CONCEPTION (The Others) (33 page)

He touched her too thin cheek, drawing her gaze. “You
hoped.”

“I was desperate.”

“You still are.” Her start betrayed everything she sought to
hide. “Do you think I do not feel your turmoil?”

Her big blue eyes widened further. He brushed his thumb over
her parted lips.

“It is the way it is. In this life and the next, I am bound
to you. We cannot be parted without death.” He slowed her heartbeat and
breathing. Her mental panic evaded his efforts. “You will tell me what upsets
you.”

She grabbed his wrist. Her nails dug deep as she gasped,
“They’ll come for me.”

“I am anticipating it.”

“You don’t know them.” Her grip tightened and her breath
caught. “They won’t give up.”

“It does not matter.”

She was shaking her head before he finished the statement.
“They’ll keep coming until they get me.”

He cupped her throat in his hand. His thumb rested against
the mark from his bite. “They will never take you from me.”

“But if I leave, they will follow.”

The thought of her out there alone trying to stay ahead of
the men who hunted her made his blood run cold. “You will not leave.”

She tugged at his arm. Her strength barely registered
against his. She was so weak. So human. She took a breath. Her fear of being
captured again was so strong it flavored the air. She grabbed his wrist with
both hands, her arms shaking with the need to make him understand. “You and
Jalina have a chance to escape if I can lead them away.” Hope lifted her voice.
“You can take her so far away they’ll never find her.”

On the edges of her consciousness he felt the subtle probe.
Was the stranger responding to Edie’s distress or taking advantage of it? “Your
plan is unacceptable.”

She shook his arm. “It’s good if you stop thinking in terms
of keeping me.”

“Since the day I found you, there has never been another
thought.”

Her lips pulled back from her teeth. If she were Chosen, her
fangs would be flashing in the lamplight. “Goddamn you!” She yanked away from
him. “Why can’t you understand?”

She shoved her hair off her face, holding it against her
head, pressing in with her palms as memories fed into the stream of her panic.
“They can’t take Jalina. You can’t know what they’ll do to her, what they’ll
put her through trying to become immortal.”

“They will not touch her.” Instead of soothing her, his calm
unleashed her fury.

“Damn you!” She took a swing at him. He caught her hand
before it could connect with his face. Her “You have to protect her” was a
feral snarl flying in the wake of her blow. She swung at him again. He caught
that one too, gentling his grip when she winced. He pulled her close as a
subtle stirring began in her mind. The probe strengthened, giving him a path to
follow. Deuce lashed out at the next foray, blocking the stranger before she
could connect. Satisfaction at the faint echo of shock from the intruder
filtered through his guilt and rage. Good. Let her run and tell the Coalition
his mate was no longer unprotected. Let them fear the retribution of the
Chosen.

He stroked Edie’s hair off her face, following the waves
down her back, into the hollow of her spine where he lingered, pressing her
into him, wanting to give her his strength, knowing he didn’t deserve her trust
but needing it anyway. “Be calm, Edie.” She pressed her forehead into his chest
as he said, “Jalina is safe and so are you.”

She shook her head, her forehead rocking on his breastbone
as her hands opened on either side of her face, the fingertips stretching away,
as if through sheer force of will she could undo all that was. Her tears left
damp patches on his chest. “She’ll never be safe as long as I live.”

He could not bear her torment. It tore at his calm, bringing
forth emotions as primitive as hers were strong. Dangerous emotions he could
not control. He pulled her closer, her stomach pressing into his thighs, a
small reminder that they had a future. “Your death would not stop anything.”

“If they can’t find her, they can’t hurt her.”

She clutched that plan with an unreasonable fervor. “You
have thought on this for a long time.”

“I had nothing but time to think.” Her hands relaxed into
his chest, one knuckle at a time as if she were forcing herself to calm. He
wished he had her ability to manage the emotions that raged from her to him.

“That plan was made when you were alone, but you would do
well to remember you have a mate now.”

“You can’t fight them all.”

