Colin: Her Warlock Protector Book 4 (11 page)

To her shock, his voice came from behind her. He had moved so silently that she hadn't known at all.
 

“That we did. We saw what you did for those folks, and we saw how good you were. You think those people wanted their memories? You think maybe they should have kept them?”
 

Selene stifled a sob, because Smoker, despite her terror, was not speaking anything but the truth.
 

“Yes,” she whispered.
 

She had always known that there would be an accounting someday, and she realized with a crystal clarity that this was it.
 

“You're a monster,” Smoker said. “We’re monster-hunters, and at the end of it, there's just one way for this story to end”

His voice held all the gravity of a judge.

“Let me kill her,” Shaker said, a whine in his voice. “I want to kill her.”

“You take too long,” Smoker said, and for the first time, there was a shade of disgust in his voice. “I don't want to be here all damn day if there's not going to be someone coming for her. We pulled a singleton. We should cut our losses, slit her throat, and get out of here.”

Selene could feel tears start to soak her hood. It was her death they were discussing so calmly, even with commonplace irritation. They could have been talking about what to get for dinner.

“I want to,” Shaker whined, and Smoker made a disgusted sound.

“Fine, get to it,” he said, and Selene straightened herself up as much as she could.
 

She would give him as little satisfaction as she could. She would hold out for as long as she could. She had no false hope that she would last for any real length of time, but she hung on to it.
 

This time she heard his steps coming for her, and she made her breathing go low and calm. It was all she could do.
 

Then she heard both men start to scream

SOMEONE HAD ONCE asked Colin what he saw as he jumped from place to place. He had always said nothing, but then he had started thinking about it, keeping his eyes open as he teleported. Some people expected there to be a white flash, but now that he had been doing it for centuries, he could say that it was more like one place melted into another.
 

In less time than it took his heart to beat, he was in a filthy cellar. Selene was tied up on the floor, kneeling with a hood over her head. Next to her he could see a lean man with a scarred face walking towards her, holding a thin fillet knife. That was all the reason he needed to lunge at the man with his sword. The man was skilled, and he somehow managed to dodge Colin's blade, though Colin opened a satisfying slice on the man's arm.
 

An angry squeal from Bitsy was all the warning he got before she lunged off of his shoulder, jumping at the man who was trying to flank him. The man immediately stumbled back with a face-full of angry ferret. Colin was free to turn his attention to the man with the knife.
 

“Murdering Templar,” Colin spat, and the man grinned at him.
 

“Got that right,” he said, “Done it before and I'll do it again.”
 

He lunged at Colin with his knife, a move so suicidal that it almost worked. Colin had been expecting the Templar to pull out something more substantial, something that had a chance against Colin's gladiolus, but instead, the man's weapon was a nearly supernatural quickness.
 

The man got under his guard and would have slashed him straight through the guts if Selene hadn't lashed out wildly with her bound feet and tripped him. He went down, Colin's sword came up, and then the man lay still on the cold floor.

The other man had flung Bitsy away, and now with his own sword in hand, he charged at Colin like an angry bull. Colin sidestepped neatly, and as the man went by, Colin’s short quick sword lashed out at the man's ankles, and the man went down with a groan.
 

Colin would have stopped to finish the man off, but one glance told him that the Templar was down and with a blow like that, might never walk again. He reached for Selene.

She was shaking hard when he pulled off the hood, and even in the light of the single light bulb, her eyes were huge and bright. There was a bruise darkening along her jaw, and he felt that killing anger rise up in him again. Her wrists were wet with blood, and he pulled out his knife to slit her bonds.
 

“Selene, love? Speak to me. Are you all right?”

To his shock, she shuddered twice, and then she started to laugh. There was a slight hysteria to it, but then she lurched into his arms.

“Oh god, to think I thought that you would not come,” she said softly. “I can't believe I thought you wouldn't come.”

“Wouldn’t come? I had to come for the woman I love.”

“I love you, Colin,” she whimpered, voice quaking. “Please, please forgive me for ever thinking that. Please–”

“There's nothing to forgive, I swear,” Colin murmured into her hair. The fact that she was still whole, still sound, brought a rush of relief through him so fierce that he was shaken to the core.

“There is something that needs to be forgiven,” she whispered, “but that can wait.”

“Wait?”
 

“I have business here.”

The way she spoke sent chills down Colin's spine. Shakily, she tried to stand, and Colin helped her. She turned to the Templar who was lying and cursing weakly on the floor. She stepped closer to him, and despite how bloodied and battered she looked, there was blazing purpose in her movement.
 

“Bitch,” he spat weakly, but it only made her smile.

“You thought you were going to hurt me and kill me,” she said softly. “You're never going to do that to anyone again.”

He started to speak, but then he made the fatal error of looking straight into Selene’s extraordinary golden eyes. He went still, and for a long moment, Selene stared at him. Colin got the impression that she was looking into the Templar's soul. Her eyes were seeing something Colin could not, and her hand, streaked with her own blood, came up to mark the man's forehead. When she touched, him, he screamed weakly, just once, and was silent.

Finally, she stepped away from him, her face gray. Bitsy squeaked at her foot, and with a sigh of relief, she scooped the little animal up and cuddled her to her breast.

“All right,” she said in a voice that was much smaller and more tired. “I'm ready to go home please.”

Colin's arm came up around her shoulders to support her, but he hesitated.
 

 
“I should take care of him,” he said, but she shook her head.

“He'll never be of any use to anyone ever again,” Selene said with a brutal practicality that any Corps member would have envied. “Anything he could use, anything that he was, anything that made him a person let alone a Templar, I've taken that from him.”

