Hold Me If You Can (10 page)

“Hey.” He grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. “You were compelled by her scent. Admit it.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Was she? Her head began to clear, and she noticed the tension in her body, how hard she had been struggling against Nigel to get away. To follow Maggie and her delicious smell? “Um…”

Nigel’s grip relaxed slightly. “Nat?”

She leaned her head back against the wall, becoming aware of how many body parts Nigel had pressed into her to immobilize her. His finger was caressing her throat, and his thumb was resting lightly on the swell of her breast. How had she not noticed all the physical contact, especially his knee wedged against her inner thigh? She hadn’t noticed because she’d been caught up in Maggie’s scent. “I guess I was obsessing over her a little bit.”

“Yeah, you were.” Nigel’s voice was thoughtful even as he continued to caress her throat. It was as if he hadn’t really noticed he was touching her, but was simply deriving comfort from their connection while he processed the events.

“What happened?” She should push his hand away, she knew she should. But she couldn’t make herself do it. It was too tantalizing, his unconscious caress. It made little fires leap through her body, just small ones, not enough to scare her, but enough to feel good. “Did the smut make me aggressive or something?” Oh, man, she hoped not. She’d had one traumatizing experience with being compelled to places she didn’t want to go. She was so not up for another one. “Didn’t you say her last smut monster was a murderer? I don’t want to be a murderer!”

To her dismay, Nigel didn’t offer her reassurance, and his expression was grim. There was no repudiation coming from him dismissing such a ridiculous notion.

A dark dread pulsed through her soul, as if her deepest consciousness knew a terrifying truth that her mind hadn’t grasped yet. “Nigel?”

He laid his hand on her cheek, as if trying to lessen his words with a gesture of comfort. “The smut from black magic is demon smut.”

“I’ve heard that before.” Macabre foreboding began to percuss, like rain thundering in the distance, getting closer and closer with each moment.

“Exactly how the demon smut affects a person will depend on their predilections.”

“So? What does that mean?”

Nigel’s voice became quiet and soothing, as if he was trying to talk down the horror he was about to deliver. His face flashed with sympathy as he stroked her hair. “Every smut receptacle succumbs to the demonic influence in their most vulnerable spot. You carried deedub poison for twenty-five years, and it’s probably still in your soul.” He met her gaze. “You were stalking Maggie. A Sweet.”

“Stop!” She tried to pull away. She didn’t want to hear what he was about to say. “I’m not becoming a deedub! That’s insane—”

He gripped her shoulders. “It’s actually very possible—”

“No!” Natalie began to shake uncontrollably, and she was suddenly back in that moment when she was seven, eating dinner, laughing with her sisters, teasing her mom, when there was that knock at the door. Her mom had walked over to it, laughing over a joke, and the doorknob turned, so slowly. The door opening, the claw, the growl, the way he’d leapt at her mother, his teeth bared, ripping through her skin, throwing her aside. The way he’d come after her sisters, one by one. How she’d raced so desperately for the trap door. That crushing weight as he’d tackled her to the floor. His crazed, hungry howl of raw pleasure, of sheer delight, of utter mercilessness as he saw her face, and then plunged his teeth into her throat—

“Natalie!” Nigel gently shook her, calling her back to the present.

She stared at him in horror. “There’s no way—”

“Listen to me.” He cupped her face in both hands and leaned close. “We need to know. I can handle it, but I have to know what I’m dealing with.”

She shook her head, panicking. “No, God no. I can’t become that monster. I can’t—”

“Natalie.” He stroked her cheeks. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

Her insides were churning, her skin was clammy, and she wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.

“I can keep you safe,” he said. “I’ve battled demon magic my whole life, and it’s never taken me down.” He winked. “Hasn’t even left a scar on my magnificent body, right?”

She stared blankly at him. Unable to process. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen your body.”

“Well, I’ll show you later.” He grinned, his easy smile penetrating her panic. If he was so relaxed, it couldn’t be that bad, right? “We’re going to find out now.” He didn’t wait for her agreement. “Maggie,” he called out. “Come in here.”

Natalie leaned her head back against the wall. “No, don’t.”

“I make things okay. It’s what I do.” He thumbed her jaw. “It’ll be okay. I promise.” He leaned down and brushed his lips over her forehead.

Sparks rippled through her as he pulled back. His eyes had darkened, and his gaze went to her mouth. Her heart began to thud, and his hands tightened on her face. He moved closer. Lowered his head—

Maggie poked her head around. “Yes?”

Nigel pulled back, and a sense of loss rippled through Natalie. Loss that was quickly followed by relief. She couldn’t afford to get involved with Nigel, not when she found him so compelling.

“Give me your hand,” Nigel said to Maggie, not taking his gaze off Natalie.

