The Curse (17 page)

“Svart trolls are more deadly than demons and local trolls. Plus there’s been another gang battle since I saw you.”

“How did you know about—” Evalle’s heart frosted over at the realization that only one other VIPER agent would have told Storm anything. She kept her voice free of a jealous tinge, but just saying the witch’s name caused her to grind her back teeth. “Did Adrianna tell you?”

Storm shook his head slowly. “I’ve gone home. She doesn’t know where I live.”

So where had Adrianna and Storm been when she was taking care of him if not at his apartment, house, hut … whatever? Evalle shielded her momentary relief at that small confession, until she realized
she
didn’t know where he lived either.

But Storm had said he’d put that in the e-mail draft for her so she could come to dinner. Had he done that yet? Evalle pushed her tired mind back to business. “So where’d you get that information on the gang battles?”

“From your Nightstalker buddy.”

“Grady?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not surprised he knows about the Svarts.” Evalle yawned. “I need to get going. Sunrise is coming.”

“You’ve got eighteen minutes to make a mile on your street jet.”

She gave him a wan smile. “That gives me sixteen more minutes of sleep if I leave right now.”

“I can think of a better use for those sixteen minutes.”

“Oh? How would
you
use them?” She smiled, enjoying a warm glow from his flirting.

“Proving how wrong you are about Adrianna.”

Adrianna?
Evalle lost the warm glow. She didn’t want to listen while Storm painted the witch as someone only concerned with his health. Men would never see Adrianna the way women saw her.

Just when Evalle thought she’d put this unexpected jealousy to bed, the green-eyed devil reared its ugly head. “No.”

TWELVE

E
valle pinned Storm with a look that should warn him his health could soon be in jeopardy again and said, “I’m not wasting my time or breath discussing Adrianna.”

Storm put a hand on her arm and leaned down, nose to nose with her. “You are the most thickheaded female I’ve ever met.”

“Not winning any points right now, Storm.” She pulled on her arm, not enough to break his hold. Just to make a point. “Let go of me if you don’t want to land on your butt on the other side of the street.”

“Sixty seconds.”

“For what?”

“To prove—”

She huffed. “I got it. Adrianna did you a favor. Nothing to discuss.”

“You may be
trying
to believe that but you don’t. I can’t stand knowing every time you see Adrianna you’re going to be hurt all over again.”

See? Things like that made her heart wiggle. “If I’m hurt, it’s my problem to deal with. I believe what you told me.”

“But you’re still bothered about Adrianna.”

She hated to admit he’d hit that nail dead center, but she couldn’t deny the truth. Angling her chin in challenge, she said, “Okay, I’ll give you sixty seconds—”

He had her in his arms, kissing her before she realized he’d moved.

Her righteous anger over Adrianna, which had festered since last night, tumbled beneath the onslaught of emotions crashing through her.

She had the backbone of a caterpillar when Storm touched her. He held her close, secure in his arms.

She’d missed everything about him in the past few weeks. Missed the way he took her in stride, accepting her as she was. Missed his voice, which whispered across her skin. And most definitely missed the way his mouth felt against hers right now, teasing and nipping.

Heat zinged through her core, spinning tornadoes of excitement everywhere and shocking her skin, coiling deep inside until she murmured against his lips.

He smiled, never slowing the kiss that said so much.

Much more than sixty
hours
of talking could accomplish.

She tasted his sincerity, knew by the way his heart slammed with each beat that she mattered to him.

Blood barreled through her own heart, forcing the organ to feel alive after years of being an iceberg, frozen by terror. Another man had sent her into emotional lockdown as a teen.

But Storm could stir a fever inside her with nothing more than a look.

His hand cupped the back of her head, carefully and gently. Probably still remembering how she’d reacted like a trapped animal when he’d stepped too close to her in an underground subway tunnel. She’d shoved him thirty feet across the tracks. He’d landed against a concrete wall.

Nothing like Sen had done to Storm, but a hit that would have seriously hurt a human.

And would have sent any other man backpedaling to get as far away from a freak as possible.

Not Storm. He’d dusted himself off and had come right back, refusing to let her retreat from him. Looking at her with too much understanding as if he could see past her fears, all the way to the emotional wasteland where her personal demons crouched in the corners of her mind, laughing at her.

She’d tried to warn Storm away more than once, but he could be beyond stubborn at times.

He moved his long fingers lightly over her face and hair, forcing her to think about him and only him. The last three weeks melted away. She ran her hands up into his hair, then folded her arms around his neck. He kissed her with a hunger that sent shivers of excitement fingering along her spine.

She’d never expected to feel
that
with a man.

The female voice haunting her mind lately said,
To feel is to live. To live is to love
.

Evalle hoped the woman could hear
her
when she silently replied,
Go. Away
.

Storm paused. He swept his lips softly across hers and murmured something in a language she didn’t understand. But she could feel the passion in his words.

He was telling her he cared.

Then his lips were gone and his breath coming hard as if he’d been battling for hours. He dropped a kiss on her forehead, then pulled back, raking a knuckle over her cheek.

Her eyes fluttered open to find him waiting patiently.

