Realm Walker (8 page)

She started to tell him that she’d missed him too, to beg him never to leave her again. The thought reminded her why she was supposed to be resisting him. Why she didn’t want this no matter how much her body and her heart might argue with her. She twisted her head away, put her hands on his chest and pushed. He didn’t budge. “Let go.” She tried to sound firm, but didn’t know how convincing she could possibly be since she was still panting.

Her hands still lay flat against his chest, but she applied no pressure, waiting for him to do as she asked. After a moment, his hands fell away. She stepped back and turned from the confusion on his face. Her heart throbbed, begging her to return to her mate. Back to his arms where she belonged. Other parts of her were begging as well, but for reasons far less wholesome.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She shoved the churning emotions down, determined to ignore them. It wasn’t fair that she should feel guilty because of him. He was the one that left. “I can’t do this,” she said. “Not with you.”

* * *

“But you can with him?” Thomas hated the pain that threaded through his words. Never in his long life could he remember ever wishing he was anyone but himself. He’d wished it multiple times over the past few days. Every time she turned that smile on someone else, every time she laughed for them, every time he thought about her in someone else’s arms.

“Him?” she asked.

Were there so many she couldn’t narrow it down? “Yes, that giant whose lap you’ve been sitting on since you came in the door this evening.” And Michael. There was always the knowledge of Michael touching her, making her writhe with pleasure festering in the back of Thomas’s brain. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t hold it against them. That promise was becoming harder for him to keep the longer it took her to come back to him where she belonged.

She gripped the edge of a box, her back to him, her shoulders tight as she dropped her head. “You can’t just show up after seven years and step back into my life like you never left. It’s not fair.”

The fact she failed to answer the question didn’t escape his notice. “You have no idea how hard it was to walk away that day. To stay away.” Everything had been for her. So she could live the life she never could have tied to him. He may have hurt her when he left, but every day that went by without her reaching out to him had killed a little piece of him. He’d stayed away until he could bear it no longer and now that he’d returned she never ceased to remind him that she didn’t need him. Didn’t want him.

Finally she turned to face him and crossed her arms over her chest like a shield. “So why did you?”

“You wanted time. You asked for space. I gave it to you. I gave it to you in spades.” It had become a familiar refrain over the years and was far better than admitting the power she held over him. The power she could use against him.

“I was twenty years old. I hadn’t even had a day to adjust to the idea of us yet and you were talking about presenting me to the Council. About my new position in the coven. I was scared.”

Scared didn’t begin to cover it. She’d been terrified, the emotion so heavy in the air that day, it had been a palpable thing. That’s when he realized what he’d taken from her with his own selfish desire to have her tied to him for an eternity. When she asked for time, it gave him the opening he needed to give her a chance to live her life without him in it. Even if only temporarily.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath then looked at him again. “You left me. You took everything from me.”

“I left everything
for
you. My money, my home, my coven. It’s all yours. It always has been.” He pushed both hands through his hair. “I gave you what you wanted. As much as it killed me to do it, I gave it to you. I only wanted you to be happy.”

“Yeah, my life’s been a regular carnival.” She sighed. “You just left me, Thomas. You left all of us. They assumed I was no longer under your protection.
I
assumed that. You left me alone under the authority of a vampire who resented my connection to you from the moment you brought me into the coven. There was no protection there for me. No home.”

“Always with the damn secrets,” he snapped. He took a moment to tamp down his temper before continuing. “What happened,
Joya
? What aren’t you telling me?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Thomas. Not anymore. It’s done. And you weren’t there to stop it.”

Her words stabbed through his heart like a stake. He had failed her. He knew this now, but he didn’t know how to fix it. If he could fix it.

She stepped past him to the door and ran her fingers over the lock. “You abandoned me over some throwaway words. I can’t take the chance you’ll do it again.”

That wasn’t going to happen as he wasn’t ever leaving her again. “If I swore I wouldn’t?” When she didn’t respond, he placed his hand over hers on the knob. “Don’t answer me now. When you’re ready, we’ll talk. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’ve got to get back to my friends,” she said. He hesitated then dropped his hand. She opened the door and walked out.

When the door shut behind her, he slumped against the box behind him and ran a hand over his face. His mind tried to make sense of just how everything in his life had gone to absolute crap. A few days ago he thought he had it all under control, that his actions had all been for the best. That his mate would see that and understand.

