Deliver Me from Temptation (22 page)

“Logan, might want to check that.”

Alex, always the voice of reason, even when the shit was hitting the fan. Logan didn’t care. He’d had enough and was about to retry the physical method of persuasion—not killing, just a bit of maiming—but Roland cut him off again, his voice low and cajoling as he tried to strike a deal.

“Tell you what. You tell my buddy where his girl is and I’ll come down to the station with you, give you the statement you wanted the other day.”

“She’s not
his
girl,” Mike snipped back.

Roland merely raised a whatever-you-want-to-believe eyebrow at that.

Mike ran his tongue over his teeth, his gaze shifting to Alex before settling back on Roland. “You’re really going to go against council’s advice?”

“He’s my lawyer, not my babysitter.”

That got a growl from Alex, but he otherwise held his tongue.

“You’ll confess everything?” Mike pressed.

“There’s nothing to confess,” Roland said tightly. “But I’ll give you a statement.”

“One that can be proved?”

“Well, that depends on how open-minded you are.” Roland eased in closer, his gaze moving pointedly to the hand that still rubbed the back of Mike’s neck. But you’re not very open-minded, are you, Mikey?”

“Roland, stop,” Alex said sharply. “He’s not ready for this.”

But Mike was already eyeing them again, his brow furrowed as if either trying to work out a puzzle or trying to fend off a massive headache. He opened his mouth, ready to either ask what the heck Roland was talking about, or tell them to go to Hell, but he never got the chance.

“I got it!” Bennett called, causing four heads to swivel as he hurried back down the hall to them. “St. Luke’s,” he announced triumphantly.

Roland turned back to Mike “Sorry. Guess our deal is off.” He smiled, showing just the barest hint of fang. “But call me if you ever want to hear the truth.”

I am so fucked
, Logan thought as he analyzed the silken skin beneath his hand.

Though Jessica was a tall woman, and practically took up the entire length of the hospital bed, she looked dainty compared to him. So sweet, her lips parted slightly as she breathed, her slender rib cage rising and falling just enough to remind him of her fragile humanity.

Human. Vulnerable. And his mate.

His hand tingled against the delicate skin at the base of her smooth throat. A soul-eating desire pressing at him from the inside out, urging him to begin the ceremony that would mark her as his mate. That would bond them body, heart, and soul.

Do
it. Mark her. It’s the best way to protect her.

But he couldn’t. Every time he began to center his power. Every time he opened his mouth, ready to let free the words that would begin the formal bond between them, was the moment that fear clamped down around him, stifling his power.

They were already too close. Their night together allowed him a window into her soul. A connection that he both feared and desired from the very beginning. If he marked her, opening that connection completely, he would feel everything. He would know her inside and out. All her wants and desires. Where she was. What she was doing. How she felt at any given moment in time. And though he’d been told by other bonded Paladin that those things, though alarmingly invasive, still brought with them a fucked-up sort of comfort, it wasn’t that which stayed his hand.

She was human, vulnerable. And, if fully bonded, he’d
feel
her die.

So
what
are
you
going
to
do, Calhoun? Let her run around out there unprotected? Let your enemies take her for their pleasure and your pain?

No. He caressed her throat, the place where his mark should be, but never would be. He couldn’t mark her. But he
would
stay close. Watch over her. Keep her safe. She’d live a long life because of it. And if he was lucky, she would allow him to be part of it. She’d allow him to love her with every bit of his being that he could give her, and still keep enough safe to stay sane when she passed.

And
is
anything
short
of
everything
really
going
to
be
enough?

“It has to be,” he said aloud, forcing his hand to lift from her throat. His voice, or perhaps the removal of the slight pressure of his hand, changed the atmosphere of the hospital room. He watched Jessica’s eyelids flutter, her breathing hitch slightly as she drew in her waking breath. She blinked up at him, opening her mouth, then smacked her dry lips.

“Here.” He reached over to the side table, pouring some water from the pitcher into a cup. It was warm now but he didn’t dare go out to track down the ice machine. He was lucky to be in here at all, and wasn’t about to risk being kicked out.

He had to use all his charm, flashing dimples left and right, to gain access to her room. Not that anything could have barred his way. He didn’t exactly want to start wiping the minds of nurses, doctors, and staff alike, but if there had been no other way to get to Jessica, he would have.

Good thing he hadn’t had to. Who knows if he might have inadvertently wiped something important? Another patient’s well-being was not something he wanted to gamble with, and the Big Guy probably wouldn’t have been too pleased with him either.

