Cataclysm (13 page)

When he was gone, Kerrigan stood there, looking up at Dominic innocently, still waiting for his reaction. But reacting the way he wanted to at that exact time wouldn’t have gone over well. He was furious. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and maybe shake some sense into her, but it would have been pointless because the damage had already been done.

She had invited a stranger to their home. She had endangered the lives of everyone who lived there, and he had no idea how effective he could be in protecting them if the little now-you-see-him-now-you-don’t thing didn’t turn out to be just a one-time fluke.

He turned and stomped toward their room, knowing she would follow.

“Dominic, let me explain.”

“So, explain,” he said in a clipped tone.

“Are you mad?” she asked, but he ignored her, not sure how volatile his words might come across in his current state of anger. He felt betrayed, blindsided—even though he knew deep down that hadn’t been her intention. It was the initial shock of it that kept him from reining it in.

Needing something to occupy himself, he started making up the bed that he had left askew after his hellish nightmare. Kerrigan went over to the window, and he could tell the moment she saw all of the empty beer bottles because she crossed her arms over her chest and the muscles in her jaw developed a tic.

“Are you drunk?”

Dominic rolled his eyes and threw the last pillow onto the bed. “Yes, I’m drunk. I’ve had a pretty shitty day, okay?”

Kerrigan didn’t respond. She stood there, looking at him. The silence between them stretched, neither one knowing quite what to say, both of them angry for their own separate reasons.

“You realize the position you’ve put us in with your little stunt, right?”

“Your mother was an alcoholic, Dominic.” The disappointment lacing her voice nearly knocked him over, but the words... the words stung.

He had never given any thought to that fact when he drank, because he knew he could control it. He wasn’t anything like his mother. He had just had a really bad day. Still, he would be careful not to drink in excess again. The last thing he wanted was to cause the woman he loved more than anyone else in the world to worry she might have to watch him die a slow death at the bottom of a bottle. He’d been there, done that—wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy.

“It was just a few beers. Don’t try to change the subject.”

“I wanted you to meet him.”

“So you invited him to our
house
?” Dominic ran a frustrated hand through his hair and turned away. “Jesus, Kerrigan! Do you have any idea how much danger you might have put us all in? He’s a stranger, for Christ’s sake! He could be working for Drake and Sinclair for all we know!”

“Kerrigan,” she said so quietly he wasn’t sure she had said anything at all.

Dominic looked at her, confusion marring his perfect features. “What?”

“You always call me
Querida
, but you just called me by my name,” she clarified. “You’re mad.”

“Damn straight, I’m mad! Pissed is more like it!”

She bowed her head like a scorned child and fidgeted with her fingers.

Dominic took a deep breath to calm himself and then pulled her into his embrace. “Look,
Querida
, you always give people the benefit of the doubt because you genuinely want to see the good in them. It’s one of the many things I love about you, but you’re entirely too trusting. You have to be more careful.”

Kerrigan pulled back and looked up at him. “I saw the good in
you
. I trusted
you
, and that turned out to be the best thing I could have ever done.”

“Yes, but it wasn’t very smart of you. Look at the things I’ve done in my past. If it hadn’t been for Availia, I would probably still be doing them.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You’re a good person. You only did those things because you had to.”

“That’s beside the point, Querida. You could’ve been wrong about me.”

“But, I wasn’t. And I don’t know how I know it, but I’m not wrong about Drew either. You have to trust my judgment on this. He knows things about who and what I am, and I can really benefit from his knowledge. He’s been doing this a whole lot longer than I have. Grammy’s not here to help me, and there’s only so much you can do, Dom. You’re not a Guardian.”

The truth of her words slammed into him like a runaway freight train. No, he wasn’t a Guardian, and he didn’t know jack shit about her capabilities or how to deal with her gift. He had done all he could do for her in the training department.

As much as he hated to admit defeat, he had no choice. “Okay.” She smiled up at him. “But... I don’t have to like it. You, I trust. Him, I’ll be keeping a close eye on.”

“Thank you for being reasonable.” Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. She was excited over the prospect of learning more about her gift, and he couldn’t fault her for that. “Who knows? Maybe he can even figure out how to help you. God knows we can use all the help we can get.”

True, but he wasn’t so sure there
was
any help for him.

She ran her hands over his chest. “Now, tell me what’s been so shitty about your day.”

Dominic had to smile. Kerrigan wasn’t one for swearing unless she was really pissed, so to hear her quote him was almost comical.

He sat down on the futon and pulled her to sit beside him with his arm over her shoulder. “Drake showed up in my dream.”

Kerrigan pulled back. “Oh my God. What happened?”

He shrugged as if it was no big deal. “He made some threats, tried to scare me into submitting to what he wants, but it didn’t work. Pissed me off more than anything. Apparently, I’ve got a cool new trick though. If I get mad enough, white light shoots out of my body. Pretty cool, huh?”

A single brow lifted, and Kerrigan half-giggled in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Yeah, like I said, Drake pissed me off. I mean, like royally pissed me off, and then this white light shot out of me like a laser light show and punched him in the chest. And then he just wasn’t there anymore.”

“You knocked him out of your dream?”

