Haunted by Your Touch (13 page)

Bram raised a golden brow, his blue eyes laser sharp. “That didn’t stop your twin. Ronan looks quite settled with Kari. For months he hasn’t looked at another woman.”

Nearly two years, if Bram wanted the honest truth. Oh, prior to mating with the pretty human Kari, Ronan had bedded other women. Magic must be powered by a strong exchange of emotion, and sex always worked like a charm. Playful encounters with many partners were expected until one mated. But almost from the start, Ronan had fixated on Kari, finally mating with her, despite the fact that the rest of the Wolvesey family, eternal bachelors all, thought him mad.

Raiden understood. Meeting Tabitha had been almost surreal. His first thought had been
that no witch could possibly be so lovely. Once he’d talked his way into her bed, his second thought had been that no witch could possibly be so sweet.

It had taken great effort to leave her that next morning, but he’d vowed never to return. She’d been too tempting, had felt too damn good once he’d sunk into and made love to her. But he’d been back again three days later, hungrier than ever. Then again, and again…

“I’m not like Ronan.” He clenched his jaw so hard that he swore it would shatter.

Bram scoffed. “Exactly. He’s smarter.”

When Bram turned away to sift through the ruins, Raiden charged after him. “What the hell does that mean? I don’t have the instinct!”

“But, in theory at least, you have a brain. And a heart. You knew that woman meant something to you, but…” Bram shrugged. “Well, water under the bridge if she’s dead.”

Raiden growled, “I refuse to believe that until I have proof.”

“Chances are—”

“Finish that sentence, and I’ll wring your bloody neck. Call Shock. Find out what he knows.”

It went against everything in Raiden’s body to suggest that Bram call the Doomsday Brethren’s supposed double agent. No one liked the confrontational bastard. They trusted him even less. But he alone was close enough to Mathias. Maybe Shock knew the truth. Raiden closed his eyes and prayed.

“Are you mad? If Shock says Mathias has her, what will you do? Charge in like her white knight? You’ll be signing your own death warrant.”

If Mathias had Tabitha, Raiden would go after her. Period. No one deserved to die the way Mathias preferred to kill: shaving, branding, raping, then leaving the victim to bleed to death. She was the warmest woman, passionate beneath that shy exterior, so smart it roused him, so welcoming he’d lacked the strength to say no. She was, in a word, perfect.

Tabitha deserved a better father for her child. Her parents had insisted on it and found her a suitable mate, whom she would have joined with in mere days from now. Raiden had never imagined that finding the strength to walk away from her would lead to this.

“Call Shock,” Raiden demanded. “Now!”

With a shrug, Bram pulled his phone from his pocket. “You’re presuming the wanker will answer.”

After pressing a few buttons, Bram handed him the phone.

Shock did answer… in his usual manner.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“It’s Raiden Wolvesey. Help me.”

“We have nothing to say.”

The hell they didn’t. “I need information about the Lowery attack.”

Shock said nothing for a long moment. “Why do you think I can help you? What’s done is done.”

“You
knew
about this? Knew Mathias would attack Tabitha’s family?”

Shock remained silent for so long that Raiden wondered if the wizard had rung off. Finally Shock said, “If you were Mathias and you could obtain information you needed while bedding one of magickind’s most renowned beauties, what would you do?”

“So he planned to take her and—” Raiden couldn’t finish the sentence. The reality made him altogether ill. “Did he succeed? Does Mathias have her?”

“I wasn’t present for the attack. It was sudden. Mathias had this mad idea last night. Wouldn’t share it. Just said he’d solved his problem and needed information. I don’t know why. I don’t know who, if anyone, he took with him from the Lowery estate. But he’s in a foul mood now. That’s all I know.”

There was a soft click in Raiden’s ear as Shock ended the call. With a curse, Raiden thrust the phone back at Bram, trying to tamp down his growing fear and fury.

Mathias had wanted information? But was in a foul mood now? Then something had gone wrong. And Raiden prayed it was that Tabitha had escaped.

He clung to that glimmer of hope. He must continue looking for her.

“Shock knows almost nothing,” he muttered.

“Or is willing to admit almost nothing. With him, who knows the truth?”

