Reluctant Storm (14 page)

Staring at the towel, I watch as it slips to the floor, landing at my feet. I listen to her words echo through my head over and over again: ‘
Why did I see you in a mirror when you weren’t there, and why were you in my dreams last night?'
So it’s true...Claire’s spirit is calling for mine. I read that this was a possibility for true mates, but the fact that we haven’t bonded and that she is bonded to someone else...well, this is a startling revelation.

It means that even though she’s bonded, her soul needs mine to be complete. Only my hands are tied, and I can’t tell her the truth until the right moment, until the Queen allows it. Disappointment fills my bones, knowing how close I am to her, yet unable to do anything about it. I wonder what she would do if she knew the truth? I still don’t understand how she could bond with Riley when that should never have happened. My mind is going a mile a minute with theories. I look up at her and catch her staring hard at my naked chest and my body clenches in want of hers. Quickly turning around so that my back faces hers, I stop in the doorway, gripping the door frame tightly.

“I’ll meet you outside, Claire.”

She watches me strangely. “Oh…um…sure.”

The irony of this situation would be amusing if it wasn’t happening to me. Shoving open the door, I wait for Claire to follow so we can begin our training. I can hopefully open her mind to magic. My phone rings. It’s the last person I want to talk to, Griffin.

“Mikail, it’s been awhile, son,” Griffin croons into the phone.

“Don’t call me that, I’m not your son,” I snap.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” he laughs. “That’s a talk for another day. I called you for a different reason though. I have use for your tracking skills, and I need for you to find Riley. He’s traveling with Claire, who you’re supposed to be tracking, and I think he thinks they’re in love, but it’s a bunch of nonsense.”

“So you want just Riley or the girl too?” I ask softly into the phone.

“Both. Make it happen and make it soon. Riley is useless to me, kill him,” he says, laughing, “The girl, I want alive. She needs to learn her lesson before I kill her,” he growls into the phone before hanging up.

Staring incensed at the phone, I consider smashing it but instead pocket it. I’ll still need to be in contact with the bastard. He won’t be getting Claire anytime soon…Riley maybe, but not Claire. Never Claire.

Stepping outside, I’m prepared to work hard. Peering around the yard for Mikail, I finally spot him, on his cell phone pacing near the tree line. When I walk up to him, he holds his hand up and raises his finger to his lips.

“So you want just Riley or the girl too?” he asks into the phone.

Finishing the call, he smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes and looks at me with a fire burning in his eyes. “So Griffin was on the phone, apparently he’s looking for you too and wants me to find you both. You’re both lucky I’m going to do the opposite of that, only we have less time than I originally thought.”

I Nod. This doesn’t even phase me anymore. “Let’s do it then.”

Mikail puts me through the ringer once he starts teaching me things. Falling for the third time when he kicks his foot out at mine, I hit the dirt face first and look at him standing above me, leaning down, offering me a hand up. Getting up, he sweeps his foot out and knocks me on the ground again. Landing on my back, I lie there looking at the sky.

He teaches me hand-to-hand combat using stakes and knives. We work on how to take someone down with a single kick; I really enjoyed learning that. When I was finally able to figure it out I slammed Mikail down several times. Letting go with a victory dance the last time I took him down is what really did me in. Wincing as I land on the dirt, I sit up, glaring at Mikail as he stares down at me with an eyebrow cocked.

“Don’t ever get cocky Claire, that’ll get you killed,” he says rubbing his forehead.

Taking a break for some blood. I sit down on a stump when someone grabs me from behind. My blood goes flying and all the training Mikail gave me immediately kicks in. I grab the attacker like Mikail showed me and have him down in three seconds flat. Mikail rushes up behind me and looks down at the ground shaking his head. I hear him murmuring the words, “Jason” and “idiot” in the same sentence before he walks back towards our practice area. I look down Jason still on his back in the dirt with a look of pain in his eyes. Offering Jason a hand, I help him up grinning. I can’t help but feel proud of the way I did it. Still busy basking in the beauty off my ass kicking skills, I walk over to grab another bag of blood, drinking it quickly.

Mikail walks up to me putting his arm over my shoulder. “You did well today,” he says jovially. “Do you remember the Maji your grandmother gave you?”

Looking over at him startled, I asked, “How do you know about the Maji? Did Jason tell you?”

“Not quite,” he says, looking over at me with a smile on his face. “He did, but I’ve known about the Maji for a very long time. When you were kidnapped, your bag dropped and it slipped out. Jason was so worried about you he didn’t bother to pick it up, so he never saw me grab it. I’ve had the Maji ever since.”

