Black Orchid (12 page)

Nate
froze, panic welling up in him. He jerked back hard enough to break Adelaide’s
grasp. “Don’t say something you don’t mean.”

She
flinched at the harshness in his voice, but she didn’t give up. “I do mean it.
I’m your friend, and I trust you.”

Nate
ran his hands through his hair. What was he doing? This was exactly what he
wanted. But now that he was here… Hell. He had no f’ing clue what he wanted.
“What if I asked to meet your family? The ones you’ve been hiding me from all
this time?”

She
frowned in confusion. “They wouldn’t be happy about it. But I’d introduce you
if you thought it was important.”

“Why?”
The word punched from him.
Stop it, dummy. You’re supposed to get her trust,
not try to drive her away.
Nate ignored his inner voice. “You don’t know
me. Not at all.”

Adelaide
took a deep breath. “But I know I can trust you. If you wanted to harm me,
you’d have let me self-destruct by now. But you haven’t. Instead you’ve helped
me, despite all my rules and secrecy.”

“God,
you’re naïve.” Nate wanted to shake some self-preservation into her.

Adelaide
gave him a sad smile. “You know what I think? I think you’re lost. I think
you’re terrified that I may actually be your friend.”

Nate’s
heart galloped. She was too close. “Shut up,” he snapped.

“You
know how I’m so sure?”

“Stop
it.”

“I
can see relationships, Nate. Let me show you.”

Nate
shook his head frantically. “Don’t you dare use your gifts on me. You’re just
trying to—”

Suddenly
Nate could see through Adelaide’s eyes as her telepathy pulled him in.
Glittering, shimmering threads crisscrossed between them. He froze in place,
horrified, but unable to look or run away from what she was doing to him.

“You
see this pale yellow relationship?” She pointed to it. “That developed just in
the last few weeks. It means we’re friends and not just in a casual sense. We
can completely trust each other.”

Nate
looked back and forth from the connection to her earnest face, his mind and his
emotions a jumble of confusion. “I don’t believe you,” he whispered.

“You
can
trust
me, Nate. I would never hurt you. Ever. Not if I can help it.”

God,
he wanted to believe her. But this had to be what she’d done to him before.
This was how she’d fooled him. Nate felt anger and righteous indignation boil
inside him, but before he could bring it crashing down on Adelaide, she reached
out to the line.

She
brushed her fingertips along it, and it seemed to twang and vibrate at her
touch. And then a swarm of feelings flowed through Nate, originating in the
spot where that thread touched him. Trust, affection, acceptance, liking.
Everything he’d been battling to not feel for her spread through him.

Nate
blinked and took a deep breath, not realizing he’d been holding it. Adelaide
didn’t say or do anything else. She just watched, patiently, while he processed
everything she was saying and showing him.

“What’s
that about?” he whispered, eyeing the deep purple relationship that was black
and frayed at the ends. He looked down to where the strand started from his
heart. Bits of red blended into the purple. Adelaide had a similar one coming
from her, but the two strands didn’t quiet connect.

“I
don’t know. Yet.”

Nate
swallowed as suspicion, insidious and debilitating, crept into his mind. But
this time Adelaide wasn’t his focus. “What happens when you touch it?” he felt
compelled to ask.

Adelaide
slowly stepped closer to him. “I feel warmth and tingling when I try to touch
the line coming from me.”

“And
the one from me?”

“I
don’t know… I haven’t tried.”

Nate’s
hands started shaking. Fear sat in the pit of his stomach. If he was right….

“Do
it.”

Adelaide
reached out, but the strand moved away from her and flinched almost. She pursed
her lips and stepped in closer to him. She placed her hand on his chest, and
Nate felt her heat through his wind-dried shirt. Then she slid her hand down
and wrapped it around the now violently thrashing line connected to his heart.

Nate
experienced a sudden, piercing pain so shocking that it stopped his breathing.
A hundred years of memories and feelings ripped through his mind, and every
single one involved the incredible woman standing before him. The truth was
blinding in its white hot intensity.