“Dak is right.” He tipped her chin up and wiped the tear
from the corner of her mouth. “You are hard on a mate’s ego.”

He did not get the smile he’d been looking for with his
joke. Her chin trembled a second before the muscles in her jaw bunched. The
faint grind of her teeth proceeded her, “Chosen or not, you’re just one man.
They are hundreds.”

“You are not alone and neither am I. You are one of the
Chosen, and we will guard what is ours.”

“Jalina?”

“In six hundred years, no Chosen union has been blessed. And
only one Other family has conceived. Jalina is more precious than you can
understand. She is our hope for the future. She will not be taken while a
Chosen draws breath.”

“I want to believe you.”

“You have no choice. If the Coalition knows anything about
the Chosen, they know that all they need to do to get me is to capture you.”

She gasped. “You can’t let them take you!”

“Then you cannot allow me to think they have you.”

“But you would know…”

He shook his head, his hair brushing her cheeks before
settling amidst the blonde strands of hers on the top of her chest. “As the
woman you hear in your head can block me, I would not know. And I would not
chance thinking a truth a lie.”

“But Jalina—”

“Is only safe if you are with me. And you cannot leave me.”

Eden leaned back, her instinctive trust that he would not
let her fall settling some of the anger surging at her insistence on leaving.
“You keep saying that.”

“You need to feed regularly or you will die.”

Beneath his hand, her spine pulled taut. “How regularly?”

“Daily.”

“Good God! I can’t be away from you for more than a day?”
Her shock at this announcement left her totally dependent upon his strength.

“Your discomfort would become unbearable after two.”

She shoved at his hold. “You mean I’m a junkie, and you’re
my drug?”

He held her easily, not trusting her apart from him as she
absorbed this. “It is as it should be.”

“You never told me that.”

“I told you it was forever.”

“But not that I would be addicted.”

“Bonding is not an addiction.”

“So says the man who can walk away.”

“I can no more walk away than you can.”

“Right.”

Dak was right. Her ignorance was dangerous. “My life force
is bonded to yours. If you die, I die. It is that simple.”

She slumped against him. “Oh God, you totally messed things
up.”

If ever a plan needed “messing up”, it was hers. “I set
things right.”

She had nothing to say, just lay against him, her despair
prodding his beast to roar in frustration. There was nothing he could say to
ease this for her. A Chosen woman would rejoice at coming under a mate’s care.
His independent human viewed it as a fate worse than death.

He changed the subject. “This woman who speaks to you, can
you block her?”

It took her a minute to switch subjects. A small shake of
her head preceded her “No”.

“But you can block me.” He made it a statement of fact.

She looked up and bit her lip, the natural red color
receding under a wash of white from the pressure of her teeth. “She can. I
can’t do much on my own.”

“Unless I touch you?” The woman had to be a very strong
telepath, her connection to Edie just as great to accomplish so much from afar.

She nodded and shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “I don’t
know why.”

Neither did he, but he would. “The reason will be discovered.
In the meantime, it will be my pleasure to touch you often.”

Touching her was his greatest pleasure and biggest
distraction. He needed to talk to Dak and Nick. Security needed to be updated on
the new threat. He needed to feed again before dawn so he would not awaken
weakened. He needed to do many things, but instead he stood there, his
discipline subdued as if it were nothing as he savored the texture of her skin,
the scent of her pleasure, the gentle beat of her heart. His hand drifted to
her belly again.

She sighed and stepped back. “You are obsessed with my
stomach.”

He followed her, cupping his hand over the curve. “You are
beautiful like this. Has your discomfort eased?”

“It’s no worse than my time of the month.”

Excitement surged through his body like a streak of
lightning. “I had forgotten that humans bleed.”

She rolled her eyes. “The proper term is menstruate.”

Menstruate, bleed, he would not quibble over a term. “When
is your next time?”

“Far enough away that we don’t need to worry about it.”

“I was not worried.”

Her blush heated her chest and face to a fiery red that made
her hair glow like spun gold in contrast. “We are so not going there.”

