Black Orchid (14 page)

Thanks
to Maddox’s teleporter, Corin, Nate found himself suddenly standing in the
middle of the Outback. Unfortunately, Corin had brought Dave along too.

Nate
cocked his head, as if he were hearing Adelaide. “She’s calling me,” he said.
“I’d better go.”

“Run
along, then,” Dave said. He gave Nate a cold smile. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Nate
jogged off, as if he weren’t in too much of a hurry. But once he was far enough
away from Dave, he put on a burst of speed to get back to the little Outback
house where Adelaide waited. Talking to Sheila had taken longer than expected.
But he needed to warn Adelaide about what Maddox had said.

The
sun was just setting, casting a red-orange glow across the land as he walked
inside the house.

“Adelaide?
Whoa—” A large wolf rose from the floor where he’d been curled. “Hey, Griffin.
You drew family duty tonight?”

“Adelaide’s
up in the loft.”

“I’ll
be right down!” she called.

Nate
glanced toward the stairs as Adelaide appeared. She smiled when she saw him,
relief in every inch of her face. Nate again felt the sting of guilt that
plagued him every waking moment since realizing the truth of his betrayal. He
didn’t deserve the smiles she bestowed on him with such stunning ease.

Blinking
to clear his thoughts, he turned back to Griffin. “It’s a good thing you’re
here anyway. Wherever our family is tonight, pull them back to the castle.
Immediately.”

“Why?”
Adelaide asked as she came to stand beside him.

Nate
didn’t have to say anything. Griffin had already pulled it from his mind.
“A
possible attack?”

“What?!”

“Did
I just hear the word atta—”

Nate
swung around to see Desmond descending the stairs. But before Nate could say
anything, Desmond froze in his tracks. Then suddenly he leapt through the air
and shifted mid-jump, tackling Nate to the ground.

“Stop!”
Adelaide screamed.

Before
Desmond could go for his neck, Nate used his strength to throw the wolf across
the room. He hit the wall and then crashed to the ground.

As
Desmond stumbled to his feet, Adelaide jumped between them. “Nate’s helping
us!” she cried.

Desmond
rose up and growled.

Nate
was not at all happy Adelaide had placed herself between him and an animal who
could rip her to pieces. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her behind him
protectively. “You touch her, you die.”

That
seemed to pull Desmond up short. He stopped mid-snarl, and tipped his head to
the side. Then he glanced at Griffin, who had yet to say or do anything.
Everything had happened too fast.

After
what appeared to be a telepathic dialogue, Desmond’s body wavered, and he
shifted back into his human form. “Sorry, dude.”

Nate
gave him a nod but said nothing. He let go of Adelaide and moved over to the
window to look outside. “We’re being watched. I got here ahead of him. We
probably have about twenty minutes.” Unless Corin teleported him over, but Nate
didn’t think they’d risk that. He turned back to face them. “You guys need to
leave. You need to check on your people.”

“Our
people,”
Griffin corrected softly.

Adelaide
crossed her arms over her chest and glared at all three men. “Focus here,
guys,” she said. “What’s this about an attack?”

Nate
glanced at Adelaide’s distraught face. “Maddox told me that I needed to keep
you away from your family tonight.”

“Shit,”
Desmond muttered. He looked at Griffin. “Can your telepathy reach them from
here?”

Griffin
shook his head.
“But I’ve got Charlotte coming now.”

Nate
frowned. “Do we have people somewhere they could be in danger?”

Griffin
nodded.
“They’re at Maddox’s old base in Texas.”

“We’ll
help—” Adelaide started, but Griffin cut her off.

“No.
You stay here or Maddox will know Nate tipped us off.”

Before
Nate or Adelaide could say anything else, Charlotte appeared in the room.
“Adelaide,
keep your mind open for me,”
Griffin said before he, Desmond, and Charlotte
disappeared.

Nate
froze, and he knew that all the blood had drained out of his face. He felt as
though a giant fist had just punched him hard in the gut. Charlotte. Memories
assaulted him – clear this time, instead of grey and hazy. She was his adoptive
mother, and he hadn’t seen her since he’d left with Talia and Maddox. He didn’t
count the night he realized the truth and the entire family had showed up in
this room. He hadn’t looked at anyone but Adelaide. He couldn’t.

But
tonight, the moment Charlotte had seen him, she’d mouthed his name. He’d seen
the pain in her eyes and the hope. The pain he’d put there with his betrayal.
The hope worried him. He couldn’t guarantee that Maddox wouldn’t take advantage
of his apparent weak spots and brainwash him all over again.

Charlotte
had smiled at him just as she’d disappeared, the one she’d used when he’d been
a little boy and had done something naughty. Nate bent over, put his hands on
his knees and tried to breathe.

