Edge of Darkness (6 page)

“Where shall I stop, miss?” said Corbin, slowing as he pulled around the corner and onto the one-way street that ran behind the plaza. Like many plazas in Barcelona, the large cobblestone square was for pedestrians only, off-limits to all but delivery vehicles or the police.

“There,” Ember said, her voice trembling. With her right hand she indicated the back of a building half a block up. Her left remained curled to a fist in her lap, and Christian impulsively reached out and placed his own on top of it. Beneath his fingers, her hand was ice cold. It felt very fragile and small.

She turned, startled at the contact, and looked at him. Reflected in the moonlight streaming through the windows, her face was wan and pale. She was frightened, deeply frightened, and he sensed her reaction was about far more than what had just happened. He felt an unexpected, almost overwhelming urge to take her in his arms and comfort her.

“You’re all right,” he reassured her softly, holding her gaze. “You’re safe.”

“I’m safe…with you.”

It was a whisper, nearly inaudible, and Christian wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. Either way, it was a minefield, one he didn’t want to explore.

She could never be safe with him. Not really. Temporarily, maybe, and in instances like this where he could save her from little accidents, prevent her from coming to harm in one of the million ways a human could be harmed going about their everyday lives.

But in the big ways, the ways that really mattered, she’d never be safe with him. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Unfortunately, his body didn’t care. His heart didn’t care.
He
didn’t care, in spite of all the reasons he should.

“Let me walk you up,” he said.

She shook her head. “I’m fine.”

No, she wasn’t. And he wasn’t taking no for an answer. “I’m walking you up.” He opened his door before Corbin could get out of the car, and had her door open before she could protest. He held out his hand and she stared up at him, seeming very small and fragile in the back seat of his car, her little cat’s ears pricked forward as if listening for something.

“Really, Christian, I’m fine.”

“So you’ve said. Now get out of the car or I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you up.”

Her face went a shade paler and he had to smile. “That was a joke. A bad one. I apologize. I promise to behave.”

Her lips twisted, a rueful little smile that had him dying to know what she was thinking. Without commenting, she accepted his outstretched hand and climbed out of the car. Once standing, she immediately withdrew her hand from his. “It’s just over here,” she said, and turned, leaving him to follow behind her.

He nodded to Corbin, who watched them through the windshield, and turned away before the sight of Corbin’s worried face could distract him.

When they reached her apartment building—a five-story walk-up of creamy stone, with a tiny café and a newsstand on the ground floor and stone gargoyles leering down from the balustrades of the terrace on top—she hesitated, looking up. “Um, I think this is good. My landlord lives on the second floor and…” She hesitated, chewing her lip. “He sort of thinks I’m out of town. I don’t want to wake him up.”

His brows rose. “How will he know it’s you? And why does he think you’re out of town?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and sent a nervous glance at the dark windows on the second floor. “He always knows it’s me, he’s got Spidey senses. And…I’m a little behind on the rent. Asher covered for me and said I was out of town so I could buy a few more days. It’s been really slow at the bookstore lately, and I just,” she cleared her throat, “I just needed a little more time to get it together.”

She looked pained as she spoke the words, scuffing the toe of her boot against the ground and lowering her lashes, and it was obvious it galled her to admit she was short on her rent. Especially to someone like him, he realized with an unhappy clench in his stomach, a man who dined at the finest restaurants in the city, owned a car that cost upward of six figures, and had a driver to boot. He’d never given much thought to his own wealth because he’d always had it, as had his father, and his father before him. As the son of an Earl, Christian had never wanted for anything.

Anything material, that is. He’d wanted plenty of things that had nothing to do with money. Those things—freedom, autonomy, the choice of where to live—were far more important than all his wealth and privilege combined. Ember had those things, and though she probably wouldn’t believe him if he told her, he’d trade places with her in a minute.

He sometimes thought people had no idea how good they really had it. They seemed always to focus on the bad things, the little inconveniences or discontents, when in reality most people had far, far more valuable things than he did. He was Gifted, as were all of his kind, but most humans had the greatest gift of all: choice.

He shook all those thoughts off and to Ember he said, “So we’re sneaking you in, then.” He grinned at her. “Cool.”