If he could just get her to listen. Since they didn’t seem to be able to stay in the same room together for more than five minutes without fighting he didn’t see that happening any time soon. Fighting or shoving their tongues down each other’s throats, he amended. He much preferred the latter. He ran a fingertip over his lips, the feel of hers still lingering. She was his. Her heart knew it. Her body knew it. Now he just had to convince her mind. He smiled. This was going to be fun.

Chapter Eight

“I’m going to kill him.” Juliana growled and slammed her glass on the table. “I’m going to kill him and then I’m going to dump his twice dead corpse in the deepest darkest hole I can find.” Her drinking companions snapped around in their chairs to see what had set her off. Thomas pulled the storeroom door shut behind him. His hair was tousled, his black T-shirt half pulled out of his pants. He looked far less composed than he had when she left him minutes before.

He made a show of tucking in his shirt and running his hands through his hair to fix it. More than one bar patron glanced at her before leaning over to their companions and spreading the rumors. Why didn’t he just brand her and be done with it?

Simon arched a brow in disapproval but Seamus howled with laughter. She scowled at him but that only made him laugh harder. “Oh, he’s good. I’ll give him that.” She wanted to smack him, but gave him credit for knowing Thomas was playing the crowd.

“A gentleman would have put himself to rights in private,” Simon said.

“A gentleman wouldn’t get it on in the back room,” Seamus responded.

She glared at them. “Nothing happened. Not a damn thing.”

Simon suddenly stood and held out a hand with a grin. “Dance with me?”

She studied him a moment trying to remember the last time she danced. “Why not?” she said, taking the hand.

He pulled her out to the middle of the floor. They squeezed between sweaty bodies and tried to find a spot where they wouldn’t be trampled. Her head swam from the heat and the three shots of tequila she managed to down. He found a spot and turned her to face him.

Closing her eyes, she swung her hips to the music. She entwined her arms above her head, ignoring the twinge of pain that accompanied the motion. Hot hands ran up her arms, entangled fingers with hers. They pulled her arms down and wrapped them around her middle. Pulled back against a firm torso, she molded to the body behind her, knowing without looking it was Thomas.

“You called to me from across the room,
Joya.
I could not resist,” he said, his breath warm against her ear. A tremble ran through her as he began to rock with the music.

She opened her eyes to see Simon backing away with a nod and a crooked smile. He was abandoning her. Damn him. She tightened her fingers on Thomas’s and turned her head so their lips were a whisper away from each other. “Providing more fodder for the rumor mill?”

His lips twitched. “I can’t help myself. You bring out my possessive tendencies like no one else. I just want them all to be aware that you are unavailable.”

She tugged on his hands and he released her waist without argument. Her brain railed at her for not disagreeing with him. For not insisting she didn’t belong to him. Turning, she looked up at him and tried to make sense of the cacophony of emotions screaming for attention. The truth was she did belong to him. She always had. And how she hated it.

She shook her head, turned away and made her way back to the table where the twins waited. Exhaustion blindsided her. Too much emotional drainage for one day. It must have shown on her face because Simon piped up. “Let’s get you home.”

Home was the last place she wanted to go. There was no one to spend the night with but her own paranoia. The boys would sleep over if she asked, but she wasn’t ready for that level of humiliation. And Thomas...well, it would be better if she kept her thoughts—and her libido—from going down that path.

Thomas stepped in front of them, stopping them before they took two steps toward the door. She waited for him to say whatever it was he had to say. “My sister called me. She said you weren’t answering your phone and she has a...code four, I believe she called it.”

A code four meant Sara’s daughter Rachel was asking for a visit from Auntie J. As late as it was, the girl was probably still awake.

Seamus pulled Juliana’s phone from his pocket. He’d put it there for safe keeping after he confiscated it at the house. “Sorry,” he said with a shrug and handed it over.

She scrolled through her three missed calls. They were all from Sara.

While she was sure the twins wouldn’t mind accompanying her to Sara’s house, they’d done their duty for the night. “Take me home, I’ll ride my bike to Sara’s.”

Thomas arched one thin brow. “You’ve been drinking. And you’re injured.”

“I don’t like leaving you alone. Maybe Thomas should drive you,” Simon suggested.

She narrowed her eyes at him as Thomas said, “I’d be happy to take you. I need to see my sister anyway.”

Simon shook his head. “Don’t you look at me like that. You’re not fully recovered and you know it. And I’m sure the vampire would be better to have around than us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Seamus grumbled.

Despite his brother’s protest, Simon had a point. Thomas was a trained fighter with centuries of experience. Not bad backup to have on hand. But that didn’t mean she had to like it.