Wow
, I think sitting down shocked,
with everything that’s gone on I simply forgot about the Maji.
Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I asked, “Did you open it?”

“Yes, the Maji is spell protected and only lets people who have magic open it. We need to sit down and talk about your magic. It’s said that the Maji will protect its owner, but I’ve never seen it in action. It’s one of those myths you hear about. Don’t tell anyone about the Maji. The less people that know it’s here, the better.”

“May I have it back?” I ask, holding my hand out.

“I’ll give it to you tonight. You really need to read what’s in there and learn some of the spells. They could come in handy when we have to fight Griffin.”

Wiping his hands on his pants as he helps me up, he looks down at me seriously. “I’d really like to be the one to open you up to the magic that you have. I’d like to be the one to pop your magic cherry,” he says with a grin.

Groaning at his last comment, I stand up and brush the dirt off my shorts. “Do you think Griffin’s going to find us here?”

“I don’t know Claire, but I can promise you that I will keep you safe, no matter what,” he says seriously, grabbing my hand as he says it.

“Griffin’s a bad man,” I tell him, shuddering.

“Tell me about it,” Riley says, walking up behind me, kissing my head. “Try being his son.”

Pulling my hand away from
Mikail’s, I guiltily look over at Riley before glancing over at Mikail, who looks darkly at Riley. “Let’s meet later and talk about the other thing we were talking about, okay?” He nods at me and motions for Riley to follow him.

I stayed inside while Mikail was teaching Claire to fight. It was better this way. The main reason was if I saw him kicking her ass I would have killed him. My feelings for her grow stronger by the day; it’s unsettling since I’ve never been with one woman this long, or any woman for that matter. I’m a screw ‘em and leave ‘em kinda guy, and this came on so suddenly, like hitting a brick wall.

Leaning on the window sill, I watch as Mikail flips Claire onto her side and slams her into the ground. I clench my fists on the wooden frame as I attempt to control myself, even though I want to fly through the window to kick
Mikail’s ass for hurting Claire. After glaring through the window at them for hours in the same uncomfortable spot, I leave the house. I walk up behind them and glare down at Claire’s hand in Mikail’s. She turns, hearing me walk up behind her, and pulls it away quickly. A hint of guilt passes over her face. I walk over, putting my arms around Claire, and listen to them talk about the how bad my dad is.

“Tell me about it; try living with him your entire life.” I hate my dad. He took any type of childhood I could have had and made it all about death and pain. When I look at Claire I see a happy future. I see someone I would fight for and die willingly for.

“Riley, we need to talk,” Mikail says.

Turning to Mikail, I raise my eyebrows and look at him questioningly as he leads us toward the opposite end of the yard from Claire. “Griffin contacted me earlier today,” he says, refusing to look at me as he picks up a rock, hurling it at a tree.

“And?”

“I’m supposed to locate you and Claire immediately. He wants you dead and Claire alive so he can torture her, I assume. He wants her to learn some lesson before he kills her.”

Clenching my jaw, I look directly at Mikail. “What have you decided to do?”

“Do you really think I’d turn you in? Do you think I’d give that man the satisfaction of knowing that I would do anything for him?”

“Well, wouldn’t you? You were helping him earlier.”

Scoffing, he looks at me in disbelief. “Don’t even act like you have any clue as to why I do what I do. I could never give Claire to him. I won’t do it; I won’t give her to that evil bastard,” he says, shaking his head firmly.

“And yet you would willingly give me up, right? Or are you also protecting the evil bastard’s son? What a conundrum,” I say, mocking myself.

“No, I’ve seen evil. I deal with it on a daily basis; you wouldn’t believe what some of the people want me to do to those I track. The ones I deal with are cold and have a cold soul. You, my friend, have a soul that has done bad things, only because you knew no other way. Once you fix that you won’t be an asshole. You are not your father,” Mikail says pointedly.

“I lived for those moments when I took another’s life,” I tell him truthfully.

He looks at me, raising his eyebrows but not saying anything. Claire walks up behind me and Mikail apparently dismisses me and starts talking to Claire. I overhear him tell her to go find Jason and Anya and bring them out here. Lost in my thoughts, I don’t pay attention to what else he says. I ignore what’s going on around me. What if I turn out like my dad? My dad used to say I was a bad seed and I’d always be bad. Eventually, I did become bad just as he said, and I liked it.

“We need to leave and we have to do it quickly,” Mikail says, turning to me.

Shaking my head back into from my thoughts, I look up as the others in the group walk toward us. We have a trained tracker, a fighter, Anya, and Claire, the heir to the throne.

Interrupting Mikail who seems to be explaining something, I peer down at Anya. “What exactly is your forte in this group?”

