Lover Uncloaked (Stealth Guardians #1) (22 page)

And maybe he wouldn’t even be so pissed about this fact if he wasn’t so emotionally involved. There, he’d admitted it to himself: he cared about her. When she’d pressed herself against him when they were in the portal and allowed him to kiss her, he’d thought for a moment that everything would turn out fine between them. Unfortunately he’d just pushed her away again with the way he’d yelled at her, when really, the fury he’d unleashed was aimed at himself for not protecting her sufficiently.

With a sigh, he perused his surroundings.

The house was a two-story Edwardian with a large front yard and an even larger garden in the back. Ivy grew on its façade, and the hedges around the grounds needed trimming. These were the suburbs, but the fancy ones. No doubt, the family had money.

Night had already fallen, and lights inside the home were ablaze. Aiden walked past the old station wagon that was parked in the driveway in front of the two-car garage. Did the Cruickshanks have visitors?

There was an easy way to find out. A familiar tingling went through his entire body as he dematerialized and passed through the front door, sneaking inside the cozy foyer a moment later. Remaining invisible, he walked along the wallpapered hallway with all the stealth he’d been taught.

The house smelled homey, the scent of freshly baked cookies drifting into his nose. He could almost picture Leila as a little girl, running down the stairs and toward the kitchen to collect her treat. Odd that she appeared in much softer terms to him now, when in the environment he’d met her first—her lab and her apartment—none of that softness was evident. Maybe he was simply imagining it.

A female voice came from the back of the house. He followed it and reached an open door. Halting there, he peered into the kitchen. It was spacious, with a large island in the middle, and a dining nook near one of the large bay windows.

A middle aged woman, presumably the housekeeper, stood at the island and cut bread into slices. At the dining nook, an elderly couple sat, waiting silently. The woman was probably in her mid to late sixties, and the man possibly five to ten years her senior. Those two had to be Leila’s parents. In fact, now that he entered the kitchen to take a closer look, he recognized similarities.

Her father had the same ocean blue eyes as his daughter, yet they lacked the sparkle and passion he’d seen in Leila’s. There was a dull sheen over them as he stared past his wife, almost as if he was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn’t really see her. Well, maybe after being married for several decades, that was what relationships turned into, for his wife didn’t look at him either. She played with her napkin, folding it first that way, then the other.

Somehow, the scene didn’t look like the companionable silence he’d occasionally observed with his own parents. It felt awkward. Had they quarreled?

“The soup is coming,” the housekeeper said in a cheerful voice, the same one he’d heard from the corridor earlier. “Mmm, you’ll like it. I made you pumpkin soup today, fresh with lots of cream, just the way you like it.”

Aiden turned to the woman, surprised at her tone. She sounded as if she were talking to a child. He got out of her way and moved to the other side of the table when she carried two bowls with steaming hot soup and set them in front of the couple.

“There,” she said. “How about some fresh rosemary bread with that?”

Leila’s mother nodded. “And butter. Don’t forget the butter. You always forget the butter.”

Aiden caught how the housekeeper rolled her eyes. “I never forget the butter, Ellie. Don’t you remember how I put it on extra thick this morning?”

“You didn’t give me bread this morning,” Ellie protested.

Her husband shook his head. “I didn’t get bread this morning either.”

Ellie tossed him a chiding look and waved the housekeeper closer. In a whisper, she spoke to her. “Do I have to always eat with him? Nancy, why doesn’t he go home?”

Nancy sighed and sat down on the empty chair. “But, Ellie, that’s George. You know George, don’t you? Your husband?”

Ellie’s eyes darted toward him, looking him up and down. Then she bent closer to the housekeeper once more. “I don’t think that’s my husband. He’s old. I married a handsome young man named George.”

George only grunted and started eating his soup.

Aiden watched the exchange with surprise. Something wasn’t right here. Was there a chance that the demons had already gotten to Leila’s parents and somehow distorted their sense of reality?

“Why don’t you start your soup, Ellie, and I’ll get you your meds, huh? Maybe you’ll feel better afterwards.”

