Love Beyond Expectations (13 page)

As she fastened her pants, Ruby smiled at him. "You could just stay here, totally naked, and when I come back from rescuing Colin and stealing a cane, you can be here to service my horny demands."

"Now, Dr Brannon, what would your students think if they heard you like that?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Most of your female students have fantasized about looking at you like this." She leaned back. "I can all but guarantee it."

"Ruby." His cheeks heated up. God, what the woman did to him. When was the last time he'd blushed?

Had he ever done so before? "They don't do that."

She covered her cheeks with her hands. "Oh, darling, I just embarrassed you. How sweet."

He shook his head. "Seriously, before I push you back down on that bed and show you just how hard it is to get me truly embarrassed, we do need to put our considerable IQs together and figure this out. I need to get to my brother, which means I have to focus."

Ruby nodded. "From what I understand, Outsider mating can be very overwhelming. Probably the fact that we're both a little out of it can be explained somehow genetically. But I agree. We need to get our heads straightened out."

When he had more time, he'd read about these so-called mating practices. For now, he needed information. "Where are we?"

"On a small private island that Leonardo, Kal, Charma, and Marina own."

"An island?" He considered the possibilities. "Can we get off to go retrieve my clothes from the back of my car, if it is even still there?"

"We'll have to get the boat out and make our way over. The water is always rough. I usually have to ask someone else to pilot it. Can you handle a boat?"

"I never have." He shook his head. "I love boating but with someone else captaining the vessel."

"Three lifetimes and we face this every time regardless of the dimension." She sighed. "One of these days one of us is going to learn how to do these things."

Her words distracted him from all thoughts of getting dressed. "What did you say?"

She slapped her forehead. "I have no idea where that came from."

"Are you telling me you can actually remember things from times before now? From when we were Outsiders in other…places?"

"In that second, I could." She stormed to the window. "I can't now. Are you telling me you can't?"

"No. Or at least I never have."

Christophe could feel the anxiety coming off of her in large doses. She worried about this. He hadn't meant to do that to her.

Joining her at the window, he put his arms around her to hold her against his heart. "Listen, if you can do that, then it's one of your gifts, yes? We don't have the same powers. What is it Colin said to me? Oh, we complement each other. Okay? That is amazing. It's your secondary power."

"I've always hated being different." She sucked in her breath. "I had to hide it for so long."

"Believe me, I understand. Disappearing in and out of places was not what I was expected to do with myself."

"Right. I could see how that might be a problem. Were your parents understanding?"

"If they knew, they never mentioned it. They've never told me, for example, that I was adopted."

Ruby nodded. "My grandparents never told me that either. But I knew anyway."

"I didn't. You are more intuitive than I am." The woman in his arms amazed him. Even if they'd had three lifetimes together, or more, there were more things he wanted to know about her. He'd watched her and gained some information but not all that he needed. "What is your favorite food?"

"What?" She laughed. "That's a jump in conversation. Um, I really like good pizza. I think I need to go back to New York to get some but I really love good pizza. And coffee. I need to return to Manhattan for that as well."

"I'm afraid I cannot help you with the pizza but I make a stupendous cup of coffee."

She jumped, a grin on her face. "You do? Could you do it right now?"

"If I had clothes,
mon coeur
, I could do anything you wished. Truthfully, I need to get dressed before I can do any of the pressing things that must happen."
Like get to his brother
.

Ruby patted his arm. "I wish I could just make your clothes appear."

A pile of Christophe's clothes hit the floor next to them. He jumped, looking from Ruby to the clothes. She sighed.

"I have a feeling I've brought more than the clothes you had in your car." She walked to closet and opened it. All the clothes from his closet in New York City hung there next to Ruby's. His shoes had also appeared and were laid one next to each other.

He stared, open-mouthed, at the scene in front of him. "You are so powerful. Look at what you can do."

"Not usually so controlled. Most of the time it's a big mess." She put her hands on her hips. "Anytime it's worked like this has been when I've been touching you."

