Stealing Time (27 page)

I stroked his cheek with a trembling hand. “It means a lot that you understand. But these walls you’ve built, trying to protect me…Don’t keep me out, James. I don’t want anything between us. Never that.”

He sighed and I sensed a subtle easing within him. Then all the physical manifestations of extreme anxiety hit me, full force—my heart rate accelerated, a boulder took up residence in my throat, my stomach tightened into a painful knot, my knees felt weak. Blinking through the sudden tempest of emotion, I mumbled, “Thank you. I think.”

He snorted.

We got rid of our drenched clothes and dried off, then I took James’s hand and led him to the bedroom. Lying together on the bed, things were delightfully progressing and we were in the grip of our instincts when there was movement in the hallway. James went rigid and he growled a warning. Anger pounded in time with my pulse as I sensed another male approaching.

Every ounce of my will focused on the need to drive the intruder away, but my much stronger mate was above me and I couldn’t move. Rage intensified the odd sensation in my chest. There was a feeling like exhaling a huge breath…and a crash sounded in the hallway.

My mind cleared a bit at the noise and I looked up to see an odd expression on James’s face as he regarded me.

“Evie?” His tone was wary.

My muddled thoughts began to clarify. “Was that Gage?” I tilted my head to see that we’d left the bedroom door open. “Crap! The door.”

James lifted his weight off me and sat up. “I don’t think that’s a problem at the moment.”

“But…did I hear Gage in the hall…?” I trailed off as James stood and put on a pair of sweats. Torn between aggravation at the interruption and curiosity at his behavior, I got up and pulled some clothes out of my dresser. I slipped a T-shirt over my head but, feeling strangely lightheaded, had to sit down to put the pants on. One of the benefits of being a vampire was never getting sick—which made the bouts of dizziness increasingly alarming.

“Evie?” James called from the doorway.

I walked over to him, focusing hard to keep my balance. Sensing my difficulty, he put his arm around my waist. That’s when I saw what he was looking at. There was a hole in the wall across from where we were standing. It was a Gage-sized hole and, even now, our young friend was slowly regaining his feet in the living room where he landed. As he stood, plaster and dust rained down from his hair.

“
What on earth…?
” I began, trailing off as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. “What happened?”

James looked at me, worry darkening his gaze. “You don’t know?” His voice was soft.

I shook my head, perplexed. “Did Gage decide there should be a doorway there or something?”

James drew a deep breath. “
You
did this. I felt it.”

“What?” I whispered. “You think…
what?
”

Gage stepped through the hole, dislodging more plaster in the process.

“Are you okay?” James asked, not taking his eyes from my face.

Gage said, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

James’s power flared as his protective instincts roused, seeking to protect his mate when he didn’t even know what was wrong. Lowering his head, he growled at Gage, “Of course, you’re fine. A
train
could hit you and you’d be fine. I was talking to Evie.”

Ashen-faced, Gage put a little space between us.

Laying a calming hand against James’s cheek, I said, “I’m just trying to figure out why you think I did this.”

Getting a handle on himself, he asked, “What do you remember? What did you feel?”

I reflected on the last few minutes. “
Oh!
” I breathed, as it all clicked.

His arm tightened on my waist. “I just don’t know how it’s possible.”

I could feel the tightness of my expression and knew my face must be white. “The electricity?”

“It must be.”

“But…
how?
”

Gage mumbled, “Would somebody please explain to me why I just flew through a wall?”

“Why don’t we sit down first?” James suggested, eyeing me. Considering how I felt, I couldn’t look all that steady.

Rather than go through Gage’s hole, we chose the conventional route and walked down the hall to the actual doorway. As we sat on the sofa, my hands began to tremble and I looked at them in surprise.

“Evie?” James asked, concerned.

I shrugged and shoved my fists under my arms.

He studied my face for a moment. “I’ll be right back.” A few seconds later, he sat beside me with a cup in his hand. “Drink this, love. I think you need it.”

The content’s exquisite scent filled my head and I realized with some surprise that I felt hollow. Hunger clawed up my throat and I reached an unsteady hand for the cup. Seeing this, he held it still for me, tilting it as I greedily drank. I couldn’t quite suppress the sigh when it was gone—James went to the kitchen and was back again in the span of a few breaths, the cup once again full. This time, I was able to hold it steady without help.

He watched me carefully, his expression unreadable.

“In all this time, I’ve hated even thinking about what’s in the cup, James,” I whispered. “But not this time and I had
seconds
.”

He appeared to select his words with care. “Perhaps you are becoming more accustomed to being a vampire. Your human life is further behind you.”

“Is that what you really think? Or are you trying to make me feel better?”

A small smile tugged at his mouth, but didn’t reach his eyes. “A little of both.”

“Other possibilities?”

