Ignited (20 page)

“Was that Miranda?” I asked.

He nodded. “I should have figured she’d be here. They never go anywhere if they aren’t together. Most likely, she was acting as backup in case there was trouble. They have always been very protective of us.”

I thought about that, running my fingers over the box that I’d slipped in my jacket pocket. I was glad that the Blackwells had Spencer and Miranda to watch out for them. I wished that my presence hadn’t affected their relationship.

We didn’t take a train straight back to Chapel Street. Gabe wanted to take a circuitous route in case someone had managed to follow us from the meeting. I went along with his plan in silence, relieved to have him with me while I was lost in my thoughts.

Three trains later, Gabe guided me to a seat and finally prodded me. “Is not opening the box worse than opening it?” I stared up at him, and he tilted his head. “You’re torturing yourself, Remy, with what might be in it. Just open it, and get it over with.”

I glanced around. We were alone in the train car. Dread filled me as I took the box from my pocket. With a quick intake of breath, I pulled the lid off and then promptly wanted to throw up when I saw the contents. It was the bloody tip of a finger.

Gabe took the box from me as I doubled over, choking on tears. Was my father dead? What had they done to him?

“Remy, it’s fake, sweetheart. It’s fake.”

His voice finally penetrated the horror that consumed me. I sat up straight, staring at him blankly. He brushed the hair from my face, his expression worried.

“It’s not my father’s?” I whispered.

He shook his head. “No. It’s a very real-looking prop that was meant to scare you.”

I laughed without humor. “It worked.” I breathed for a second, trying to calm myself. Franc was a total bastard to do that to me. “Is there a note?”

“Here.”

He handed me a folded slip of paper. I opened it and read the short message.

This is the last warning you get, granddaughter. Give yourself up.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

T
he next morning rage still flowed through my veins. My grandfather had left a phone number on the note, as if I would immediately call him and turn myself in.
Hold your breath, Franc. Please.
Gabe and I had shared the contents of the package with the others when we returned. Lottie had alerted Asher and Lucy by then, and they had all waited up until we got back. I’d made sure that Lucy hadn’t seen the fake fingertip, not wanting her to be more upset than she had to be. The group had gone to bed unsettled and oddly quiet, each of us lost in our own thoughts about the escalated violence that the note seemed to warn was ahead.

After a quick breakfast of cereal, I headed into the kitchen to wash my dishes. Like a coward, I considered running to my room and hiding out there because I had a feeling that Gabe wanted to talk. There were things to be said after how we’d left things five days ago, and last night hadn’t been the time to go into them. Honestly, I didn’t know what to do about him. Until that scene in the wine vault I’d never thought of him in
that
way.

Liar.

I scrubbed my bowl in frustration and used my shoulder to shove back a piece of hair that had fallen out of my French braid. Okay, maybe I’d always noticed Gabe—how could I not when he looked the way he did?—but that hadn’t meant anything. I’d admired him in a distant kind of way, the way I’d notice a pretty statue. Yeah. He was
David
or some other Greek statue. In fact, I hadn’t liked him all that much, and then he’d gone and become a good friend. The kind of friend who held your hand during a crisis. I scrubbed the dish a little harder. Everything had changed, and this was his fault. Gabe had started me down this path with his talk of wanting me for himself. What was a girl supposed to say to that?

“I think that dish is clean.”

I dropped the bowl and splashed water up the front of my shirt. “Damn it, Gabe.” I shoved my elbow into his side as he appeared at my side.

He reached around me to shut off the faucet, wearing an unrepentant smile. “You should practice using your Protector senses more often. If you’d had your walls down, you would have heard me coming.”

He handed me a towel, and I wiped my hands dry. “If I had my walls down, you would hear what I was thinking.”

“It’ll be rough, but for you, I’m willing to take that risk.” He put a hand on his heart, looking the picture of piety.

I snorted. “I’m sure you are.”

We worked together to dry the clean dishes and put them away. Our hips bumped as we moved, and my pulse kicked into gear as if a gun had gone off at a race.

“Nothing has changed for me.” His low voice tripped along my nerves, and I stilled at his sudden gravity. “I meant what I said five days ago.”

Yet, he’d said what he had and then left for days without a phone call. It shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did.

“Because I wanted to give you time,” he said.

The way he answered my thoughts so easily, shoving through my barriers, unnerved me, and I jumped when he shoved away from the counter to face me. My head spun when he reached for my hand and tugged me in his wake. A door opened off the kitchen to a room that I hadn’t been in before. He pushed me in ahead of him and shut the door behind us, closing us in. I had two seconds to glance around and see that we were in some kind of utility room before Gabe’s hands landed on my waist and he lifted me off my feet, planting me on a counter. He hadn’t turned on a light, and the room had no window, but I could see his face, half-hidden in shadows. His hands landed on my knees, and a shiver started there and worked its way up.

“Gabe . . .”

“Do you remember the last time we were like this?”

I nodded, feeling towed under by a wave of emotions that I didn’t understand. Last September, we’d been together like this in the Blackwells’ kitchen, the night before Gabe left. That night, he’d pushed me. He’d wanted to know if I could have loved him instead of Asher if I’d met him first. Now Gabe said, “Tell me you’ve thought about what I asked. Tell me you’re willing to give me a chance.”

I sucked in a breath when his hands slid up my thighs to grip my hips, his fingers pressing into my skin through my jeans. I’d been so sure that I could avoid this, that I could shove these emotions down. I’d been wrong. My hands latched on to his forearms, and my knees pressed into his waist. If my intention had been to push him away, I failed miserably, and it terrified me how easily I found myself giving in to whatever this was between us. I stared into Gabe’s eyes, utterly caught, but when he tipped his head to kiss me, I stopped him at the last second.

