STEP (The Senses) (19 page)

He hesitated as if making certain he had her full attention. “Then I will kill your child,” Liam said, his expression waiting for her reaction.

She balked with confusion. Her child was already dead. Born dead. What the hell was he talking about?

“I see your perplexity. To be expected
, of course. It was a long time ago.” He shrugged. “You see you don’t know if I’m lying and yet, as a mother, you can’t take the chance that I’m not.” His fingers bit into her waist. “But, my love, I will have Abby. And if you don’t find a way to bring her to me
alive
after detox—then I will kill your child.”

No. No, he was lying. She’d seen her stillborn child. They had shown her the body. “You’re lying.”

“Perhaps.” His hand slid up her arm and caressed the back of her neck. She went to pull away, but his grip tightened. “How did I know about your pregnancy? How did I know you had your child premature?”

She would’ve collapsed if it wasn’t for his arm around her waist and him pulling her up against him. His lips tasted the tip of her ear, breath sweeping over her skin. “Tell your friends to keep Abby alive and I will keep your child alive.”

The bile rose in her throat and she swallowed several times.
No. God, please no. Please, this would destroy Waleron. Lies.
She felt like a piece of glass breaking into tiny fragments never to be glued back together again.

“I
’m curious as to how long before I’ll see Waleron at my door?” He stroked his finger down her arm. “How long before he rescues his damsel? How long before he discovers the truth?”

****

Damien threw open the car door of the Audi. “In,” he said, blocking her path towards the bouncers and the blood. The chick was a ravenous vampire already, and she hadn’t even turned yet. What the hell had he gotten himself into?

Hell
pretty much summed it up.

He watched her long legs swing into the car and cursed beneath his breath. That was what
had got him into this mess in the first place. His memory replayed every second he’d had those legs wrapped around his body. The succulent skin his hands caressed and his lips suckled for hours.

He slammed the door.

How was he supposed to live with this chick with those memories plaguing his thoughts?

He fished the keys out of his pocket and jumped in the other side, slamming the door. He revved the engine as if it were an Indy race and shoved it into gear. Without daring to glance at the woman beside him, he peeled out of the back alley.

He’d rather be in the arms of Hades than stuck in this car with a chick he’d foolishly slept with. It was like being trapped in an excessively small coffin nailed shut with a woman—his worst nightmare—who wanted to taste his blood.

The Abby he’d met that day in the grocery store was undistinguishable now. He glanced to the side and saw her pale complexion and dark circles under her eyes. That engaging smile that disarmed him had vanished and its place were deep frown lines of worry.

It was baffling how attracted he’d been to her, since he rarely paid attention to women. He couldn’t say what it was or why he decided to spend twenty-four hours locked between her legs. Delicious though it was, it had been a grave mistake, one he was now paying for.

He swore they’d used condoms the numerous times they’d had sex, but the alcohol they’d consumed through the night and into the next day had perhaps fogged his memory ever so slightly. Okay, a lot. Had it been that time in the shower? Or on the bathroom counter? All he could remember was the urgency to sink himself between her thighs again and again.

Irresistible. Passionate. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. He knew better than to screw a witch, one who was young and unbelievably sexy.

Jedrik’s e-mail had sent him into a quiet shock
, then of course a cold fury simmering for the flight back to Toronto, only to emerge when he met Jedrik at Keir’s and got the full lowdown on Abby’s situation. Why the bloody hell would she taste a vamp’s blood? For God sake, was she brainless?

His impression of her was that she was stubborn, intelligent and spirited. And witty, fun and gregarious. Bold to pick him up in the grocery store of all places. Unexpected and refreshing
, when most women looked at him and ran in the opposite direction. His scowl and overbearing persona kept them at a distance—advantageous, in his opinion. Women spelled trouble, case in point the situation he was in now.

What had he been thinking when he agreed to
detox her? Shit, they didn’t even know if it would work. Balen had been the only one to ever fight off the calling of the vampire blood, and it had taken him two bloody years.

Abby was what? Twentysomething, if that.
And don’t forget pregnant with your child,
he thought for the zillionth time. He suspected she’d lose it within a month if she continued to crave blood.

One foolish night. That
was what too much Captain Morgan could do to a guy.

He ran his hand through his short raven strands
, then pounded the steering wheel with the heel of his hand.

“Damien?”

He made the mistake of looking at her. Her long lashes fluttered, ones he’d kissed, licked and touched with the tip of his finger. Irresistible.

“Damien, I’m sorry. I didn’t ask him to call you. I told him not to, but . . . I guess he thought he had to
, because of the . . .” Her hand rested on her stomach, and his hands tightened around the steering wheel. “Well, I just think maybe it will be best for us both if someone else does this detox thing with me.”

He grunted.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate you coming all the way here, but I have no idea what is going to happen and . . . Damien, I don’t want you to see me like this.” Her voice was a graveled whisper of torment.

“There’s no one else.” There was no
one else because only Balen, Jedrik and now Delara knew about this. If Waleron found out, there was the issue of the Wraiths getting involved, and of course Trinity. Most likely, the Wraiths would insist on death and Trinity . . . well, who knew what that bitch would do. Throw her to the wolves, literally.

“Maybe Jedrik can—”

“If Jedrik disappears for any length of time, Waleron will know. I am a solitary and Waleron contacts me through email or cell. I’m the safer choice.”

“But—”

All he had to do was meet her eyes and she became quiet. Her reaction to his forbidding appearance had been very different the last time they were together. As he could recall, she’d laughed when he glared at her, then jumped into his arms and bowled him over onto the bed.