“What do you mean my forte?” she asks in her annoyingly grating voice.

“What do you bring the group?” I ask her in an annoyed tone.

“I can kick any man’s ass,” she spurts out.

“I’ve known dogs bigger then you. No really, what can you help with?”

She refuses to look me in the eye when I ask her again. I’ve been trained to detect when people are lying, and I can tell she’s lying like a rug. My training clicks in, and I grab her without thinking and lift her off the ground and squeeze. “What do you know that you’re not telling me?”

“I promised Dad I’d never tell,” she whispers, her voice clogged because my hand is on her throat.

“It’s in your best interest if you tell,” Claire says, coming up behind us. “What did your dad teach you?”

Wheezing, she says, “Spells, he taught me all the spells he should have taught you for when I found the Maji. He said I would need it to rule.”

I let her go and she drops to the ground, coughing and rubbing her throat.

“Look, Anya, you’re either with us or against us. If you’re against us, it’s not going to be pretty,” Jason says, walking over to help her to her feet.

“What happens if I don’t help you?”

“You die,” Mikail, Jason, and I say at the same time.

“Oh, okay, “she says, clearing her throat. “In that case, I’m with you all.”

Looking between Claire and Anya, I say, “Are you going to be able to put aside your difference’s and work with Claire?” She nods and crosses her arms, glaring at me with a pissed off look on her face. I still don’t trust her, but I let her go for now. She silently fumes as she sidles up to Jason. Clapping his hands, Mikail starts walking towards the house and then stops.

“We got seriously off track there, didn’t we? Way to go, Riley. Pack up your things guys, we’re leaving this dump.”

“Where are we going?” Claire calls to Mikail, walking towards me and putting her hand in mine.

Not bothering to look back, he calls over his shoulder, “Another safe house of mine.”

We walk back into the house, and I rub my thumb over her hand as I hold it, my body hardens, smelling her sweet smell, and I am already counting down the hours until I can get her alone.

The two of them together with their hands entwined makes my stomach churn. Clenching my fists, I stare at them. I saw Claire first and she should be mine, but yet again fate is not working for me right now. If anyone should get an award for not killing someone it should be me, because it’s taking everything in me not to kill Riley.

“Oh, stop looking like a lost little puppy, Mikail. It’s depressing,” Anya says in a bored tone, sidling up next to me.

If there is one person I can’t stand, other than Jason, its Anya. It’s been extremely hard for me not to strangle her. She should consider it a gift that I’ve let her live this long. I regret the day Jason kidnapped her. I should have knocked him out and left without her. Not giving Anya the satisfaction of responding, I walk to my room to pack my things, groaning as she follows me and barges into my room. Not bothering to look up from grabbing my bag, I say, “That door was shut for a reason.”

“Like a simple door would stop me. There are many, many things you don’t know about me,” she continues all huffy. “Claire isn’t the only special one, although I don’t get what everyone sees in her. It’s getting old the whole ‘woe is Claire’ thing you all have going on.”

“I don’t have a ‘woe is Claire’ thing going on. Now get the hell out of here.”

She walks over to my window and moves the curtain, lifting the window pane and sticking her head out for some reason.
It’s all a part I have to play
, I keep repeating in my head,
I can’t kill her no matter how annoying she is.

Ignoring her, I grab my weapons, lining them up and counting them to make sure they are all there. I grab my stakes, twirling them in my hands, while she is going on and on about every single fault I have. I pick up my silver stake, wishing I could shove it in her chest as I gently touch the tip, and wince as it burns my fingers. Dropping it into my belt loop I secure it along with a smaller gun, one that carries silver bullets. Gathering the rest of the weapons, I carefully set them in their box before grabbing my clothes. I don’t bother to fold them and just shove them in the bag. Turning around, I almost run into Anya, who is still listing every single fault I have.

“Get out now,” I tell her angrily, grabbing her arm as I open the door and shove her out and locking the door behind her.

Leaning against the door, I hear a soft knock and bang my head in aggravation against the door. I pull the door open angrily and freeze when I see that it’s Claire and not Anya standing there. Taking a deep breath, I step back, allowing her inside the room.

She’s so close to me as she walks past and I catch a whiff of the shampoo she uses. I don’t think, I just grab her and shove her against the wall, pressing my mouth to hers. A man can only take so much. I’ve watched her for years, patiently biding my time until she was ready to know who and what she is, to bond with me. Then all this happened and I never had the chance. I’ve never been given a fair chance to let her know about me. Her kiss doesn’t move me at all; there are no fireworks, nothing. Something draws me to her still. I press my head against hers and lean down, covering her lips with mine again, still nothing. Something isn’t right. She lifts her shirt over her head, throws it to the ground, and grabs my hands, placing them on her breasts, causing my hands to push her bra up. Pulling back, she grips the edges of my shirt and pulls it off as she pushes me down onto the bed. My belongings scatter to the floor.

