Love Beyond Loyalty (5 page)

"I'm not. It just makes sense to let these things play themselves out. Gabe doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who wants a lot of interference in his life. I can't even get him to visit. He's not going to thank us for telling him what he should and should not do with his love life. He might even rail against it just to be obstinate."

Marina crossed her arms over her chest. "Do you manage all of us like that?"

"I wish I didn't have to. We do, after all, have a life and death prophecy coming true all around us. What I need to be doing is finding Abraxas's journals, not interfering in the mating rituals of my kin."

He knew he'd opened himself up for Marina to make a rude remark the second he heard himself utter the words.

"Jealous?"

But he hadn't been expecting that. "No," he shook his head. "Frustrated. You," he pointed at Eden. "Get your powers under control. None of us get to be at half power. Fate didn't give you the ability to see the future if it didn't expect you to learn how to use it."

Eden's eyes flared. "That's not fair. I've only been using my powers for three months. Before that, I strained not to use them."

"Life's not fair. You're an Outsider. It sucks. Get over it." He whirled around to stare at Marina. "And you, get your soul mate back here. Whatever you did to drive him away, undo it."

Marina, who he knew was much more likely to throttle him than Eden, fisted her hands at her side. "I didn't do anything."

"Figure it out."

He walked out of the room knowing he'd just taken his temper out on two people who didn't deserve it. Who the hell had appointed him the keeper of everyone's problems? They were supposed to be eighteen individuals, paired off in groups of nine, each helping to defeat the demon. It wasn't supposed to be Leonardo scrambling around trying to pick up the pieces of everyone's dysfunctional life.

Gabriel needed to come home. Enough was enough already.

* * * *

Dr. Christophe Roux cracked his knuckles over the tray table in the first-class cabin he currently sat in on his trip across the Atlantic. They'd taken off from Charles de Gaulle Airport just one hour earlier so, even if they caught a good tailwind, he had at least another five hours until they landed at JFK. He sat back and tried to relax.

"Nervous flyer?"

The little old lady who sat next to him had been looking for an excuse to make conversation since they'd taken off. She didn't speak French, that much he could tell, and the flight attendants had a good amount of laughter at her expense after she'd tried when they first boarded. Really, such gauche behavior from the staff in first class was beyond ridiculous. If the woman had understood what they'd said, she'd be furious.

He looked down his nose at the white-haired bird. "No,
Madame
, I am not a nervous flyer. Not in the least." Picking up the red wine on his tray table, he took a sip. "And you? Do you fly often?"

"Not as often as I did when my husband was alive, but now my daughter has married a Frenchman and they are living in Paris. She keeps calling herself an expatriate." The woman laughed as if that was a grand joke. Her laughter sounded more like twittering than downright chuckling, and he found himself temporarily charmed. "They're having a baby in six months and I want to come back at least twice before that."

He nodded. What a lovely concept. It wasn't something he could fathom. Such a normal existence. He imagined she never in her life had to worry if she was cursed.

Christophe had to be on guard at every moment. He wouldn't want to lose his grip and find himself standing in someone's bedroom watching them sleep or walk out the door and wind up in the middle of the street in a different country.

If he felt the tingling in his hands start, then he needed to concentrate on cooling down the temperature on his fingertips. For some unknown reason, doing that could prevent the transference. So far, and thanks to whoever controlled these things, he had never shifted elsewhere when he slept.

Living this way worked for him to a certain extent. He was intellectual, a professor of gemology and he liked being by himself at a dig or in a lab. But still, he couldn't help but feel a pang of regret that he would never know what this woman knew. No one would be flying him over the Atlantic in his or her dotage to visit grandchildren.

There had only been one thing he'd seen that went
poof
like he went
poof
and that had been a graveyard in a small town located on the Pyrénées Mountains. The locals swore one day there had appeared a small town that had not been there previously. Eventually, discredited as insane, the people had stopped making those claims. Before long Lourdes had grown bigger and overcome the suddenly present little town. Some people had even said it was a miracle, and given the local religious furor belonging to that spot, the people, who refused to believe it had always been there, accepted that explanation.

But not Christophe.

Smiling at the old woman, he leaned back in his seat and pretended to sleep. If he could go from one place to another and suddenly appear where he shouldn't be, then so could a town with a very peculiar graveyard.

About once a week, Christophe would search news on the Internet to see reports of the area. Recently, an American professor of history named Leonardo Gregan had been arrested for being in the cemetery of that little town in the middle of the night. The local press dismissed Leonardo as a whacko professor from the United States and soon more Americans arrived. Even though it had been quickly hushed up, it appeared that in addition to Leonardo disappearing back to America, all of the charges against him mysteriously vanished as well.

Christophe smiled at the thought. He imagined the local police department had a new car, or twelve, in their lot.

But for Christophe's part, he couldn't get Leonardo out of his head. He'd read about him. Before the man's escapade to France, when he had all but dropped off the map, he'd been a perfectly respected, highly thought of member of his field. What was he doing digging in that graveyard in the middle of the night?

Using his own academic credentials, he'd called Leonardo's university in New York City. They'd said he was on sabbatical and, no, they didn't know when he'd be back or where he was.

Clearly, Christophe must be out of his mind because he'd boarded the next plane, and was on his way to the United States to find the man and ask him if he knew what made that town appear like that. He blew out a breath. Hell, he knew it was a long shot. It was more likely than not his 'issue' had nothing to do with that town. Still, he felt like a man obsessed and he had to do his best to satisfy his questions before he could finally set this to rest.

He was going to find him before he got back on another plane and returned to France if he had to ring every doorbell in the upper east coast of the United States of America. And possibly the Southern coast too, if necessary.