Nate
crumpled to his knees. “Oh, God,” he croaked out.

“Nate?”
Adelaide’s voice penetrated the pain inside him. He heard her fear. “What—?”

“Adelaide
Jenner!” a shrill voice pierced the air. “Get away from him right now!”

Lila
suddenly appeared beside Adelaide. Grabbing her by the arm, Lila jerked her
away. Nate, incapacitated by the agony tearing him apart, could only watch.

“What
the hell are
you
doing here?” Lila spat at him.

He
tried to open his mouth to respond. But no sound emerged.

“Lila?
Do you know him?” Adelaide asked in a voice trembling with distress and
confusion.

Lila
squatted in front of him and focused. Nate knew she was reading his mind.
God,
she’ll know why I’m really here.

Lila’s
eyes flared and then narrowed. “You bastard.”

She
backed up fast, taking Adelaide with her. Then she grasped Charlotte’s hand,
who was standing silently off to the side. Nate tried to stop them, to shout
“No! Wait!” but he still felt paralyzed by the pain.

“You’re
lucky I don’t kill you right now,” Lila hissed.

Nate
managed to raise his hand and reach for Adelaide. Her face was ashen, her gaze
stricken.

And
then she was gone.

The
yell that he hadn’t been able to get through his frozen lips and air-deprived
lungs now punched out of him in a raw, guttural, heart-wrenching sound.

He
knew. He knew now that Talia had done something to him and that Adelaide hadn’t
been the deceiver in his life. That role belonged to Maddox and Talia. He’d
walked away from his
te’sorthene
. He knew exactly what those lines were
between them.
He’d
severed that relationship.

“What
have I done?” he whispered brokenly. “Adelaide… what have I
done
?”

Adelaide
jerked out of Charlotte’s grasp and whirled around. “Please explain to me what
just happened.”

“How
long has Nate been with you?”

Adelaide
shook her head. “Oh no. I think I deserve some answers first. I mean, I knew
you guys would be mad at me for letting a stranger—” She broke off with a
frown. “Wait… How do you know his name is Nate?”

“He’s
not a stranger. He’s with Maddox.”

Adelaide
snapped her mouth shut with an audible click of her teeth. Her mind spun with
the implications. But it made no sense.

“No…”
She shook her head. “No, he’s not. Why were you there anyway? No one told me
you were coming.”

“Mom
had a feeling, so she sent me to check on you. Just lucky timing.”

Adelaide
pursed her lips. “I have to go back. I think I hurt him when I touched one of
the relationship lines between us.”

Lila
crossed her arms and glanced at Charlotte. Charlotte looked between the girls
and then popped away.

“We
can’t do that,” Lila insisted.

“He
won’t hurt me—”

“He
already has.”

Adelaide
frowned. “What?”

Lila
sighed. She dropped her arms to her sides and looked at her feet. “Nate is the
reason we had to take away your memories.
He
is who we made you forget.”

Adelaide
felt the shaking start. But she pushed it way down deep inside her. This was
too important. “I don’t understand.”

“Nate
used to be your
te’sorthene
.”

Nothing
was making any sense. “How is that possible?
Te’sorthene
don’t just…
stop.” She flung her arms out wildly.

“Someone
named Talia did something to him. We think. And the relationship… broke.”

Adelaide
gasped. That explained the severed relationship between them. She raised a
quivering hand to her lips and shook her head. “No,” she whispered.

Lila
looked to be on the verge of tears herself. “You were beyond devastated, so I
took away your emotions. But that made you really dangerous. So much power and
no emotion to govern it. So we took away your memory instead.” Lila took one of
Adelaide’s hands and fell to her knees at her feet. “I’m so sorry!”

Adelaide
dropped down in front of her sister and pulled her into a hug. Her head and her
heart were spinning. She had known that the holes in her memory existed to hide
something bad. But she hadn’t expected this. With
Nate
, of all people.

