thought of the day Drake came to my house and showed me a picture of Camille on his phone.  A homing beacon sparked to life in my mind.  It was powerful enough that the spark made my heart skip a beat.  She
was
close.  Camille was still in the area.

Grandma’s voice was shrill, “You’ve found her.  Quickly, where is she?”  The urgency of her voice took me off guard. 
How did Grandma know I’d found Camille?  I hadn’t said a word.

Grandma took a deep breath and relaxed her demeanor before speaking again.
  “Cameron, it’s very important we find her.  What did you see?”

“I’m not sure.  She’s close, but I don’t have a specific location for her.”

“As her twin, you should be able to find her anytime you try.”

“Sorry.  I can feel she’s close, but I don’t know where.  At least I think I can feel her.  I’ve never really met her.”

“You shared Angela’s womb with Camille.  Your connection is stronger than any other.  We need to find her.”  I understood what she was telling me in theory.  I’d heard human twins shared the same kind of link, where one would get burned and the other would feel the pain.  I’d never heard of being able to locate the other with nothing more than being a twin.  Strangely enough, I had felt . . . something.

I’d grown up in this area my whole life.  If all this supernatural stuff didn’t work
, we could just pop into a few of the businesses and ask if they’d seen her.  That would be better than anything else.  She would have had to have gone to a grocery store, a gas station or something.  “Look, I don’t know how this twin thing works, but I grew up here my whole life.  I can ask around.  Someone will have seen her.”

She gently patted my hand,
“However you think it is best to find her.  But please keep trying.”

“I will.”

Grandma brought her hand to my face.  “That’s my boy.”  Almost absently, she added, “I can’t understand why Angela chose Camille over you.”

It felt like I’d just
been sucker punched.  I’d always had those thoughts, but had never said them out loud.  What was wrong with me?  Why wouldn’t Mom have wanted me?  I was a baby.  I was only days old when she gave me away and never looked back.  Roger told me he hardly knew Mom.  Not only did she not want me, but she left me with a stranger.

I could hear the charity in Grandma’s voice.  “You are the last of the Chiron line.  You will take my place as the Chairman of the Centaur Council.  You will find your sister before she can take your legacy away from you.”

I was confused, my feelings conflicted.  “I thought you wanted to find her so we could protect her?”

(Zandra – In the car, outside Cameron’s house in South Dakota)

“Protect her, and protect your future.  You are my last hope, Cameron.  Find her.”  My hand patted his arm.  I couldn’t believe he proved to be so easy to manipulate.  I wish it were possible to tell Angela thank you.  He had abandonment issues, and I was more than happy to use them to my advantage.  The first few days were difficult; Cameron didn’t trust me, and he questioned much of what I told him.  Being cut off from all family and any bit of normalcy his entire life left him pliable:  once I’d gained his trust, it was absolute.  I needed only to tell him a few bits of information about how difficult life had been and we’d instantly bonded.

Camille was willful and headstrong.  She questioned my motives and my authority
at every turn.  Cameron would do whatever I suggested and only wanted my approval in return.  Passing my position onto him meant I could stay in power for the rest of my life.  Cameron would deny me nothing.  I merely had to keep the Strayers away from him a bit longer until the other herds would take care of them for me.

Frustration began to get the better of me.  I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t find Camille myself.  Cameron confirmed she was close
.  If she was within a hundred miles, I should be able to find her.  How was she blocking me?  It felt as though she were right under my nose.  I was still baffled as to how she and Drake escaped from the assassination squad I had dispatched.  I was told they were the best of the best, the most ruthless, and I was assured they would be successful.

When I learned of their failure
, I was furious.  I hadn’t wanted to bring Cameron with me.  I couldn’t afford for the two to spend any time together, but I couldn’t be sure of his safety unless he was with me.  One of the guards on my estate learned he was from the Lost Herd and would have killed him if I hadn’t intervened.

Now I was thrilled Cameron was with me.  S
eeing his home and his business first hand and believing Camille was responsible for the destruction of both worked better than anything I could have dreamed up on my own.  He would never again trust her.