* * * *

Drew Dubowski could feel Marina's distress. The skin on his arms began to hurt as if needles were being pressed into it. A million tiny needles. He closed his eyes.

"Sir, what size coffee would you like?"

He opened his eyes and cleared his throat. "A medium."

"What size?"

Biting his tongue to not tell the woman off, he said the requisite word that would get him a medium coffee. It was a made-up word that the company created to make ordering coffee more exotic. He hated having to say it, but it was the only way they'd give you the damn coffee.

"Do you want something in it?"

"Just black."

His tone must have told the barista he was rapidly getting over her attitude because she ran to the back of the coffee store to retrieve his black brew.

Exactly how far would he have to run to get away from Marina? He was hours from where she was, or at least where he thought she was. She might have moved for all he knew. But assuming she was where she
should
be, which was safe behind wards in Maine, it was getting out of hand that he could be standing in Pennsylvania and still know she was in distress.

His hand reached, almost as if by its own direction, to his cell phone before he pushed it back down into his pocket. He couldn't call her. If he started doing that, he was going to just have to give in and become involved in her life.

That was an unacceptable idea.

He'd already let her down, more than once. She was better off without him.

Chapter Four

Gabriel regarded Loraine for a moment. What was the best way to tell someone they weren't
human
? He pulled his hair out his pony tail holder and ran his hands through his still damp hair. As his hands passed through the strands, he got a whiff of himself. Hell, he smelled like the river and it wasn't a good stink. Poor Loraine, her car was going to smell like nearly drowned street bum until she could get it detailed.

Her lips pursed together. She was obviously angry that he'd told Leonardo about how she spoke to Futon, which, given that he now knew she was an Outsider, she probably could actually do.

"All right." He cleared his throat. "Here's the deal." He paused. "Fuck, this is hard."

"Why don't you just try saying whatever you want to say instead of obsessing over it and then maybe you won't feel the need to use such language?"

Grinning, he appreciated the way her cheeks had gotten red with her annoyance. He wanted to reach out and stroke the soft skin on the side of her face and see if it felt as hot as it looked. Of course, there were lots of things he wanted that he never got to have, so his strange desire to touch her would have to be one of those things he lived without.

"You sound like my fifth grade teacher. It was the only full school year I ever did. She used to lecture me constantly."

Loraine narrowed her eyes but kept them on the road. "I'm a fourth grade teacher so I imagine she and I have lots in common. Don't stall, Gabriel."

Of course, she was a teacher.

Why shouldn't the first woman he'd ever had this strong a physical reaction to be educated? Most people were, at least compared to the little time he'd spent in school. Gabriel leaned his head against the back of the seat. He'd just told her how little time he'd spent in a classroom. She probably thought he was a goddamn idiot now.

"Gabriel, don't stall."

"Fine. Here's the deal. There are these people called the Outsiders."

She interrupted. "You used that word before."

He nodded. "That's right. I'm not entirely certain on all the history here. Okay? I'm sure that Leonardo could tell it better. Hey, that's an idea." He pulled out her phone. "Let's call him, and let him tell you."

"Let's not. Please continue."

He shifted, uncomfortable in the blanket she'd given him. For all intents and purposes, he was completely exposed—body and soul—in front of her right now and it wasn't a condition he enjoyed.

"Outsiders are supposed to, I don't know the words exactly, keep the balance in the universe. Keep the order of good and bad."

"Like Yin and Yang?"

He knew what that was. "Yes, like that."

This was going better than he thought it would. She hadn't run from the car screaming or thrown him out onto the street. But, then again, she spoke to a dog so maybe she was better set up than most people to accept the unusual.

"Go on."

The woman really liked to issue orders. It was a good thing she was so beautiful. Her comment earlier about having a lot in common with his fifth grade teacher couldn't have been more wrong. In no way did Loraine Peacock resemble the grey-haired old biddy that had inspired such hate in Gabriel that he'd committed his one and only unjustifiable crime. Of course, even after he'd tried to fix things he'd paid for it dearly…

"The Outsiders have always been around. Then there was this prophecy."

She shook her head. "What do you mean 'then there was this prophecy'? There's never just all of a sudden a prophecy. Someone has to do the prophesying."

"I guess one of the Outsiders could do that. I don't know. I never asked that question." But now that she mentioned it, he should have.
Idiot
.

"Okay, sorry for the interruptions." She pointed ahead. "Am I turning up there?"

Following her gaze to where she looked at the road, he nodded. "Yep, the second left, not the first."

"Okay."

"So." Gabriel waited until Loraine had made the turn to start talking again. He didn't want to distract her too much while she operated the vehicle. "The prophecy said that eighteen children would be born together and one apart. The eighteen who were born at the same time, the Outsider children, they would need to fight the nineteenth child who was really a demon born into the body of a human boy."

Her neck muscles clenched as she swallowed. "A demon? Futon mentioned a demon and something about a war. Are you one of those Outsiders? Am I supposed to be helping you with your war?"

Nodding, he decided that like ripping off a bandage, it was better just to get the inevitable over with. "I am, and so are you."

Silence descended on the car and he looked out the window, not liking her distressed expression. Finally, he just couldn't take it anymore.

"Say something, Loraine."

"How can I be an Outsider?"

"How can any of us be Outsiders? We just are." He drummed the fingers of his left hand on the center console. "How do you think you can speak to Futon?"

He watched as that piece of information sunk in. Her skin's pallor, already as white as soap, actually got paler, and he worried that she might pass out. "Are you okay? Should we pull over?"

She shook her head. "My parents and my grandparents were Outsiders too?"

Sighing, he wished this could be easier. "Not the ones you knew as your parents and grandparents."

"What does that mean?"