He wanted to laugh at the look on her face. Startled, horrified, relieved, her expression went through a dozen transformations in the five seconds it took for her to compose herself and answer.

“Oh, so we’re inviting ourselves up, are we?”

“I’d love an espresso, if you’ve got it. And I did promise to behave,” he said, very seriously, with his best “I’m trustworthy” face.

“No, Mr. Fancypants, I do
not
have espresso.”

Her voice was cool, she’d arched one dark eyebrow, which clearly telegraphed disdain, and she was looking at him as if he were an insect she’d like to smash beneath her boot.

Insanely, he was crushed. She didn’t want him to come up. She wanted him to leave—

“But I do have tea, if your snobby palate can handle that.”

She broke into a smile, wide and unguarded, and he felt the same punch to the gut he’d felt the first time she smiled at him. Her smile was nothing short of breathtaking.

“Well, I am British. We perfected the bloody stuff. I think my palate will survive.”

She rolled her eyes—cheeky girl—and said, “All right, but you have to be quiet. Like,
really
quiet. Dante can hear mice going up those stairs and I live on the top floor.”

“Ah. Spidey senses.” Christian’s grin grew wider. “In that case, you better leave this to me.”

She cocked her head, brows drawn together quizzically, and before she could utter another word, feeling a strange, dark exhilaration heating his blood, he leaned in close to her ear and whispered, “You’re going to want to hang on for this.”

Then, surprising himself with his boldness and the strength of the sudden, fierce glee that seized him, he picked Ember up in his arms and began to run.

It all happened so fast. Faster than she could react, faster than she could draw even a single breath. One second he was leaning down with a mischievous glint in his eye, whispering in her ear, the next second she was aloft, held tight in his arms, flying through the air as if propelled by a jet engine.

He was running with her. In his arms.
Fast
. And it was utterly, completely silent.

There wasn’t even the sound of his shoes striking the worn cobblestones of the plaza, or the hollow echo of the wood as they hit the stairs. There was only the slightly nauseating sense of rapid motion, the wind cool on her face, the plaza and stairwell a passing smear of color. And when they arrived at the top of five flights of stairs in less time than it would take to count from one to ten and Christian stood looking down at her, smiling at what must have been the sheer, obvious shock on her face, she felt a lurching in her stomach completely unrelated to the speed at which they’d just travelled.

“What—how—”

She couldn’t get it out. She was breathless, stunned, stiff as a board in his arms. Her arms were wrapped tightly around his neck, and her fingers were sunk into the hard, bunched muscles of his shoulders. It was a good thing she didn’t have long nails, because he would definitely have been bleeding.

His smile grew wider. Those green, green eyes twinkling with a seductive dark glow, he said, “Your landlord’s not the only one with Spidey senses.”

Ember made a noise that was neither a word nor a gasp, but something in between, a little sound that was the perfect description for everything she felt.

Carefully, he eased her to the ground, making sure she was able to support herself on her own two feet before releasing her. She wobbled unsteadily in her high-heeled boots and had to lean against her apartment door for support.

“How did you do that?” she finally managed, trying to catch her breath.

He shrugged, slid his hands into his pockets, smiled, and said nothing.

“Okay…secrets. Great. I can deal with secrets.” She’d had her own for years.

His smile faltered, replaced by a look of intensity, a look she was beginning to recognize too well. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“Tell, I think you mean.”

He gazed at her, his expression contemplative and somehow severe. A current of electricity crackled between them, bright as danger. “Do I?”

Trying to feign indifference to cover her pounding heart and the heat flooding her cheeks, Ember swallowed and said lightly, “You promised to behave, Fancypants.”

A muscle in his jaw worked. “Believe me, Ember, this
is
me behaving.”

Her heart fluttered, a direct response to the glowing dark burn in his eyes. “How bout we just get you that tea, then you can go back to training for the Olympic sprint?”

Before he could answer she turned to the door, hiding her face from his ignited look, eager to get inside and avoid any more sudden, weightless travel in his arms.

What on earth had just happened?

She’d hidden the house key in the saucer of the drooping, potted pothos beside her front door, and quickly retrieved it. She unlocked the door and entered the apartment, with Christian following silently on her heels.