Shaking
her head she pulled back from Lila. “He’s
not
bad. Not anymore at least.
I’m sure of it. We need to talk to him.”

Lila
sighed. “I read his mind. Maddox sent him to use you. He was supposed to earn
your trust, even your love, so that you’d follow him anywhere. Even back to
Maddox, where you’d be a willing prisoner and bait for me.”

Behind
Lila, the rest of their family piled through the doorway. Adelaide stood up and
put her hands on her hips.

“I
need to talk to him.”

*****

Nate
sat on the couch in Adelaide’s Outback house, his head in his hands. He’d been
there for hours. Well, technically he’d been sitting outside in the dirt for a
good chunk of that time. He’d moved inside when Adelaide hadn’t returned. But
he couldn’t leave. Not yet.

“What
are you thinking about?”

Nate
jumped to his feet at the sound of Adelaide’s voice. Her name died on his lips
when he saw her entire family standing behind her.

Enemies…

But
he pushed past that first instinctive thought, knowing it wasn’t real. He
blinked several times to reset his mind. When he looked back up, the people
standing in front of him were not exactly the family of his vague memories, but
at least he didn’t want to immediately kill them.

Filled
by shame and sorrow, he focused on Adelaide. “You don’t know what I was
thinking?”

She
shook her head, though she didn’t move closer. “I promised I wouldn’t use
telepathy on you.”

How
could she be this nice when she had to know what he’d done? What he’d planned
to do?

“Well,
I
didn’t promise anything,” Lila piped up. “He’s plotting to take down
Maddox and Talia.”

A shocked
silence descended on the room. Nate grimaced at the expressions on their faces…
a mixture of hope, doubt, shock, suspicion, and, in Adelaide’s case, despair.

She
closed her eyes for a moment and then, with a deep breath, shot her sister an
annoyed look. “If that’s the case, then my point is made and you can give us
some privacy.”

Ellie
cleared her throat, “I don’t think—”

“Let’s
go outside,” Selene interrupted. She walked across to the door and opened it
expectantly.

Nate
was deep in shock, and he kept his mouth shut and his gaze focused on Adelaide
as everyone else filtered outside. He wouldn’t mess up this one chance to
explain.

At
the soft click of the closing door, she turned to face him. For a moment she
said nothing and just let her eyes travel over what he was sure was his
haggard-looking face.

“Did
I hurt you?”

He
didn’t answer. Instead he said, “How’s the shaking?”

She
pursed her lips. “I already told you… under control. Answer my question. Did I
hurt you?”

The
softness in her voice hit him hardest. Nate clenched his hands and looked away.
“No more than I deserved.”

Suddenly
she was standing directly in front of him. Close enough to touch. Close enough
to feel her heat and smell the lemony scent of her shampoo.

“Was
it your fault?” she asked.

The
question caught him off guard, and he jerked his gaze back to her. “You don’t
remember?”

In
response she reached out and took his hand. He flinched at her touch but didn’t
pull away. Adelaide led him over to the couch and tugged him down next to her.
“No. I still don’t remember. Was it your fault?”

“It
was hers. Talia’s. And Maddox for sending her.” A half-recalled conversation
that he’d overheard played in his mind again. “I think…  I think she was
intended for Ellie, but latched on to me for whatever reason.”

“So
you do remember?”

Nate
grimaced. “I never forgot, but my perception of our life together was warped.
I’m still not entirely sure what she did to me. But when you touched that
relationship line, I could feel the truth of what we were.”

“
Were
?”

Nate
cringed. “When I look at you, I remember our happiness. I remember loving you
then. But I can’t feel it now. Whatever was between us, it’s not fixed. Can’t
you sense that?”

Adelaide
let go of his hand and played with a frayed thread on the couch cushion. She
was suddenly back to not looking at him, like the first day he’d showed up in
her yard. “I don’t have any confidence in what I feel these days. But I do have
faith in what I can see. Our line is still broken.”

They
both sat in silence. His heart felt like lead weighing him down with the
heaviness of what they’d lost and maybe would never get back.