Yeah, and He’s obviously so happy with you right now. Sending you a human for a mate.

Shoving aside the irreverent thought, Logan carefully handed Jessica the half-full cup. She took it, and he watched her sip, her hand trembling enough that water dribbled down her chin. The urge to take the cup from her and help her was great but he didn’t dare. Not after their last parting.

She drank every drop then handed the cup back to him. As she did her eyes narrowed on the IV stuck in her hand. The bandages were bloody, indicating they’d probably had to search for a vein.

“Wow. This is surreal.”

“How so?” he asked carefully.

“You know how you’re having a nightmare and you think that all you have to do is think one good thought and it will end?”

“Mine are normally the other way around. I’ll be having a good dream, then one bad thought sends it to Hell,” he explained at her puzzled look.

She sighed. “Mine do that a lot too, actually.” She closed her eyes, then opened them again, smiling. “You really are here though, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“It’s just…How did you find me—I mean, how did you know?”

“I’ll always find you,” he replied solemnly.

He half expected her to freak at that, but she didn’t, instead locked gazes with him.

Something had changed. Some sort of shift between them. Like maybe staring death in its face had made her more accepting of the crazy things he’d told her, or at least not care about them so much. He would have rejoiced but for one irrefutable fact: She was in a hospital bed because he hadn’t protected her.

“Hey. Don’t look so much like you’re at a funeral. I’m okay.”

“You consider being stabbed okay?”

Her gaze flitted guiltily to her bandaged arm. “It was just a scratch.”

“That needed twenty-six stitches and a blood transfusion!” Fear clamped around his chest, squeezing the words out forcefully.

She laid her good hand on his arm. His gaze followed. His skin tingled from the simple touch, but even that pang of basic lust couldn’t break him from his terror.

She could have been killed. The defense wound across her forearm could have dug a fraction of an inch deeper, hitting artery instead of just veins, or worse, she could have not gotten her arm up in time. Then she would have had a knife buried in her chest instead—no, not just any knife, the knife he fucking gave her.

The hurried presurgery scratches on her chart spiked the back of his retina again. Stab wound. Massive blood loss. At risk for cardiac arrest.

How had her attacker been able to handle the Paladin blade? None of Lucifer’s creatures should have been able to touch the thing, let alone use it against one of His children. Unless…maybe it had been a human possessed? Or even simpler, a thug or druggie recruited for the vampires’ cause of eliminating her?

Or
maybe
an
ex-con bent on revenge? Ever think of that, Logan?

“Why in the hell did you open the door?” he found himself demanding, his voice rising as he went on. “Do you let just anybody in?”

“I didn’t know he was there. I’d gotten a call from an informant and was on my way out. When I opened the door, whammo, there he was. Only…” she looked away from him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

Cold seeped all the way through him, his heart stuttering at the deep chill. “You just pulled another informant from a Dumpster less than twenty-four hours ago. You were attacked the night before. Do you think maybe someth—one has decided to target you?”

Her chin lifted. “If so, then it means I’m getting close to the truth, now doesn’t it?”

“And the truth is worth this?” He gestured at the bandages, the IV plugged into her arm.

Her jaw squared off stubbornly. “Yes.”

He started to swear, but stopped himself midstream. He had to tone it down unless he wanted to have the room full of hospital staff.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. I was…” What? Angry? Not exactly.

Scared. Scared to death.

They sat in silence for a while. Jessica fiddled with the IV tube as if it irritated her, but then she dropped it, exhaling. “Grim, my informant,” she explained, “was in trouble. He begged for my help. Should I have just hung up and gone to bed?”

“I’m not saying that. Just…” he took a deep breath. “What sort of trouble?”

“I’m not sure. The connection was bad, breaking up. I got his location and that he was hiding from trouble but that was about it.”

“Where?”

“Manida Street.”

A lot of old, rundown warehouses there. Three blocks from where her other informant had died. “And you had to run right over there to see. Even knowing the situation could be dangerous.”

She gave a slight lift and drop of her shoulders. “It was Grim. Punk or not, Grim’s a good kid. I couldn’t turn my back on him.”

“So you decided to save him. Grab your badge, grab your gun, and off you go to save the day.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t going to go alone. I had my cell and was about to call Mike but then…” Her breath hitched, air rasping through a constricted throat. A second later the machines started beeping as her heart rate spiked, the oxygen monitor screaming.