He put the cup on the coffee table and drew me close. “
Or
your body needed nourishment after getting fried by however many thousand volts of electricity and doing…whatever it is you did to Gage.”

“About that…”

“Yeah, about that,” Gage spoke up. “You think Evie knocked me through a wall?”

James flicked a glance at him. “You have another explanation?”

He frowned. “Well, no. But I just don’t see how Evie could have done it. She was nowhere near me.”

I hadn’t noticed their approach, but James had and, when Kate and Leo walked in the front door, his gentle restraint kept me from shooting off the sofa in alarm.

We brought our two friends up to speed on what had happened, their dubious expressions mirroring the thoughts racing through my head.

Kate chortled. “Hey, we can call you Sparky.” When James turned a hard look on her, she gasped. “You’re serious? Evie really got electrocuted?”

He nodded. Kate couldn’t hear his brief subaudible growl, but it lifted the hair at my nape. James’s sense of humor had definitely taken a vacation, at least on this topic.

Leo said, “James, you think Evie flung Gage through a wall? Without touching him?”

“I know how it sounds, but that’s what happened. Heat was radiating from her and it was like being too close to a furnace. Then the heat was gone, there was a hole in the wall, and Gage was lying on the living room floor.”

“An electrical line caused this?” Kate mumbled.

Before I could answer, James snapped, “Someone is outside.”

Instantly, everyone was in motion. Gage moved to stand in front of Kate, who slipped through the doorway and into the hall. James and Leo went to either side of the front door and I shot off the sofa to stand a few feet from James, covering his flank.

Jumpier than I could ever remember being, it was all but impossible to stand still. An odd vibration filled my chest, pulsed down my arms, and into my hands to coil, throbbing in time with my pulse. Even my teeth resonated with the sensation so that, when I tightened my jaw, an angry buzzing filled my head. I wanted to shake my hands, hard, and fling off this alien sensation like you’d fling off a giant spider. Something told me, though, that doing so would be a really bad idea.

On second thought, the knock on the door made me wonder if it would be a great welcome for any unwanted guests. Philippe, for instance, if he was stupid enough to come here.

I was surprised when James’s tension lessened and his power was once again neatly contained.

“It’s all right, everyone. It’s an old friend.” Opening the door, he spoke in a language I didn’t recognize. “
Aquai,
Siska.
Komeekha.
”

James’s easier state soothed my anxiety and the strange vibration slipped back to my chest where it lay, coiled and humming. This was an improvement, but I wanted the weird energy gone for good, not getting settled and taking up residence as it seemed to be doing.

A tall, powerfully built vampire walked through the door and grasped James’s offered forearm. “
Quin’a month’ee,
James?”

“Very well, thank you.”

As he came into the living room, I saw that our visitor stood several inches taller than James and had long, straight black hair that he wore loose to his shoulders. His black eyes and proud features identified him as Native American, but I had no idea which tribe. He wore a pressed white dress shirt over black jeans and cowboy boots, and he was beautiful in a lethal way, like a panther had morphed into human shape.

James closed the door and came to put his arm around my waist. “Siska, I would like to introduce you to my fiancée, Evie.”

Although his expression remained composed, surprise flickered deep in the piercing eyes. “
Aquai, nkeck,
” he said to me.

I looked at James, eyebrows raised. He laughed and Siska responded, “I said ‘hello, little sister.’” His voice was deep and without accent.

“Hello, tall dude,” I responded, lifting my chin at the amusement that flitted across the newcomer’s face. I wasn’t intentionally being challenging, but the mixed vibes coming from James had me feeling edgy and I wasn’t quite ready to welcome Siska with open arms.

As the tall newcomer came further into the living room, his keen gaze taking in the details—the photos, the mementoes on the bookshelves, the tidy but well-worn furnishings—my territorial instincts stirred and I had to suppress the urge to growl a warning at him.
Mine
, the instincts snarled.
Mine.

James pulled me closer against his side and I felt his soothing caress against my awareness. He turned his body so he was between Siska and me, giving me a little breathing space from the newcomer’s presence as he introduced everyone.

I tensed when Siska’s gaze rested a second longer on Kate than the others, but he gave no other indication he noticed she was human. Good thing too or he would’ve been dogpiled by Leo and Gage, judging by the readiness with which they watched him. And while I’d expected Leo’s protectiveness toward Kate, Gage’s surprised me.

The way everyone eyed Siska would have been amusing under different circumstances, but maintaining the pleasant façade my upbringing required was keeping me preoccupied. You’d think it wouldn’t be so hard to keep a warm smile planted on your face, but the dang instincts kept pelting me in diametric opposition to my deeply implanted southern manners—drive him off or welcome him, make him bleed or make him feel at home—and the internal wrestling match of violence vs. manners was adding to my edginess.

