Soul Bound (23 page)

Jace wagged his head. Maybe it wasn’t Lia’s sanity he should be worrying about. Maybe he was the one slowly going insane.

Chapter Twenty

The next morning, when the sun peeked over the clouds to paint the sky pink, Lia crawled out of bed with a disgruntled sigh. Another missed day of work at the hospital. Another day of being unable to confide in Cassie, not that she knew exactly what she’d say.

Another day of fighting this irrational attraction to Jace.

That attraction had completely taken her over last night. She would have made love to him, right there on the piano, with no thought to the consequences.

Shame flooded her cheeks. What on earth was wrong with her? As if it wasn’t bad enough that the guy was her sister’s boyfriend—fine, ex-boyfriend, but that didn’t change the fact that Cassie had serious residual feelings for him—he just happened to be a dark, immortal creature whose kiss might kill her. That would be enough to set off some serious warning bells in any sane woman’s head.

But not hers. It wasn’t fear that clogged her throat. It was disappointment. If only he wasn’t so damn noble…

Then what? Would she make love to him? Hand over her soul on a silver platter?

Yes.
She couldn’t lie to herself, and that undeniable truth rankled.

Lia scrambled to the adjoining bathroom and splashed some water on her burning face. She was losing it. Seriously losing it. She had a good life, a nice solid future, the career of her dreams. And here she was, considering throwing it all away just to be near this man. The mere thought of being without him carved such a profound hole in her spirit, it smothered her breath. A myocardial infarction probably wouldn’t have hurt this much, and she’d seen enough patients succumb to it to know.

None of it made any sense. She wasn’t the needy type. She didn’t become obsessed with men the way Cassie did. She didn’t pine after them, call them repeatedly, camp out on their doorsteps. That wasn’t her style.

Yet with Jace, that was precisely what she’d do if he decided to walk away from her. Something buried deep within her was irreversibly attached to him. And that something would surely curl up and die in his absence.

God, she was pathetic. How many times had she raked Cassie over the coals for her unhealthy devotion to men who didn’t deserve it? How many times had she urged her sister to walk away and never look back? Lia finally understood how naive she’d been. The heart didn’t color by numbers. It didn’t follow an invisible checklist, assess the pros and cons, make a rational choice. It simply loved. Beyond reason. Beyond comprehension or imagining.

Was that the sickness she suffered from—love? She didn’t know it well enough to be sure, couldn’t trust anything that was happening inside her. Her soul was split in two.

With a muffled grunt, she slipped into the outdated pair of jeans Jace had given her last night, then topped it off with a snug black tank top. The look screamed sexpot, at least when compared to her usual wardrobe. The outfit made her feel exposed, no question about that, but it also made her feel surprisingly feminine.

She hardly recognized her reflection. Her eyes were bright, deep and blue, with a hint of wildness. Her hair fell in unruly tangles to caress her shoulders. She grabbed a brush to straighten it out, then decided against it. She liked the dangerous, untamed edge it gave her. For the first time in her life, Lia felt sexy.

Her gaze settled on her mouth in the mirror. A mouth that still tingled from Jace’s near kiss. She raised her hand, ran her fingers across her lips to soothe the gentle throb, then closed her eyes and moaned in defeat.

How was she going to face him? But more importantly, how was she going to get him to kiss her, for real this time?

Minutes later, when she could stall no longer, Lia swallowed her reservations and wandered downstairs. The sizzling scent of bacon drew her to the kitchen. While she’d slept, Jace had picked up provisions and was now busying himself making breakfast. “Sleep well?” He stood in front of the stove, scrambling some eggs. His gaze never strayed from the pan, yet he’d sensed her presence.

“As well as can be expected.” Her reply sounded whiny, even to her.

He ventured an uneasy glance her way. “I figure it’s best if we eat in from now on.” With a flick of his wrist, he flipped the eggs. “Too many potential weapons in a restaurant.”

Amusement crept in to battle glumness. “Are you worried someone will hit you over the head with a burning pan?”

“I have a feeling I’ve got a pretty thick skull. Not so sure about the others, though.”

Silence stretched between them, so thick she could almost reach out and touch it. “That’s one big elephant we’ve got here,” she quipped in an effort to crack the tension.

