Memory of an Immortal Heart (Immortal Hearts) (38 page)

“Rainey’s
not a runaway,” Eva snapped. “She’s never done
anything
wrong. She
always listens to you. She listens to
everyone
. You have no reason to
punish her.”

He
sister was too afraid to disobey.

The
Resh gave Eva a coldly satisfied smile, as if he knew something she didn’t. As
if he were
right
, and she was wrong. Eva’s stomach turned over in a
tight, dark premonition.
Don’t say it
, she prayed,
don’t say it
.

“Reason
to punish her? It’s not a matter of punishing your sister, it’s a matter of
finding
your sister.
Rainey
,” Thomas Turner sneered, cruel anger filling his
gaze, “ran away two weeks ago.”

“No.”
Never. Rainey wouldn’t leave. “
Not without me
.”

Rainey
just…wouldn’t.

Eva
bolted from the room.

Brand
rose, holding onto his temper by a bare thread. “We will stay the night. I want
no interference,” he informed the Turner Resh as he turned toward the door. He
needed to go after Eva.
Now
.

She
needed him. She might hate him, she might be furious with him, but she needed
him.

Her
need pulsed through his blood, his soul.

“My
most
humble
apologies. You’ll have to leave. There is no room,” the
Turner Resh said, oily satisfaction in his voice, and Brand felt his shoulders
tense as his temper surged. He wanted to kill the bastard for the way he
treated Eva. Worse, he wanted to kill the bastard for the way Eva had accepted
that treatment, as if she
expected
it. He counted to ten then fixed his
gaze on Thomas Turner. He was vaguely aware of Eva’s cousin, Justin Turner,
sitting quietly and circumspectly in the far corner.

The
Turner Resh paled.

“We
will
stay the night,” Brand repeated, voice little more than a guttural snarl. His
body was tense, ready to leap after Eva before she fled too far – or
ready to leap on Thomas Turner and rip his throat out. “There will be no
interference from you or your people.”

“This
is my land. My people. You have no right.” The male’s words were reedy, thin. Brand
allowed his lip to curl, showing his contempt for the other’s weakness, then
released his claws and slowly – deliberately – shredded them down
the wood doorframe beneath his right hand.

The oak
splintered, fracturing away, as Brand left a thick line of grooves behind.

“I will
kill you,” Brand said, and it was a promise. But he knew he was understood,
because the Turner Resh flinched, his eyes locked on the grooves. “If I ever
see you again, I will kill you. And if you interfere, I will take my time to
make you
wish
you were dead.” Brand let Eva’s Resh see the truth of
that, enough that he smelled the other man’s fear, then bared his teeth and
left.

Kevin
was at the outer door. “That way,” he said, pointing west through the
winter-sparse trees, avoiding Brand’s gaze. Brand nodded. He wasn’t a Tracker,
but he would know Eva’s scent anywhere. “She Changed. Joshua followed to make
sure she stayed safe.”

“Pull
back into the trees and watch this house. I don’t trust them.”

Kevin
nodded, then Brand moved off following Eva’s trail through the brush.

She
smelled of spring rain, of summer mornings. Of freedom – and fear. She
smelled like his amati, and everything he had ever wanted in a woman.

Not
that she didn’t have her flaws.

Though,
he supposed, he had plenty of his own.

It’s
just sex. Nothing more
, her voice said, adamant in his memory,
and Brand growled softly, baring his teeth against the pain as he ducked
beneath a branch, stepping carefully through the thick trees that surrounded
her Gens home.

He refused
to believe that. He
couldn’t
believe that. It could never be “just sex”
with Eva. No matter how much Eva insisted, or how much Eva ran from him, Brand
knew it was more. It had to be more.

God, he
hoped she felt that.