Who, indeed? Raiden wandered into what had once been Tabitha’s bedroom. Amidst the rubble on the floor, he found the green glass heart necklace she’d been so fond of. His breath froze in his chest. She’d never taken it off, and the fact that it wasn’t around her neck now… He resisted
the urge to hurl the little glass pendant across the room. Instead, he shoved it in his pocket. It might be the only thing he had left of her. The thought was another stab in the heart.

Damn it! How could he be this grief-stricken for someone to whom he hadn’t given his heart?

If Mathias had Tabitha in his grip,” Bram mused, “he’d likely be taunting you with the knowledge.”

Raiden clenched his fists. “Why? As you pointed out, she’s not my mate.”

“But she
is
the mother of your child. Her magical signature would tell him so,” he said, referring to the aura around every witch and wizard that told others about their power and lineage. “He’d start with the idea that you’d do anything to protect your coming youngling.”

A very good assumption.

The phone in Raiden’s pocket rang. He withdrew it, peered at the display, and swore. His father. If Nathanial told him that he’d scored two sisters and to come home immediately to share
them, as he had last week, Raiden swore he’d throttle the man.

“What?” he barked into the phone.

“Good evening to you, Son. Are you… busy?”

In other words, was he already shagging someone tonight? Raiden rolled his eyes. How could a grown wizard think so much like a fifteen-year-old boy? Raiden had tried more than once to explain that since he’d joined the Doomsday Brethren, finding a different woman every night no longer topped his priority list. Staying alive did. Granted, that was likely futile. Seven warriors stacked against the most evil wizard in history and his growing army? The odds weren’t good. But his twin, Ronan, was committed to this war, and the cause was noble, so Raiden wouldn’t leave his brother to fight alone.

“Yes, I’m busy, Father.”
Looking for Tabitha
. The lie would dissuade Nathanial from calling for a few hours at least.

“Very well, I’ll tell your encinta that.”

His encinta
. The woman carrying his baby. Raiden’s heart stopped. “Tabitha is there?”

“Indeed. Unless there’s another—”

“No. Is she all right?” Raiden demanded.

“Shaken and bleeding a bit from a small wound.”

A relief stronger than he’d ever felt poured through Raiden. Something in him had died when he’d thought he might never see her again. Now it awakened with a vengeance.

“I’ll be happy to take care of her,” Nathanial said.

“Don’t touch her.” It was all Raiden could do not to crush the phone.

He’d never been possessive of a woman—until recently. Before Tabitha, females had been interchangeable. Since meeting her, Raiden had done his best to put on a good front, but he ached for her alone.

And now he might have the opportunity to hold her again.

No
. Though she was alive, she was all but pledged to another. It was better that way.

“Well.” His father sounded affronted. “You needn’t yell.”

“Keep Tabitha there. I’ll be home in a moment.”

He rang off and bent to her family’s burned, bloody bodies. He lifted Tabitha’s mother. Her ending had been violent but quick. Small blessing, but better than the alternative.

The woman had despised him for impregnating her only daughter. Had said the baby had ruined
her chances of mating and that a notorious playboy like Raiden didn’t deserve her. Naturally, they’d been relieved when Sean Blackbourne, nephew to the head of the magical Council, had stepped forward and agreed to mate with Tabitha.

Older and well-connected, Sean sought a companion and heir now that his mate had perished without breeding. He would be better for Tabitha and the child. To protest the match would have been selfish, so Raiden had swallowed his pride and wished her well. That had been the last time he’d seen her, over two months ago. God, how he’d love to turn back the clock. Even if he could, he didn’t know what he’d do differently. Nothing changed the fact that her parents had been right.

Raiden turned to Bram. “Help me take her family to my house.”

“Tabitha is there?” When Raiden nodded, Bram shook his head. “She’s going to be too grief-stricken to see their bodies now.”

Did Bram think Raiden was daft? “I didn’t plan on displaying them. I’m going to take them to the gardens, prepare them for burial.”

With a nod, Bram took her father and middle brother. Raiden lifted her eldest brother as well and closed his eyes, focusing on home. Moments
later, he found himself in his gardens, freezing in the December chill. Carefully, they laid her family out inside the gazebo, protected from the elements.