(Drake Nash, Katherine Newton’s Home in South Dakota)

All the others had gone to separate rooms.  I stood in the doorway watching Cami.  She was ten feet from me.  It was just the two of us.  We hadn’t been like this, together, since Ireland.  I savored the moment, anticipating her warmth and the feeling of her skin against mine.  She was putting sheets on the air mattress we would share.  I stood frozen, mesmerized by her graceful movements.

The muscles in my legs
twitched, prodding me to go to her, to take her in my arms, to make her mine in every sense of the word.  Her back remained to me.  Details I had overlooked the last few weeks suddenly had my full attention.  The gentle arch of her back, the way her hair fell at her shoulders, the way her body formed two perfect hearts from behind.  Cami was beauty in its purest form.

She must have felt me watching her
; without turning to catch my gaze, she asked, “You’re just going to stand there all night?”

I looked around the room
.  It was crammed full of china on display, bookshelves overflowing, and a computer desk that was spewing papers in all directions.  A large bay window looked out into the forest and was drafty enough it might as well have been open.

We were safe.  For the first time since we were in Ireland, we were
truly safe
.  I could let my guard down.  I didn’t need to be the Centaur Warrior tonight; I could simply be the man in love with the woman.

My feet moved of their own accord.  The distance between us clo
sed as my body pressed into her from behind.  Cami didn’t flinch or move to turn toward me.  She stood with her face angled slightly, enough that if I were a weaker man, I could lose myself in her gaze.  Her arms hung at her sides and made no move to touch me.  I brought my lips to her ear, “You are beautiful.”

My hands went to her wrists as my fingers caressed the
ir way up her arms.  Goosebumps danced on her skin where I touched.  Her voice was soft, “I told you it was temporary.”

H
er love for me burned through her eyes, but the moment struck me funny, anyway.  “I get it.  Go ahead.  Say the words.”

“The words?”

“’I told you so.’  Get it out of your system.”

She turned fully into me.  I waited for her to be a
smart-aleck or to give me one of her smiles that could eclipse the sun.  She wore a determined expression instead.  Her fists went to either side of my t-shirt.  The fabric was tight against me, but she was still able to pull it off as if it were no more attached than a towel.

H
er lips pressed against my chest.  Heat radiated off of me.  Her fingers dug hard into my back as her lips made their way down to my abs.  This wasn’t happening.  Not here.  Not like this.  Not in someone’s dining room.  Our first time together couldn’t be on an air mattress on the floor of someone else’s house.

I put my hands on either side of her
face, my thumbs just under her chin, and brought her so I could look into those milk-chocolate eyes.  My resolve began to crumble.  I wanted her. . . all of her.  My lips hung low and parted on hers.  Her breath was as fresh as winter frost inviting me in.

Camille pressed her body against mine.  The
suppleness of her skin touching me set mine ablaze.  My eyes shot open for fear that I had turned into a light storm again, fearing the transformation that accompanied the lights.  I eyed my body:  no pieces of light were there.  It was the heat of my longing for her, as desire leaked from every pore on my body.

Camille’s voice was breathless, “It’s just the two of us.  No one else but us.”

I thought of her brother on the sofa and Daniel on the floor, just on the other side of the wall.  There was no door for the dining room, no privacy whatsoever.  I wanted Camille more than a seven-year-old wants Christmas morning – but not like this.  Could I wait two more days for her?  The vision I’d had of the two of us in the Caribbean, pictured us stretched out on the sand with no one around for miles.  We would be there in a day, two tops.

I ached for her
, and she opened up enough of her thoughts for me to know that she wanted the same.  Could I deny myself the thing I wanted most in the world for some stupid fantasy?  If I could, could I deny Cami?  It was my fantasy, not hers.  Our bodies needed each other.  We were well past lustful thoughts and desires; it was a primal need that shot through both of us.

Was it just a fantasy?  A
couple hours ago I told her it was a promise.  My words came out raspy, as if I couldn’t find air, “Not here, Cami.”