"You're telling me you're more powerful, or at least more controlled, when I'm around?"

"Looks that way."

He could have strutted around the room. She needed him. "I guess you're just going to have to keep me around."

"I planned on it anyway." She chewed on her lip. "Unless you bother me when I'm trying to work. Then I might have to kick you out of the room."

"Not a chance of that." He knew just what she meant. Nothing more annoying that having his concentration disrupted.

* * * *

He held Ruby's hand while they looked at Marina's still sleeping form. Leonardo, Kal, Eden, Gabriel, Loraine, Isabelle, Charma—spelled with a Ch but pronounced with a K, she'd told him—and Jason were with them.

"Have you tried the holding hands thing?"

Christophe didn't like this at all. He didn't know Marina yet but they all felt like family to him, which put him a little on edge. Was he being disloyal to the Rouxs, his human family, by embracing this so easily?

"We did." Leonardo sighed. "The holding hands bit." He shook his head at that phrase.

"Would you like to try it again? With Ruby and me participating? More power for the hand holding?" If it pissed Leonardo off that he called it that then he would say it over and over again. Fuck him.

Kal snickered, and Isabelle shook her head. "Leonardo pisses off everyone during the transition. Kal wanted to throttle him. You want to pound him to the floor right now, don't you, Christophe?"

He looked down at his hands. One was clenched.

"Yes, I guess I do."

Christophe had never wanted to beat anyone before. What the hell was going on?

Kal patted him on his shoulder. "Your inner beast is coming out because you want to protect your woman. But down, boy. Leonardo is not a threat, just a jackass."

"I really don't know what comes over all you people."

Loraine smiled. "You'll get your chance to know before this is all over."

"I won't." Leonardo stared down at Marina.

Christophe studied the people around him. There was some kind of dynamic, some undercurrent of conversation not being spoken aloud. One glance at Ruby told him that she was as confused as he. So, maybe it was just Leonardo. The man held secrets.

"Listen, I'm so sorry she's not awake." Christophe really felt that way. Marina should not be suffering. Women who were under their care should be protected. "But I have to go get Colin. And somehow I have to zap myself there to do that. I've only successfully done that once. It brought me here. Other than that, I just get randomly pulled."

"You were with me." Ruby squeezed his hand. "I think we offer an element of control for each other's powers. Like the key I got." She held it in her pocket. Touching it still caused her pain.

"Can I see it?" Leonardo held out his hand, and Ruby took it from her pocket. She didn't, however, give it to him. Eventually, Leonardo put his hand back down.

He stared at it silently. "Do you not recognize that from Abraxas's journals?"

Ruby looked down at it again. "Now that you mention it… I mean, I've been really focused on the words, trying to translate them. The pictures have been mostly gobbledygook but this does look familiar."

"It's one of Abraxas's tools. It got sent out into the world when we all did. Along with his staff, the journals, the spell books. Lots of things. Sebastian collected a lot of it before we knew they existed. Veli either didn't know or wasn't very forthcoming with information about the stuff. He wanted to find us, not the magical items. That's a key to open any door."

"Why does it burn my hand and not Christophe's?"

His woman showed no interest in turning it over to Leonardo. He didn't know why that filled him with pride. Maybe it had to do with her standing up to authority.

"Because it belongs to you. The heat is a response to the ownership. For now, you are supposed to have the key. Like I was supposed to have that book you're working on. Eventually, it cooled off. I either got what I needed, or it gave up on me."

She put it back in her pocket. "Great, so after it stops scalding me, I'll know I've completed my task."

"So when Ruby said she wished she had a key to open the preacher's door, it didn't send her exactly that. But just something that would open any door she wanted." Christophe's mind had started to put together a puzzle.

Leonardo nodded. "Exactly."

"But it won't just send her the staff so the fates must want her to go retrieve it or at least to be there when one of us does." No way would Ruby be doing that alone.

"Right. Are you going somewhere with this?"