James invited Siska to sit in one of the overstuffed chairs while everyone scattered around the living room. I noticed that my own bipolar-like reaction was mirrored in the others. Despite the outward appearance of normalcy—just a bunch of folks, sitting down for a nice chat—everyone was tense as hell and the possibility for violence seemed to shimmer just beneath the vague smiles. The dichotomy reminded me of James’s having told me that vampires do not often gather in groups, that having so many predators in close quarters was rife with difficulty.

Mired in the stressful undercurrent, I startled when James’s voice broke the silence. “It has been a long time, Siska. I see you’re still a seeker.”

There was an edge to James’s pleasure…and it wasn’t just the mate instincts reacting to another male. I’d grown accustomed to that background tension within him, especially when Leo or Gage got a little too close to me. Neither was this the territorial stress of having another predator in close proximity. James’s underlying tension was something else. Something…I didn’t know, something
more.

The coil in my chest stirred and I wrapped my arms around myself, as if doing so would force the energy to settle.

Gage asked, “A seeker?” His voice sounded thin, like he was having to force it past too-tight vocal cords.

“I am what my people call a seeker or path-finder,” Siska responded levelly, giving no sign that our disquiet bothered him.

“Siska can locate anyone when he wishes to,” James explained. “And it appears that he wished to locate me.”

There was both a question and a warning in James’s tone, and the energy within me stirred in angry response.

Siska said, “I would prefer that this was a social visit but, yes, I did seek you with a purpose. James, you’ll remember I told you once that my
sachem
—my chief—asked me to watch over his family’s line, and so I became their guardian over the generations. Now, I watch over the last one of them—who also happens to be a U.S. marshal, Nicola Harfang.” He hesitated and shifted his weight in the chair. “There’s no easy way to say this, James. A warrant was issued for your arrest and Nic asked me to find you.”

A chorus of snarls met his words, mine the loudest of all. Kate cursed and—knowing her—would’ve gotten in Siska’s face but for Leo’s intervention. Gage surged to his feet, his eyes flashing with anger—the first time I’d seen this vampiric response from our young changeling friend. Having filled my chest, the energy surged down to my hands, where it throbbed in sync with my thundering heart. The pressure grew until my hands felt as if the skin would rupture from it. I made my stiff fingers bend and forced my hands into fists, willing the energy to subside with only partial success. Taking my cue from James, I remained watchful.

Had Siska even twitched, we would have all been on him with the next breath. But he wisely remained motionless and kept his own power quiet.

James murmured, “It’s all right, Evie, everyone.”

Siska sensed that I’d locked onto him. “I am not a threat to your mate,” he said to me, ignoring the others. “We fought by one another’s side in the Indian Wars. James is like a brother and I will not allow him to be harmed.” Siska met my intense glare with his own, steady gaze, and I saw the absolute sincerity there.

Instincts are for snarling and raging, not for intelligible speech, and it took me several tries to grate out, “Why are you here?”

“First, may I ask what it is that you are doing? There is heat and something else, like the air before an electrical storm.” If he felt any anxiety, he didn’t show it.

I fought the urge to open my hands and release the energy at him. Forcing my fists under my armpits, I held them there, tight. “What I’m doing is trying not to blast you to Arizona,” I rasped, trembling with the power filling my body. “So choose your words carefully.”

James’s gossamer touch brushed my mind, easing the anxiety and soothing my fully aroused protective instincts. Interestingly, the power subsided to a more manageable level and I was able to relax a little. He held his hand open, palm up, and I gave him mine. His eyebrows climbed as he felt the vibration and heat contained by my skin.

Smoothing his expression, but not before I saw his concern, James gave Siska an abbreviated description of my brief electrocution. “Have you heard of anything like this?” To the rest of us, he explained, “Siska was made vampire in the 1400s, shortly after Europeans first came to the New World.”

“Yes, my people have the Europeans to thank for smallpox, the loss of our homeland and vampirism,” Siska said, deadpan. “I haven’t seen anything exactly like this, no. But I have seen trauma result in an unusual talent or ability.”

Resolving to question him about this later, I returned the conversation to the more pressing topic. There was a lot of growl in my words. “Why are you here?”

Siska’s lips twitched and he looked at James. “She’s a fierce one, isn’t she?”

“You have no idea.” He grinned. “Provoke her at your own risk.”

As if he were soothing a wild animal, Siska leaned a little toward me and softened his voice. “Evie, I am Nic’s guardian, not her servant. When she asked me to find James, she didn’t know that we are friends. Certainly, she didn’t know he is also a vampire. I told her these things and asked that she forget about the warrant.”

I wanted straight answers, not placating. “Yet here you are,” I snapped. The vibration deepened in tenor, making sitting still impossible. I released James’s hand to get up and pace, trying to work off the oppressively building energy.

