Unforgettable (Talented Saga #6) (23 page)

Of all the thoughts I wanted to keep
from her, the ones about Donavon were my most closely guarded
secrets. Talia gave a brittle laugh. She’d heard me.

“
That’s my point! You never
say shit about shit, Erik. What? Am I so fragile that a little
truth is going to break me?”

Part of me, the part that knew every
freckle on Talia’s body and every cell inside her brain, knew she
was baiting me intentionally. She wanted a reaction. And the steely
glint in her gaze told me she wasn’t backing down until I gave her
one.

Someone pounded on the door. Talia
stumbled forward with the force of the wood shaking behind her.
Reacting on instinct, I caught her easily in my arms. She was
trembling with a mix of panic, rage, and heartache.

From the brain patterns of the
knocker, his identity was obvious.

“
Go away, Brand,” I called.
“You too, Henri,” I added when I felt my old teammate and friend
join Brand outside the door.

“
Talia?” Henri asked, voice
muffled.

“
We’re
fine
, Henri,” she
replied.

Refusing to return my embrace, but
also not pulling away from me, Talia tipped her head back and met
my gaze. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. The
tone soothing, calming. Not quite manipulating, but on the
verge.

“
Talk to me, please,” she
said, in what was as close to begging as my girlfriend would ever
come. “I can’t cure you, but I do understand how you feel. I get
what it’s like to feel out of control. Even before the drug, my
moods were at one end of the spectrum or the other. I don’t have an
in between.” Talia bit her lower lip, as the physical pain would
mask the emotional. “If not me, then Penny. Because I know I can
only sympathize with the other stuff, but Penny truly
understands.”

The angrier emotions inside of me
ebbed, both as a result of Talia’s powers and the offer she’d just
made. She wanted to be my confidante. It killed her that I refused
to pour my heart out to her. Asking me to confide in Penny, instead
of Talia herself, hurt my girlfriend’s pride. But she cared more
about easing my torment than her wounded ego.

I blew out a long breath and squeezed
her tighter. This time, Talia wrapped her arms around my waist and
returned the hug. My heart was beating so hard, it was a wonder her
head didn’t bob visibly when she rested it on my chest.

“
I hate how much his death
is affecting you,” I murmured into her hair. “I hate that you cry
in the shower, when you think I can’t hear you. I hate that he
sacrificed his life for you because I was stupid enough to let
TOXIC catch me and therefore wasn’t in Kentucky with you that day.
I hate that I’m jealous of him. And I hate how insane all of what I
just said sounds.”

Warm liquid seeped through the thin
cotton of my tee-shirt: Talia’s tears. Crying was nothing new from
my hyper-emotional girlfriend. But I’d never before been the one to
cause the tears. It scared me, made me want to stop. Instead, I
began speaking in a rush.

As I held her there in my arms, I told
her everything that I’d been holding back for weeks. Some fears I’d
been unaware of until I said them out loud to Talia. The worry that
my father was never going to fully recover from his injuries. My
distress that my brothers’ lives were ruined because of
me.

Then there was the Treaty, an obscure
document I’d spared little thought for until the last twelve hours.
The very real likelihood that our kind was going to be forced into
exile, confined to UNITED’s seven-island nation, was terrifying.
Living there for just the last couple of weeks had been hard
enough—I felt like a caged bird when I was on Eden.

I saved the hardest thing for last.
The scariest of all. It was terrifying to admit, but I honestly
believed that I belonged in containment.

Even though I still felt my friends’
presences on the other side of the door, I no longer cared who
heard me. Maybe tomorrow I’d feel differently, but, just then, it
was too cathartic to stop. Spilling my guts was lifting the
boulder-sized burden weighing me down.

My verbal regurgitation of
touchy-feely topics completed, silence filled the void. Talia was
still crying quietly into my shirt, handfuls of the material
bunched in her hands at the small of my back.

“
Say something, Tals,” I
urged.

Her mind was open, but I was too
petrified to look inside. If I’d broken my girlfriend with all of
the weight I’d just put on her, I would never forgive myself. And
not just because I didn’t want a broken girlfriend.

Talia cleared her throat and I held my
breath, waiting in reluctant anticipation for her to
speak.

“
Was that really so hard?”
she asked, her tone deceptively light and even a little
mocking.

With her words, the darkness within me
retreated to only the furthest reaches. My girlfriend didn’t think
I was crazy. At least, not any crazier than she had before
now.

“
Are you serious right now,
Tals? What’s with all the crying, then?”

“
I’m relieved, you moron,”
she said with a soft laugh. “You’re talking to me. I couldn’t take
being shut out. Besides, everything you just told me? Those are all
normal worries and fears. After weeks without knowing what was
happening in there, I was expecting
way
worse.”

“
I’m sorry,” I told her,
gently pushing back her shoulders so I could see her
face.

Eyes still wet and shiny with tears,
Talia smiled.

“
For what, exactly?” she
asked, a mischievous quality to her upturned lips. “And better yet,
how do you plan to make it up to me? Because ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t
going to cut it right now. Words are easy. I’m going to need a
little action on this one.”

Using my lightning fast reflexes, I
bent and scooped her up, with one arm beneath her knees and the
other cradling her torso. Talia gave a small squeal of delight. I
carried her back to the bed, tossing her gently onto the
mattress.