"Did you say Abraxas had a staff?"

Leonardo crossed the room and came back with a book. "There." He pointed down at it.

"Is it at all possible that staff is now being used as a cane?"

Ruby's eyes got large. "Are you telling me that preacher, the one who killed my mother, and has chased me around my whole life is in possession of the staff of Abraxas Moore?"

"Maybe. Is this what it looked like on TV?" Christophe took the book from Leonardo and held it out to Ruby. She studied it for a second and then nodded.

"We need to get that thing back." Leonardo tapped his foot on the ground.

Their de facto leader had struck Christophe as an action-oriented man. This was a task he'd likely really get behind.

"Right, but first I have to get Colin, and as much as I would like to, I don't see how I'm going to be able to figure that one out. It's not like I can simply say to the universe, please take me to my brother and bring me some help."

The room whited out. He landed on the floor. Damn, that had been a hard trip. He looked left and right as he heard groaning. His ears buzzed. Ruby, Leonardo, Kal, Isabelle, Loraine, Gabriel, Charma, and Jason had all made the trip with him. Everyone, save Marina, had been brought to…where?

"You really know how to make an entrance." Colin's head hung low, his body strapped to the machine. Next to him in a similar contraption, Drew stared at them open-mouthed.

"Apparently, that
is
all I had to say. Ruby, you okay?" He helped her up. The others managed to get off the floor too.

Leonardo rushed over to the machines. "How do these work?"

"Well, I guess you're going to find out, Leonardo, as I'm going to stick you into it, too."

The demon's voice resonated around the room.

"Shit." Kal threw Isabelle behind him. "We can't see him. How are we going to fight him?"

Christophe looked around the room. There in the corner, leaning against the wall, stood a man dressed in a suit. He smirked.

"I can see him."

The demon whirled around, horror dawning on his face.

"I told you that he'd beat you." Colin smirked. "You can tie me up, you can beat me, but you're going to regret it, you son of a bitch."

Christophe shook his head. "Colin, please don't antagonize the demon even more than he already is."

He didn't know why but he suspected this situation was really going to get out of hand nice and fast.

Chapter Eleven

Ruby's heart raced. They were in a room of abuse. How else could she possibly think of it? A demon had created a torture chamber, and now she was stuck in it.

She shook her head. One way or another, she had to get control of herself. No one was alone here, the Outsiders surrounded her. They'd all come across Sebastian before and survived. Plus, Christophe could see him. Somehow, they would make it out of there. They just had to.

Ruby could have laughed. Was it just yesterday she'd been silently musing about wanting more action in her life?

Be careful what you wish for, Ruby.

Drew screamed out as the machine he'd been put in turned on to torment him. She shuddered before she ran over to him. Someone had to get them out.

"Ruby," Christophe called out to her.

She waved him away. Her soul mate could worry about her later. "Take care of the demon, boys. I'm going to get them out." Somehow, once she figured out exactly how those things worked.

Isabelle ran to her side. "The two of them were put in. They can get taken out."

"I have an idea." Loraine flanked her on her left. "I got this."

In front of Ruby's eyes, she changed into a rat. A big, giant rat. Ruby blinked. One second, Loraine had been a woman, and now, she was a rodent. It took everything she had in her not to scramble backward, screaming in fear.

She'd known Loraine could shape shift, but somehow she'd never imagined a rat. Somewhere in her head, she knew she should be more concerned with the demon than with Loraine as a rat, but a rat was a rat. She had to control herself.

Ruby jumped onto Drew's machine and started chewing through the bindings.

"It's brilliant," Isabelle whispered in her ear, obviously less concerned with Loraine's rat-ness than Ruby.

Nodding, she turned around to watch the scene unfold with the demon. Kal shot electric bolts of lightning out of his hands in the direction that Christophe pointed. The room was going to burn down if they kept that up. Each time Kal fired, a zapping noise sounded.

They weren't going to stop the monster unless they figured out a way to contain him even though he was incorporeal.