“Maybe I can do this myself and you can—”

“I’ll deal with this shit.” His hands gripped the steering wheel so hard that the leather cracked under the pressure.

“I’m not anyone’s shit,” Abby retorted.

He could feel her eyes delving into him and if he knew Abby well enough, he’d swear she was pursing her lips in an adorable pouting expression. He remembered the same expression that night. She was mad at him for calling her a little slip of a witch. He had laughed. Then laughed even more when she threw a pillow at him. That started the pillow fight that ended up being a mad sexual encounter among thousands of feathers.

“At the moment you’re my shit, Abb,” Damien said. He waited for the punch in the arm or her words of retaliation. It never came. He chanced a glance at her and saw her staring out the wi
ndow, her expression drawn and . . . forlorn.

It was instinctive. He reached across the space between them and swept a finger across her temple, pushing the strands of hair away from her face. Then slowly he ran a finger down her cheek. Suddenly common sense blasted back into him and he drew away, not daring to look at her.

“Christ, Abb. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that . . .” How did he say this without hurting her feelings? “I never wanted a child.” And this was why he kept his distance from any sort of relationship with anyone. Dealing with a woman’s emotional baggage was like lighting his head on fire.

She gave a single nod. “Yeah. Me neither. Guess we don’t always get what we want.”

“You won’t be a vampire, Abb.” He chanced a glance at her, noticing the determination in her jaw. He slammed on the brakes and the car tailgating behind honked and swerved around him. He pulled onto the shoulder and forced the gear into park. “If you don’t drink blood, you can’t Transition. Period. I won’t let you drink, Abby.”

“Yeah,” she said without looking at him.

“Abb, look at me!” When she ignored him, he grabbed her by the chin and forced her to meet his eyes. He might hate being here, but he never shirked his responsibilities and right now Abby was his, to make certain she didn’t turn. “You won’t be a vampire, okay? I won’t let it happen. We’ll do this detox shit and you can go back to your coven and we can forget any of this happened.”

Silence.

His fingers dug into her chin, she tried to jerk away, but he only strengthened his grip. Her hand reached up and latched onto his wrist, pulling his hand away from her face. His libido went through the roof as the memory of her soft touch on his skin exploded into images of that wild night.

“Abby,” he said, voice barely a whisper.

She met his eyes and they stared at one another for what seemed like minutes, but was mere seconds. She licked her dry lips and he groaned with pure torment. Christ, this was bad.

Suddenly she released his wrist and abruptly turned away. “So what happens, Damien?” Abby asked. “I live in a box and you guard it?”

“Pretty much.” God, that sounded horrible. “Balen says it will be . . . well, that you can’t leave until you no longer have cravings. That means the poison in your blood has gone.”

“Think the baby will survive the
detox?”

“Christ
, Abb.” He slammed the car into gear and swerved back into traffic. “I don’t know.”

She shrugged and leaned her head back on the headrest. “Yeah, guess not.”

Damien noticed the slight gesture from the corner of his eyes—her hand unconsciously caressing her abdomen. It was a sight he’d remember for the rest of his life. As if she was stroking her baby with the tip of her fingers, so unaware, so peaceful and yet he knew it would be anything but serene.

Balen said she’d lose the baby.

An ache sat in the pit of his stomach for something he didn’t even want to care about. Abby had been a one-night fling. A hot sexy witch he fucked while he’d been in town. That was all it was supposed to be. He had made that clear before he’d taken her back to his hotel. She’d known he was leaving for Florida the next day.

He was supposed to forget all about her.

But he never had.

“I want to talk about your childhood today,” Rebecca said.

Rayne sat crossed-legged on the cobalt couch, two white throw pillows—which she’d thrown across the room a number of times—nestled beside her, and an assortment of stuffed animals perched along the back of the couch.

The thoughts of Kilter had been pushed from the forefront of her mind
by Delara’s unusual behavior lately. In the past two weeks, the usual straightforward Delara was being quiet and standoffish, not sleeping at the gallery most nights and returning in the wee hours of the morning. She had dark circles under her eyes, and Rayne had heard her arguing at dawn outside in the alley with Jedrik. Obviously, he’d been waiting for her and she was not impressed.

“Rayne?”

“Yeah, sorry.” She jerked back to the present and tried to concentrate, a difficult task considering she hated thinking about herself. “I don’t remember much,” Rayne replied. And what she did, she didn’t want to talk about. Not because it was bad, but because it hurt to think about the loss.

“Let’s start with your parents. What were they like?”

“I was adopted. Then when I was four they died. Car crash. I barely knew them.” Her father received an emergency call from the hospital; a bus had flipped over on highway 400. They needed him and her mom in the E.R. Both being doctors, they often had emergencies, and Anton, also a doctor, neighbor and good friend, looked after her in these types of situations.

They died at dawn on their way home.

“Rayne, you’re avoiding the question,” Rebecca said.

Okay, she was. She hated to think about what she’d lost so young. “Mom was quiet and patient, the calm
, caring type. I tested her patience, kept her on her toes with my need to explore. Once I walked out the front door and went two streets over to sit with my legs hanging in a neighboring pool. She called the police and my dad had to come home from work. The owners of the house found me and I got a lecture from the police about wandering.”

“What did your parents do?”

“I think they were just relieved to have me home. They cried when the police pulled up with me in the car.”

“So you were a pretty brave little kid?”

“I guess. I mean I wasn’t scared of much.” Plus she had Serafina always near, although she kept her friend a secret from her parents after they gave her a lecture on never calling her Scar to life. As a child, it was the most amazing discovery, and when her parents weren’t around, she called Serafina to rise and they’d play games and laugh. She couldn’t tell Rebecca that though.