Unlike Natalie, Maggie didn’t hesitate to trust him. She beamed at Nigel and stuck out her hand without question.

Nigel took her gently by the wrist and pressed her arm up against Natalie’s nose. “Smell her.”

She turned her head. “No, I can’t—”

He positioned his forearm across her chest, pinning her against the wall. He leaned his weight into her, allowing her to feel the power in his body. “I’m stronger than you are,” he said. “I won’t let you do anything to Maggie. We need to know.”

“I already know,” Natalie protested, even as fear hammered in her belly. “I’m not turning into a deedub—”

“What?” Maggie jerked her arm back. “You’re a deedub?”

“No, I’m not—”

“Calm down.” Nigel took Maggie’s arm again. “Show me, Nat. Prove to yourself that you’re not.”

“Fine. You’ll see that it’s ridiculous.” Natalie swallowed, then she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. The scent of the most magnificent chocolate tingled through her, and her toes curled with delight at the amazing smell.

But that’s all it was. Just appreciation for the scent of blue-blooded chocolate. Because she was a Sweet, and Sweets could appreciate chocolate in a way that no one else could. The fact she was a little smutted didn’t mean she was turning into a psychotic creature who would attack darling innocents like Maggie. Seriously. Maybe she
used
to have demonic leprechaun poison sifting through her body, but that didn’t mean—

“Natalie.” Nigel’s voice was a soft command, forcing its way into her thoughts. “Let her go, little one.”

Let
her
go?
She suddenly became aware of Nigel resting his forehead against hers, of his breath against the side of her face… and of the fact that she was sucking on Maggie’s arm.

The minute Nigel saw Natalie’s shock and horror that she was French kissing her sous chef’s arm, rage exploded inside him. It was that ancient, deep-souled fury, the dangerous emotion he’d managed to suppress for almost two hundred years, by manipulating his emotional state with his art.

But it was no longer dormant. It erupted inside him with the same force it had that fateful day so long ago. Outrage that he’d failed to protect her.
Her.
This wasn’t some halfway suicidal newbie warrior in the Den.

This was
Natalie.
The woman he’d been ready to sacrifice to the tropics so she would live. He’d been willing to forego the calling of his very soul for her in order to protect her from himself and from the deedubs. And he’d failed her? He’d failed to foresee a threat that had snuck right past him?

He was a warrior. And he’d
failed.

Son of a bitch. His muscles burned, and liquid metal scorched his cells with a fierceness that made his soul shudder.

“Nigel?” Natalie’s green eyes were wide, burning with concern and worry for him.

For him? For the monster? God, the purity of her soul to be worried for him! The fury deepened, the self-hate that he could have failed this woman—

“No,” he growled to himself. He would not let himself lose control again. Not with Natalie so close by, so vulnerable. The anger would not win. His sanity would prevail, no matter what the cost.

Art. The only answer was art. He jammed his hand into his front pocket… and it was empty. No pen. Oh,
shit.

He shoved himself away from Natalie, stumbling as the madness intensified within him, as he fought to own his sanity. Jesus. It hadn’t been like this in a hundred and fifty years. Because he hadn’t let anyone matter to him that much since then. “I need a pen,” he muttered. “Get me a pen!”

Natalie ran toward the front of the room. “I think there’s one up here.”

Please
don’t let me snap.
He threw boxes off the shelves, desperate for something he could draw with. It was building inside him, that shit that he’d kept contained for so long with his art. He’d felt it stirring over the last few hours, and yet he’d been so arrogant he’d thought sheer willpower could keep it curbed without his art. He’d been an asinine fool. He needed to draw.
Now.
He’d have to control the drawing. Keep the image innocuous. He could do that. He had to do it. He couldn’t beat this without his art.

He saw shiny dots on his arm and knew they were metal blades fighting to emerge from his skin. “Jesus,” he whispered. Not again.
Not
again.

“Natalie! Stop it!” Maggie shouted.

Nigel jerked his head up and saw Maggie scrambling backwards, away from Natalie, who was clutching the metal shelving to keep herself from attacking Maggie. Her skin was white, her face sickened with self-revulsion and horror. Her beautiful face, that soul so filled with love and outrage, decimated.

And that’s when the tenuous cord of control he’d been fortifying so carefully his whole life… well, the damn thing just snapped.

His vision went black, and he could see nothing. But he could feel it. This wrath, this violence, this uncontainable detonation blasting through his defenses, ripping at his body, at his self-control—

“Nigel!”

Natalie’s scream of sheer terror cleaved though the raging onslaught eviscerating his mind, and he opened his eyes to see thousands of microscopic blades careening through the air. They were spewing from him. Not just out of his hands, but out of every pore of his body. Maggie was running for the door, and Natalie was hunched over, shielding her face with her hands. Metal blades clanged against walls all around her, barely missing her.

