Lover Mine (29 page)

As John put her on the table, she lost control of her reins again. Her lungs refused to do their job, as if the air were poisoned, and her eyes bounced around, hitting all kinds of panic triggers like equipment, and instruments, and the table . . . the table.

“Okay, we’re losing her again.” Doc Jane’s tone was relentlessly level. “John, get in there.”

John’s face came back in close and Xhex held on to his eyes.

“Xhex?” Doc Jane’s voice came from over on the left. “I’m going to give you a sedative—”

“No drugs!” The answer leaped out of her mouth. “I’d rather be terrified . . . than helpless. . . .”

Her breath was painfully short, and each impotent draw of her rib cage convinced her as nothing else could that life was about suffering more than it was about joy. There had been too many of these moments, too many times the pain and fear took over, too many dark shadows that didn’t just lurk, but sucked out all the illumination from the night in which she existed.

“Let me go . . . let me go away. . . .” When John’s eyes went wide, she realized that she’d found one of his knives, unsheathed it, and was trying to put it in his palm. “Please let me go . . . I don’t want to be here anymore . . . put me out forever,
please. . . .”

Lot of frozen bodies around her and the lack of movement refocused her a little. Rhage and Mary were in the corner. Rehv was there. Vishous and Zsadist. No one was speaking or budging an inch.

John took the dagger from her hand and the removal was what made her cry. Because he wasn’t going to use it. Not on her. Not now . . . not ever.

And she lacked the strength to do it herself.

All at once, a tremendous emotion boiled in her gut, and as it expanded and pressure grew inside her body, she looked around frantically as shelves started to rattle and the computer over in the corner began to bounce on the desk.

John was on it, though. And he was on it fast. He started to sign with the same kind of urgency she was feeling, and a moment later, everyone left.

Except for him.

Trying desperately not to explode, she looked down at her hands. They were shaking so badly, they were like the wings of a fly . . . and it was when she was staring at them that she hit bottom.

The scream pealed out of her and the sound was utterly foreign, all high-pitched and horrified.

John stood his ground. Even when she screamed again.

He wasn’t going anywhere. He wasn’t rattled. He was just . . . there.

Grabbing the sheet that circled her, she tightened it around her body, very aware she was breaking down, that the fissure had been tapped by that trip down the hall and now she had splintered. In fact, she felt as though there were two of her in the room, the mad one on the table screaming her head off and crying bloody tears . . . and a calm, sane one in the far corner, watching herself and John.

Would the two parts of her cleave together again? Or would she be ever thus, wrenched asunder?

Her mind chose the observer persona over the hysterical one and she retreated into that soundless place where she witnessed herself sob to the point of asphyxiation. The streaks of blood that ran down her paper white cheeks didn’t disgust her and nor did the crazy, wide eyes or epileptic thrashing of her arms and legs.

She felt sorry for the female who had been driven to such straits. Who had kept herself apart from all emotions.

The female had been born under a curse. The female had done evil and had evil done unto her. The female had hardened herself, her mind and her emotions becoming steel.

The female had been wrong about that locking down, that self-containment.

It was not a case of strength, as she had always told herself.

It was strictly survival . . . and she simply couldn’t keep it up any longer.

“Y
ou had . . . sex. With Eliahu Rathboone.”

Gregg set Holly back from him and stared into her face, thinking she’d lost her damn mind—well, lost what little of a one she had. And that made two of them, because he had clearly imagined what he’d just “seen” outside.

Except her eyes were utterly clear and without guile. “He came to me. I’d fallen asleep—”

Another round of banging on the door cut her off, and then Stan’s voice came through. “Hello? Which room am I—”

“Later, Stan,” Gregg clipped out. As the grumbling faded, footsteps in the hall went down to Holly’s room and a door was slammed.

“Come here.” He tugged Holly over to the bed. “Sit down and tell me . . . what the hell you think happened.”