He was definitely going there, but he did not need to argue
about it now. “I need to advise the Others on the security issues and to feed.”

She stepped back. “Go ahead. I’m fine.”

She was far from fine. Too much had happened, too fast for
that, but she was as good as could be expected. “I will have food and Jalina
brought to you.”

Her initial response was joy, quickly buried under a flood
of desperation that dissolved under a wash of love so intense that he didn’t
know why she thought she could ever stay distant from her daughter.

“So much for our one night.”

“There will be others. Many others.”

Her doubt swept over him in disturbing ripples. Deuce paused
before opening the door. A glance over his shoulder showed her slipping back
into another too big T-shirt and shorts. He needed to get her more clothes.
Clothes that defined her beauty. Clothes that left no doubt to all Chosen that
she was mated. Maybe then he could get the wildness she inspired in him under
control. He would ask Marlika to shop for her.

He drew himself up to his full height, sending his senses
out, scanning the area for threat, blinking as he absorbed the information
flowing back. The enemy gathered. “You are not alone, Edie. Those who have
harmed you will be punished. Those who think to harm you will not succeed.”

“Deuce?”

Edie stood staring at him, the dark blue of the borrowed
shirt highlighting the wariness that developed in her eyes whenever she saw him
as too different. He paused halfway through the door. “Yes?”

“What does your name mean?”

He met her gaze without flinching. “Lord and judge.”

Chapter Eighteen

The sun was just coming up over the trees, the bright light
piercing the gently stirring leaves to strobe across her eyes and face. Eden
hitched Jalina up on her shoulder and sat down on the top step of the porch,
dragging the comforter around them both against the chill. Deuce’s shorts and
T-shirts weren’t much in the way of insulation.

She tilted her head back, as the light touched her skin. It
felt incredibly strong for winter, but welcome. Oh so welcome. She felt like she’d
been in the dark so long. She shifted on the cold wood of the porch and turned
the baby in her arm. She carefully pulled the blanket away from her little
face. “See that, baby girl? That’s the sun.”

Jalina stared ahead of her as if fascinated. Eden didn’t
know if she was staring at the sun or the scenery. Truth be told, she didn’t
know if she saw like a human baby or if her vision was enhanced by her Chosen
blood. It was simply enough that she was in the light of day, breathing the
freshness of the air, listening to the sounds of the daylight world waking up.

Eden kissed the top of her head, whispering against its
downy softness, “Remember how this feels, Jalina.”

She felt rather than heard the presence of another behind
her on the steps. It had to be the Other, Harley, who’d been assigned to
protect her. The man irritated her. He was too damn male, too damn arrogant and
too damn sure of himself. And there was that little incident when he’d tried to
scare her off. She was still holding a grudge on that.

“You shouldn’t be out here.”

“I know.”

“Deuce isn’t going to like it.”

“I know.” In truth he was pushing at her to go back inside,
an insistent nag at the back of her mind.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist you come in.”

A quick glance showed he was serious. As tall as Deuce and
very heavily muscled with a bandanna wrapped around his head he was an imposing
figure. He was probably counting on that to make his “insistence” enough.

“Not yet.”

Harley sighed. “I was afraid you were going to take that
tone.” He soundlessly walked down the steps until he stood on the bottom one
directly in front of her.

“You’re blocking my light.”

“I’m also blocking the sight line of anyone wanting to get a
shot at you.”

She shook her head. He so did not understand the nature of
her enemy. “You might as well take a seat.”

He hitched the gun up on his shoulder. His coat parted,
revealing the broad expanse of his chest. “I’ll stand.”

“I’m no use to them dead.”

“I’m not putting anything past the sons of bitches.”

Jalina jerked in her grip. Her head bobbing against her
chest with a baby’s lack of coordination. She seemed fascinated by the belt
buckle of the big man before her. She made a funny hiccupping sound.

The harsh planes of Harley’s face softened as he looked
down. “She’s just a bit of a thing to have so many hopes hanging on her.”