Danea (25 page)

“Go to the kitchen, Danea,” Wade’s teeth were close together, his voice strained.

She stumbled slightly to the side when Noah’s hands gripped her shoulders and almost lifted her from between them. She stomped one foot on the floor and glared at them.

“Fine…”
She paced back and glared at them. How to get their attention…Danea took a step back and pulled her t-shirt over her head, tossing it to the sofa before reaching for the snap of her jeans. The sound of it ricocheted through the house because all of a sudden, everything went silent. She shoved them down her legs and bent to retrieve them and add them to the shirt. Standing in a skimpy bra and panties, she leaned her fists on her hips. “Got your attention now?”

Her scowl deepened, carefully studying their expressions, their eyes.

“Wade…do you have a shield around the house?” She asked abruptly, staring into his eyes. It was almost like he was struggling to translate her words. Okay, she thought, October or not, they needed fresh air. She grabbed both hands and pulled, catching them by surprise and throwing them off balance as she led them to the patio doors. At least in the back, it was private since she was almost naked.

“Danea, damn it…” Noah pulled his hand free just as she threw the patio door wide and shoved him through it. He went stumbling forward on the porch, righting himself and crashing into Wade when she pushed him outside. She closed the door behind her
, blocking it and stared at them.

“Answer me!” She shouted loudly. “Is the house shielded?”

Wade raised two hands to his face, rubbing hard before his fingers moved to his temples.

“A headache…”

“You were complaining about a headache earlier. That…is not normal,” she told him fiercely. “Noah…why were you fighting? Tell me the words…explain to me why you were arguing!” Danea demanded, trying to think of something for them to focus on since she wasn’t getting through to them. Dark eyes stared at her, slightly confused but the glimmer of heat was fading from his eyes. She’d seen it on a human. Once. Just before they started a fight with a demon twice their size. They hadn’t begun the fight because they wanted to; but because the demon compelled them to.

“We…” Noah shook his head, one hand up on the back of his neck. He blinked and stared at Wade.
Then he stared around and realized they were outside. “How did we get out here? We weren’t…were we?”

“The house isn’t shielded,” Wade finally answered, dropping to his heels and hanging his head between his knees. “Christ, my head is thumping.”

“You were shouting and shoving at each other like a couple teenage boys,” Danea shivered, wrapping her arms around her and crossing her feet over one another. “And now you can’t remember it…because whatever was making you behave that way, is inside the house, not outside. So…think…what could it be?”

“Demon spell.” Wade answered after a few minutes, he stood up slowly and stretched. He closed his eyes, his lips moving silently to words that had long ago been etched into his memory. “For that kind of control, that kind of spell, there has to be something inside that is tainted. Something that carries the spell into the house.”

“Who’s been to visit?” Danea didn’t protest when Noah peeled off his outer shirt and draped it around her shoulders. “Oh, god, you’re warm…”

“It’s safe now,” Wade shoved the sliding glass door aside and almost carried Danea into the heated room. “Get dressed…” He met the anger in Noah’s gaze. “Search. Under things…
Mrs. Addison has been my housekeeper for five years. The only other person who’s been here is my student, Jessica Bently.”

“The blonde from the market,” Danea met his look. “She was there today. Wanted to know why you wanted anything to do with me. I told her she was a spoiled brat…she stormed off.”

“You told me about that,” Noah continued to check around and under pieces of furniture, leaning in and pulling a small book from beneath the sofa. “This yours?” He asked, looking from one to the other. Both shook their heads but Wade came forward and took the book, opening it and flipping pages.

“Empty? A journal?”

Without saying anything
more, Wade tipped the glass protector from in front of the fire blazing in the fireplace. He tossed the book in and quickly closed the glass over the opening.

Danea jumped and fell back onto the sofa when the flames ignited, sending out shoots of bright colors and loud bangs for several minutes.
She hadn’t realized she’d scooted up into the corner of the sofa, her knees drawn up and arms around them as she stared.

“What the fuck was that?” Noah growled, the gold flecking the edge of his eyes was back but this time, she knew what it meant.

“Demon spell. Someone wanted us tearing each other apart,” Wade answered, dropping into his desk chair and draining the tea he had remaining there.

“I didn’t feel anything,” Danea said when she was sure her voice would work.

“It wasn’t aimed at you,” Wade said simply. “Someone wanted me and Noah out of the way.”

“I…oh,” she said. “Why were you arguing? Something had to start it,” she looked patiently from one to the other, only this time she knew there was something they
didn’t want to share. “You were talking to Seth Anderson,” she commented thoughtfully. “About me?”

“We were disagreeing,” Noah admitted slowly.

“It was aimed at me as the trigger,” Wade said carefully. “When I disagreed with you, it set it into motion.”

“That blonde is a demon?” Danea demanded. “I knew I should have ripped her face off.”

“Or someone used her,” Noah suggested with only a hint of a smile.

“Why were you disagreeing?” Danea looked impatiently from one to the other. “Because of me? I know those expressions and if you think for a minute that I’ll tolerate being…being smothered…”

“Keeping your cute ass safe is not smothering you,” Noah threw back flatly.

“I have a right to make that choice…” she stopped and looked at Wade. “That’s why you were arguing? What happened that I missed?”

“Seth Anderson called while you were under the headphones,” Wade said quietly. “Hold that thought a minute, would you?” He went into the back room where other books were stored and came out with one a minute later. He laid it on the surface of his desk without opening it. His head shook when Danea opened her mouth. Without waiting for a comment, he raised his arms, palms aimed up as he softly recited words long ago committed to memory.

Danea went to his side as he lowered his arms, his body swaying slightly. She circled his waist and helped him to the chair.