Colin's breath caught at the enormity of what Selene had done, and he realized that she was right. The man was disabled in a way far darker than death, and as he prepared to take Selene home, he heard the Templar's soft weeping behind him.
 

SELENE WAS CALM until she saw the apartment door. It was kicked in, a splintered mess in the middle of the home that she had so carefully and lovingly created for herself. Only when she saw it, did she begin to sob.

“No, no, please, Colin. I don't want to be here.”

“Where do you want to go?” His voice came from a thousand miles away, and she shook her head.

“Anywhere, anywhere at all, I just can't be here.”

She could feel him nod, and then with another quick jump, they were in a place that was full of light, and the cold from that cellar dissolved in a brilliant warmth. There was a shout of surprise, but Selene couldn't focus on it. Her vision was narrowing, and she fell back into Colin's arms. The last thing she saw before she slipped into unconsciousness was Colin's face, saying her name.

She awoke some time later, and the first thing she realized was that she had never been in a bed this soft. It enveloped her, and it seemed to be enormous. But her kidnapping by the Templars was vivid in her mind, and for a long moment, she only shivered.

I'm not there anymore,
she reminded herself, and she forced herself to look around at her surroundings.
 

The room that she was in was large and mostly bare except for the enormous bed. One full wall was taken up by a floor-to-ceiling window. Through the slats of the closed blinds, she could tell it was full daylight. Tentatively, she climbed out of bed, noticing with a flinch that she was naked except for the soft bandages around her wrists, and second that her body was covered in bruises. They were dark and vivid, and though she felt stiff, they did not hurt nearly as much as she thought they would. There was a white silk robe laid over a chair and, after she slipped it on, she went over to the window.

She pulled up the blinds, and nearly let them drop again when she saw what was outside. It was a sparkling expanse of blue ocean underneath a perfect blue sky. The light was bright and bold, and when she looked down a little further, she could see an empty beach of pristine white sand.

“Where am I?” she wondered, and a soft chuckle from behind her made her turn around.

“You're in Malibu,” Colin said. “More specifically, you're on the home ground of my old coven.”

 
She turned, and what she saw made her smile. As grim and serious as Colin had seemed at times, Malibu seemed as unlikely a place to find him as a sewing circle. Still, dressed only in a loose pair of black linen pants and with his broad chest bare, there was something about him that suited the ocean and the stark, spare beauty of the room.
 

“I didn't think that members of the Corps took membership in covens,” she said, sitting down on one of the chairs by the window. He came to sit in the one opposite from her, and he nodded.

“They usually don't, but well, I know a lot of people, and some of the ones that I am closest with have always considered me an honorary member. They're brilliant people, truly. Some of them live here, others wander where they please and return as they like. They do great good.”
 

He paused, and Selene smiled a little.

“There's something you want to say,” she said. “Spit it out.”

“You could stay here, Selene. They would love you, I know they would. They're good people, they would never do what… They would never let what your past coven master did happen here.”

“Save it,” Selene said. “I'm not joining a coven.”

Colin combed all ten fingers through his hair, his face a mask of frustration.

“Selene, surely you understand–”

“I understand very little, but there is one thing that I do understand with perfect clarity now,” she said, standing up.
 

She tottered a little, but after a moment, she steadied herself. She had thought that this could wait for a little longer, but having it out right now was fine. With every word she spoke, she freed herself a little more.

“I understand that you saved my life, and I understand that I can't keep running anymore. I thought I was running from the world you live in, but honestly, I was running from you. I don't want to do that anymore.”

“What?”
 

Fear and hope warred on Colin's face. Her heart hurt at how little reason he had to trust her. It was fine though. If he gave her half a chance, she would earn his trust a million times over. She knew she would.

“I love you,” she said softly, and when she came close enough to him, he swept her up and settled her in his lap. She loved how he could make her feel small and protected, and she wrapped her arms around him.

“I love you, and I am so sorry for how long it took me to realize it, to come around. Please forgive me for not seeing it sooner. I don't want to stay with a coven because I want to be with you. Surely I can help you as you do your work. I want a place by your side. Make me your travel agent or let me carry your knives. I don't care, I want to be with you.”

“I love you so much,” Colin whispered, and there was a hoarseness to his voice that made her wonder how many times he had simply bitten it back. There was so much emotion there, she thought she would cry. He wrapped his arms around her, mindful of her bruises.

“Be careful,” he said after a moment. “If you say things like that to me, I'll never let you go.”

“If you do, I'll come after you,” she swore, and he laughed.

She loved his laugh so much, but she loved his kisses more, and she sealed her mouth over his.
 

The kiss was long and slow, and there was a promise of a thousand years in it. They could both feel it. Colin broke the kiss long enough to look Selene full in the face.

“You've lived for less than thirty years,” he said. “Are you ready to take on…something more?”

Selene didn't even have to think before she nodded.

“As long as it's with you, there's no question,” she said, and as she said those words, she realized how right they were.
 

With Colin by her side, there would never be anything to fear. There would never be a moment where she felt lost, or a place where she knew he would not come for her. It was immortality, but it was also paradise.

“Your injuries, I don't want–”

She took his face in her hands, and made him look right into her eyes. She could tell that he realized how vulnerable he was to her in that moment. She was a powerful witch who could erase minds with a thought, but he knew her well, and he sat still.
 

“I want you,” she said softly. “Please don't deny me this, Colin. I want you, I need you, I love you, and
I want you now.
”

She could feel his control break like the first snap of ice on a thawing lake. He had a lifetime of obedience and service, and that lifetime had lasted longer than some empires. She could feel the control of centuries give way, and still holding her in his arms, he rose and walked to the enormous bed. He set her down on the covers and, with a few quick moves, he stripped the robe from her body.