She has
to
. Brand bared his teeth and quietly followed Eva’s trail deeper into the
trees. It wasn’t long before he came to a clearing, a small house, and a
silver-coated Kaspian tigress crouching at the end of an overgrown brick
sidewalk beneath the trees. There was a vacant look to the house; Brand didn’t
need the Turner Resh to tell him that it was abandoned. Eva’s muscles were
tense, her eyes wild. Brand glanced up, caught Joshua’s shadows across the
clearing and gestured his cousin away.

“Eva.”
Brand approached her quietly. She was dangerous in this form. Brand could take
her, but he didn’t want to hurt her. Never that.

Eva’s
beautiful eyes found his, then returned to the tiny two-story house. Brand kept
his movements easy. When he finally stood beside her, she growled softly, but
he wrapped his hand over the base of her neck, above her shoulders, and clamped
into that silky fur. Her fur was dark silver – rich with darker
silver-gray stripes. He allowed the softness of it to play between his fingers,
enjoying the sensation, the spring rain scent. “I haven’t seen you in this form
since Vermont.”

She
shook her head, as if trying to shake his words away. Her eyes were locked to
the house, her muscles taut beneath his hands; her ears were flat, her teeth
bared. Brand kneaded his hand up her neck, feeling the muscles reluctantly
relax beneath his fingers. He moved in front of Eva, breaking her view of the
house, and crouched.

“This
is where you live?”

Eva’s
eyes snapped to his. They were full of gold, laced with red.
Anguish
.
Brand’s heart compressed. Eva growled softly as he smoothed his hands over her
face. His amati was fucking beautiful.

And in
pain.

“Eva,”
he forced his voice to be gentle as he held her head, tracing his thumbs over
her markings, “I can’t help you if I can’t talk to you. You need to Change.”

She
snarled refusal.

“Eva,”
Brand put a note of command in his voice, sliding his hands back to grip the
skin at her nape, “your Resh can’t help you find Rainey. I can. I need you to
Change.
Now
.”

Her
teeth snapped in his face, her tail lashed. Eva pulled back, and Brand made his
fingers release her. “
Evita
.” She took a step back, looking as if she
were about to run…then sighed. Her body slumped, as if suddenly, incredibly
weary.

She
Changed.

Brand
watched the familiar red-black mist fill the air before him, flowing out in
thick tendrils to slowly encompass Eva’s form in a spiral…then the tendrils
spread further, until there really
was
a mist obscuring her from sight.
One coil reached to stroke Brand’s cheek and he smiled, raising his fingers to
touch it. It twined there, playful as Eva, before the mist began to pull in
again.

It
lightened, taking on errant glints of color: the shimmer of Eva’s flesh, sparks
of liquid silver. Pale soft skin, dark silky hair, wild Kaspian gold –
the mist solidified as it assumed Eva’s shape. Brand waited patiently as the
remainder of the red-black haze flowed back into her body through her mouth,
her nose, her ears, her eyes, between her legs – then Eva gasped, a sharp
reflexive gasp that was loud in the clearing, as she sucked the rest of that
red-black mist – the rest of her Kaspian essence, her Kaspian soul
– back into her body. There was that glow to her face, that soft joy a
Kaspian always felt in those moments after changing, and Brand silently wished
that this moment could last for her.

It
didn’t.

Eva’s
eyes flashed open. They were silver. The silver transformed to gold, then
flecked red.

She
gave a strangled, gasping sob, her beautiful face crumbling, as she threw
herself forward, buried herself into Brand’s arms as if she could burrow into
his chest. His heart.
She already has.
Brand tightened his arms around
her, kissing the top of her head.

Eva
made a choking sound. “I thought maybe he was lying. That if I came to the
house, Rainey would be here – but she’s not. I can’t scent her at all.
Everything smells old, everything smells dusty. It’s empty inside Brand, it’s
all empty.”

She
began to cry in earnest.

Eva
stepped across the foyer to the short hall, her arms crossed over her
still-naked breasts, and glanced back over her shoulder, oddly conscious of
Brand’s eyes on her body as he followed her.