Still glaring at him, she motioned for him to hand over the belongings she’d given him earlier. She might have been off duty, but she didn’t go anywhere without her badge and gun being close by. Her sword tended to draw more attention that she usually cared for in public when she wasn’t working. Besides, her arm still wasn’t in good enough shape to use it. She slid the badge over her neck and tucked the gun into the back of her pants after making sure the safety was on. It wasn’t her preferred way to wear the weapon, but it was better than waving it around the club.

She said goodbye to the boys then snagged a handful of Thomas’s shirt so she wouldn’t lose him in the crowd. Thomas reached back without breaking stride. He unwrapped her hand from his shirt and held it in his. When she tried to pull away, he stopped and tugged her against his side so he could talk next to her ear. “You’ll ruin the silk. It’s my hand or my belt loop, whichever you prefer.”

She didn’t think either was a particularly wise option, but kept hold of his hand and let him lead her out of the bar. He still refused to let go when they reached the parking lot. He grinned at her over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t want you to get lost.”

She rolled her eyes and fired up her gift so nothing could sneak up on them in the dark. Pain flared through her skull with the action and she did her best to ignore it. A temporary pain was better than a permanent death. A glance at Thomas showed him bathed in a sheen of lavender and blue. He was brighter than he used to be, more powerful.

He let go of her hand when they got to the car and he noticeably dimmed. She frowned. It was a physical representation of their union. Just her touch made him more powerful. It was also a reminder of why she couldn’t trust a word he said.

When Thomas asked her to be his life mate, she said yes because she loved him. She asked for time because she wasn’t sure if he wanted her or the power she brought him. Something about the two of them being together made their abilities stronger. She’d first noticed it a year or so before their union. About the time Thomas started seeing her as more than a smart-assed pain in the neck. She was too smart to think the timing was entirely coincidental.

She reached out and touched his hand again and the signature flared. She repeated the experiment two more times with the same result. He flared brighter than he used to. Time had apparently made their effect on each other stronger or their union had increased their power more than she thought.

“Finished?” he asked, laughter in his voice.

Heat flooded her face. She grumbled and slid into the car while he held the door for her. He chuckled and went around to his own side. As soon as he started the car, she rolled down the window.

“You’re not sick, are you?” He cast a fearful glance around the interior of the car. No doubt he already regretted offering her a ride.

“Calm down. I had like three shots. I just don’t like being cooped up,” she told him. It was the reason she had a motorcycle. That and the ability it gave her to dodge traffic. Resting her head next to the window, she studied the darkness. Cold, sharp air stung her nose when she took a deep breath. Cooling relief flooded her lungs.

A flash of color at the edge of the parking lot stole her breath and straightened her spine. Purple-blue with swirls of black. A vampire tainted by dark magic. She hadn’t seen a signature like that in years. Seven to be exact.

Oblivious to her discovery, Thomas pulled out of the space and she lost sight of it.

“Stop the car!” She threw open the door as Thomas slammed on the brakes. Springing out, she looked back to the shadows where she’d seen the blaze of color. Nothing. She spun in a circle, searching. Still nothing.

She could have walked across the parking lot to where she’d seen the flash of color. She should have if for no other reason than to see if a trace of the signature remained. But she really didn’t want to know. The realization that she didn’t have the courage to move closer to investigate filled her with disgust. When had she become such a coward? Jumping at shadows, hiding from swaths of color in the night?

“What is it?” Thomas looked at her over the top of the car.

She hesitated a moment before shaking her head slowly. “I thought I saw something. I must be more tired than I thought. I couldn’t have seen what I thought I did.”

They got back in the car and sat in silence. She was sure Thomas wanted an explanation, but she had none to give him. Her hands began to tremble and she closed her eyes, forced herself to breathe. Thomas wrapped his hand around hers, helping her find her center.

She found it difficult to believe she’d imagined Raoul despite what she said to Thomas. Fate wasn’t that kind to her.

Raoul had been a black mage before his sire turned him into a vamp in medieval Spain. He was one of the last mages turned. Not that anyone had been brought over since the Rending. The Council forbade it. But the ban on mages came long before that. Mages lost most of their ability during the transition. More than one had gone mad when they found themselves with only a fraction of their former power. A feral vampire with magical abilities, no matter how minor, wasn’t something the Council wanted to deal with.

Raoul was the only vampire she’d ever met whose signature was tainted with black magic. It made no sense for him to be here now, though. Michael and she had been hunting him for years with no luck. He wouldn’t return now, not with Thomas here.

Even Raoul wasn’t that stupid.