Jace didn’t reply. He simply continued spooning eggs into a plate. Anxiety skittered across her nerve endings. She was convinced he could hear the wild sprint of her heart. If not that, then he was surely reading her thoughts.

Don’t think about last night.

Of course, telling herself not to think of something was a surefire way to ensure she thought of nothing else. Like fire igniting, the memory of his body crushing hers exploded in her mind. Her flesh began to prickle and burn. Her lips thrummed again.

Jace’s passionate curse wrenched her out of her daydream. He’d spilled a spoonful of eggs on the counter. Quickly mopping up the mess, he refused to look at her.

“So that’s how it’s going to be. Fine. Try ignoring this.”

With a recklessness that surprised her, she filled her head with heated images of her and Jace. She imagined his hands on her body, his lips gliding over her skin, his tongue…

“Stop it.” He pitched the empty pan in the sink, spiked his hair with his fingers. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing.”

He turned on her, his beautiful face pinched with agony, his eyes blazing with fury. “Don’t you think I want you, too? Lia, when I’m near you, I
feel
—” He choked on the word. “I feel more than it’s humanly possible to feel. Like you’re everything that’s missing inside me. Every instinct I have wants to claim you, to possess you. But there’s another part of me that’s dying to destroy you. I don’t understand it. I’m not even sure I can control it. So be careful what you wish for.”

His honesty sent frozen wings fluttering down her back. She pushed the disturbing sensation aside. “You’re forgetting something. Diane already tried to take my soul. She failed.”

Jace walked up to the table, placed his palms on its smooth maple surface, and leaned over her. “You can’t be sure of that. We can’t be sure of anything. Would you walk into an operating room and slice a patient open without knowing what you’re looking for?”

“Of course not, but this is different.”

“How?” Conviction thinned his mouth. “How is it different?”

When she didn’t answer, the fight leached out of him, and he dropped into the chair across from her. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m trying to keep you safe. And the biggest threat to you right now is me.”

Her pulse took off at a gallop again, and his gorgeous mouth curled into a smile. “That’s one strong heart you’ve got there. Let’s keep it beating.” His gaze traveled downward to settle between her breasts, where turmoil raged. Then his eyes locked with hers again. “No more dangerous thoughts, or there’s no telling what I’ll do to you.”

The words were meant as a warning, but to her they sounded like a promise.

He suddenly reached into his pocket, pulled out something shiny, then stood and circled the table. “I almost forgot to return this.” He reached out and clasped her locket around her bare neck.

Lia lifted her hand to touch it, and her fingers grazed his. Something hot and gripping passed between them, laced with tenderness. “I thought it was gone for good.” Her throat felt scraped and raw, as if she’d swallowed a mouthful of sand. “Cassie gave it to me. A gift for my sweet sixteen. Cal took it when the Watchers abducted me. Where did you find it?”

“It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that it led me to you.”

Her senses blurred. That seemed to happen often when he was near. “How?”

“I’m not sure. Your energy is all over it. It calls to me, like I have a built-in tracking device where you’re concerned.”

“Must be your body trying to reconnect with what it lost.”

His eyes darkened to emerald green. The back of his hand accidently skimmed her breast as he pulled away. At the faintest hint of a touch, her skin came alive. For the briefest second, she saw the flaming images that smoldered in his head, and they were every bit as scorching as the ones tormenting her.

Anxious to place some distance between them, Jace hastened to the counter, grabbed one of the plates, and tossed it like a Frisbee across the room. It landed on the table in front of her with impressive precision. She was surprised the dish didn’t shatter.

“It’s plastic,” he replied. “Go ahead. Eat before it gets cold.”

Jace spent the better part of the day scouring the house, looking for any indication of the life he’d lived, trying to understand the kid he’d been and the man he’d become. A few things seemed vaguely familiar—a boy’s tattered jersey jacket stashed away in the closet, a collection of toy cars carefully arranged in a trunk and stored in the attic, an old shoebox decorated with birdlike images penned in a child’s scrawl. The handful of gray feathers that blanketed the interior elicited a tug of sadness inside him but failed to trigger a memory.