Nancy lifted herself from the chair and went over to the kitchen counter where an array of medicine bottles and containers took up an entire corner. She took two long plastic containers, which were embossed with the days of the week and
Ellie
and
George
, and went back to the dining table.

Aiden didn’t follow her. Instead, he stared at the medicine bottles and read the labels. Since he wasn’t a doctor, he didn’t know what any of them were for, however, he needed to find out. Something he couldn’t explain compelled him to. He pulled out his smartphone, switched it on in silent mode, and entered the name of the first medication. A few second later, search results were back. He clicked on the first, read it. A knot started forming in his chest.

He entered the next one, and more results came back. Again, he read the first, and again, he couldn’t believe his eyes. He perused the bottles, noticing that both Leila’s parents took almost identical medication.

Shocked, Aiden stalked out of the kitchen and fled into the front of the house where he found the living room and let himself fall onto the couch.

Both Leila’s parents took medication for the treatment of Alzheimer’s.

Now everything suddenly made sense: the determination Leila showed in her research, the single-minded purpose that reflected in her private life or the lack thereof, her devastation when she’d found her research destroyed. She did all this for her parents. She wanted to save them.

She wasn’t looking for the recognition of her peers and humanity at large to become the inventor of the first Alzheimer’s drug that would halt the disease. All she wanted was to cure her parents and reverse some of the damage the disease had done to their minds.

Aiden felt shame radiate through him. He’d callously demanded that all copies of her research be destroyed, would have destroyed them himself had somebody else not beaten him to it. And all the while, her dreams destroyed, her hopes squashed, Leila had kept her true pain hidden from him.

No wonder she hated him and his kind. It was a miracle, she hadn’t tried to give him any more resistance, or tried to escape a second time. Now that he knew what was really at stake for her, he wouldn’t even blame her if she tried. Wouldn’t he do the same? Wouldn’t he try to do everything to save his parents if he had the means to do it? Would he care that by doing so, he would jeopardize the entire human race?

Could she be so selfless in the end to put humanity’s needs before her own? If she could do that, if she could look beyond her own desires, all he could do was admire her for it. Because it would mean she wasn’t weak. She was strong, stronger than any human or Stealth Guardian he’d ever met.

A woman he could fall on his knees for and wish for things he’d previously believed impossible.

If she ever forgave him.

TWENTY-FIVE

Leila accepted the cup of tea Hamish handed her as he joined her on the couch in the living room. She had gotten dressed in jeans and T-shirt again.

Hamish leaned back in his corner and saluted her with a glass of Scotch, which he’d told her was the preferred drink among Stealth Guardians.

“Why whiskey?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I guess it’s our heritage. We’re descendents from an ancient tribe that lived in Scotland, or rather on an island off Scotland. It’s cold up there. And the Scotch warms us.”

“Aiden mentioned something like that, the Outer Hebrides, I think he said. Well, I prefer tea.” At least it would keep her head clear.

Hamish smiled and took a swig. She watched as he savored the drink coating his throat. He was as tall as Aiden, but a little broader around the shoulders and the hips. His features were a little more worn, with more pronounced lines crisscrossing his face and dark shadows under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in days. As if some big worry had kept him up.

“So, what else has he told you about us?”

Leila set her mug on the coffee table. “Not much, only what your powers are; that you can cloak humans, and walk through walls. Is there more?”

He quirked an eyebrow. “That’s about it.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Not enough.” He expelled a bitter laugh. “And at this point I’m not even sure which one of our people I can trust. It’s sad to see that even among our kind there are those who put their own profit before the good of the community. And we’re not immune to temptations, as you might have noticed.”

She felt herself blush under his suggestive gaze, knowing only too well what he was referring to: the fact that she and Aiden had kissed passionately when Hamish had transported them to the wine country. She could only blame her fear of dark spaces for having provoked this kiss. Otherwise, she was sure, she wouldn’t have allowed it, not after everything that had happened between her and Aiden previously. After all, he’d lied to her—repeatedly.

And so have you.

She tried to squash the little voice in her head that reminded her that she hadn’t confessed that one copy of her research still existed. Instinctively, her hand went to her pendant that still hung inconspicuously around her neck.

