Chosen by Fate (34 page)

“You said you talked to a vampire. Someone who knows about wraiths?”

“She befriended a wraith right before she died. But I want to know why you didn’t tell us what was happening. About how extensively and quickly the changes were happening.”

She plucked at the sheets on the bed, then folded her hands in her lap. “What does it matter? It was happening, and there was nothing any of us could do about it.”

He stood, pushing his chair back so hard it toppled over. “You can’t be serious. Resignation. That’s your response? You’re just going to let it happen? You? Because I know what comes when this change of yours is complete, Wraith, and I’m almost certain you do, too. In case you don’t, though, let me lay it out for you—death!”

“I’m already dead,” she said tonelessly.

“Damn it, do not play that card now. I’m talking about the end, Wraith. Your end!”

“And exactly what do you think I can do about that?” she snapped, wanting to cover her ears and hum to drown out his words. He was basically accusing her of being a coward, just as he had before. But it wasn’t cowardice to accept one’s fate. To give in gracefully and maybe—just maybe—even look forward to some peace. Was it?

“How about fight? Search for answers? Find out who you are? How you died? Ask. For. Fucking. Help. From the people who care most about you.”

Wraith snorted. “I tried that already, remember? This mission was more important.”

“It was more important given the information you gave us, but you left a little something out, didn’t you? Did you really think I’d let this mission get in the way of saving your life?”

He said it with such conviction. As if helping her wouldn’t have given him a moment’s pause, even if it meant abandoning his former girlfriend or risking the felines declaring war again. For what? For
her
? A female who was already
dead
? He was fooling himself, but he couldn’t fool her. “I don’t have a life, Caleb. I’m
dead
. Why can’t you get that through your head? Dead, dead, dead, dead—”

His face flushed, and he looked angry enough to kill her himself. “Stop! That’s not true and you know it. I had your fucking blood all over my hands when your heart stopped, and it was still there when I got your heart pumping again, so don’t try that bullshit on me, Wraith!” His breaths were noisy, his eyes wild, his nostrils flaring.

So she
had
died. And he’d brought her back. She shook her head. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” she said quietly. “We . . .” She swallowed and instinctively replaced the words she wanted to say with ones she was more familiar with. “We
fucked
, O’Flare. And yeah, it felt good. Thank you, and I mean that from the bottom of my recently revived heart. But nothing has changed. You’re alive. I’m dead. I’m probably going to die again really soon, no matter what you did to prevent it from happening in that bathroom, but we’ll get this mission done. Afterward, I’ll see what I can do about—”

He laughed, a caustic sound that took the words right out of her mouth. His eyes narrow slits in his handsome face, he moved closer until he loomed over her. “You seriously think this mission’s still viable? That even if it was, you’d work it? The mission’s over. We blew our cover last night. Someone else is going to handle it.”

It took her a second to comprehend what he was saying. The mission was over? Because of her and the damn man who’d gotten the better of her in the bathroom? Failure was a heavy weight on her shoulders as she said, “Then I guess it’s time for me to go.”

Throwing off her blankets, she sat up, wincing as she did, but she breathed deep until she managed to get to her feet. To her utter amazement, Caleb calmly walked up to her and lightly pushed her chest so she fell back onto the bed.

“Do not piss me off any more than you already have, Wraith.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t think because you’ve given me an orgasm or two that I’ll even hesitate to take you down, Caleb.”

He flashed his strong, white teeth in a feral grin. “Go for it.”

They glared at each other, and she really tried to muster the strength to pop him in the face, but she couldn’t even make it to her feet again. To cover for her weakness, feeble as the attempt was, she said, “Did Lucy get any takers last night?”

The way Caleb blinked instantly told Wraith something had happened to the mage. Her chest filled with dread. “What happened, Caleb?”

When he told her, she shook her head. “Where’s the shape-shifter?”

“Last I saw, Dex had him tied up and had called the Bureau to pick him up.”

“We need to talk to him. Find out who he’s working for.”

Caleb looked ready to throttle her again. “Didn’t you hear anything I said, Wraith? Let the next team handle it. Hell, Dex and Lucy can work the mission in some way, but you and I need to concentrate on you. On finding out who you are.”

“Talking to the shape-shifter
will
be concentrating on me, Caleb. Because how do you think the shape-shifter took my form in the first place? He had to have my DNA.”

“He could have lifted that from your glass at the bar. Or rubbed against you when he was walking by. We wouldn’t have known because he could have adopted twenty other identities while he was doing it.”

“But why would he have counted on chance? Emmett was there to get me, and he got his orders from someone who knew I would be at Knox’s wedding reception. Maybe he and the shifter were working together, and the shifter had my DNA before he walked into the club, in which case he might know something about me that I don’t.”

She could tell she’d said what she needed to convince him. She didn’t believe it herself, but if it got Caleb off her back and to the shape-shifter sooner, so be it.

Suddenly, it occurred to her what she was doing. She was resisting his attempts to find out who she was. Because she really no longer cared.

The realization floored her, and she had to brace her palms on the bed to keep from crumpling. Seeing Caleb in the bar with the feline princess and then getting attacked in the bathroom, facing her impending death—it had all changed something inside her. Or maybe she’d changed before that, when Caleb had taught her the meaning of pleasure and intimacy. She no longer cared who she’d been, she realized.

She was Wraith. A member of the world’s first Para-Ops team. She belonged in this world, and so what if she’d been betrayed by a friend or two? Big deal if she was going to die like every other human. She’d packed decades into the past ten years, and she needed to stop worrying about the past and the future. She needed to do what she was meant to. Hunt the bad guys. Stop them from hurting felines.