“I keep wondering, why the Lowerys?” Bram murmured. “It seems so… random.”

Impatience chafed at Raiden. He wanted to see Tabitha, but this question had crossed his mind as well. “I haven’t a clue.”

“Random is unlike Mathias. Lowery hadn’t spoken publicly against Mathias, hadn’t lifted a wand to fight. Tabitha was to be joined to Blackbourne, a family with ties to Mathias. I can’t imagine what Mathias would have sought from Lowery. He was a bloody historian. The information he collected is public to all of magickind. But by the looks of the ruins, Mathias wanted something badly.”

Indeed
. And Raiden wanted to get to the bottom of that mystery—after he’d seen Tabitha.

His heart pounded overtime as he ran toward the house, each step bringing him closer to her, to seeing for himself that she was alive and well and the baby was still safe.

As he reached the back door and threw it open, Tabitha stood waiting, her long skirts torn, her
pale cheeks sooty. The air left Raiden’s body in a giant rush.

Her fiery hair, which he’d loved to spread across white pillows, had come loose from its usual upswept do. A tear in her soft cinnamon blouse bared her shoulder. Her hazel eyes looked wide and stricken.

She was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

The moment she saw him, she ran toward him. For safety and comfort only, he knew. Still, Raiden opened his arms and wrapped them around her, clutching her small frame tightly.

“T-they came so quickly. I… I didn’t know what to do. Father told me to run. Mathias made it impossible to teleport and—”

“Shh,” he comforted her. “I know. I… saw. Take a deep breath.”

Wildly, she shook her head, and more of her fiery hair escaped its knot. “He killed them, didn’t he?”

Oh, God. She didn’t know her entire family was dead? And he had to be the one to tell her. She already despised him for walking away. The pain of her hatred already hurt so damn bad….

But she deserved to know. No one else would break it to her as gently.

Lifting her in his arms, he carried her to a nearby sitting room, shutting the door against his curious father. He set her on his lap, then used his magic to pour her a bit of water from the nearby bar and levitate it to her.

“Drink this.”

“Answer me!” That temper of hers flashed hot and suddenly. “Are they dead?”

What the hell could he say? “Yes. I’m so sorry, Tabby.”

Tears immediately flooded her eyes as pain crested over her face. “A-all of them?”

He nodded. “I brought them here for burial.”

Her hazel eyes were twin wells of anguish, and Raiden didn’t know what else to do but hold her as long as she needed him.

Tabitha buried her face in Raiden’s neck and did the one thing she’d sworn never to do again: she clung to him. As always, he was solid. Hard body, substantial shoulders. His long golden hair pulled away from the masculine angles of his chiseled face. The sight comforted her.

Everything she’d ever known, everyone she’d ever loved—except Raiden—was dead. Now she
was virtually alone in the world. Scarcely knowing her intended mate, she really had no one else to turn to. And certainly no one else who knew anything about fighting Mathias.

Sobs overwhelmed her. Raiden could be a real bastard, and she didn’t expect him to do more than protect her now—likely more for the baby’s safety than her own.

Still, she couldn’t help sinking into him as he held her tightly, caressing her back, whispering assurances. No, it wasn’t going to be all right. Since the attack just after dinner, she hadn’t felt safe for a moment. Until now. This Raiden was the considerate lover who’d seduced her several months ago, not the unfeeling cad who’d broken her heart.

Tabitha shoved that thought aside. That no longer mattered, only the here and now did.

“I-it was terrible,” she muttered. “So unexpected. We’d just finished eating. Mother was pouring wine, Father informed me that Sean would be over for dinner tomorrow, then…”

Raiden’s hand tightened on her. “You don’t have to say more if you don’t wish.”

But she did have to. The danger wasn’t over.

“The windows crashed in. There were men
everywhere. Wizards and half-rotted human corpses.” She shivered.

“The Anarki. Mathias’s army.”

She nodded. “I-I… they swarmed like locusts. Everyone scattered. My father grabbed my arm and whispered in my ear, then used his body to protect me as he shoved me through a hidden door in his office.”

She shook with fresh sobs as grief wrenched her all the way to her core. God, she could remember that last look at his face, so frighteningly resigned. “I… ran until I was far enough from Mathias’s power, then I teleported here.”