“Nic said she couldn’t just ignore the warrant…”

I growled and whirled to face Siska. This time, I didn’t try to stop the energy as it exploded from my palms to twine around him in pale, glowing coils. That this strange power dwelled within me—was, indeed, using some portion of
me
for sustenance—was terrifying and utterly alien, since no one should be able to do something like this. And yet…the physical manifestation of my instincts’ rage, the tingling surge of power flowing through me—along muscle and synapses, through my awareness—was akin to the intoxicating difference between weak humanity and vampiric strength. It was exhilarating.

Kate gasped and Gage said something under his breath that sounded a lot like, “Holy shit.” In my peripheral vision, I saw Leo lean forward with an expression of intense curiosity.

“Evie?” James came to stand by my side.

Siska’s eyes widened at the coils’ humming constriction, although his face remained calm. “Nic asked me to let her meet James and hear from him what happened to Tom Jankowski.” His gaze flicked to Kate. “I think I know who
you
are. Looks like the missing person alert can be canceled.”

Kate’s voice was curt. “As you can see, I’m fine.”

Alarm that he knew so much about us fed the energy and the pale ropes tightened, pinning Siska hard against the chair. James brushed my mind with his mental touch and, when this did nothing noticeable, he upped the wattage.

“Easy, love,” he murmured, putting a gentle hand on my shoulder.

I gritted my teeth and wrestled with the energy to keep it from crushing Siska, unsure if it might actually kill him. I wasn’t ready to find out. Not yet, anyway.

His calm seemed a little forced now. “You have my word, Evie. Nic just wants to talk with James, wherever he wishes to meet.”

Keeping a careful eye on me, James asked him, “Why is she so determined to talk?”

“To get a handle on what happened to your human.”

James turned to Siska and studied him for a long moment. His gaze sharpened and he shook his head. “No, it’s more than that. What has you so alarmed?”

The black-haired vampire tried to shift his weight. “Evie, would you mind relaxing a little? This is becoming uncomfortable.”

I deliberated for a split second and looked at James. A smile lurked in his eyes as he nodded.

“This should be interesting,” I muttered. Focusing on the energy, I willed it to turn off but with no noticeable success. I thought “off” and, again, there was no change in its strength or appearance. Trying a different tack, thinking of the energy as a limb to be manipulated, I imagined mental muscles and experimented a little.

“It’s getting tighter,” Siska said, the words barely recognizable as the last of his air was squeezed from his lungs.

“Off off off!” I chanted, growing frantic as the dark-skinned vampire turned whiter than me. Surely that wasn’t a good thing, even if it wouldn’t necessarily kill him. I had a mental image of a cartoonish Siska splooshed out above and below the glowing bands.

“Evie?” James bent to look me in the eyes. “Try something else, love.”

Gage’s voice was almost as strangled as Siska looked. “Should his eyes be bulging like that?”

“Not helping,” I sing-songed, resolutely not looking at Siska’s face.

Maybe if I tried relaxing all the “muscles.” If I just let everything go slack…Abruptly, the flow of energy pouring from my palms cut off, leaving the force holding Siska uncontained. There was a feeling like a giant sucking in a deep breath, then the energy exploded outward, knocking books off shelves, paintings off their wall hooks, and rocking everyone backward.

“Sorry, guys,” I muttered, feeling much as I had right after my change, when everything was so acute, so
strange.
That this power resided inside me was more frightening than the change, though, since I’d had James’s guidance to get me through becoming a vampire—but nobody had a clue about this damn energy and were just as much in the dark as me.

James took my hand and towed me back to the sofa, tucking me under his arm. For once, his mental reassurance didn’t do more than soften the edge of my anxiety.

Gage picked his baseball cap off the floor and put it back on his head, and the others eyed me with varying degrees of awe and alarm.

I snuck a look at Siska’s face and went a little green to see it slowly resuming its normal proportions.

“That is a considerable talent you have, Evie.” He studied me as I tried to ignore his cheekbones shifting beneath his skin, as if unseen fingers pressed them into the proper angles. “Please accept my apology for awakening it to such a degree.” When I nodded, he drew a deep breath—now that he could—and turned to the others. “James is correct. There is more to this than one old man’s murder. Everything started about a month ago. If Nic were a local cop and not a U.S. marshal, I would never have seen it.”

“Seen what?” James asked.

“The pattern. It started out as a single murder, always in a big city. This alone was not out of the ordinary—unfortunately—since murders happen all the time. But it was the extreme violence of each killing that first got my attention. The victims were literally torn apart.”

Kate whispered, “
Torn
apart?”

He nodded, his face grim. “Yeah. Into pieces. Lots of pieces. Like you’d tear tissue paper.”

James sat back, his face a mask. “It began in Boston, correct?”