An exasperated sigh escaped her, “Yes, here, now.”

I pulled her face up, making her look into my eyes.  “Our first time together can’t be like this.  It can’t be on the floor.  You deserve so much better.”

“I’ve waited.  I’ve been patient.  I w
ould have waited for eternity if I had to.  The place doesn’t matter.  Don’t you feel it?”

I cradled Cami’s face in my hands.  My thumb caressed her lips. 
“You know I do.”

“Show me.”  She slid up against me and my resolve
disintegrated.  Time and space lost all meaning.  My need took over as I pressed myself to her.  A low sigh escaped her and the room began to spin.

Cami lay down on the air mattress and stretched her arm up for me to join her.  I didn’t waste any time
to lie on top of her.  I was worried my weight would compress the air out of her lungs, but she wrapped her legs around me and crushed her lips to mine.  The feeling was indescribable.  Her heart raced underneath me.  I leaned up on my elbow and placed my hand across her chest.

E
yes watched us.  My lips let go as my head whipped around in all directions.  She felt it, too.  The eyes were watching from the doorway.  I looked up to where I expected to see a person standing, but no one was there.  A whine sounded at the doorway, and I located the eyes we’d felt, close to the floor, attached to one of the biggest Huskies I’d ever seen.

“Shooo, go away.”

Instead the dog got down on the floor and began low-crawling toward us.  I waved my hand and repeated, “Shooo, go on.”  The dog halted a few feet inside the dining room.  I turned my attention back to Cami, but heard him moving closer again.  “No, dog, stay.”  Every time I looked away from him, he inched closer to the air mattress.

Cami’s hand gripped my face, forcing me to look into her eyes.  “Ignore him.  Pretend he’s not here.”  She flexed her legs
, and it was easy to forget about the dog.  Cami’s teeth grazed my ear, and a new wave of desire took me.  I reached down to remove her t-shirt when a tongue licked my foot.  I kicked at the dog, not hard, but enough to get him away from my feet.  “Go on.  Git.”

The next thing I knew he was edging onto the air mattress.  Cami laughed, not a giggle, but a full-blown roar when she felt the welcoming dog’s tongue on her cheek.  The sound was perfect.  I hadn’t heard Cami laugh like that since we were in Ireland.  I forgot how much I
had missed it.  I swung her over to the side and put my back to the intruder who had invaded our air mattress.

“He licked my face!”

“I saw.”  His massive head leaned up over the top of my shoulder as more laughter erupted from Cami.  I stood up thinking the dog would jump up and follow me out of the room.  He didn’t, he just took my place moving more solidly onto the air mattress.  I tried to coax him out of the room, while he lay there with his tongue hanging out panting.

Cami, unable to stifle her
smile, “Maybe this is where he sleeps?”

“Not tonight he doesn’t.  I found a leash by the door, fastened it around his collar and walked him out into the living room.  Morning light was already shining in through a gap in the curtains.  I leaned down at eye level with the dog and said, “Stay.”  I backed away from him
, and he didn’t move.  Once I was in the doorway to the dining room, I turned my back and went back to Cami.  The dog beat me to the air mattress.

Looking eye-to-eye with the dog who leaned
over the mattress and into my face, I asked, “What are you?  An escort?”

Cami reached up and patted his head.  S
till smiling, Cami said, “Okay, the Caribbean it is.  But the dog’s not coming with us.”

I pulled Cami against me before the dog could wedge himself between us.
  Holding Cami on the air mattress of the drafty room felt incredible.  My heart was full of love.  All those times she’d told me my transformation was only temporary – I hadn’t believed it.  I wanted to, but somehow I got it stuck in my head that each person is only given a set amount of happiness in life.  The week alone with Cami in Ireland had been more joy than I’d ever known.  I’d exceeded my quota, never expecting to have this feeling again, this desire, this raw need.

She lay against my chest,
my hands caressing her supple skin as I felt her drift off to sleep.  I silently thanked Chiron for giving me the best gift I could have ever hoped for:  the strength to defend her and the ability to make her happy – I would never take either gift for granted.