Stormfront (Undertow Book 2) (6 page)

The instant I made it ou
t
the side door I gasped for the icy air to fill my lungs. I tried to right my head, tried to get my thoughts back into order, but somehow I had wound myself around Eila last night and slept. Really, REALLY slept. It was the best night’s rest I had had in years. Not just in the last few months, but in decades.

I remember
laying down next to her when she began softly talking in her sleep. She was saying my name, but she seemed frightened, the dream apparently threading its way into a nightmare. I couldn’t understand all that she said, but I began talking to her quietly, telling her I was with her. Telling her she wasn’t alone and praying I wasn’t the monster in her dream.

At one point she moved and rolled onto my arm, and her fears seemed to fall away when she made contact with me. Not wanting to disturb her, I laid there, on the floor next to her, letting her use my arm as a pillow.

Then I fell asleep . . . and woke up wrapped around her.

As I reran the evening in my head, Kian came around the side of the house, an axe hanging easily from his hand. He swung it lazily into a large stump near the steps and it lodged itself at a perfect angle.

“So, correct me if I am wrong Raef, but wasn’t there some ultra-dumb idea that you and Sparky had about NOT touching each other? Because what I saw this morning didn’t seem to line up with my understanding of the Keep-Away game.”

“Yeah – that was an accident.”

Kian just laughed. “Keep telling yourself that and maybe some sucker in another galaxy will believe you. You guys are just too –“

I held up my hand to quiet
Kian’s irritating speech as I heard Eila’s voice in the kitchen. We both could hear her easily through the walls of her home, a perk of being a soul thief. She was talking about trash, and then Mae started talking about us and . . .

Damn.

Apparently when she wanted to be, Mae Johnson was nothing if not direct. Kian and I stood frozen in place in the driveway, listening.

After what had to be the worse anti-pep-talk ever, Ana excused herself abruptly and Eila managed to get away a few seconds later. Kian opened his mouth to say something, no doubt snarky, but then just shook his head as he walked away. Mae Johnson had left Kian O’Reilly speechless. I needed to buy her a trophy.

A few seconds later, my phone pinged and I pulled it from my jacket. Eila had texted me:

~~ OMG.
Did U hear that?

I winced. I took a moment before responding. Honesty I supposed was the best policy . . . just not this time.

Hear what? ~~

~~ NEVERMIND!

I couldn’t help but laugh. The reality was, getting involved with a human in
that
way wasn’t a good idea and Eila knew it. Humans were breakable, and Mortis? Mortis played rough. We stuck to our own kind in that arena. Plus, Eila wasn’t just human – she was Lunaterra and she didn’t know how to control her power yet. That could go very badly for both of us. It would probably result in a real burning bed.

That whole idea would not be wise. Crazy even. I was supposed to be protecting her and going in that direction with Eila was the polar opposite of playing it safe. I wasn’t even supposed to be touching her, though I blew that rule right out of the water last night. Thank goodness Eila seemed okay with me next to her. Plus – she seemed onboard with the “revisions” idea.

I loved that about her. She just went for it – for life, for new experiences. She was fearless and didn’t hold back. She gave of herself freely, never expecting repayment. She loved fiercely, lived fiercely, and consumed my universe like an endless star.

Of course, Eila wasn’t just Lunaterra. She was also Mortis . . . like me. She existed because a Lunaterra and a Mortis had a child together, which brought me back to the whole idea of her and
me.

We shared something –
a warped but potent electricity, which wove between us in an intoxicating way. I saw it spark inside her when I was close to her, and felt it like a beautiful, icy burn when I kissed her. But to go
that
far with her? No. No way.

Suddenly I tensed as a horrible thought, dark and possessive, took hold inside of me. What if a boy
had
used her and then left her? What if some boy took her sweet, wild nature and shattered her heart? When I met her, she never mentioned a boyfriend in her past, but then again, we never discussed such
details
as we were preoccupied with running from a clan of Mortis who wanted her as a weapon. But what if some boy had seen her as a brief fling and tossed her aside? He could kiss his life goodbye if he had.

My phone pinged and mercifully snapped me out of my way-too-vivid imagination.

~~ Ana and I are going to the cemetery.

Not alone they weren’t.

K – I’ll drive you. ~~

~~ You don’t have to.

I’ll just follow you anyway. ~~

~~ Sky falling, Chicken Little?

With you?
Always. ~~

I stared at the screen a moment longer. Ana was going to visit her father’s gravesite, which Kian would definitely want to know. I walked around the side of the house, where Kian was leaning against the wood stack, his face turned into the sun.