Mother of God. How long could he control them enough to keep from hitting her? Then, as he watched, he saw one hurtle through the air, right at her. “No!” He swore and willed it to the right, to force it to shift trajectory.
Don’t touch her
, he ordered it. At the last second, he managed to divert to the left, but it was so close to her shoulder that it tore a hole in the sleeve of her shirt. Shit. He was losing it!

He had to get out. “Stay here,” he ordered her as he charged for the door to the alley. Blades were erupting in all directions, hot metal incinerating his skin, embers sloughing off his shoulders, his face, his legs, his feet. His clothes were on fire. Knives everywhere—

He leapt into the air and slammed his shoulder into the steel door. Agony cleaved his body as the stainless steel burned him. Then the door exploded off its hinges and flew into a parked truck in the alley. He dove after the door and yanked it down over him as the blades continued to pour forth into the makeshift shield. The deafening ping of metal ricocheting into the door, into the asphalt. The thud of it hitting bricks. The tinkle of windows breaking. He had no control. Couldn’t stop it.

“Mother of hell!” He was going to kill everyone. His body was creating weapons faster than it ever had before, as if it were trying to make up for a lifetime of being crushed and hog-tied. And he had no control over it. It was as if he were a five-year-old boy again, not a grown man. What the hell was going on?

And how was Natalie? He had to get back in there and check. If a blade had hit her, he could heal her, but first he had to arrest the cacophony of metal.

Then he saw his chance. A white cup with pink and orange letters. Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. Upended on the alley. A wooden coffee stirrer floating in the spilled coffee. A chance for art.

He lunged for the stick, dipped the end into the coffee, then traced a line across the asphalt. Two inches before the coffee ran out.

Dipped it again.

Another line.

Dip.

Line.

Dip.

Line.

An eye took shape. He knew that eye. His teammate Blaine. Not Christian.

Relief rushed through him. He could control his art! His hand flew across his urban canvas, the portrait taking shape faster than he’d ever drawn before. The destructive energy, the fury, the passion, all of it fueling the outpouring of blades. He seized that negative energy and channeled it all into his drawing, until the coffee image was nearly vibrating with life on the dirty alley floor.

Nigel dabbed the last stroke, his body shuddered with relief, and the blades finally stopped as all the darkness fled from his body into his art. Silence throbbed in the alley. Stillness crushed down on him. The aftermath of hell. Nigel bowed his head as exhaustion surged over him, his body depleted of all that it had to offer—

Glass crashed to the ground, and he looked up in time to see another pane of glass fall from its third story window and crash to the alley. Around him, carnage. Bricks severed, cars destroyed like they’d lost a battle with an army of nail guns, glass everywhere.

“Hell.” It was just like last time. When people had died. People he had loved with all of his heart. His mother. His father—

“Natalie!” Ella’s shout ripped through him.

Natalie.
He leapt to his feet and sprinted back toward the store. He’d been too late to save his parents. Was he too late again?

***

Killing his own mama had been bad.

But losing his shit again, as a full warrior? Inconceivable.

Nigel leapt across the threshold of the store and his heart froze when he saw Natalie crumpled to the floor. Ella and Maggie were crouched beside her, using lace doilies from a nearby box to try to stem the flow of blood from her chest. Revulsion poured through him. He’d done that? He’d hurt her?
Natalie?
How was that possible?

“I can’t stop the bleeding,” Maggie said. “It won’t stop—”

Her anguish galvanized him into action. “That’s because it’s my blades. Most people can’t heal them on their own.” People like his mother. Like his father. Like the only people in the entire fucking world that mattered to him.

Maggie gaped at him. “
You
did this to her?”

“I can fix it.” He didn’t waste time with her censure, on target though it was. Instead, he shoved in beside them and rubbed his hands together. His own body was bleeding badly and it hurt like hell, but he was glad for the pain. He deserved it.

His palms emitted a faint glow, and he set them on Natalie’s chest.

He felt her fading spirit almost immediately. The utter devastation to her body. Several blades were inside her, working their way into her body as if they were alive. He hadn’t released living blades in almost two hundred years. And into Natalie? “Jesus.” What was happening to him?

“What did you do?” Ella was furious. “How could you not control yourself?”

“Good question.” Nigel closed his eyes and fought to find the healing energy within him, but there was almost nothing there. Without his art, he was losing his healing as well. He didn’t have enough to save her. Shit! He needed an influx of energy.

He jerked his phone out of his pocket and threw it at Ella. “Call Jarvis Swain. Tell him I need energy. Now.”