“We can’t do this.” It hurt to say the words with his lips hovering so close. Gabe’s eyes took on a tortured look, and I touched his cheek, feeling the rasp of whiskers under my palm. “This isn’t right. We’re not these people who sneak around.”

“You feel something, Remy. I can hear it in your thoughts.”

I didn’t answer. His jaw worked as he stared over my head, and it was a long moment before he seemed to give in. His head dropped to my shoulder, and I couldn’t resist the urge to wrap my arms around him. My fingers slid into his hair, and I sighed at how soft the strands felt. A moment later, his arms wrapped around me, and my thighs slid open so he could stand between them. My chin rested on his shoulder and it felt so good to be held. It went no further as we stood there leaning on each other with our breathing the only sound in the room. I wasn’t ready for more than this, and Gabe didn’t push me. Every time I’d asked him, he’d been there for me. Sometimes, he’d been there even when I’d fought needing anyone. He’d given me so much without asking for anything in return.

The way he treated me demanded honesty. “I feel something for you, Gabe. I’m confused and scared and this seems all wrong, but I feel something.”

He pulled away, enough to see my face. “It’s Asher, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said with regret. “So many people have been hurt since this all began. Asher more than most. I won’t go behind his back like this. He and I may not be together, but it feels wrong to sneak off with his brother.”

“So we tell him,” Gabe said.

I brushed a strand of hair off his forehead. “Do you think this is the time to do it? With everything that’s happened? I can’t hurt him like this.”

“So that’s it? We give up and walk away?”

“Yes,” I whispered around the ache in my throat. “It’s the right thing to do. And you’re a good man, Gabriel Blackwell.”

“You don’t fight fair. If I push, I’m a bastard.” He stepped back, his hands falling from me. “Go, okay? Before I prove I’m not good at all and try to convince you to change your mind.”

I slid off the counter to stand on shaky legs. He turned his back on me as I walked to the door and reached for the doorknob. I didn’t want to go. I thought again of the way he’d supported me last night, never arguing with my need to go, but holding me when I reaped the aftermath of opening that stupid package. A small voice warned me that I would be missing out on the possibility of something amazing if I walked away.

My eyes squeezed shut, and I took a chance, throwing myself into the wind. “I’ll stay.”

“What?”

“After we find my father, I’ll stay.” Gabe spun me around to face him, and his eyes were lit with so much hope that the ache in me eased. This decision felt right.

“Do you mean it?” he asked.

I nodded. “We’ll find my father, and then we’ll have time to figure out what this is. But we have to tell Asher when the time is right. And we don’t do this.” I gestured to us and the room. “Okay?”

Gabe ran his hand down the length of my braid, looping the end around his finger. “Okay. I’ve waited this long. I’m not going anywhere.”

His hand fell away, and we stood there, staring at each other with silly grins while our world shifted. It wasn’t until later, when I’d crawled under the covers in my bed alone, that I realized what had changed. I was exchanging a future on the run for something entirely unknown. It should have scared me, but all I felt was hope.

Gabe and Lottie had told their Protector friends that they were taking the weekend to visit Asher in Paris. That gave them Saturday and Sunday to relax at home before diving back into the Protector scene. This whole process moved so slowly, and the arrival of that package had changed things. My grandfather knew he could get to me through the Blackwells, and we needed to figure out what to do next. Plus, there were other Protectors to consider. If we weren’t careful, we could set the whole lot of them on us, and there were too few of us to fight back.

On Saturday, we decided to eat lunch on the rooftop terrace to celebrate a small break in the rain. After being locked up in the house, it almost felt like a party with everyone pitching in to help. Nobody mentioned my grandfather’s latest threat, as if we’d all agreed to leave it alone and enjoy the moment. Asher and Gabe had dragged a table and chairs out of storage, and Erin and Lucy had teamed up to make lunch for everyone. I set the table with china—old and expensive, I suspected—and silverware—made of real silver—that Lottie had brought out. No one seemed to care that our party food consisted of small bites of sandwiches and piles of crudely cut up fruits and vegetables. The girls had tried their hand at tea sandwiches, small finger sandwiches stuffed with cucumbers and fancy cheeses. Rather than looking dainty, the ragged edges of the crust-less bread looked like they’d been hacked at with a butter knife, and the flattened centers showed the indentations of fingertips where the chefs had held the sandwich for slicing. Nobody teased Erin and Lucy, though. Our group had finally begun to gel together, and I studied everyone with quiet satisfaction. We almost seemed like a family.

Asher helped Erin carry the food out, and he managed to save a bowl of fruit when he stumbled. I heard Erin mutter, “Did you feel that?” followed by Asher’s, “Yes. I’ve never hit a girl, but I suspect I’d feel that, too.” She just laughed, and I gazed at her in surprise. How far had she come to laugh in the face of a threat from a Protector? She trusted him, I realized. It hadn’t taken him long to affect her. Asher had that way about him, as I knew from experience.

We all took our seats, with Lucy and Lottie at the heads of the table. Erin and Asher sat on one side, and Gabe and I sat on the other. Gabe was careful to keep his distance, true to his word of the night before. There would be time for us to figure out how we felt, but that time wasn’t now.

“What have you all been doing while we’ve been gone?” Gabe asked.

“Remy has been training me,” Erin said.

He glanced over at me in surprise, and I smiled. “She should be able to defend herself.”

“Of course she should,” he agreed. His gaze turned thoughtful. “In fact, we should work on your training, too.”

I groaned. It was one thing to work with Erin, but training with Gabe was different. I spent more time flat on my back on the mat. My ears burned when that thought replayed in my mind. At least, Gabe seemed to have missed one of my embarrassing mind hiccups. He passed me a plate of sandwiches and smiled with a hint of naughtiness.
Or not.