Beyond destiny fallen gu.., p.18
Beyond Destiny: Fallen Guardians, page 18
His heart pumping like mad as if it would escape him, Nate pursued the pull instead, like an invisible thread tethered to him, reeling him in. Only one person affected him in this way…
A half-hour earlier…
Ely stood on the upper deck of the boathouse apartment and braided her hair, damp from her icy shower. Moonlight poured down in platinum rays, flickering over the sea’s calm surface, enclosing her in a moment of tranquility, much needed after her almost twenty-four hours of confinement in the musty cavern in the Catskills.
But she received no respite, not from the hiking heat or her churning emotions, keeping her on edge. So, she gave up and came here. But thoughts of what happened in that basement sent her mind back into turmoil, and she wrapped her arms around her waist.
Her torment and careening emotions were entirely on her. She had to find a way to deal and move on. Sighing, she shut out thoughts of her dismal failure at relationships and glanced around, her focus settling on the building shadows on the deck.
She waved her hands, and the shadows drifted toward her, enfolding her palms like foggy, black mittens, bits of the dense streaks she’d seen several days ago forming again.
Ugh. Fat lot of good you do me.
Frustration torquing her, she wrenched the shades free, but they separated like strings. Scowling, she flung her hands out. The strands shot through the air, hitting the wooden handrail and causing it to creak. Yup, her incredible power couldn’t even zap a cockroach, let alone a demonii. Stupid ability
Sensing she wasn’t alone, Ely grasped the wooden rail and peered down at the enormous sailboat anchored below.
Hedori glanced up from where he sat on his haunches, unmooring his vessel. He lifted a hand in greeting. “My lady, I thought you’d gone to Ground?”
She sighed. He persisted in calling her that even though she no longer lived on Empyrea.
“It’s Ely. And yes, I did. But I couldn’t take being buried in there any longer…” She lifted a shoulder in a helpless shrug. “I know only the Empyrean males—the high lords—have to Ground the excess of their overwhelming powers, not us females. So why is this happening?”
Hedori slowly straightened, holding the heavy rope, the moonlight casting a silvery sheen to his steel-gray hair. “It is unusual for a female to be affected. Perchance, it lies with your abilities gifted from the goddess, Gaia?”
“Perhaps.” She sighed, her grip tightening on the handrail, and the thing shattered—
“Eeep!” she shrieked, tipping forward. Only her quick reflexes stopped her from falling headfirst into the icy water. She landed on her feet next to Hedori, who’d already shot up, reaching for her.
“That was a close one,” he said, smiling.
“Aye.” She grimaced. Though come to think of it, maybe she should have let it happen since nothing else seemed to be working to ease her.
Hedori lifted his head to the upper deck, his brow creasing at the broken railing. “I hadn’t realized the wood had weakened. My apologies, Ely. I’ll get it fixed, probably encase steel into the timber this time.”
Ely studied the destroyed fence, too, then she frowned…no, it couldn’t be. Heck, her abilities were like a puff of air.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Hedori said, drawing her attention. “The apartment—” He nodded to the flat above. “I’ll have it redecorated, so it’s more suitable for your use.”
What? “Oh, no. You don’t have to do that.”
“Ely, I’ve known you since you were a lass of ten summers,” he said with a quiet smile. “I might have left Empyrea long ago, but I remember. Despite your many friends calling on you, you preferred your solitude. It’s why you paint and don’t play the clavile anymore.”
Even back then he understood her. Still, she snorted. “It wasn’t me they came for…”
She’s so boring, a dullard. How could Reynner have a sister like her?
She shut out the hurtful words. It was why she preferred her own company. Then she met the girls here. They were different. Better. They liked her. Even Echo, who had thought at first that Ely had come after Aethan, her so-called betrothed. If only they all knew the sad, sad truth.
“I was the bridge they used to get in faster and see if my brother was around.”
“Then they didn’t deserve your friendship.”
His quiet words lifted her spirits a little.