And spend as much time with Caleb O’Flare as she could before she exited this life with some dignity.

Caleb had no clue what she was thinking. He was obviously still focused on her statement about the shape-shifter having come to the club with her DNA. “Who would have DNA from you?”

She almost smiled but stopped herself, knowing he’d view it as her mocking him, when it was really about her knowing him. Maybe even better than she knew herself. And what she knew of him, she liked.

More than liked.

She licked her lips and answered, even though her gaze had focused on his mouth, and in her mind she was already kissing him. “Colt, Ramsey, Mahone. And the mage who experimented on me.”

“It wasn’t the mage.”

He said the words with such confidence, such finality, that Wraith blinked. “How . . . how can you know that?” When Caleb didn’t immediately answer, she narrowed her eyes. “Caleb?”

“What did you think I’d do after I saw those videos of him torturing you, Wraith? How did you think Mahone got me to play his stooge? Did you really think it was because he asked nicely?”

“You found the mage?” Wraith whispered, the notion that Caleb had gotten even remotely close to that kind of evil making her shiver.

But Caleb shook his head. “He was already in federal custody. Had been for years. He was a mage leader, however, with a lot of money and influence. He’d built a strong defense team around him, and that team had filed enough paperwork to guarantee the mage would die in prison before he was executed for his crimes.”

“And you made sure that didn’t happen? You killed him? For me?” Even as she felt horror at the thought—that Caleb would have to live with the stain from a cold-blooded execution on his hands—he shook his head. Her brow furrowed in confusion.

“I made sure he died slowly and painfully, Wraith, but I didn’t actually kill him. I wanted to. Desperately. But I . . .” He swallowed hard and Wraith stood, a sudden strength thrumming through her body.

“But what?” she prompted.

“I didn’t want to touch him. If you touched me, if you looked at me, I didn’t want you to even think about the fact that I’d touched a man who’d caused you so much pain. Is that stupid?”

Moving purely on instinct, she walked closer to him. She lifted her fingers to his lips and covered them. They felt soft and hard, warm and cool, as complex in nature as the man they belonged to.

“Caleb . . .” she said softly.

His eyes blazed above her fingers.

“I don’t find that stupid at all. I’d heard he was captured sometime during the War, but I . . . but I never knew for sure. Thank you for telling me. For caring enough to avenge me. For bringing me back from the dead.” She skimmed her fingers over his mouth and across his cheeks. His throat. “Now kiss me.”

Caleb felt like someone had suddenly pushed his head under water and was holding him down so he couldn’t breathe. The blue sparks in Wraith’s eyes had expanded as he looked at her, until the blue had spread throughout her irises. The color glowed and sparkled like a million tiny sapphires, urging him to stay in their cool, crystalline depths.

Wraith slipped her fingers off his lips, but otherwise remained still. Watchful. Waiting.

He licked his lips and slowly, so slowly because he was reluctant to look away from her gaze, he lowered his head. His eyes closed the instant his lips touched hers.

She sighed. Melted into him as if she’d gone boneless. Her body conformed its shape to his, and he gently cradled her, ever mindful of the wound in her side. Her lips sipped at his, retreating and then coming back for more. His tongue followed, tracing her lips with a reverent skim until he realized she was smiling.

As if she was happy.

It almost brought him to his knees.

Because he knew what she was doing. She wasn’t kissing him off. She was saying good-bye. Not because she intended to go anywhere, necessarily, but because she was no longer fighting what she was or what was going to happen to her. More than anything, her acceptance scared him.

He pulled back, wanting to argue with her and shake her until she agreed to fight. To try something instead of just waiting for death to claim her. But her expression was one of utter contentment, and he choked back his words, knowing how precious that must be to her.

Lifting his hands, he threaded his fingers through her hair. It was still predominantly white, with chocolate brown roots. She closed her eyes as if savoring his touch and tilted her head back, exposing the long, graceful arch of her neck. Her skin had only the slightest blue tinge to it now, and when he bent down to kiss the corner of her mouth, he felt the slight puffs of air as she breathed out. In. Out. In . . .

“What do you want, Wraith?” he asked, suddenly wanting to give her everything. “If I could give you one thing, anything in the world, what would you ask for?”

Her eyelids drooped, as if they were weighed down, and he felt his own lids getting heavy. Her hand caressed his face, drifted down his chest, then moved to his groin. He sucked in a breath when she cupped him through his pants.

“I want you to make love to me, Caleb. Tenderly. Slowly. With all the patience in the world. Not because you’re afraid of hurting me, but because you never want the moment to end. Just like me.”

Her tone, her words, her meaning—they all slammed into him like an out-of-control locomotive.

Without further thought, he picked her up, still mindful of her wound. Sighing, she wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her hand on his shoulder. As she stared at him with her beautiful blue eyes, Caleb couldn’t help thinking this must be a dream, and he prayed he’d never wake up. That he could keep her here with him, lost in this moment for an eternity.

Without taking another step, he kissed her again, using his lips and tongue to give her what she wanted, exactly how she’d asked for it. Tenderly. Slowly.

But he found he couldn’t maintain his patience for very long.

He wanted her naked, her flesh against his, her hands on his body. Sliding and sucking and nibbling each other for hours until they were both exhausted but still unable to stop. Putting her down on the bed, he slipped her out of the loose sweats and T-shirt he’d dressed her in. Keeping his palms flat, he started at her shoulders and smoothed his hands along her body in everexpanding circles. Over her breasts. Her stomach. Her hips and thighs and calves. They were still riddled with scars, but he barely noticed them. They were normal. They were . . . Wraith.