She leans over the side and pulls out some rope, tying my arms to the headboard. She wraps the left one quickly and moves to the right one. Leaning down she gives me a long slow kiss. Suddenly, her form changes and its Anya on top of me, not Claire. The next thing I know is she is bringing a stake over her head about to slam it down into my heart, but she stops and lets the silver tip sear into my chest.

“What?” she asks me, all pouty. “You didn’t think I actually wanted you, did you? I have a plan and you aren’t part of that plan. In fact, you keep getting in the way. If my dad had just listened to me in the first place, he would never have considered his idiotic plan, but no, he didn’t want it to come back to him that he’d have his daughter killed. You know where that got him? It got him killed.”

Staring up at her in shock, unable to move because I’m tied up, I struggle against my ties as she looks down on me in satisfaction. “What, did you think I was into kinky sex?” she asks, laughing “No, sweetie, I just want the power, and well, you’re just going to get in the way. You take protecting Claire way too seriously.”

“It’s my job,” I say through gritted teeth.

“No, your job was to make sure she didn’t get kidnapped, which you failed at. But to be honest, you were supposed to fail at it. Who do you think tipped Griffin off?”

“Who?”

“Her mom, you idiot, but who do you think was the one down there searching for her?”

“You,” I guessed, her smile confirming my answer is correct.

Holy crap, so Anya is the way they found out where exactly where Claire was. How long has she been feeding Griffin information?

“How do you think my dad found out where you took me?”

It dawns on me that the entire time she’s been here she’s probably been feeding him info, and here we are, sitting ducks. I’m not going to let her take me down without a fight. Kicking my legs out, I knock her off the bed, making her drop the stake from her hand to the floor. “How
long have you been feeding Griffin information?” I snarled at her, disgusted at myself that I didn’t see this coming.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have done that.” She stands back up, tilting her head to the side and running the silver side down my chest, tracing each side. She touches the ropes and they change into silver.

“Told you I know magic,” she says haughtily.

Clenching my jaw, I refuse to make a sound even though the pain is excruciating. As she draws the stake back to my chest, she murmurs, “Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to be Claire, to not have to worry about what anyone thought. And let’s face, it she wasn’t groomed to take over, I was. She didn’t have a care in the world, and here I was yearning for affection even though I did everything he wanted. Well, I got the revenge in the end, didn’t I? He’s dead, and I did nothing to stop it. In fact, I was the one that called him and begged him to come here.” Tilting her head back, she straddles me and rubs herself on me, and I feel my body betraying myself.

“Oh, you like that? What a naughty boy you are. Too bad you won’t be able to enjoy it.” She laughs manically as she lifts the stake and before she can slam it into my chest, the door slams open and Jason barges in. He stands there, his eyes wide, and stares at us. Once he notices the stake, he finally reacts and pulls Anya off me.

I watch as they scuffle, Jason knocks Anya into the wall and slams himself against her. He slams his hand into her chest, with a growl and as he is pulling his arm out I feel the presence of magic in the room. She expels Jason’s hand from her chest, and with the flick of her hand, throws him across the room. He lands against the wall with a crash.

The words she says next stun me, I know what type of spell she is saying, and I can do nothing to stop her with the silver on me. Anya says a few more words and I stare in anger as Jason is pulled to the ground. Vines come through the floorboards and bind his arms and legs to the floor.

Anya walks delicately over to him, as if she hadn’t just tied a man up against his will. She moves so she is kneeling next to him and says something unintelligible, which has Jason screaming in pain. The silver burns into me as I pull at them, trying to get them off. She walks over to where the first stake fell and picks it up. She then walks over to me and rubs her hand along my pants leg and pulls out a stake that she lays on my chest. She leans over and presses a kiss to my mouth then she stalks over to Jason, who is struggling against the vines. She runs the stake along his chest, before leaning over and kissing it. She kneels above him and slams the stake into his chest.

She turns around with a triumphant grin and jumps back on the bed. I swallow as she picks up the stake she laid on my chest earlier. She moves it around in her hands before pressing it against my chest. It burns as she presses deeper on it, the more sound I make, the harder she presses down. I scream in pain as she raises the stake up, getting ready to slam it down, laughing maniacally. Again the door slams open. This time it’s Riley and his face turns white as he sees Jason laying there with a stake in his chest.