He took the broken wood from her. “This place is yours now. Consider it a gift for always making time to talk to a mere bodyguard when I came with Aethan to Ademéras. Besides, I have the space I want here on the lower level.” He waved a hand to the mooring section and the storage place under the apartment.
“There’s nothing mere about you,” Ely said, wishing he’d find his own happiness. “I spoke to you because I liked you. Did you know the females at the castle used to wait for your arrival on Ademéras?” she teased as he examined the broken wood.
A ghost of a smile appeared, and he shook his head. “I’ll fix this tomorrow.” He tossed the wood aside and headed for his sailboat. “Lore is here, going through a few things in the library.”
No, her friend would never leave the castle unprotected.
“Hedori?” she called out, and he glanced back. “I know it’s not my place, but I care about you and want you to be happy. Why don’t you show Jenna what she means to you? In our world, destined mates are so rare.”
He stilled. “And have her run from me, think I’m like that rogue angel who abducted and abused her?” Pain flickered over his features. “When she’s ready, she’ll find me. In the interim, I’ll be the silent support she needs right now.” He cast her another little smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “As long as she’s here, with me, it’s all that matters.”
But sometimes you need a little space, too. Hence, the sailing.
Oh, she understood the feeling all too well. Except it wasn’t the same with her and Nate. He wasn’t even prepared to fight for the possibility of them…and in that intrinsic part of her, deep in her heart, she knew they could be so much more.
Ely clamped down on the hurt and sense of worthlessness attempting to steal through her, and stuck her hands in her jeans pockets. “I think I’ll change and go back to work,” she said as Hedori climbed into the vessel. “I feel useless hanging around here, doing nothing. And thank you for this place. I love it.”
“My pleasure. See you in the morning.” Hedori waved and, moments later, set sail into the night.
Ely watched him until he became a spot in the distance beneath the silvery moonlight.
Right, work. Time to get back to her normalcy, such as it was.
A short while later, back in the Bowery, Ely made her way deeper into the alley, far from the garage. The latter wasn’t a place she wanted to be near in her current state of mind.
She slipped a hand into her coat pocket, stroking the toy she carried, seeking her calm center.
Dreary buildings loomed on either side as she bypassed overflowing trash bags and trudged further into the seedier backstreets, her boots squelching through the sludgy snow—
A whoosh echoed. Then footsteps pounded the asphalt.
“Ely, wait!”
CHAPTER 17
“Ely!”
Ely froze at the sound of that voice.
Then she scowled and pivoted, and the wretched organ in her chest leaped at the sight of him striding toward her, his coat flying open in his near sprint.
By the stars! Why couldn’t the Fates give her a break? How could she move past him when the universe persisted in letting their paths cross repeatedly?
If he was here to ask her to patrol another area…her hands clenched. Fine. She could swap with one of the guys…
Nate stopped in front of her, chest heaving, raking back his unbound hair from his too-handsome face, his jaw spotting days-old stubble. His features appeared drawn beneath the moonlight. Lines bracketed his mouth. She tried not to let herself care. “What do you want, Nate?”
Those striking, flamed-hued, topaz eyes skimmed her face, then lowered to her lips, dragging her thoughts back to their raw, sensual kiss in the cabin. And just as fast, her heart shriveled, remembering why it all went to hell. She hardened her expression, tone razor-sharp with coldness. “What do you want, Nate?” she reiterated. “I have work to do—”
“You left this behind.” He retrieved something from his coat pocket. Held it out.
Her obsidian dagger.
Of course. Why else would he seek her out?
About to take it, she stalled. Maybe she was an idiot, but the stars knew he affected her like no other. And not wanting to wonder what if, she summoned her mate’s dagger from him again.
The weapon vanished, causing Nate to shake his head as it settled on her palm. “I’m not gonna pounce on you if you come closer,” he drawled.
Ely barely heard him, a sharp stab of pain piercing her heart. He wasn’t her destined.
