Love Beyond Loyalty (10 page)

Gabriel thought his head might explode. "What is complicated about this? You talked yourself out of wanting me. That made me really fucking mad."

"No, that's not what I said. That's obviously what you heard, but it's not what I meant when I said what I did."

Deciding he needed a little space, he took two steps away. How had this situation gotten so rapidly out of hand?

He ran his hands through his hair. "Okay, explain yourself."

"When I said that I talked myself out of it, what I meant was that I thought you were with Alexa. It was so painful to me because, yes, I felt the same things you did, but I thought was imagining it since you were with Alexa. I was protecting myself."

Loraine's eyes filled with tears, and Gabe felt two-feet tall. God, he was such an asshole. He had just demonstrated exactly why he was a completely inappropriate person for her, despite what
destiny
might have decreed. Maybe if they'd been raised as Outsiders and known each other since birth it might have made a difference. He was the man he'd been forced to become, and he knew it. To survive his life he'd had to become hard, manipulative, unforgiving, and sneaky.

He had no idea what to do with someone who teared up because someone yelled at them.

Finally, he spoke. "I wonder if there is a way to undo this so you can find a different soul mate since I'm not cut out for the job."

To his utter horror, the tears that had threatened to spill from her eyes fell down her cheeks.

"Ah… damn it… Loraine, don't cry."

"You get to be angry because I said I
tried
to talk myself out of my feelings for you?" She sniffed loudly and wiped her right cheek with her hand. "But I can't cry when you say that you want to
undo
this thing because you're not cut out for it?"

"Obviously, this isn't going to work. How could it work? You're a teacher for fuck's sake. I'm nothing. Nobody. I didn't graduate from high school."

Loraine threw her hands in the air. "Gabriel, I'd really like to participate in this conversation, but I'm afraid I can't follow all of the shifts you're taking. First, you're angry because you thought I didn't want you. Then you don't want me and get angry that I got upset over that. Now you're screaming about high school diplomas."

She was right. It didn't make a huge amount of sense. He breathed hard like he'd just run a marathon instead of standing in a room. The poor girl had just been through an ordeal, and he hollered at her. What the hell was wrong with him?

A knock sounded on the door before it opened. Whoever the fuck it was had horrible timing.

"What?"

Gabriel whirled around to see Marina standing in the doorway.

"This is a very bad time." He growled more than spoke as he felt his adrenaline spike to another level. In another few seconds, he might start pounding on the wall with his fist.

Marina regarded him for a second silently before she looked at Loraine. "I'm Marina." She smiled, and Gabriel's heart clenched as he watched Loraine wipe away her tears to shake the other woman's hand.

"I said it was a very bad time. Can you not understand basic information?"

Marina raised an eyebrow. "Actually, I can. Can you understand if I tell you that you are under attack?"

"What?"

The woman wasn't making any sense. Obviously, he wasn't under attack. He stood in a room with Loraine, perfectly fine except for the fact that no one understood him and he couldn't seem to stop yelling at the woman who was supposed to be his soul mate even if she didn't want to be.

"I'm a spell caster. I can sense all magical energy moving on and off the island. You are being targeted with negative magic."

He wanted to speak but he was so angry that Marina was spitting out all this nonsense that he could hardly make the words form in his mouth. Finally, when he'd garnered enough control to make his tongue function he spoke. "I am specifically being targeted?"

"Yes, you." Marina stepped forward tentatively. "Kal and Leonardo wanted to come up here with me. They're worried you might be dangerous right now. I told them I'd be okay. Loraine looks okay to me, so even though you've obviously made her cry, she doesn't seem physically damaged."

"I would never strike her." He'd kill himself first.

Loraine moved toward him, placing her hand on his arm. Either she was freezing cold or he was burning up because her fingers felt like ice. He hissed and she let go. "We're muddling through a misunderstanding."

Marina nodded. "That may be, and it's none of my business."

Marina took another step forward. She acted as if he were a wild animal that might pounce on her, which only made him madder.

