Garda - Welcome to the Realm (26 page)

The dispatcher was sending me to a domestic. I wanted to tell them, No, I wasn’t going, but I couldn’t do that. I responded back and moaned.

Suddenly a thought entered my mind and made my knees weak, “You’re not going to leave me again, are you?”

She leaned in and kissed my lips gently, “No, I’m not leaving you. I do have to leave, but I’ll be back.”

“When?” anxiety laced my words.

“Soon, go do what you have to do, I’ll be back soon. Not tonight, but soon, I promise.”

I grabbed her by her forearms and pulled her to me in a quick deep kiss. When the dispatcher came back over the radio with more information about my call, I reluctantly pulled away and answered her. Corey stepped back so I could get in the car, and fear coiled in my gut that I would never see her again.

“Relax, Mitch, I’ll be back soon.”

I jerked a quick acknowledgement and climbed in the driver’s seat. I took one last, long view of her through the window, and I put the car in drive and flipped on the headlights, taking off from behind the warehouse before I changed my mind.

Corey was back. Somehow, someway, she had come back to me. Being able to touch her and kiss her again, healed a piece of my heart that had been fractured from the moment I had seen her lying on the pavement.

I gulped as I turned onto the road leading to the residence where the domestic was. She was back, but would she stay? She’s an angel? How could she stay? What did that really mean for us?

I pulled up behind my partner’s car and pushed the thoughts aside so I could deal with the situation. There would be time enough to dwell on it later.

~Brock~

It wasn’t hard to find her when I phased down. She was right where I knew she would be, right in Mitch’s arms. Before I could even think, I called out to her to stop.

When she said my name out loud, I internally groaned as I watched Mitch. Surprise and then sheer anger covered his facial features.

The entrance so close to them was not a smart idea, but if getting struck by Mitch helped him deal with his issues, then I would have taken many more from him.

His anger was not the only thing I would have to deal with, her anger would probably be worse. The moment she realized that I was his brother; her dark blue eyes started throwing out stormy sparks. She would want to know why I had never told her. It would be just another thing that she would feel I had held back and lied to her about—and hadn’t I done just that?

I didn’t want to leave her there with him, but I knew I needed to allow him time to calm down. I would have to find a way to get him to understand, to explain what had happened, but first I would deal with Coralenna’s wrath.

Back in the Realm, I stalked into my bathroom, tearing off my clothes and throwing them on the floor. A long hot shower was what I needed.

How could I justify to her that my reasons for holding back this information were worthwhile? I thought that maybe she would have seen the similarities between us, but she never put two and two together.

The steam rose around me as I stepped into the hot spray. Hanging my head, I allowed the water to run over my neck and down my back. I wiggled my jaw slowly; it still hurt from the punch.

I picked up the liquid soap and poured some in my hand. Without conscious thought, I rubbed it over my body as I replayed the scene with Mitch and Corey. The unbridled passion that had consumed them as they kissed had put my stomach in a knot.

After I finished washing, I stood with the water pouring over my face when I felt something unexpected—well, not that unexpected—in the room.

“We need to talk, Mr. O’Reilly,” Corey’s angry voice bounced off the tile walls. I reached over and slid the door back with one hand while I turned the faucet off with the other.

Our glares met briefly before hers followed the water rivulets down my chest. She blinked when her sight hit below my waist and flicked back to my face, a light blush rising to her cheeks.

She grabbed the thick navy blue towel beside her and threw it at me. “I’ll wait on the balcony.” She spun around after examining the length of my body.

Like she had once before, I took my time getting dressed. Although I wasn’t going to paint my nails, I did dry my hair and shave before finally throwing on jeans and a T-shirt.

With bare feet, I padded out over the hardwood floor of the hallway and into the living room. She stood on the balcony beholding the beauty of the Realm.

I walked out to face the music.

~Corey~

Did the punch that landed on Brock’s jaw hurt any worse than knowing that he had once again not told me the truth?

Trying to calm Mitch down and not allowing my own anger to flare was difficult to say the least, but I managed to do it, until now.

Of course being that close to Mitch had helped me to stay calm. The kiss he gave me before he left for his call seared my psyche.

As his car drove away, I put the tip of my finger to my tingling lips. I walked back to my car and climbed in. The car brought back memories of my time with Mitch, and I grinned as I remembered that he never did take me for a ride on his bike. Maybe I would suggest that when I saw him next.

After backing the Camaro into the storage garage, I left the keys on the seat and exited. I tugged the big garage door down and snapped the padlock back into place.