While females of her genus didn’t carry the bonding gene, she had hoped, considering Gaia had handed her a mate’s dagger, too, just like she’d done with the guys. But she should have known after that first time in the alley when they fought and she’d flung her blade at him.
Well, it was better this way than being unwanted by her fated mate. “Weapon delivered. Thank you. Goodbye.”
“Wait.” He grasped her arm when she turned to leave. “We need to talk.”
“There’s nothing left to say.”
He watched her for an endless second. Then the smile that always made her heart leap—and the one she now hated—flickered like a warming flame.
Damn him, and damn the traitorous lump of muscle in her chest. She glowered.
“Ah, laika…” He reached out and tenderly stroked his knuckles down her cheek.
“Don’t!” She jerked back, her spine hitting the building behind her, and he closed the inches between them. “If you’re worried about running into me, don’t be. You won’t even know I’m—”
His mouth came down on hers in a gentle caress, stopping her words. He didn’t seem to care that she held a deadly weapon against his chest, and then he was kissing her. There was something territorial in how he claimed her mouth, intense…passionate. The urge to cave, to surrender, nearly splintered her fragile control.
“No—” She pushed back, fists to his pecs as pain hammered her heart. “Why are you doing this? You made everything crystal clear the other night. So, leave me alone.” Barely able to swallow past the lump in her throat, she brushed past him and hurried down the narrow alley.
He appeared before her in a skid of sludgy snow, blocking her path, his expression torn. “Ely, wait. Please. At least hear me out.”
“You can’t keep doing this, Nate.” Her eyes dampened. “I would have risked everything to be with you, but you—”
“I am sorry, Ely. Hell, I’m a fucking demon with an unhinged symbiont and enough enemies who’d see me dead. And I should stay away, but I can’t seem to do so.”
But you did.
As much as it pained her, she understood why he couldn’t be with her. “You don’t have to explain anything. It’s okay, I under—”
“What the fuck’s okay about any of this?” The orange specks in his irises blazed like an inferno. “When it felt as if my guts had been yanked through my throat watching you leave. I tried to do the right thing, give you a chance at a normal life instead of a fucked-up one with me, but nothing works—not when I think about you all the time,” he said huskily. “If these two days deprived of even a glimpse of you nearly drove me out of my mind, then eternity is going to be absolute torture without you. So no, I’m not letting this damn thing inside me come between us anymore!”
His impassioned words formed cracks in her mental armor, and she wanted so much to believe. But the hurt when he’d rejected her had wounded her deeply.
Nate palmed her cheek, his tender gaze drifting over her face as if memorizing every facet of it. “There is no one like you, Ely. I know I don’t deserve you, but I’ll ask anyway. Give me another chance, please…”
She swallowed painfully, too scared to hope.
At her silence, he brought his other hand to her face. “Talk to me, Ely. Say something. Hell, say anything, even if it’s for me to fuck off. Though I can’t promise you that.”
Her throat sandpapery with emotions, she dismissed her dagger and grasped his wrists. “How do I know you won’t walk away again when things get difficult?” And they would.
“Because you live in here.” He tapped his heart. “In the black, empty space where no light infiltrated until you crept in and took over.”
“What?” She blinked, not expecting that.
“And because I never make promises I can’t keep. In my life, I’ve made two, one to protect my sire and the other, reprisal for the one who—” His mouth tightened, his expression growing colder than the snow in the alley. “It doesn’t matter.”
Whatever number two was had hurt him badly.
“What is two, Nate?” she asked, because it did matter.
After several seconds, he said, “Reprisal for the one who changed my life and made me what I am.”
“The symbionts,” she murmured, a shiver coasting down her heated skin.
He gave a terse nod, but before she could question him further, he said, “I’m a selfish bastard, Ely. And just so you know, if you choose this, choose us, then you are mine. I’m a demon, and yeah, we are all possessive assholes.”
That alone should have sent her running. Heck, she’d run from her overprotective parents, but hearing those words, his promise, especially after witnessing bits of the harsh, dark life he endured, none of it mattered.