Crap, she was hyperventilating. And here he was without a paper bag.

Throwing a quick shield across the door, he grasped her good hand, laying his other palm against her cheek, placing his face right near hers as he tried to talk her down. “It’s okay, Jessica. Breathe in, and out. In…”

He glanced at the door, then back at the machines. She was breathing easier and the beeping machines quieted. He waited a couple more minutes, but when her breath remained even and there was no banging on the door, he sat back, letting his hold on the shield go.

“You okay?” he asked, pushing a tear-slicked strand of hair from her temple.

“I’m sorry. I haven’t had one of those in forever.”

“Forever being when Julia died?”

She clamped her lips tight, looking away, if not confirmation than a really big clue.

It didn’t matter anyway. Obviously it took a pretty intense trauma to send his little warrior into a panic attack, which, ironically was too bad. He could have handled a woman prone to panic attacks. What he couldn’t handle was this death wish his mate seemed to have.

“Did it ever occur to you that Grim could have set you up?”

She turned her face away, her lips pulled tight between her teeth.

“Jessica?”

She sighed, turning her head back. “Doesn’t matter if he did or didn’t.”

“It doesn’t matter?”

“No, because if I’m right, then Thomas Rhodes may have been killed by the same man the victim in the Dumpster was killed by. But without any leads I can’t do anything. Whether Grim is in trouble or was baiting me doesn’t matter because either way, he’s involved, and if I play my cards right, I can use him to track the bastard down.”

“Does finding their killer matter more than your life?” he asked tightly.

Her lips firmed, her jaw line getting the stubborn set to it that he was becoming used to seeing. “Finding the killer is the only thing that matters.”

Logan hung his head.
The
killer. Not their killer or Tom’s killer, but
the
killer. And by using those words she confirmed his greatest fear. The reckless passion she had for her job wasn’t so much a calling as a personal quest. Whether the victim was a senator, a hobo, an innocent bystander, or a drug dealer didn’t matter. What mattered was that someone had killed them. Someone had unnaturally ended their life. And Jessica was so damn good at tracking them down because to her, every killer out there became a representative of the bastards who took her sister away. And though she stopped short of all-out revenge, she was bound and determined to see them in the human’s version of Hell: behind bars, rotting their lives away. The problem was that it was consuming her life.

Cancer. Her anger was a cancer eating at her from the inside out. He was beginning to fear that the only way to extract it was to eliminate the source. And he’d find a way to do it too, because protecting her in this life wasn’t enough. She was his mate: mind, heart, body,
and
soul. And if this cancer threatened her soul? Then he’d do anything to remove it. Anything.

“God, Jessica. You are going to be the death of me, aren’t you?”

“What did you say?”

He shook his head, standing.

“Where are you going?”

“There is something I have to do. But I’ll be back before they release you.” He stroked her cheek with his hand, basking in how she instinctively turned her face into it. It felt like the light of Heaven bathed over him when she whispered her next words.

“I don’t want you to go.”

“I won’t be long. Just do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

He lifted her hand with the IV, kissing the bruised skin around the bandage. “Don’t go anywhere this time.”

***

Jessica stared at anything but the door Logan left through, refusing to allow the tears she felt pooling in her eyes to fall. Her hand still tingled from the kiss he’d pressed there. A kiss that had awakened every nerve, every memory of their time together.

But it wasn’t that moment that told her she was completely sunk, it was when she first woke and saw him there and her heart did a pitter-patter. She knew because the machines told her so.

Sitting there, so large and so obviously uncomfortable in the small plastic chair he looked so…human. Lines of strain she never noticed before. Not that she’d known him for long, but the time they shared had certainly been intimate enough that she would’ve thought to notice. Not to mention that immortal warriors weren’t supposed to look so susceptible.

Oh yeah, she’d fully accepted that he was what he said he was. She’d meant to tell him. Meant to let him know she believed him now. Ask him to explain more about himself and what it meant for them. But his questions diverted her, rutting her in the cold-bone anger she always felt when she tracked a killer. She let him leave thinking the only thing that mattered in her life was the case, the chase, the capture. But that wasn’t the truth. Not anymore.

She loved Logan. Sometime in the last three days, between all the craziness and the roller coaster ride of adrenaline and endorphins, she’d fallen for him. It scared the crap out of her. And yet it made her feel whole.

But what good was love when there was no solid foundation for it. She couldn’t even tell him the truth.