With one quick scan to make sure that I was alone, I stepped forward to cross the level. The feeling of being sucked into a vortex wasn’t as strong, and I relaxed once I entered. I found it so much more peaceful on this side.

For a moment, I thought about how my peace was about to end. I phased straight to Brock, reaching for his energy and landing smack dab in his bathroom.

The steam hung heavily in the room, almost as thick as my anger.

“We need to talk, Mr. O’Reilly,” my voice was strong and loud, so it could be heard over the water.

The water stopped just as he pulled the shower door open. His expression was hungry as it met mine through the thick mist in the room.

Oh crap, I thought as I took in his wet body from head to waist and stopped myself from going any further. The water beaded on his skin, catching on the dark hair lightly dusted over his chest. Why couldn’t I have waited till he was done?

How tempting I found it to stare at him, but I wasn’t here to drool over his body. We needed to talk. I threw him a towel and walked out of the room.

The breeze was different on the balcony than it had been in the living arena, softer in a way. I contemplated the majesty of the land before me. How could a place so incredible have so much turmoil? Wasn’t this little slice of heaven supposed to be joyous?

What would I say to him when he came out? Each time I started to think about him, I remembered the man who stood in the shower. I blinked away the vision and sighed, trying to bring back the memory of kissing Mitch.

Would his lips feel the same as Mitch’s? I groaned as I lowered my head to the railing and hit my forehead twice on the wood.

“I thought you would be trying to knock sense into me, not yourself,” his deep voice filled the silence, and I forced myself not to turn towards it.

“Funny,” I spat out sarcastically.

He walked up beside me and gripped the railing with both hands. His hands weren’t overly big. They were larger than mine, with thicker fingers, but they were not by any means large hands. Would they feel the same?

I shut that thought down and clamped my eyelids tightly, trying to remind myself of why I was here.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” my voice came out calmer than I had expected.

I saw the shrug out of the peripheral of my vision. He bent over and rested his elbows on the railing, hanging his head.

“Would it have made a difference?” he asked.

Would it have? No, I loved Mitch. “Why did you do that to him? He’s your brother, how could you?”

He sighed heavily, “It’s a long story, Coralenna.”

I turned to him, “Well, we do have eternity, so spill it.”

He turned to face away from the awe-inspiring beauty of the Realm, crossing his arms over his chest, and his right foot over his left. “That was a long time ago, it doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t matter?” The anger bubbled up in me, “Who are you trying to convince, Brock?”

His eyes snapped to mine, “I don’t need to convince anyone. It’s the past, Corey, leave it there.”

“I will not! Brock, you should have told me that Mitch was your brother!” I stepped in front of him, the urge to smack him grew, but the side of his face was already slightly swollen from the hit his brother had given him.

He stood to his full height, two inches taller than Mitch, his lips tight. “What difference would it have made? Huh? You would have only thought that I was trying to steal you away from him.”

I bit my lip, “Were you?”

“No.” He opened his mouth to say more, but closed it.

“No, what? What were you about to say?” I shifted closer to him.

“It doesn’t matter, Coralenna.” He stood up straight and walked around me.

I spun around, “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? It does matter, Brock!”

He turned on his heel and took two quick steps to stand directly in front of me. My pulse increased its tempo. “Why? Why does it matter to you?”

My voice trembled, “Because I need to know. I need to know why you didn’t tell me, why you kept that from me when you knew how much I cared about him.”

He looked me straight in the face, his scrutiny traveling down to my lips and back up, “I wasn’t allowed to tell you, and I wasn’t trying to steal you away from him. You were never supposed to be his, Coralenna, you were only supposed to be mine.” His hand started to reach out to me, but I quickly stepped back, drawing in a ragged breath as I did.

“Yours? I was supposed to be yours? Like some kind of toy or something?” I crossed my arms over my chest, clenching my fists together.

“Give me a break, Coralenna, not like a toy,” he threw back at me.

“I’m not yours, Brock,” I said through clenched teeth, “and the way things are going, I never will be.”

I spun around and started to walk away.

“Coralenna, wait!” he called as I started to step into his living room.

I half turned to him. The sun was setting behind him, the blues and purples highlighted his body, and I stifled a sob. “Stay away from me, Brock. Don’t come near me again unless you are ready to tell me the truth, all of it—and stay away from Mitch, too.” I started to turn but spun back at him, “You got that?”

Pain ravaged the features of his face, but I told myself I didn’t care. “Yeah, I got it,” he whispered just before I turned and walked out.