Ella quickly dialed the phone while Nigel focused on Natalie. He found her heart and assessed the damage, while the blades kept ruthlessly digging deeper and deeper. “Come on, baby, fight it off.” He summoned all the energy he still had. His hands flared a bright orange light, and he shoved it all into her heart. The organ flared, he heard the shrieks of the lethal metal as it pulled back and released its grip. He frantically knit her heart together, fighting to bring her back while he still had juice.

Ella held the phone up. “Jarvis is on the line. He says he’s never done an energy transfer over the phone, but he’ll try.”

“Put it on speaker and hold it against my ear,” Nigel commanded. He rubbed Natalie’s chest. “Come on, Natalie. You can do this. Hang on, baby.”

“Nigel.” Jarvis’s voice crackled in his ear.

“Need all you got, buddy. I got nothing.”

“I’m on it.”

The phone went silent, and then Nigel heard the hum of Jarvis’s sword whipping through the air. He closed his eyes and pictured Jarvis’s sword spinning around in circles, harvesting all the energy from his environment, pulling it out of people, nature, the earth. Every creature, every object, everything.

Nigel let the power ripple through him as Jarvis converted energy to sound waves. His body began to hum and his palms began to glow again. Nigel bent over Natalie and fed the energy into her body and quickly began working his way through her damaged cells. A blade worked its way to the surface and clattered onto the floor. One down. One more to go. He fought harder, worked faster, but he could feel Natalie slipping away. “I need more,” he barked.

“Hang on,” Jarvis said. “I’ll feed it in one burst.”

“I can help.” Maggie eased up beside him, her face almost as pale as Natalie’s. “I can generate a lot of energy.”

Nigel didn’t give a shit how the girl could do it, or if she was making it up. He was willing to try anything. “Do it. Touch me.”

The humming from the phone intensified, and he knew Jarvis was gearing up. “I don’t know if it’ll go through the phone as well as if I stabbed you, but I’ll try,” Jarvis shouted.

“Give me a count,” Nigel shouted.

“Help me get this box,” Maggie ordered Ella, no longer the meek, scared girl she’d been. Suddenly she looked like a young woman who knew her own strength. A female in her power zone. “I need it near Nigel.”

Ella jumped up and helped carry a three-foot box across the floor. It dropped beside Nigel with a thump. The women ripped it open.

The humming from Jarvis’s sword got louder.

Natalie’s pulse became fainter.

Nigel’s healing energy faded even more, despite Jarvis’s influx. “Come on,” he shouted. “Bring it on!”

Maggie plunged her hands into the box, and he saw it was cocoa powder. Thick, dark, luxurious, it drifted up in the air like dust. Maggie shoved her hands around and stirred it up, until the air filled with a chocolate fog. Calling upon chocolate as her energy source.

“Three!” Jarvis shouted, starting his countdown.

Natalie’s heart beat once, sluggishly.

Ella grabbed handfuls of chocolate powder and poured it on Maggie’s head.

“Two!” Jarvis’s humming got louder. Almost ready.

A blade pierced the lining of Natalie’s heart, and Nigel slammed energy in front of the invader, creating a wall to protect her. He shuddered as he felt it touch his energy. It was poisoned. Barbed. Dripping with death. If that blade touched her heart, it would be instant cardiac arrest. Mother of hell, what had he created? And when had he developed the ability to make
that
? And how in God’s name had it made it into the body of the one woman he wanted to protect?

Because he wanted to protect her. Because he cared. That’s why the blades had targeted her. It was exactly like the last time—

The blade burst through Nigel’s virtual wall and plunged for Natalie’s heart.

“One!” Jarvis shouted, and the force of explosion knocked Nigel on his ass. He bounded back to his feet and grabbed Natalie. Energy was racing through him and he plunged it into Natalie. He had almost enough. “Maggie! Give it to me now!”

Maggie’s eyes were completely black, empty pits in her face, and her face was sheer white. Then she placed her hands on Nigel’s face, and sheer electrical force blasted through his skin where she was holding him.

Yes!
Power pulsed within him, and he began to work on Natalie, feeding the healing energy into her as quickly as he dared. He had enough now, but could he heal her before the blades killed her? It was a race with a deadly outcome.

He went faster, shoving the energy into her as fast as he dared, gauging her reaction. Her body lurched and he backed off, easing off the influx. Too much could kill her as fast as the blades could. He had to balance it just right.

Then her heart stopped.

“She’s gone,” Ella gasped. “She’s gone!”

“No, she’s not,” he snapped. Screw the gradual approach. “You can do it, sweetheart.”

He summoned all force swirling through his body, converted it to his healing frequency, and shoved it all into his hands until they were radiating so much energy that they looked like a bad nuclear waste movie.