He heard me coming and sighed, “I miss the south. I can’t understand why anyone would willingly stay in this frozen wasteland. I sure as hell haven’t done so for more than a century. New Englanders have a screw loose, I swear.”

When I didn’t respond he opened his eyes and looked at me. I must have had a strained expression on my face, because he got serious fast, “What is it?”

I held up my phone, “Ana and E are heading to the cemetery, I’m going to drive them. I just thought you should know.” Kian pushed away from the woodpile just as the side door to the house banged open. He moved quickly past me and I followed. Ana and Eila were coming out of the house, Ana making a beeline for the Jeep.

She looked upset. Ana Lane never looked upset.

She was the
text-book definition of a locked vault.

Kian saw it too and quickly got next to her and started walking with her. He was as distressed as she was, “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

“I’m okay,” she said quietly as she continued to head toward the Jeep, her bottom lip trembling ever so slightly. She was holding it together, but barely. What in the world was going on?

Kian got right in front of her, but was careful not to touch her, as if doing so would cause a chain reaction in Ana. In some ways, Ana’s father was in the ground because of him, a fact that would always hang over the two of them. “You’re not okay. I can see you’re not. Please, don’t shut me out.”

Ana couldn’t seem to force any words through her mouth, no doubt afraid that her faltering strength would crack.

“Pix! Talk to me – what is it?” pleaded Kian.
Ana halted in her tracks, blinking a few times, apparently stunned. Kian even seemed a bit floored at what he had just said, but then she pushed past him. As she moved towards the car, I could see the pain in Kian’s face mirror Ana’s.

I could feel his agony even at a distance.

Eila walked by me, a sad but determined look on her face, and squeezed my arm while handing me the keys to her Wrangler. Ana was already flipping the passenger seat forward and climbing into the back. She slammed the seat back into place and wiped at her cheek with a mitten-covered hand, keeping her eyes focused out the plastic side window. I walked past Kian as Eila climbed into the seat beside the driver’s.

I shut the door for her and came around the hood, but Kian intercepted me. “Text me when you get there and let me know what’s up. You keep my girl safe, Raef.” It was a command, not a request, and I understood his need to know Ana was
alright. I nodded and climbed into the Jeep.

As we backed down the driveway, I glanced back to look at Kian. He was standing in the driveway watching us leave, his hands in his jacket pockets, left behind and forgotten.

Ana had gotten the cal
l
from one of the cemetery workers when she was changing. The groundskeeper had told her that a tree had come down during last night’s storm and landed on several grave stones, including her Dad’s. Apparently it was smashed.

I had never seen Ana so withdrawn. So hurt.

The way she carried her pain almost looked like guilt.

Honestly, I was angry that she was called at all – she’s eighteen for crying out loud and it’s Thanksgiving! But then I realized that there was no one else
to
call. It was just Ana – no parents, no relatives, no trust fund to ensure she could make it in this world.

She had nothing, but she did have Mae and me. She had Raef and MJ, and most importantly she had Kian.

Kian, who she wouldn’t even say a word to when we got in the car. I felt so bad for him.

I was sure he thought he had done something wrong, and in his face I could see the worry that Ana was going to pull away from him once again. I couldn’t even begin to fathom what they had experienced together the summer they met. The ultra-highs of true love falling away to the devastating
lows of her father’s death.

She even admitted that she had called Kian a murderer. I knew she now regretted what she had said to him, but Ana was still on the mend. She was strong and determined, but I suspected that one cruel summer had changed them both, and not completely for the better.

I looked over my shoulder to Ana as Raef drove through the town’s winding roads. She was looking out the window at the homes that slipped by, many packed with out-of-state cars. They belonged to family members from all over the country, who were coming home for Thanksgiving.

No one, from anywhere, would come for Ana. But she was home now, with us. She would always have a family with us, as strange and unlikely as we all were together.

As I turned back to look out the windshield I caught Raef’s eye and he mouthed the words,
You okay?

I nodded and he laced his free hand in mine over the center console of the Jeep. His thumb traced a small, endless circle on my hand as we drove.

After a few minutes we finally made it to the cemetery, and Raef asked Ana where her father’s plot was, but Ana, her eyes glassy, just shrugged. “I haven’t been here since he was buried. Everything looks different. I should have come before. It took a tree falling on his stone for me to come out here.” She sniffed.

I leaned back toward her. “Hey – your Dad understands. Life gets in the way and it’s hard to come here. He doesn’t want to cause you pain,”
I said, but the second the words came out of my mouth, I wished I could take them back.