“Can
I trust you?” Adelaide asked. She finally lifted her gaze to his.

“I
don’t know,” he murmured truthfully. “I can still… feel her manipulations.
She’s crawling under my skin like ants. When you all first reappeared in here,
my first thought was
enemies
. That doesn’t bode well.”

Adelaide
stood up to pace the room. “So where do we go from here?”

“I
go back to Maddox,” he said without hesitation. “I’m bringing him down from the
inside.”

She
stopped her back and forth movement to stand with her back to him. “No,”
Adelaide whispered.

“
Yes
.
I have to earn my own life back. And they need to pay for taking it away.”

Adelaide
turned to face him, her little chin firm with determination. “Then we do it
together. They owe us both.”

Nate
jumped up and crossed the room to her side. With a small smile, he reached out
and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I can’t let you risk your
life. Not for me.”

Adelaide
leveled a hard stare at him. “I don’t think you get to choose how or why I risk
my life. Besides, what I’m thinking puts you in more danger than me.”

“Oh?”

Adelaide
gave him a smug smile. “Ever thought about being a spy?”

Nate
tipped his head to the side. “You want me to keep up the pretense that I’m
fulfilling my mission?”

“According
to Selene it’s the first time we’ve had someone on the inside.” She glared at
the door and grimaced. “She’s in my head at this very moment.”

“Not
so loud,” Adelaide yelled at the door.

Nate
felt a sudden sense of purpose. He had no idea what to do about his
relationship with Adelaide or with all the people standing outside right now.
But this… this he could do. It was tangible and immediate.

“Then
let’s carpe some diem, Princess. We can’t pass up an opportunity like this.
We’ll fight them.” Nate suddenly grinned. “To the pain.” He waggled his
eyebrows.

“Ah.
There it is?”

“What?”

“Your
real smile. I was afraid you’d lost it. But, seriously, you’re quoting
ridiculous movie lines at a time like this?
Inconceivable
!”

He
laughed. “How’d you know that line?”

She
shook her head, blushing a little. “I watched it a few weeks ago after a
training session with Ellie. I wanted to be in on the joke.”

Nate
sobered. She’d done that for him. Granted, it was before she knew the truth
about his intentions, but still. It was a sweet gesture. And one that triggered
his feelings of guilt all over again.

“I
honestly have no idea why you’d want to see my smile. Not now,” he murmured.

Adelaide
reached up and brushed her fingertips across his lips. Memories of other times
they’d touched like this surged through his mind.

“I
have no memory of you or what happened to us or what we’ve lost. I’m not even
sure that I can grasp it, honestly. But I do know the
you
from the last
few weeks. And I am your friend. So I need you to do me a favor.”

“What’s
that?” he whispered.

“Don’t
die.”

Nate
gave her a lopsided smile. “I’ll do my best.”

Adelaide
nodded. “One other thing?”

“Yeah?”

“Ready
to face the family?”

Nate’s
smile slipped. “I don’t think I’m ready for that. I’m not—” He cleared his
throat. “I’m not entirely me yet. I do know logically what I’ve put them
through. But I need some time. They still don’t seem like my real family to me.
I want to make sure I don’t kill them in some weird fit of brainwashed rage.”

Adelaide
reached down and squeezed his hands. “They understand. Whenever you’re ready.
They’re going to head back to the Vyusher castle now and leave us to it.”

Nate
felt an odd combination of guilt and relief. “They trust me alone with you?”

She
gave him a pointed look. “You don’t think Ellie, Selene, Lila, and Griffin were
just sitting out there idly, do you? They’ve been pouring through your mind.”

Nate
grimaced. “Fan-freakin’-tastic.”

“Besides,
our being alone here is part of the deception. We have to keep up the charade
for this to work.”

“True,”
Nate murmured, but his focus was not on her, but on a possibility that had just
occurred to him.

“Care
to share?” Adelaide interrupted his thoughts.

Nate
glanced up and grinned. “I think I know exactly where to start when I get back
to Maddox.”