She didn’t turn on any lights, because she wasn’t even supposed to be there. But that presented a problem. The two of them couldn’t wander around in the dark…and how was she going to make his damn tea if she couldn’t see the stove?

And did she really want to be alone with Mr. Spidey Senses in the dark?

Her body said one thing, her good sense another. She stood undecided for several moments, then muttered, “Oh, screw it.” Kicking off her boots, she padded to the kitchen and turned on the little light above the stove, which gave her enough illumination to work with but left the rest of the flat in semi-darkness.

“Make yourself comfortable.” She waved a hand toward the living room and set about retrieving a mug from the cupboard in the kitchen, filling the kettle with water and setting it to boil on the stove. Which tea to serve him, she wondered, hesitating over the collection of small, colorful boxes in the spice cabinet. Ceylon? Oolong? Chamomile?

She went with Earl Grey. It just seemed to fit.

“I like your place,” he said from behind her.

She imagined him gazing around the flat, taking in the low gleam of the polished terra cotta floors, the gilt and claret velvet antique divan her father had bought for her and restored to its pre-flea-market glamour, the exposed dark wood beams that bisected the whitewashed ceiling and lent the room a stately, rustic air. And of course, the books. Acres of books lined one entire wall, and though he couldn’t see it, the bedroom sported its own wall of books, all of them snug in the custom floor-to-ceiling shelves she’d built and stained herself.

Ember acquired her artistic bent from her father, but from her mother—a woman who’d milked her own cows, made her own clothes, and knew the name of every plant, tree, and wildflower—she inherited a practical talent for making things with her hands. And a love of the natural world, and all the things in it.

“You don’t have a television.” He sounded surprised, and no wonder; what kind of weirdo didn’t have a television?

The September Jones kind, that’s what.

“I hate television. The only thing more depressing than a reality show is the news. And besides, if I had a TV, that would leave less room for my books. I’m a bit obsessed, as you can see.”

“You don’t say.” There was wry humor in his voice. She imagined that dazzling smile of his, those sculpted lips curving upward, and she had to smile, too. “There’s this newfangled technology that might help you out with your book fetish. Maybe you’ve heard of it…a
Kindle?
”

She shrugged. “I like the smell of books, especially old ones, and the way a book feels in my hands. And sometimes I write in the margins or underline things. It’s more…interactive. More real, in a way. I did try a Kindle once, though. Honestly I thought it was kind of freaky, all those tiny books trapped inside. Just looking at all those half-inch book covers crowded together on an eight-inch screen made me feel claustrophobic.”

“Ember, the words ‘seek therapy’ come to mind,” he said dryly.

Been there, done that. Didn’t work.
She shrugged again, and he began to slowly walk through the room, his footsteps nearly inaudible.

“That’s a beautiful cello.”

Ember stilled, teabag in hand. She’d been just about to put it into the mug, but then he’d spoken.
That’s a beautiful cello.

It was. Old and burnished and haunted by the ghost of her former self, it rested on a stand in one corner of the room, where she could always see it. Because she needed the daily reminder.

Nothing lasts. Impermanence is the only permanence there is.

Once you fully realize you can die at any moment, tomorrow is nothing more than wishful thinking. Today is the only reality that exists. Right now. Past and future are just figments of your imagination.

When she didn’t comment, Christian asked, “Do you play?”

She released her breath in a long, silent exhalation. “No. Not at all.”

There was a pause, but he didn’t press it, and the tension in her shoulders eased.

But when she turned back to him, the tension seized her again, only now it was in every muscle in her body. He was standing beside the low console table that flanked the divan, studying a framed picture he held in his hand. A picture he’d lifted from the table. He looked up at her and said, “Is this your family?”

Ember swallowed around the flame of agony that rose in her throat. It still hurt, after all these years, those four simple words that should have started with
was
instead of
is
.

Fighting back the sudden, horrible onslaught of tears, she swallowed and said, “Yes. That’s my mom and dad, Keely and Carter. And my…my little brother. August.”

Auggie. We called him Auggie
, she thought, and bit the inside of her mouth.

“Your parents named you and your brother after months of the year?” He seemed interested, not at all critical or mocking the way the kids at school had been.

