Love Beyond Loyalty (22 page)

"Then what are they? A religious organization?"

Gabe felt his anger deflate. His shoulders relaxed. There was no point in yelling at her. He tried to imagine what Loraine would do. Reaching out with his mind, he tried to speak to his beloved telepathically. Nothing came back to him. She was either too far away, he was too tired, or there was a problem. He was going to have to find out which one it was.

"We are the Outsiders. We've always existed in many times. Generations of our ancestors helped to keep the balance of good and bad on earth and in other planes of existence."

Alexa furrowed her eyebrows as she listened. He wasn't even sure where the words came from. It was like they had been imprinted on his brain as he slept, as if he'd always known them and didn't realize he had.

"Things would have continued this way. All of us being born and living in the hidden hills in France but a prophecy came that spoke of certain doom. Eighteen children born together, nine sets of soul mates, destined to fight the greatest demon to ever come to Earth."

He moved closer to her. He wanted her to see how serious he was.

"In an effort to thwart it, our birth parents unleashed the very evil they feared and then tried to save us by sending us from them before they died. We were accidently separated. Four were raised as Outsiders. You and I were both sent here. The rest are slowly coming together, each one finding their soul mate, meeting the group, and fulfilling their destinies as a pair."

She stared him in the eyes, uncertainty in her slouched posture and her chewed on mouth. "Are you saying you're my soul mate?"

He shook his head. "You know it's not like that between us. My soul mate is a redheaded beauty that I would walk through fire for. I have to find her so I can't stay here and debate this with you anymore."

Extending his hand, he waited for her to take it. "Yours is out there too. Come be an Outsider, Alexa. Sebastian is a demon. He wants to eat your soul. Together, we can all bring him down." He swallowed and paused before he spoke again. "I'm loyal to Loraine. I'm loyal to the Outsiders. I was always loyal to you but after today, if you stay here with the demon, I won't be anymore. What will it be?"

She backed up two steps. "Are you threatening me?"

That was a good question. "I guess I am. This time I can't come and steal you away when you realize you've made a mistake and you knock on my window. You have to come
now
. If you stay here, I fear it will be too late to bring you back."

Alexa remained absolutely still. He knew it could go either way. He'd not given her an out. She would either do the right thing or she would lash out in violence.

"This is all sick, Gabe." Her words held such vehemence. "How dare you stand there and preach to me like you're holier than thou. You, who used to steal and con people to get what you wanted. You say Sebastian is a demon? I say he's a good man who took us in, protected us, understood us, and you've done nothing,
nothing
but betray him. You should be ashamed of yourself."

He nodded because what else was there to do? "If you find your path to us, and you haven't betrayed us too badly in the meantime, I'm sure we'll take you in. Don't wait too long to find your way."

Turning on his heel, he left her room, and then the house. It was time to find Loraine. Past time. He needed her. He needed to know she was safe, she was fine, and she was his.

He'd done his Outsider duty and kept Alexa alive into adulthood. It was a shame she might never grow up.

Gabe knew one woman in particular who would never betray him. She'd grown up completely unprotected except for an old woman, a magical dog, and some fabricated stories of dead parents.

He wished it had been her tapping at his window at three in the morning.

Chapter Seventeen

"I have to go inside to him."

"You can't
.
"

Futon had been saying that to her for the last two hours. She knew his reasoning, and it was sound. Sebastian the demon stood between her and the house. He paced back and forth in front of the wrap-around porch.

His eyes glowed red, and occasionally she saw the smallest amount of black smoke release from his nostrils. If she and Futon wanted to speak, they had to whisper.

"He's so angry that he's releasing his true form."

Loraine nodded. What Futon said made sense. So far, her sweet dog that had been with her for so many years refused to tell her anything about where he'd been. He hadn't even given the courtesy of one of his strange remarks that said something but answered nothing. Futon had simply chosen to remain absolutely silent on the subject.

"I want to get inside to Gabriel." She desired it so badly her hands had started to shake. Did he think she'd abandoned him? So far she'd been unable to reach him telepathically. "I'm afraid he's in trouble."

"He's fine. You would know if he were not. Outsiders feel their soul mates deaths as if they themselves die
.
"

Well, that was a disturbing statement. She hadn't actually thought 'dead'. Swallowing her fear, she looked down at her dog. He had been her friend, her guide over the years when she hadn't known what to do with her strange abilities and her loneliness.

Now, while she was relieved to be reunited with her dog, his interference in what she wanted to do proved to be a problem. It was, she imagined, akin to children coming back from being on their own to try to live under the dictates of his or her parents. There was something incredibly restraining about the whole thing.

As Loraine watched, the front door of the house banged open and Gabriel stepped forward onto the porch. His hands in his pockets, he looked left and right. Two thoughts occurred to her at once. The first was he seemed, to steal a phrase from him, damn tired, and the second was that he had no idea Sebastian waited out front.

Jumping up, she screamed Gabriel's name to get his attention. "Sebastian is right there.
Right there
."

She jumped up and down and Futon growled at her to hide. It was too late. She alerted Gabriel to Sebastian's whereabouts but now the demon knew where she was too.

Sebastian whirled around to look at her. In one split second, he saw her and glared at Futon.

"You," the demon's voice sounded more like a snake's hiss than human speech. Even through his bravado, Loraine made note that his initial reaction had been a widening of the eyes that made him look tentative, even scared. "You're supposed to be gone."

"Somehow I made it back here without your permission, demon spawn
.
"

"It's too late, you've lost."

As he pointed his hand in the air, Loraine realized the demon intended to hit Gabriel with a power surge. She couldn't let him. No, she'd die before she let him hurt her man.