“
You better tell your
bodyguards out there everything is okay before they bust through
the door and interrupt my apology,” I said.

Talia’s smile was downright wicked.
When she didn’t assure everyone that I wasn’t murdering her, I
climbed onto the bed and grabbed ahold of her right foot, tickling
the skin above her ankle bone. She squirmed, pretending to put up a
fight.

“
Tell them,”
I sent, as her laughter reverberated around the
bedroom.

“
No way,” she gasped,
panting as she continued to wiggle out of my grasp.

Releasing her ankle, I gently grabbed
her flailing arms and pinned her wrists to the mattress. Leaning
down to kiss the spot just below her ear, I whispered against her
soft skin.

“
Never mind, I don’t care
about anyone but you.”

Chill-bumps sprang to life on Talia’s
arms and neck and she shivered. I trailed kisses along her jaw,
over her cheeks, until my mouth hovered millimeters above hers.
Talia’s eyelids were half closed, her focus solely on my touch.
Feeling her visceral reactions to me was my favorite part of the
connection we’d forged so long ago. In that instant, I vowed never
to resent that bond again, even in those rare times I wanted
privacy that she refused to give. It was a small price to pay for
moments like this one.

Things between us might not
have been completely back to normal, but I honestly wasn’t even
sure what normal was for us anymore. Regardless, even if just for a
little while, my world—
our
world—wasn’t spinning out of control. The
barriers between us had crumpled with my many admissions and Talia
seemed satisfied that I was opening up to her.

“
Tals?” I whispered, yet to
actually touch her lips with mine.

“
Hmmm,” she
mumbled.

“
Will you look at
me?”

She opened her eyes completely, that
look I knew and loved staring me in the face.

“
Seriously, I’m sorry. I
can’t promise that I’m up for daily therapy sessions or anything,
but I will try and let you in more. Okay?”

“
You’d better,” she said.
“Because I need you.
You
. The guy who took away my pain
after I got myself stabbed on my first mission with the Hunters.
The guy who punched my cheating boyfriend. The guy who has endured
so much crap, just to save me the trouble of it. The guy who hates
the only other boy I’ve kissed simply because he kissed me. You’re
still that guy, Erik. And you always will be, even if they never
find a cure for the Creation drug.”

Finally, I kissed her. Softly at
first, but then more urgently as her love washed over me. My hands
slid down her arms to find the hem of her shirt. Free to roam, her
own fingers crawled over my stomach and up to my chest as she tried
to separate me and my clothes.

The day had been long and exhausting.
Tomorrow was going to be even worse. But none of that mattered when
I had Talia in my arms. As long as I had her, my days always ended
on a high note.

A STREAM OF
incoming messages to my communicator, each
arrival punctuated with an irksome beep, ripped me out of sleep in
the wee hours of morning. Outside the window, the sky was a
turbulent navy with heavy gray clouds lit by the moon, which still
hung lazily above the horizon. ‘Ominous’ was the first word that
came to mind.

Erik groaned as I wiggled out of his
warm embrace to search for my communicator. It had somehow ended up
underneath the bed, cuddling with a family of dust bunnies. I shook
the device free from its slumber companions. Apparently displeased
by the early morning wakeup call, they flew up my nose and into my
eyes in protest. I sneezed and cursed the non-furry little
creatures.

“
You okay down there?” Erik
called drowsily.

“
Fine,” I muttered as I
emerged from the bunny cave and stood up. My sneezing fit
continued, drawing a sleepy smile from Erik, who still had his eyes
closed.

Not the best way to start my
day.

Unsurprisingly, all eleven of the
messages were from Victoria. The first informed me that UNITED’s
cryptos had finally deciphered the time and date on the auction
invitations, confirming that the event was to take place in just a
few short hours. Messages two through nine were updated
surveillance footage from Andrew’s Rock. Through the use of animal
drones, the recon team was monitoring the premises from both the
air and ground, giving UNITED a direct window into the comings and
goings in the area. Even in the middle of the night, Andrew’s Rock
was a hive of activity.

The last two messages both instructed
me to call Victoria immediately.

The communicator beeped again as I
finished reading the last message. Evidently Victoria had given up
on text, because this was a voice call. Great, the councilwoman was
short on patience today and didn’t trust me to obey her
directives.

Less than alert, I hit the answer
button before taking a good look in the standing mirror next to the
privacy screen. Yikes. My hair was disheveled and frizzy from Erik
running his fingers through the curls, lips swollen from hours
spent molded against my boyfriend’s beautiful mouth, eyes puffy
from too little sleep. And I was naked. Super professional—that was
me.

“
Agent Lyons,” Victoria
greeted me automatically, golden eyes widening and thin lips
forming an “O” when she took in my appearance.

I quickly disabled the video option,
flames of humiliation engulfing every exposed freckle on my
uncovered skin. Even though she’d only seen the upper portion of
me—thank heavens for small favors—it was still enough for me to
want to find Andrew’s Rock and immediately crawl under
it.

Well, at least I can check
off ‘shock-a-reaction-out-of-Victoria’ from today’s to-do
list,
I thought.

“
Hey,” I said to cover the
awkward silence from the other end of the call. “Sorry, I was
sleeping. I just finished reading the messages, I’ll go wake the
others now so we can go over the surveillance footage you
sent.”