~Mitch~

A week had passed since I had seen Corey—or had I only seen her in a dream? Part of me believed it to be real, but the other part felt like it had been a mental tease to my heart.

Everywhere I went, I searched for her. One day I actually followed a black Camaro over nine miles before the driver pulled over. The driver wasn’t Corey.

Could it have only been a dream? Could my subconscious mind pull up Brock and Corey together? I didn’t think so, and the knuckles on my right hand still ached from where I had punched Brock. It had to have been real.

Not only had I been thinking over what had happened that night, but I had thought about something Corey had said, something about people trying to influence my decisions. As the week went by, I started to think that maybe Joe was the one she was talking about.

It seemed that recently, he had been around more and when he was, that was when I made the decisions that were not of the best intentions, kind of like the incident with Rebecca.

“You seem to be in a good mood these days Mitch, what gives?” Joe said from his car as we sat side by side in a parking lot drinking coffee.

I shrugged; I had no intention of telling him I had seen Corey. He’d think I was nuts.

“You and Beth working things out?” Joe glanced up from the report he was writing.

“I guess.” I took a sip of my coffee.

“You’ve seen her, haven’t you?” He put his arm out the window pointing his pen at me, “She came back to see you?”

Frozen, I stared at him. How could he know she came back? Did she come back to see him, too? “What are you talking about?” The words barely got out of my mouth.

He threw his head back and laughed, “She did! Man, I gotta hand it to her, she’s persistent when it comes to you.”

My heart raced, “What are you talking about, Joe?”

“Corey, Corey came back to save you,” he laughed again.

I didn’t understand why he would think that, and suddenly I felt the need to protect her. “Corey’s dead.”

“Come on, Mitch, I know what she is. You think you’re the only—” three tones on the radio cut off his next words, and he lifted the microphone to his lips to answer the call.

An armed robbery was in progress right around the corner. “Time to go play, Mitch!” He tossed his clipboard to the passenger seat and threw his car in gear before racing away. An eerie feeling pulsed through my veins as I thought about our conversation. I no longer trusted him at all.

When we arrived, we both got into a foot pursuit with the suspect. He turned down an alley, and I was right behind Joe as we slowed and made the turn, our handguns drawn as we listened to his footsteps pounding down the filthy alleyway.

Memories of another foot pursuit crossed my mind, and Corey’s face flashed inside it.

Be careful, Mitch.
Her voice sang through my mind. She was here, I could feel her.

Joe surged ahead and got to the corner of the alley before me, his gun out in front as he made the turn. I saw him stop abruptly and, as if in slow motion, I saw him pull the trigger back, and a flash of flame appeared at the front of the muzzle.

Somehow, a scream and a thud reached my ears over the thunderous echo of the gun against the brick walls. I slid to a stop, staring down the alley at the suspect as he lay on his back, his gun pointed at us.

I raised my gun. “Shoot him, Mitch!” Joe urged beside me.

The urge to do just that raged through my body as I stared at the gun pointed at us.

Don’t, Mitch. He won’t shoot you; he’s just scared.

I ignored Joe and listened to the voice inside my head. “Put your gun down!” I yelled at the suspect who was in obvious pain, his gun hand shook violently in the air.

“Shoot him, Mitch, before he shoots us!” Joe sneered.

I stepped forward, ignoring Joe again and walked towards the suspect, “Put the gun down. You don’t have to do this. Just put the gun down so we can get you some help.”

The young male shook from either pain or fear, probably a mixture of both.

“Put the gun down, slowly. Let me get you some help.” I stepped closer.

The barrel of the gun started to lower, and I thought I had him convinced to give up. When I got to within five feet of him, his head turned quickly and he lifted his gun and pointed it behind me. A shot rang out, and I watched the kid fall back, blood seeping from his head. The gun fell from his hand, clattering to the ground beside him.

“What the hell did you just do?” I screamed at Joe. “I had him putting it down!”

Joe shrugged and walked up beside me. “He was going to shoot me, you saw it.”

“He was going to put the gun down!” I watched Joe holster his gun, and I absently did the same, then stepped away and felt the boy’s neck for a pulse.

I glared at Joe and shook my head. Anger suddenly blinded me, and I surged up and slammed Joe back against the brick wall.

He threw a punch to my stomach and twisted me around so that I was now against the damp stone. My head smashed back, and the tiny points of the brick dug into the back of my skull. His hand went to my throat, and he squeezed. I grabbed his arm and tried to pull it off my neck, but his grip was too tight.