“What did you do?”

“Threw up a shield. Something I should have done when we started this. But I didn’t know…” he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s done.”

“We didn’t know she was a hybrid,” Noah finished the sentence for him, crossing to the sofa and sinking back into the cushions.
“We didn’t connect the dots between what’s going on with Breanna and what’s going on here. We didn’t have all the underground information.”

Both of them turned when she started breathing too quickly and began pacing.

“Dinner,” she announced without looking back and felt every bit like a coward, her bare feet on the tiles in the kitchen. She had plates out of the cupboard and was adding silver when she felt the hands on her waist. Another set of hands removed the table settings from her hands.

“Put your clothes on, Danea,” Wade guided her to where she’d left her jeans and shirt. He lifted the shirt and removed the one Noah had given her, helping her into it and waiting while she pulled on her jeans.
“Now sit down.”

“Dinner…”

“Then come in here and we’ll help you get it on the table,” Noah carried the dinner settings to the table and laid them out in the places they’d been using. “But keep breathing, Dani…or we’ll take over and I’m sure it won’t be a good thing to have us in your kitchen.”

“I know what happened to Brea…” she said quietly, moving the large casserole to the table and letting herself be pushed into a chair. “I’m alright,” she insisted, making a move to get up only to find one of them on either side of her. Danea sighed.

“Ice water?”

“Wine,” she answered, deliberately thumping her elbows on the table and holding her chin in her palms. “I put it in the cooler earlier. It’ll go well with the beef burgundy…and the bread is in the oven.”

“Have you always been this stubborn?” Wade asked casually, using the mitts and carrying the covered plate of rolls to the table before returning for the other things she had on the counter waiting to be moved.

“I still hear what you said,” she answered weakly, st
aring at the casserole lid and not moving. “They wanted Brea’s blood for spells. I don’t have magical blood. I don’t have magic at all. I’m not something…I’m a girl,” each word she whispered got softer and softer.

“Danea…” Wade took both her hands in his and pulled them up, forcing her to look into his eyes. “We won’t let anything happen to you. Noah has every law agency around searching for the people responsible for this morning.”

“What did Seth Anderson tell you?” She demanded, lifting her chin and pulling her hands free. Her gaze shot from one to the other. She saw something cross between them. “That’s what you were arguing about.”

“I don’t want you worried or in a panic about this,” Noah said flatly.
“And yes, it’s what we were arguing about. And before you go off on me, I definitely believe you’re an adult and wanting to shield you, is not a belief to the opposite, Danea. It’s our…fuck…it’s not a job…it’s our belief…our responsibility to take care of you. It’s as much built into our DNA as our other halves.” He sat down and took one of her hands.

“He’s right about that, Danea,” Wade sat on her other side, taking her hand and forcing her to face the table. “Making this place into a home…making us feel like we have a safe place to fall when we want to tear the world apart…this is what you do for us…it’s what we have to protect, for ourselves as much as for you. Yes, I thought you
should have all the information we’d been given. But…now I’m not so sure it’s always a good thing.”

“People make decisions that they otherwise might not have made…and I don’t want you doing anything rash,” Noah pushed a breath out. “Dinner smells great…and I’m starving. How about you?”

“You’ll be careful?” She asked, looking from Noah to Wade. “Please…promise me.”

“It’s not something we have a choice over, angel,” Wade kissed the soft center of her palm. “Have some dinner…we can talk about it more later.”

“No one knew about me,” Danea told them after they’d helped her clean the kitchen. Dinner had been a collection of every topic on the planet, except the vicious attack on her. She stretched out in the center of the bed, lying face down with her hands beneath her face. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“People knew about me, Danea,” Noah stepped from the shower and tossed the towel he’d been rubbing over his hair onto the chair to dry.

“And some know about me,” Wade added.

“People knew you were a shifter,” she said quietly. “And they automatically assumed I must be, too?”

“No…” Noah slid beneath the blankets.

“You don’t want to tell me the theory,” Danea lowered her face into the pillow. “I can handle it, you know. I am lying here with one of you on either side of me. I think I can manage some information about why I’m a target.”

“Mating theory has garnered a great deal of interest since the beginning,” Wade said carefully.
“The males are the ones afflicted by the…”

“Afflicted?” Danea giggled and pushed her face further into the pillow. “Oh, please…afflicted?”

“Good choice of words,” Noah groaned at the continuing giggles.

“The primary theory,” Wade continued in a flat, suffering tone. “Is that nature makes the selection because the pair are compatible for breeding.”

Danea’s head popped up instantly, her gaze going from one to the other rapidly.

“The arrow was coated with a tranquilizer,
Dani,” Noah said quietly. “Someone was intent on taking you from that beach.”

Danea considered this, her throat suddenly dry. “They want me because they think I’m a viable breeding female,” she said in a voice that shook a little more with each word.
She was very good at puzzles. And the pieces were too clear.

“Now do you get why I thought it best she didn’t know?” Noah said sourly.

“I fucking get that,” Wade responded with a very un-Wade like curse.

“Please…” Danea hated the quiver in her lip. “Stop.” She pressed her face into the pillow for a long, silent minute. But she wasn’t alone. For the first time in her life, those words echoed inside her head, inside her heart.

She was not alone. She had them to worry about just as strongly as they had her to be concerned for. It worked both ways.

“We’re stronger together than apart,” she said as she inhaled a steadying breath. Each of them had been touching some part of her. Noah’s hand rubbed reassuringly over her lower back while Wade’s hand smoothed and tangled in her hair.

“I promise not to run,” she began, putting herself in their place where their thoughts were regarding her safety. “I promise to do whatever you feel best for me. I promise that. I don’t want to leave you…either of you…”