"I'm not going to strike you, Marina. I've never hit a woman in my life, and I'm not going to start now."

She nodded. "How angry are you feeling?"

"As you just said, 'it's not your business.'"

Clearing her throat, she put her hands on her hips. "Here's where it becomes my business. I warded this island. The demon isn't able to use any of his crap to get to us except somehow he is getting to you. He has targeted you specifically, filling your soul with negative energy. Even though you're acting like a real idiot, since you're making Loraine cry, you must have massive amounts of control to not be physically thrashing around right now."

His head was a cloud of confusion. On one hand, what Marina said made sense. He was unreasonably angry with Loraine. What had she really done? Nothing to warrant the amount of screaming he lashed at her. The other part of him, the part that made his hands shake and his head pound, swore that he just needed to get Marina out of the room and all would be well. The interfering bitch was making everything worse.

He grabbed his head and fell to his knees. The asshole was in his head. "Get it out."

Loraine gasped and grabbed his back. He felt her press her head against his shoulder blades.

"Loraine, I don't know if you should be touching him right now. The demon just amped up his attack tenfold. If you could see what I see, the room would look red right now."

"Gabriel is not going to hurt me." Loraine's voice sounded fierce. "You said you could help him, so help him."

That was the last coherent thing he could make out as the women spoke above him. Images, things he'd long forced himself to forget, flashed before his eyes. Angry, horrible portions of his childhood he'd endured became as real to him as though he lived them again.

Six years old, he'd run down Bourbon Street as fast as his bare feet could take him. Even at that age, he'd known some adult should have noticed that it was midnight and that he was barefoot and alone. He would think that again and again in his childhood. But it was two days until Mardi Gras. All the grownups that were awake and roaming the streets were drunk.

In his hand, he held a brown bag. It was an innocuous looking possession. Probably, someone would think he had stolen liquor. Instead, inside of it were two slices of bread, a little cheese and two bottles filled with water. The stealing part was right, he'd snatched the items out of the hands of a woman coming out of a grocery store and stuffed them in his brown bag.

Alexa was starving. She had to be fed, and she was too shaken up after having a really bad experience with the man who ran her foster home to come out with him this night. She wouldn't tell Gabriel what happened. No, she'd just appeared at his window and he'd known it was time to run again.

Even though he'd been relatively secure—the guy who ran his place didn't smack him around too much—and fed, he would always run when Alexa needed him to.

The idea of leaving her alone on the streets was enough to make his stomach ache.

He turned the corner down Canal Street and ducked left to avoid being spotted by a police officer. The NOPD might have their hands full with Mardi Gras happening but that didn't mean they wouldn't notice a boy, alone, running through the streets.

Gabe knew he couldn't trust the police, not ever. Not after what had happened the one time he and Alexa had been caught. Lying down on his stomach in juvenile detention while two correction officers beat him with a stick had been the worst day of his life.

Turning once more, he looked to where Alexa stood huddled next to a dumpster and some discarded trash.

He stopped running and walked toward her. She looked up, her face broken and battered.

Gabriel stopped. Standing very still, he listened to the noises of the cars on the street behind him and the drunken laughter echoing from a distance. The distinct smell of urine and vomit wafted through the air.

Something was wrong. He closed his eyes. It was so unfair. Most of the kids his age were asleep in their beds, loved and cherished by their families. No one ever wanted him. Discipline problem, headstrong… he'd heard all the reasons more than once.

No, he shook his head. This was
wrong
. He wasn't six years old anymore. Turning to look at Alexa, his eyes narrowed. Nothing had happened the way it was happening here. This wasn't his memory… it was something else.

He'd saved Alexa. They'd run away. She'd never been beaten in real life. That was why they'd hidden in the alley for three weeks.

"Enough," he shouted into the darkness.

Silence met his ears. Gone were the street sounds that permeated the air. Even the disgusting scents that had at one time been a normal part of his existence ceased.