“So,” she searched hastily for something to say, “how long have you and Aiden known each other?”

“Almost two hundred years, we grew—”

“Two hundred years?” Shock made her sit up straight. “You’re two hundred years old?” He didn’t look a day over thirty-five, and neither did Aiden.

A charming grin spread over Hamish’s lips. “Yeah, that always gets a reaction.” He winked at her. “But we’re only just hitting our prime. Unfortunately,
rasen
can be a pain in the butt.”

Her eyebrows snapped together in confusion. “
Rasen
? What’s that?”

“Mating season. The closer we get to our 200
^th
Birthday, the more urgent the drive to find a mate becomes. It’s a bit like a human woman’s biological clock, only a lot more intense.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t really wanted to talk about anything related to relationships. Maybe it was best to change the subject. “That’s okay, I wasn’t really asking about that.”

But Hamish didn’t let her off the hook. “You wanted to know more about Aiden. I’m willing to talk. You might as well take the offer. Who knows whether I’ll feel this generous ever again.”

She reached for the mug, feeling the need to steady her hands with something to distract from the fact that she was nervous. “I’m really not interested in talking about him. He’s obviously mad at me for calling my parents. I’m sorry, but I had to. I couldn’t just let them believe that—”

Hamish held up his hand. “I understand. But you’re misinterpreting Aiden. He isn’t mad at you. Of course, he has his reasons for reacting the way he did. But since you’re not interested in finding out more, I’ll just keep those to myself.”

Leila glared at him. She understood exactly what he was doing: he was baiting her. As if she were that easy to manipulate. Taking a quick sip from her tea, she told herself that she didn’t care what Aiden’s reasons for his outburst were. It didn’t matter at all.

When she looked up, Hamish sat there in silence as if waiting for her to crack. She wouldn’t. She didn’t want to hear excuses for his behavior.

“You surprise me,” he suddenly said.

“In what way?”

“Your self-control.”

When she gave him a confused look, he continued, “Most women would jump at the chance of getting the inside scoop on a guy they’re into, but you—”

“I’m not
into
him!” she snapped.

“Well, my bad.”

She huffed and hugged her arms around her torso.

“We grew up together. We’ve been best friends since we broke out of our crib for the first time at age two. If anybody knows him, I do.”

“Fine! Go ahead, tell me what you want to tell me and get it over with. Obviously, he told you to pacify me and make excuses for his behavior.” But she would take it all with a grain of salt.

“Aiden? He would rip my head off if he found out about it. He’s a very private man. He never even tells me anything, but I know what he feels. He can’t hide things from me.”

She had to agree with him on that statement: Aiden didn’t tell her much either. Rather, he liked to omit things, important ones. And he didn’t explain why he made certain decisions either. At least if she knew why certain things had to happen, she could try to come to grips with them. The scientist in her could accept that. But there had to be compelling reasons. Irrational behavior she could not excuse.

Leila settled back into her corner of the couch, and tucked her legs beneath her.

“He has a soft heart,” Hamish started, making her scoff instantly.

He gave her a chiding look. “Which he hides well. His sister and he were very close. Twins. They did everything together, so it was only natural that when Aiden decided to get into the trenches and train for the most dangerous jobs to fight the demons, Julia was right there with him. She was fearless.”

She shuddered, knowing she herself would be too much of a coward to do the same.

“And of course, when we were young, we all thought we were invincible. I was the same; we all thought we could overcome any obstacle, defeat any enemy, save any human.” He paused. “We couldn’t.”

Leila noticed the pain that was suddenly evident in his eyes. “What happened?”

He continued as if he hadn’t even heard her question. “Aiden didn’t hate humans. In fact, he was rather curious about them. He liked watching them go about their lives, oblivious to the dangers around them, and he felt proud to be there to protect them. Every time he saved a human from the clutches of the demons, you could see the pride and satisfaction in his eyes. He loved what he was doing. Julia did too. They were cut of the same cloth: fierce, loyal, and so proud of their achievements. And convinced they could do no wrong.”