“My mom was a bit of a hippie. She grew up in a commune in Oregon and had strange ideas about a lot of things.”

That was a gross understatement. Her mother had strange ideas about everything. She was into astrology, numerology, and the Tarot, and often said she was just biding her time on Earth until the mother ship arrived to take her home. An Aquarian, the free-thinking, oddball, idealistic sign of the zodiac, Keely Carter was a natural force unto herself. She was a passionate, challenging, unconventional person, and Ember missed her, every single day.

Her mother had devoured life. She’d inhaled it. To this day, Ember had still never met another person so unafraid.

“My brother was born in August, hence the name, and I—”

“You were born in September,” Christian correctly guessed.

Ember sighed. “A few more days and my name would’ve been October. Scary thought, right?”

He was looking at her sharply, his green gaze piercing. “And they live in Spain, too?”

Her stomach dropped. She turned back to the stove, and the kettle began to waver from the moisture suddenly welling in her eyes. “Tea’s ready. Do you take milk? Sugar?”

There was a pause that seemed pregnant, then he came up behind her. He was still in stealth mode, his steps silent over the floor. She knew he was there anyway because she was so attuned to his movement, to his presence, his warmth, his very breath, she could pinpoint his exact location in the room. He leaned with his hips against the counter next to the stove and watched her pour the boiling water from the kettle into the waiting mug.

In a quiet voice, he said, “My parents were killed in a car accident six years ago. It was the worst day of my life. But, in a way…I’m glad they went together.”

Stricken, unable to speak, Ember looked over at him. Tears burned her eyes.

A car accident. Killed in a car accident.

She had to fight to breathe, and slowly, very carefully, set the kettle back on the stove.

“They were married thirty-five years. In all that time, they never once spent a night apart. They still held hands. It used to make me cringe when I was young, seeing how they looked at each other. I thought it was so embarrassing. But now I realize how lucky they were. How lucky my brother and sister and I were to have them as parents.”

Ember felt her lower lip tremble, and bit down on it, hard, to make it stop. His gaze dropped to her mouth then jumped back up to her eyes. He waited, silently, for her to speak.

“My father died three years ago. Just a year after we moved here,” she whispered.

“It was sudden?” Christian’s voice was lowered to match her own. The intimacy of the moment was excruciating, standing in her kitchen with a total stranger, serving him tea and speaking aloud words she had promised herself she’d never speak again.

Ember nodded. “Heart attack.”

Christian watched her, still waiting, his eyes vivid with empathy.

She took a breath, tried to blink the moisture away. It didn’t work. “He was at his easel, painting. I’d come up to the studio to bring him lunch and he was fine, everything was fine. Then after we ate he went back to work and I was just sitting there, reading a book, and I heard him make the oddest noise.”

Ember closed her eyes and saw it all again, just as clear as if it had happened yesterday. The relentless summer heat, the smell of oil paint and acetone, her father at the easel, both handsome and haggard. The Beethoven he always played drifting through hidden speakers in the walls.

“He looked out the window—there was a wall of windows in his studio, he needed the light—and he had this expression on his face, as if he…as if he’d seen something. Or someone. But there was no one there, just the trees, the clouds, and the sunshine. And he said, ‘Oh.’ Just that. ‘Oh.’ Then he fell off the stool onto the floor. He didn’t suffer, he was gone instantly. When the ambulance came to take him away the medic said he’d never seen anyone look so peaceful.”

But that wasn’t what the medic had really said. The medic had said
happy
. He’d never seen a dead person look so happy. And Ember knew he was right. Her father had technically died of a heart attack, but it had been brought on by a broken heart and he had been glad to finally be rid of life.

On the worst of the nights afterward when she couldn’t sleep, she’d stare up at the dark ceiling while memories crowded in, cold and frightening like hovering ghosts. As pain crawled over her body like a thousand writhing snakes, she’d wonder what it was her father had seen outside the window. She’d wonder what it was that had startled him, what had made him meet his maker with that look of relieved euphoria on his face.

Or who.

“And your mother?”

Ember’s left hand stuttered—that awful, telling tremble she hated with every fiber of her being—and she curled it to a fist at her side. With her right hand she picked up the mug of tea and handed it over without looking at him.