Without thought, as if she'd done it a thousand times, Loraine shifted into her wolf form and charged Sebastian. Futon called to her, his distress evident in his voice, but she didn't care what he wanted. No one hurt Gabriel. Fury filled her veins and her vision tunneled. There was only her and the demon.

Growling, she leaped on Sebastian from behind. Distantly, she thought she heard Gabriel call her name but she was so focused on the demon she didn't register it. She could tear at his human body. It was just a shell. It was fragile, like hers was.

Someone had to be able to kill it.

Hearing Gabriel speaking telepathically to her jarred her from her rage. "
Don't do that. If you kill the vessel before we can contain the demon then you'll let it loose, and we'll never find it before it destroys everything in its path
."

How did he know that?

Letting go of Sebastian, who she noted she had managed to knock him to the floor. Her body reacted instinctually. Head pointed downwards, ears back, she could feel the hair on her spine standing straight up. Her teeth bared, she could still attack if she needed to. Sebastian hadn't moved since she knocked him down. Maybe he'd hit his head.

Growling, she moved slowly backwards in Gabriel's direction. There was the instinct to kill. It was there, inside of her, and hard to resist. Still, she remembered what Gabriel had said and even though she could feel the slow aching burn of desire to end the demon's human life, she didn't give in to the primal call.

Gabriel squatted down and Futon ran to be next to her. Gently, her soul mate stroked her fur.

"I'm going to send you and Futon home to Maine."

She growled. "
Not without you, you are not
.
"

"I don't want to leave you either, especially after the demon wakes up and gets angry at you. I can move faster on my own."

"You can move fast enough with us too."

"Loraine…"

"Tell Gabriel he can travel through space too
.
"

Futon interrupted whatever he was going to say and she watched Gabriel grimace. To him, the dog must have sounded just like loud barking.

All of the telepathic talking was going to give her a headache. Concentrating on her human image, the way Gabriel had seen her, she shifted into her human body. Standing up, she looked down to do a quick check of herself. All of her vital parts were covered in clothes.

Reaching out, she took Gabriel's hand. "Futon says you can move through space when you send us. We could all go together."

He shook his head. "I've never been able to accomplish that."

"He's opened up now. Whatever happened to him in the house has unleashed his powers, like yours must have been at some point while I was gone. Now he should be able to do it
.
"

Loraine relayed Futon's message to Gabriel.

"To move you guys, all I have to do is picture you in my mind and then where I want to send you. Or I just think 'move' like I do when I fight the demon and it moves him. I can't do it for myself."

"He should be able to
.
"

Loraine could hear the frustration in Futon's voice and decided to ignore it. She touched his chest. Something about this situation brought on déjà-vu. "Gabriel, maybe it's how you're picturing yourself."

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to tell me how you see me?"

"No." Loraine could see pain in his eyes and knew it would be hidden from most people's view. "I think you can see yourself physically just fine."

"Then I'm just a really bad Outsider who can't use my powers? Great."

"Don't get touchy and put words in my mouth." She knew they were out of time. Sebastian could wake up at any moment and she didn't want to be standing here on the street like a bunch of lambs led to the slaughter.

"I think it's probably more of a matter of you not knowing yourself very well. So I'm going to tell you who you are."

He ran a hand through his hair. "Loraine, please don't…"

"Don't what? Don't tell you that you have the deepest sense of right and wrong of any person I've ever known. Even when you did things you shouldn't have, you regretted it to such a degree that you've never forgiven yourself for doing what you had to in order to survive?"

"If you only knew…"

She wasn't going to let him interrupt her. "Don't tell you that you deserve the same kind of loyalty you give others? Don't tell you that your parents, if they'd lived, I'm sure would have adored you? Don't tell you that you do nothing but give and never take from anyone even as you think of yourself as selfish…"

"Loraine, I'm not that person."

"Listen to me." She was so upset she stomped her foot. "We have two choices. Sebastian is unconscious. We can try to drag him somewhere and imprison him. I somehow doubt we have the capabilities to do that right now. Or we can leave. Send us home. Send us all home."

He exhaled a loud breath and opened his arms. She automatically stepped into them. "Come on, Futon. Come join us."

Futon ran forward and placed himself up against her legs.

"If this doesn't work, I'm going to send just the two of you."

"That's not…"

She never got a chance to say what she wanted to because one second she was standing on the sidewalk and the next she was moving through space with the familiar tingling sensation Gabriel's transportation power had on her. With a
humph
, she hit the floor. Gabriel and Futon toppled down next to her.

"See, Gabriel, I told you earlier you could move yourself too. You should listen to me."

Gabriel lifted his head and looked around. "Well, that was abrupt."

She nodded. "Always is. Try doing it when you're not expecting to have it happen to you. Suddenly you're just landing somewhere."

His smile made her heart flutter. "I'm not going to apologize for transporting you when you get into trouble."

"I have a feeling we're going to be having this argument for some time to come."

He shrugged as he stood and extended a hand to help her. "It's not an argument since I'm right."

"We knew you two would be a good match. So many lifetimes and you're still fighting like newly joined souls
.
"

Loraine closed her mouth on whatever she was going to say and glared at her dog.

Gabriel pulled her into his arms and kissed her nose. "What's the dog bitching about? And while you're talking to him let him know that I will not be walking him or picking up his poop."

"If I could roll my eyes, I would
.
"

"Um, Gabriel, I think I need to speak to Futon for a few minutes."

Gabriel ran a hand through his long hair. "Seriously? Are you kicking me out of the room so you can talk to the dog?"

"Just for a minute. If you don't mind."

For a second, it seemed as if Gabriel was going to argue with her. Then, he turned around to look at the dog. "Don't think this is normal. I am not going to spend my fucking life leaving a room so you two can talk."