Ana gave a choked, brittle laugh, “You definitely didn’t know my father, Eila.”

Raef cleared his throat. “I’ll go find the groundskeeper. He can tell us wherever we are supposed to go.”

Raef got out of the Jeep and headed for an office-like building
, and soon he was walking back with a map in his hands. He climbed in and shut the door against the cold, handing me the map so I could direct him. Ana stayed silent in the back, her eyes trailing over the many stones, some as old as Raef’s time. Something occurred to me then.

“Do you think any of your family is buried here, Raef?”

He gave a shrug. “Maybe. Possibly. My parents and my sister moved to Virginia before I was turned, however. I would think they would be buried down there.”

“Did you never contact them after you were turned?”

Raef gave me a look that questioned my logic, “No. By the time I was able to control the more dangerous side of my new personality, it had been more than a year. My parents assumed something had happened to me, though I did hear they were trying to find me. But then I realized I would never age. I would never eat, marry, or have children. The son they knew was dead. Contacting them was not an option. They eventually sold our farm to another family who renamed it CatBird Farm.”

CatBird
Farm was where MJ’s family bought all the supplies for their ice cream shop. I was stunned. The land had belonged to Raef’s family? I was about to reply, but Ana’s small voice spoke up.

“This looks familiar,” she said, tapping her finger against the window. Stacked against the fencing of the cemetery was a pile of freshly cut tree trunks and not far from them, the carnage of what a massive spruce could inflict when it fell.

Raef slowed the Jeep to a stop and we all got out. By some instinct, I knew Ana just wanted me with her, so I asked Raef to wait by the car. He didn’t argue and seemed to understand.

Ana and I slowly stepped through the stones. This section of the cemetery had only flat stones that lay flush with the frozen ground. Many were crushed beyond recognition, but we still went through them, brushing snow from the engraved letters to read the names.

One stone, heavily caked with snow, had been split into three pieces. I stopped next to it and started working away the snow when I caught sight of an “L” and “A.”  I worked faster, pulling off my gloves so I could fit my finger into the grooves within the granite that formed the name. When I was done, Ana’s father’s name was facing me.

“Ana!” I called.
“He’s here.”

She jogged her way through the snow and stopped next to me. The words on the stone, now split and twisted, were simple:

Harold Lane

June 3, 1968 – September 2, 2012

Ana just stood there, looking down at her father’s gravesite for a long time before she spoke. “I . . . I didn’t have money for a nice stone,” she said quietly. “I barely had money to bury him, so the guys from his work kicked in to help.”

Tears started to silently trace her fair, wind-kissed cheeks, and my heart clenched, thinking of what she went through alone. Of what Kian went through, knowing how much pain she was in. I couldn’t help it, and soon my own tears came just as quietly.

Ana sunk to her knees on the icy ground and began pushing the snow farther away, attempting to fit the broken pieces back into place, as if doing so would fix the past.

I had to look away and saw Raef, watching me, his arms crossed. He saw my tears and his arms fell to his sides, concerned, and he began walking toward me, but I shook my head for him to stay where he was.

I had nothing to offer Ana in that moment except my unfailing love as her friend, and I got down next to her to help. When we were done, the pieces fit roughly together, but I knew Ana’s heart was shattered.

When we finally got back to
my house, Mae was spinning with activity. She had pulled me aside as soon as we arrived home, asking why Ana looked so upset. I filled her in on what had happened to the stone, and though she was very sad for Ana, we didn’t have a few thousand dollars to replace it either. According to the cemetery, it would take more than a year for their insurance to order a new plaque, and that weighed heavy on Ana.

I stayed in the kitchen, helping Mae with the food, but Ana went up to her room and closed the door.

Raef had texted Kian when we were at the gravesite, letting him know what was going on. Kian however, didn’t reply. At first I thought he might not have gotten the message, because when we got back to the house, he was gone. Raef tried to get him on the phone, but he wasn’t answering. Dinner was supposed to be in a few hours and no one could find him.

Frustrated that I couldn’t locate Kian or ease Ana’s sadness, I called the one person who could find the sun in the worst of a hurricane: MJ. He picked up after just a few rings.

“WOMAN! How the heck are ya? Happy Turkey day!” he yelled as soon as he answered the phone.

“Happy Thanksgiving weirdo! We miss
ya! How’s Florida?” I asked, my entire mood lifted just by hearing his voice.