“Nate?”
Adelaide’s concerned voice brought his gaze up to her.

He
held up a hand when she made to approach.
Cowboy up, dude,
he thought to
himself. Inhaling a big breath of air, he stood. “I’m okay.”

“Want
to talk about it?”

“Nope.”
He gave her his best carefree, happy-go-lucky grin. “All good.”

Instead
of smiling back and accepting him at face value, which most people did,
Adelaide stepped closer. “I can tell you when you don’t mean your smiles.” She
lifted her hand and brushed her fingertips over his eyes. “It doesn’t show up
here.”

A
new sensation clenched Nate’s gut. Desire. He trailed his gaze over the
contours of her face. Fate had picked him an angel for his
te’sorthene
.
And he’d destroyed the most perfect gift a Svatura could ever be given.
Circling her wrists with his hands, he pulled away from her touch.

Disappointment
shadowed her eyes, but then she tipped her chin up stubbornly. “Nate… what do
you see when you look at me?”

Nate
frowned his confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Do
you see your enemy?”

“Not
anymore.”

“Do
you see your
te’sorthene
?”

Nate
slowly shook his head, reluctant to hurt her but unwilling to lie. “I see
memories of you. Of us together. But many of them are still sort of faded. They
don’t seem real. And I don’t feel what I remember feeling.”

“But
you feel guilty.” It wasn’t a question.

Nate
shrugged one shoulder. “Wouldn’t you?”

“I
honestly don’t know,” she murmured. “But I can tell you what I see.”

“Yeah?
Is it a hunk and a half with a swagger?” He flexed a bicep.

Adelaide
chuckled but didn’t drop it. She tapped a finger on her temple. “No memories,
remember? So I see only what I know about you now. I see the man who despite
his original goal of seducing me and, well, whatever was supposed to come after
that, couldn’t do it. I see the man who’s risking his own life to prove his
worth, not only to his family, but to himself. I see the man who helped me tame
the beast inside. I see…”

She
paused, took a small breath and continued. “I see the man who kissed me silly,
igniting feelings that I still can’t seem to get a handle on, but then walked
away from me, regardless of his orders to seduce.”

Her
words touched something deep down inside him. Pulled to her by some invisible
string, Nate leaned down until their lips were a hair’s breadth apart. He
inhaled her, a heady combination of vanilla and sunshine and lemon. “You don’t
know how much I want to repeat that kiss right now.”

He
pulled back. Her sigh of disappointment feathered over his face as he did. “But
- especially because of your memory - it would be taking advantage of you. And
I refuse to be the cause of pain for you ever again.”

“So
no kissing?”

“No.”

“That’s
a pity.”

She
gave him a small grin and moved over to the couch.

“Anything
from Griffin?” Nate asked.

She
shook her head. “Not yet.”

She
looked so worried that Nate sat beside her and took her hands, giving them a
squeeze. “They’ll be okay.”

“I
hope so.” She sighed. “Can we talk about something else? Get my mind off
things?”

“Sure.”

Adelaide
scooted around to face him and curled her legs up under her. “Tell me about
your memories of Charlotte and Dexter.”

Nate
gave her a pained look. “That’s not exactly a happy topic for me, Princess.”

She
tipped her head. “The memories are happy, even if your present situation
isn’t.”

“I
suppose,” he muttered.

“Please.
I don’t remember them at all. I’d really like to know.”

Nate
scratched at the stubble on his jaw. “Don’t you need to be listening for
Griffin right now?”

Adelaide
wrinkled her nose. “I’m open to him – I think. I’m not always sure I’m doing it
right. Besides, I can either sit here and worry, or I can get my mind off what
might be happening while I learn about some of our history.”

Nate
sat back and propped his feet up on the coffee table. He debated saying no, but
in the end, he could refuse this woman nothing. “Okay. What do you want to
know?”

She
wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know what questions to ask, since I know nothing
about it. Start at the beginning.”

“The
beginning,” he mused. “So, you’ve got to understand that many of my memories
are still pretty hazy.”

Adelaide
nodded. “Okay.”

Nate
sighed. “Charlotte has always been in my life. She knew my parents. Apparently,
she knew my father first… for quite a few years before he met my mother. They
were both Svatura. I don’t remember how they met. They started traveling
together for safety.”

“But
nothing happened between them?”

He
shook his head. “No. She says he was more like an older brother.”

“And
your mom?”

“She
was just a normal human. A village girl they met in England. She knew about
Charlotte and my father and their powers but was too in love with him to care.”

“Something
happened to your parents?”