He had something to tell her.

She pulled her hands back to his chest and conceded the challenge. “You win. I was an idiot.”

Storm brushed his fingers over her hair and spoke in a deep whisper. “You’re not an idiot. You’re a woman who does everything with passion. Even being jealous.”

“I wasn’t …” The lie died in her throat. “Okay, I was jealous.”

“I know, and that’s why I need you to understand why you have no reason to ever be when it comes to me.” His chest moved under her hand as he took in a deep breath. “My guardian spirit, Kai, stayed with me the whole time I was injured. She said she doubted that I would come back to this world.”

Evalle’s fingers clenched his shirt, unable to stop the knee-jerk reaction. What if he hadn’t come back at all? She couldn’t bear the thought.

He kissed her again, a quick touch, as if not quite finished with her, then continued. “I told Kai I was not ready to leave. That I had to come back. She said I would have to fight a fierce battle to return to the human world, and even then she didn’t think I’d survive. But she believed that the will to live could be greater than the pull of death if my reason for fighting was powerful enough. She asked why I had to come back.”

“What did you tell her?” The question slipped out of Evalle on a strained breath.

“I had to hold you one more time.”

Evalle never, ever cried, but she came close when he said that. She dropped her head onto his chest, so glad that his guardian spirit had been with him. “Thank you for coming back.”

“There was never a question of my returning. Not in my mind. I owe Adrianna a debt for her help that I plan to repay, but only as a friend. I’m not interested in seeing her again for any other reason.”

“Okay.” Evalle lifted her head. She still had some work to do on her lack of confidence as a woman, but she believed Storm.

His gaze searched beyond her. “I don’t want you to go, but you’re running out of dark, sweetheart. Horizon’s getting lighter all the time.”

Sweetheart? She reached up and placed her palm on his face, reminding herself that he had come back to her. Alive.

He turned to kiss her skin. “If you keep that up, I’m going to have to kiss you again,” he teased, then wrapped his fingers around her wrists to pull her arms down.

She hissed at the contact.

He pulled her wrists up into the light. “What the hell happened to you this time?”

“It’s a long story and I can’t really talk about it.”

“Why not?” Now
he
was angry.

Why couldn’t they both end this on a happy note?

“Because I’m doing something for … my tribe and I’m not supposed to say anything about it.” She hoped Storm didn’t read a lie in that because she’d been doing Macha’s business when she went to see Tristan, so in a warped way that was technically for the Beladors. Pulling one hand free, she reached toward her bike to grab her helmet.

Indecision shot through Storm’s gaze, but he didn’t press her for more when he released her other wrist. He asked, “What are you doing tonight when you come back out after dark?”

Going to find Isak and ask for a weapon that can kill trolls.
But telling Storm that would not go well and hesitating to answer wasn’t helping.

Shaking his head, he muttered, “Still can’t trust me, huh?”

“That’s not true.” She would tell him if not for having to then explain Isak and hearing Storm rant about her meeting a man whose goal in life was to kill all Alterants. “I just have to do something for Quinn and Tzader, then I’ll be in touch.”

“That sounds like VIPER business.”

“It is.”

“Then why can’t you tell me what you’re doing?”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you—”

“Right.” Frustration fueled his glare. “Let me get this straight. You don’t trust me enough to share what you’re up to, and you question me on something when I tell you the truth, but just accept it when Quinn lies to you?”

“What
lie
?” She shoved her helmet back over the bike mirror.

Storm dropped his chin, staring at the sidewalk. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Did you hear my conversation with Quinn?”

“Not intentionally. I was focused on tracking the Svart when I saw your bike and had just walked up when you two stopped to talk. I backed away but I can’t help that I have exceptional hearing. Forget that I said anything. I know he’s a good friend of yours.”

“What. Lie.”

He lifted a face teeming with regret. “When you asked him about seeing Kizira or if he’d told her that you could be found with Tristan back when you were in the Maze of Death, Quinn lied. On both accounts.”

THIRTEEN

C
athbad?”

He smiled at the sound of Flaevynn’s voice fillin’ his dungeon chamber, but kept his head bent over an ancient tome he was readin’ for the third time.

This had to be the one.

“Do not ignore me,
druid
,” she warned.

Liftin’ his head, Cathbad searched his cell, his gaze runnin’ over the wall of books, single bed and few amenities … but no Medb queen present. “Hello, Flaevynn. Why do ya no come to see me in person?”

“And risk you trapping me down there?” Her voice swirled around him. A tempting, seductive cadence that men succumbed to all the time. After more than six hundred years with this woman, Cathbad knew better. Would seem only fair to lure the witch into his dungeon an’ lock her here for a few years since that was what she ha done to him. But he could no indulge in fantasies of payback until he got what he wanted of her.

He’d waited patiently for this moment when Flaevynn had to admit she needed him or face her death. He poked at her, sayin’, “Why would I do somethin’ so foolish as trap ya down here? Does no you nor me any good for us to no work together.”

The lack of immediate response meant she probably tapped one of those long, black fingernails against the arm of her throne and fumed over the fact that she ha run out of options, an’ way out of time.