He focused on her puffy lips as she spoke. “Well, I’d just gotten out of the shower. I was exhausted and I lay down on the bed to rest my eyes before I got into my nightgown. I must have fallen asleep . . . because the next thing I knew I had this dream—”

Oh, for God’s sake. “Holly, just because you had a nightmare doesn’t mean you—”

“I’m not finished,” she snapped. “And it wasn’t a nightmare.”

“I thought you were freaking out.”

“The scary stuff came afterward.” She arched a brow. “Are you going to let me talk?”

“Fine.” But only on the hope that he could get her mouth to do something else later. Damn, her lips looked good . . . “Go ’head.”

Head. Yup. That’s what he was thinking.

“I started to have this dream that this man came into my room. He was very tall and muscular . . . one of the biggest men I’ve ever seen. He was dressed in black and he stood over my bed. He smelled amazing . . . and he just stared at me. I . . .” Her hand wrapped around her neck and slowly slid down between her breasts. “I took off my towel and pulled him on top of me. It was . . . indescribable. . . .”

Which was good news. Because he suddenly didn’t want to hear anything about what happened next.

“He took me.” More with that hand-on-the-neck thing. “As I’ve never been had before. He was so—”

“—hung like a fire hose and did you twelve different ways to Sunday. Congratulations. Your subconscious should be directing porn. What does this have to do with Eliahu Rathboone.”

Holly glared at him . . . and then yanked her lapel to the side. “Because when I woke up, I had this.” She jabbed at what certainly appeared to be a hickey on her neck. “And I’d actually had sex.”

Gregg frowned hard. “You . . . How do you know?”

“How do you think I know.”

Gregg cleared his throat. “Are you okay?” He put his hand on her arm. “I mean . . . ah, do you want to call the police.”

Holly’s laugh was low and achingly sexy. “Oh, it was consensual. Whatever it was.” Her expression lost its glow. “That’s the point . . . I don’t know what it was. I thought I’d dreamed it. I didn’t think it was real until . . .”

Until there was some undeniable evidence to the contrary.

Gregg brushed her blond extensions over her shoulder. “You sure you’re all right?”

“I guess so.”

Man, it didn’t take him even a moment to make up his mind. “Well, that’s it. We’re leaving tomorrow.”

“What? Oh, my God, Gregg . . . I didn’t mean to cause problems—” She frowned. “Maybe . . . maybe I dreamed the after part where I woke up, too. I took another shower . . . maybe none of it really happened.”

“Fuck it, I’ll call Atlanta in the a.m. and tell them it’s back on. I’m not going to have you staying where you’re not safe.”

“Jesus, I mean, that’s very chivalric of you, but . . . I don’t know. Everything’s so fuzzy, and now I wonder if I’ll just feel better in the morning. I’m really confused . . . it was weird.” Her fingertips went to her temples and started rubbing in circles, like her head was aching. “I will say that I wanted it to happen, every step of the way—”

“Was your door locked?” He wanted an answer to the question, but he also didn’t need to hear about the Ghost with the Mostest, thank you very much.

“I always lock a hotel room door before I have a shower.”

“Windows?”

“Closed. I guess they’re locked. I don’t know.”

“Well, you stay with me tonight. You’ll be safe here.” And not just because he wasn’t going to hit on her now. He had a gun with him. Always. And the thing was permitted and he knew how to use it: Back when people had been getting popped in L.A. traffic, he’d decided to get armed.

Together they stretched out on the bed. “I’ll leave the light on.”

“It’s okay. Just lock the door.”

He nodded and slipped off the bed, throwing the dead bolt as well as the chain; then he did a quick pass by the windows to inspect the latches. When he lay back down, she nestled into the crook of his arm and sighed.

With a lean, he pulled the duvet out from under their legs and over them, turned off the lamp and eased back into the pillows.

He thought of that man out walking the grounds and nearly growled. Fuck. This. Shit. Either it was a local with a passkey, or a staff member who could jimmy the lock.

Assuming anything had happened at all. Which she seemed less and less sure of—

Whatever. They were leaving in the morning and that was that.

He frowned in the darkness. “Holly?”