Nate
paused, not really seeing Adelaide as he filtered through the fuzzy images and
words in his head. “Charlotte told me that my mother died in childbirth having
me. My father was so heartbroken that he went a little crazy, started drinking,
picking fights. A man in a village shot him over a card game.”

Nate
glanced at Adelaide. Would he have felt the same if he’d lost
her
while
their
te’sorthene
bond was in place? He suspected that he would, and the
ever-present ache inside him swelled.

“So
Charlotte watched over you?” Adelaide asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Nate
nodded. “She’s the only mother I ever had. We had no money, no friends, no
family. Charlotte moved us to London and started sewing to support us.”

“When
did Dexter come into the picture?”

Nate
grinned as flashes of the stocky, gruff man who’d become his adopted father
flipped though his mind. “I was about eight years old. He came into Charlotte’s
shop one day, all dressed up in these fancy duds. Dexter’s mother could turn
things she touched into metals, including gold. Dexter can too, although I
think the gold ability came later. Anyway… he had lots of money. But he took
one look at Charlotte and that was it.”

“Love
at first sight?” Adelaide smiled and sighed.

Nate
chuckled. “For him, yes. Charlotte took some convincing. But eventually she
agreed to marry him, and he whisked us off to America. Charlotte insisted on
keeping up her sewing. That’s how she later met Lucy. They worked together as
seamstresses.”

“Ah.
So that’s how our families joined up?”

Nate
nodded. As he talked, the images in his head had become clearer, sharper. And
warmer. Adelaide had been right…. It helped to talk about it. It helped him
remember better, but it also forced him to focus on the happiness in those
thoughts and not just the guilt. He’d been loved and happy. And his family had
truly cared for him. Maybe he could get there again.

Adelaide
picked up a pillow and hugged it to her chest. Nate waited for the question he
knew was coming next. “Do you remember meeting me?”

Nate
took his time answering, comparing the woman before him with the images of a
younger Adelaide in his mind.

“It
was about 1930. We went over to your apartment in Chicago. I walked into the
house only to immediately see this girl with sunlit hair. But I couldn’t see
your eyes.”

Adelaide
tipped her head. “Why?”

Nate
grinned. “You wouldn’t look at me. You were painfully shy then. It took me
about a week before I finally discovered they were green.”

“Like
Mom’s and Lila’s.”

He
nodded.

Nate
smiled at the memories now flashing through his mind like an old-fashioned
movie. “I managed to get you to laugh, although I don’t remember what I said,
and you finally looked at me. I think I was determined to make you laugh every
day after that.”

Adelaide
gave him a warm smile, but as he watched, the clouds returned. “I wish I could
remember,” she whispered.

Nate
reached over and took her hand. “Not yet. Not if it means feeling any pain.” He
flipped her hand over and started tracing the lines crisscrossing her palm. “Do
you—”

“Do
I think we have a chance to fix whatever is broken between us?”

Nate
nodded, but didn’t look up.

Adelaide
sighed. “I don’t know. I could try. See if what I did to break Ariel’s bond
with Maddox’s wolf pack will work in reverse for us. But I just tried something
similar with Griffin, and it did nothing.”

Nate
looked up. “Do you
want
to try?”

Adelaide
licked her lips, drawing Nate’s regard. He held his breath waiting for her
answer, not sure if it was important because his guilt was driving him to fix
things or because over these last weeks, she’d come to mean more to him than
simply a friend. And the insane urge to kiss her was an entirely separate
complication.

“Yes,”
she whispered. “Do you?”

Nate
could see an answering desire in Adelaide’s gaze. Desire for him. But also
hope. She’d told him that because of her memory issues, she only knew him as
she did now. The past wasn’t clouding this issue for her. She wanted the man he
was
now
. Warts and all. The question was, could he move on from the past
he still remembered?

God,
he hoped so.

“Yes,”
he murmured. But then he jumped up and moved to the window. He gazed out into
the darkness for a moment. “But we shouldn’t.”

Nate
glanced back over his shoulder and caught Adelaide’s crestfallen look. “It’s
not that I don’t want to. But what if your family is in the middle of a fight
right now? We need to be ready to help.”

Adelaide
said nothing for a moment. She held his gaze, searching, delving deeply into
his soul. Whatever she saw there was what she’d needed to see. Suddenly she
smiled, and the sight took Nate’s breath.

“They’re
our family,” she gently reminded him.

“And
as I said, I can’t just sit here and wait for news – bad, good, or otherwise.
I’ll go crazy. What I do… we can stop easily if we need to.”

Nate
debated for a moment. He worried about Maddox’s warning. Something had to be
going on. He prayed he’d gotten Griffin the message in time. But still,
Adelaide was right that just waiting and worrying didn’t help anyone.

“All
right,” he murmured as he crossed the room to sit back down beside her.