The
rough sensation of the tears still caught in her throat and behind her eyes.
“The living room is to the right,” she said hoarsely. “I need to get some
clothes.”

Brand
just nodded, his eyes running over her body, filled with desire and that odd
possessiveness, and Eva felt her own attraction prickle across her skin. Heat
melted between her thighs as hunger pulsed inside, and Brand’s gaze turned gold
as his nostrils flared. He took a step forward.

Pure
undiminished
need
rose in Eva, and she shook her head, a shaky denial of
herself, of her sudden inexplicable arousal. “Be right back,” she whispered,
and dashed up the staircase with as much speed as she could muster. The skin of
her upper thighs rubbed an aching reminiscence.

Eva
darted across the hall, closed the door to her room…then stood listening.

She
heard Brand curse softly. His feet moved across the hall to the living room.

Eva’s
shoulders slumped and she shuddered.
Rainey would call me juvenile
. She
hadn’t wanted Brand to follow, not really…but it would have been nice. She
shivered, trailing her fingers along the bruise on her swollen breast as she
dropped her hands away. Her nipples were hard, tender. She was ready. More than
ready.

In
fact, she had never
been
so ready. The desire that arced through her
body was like a living thing.

She and
Brand were over, but she wanted him. She wanted to feel Brand’s body over her,
inside her, against her.

Brand
acted like he cared. In the way that
family
cared. Eva’s breath caught,
she shook her head, running her palm down the paneling of her door.

“God,
I’m so unreasonable,” she muttered. Of course Brand kept secrets. Eva had known
that. But she…
knew
him. Brand wouldn’t use his ability to hurt people.
And he might be half-Sakai, but he wasn’t evil like Rohe was. Actually, Brand
was…

“
Stop
that
,” Eva snarled softly.
Temporary
. They had been
temporary
.
So maybe her body had become difficult lately – maybe it didn’t want to
listen to reason, but Eva could ignore it. She
could.

She
would deal.

Eva dug
through her dresser to find a long t-shirt and pair of old gray sweatpants. But
when she opened her sock drawer, she stared into it for a long minute. Her
socks were wrapped in those perfect little rounds Rainey always made. Rainey
had done Eva’s laundry, filled her drawers, while Eva was gone.

Eva’s
choked as her tears – and fear – resurfaced.

Brand.
Brand
said he would help. Eva gritted her teeth and spun toward the door. Of course
they would find Rainey. Eva had seen Stronghold’s resources. If there was any
place that could find her sister, it was Stronghold.

Brand
was on the phone when she went downstairs. She glanced into the living room,
noted how he sat on the sagging burnt orange couch her mother had bought in the
seventies and refused to get rid of. Brand glanced up, raised an eyebrow, then
said, “Seth’s on the other line. We need a picture of your sister, Eva.”

Eva
nodded as she pulled back from the room again.
A picture
. Of course. And
probably something with Rainey’s scent. Brand had said that his brother was a…a
Tracker. Or something like that. The picture would be in her room, the old
clothes in Rainey’s.

When
she came back downstairs again, the items clutched in her hands, Brand was
sitting on the couch, hands clasped around his phone, waiting for her. His face
was unaccountably serious. Eva dropped into the wooden chair across from him.
It was originally from their kitchen, but Rainey liked to prop her feet on it
when they watched TV.

“I
should have known something was wrong,” Eva said, a dark, recriminating pain
welling up inside. “She didn’t answer her phone, she didn’t respond to her
emails. It’s been a month. I thought…I thought she was angry with me. But I
never thought she would just
leave
.” Eva stared down at the picture and
the old shirt in her hands. “Do you think she’s trying to find me?”

“It’s
not your fault, Eva,” Brand said quietly, and rubbed at the back of his neck.
He put the phone on the couch beside him.

“I
should have come back sooner.”

“You
still would have missed her.”

“My
ability
should have told me something. Warned me of something. God! It’s so useless…”