Both of his shoulders lifted with a long inhale of breath and then fell again with a sudden exhale. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“That is
very
cool, Dom.” She kissed him and then rested her head on his shoulder. “I wonder what that means though.”

“I was kind of hoping you’d help me figure it out. I mean, it could’ve just been a one-time thing.”

He thought it best to leave out the part about pulling a disappearing act in the middle of the day as a side effect. At least until he knew for sure that it was an issue and not just a fluke as he suspected. No sense in getting her worried over nothing. One scared shitless person in their relationship was plenty enough.

“I think we should pay Lucy a visit. Let her get a read on you and see what she thinks.”

“Works for me.” Dominic kissed the top of her head.

They sat there in silence, listening to Staind’s
Everything Changes
playing over the radio. Kerrigan pushed back the jade bracelet she had made for him when she was seven and traced the outline of the tattoo on the inside of his wrist that read Corazón de Hierro. It was the Spanish translation of Iron Heart, inscribed there long before she had come along, and rendered unnecessary the moment she had bumped into him in the kitchen the day she moved in. His defenses never stood a chance where she was concerned. She had taken a blowtorch to the iron and melted his resolve with nothing more than a look.

Dominic was the one to finally break the silence. “Hey, about this Drew guy... I know you think he’s all that he says he is and that we should trust him, but I don’t want him to know anything about me, okay?”

Kerrigan sat up and started to protest, but he put a finger over her lips to stop her. “At least not until after we’ve figured out what his intentions are and whether or not he’s the real deal. It probably wouldn’t hurt to take him to Lucy as well.”

She relented. “You’re probably right.”

Dominic kissed the tip of her nose. “Of course I’m right.” He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her to him. “Now, when is he supposed to be coming over?”

“Tomorrow.”

That night Dominic had gone spectral again during his shower, well before midnight. When he had jumped out to confirm what he saw in the mirror, a mass of puffy, white vapor in the shape of his body looked back at him. He willed himself to materialize, but even that hadn’t worked. Had it not been for the steam from his shower, he would have been completely invisible.

What had happened earlier in the day definitely hadn’t been a fluke. This shit was really happening. He had a sick feeling the temporary stay of execution that had been granted by Availia, and again by Kerrigan, was coming to an end.

Kerrigan’s voice had come from the other side of the door, and as if it were a trigger, his human form had taken shape once again. He had quickly composed himself, grateful to see his own reflection staring back at him in the mirror before he opened the door for her.

He did his best to appear normal, even if under the surface he was freaking the hell out. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything.

When midnight tolled, he was back to boo time, his usual without the flickering. Figured that whatever was happening to him would be one-sided.

The next morning, per their usual, he and Kerrigan made furious love. He was always grateful to be granted another day in which he could touch her, feel her, and he never wasted the opportunity to do exactly that. Besides, he had a lot of pent-up anxiety, and he needed the outlet to work it off so that he might actually be able to sleep. As it was, he was already terrified every time he closed his eyes, afraid he might not ever wake up again. Their passionate session worked like a charm, and he curled his big body around her tiny frame and off to sleep they went.

His peaceful tranquility didn’t last for long, though, even with Kerrigan in his arms.

Drake infiltrated his fantasy world again... uninvited. It was the same dream-turned-nightmare, the same build up of protective anger, the same release of energy. When he woke, it was to the sound of a fading scream that echoed off the walls and shot back at him, and he realized it was him. He was drenched in sweat, his breaths so frantic he feared he might be on the verge of hyperventilation. An aching fire was just beginning to fade in his chest, and he had a hard time telling if it was a residual effect from the dream, or if the rapid rate at which his heart was beating was getting dangerously close to combustion of nuclear proportion.

Kerrigan’s voice belayed her trepidation when she attempted to comfort him with a calming touch to his twin mark. Concern etched every fine line of her face, and the rims of her eyes were acting as dams to the tears that threatened to overflow. She pushed her fingers through the hair at his temple as she waited for him to gather his bearings.

When he took her hand and pressed his lips to her fingertips, she finally let her head rest on her folded arm. “It was him again, wasn’t it?” Her voice was meek, almost as if by not saying the words too loudly, and not using his name, it somehow took power away from Drake.

Dominic closed his eyes and nodded. “He just knows how to get under my skin, you know?”

“What is he using against you?”

“You. Colton. The people who mean the most to me in the world.” He left out the part about their baby, not wanting her to have to carry the same fear around that he had. Besides, it was still way too early in their relationship to have the “baby” talk.

He rolled to face her and skimmed the back of his hand over her belly, imagining it swollen with his child. And that only caused him to have to force down the lump that had formed in his throat as a result.

He could really use a beer. Or a shot of Patron. Silver. Hold the lime. And the salt. Hell, just give him the whole bottle.

“He knows he can’t touch me. He’s just messing with your head. And as for Colton...” Kerrigan paused, running her thumb over his bottom lip. “He’d have to go through me to get to him. I’m hoping that if everything goes well with Drew, I’ll have an even bigger arsenal at my fingertips. I think maybe that’s why he was sent here... to help with Drake, and maybe even to help me figure out how to save you.”