“Yes?”

“Why did you think it was Rathboone.”

She yawned widely. “Because he looked exactly like the portrait in the living room.”

D
own in the exam room at the underground clinic, John stood before Xhex and felt utterly powerless to help her. As she sat screaming on the stainless-steel table, her arms strained against her hold on the sheet, and her face stretched long, her mouth tearing open, red tears spilling out of her eyes and falling down her white cheeks. . . . And he could do nothing about any of it.

He knew the rough place she was in. Knew that he couldn’t possibly reach the well that she was down at the bottom of: He’d been there himself. He knew exactly what it was like to trip and fall and be in agony from hard impact . . . even though your body technically hadn’t gone anywhere.

The only difference was that she had a voice to give her pain wings.

As his ears rang and his heart broke for her, he stayed strong against the gale force she let loose. After all, there was a reason why
here
and
hear
were separated by so little and sounded one like the other. Bearing witness to her, he heard her and was there for her because that was all you could do during a fall apart.

But God, it pained him to see how she suffered. Pained him and focused him, Lash’s face gathering like a ghost taking physical form in John’s mental eye. As she screamed and screamed, he vowed vengeance until his heart beat not blood, but the need for revenge.

And then Xhex took a series of big breaths. And a couple more.

“I think I’m done with that,” she said roughly.

He waited a moment to make sure. When she nodded, he took out his pad and wrote quickly.

As he flashed the page to her, her eyes went to the writing and it took her a couple of tries to get the gist.

“Can I wash my face first?”

He nodded and went over to the stainless-steel sink. Running a stream of cool water, he got a clean towel from a stack and wet it before returning to her. As she held out her hands, he put the damp cloth in her palms and watched as she slowly pressed it against her face. It was hard to see her so frail and he thought back to how he had always known her: strong, powerful, edged-out.

Her hair had grown longer and was starting to curl up at the ends, suggesting that if she didn’t cut it, it would have a thick wave in the length. God, he wanted to touch the softness.

His eyes moved down to the table and abruptly popped wide. The sheet had twisted out from under her . . . and there was a dark spot on the towels that had been wrapped around her hips.

As he inhaled deeply, he caught the scent of fresh blood and was surprised he hadn’t before. Then again, he’d been pretty fucking distracted.

Oh . . . Christ. She was bleeding . . .

He tapped her lightly on the arm and mouthed,
Doc Jane.

Xhex nodded. “Yeah. Let’s get this over with.”

Frantic, John stalked over to the door of the exam room. Out in the hall, there was a legion of worried faces, with Doc Jane at the head of the group.

“She ready for me?” When John stepped to the side and motioned urgently with his arm, the doctor came forward.

He stopped her, though. With his back to Xhex, he signed,
She’s injured somewhere. She’s bleeding.

Doc Jane put her hand on his shoulder and maneuvered him around in a circle so they traded places. “I know. Why don’t you wait outside. I’ll take good care of her. Ehlena? Would you mind coming in—I’m going to need a second set of hands.”

Rehvenge’s
shellan
went into the exam room and John watched over the doctor’s head as the female started washing her hands.

Why isn’t Vishous assisting?
he signed.

“We’re just doing an ultrasound to make sure she’s all right. I’m not operating.” Doc Jane smiled at him in a professional way—which was oddly frightening. And then the door was shut in his face.

He looked around at the others. All the males were locked out in the hall. Only females in there with her.

His mind started to churn and it didn’t take him long to come to a conclusion that couldn’t possibly be right.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and V’s voice was low. “No, you need to stay out here, John. Let go.”

That was when he realized his palm had locked on the door handle. Looking down, he told himself to release his hold . . . and had to send the command twice before his grip slid off the metal.

There was no more screaming. No sounds at all.

He waited. And waited. And paced and waited some more. Vishous lit another hand-rolled. Blay joined him, firing up a Dunhill. Qhuinn drummed a beat out on his thigh. Wrath petted George’s head while the golden retriever watched John with kind brown eyes.