Nate was whom she wanted.
More, she realized his life had been as lonely as hers.
The heaviness within her eased. And just as fast, it turned to a lump of dread, her stomach tying itself into knots, not knowing how the others would react when they learned of them. Nate wasn’t even her destined, so she couldn’t use the soulmate card, and he was also a demon housing a dangerous symbiont.
Expelling the air wedged in her lungs, she shrugged off the foreboding. Later, she’d deal with it.
She slid her palms over his chest, needing to touch him. “As long as I’m with you, it’s what matters. You are whom I want.” A smile lit his eyes like a million amber flames igniting, warming them as they tenderly skimmed her features. “But it won’t be easy, Nate. Once the warriors and our leader Michael learn about us.”
He snorted and wrapped his arms around her, pressing his lips on the top of her head. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Wait—what? She pushed away from him, as far his arms would allow since they remained anchored around her waist. Her gaze searched his gorgeous face. “Did you bump into one of the guys? What happened?”
“Nothing I can’t handle—”
“Nate.” She pinned him with a gimlet stare. “Tell me.”
“Let me hold you, laika. So I know you’re not a dream.” He buried his face in her neck, his warm breath fanning the embers of desire that never quieted.
Unable to resist him, she hugged him, relishing in his hard body and strong arms wrapped around her. She brushed his stubbly jaw with a soft kiss, then pressed her mouth to his ear. “Tell me, please.”
He huffed out a laugh. More seconds passed before he straightened, his gaze sweeping the dingy, wet alley with its sludgy snow piles, probably scanning the area around them, too, for his enemies, or her Guardian brothers. However, all seemed quiet.
“I crossed paths with Nik and the blond one here in the Bowery,” he said. “I heard blondie say something about hoping you were okay. I hadn’t seen you for two nights, and with no way to contact you, well, I wasn’t letting it go. Let’s just say he didn’t like me asking after you. Give me your cell phone.”
Ely gaped at him. It had already started. Unease nipped at her with sharp teeth as she fumbled out the device from her coat pocket and handed it over. She knew it would happen, just not this fast. “Did you fight?”
“No.”
Thank Urias! “That’s Týr,” she said then. “He’s, er, rather protective.”
All the guys were, treating her like a younger sibling, but she had her brother for that. Though she understood Týr’s antipathy toward demons, especially after being incarcerated in Tartarus with brutal jailors, not all were vicious, malevolent beings.
“Yeah, I got that,” Nate muttered, his fingers moving carefully over her cell display, then deleting and retyping a few more times.
How hard was it to type his name and number? Frowning, she held out her hand. “Let me do that.”
His lips thinned, a tic working his jaw. Then his cell rang, and he handed her phone back. He’d put himself down as Laika’s followed by a heart emoji, which made her smile. She found him saving her number on his device.
“C’mon. Let’s get out of here.” He pushed his phone into his jeans pocket. “We need to talk.” He grasped her hand, his warm, calloused fingers lacing through hers, causing her heart to clip hard. He flashed them to the garage and ushered her into the workshop. The metal door shut behind them.
Oh, heavens. This was truly happening. He was putting her first, giving them a chance, and a grin started. She didn’t care what roadblock the castle household would erect against her being with him, and the dangers she would face—heck, she was a Guardian and equipped to handle anything—
What he said registered. “Talk about what?”
“Your favorite thing. Me.” His smile was shameless.
Gods, this male! Cocky to the bone. But her insides melted. Still, she couldn’t resist. “Why not me?”
His smile became a laugh, low and seductive as he opened the door into a dark, silent living room, a faint smell of metal and paint lingering in the air. “Oh, we will.”
She deserved that. But tell him about the dull girl she’d been? Ugh, talking about ants crawling on a sidewalk would be more exciting. Scrunching her face, Ely scanned the garage and the surroundings, but all remained quiet. “Where’s Aba?”