A slow, maniacal laugh sounded to his right, and he turned toward it. Sebastian stepped out of the shadows, but not the Sebastian of now. No, it was the childlike Sebastian; the one who had lured Gabe and Alexa into his house with promise of family.

The little boy who Gabriel now knew wasn't a little boy at all but a Demon who had always wanted them dead.

"I've already won, you stupid human. I've got her."

Angelic looking Sebastian pointed at Alexa.

"You can't fulfill your damn prophecy without all of you together. You're here with me now because she targeted you for me. Who else could break through Marina's wards but another Outsider?"

Gabriel gasped. In all his worst nightmares of this scenario, he had never really believed Alexa would betray him. She might not believe him. She might take some extra time to convince because of her deep-seated loyalty to Sebastian—a loyalty based on her never ending belief that Sebastian had rescued them from the same streets he now imagined he was back on—but she would never, ever seek out to hurt him.

Would she?

Snapped back into his body, Gabriel groaned and hit the floor face first.

"Boy, were you being screwed with."

He knew that voice. It was Kal. He didn't know the Outsider well, they'd only met face-to-face once but Gabriel had been involved in kidnapping Kal almost six months earlier. That experience marked the end of Gabe's belief in Sebastian.

As he'd transported Kal through space to a basement where Sebastian had attempted to torture the Outsider, Gabe had finally voiced what he'd secretly wondered for a decade; Sebastian wasn't all he claimed to be.

Kal had forgiven him, more than Gabe might do in the same situation.

He picked up his head and rubbed his nose before rolling over. Loraine stood next to his supine body with what looked like a damp washcloth in her hands. Kal stood next to her, his hand on her arm as if he restrained her from touching him. Marina, positioned over his head, breathed hard with Charma next to her.

He tried to sit up and Loraine shrugged off Kal's arm to squat down next to Gabriel.

She placed the rag against his forehead before she spoke. "Are you okay?"

Grabbing her arm to stop her from standing, he tried to smile. He definitely felt… cooler. As if the heat that infused his body and mind mere seconds earlier had dissipated, leaving him worn out but not angry.

"Are
you
?"

Her smile at his question made his heart leap. "I'm okay. Believe it or not, I have been yelled at before. I teach kids, remember?"

"Maybe in the future I can do better than a small child."

She nodded. "Maybe."

Marina spoke. "It certainly didn't help that your mind was being systematically invaded by the demon."

Gabriel needed answers. "How did you get it out?"

Now that he felt more coherent, the fact that he lounged on the floor made him feel a little foolish. He tried to stand but Loraine nudged him back.

She shook her head. "Not yet. If you could have felt the heat that just came out of your body you wouldn't be making any moves to get up."

"I did feel it. Trust me, I did." He looked back at Marina. "How did you get it out?"

"I didn't." He saw genuine remorse in her eyes. "You pushed him out. Charma and I were just getting ready to try when you expelled him." She sighed. "I'm not sure I can keep him out if he wants to come back in. It's like he has a direct access to you. Almost as if he knows you so well he can just plow inside of you anytime he wants."

Gabriel thought about what the young version of the demon Sebastian had told him. Had Alexa done that? She was capable of targeting any Outsider, of finding them all. She hadn't yet managed to hone that skill. She could find Gabriel at will and had found Kal because Kal had been putting himself out there as a news reporter. So far, thanks to Marina, Alexa hadn't been able to break through.

Had she just betrayed his loyalty to her so deeply it could never be repaired? Were they now standing on opposite sides of the war?

He looked up into Loraine's violet eyes. He had two objectives now. It was to keep Loraine safe and end Sebastian's reign of terror on the Outsiders.

It was time to come clean. Gabriel pulled Loraine down into his lap. She didn't resist his touch, and he was glad he hadn't managed to push her away when he'd been so angry.

"If I can't stand up then you're all going to want to take a seat. Probably you're going to want to grab Leonardo—he won't want to miss this. I know how he likes to have all the information all of the time. Eden and Isabelle, too."