His inability to recall his past self only served to remind him that any humanity he may have possessed had evaporated like a spring rain, and that reality stung worse than a rattlesnake. Without a past, a man was nothing.

Nothing but a walking shadow.

Pissed off that he’d wasted so many precious hours on a fruitless hunt, Jace made his way downstairs, where Lia sat, holed up in David Cutler’s old home office. She’d devoted most of her morning to searching the Web. From the looks of it, Jace had been diligent about paying the bills, whether he lived here or not, because all the utilities and services worked, including the Internet.

“Find anything interesting?” he asked.

She jolted at the sound of his voice, then released the sharp breath she’d inhaled. “You could say that.” Her eyes glittered with a brightness that slithered deep inside him and awakened the hunger again. The good news was, he was getting better at ignoring it.

“Well? Are you gonna clue me in?”

“I’ve been studying religion and ancient lore for hours.” She ran her fingers through her blond waterfall of hair, brushed a wayward strand aside. He loved her hair this way, loose and tousled, with an untamed quality that spoke to the beast inside him. “I found several sites on the Nephilim. Most are conjecture, just people trying to decipher old texts. No one really knows for sure what it all means.”

She pulled up a site she’d saved on the Net. “Here’s one interpretation. When God first created humanity, he sent a group of angels, the Grigori, to watch over us. These angels looked human in all respects, except for one thing—they were unnaturally tall. Apparently, they were forbidden to fraternize with humans. Their mandate was to guide and observe. Eventually, many of them grew resentful of this and decided to mate with mortal women, creating a race of superhumans.”

“Sounds just like the story Cal and Marcus told us.”

“Yes, but here’s the interesting part. Know what ‘Grigori’ means?” Her expression grew even brighter, if that was possible. “Watchers.”

Interest and curiosity sparked in his veins. “So Cal and his army picked up where these angels, the Grigori, left off?”

“Looks like it. It’s almost as if they’re trying to undo what the Grigori started.”

Jace sat at the corner of the desk. “Why would they do that? Who would want to undo their own existence, fight their own kind?”

“I don’t know. But Cal seemed pretty determined.”

For a few seconds, silence permeated the air. Then Lia spoke again. “Cal kept referring to the Great Flood, so I looked it up. Some believe that—thanks to the Nephilim—humanity grew so corrupt that it inspired God’s wrath. The Great Flood was His way of purging the world of these creatures, but about ten percent of them survived.”

“And went on to breed again,” he tagged on.

“Like Cal said.”

Frustration nipped at his patience. “Anything in there we don’t already know?”

Lia continued staring at the screen as if it somehow held the answers she sought. “When I was held captive at the Watchers’ complex, Cal and Marcus talked about some kind of prophecy. Unfortunately, I can’t find anything on the Net about it.”

She shook her head in defeat. “This is insane. I’m used to poring over medical journals, not myths and legends and crazy predictions of doom and gloom.” With antsy fingers, she rubbed her tired eyes. “This is so far removed from my field of expertise. I just don’t know what to think or believe anymore.”

As if of its own volition, his hand reached out to palm her head. Silky hair caressed his flesh and made his insides burn. “Believe in me,” he whispered in a husky voice that left his throat painfully raw.

She lifted her gaze to his. The way she looked at him, the sweet vulnerability on her face peppered by desire, flattened him.

Suddenly, he had to taste her. Just one small taste.

Before his mouth could claim what it craved, he sensed the presence again, a dark energy that hummed in tune with his. In a flash he released Lia and shot to his feet, his stance alert and predatory.

“What’s wrong?” Lia rose to stand beside him.

“Someone’s here.”

“A visitor?”

“Not sure.” He narrowed his vision and surprised himself by seeing past the walls of the house to the vast grounds that surrounded it. For a brief instant he thought he caught a flash of movement, then it dissolved like mist, as did the uneasy feeling inside him.

He shook his head. “Must be imagining things.”

Lia came to stand beside him, and he almost wished she hadn’t. Her energy penetrated his pores, ignited his blood. Everything inside him responded to her. “There’s a library just a short drive from here. I’d like to go do some more research. The Internet’s great, but nothing beats a book.”