“West Palm is ‘da bomb, well except for my Aunt Lois and her strange casserole. I took two bites and decided death-by-food-poisoning was not the way to go. Don’t ever eat what she serves you. Seriously.”

I started laughing as I tucked the phone into my shoulder so I could continue lining up the ladyfingers in the pan for tiramisu. Mae glanced at me. “Is that MJ? Tell him I said
hi
,” she prodded.

“Mae says
hi
,” I dutifully reported.

“Tell that wonderful woman that I miss her and her excellent culinary skills. Tell her to send a care package to me . . . or better yet, drive it down here!”

I looked back at Mae, “He says your cooking is lousy.”

“WHAT? I DID NOT!” he howled into the phone, loud enough so Mae could easily hear. She just laughed and waved a dishtowel at me, continuing to clean the wine glasses. She had so many glasses out I was wondering if she was planning on getting everyone hammered.

I placed the last ladyfinger carefully in the pan, knowing that the only people who’d actually be eating were Ana, Mae, and me. We were going to have enough leftovers to feed the whole neighborhood.

I left Mae to her glasses and headed into the living room talking to MJ as I walked. “So Ana dragged us to
Nauset yesterday so the guys could surf, even though there was a snow storm. Are ya jealous?” I asked, knowing MJ loved to surf.

He snorted, “Not likely. I went surfing too, the only difference was I could wear my swim trunks and not freeze to death. Eighty-eight degrees
Chicky! And the women . . . I don’t even think those strings they were wearing could be classified as swimwear!”

“You can stop right there, thanks. I get the gist.” I flopped into the sofa and kicked my feet up onto the coffee table. “Did you get to check on Cerberus?”

“Kian’s elaborate dinghy? Yeah, yeah – not sure he could put it at a more snooty marina though. I nearly got tossed on my ass when I got to the gate. Tell him that down here, Cerberus is far from the biggest fish in the sea. I think I even saw Usher!”

“You did not see Usher. You’re hallucinating.” I laughed.

“I am not! Just make sure you tell Kian about his boat or he will start hounding me.”

I shifted forward on the couch, the stress of today starting to weasel its way back into my body. “So, uh, listen. I can’t actually find Kian right now.” There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone.

“Seriously? Where did he go?”

I sighed and filled MJ in on what had happened. He listened intently, never once interrupting me, which NEVER happens. Finally I heard him take a deep breath.

“I’ll call him,” he said, in a determined voice.

“He won’t answer.”

“He will for me.”

I sighed, feeling less than optimistic. “Hey MJ – there’s one other thing. He called he
r
Pi
x
. It seemed to freak her out a bit. Do you have any clue what that was about?”

The silence on the phone felt endless as I waited for MJ’s reply. Finally his voice breathed through the
wireless connection, “Yeah, I know what it’s about. I gotta go. Love you, Eila. Tell Ana I will be home soon and I miss her.”

“I will – love
ya too,” I replied as the call disconnected, feeling totally left out of whatever was
really
said between Kian and Ana.

About an hour before we were to have dinner, Kian returned. He gave us all the briefest of greetings and went straight up the stairs to Ana’s room. Raef and I heard the door open and close and then nothing.

Curiosity was going to kill me.

Thirty minutes later Kian and Ana walked into the dining room. While the light hadn’t returned to her eyes, her mood did seem better. She had pulled herself together, probably with the help of Kian, and was ready to rejoin us. Rather than make some emotional scene of hugging her, I offered her a pile of plates. “Help me set the table?” I asked.

“Sure,” she replied and took the dishware. I gathered up other table items and the boys asked if they could help. Mae set them to various tasks and soon the kitchen and dining rooms were a hum of voices, laughter, and the rich scent of Thanksgiving.

A knock on the door a short time later alerted me that Christian had probably arrived. Why Mae had to invite him was beyond me, but I sucked it up and tried to be a gracious host. The reality was Christian didn’t really bother me, but I didn’t know him very well either. I also didn’t know how to treat him – as a friend? A stuffy business man? A watchful grandfather? A sex symbol?

Okay – that last one was a definite
no
.

In the end, we were probably both trying to navigate how our relationship would work.

I got to the front hallway, Raef following me closely, and opened the door. There, standing on the porch with a bottle of Cristal champagne worth more than my Jeep, was Christian. A flawlessly cut suit framed his perfectly sculpted body and stunning face. No wonder Elizabeth fell for him and Newport named him Most Eligible Bachelor.

He gave us a brilliant smile. “Eila. Raef. Happy Thanksgiving. May I come in?” He always asked, even though I had granted him permission nearly a month ago.