Читать книгу The Immortal's Redemption - Kelli Ireland - Страница 10

Chapter 2

Dylan O’Shea stopped breathing the moment the woman came into view. White noise wiped out all but the thundering sound of his heart in his ears as he felt every ounce of blood drain from his face. He hadn’t been prepared. Not now. Not after so long spent looking for one face among millions over the centuries. He’d given up faith, and that’s when the gods, with their arbitrary natures and impossible demands, struck.

Wide blue eyes were fringed in black lashes. Long hair, glossy as a raven’s wing, curled loosely to the middle of her back. Porcelain skin flushed prettily. Tall but fine-boned, she couldn’t weigh nine stone.

She pulled up short only to be driven several steps closer when the man following behind crashed into her.

Dylan hardly spared the guy a glance. Instead, with need flowing through his system like spirits after a night of revelry, he reached for her. He had to touch her, to know with certainty she was real. His hand cupped one side of her neck. One thumb moved of its own volition and tenderly stroked her jaw. Never in all his years had he wanted anything as badly as he craved this woman, body and soul. Desire choked on duty and left him struggling to breathe. Don’t demand this of me, Danu. Anything but this.

“O-officer?” she stammered, the last of her soft color fading under his scrutiny. “May I help you?”

Her voice, sultry as sin with a smooth burn like fine whiskey, rolled through him. He blinked slowly, fighting like mad to retrieve his scattered wits, and jerked his hand away. “Kennedy Jefferson?”

“Yes? That’s me.” She pressed her fist into her middle before absently gesturing to her companion. “This is Ethan. Ethan Kemp. He filed the report.”

Dylan looked him over, entertained to find himself being equally scrutinized. “And who is Mr. Kemp to you, Ms. Jefferson?”

“A friend.”

“Her best friend,” Ethan amended, eyes narrowing.

“The distinction is duly noted.” Dylan spread his feet and crossed his arms, ignoring the question.

“Your accent.” She rubbed her forehead. “Where are you from?”

“Ireland.” The admission was out before he thought about it. Control. This is about control. It seemed she’d wrested it away the moment she appeared. The idea that a woman could scramble his sensibilities with no effort galled him so badly, he forcibly pulled himself together with only brute strength of will. “I need to speak with you, Ms. Jefferson. In private.” He hadn’t intended to needle the other man. Had no interest in it, actually, as it would only waste effort and potentially complicate things, and Dylan was all about efficiency.

“You can speak to both of us since I’m the one who filed the report.” Steel underscored the man’s superficially congenial words. “Clearly it was a misunderstanding.”

Dylan shifted his cold gaze to meet Ethan’s heated one. “Then why was the report filed?”

“Like I said, it was a misunderstanding.”

“Not good enough. I’d like details.” He looked at the woman. “Do you want to give them to me, or shall I take my pound of flesh from your best friend?” Sure the exaggerated air quotes were another jab, but the guy was pissing him off.

“That won’t be necessary.” She ran a hand—a trembling hand—around the back of her neck.

Bingo. “Somewhere private, then.” He swept out an arm. “Shall we?”

“I’ll donate that pound of flesh. I filed the report, so I’ll answer your questions.” Ethan dropped an arm over the woman’s shoulders and steered her down the hallway, dipping his face toward hers. “My office or yours?”

The woman looked up at him, brows furrowed. “Mine, I guess.”

Dylan followed, silently weighing his options. There were several ways he could approach the situation, none of them ideal. Every scenario involved first dealing with her self-appointed guardian. Friend. Riiiiight. Best friend. He snorted.

She glanced back at him, teeth worrying her bottom lip.

He drew in a breath, opened his mouth to speak and stopped, jaw hanging open like an eejit’s. A soft brush of vanilla wafted around him. Lavender wove its way through the dominant scent until the two were indistinguishable. His mind shut down as lust settled into the driver’s seat. The click of her shoes on the tiled floors drew his gaze to her feet. “You always wear stilettos to work?” he asked softly.

“No.” The response, quick and unguarded, returned color to her cheeks. She looked so vital in that moment. Alive. Innocent.

His lips thinned. Can’t be my concern.

They took the elevator to the first floor. Tension wound around him as he followed the pair across the crowded lobby and through a lush and winding wing decorated with deep colors and saltwater fish tanks. The woman unlocked her office and stepped inside, Kemp hot on her heels. That left Dylan to follow on his own.

He did, letting the heavy door swing shut with an authoritative whump. Leaning against it, he surveyed the small room. The door was the only entrance. Or exit. Excellent.

Kemp pulled out the executive’s chair on the far side of the desk and saw the woman seated before squaring off with Dylan. “I filed the missing person report. Since Kennedy’s obviously not missing anymore, tell me what we need to do to close the file.”

Dylan zeroed in on one word—anymore. He crossed his ankles and casually studied the toes of his boots. “Where were you, Ms. Jefferson?”

“Call me Kennedy. Please.”

Not happening. Making this any more personal would destroy what little sense of self he retained. Lifting his chin, he peered at her through narrowed eyes. “Where’d you run off to...Ms. Jefferson?”

Her nostrils flared, eyes glittering. “I didn’t run—”

“Truth.” The barked command was all the louder for the heavy silence that followed.

A sultry laugh escaped her. “So demanding.” She slapped a hand over her mouth. The voice that had come out of her mouth wasn’t hers.

“Care to explain that little trick?” He watched her. Waited. When she didn’t answer, he pushed off the door and slipped a hand behind his back to grip his primary weapon. “I asked you a question, Ms. Jefferson.”

Those blue eyes were wide with undisguised fear. “I didn’t mean to...that is, I... I’m...sorry.” The last word was ground out.

“Accepted. Now, stop stalling and answer me.” His arched brow issued a silent challenge to her burgeoning temper.

Kemp stepped up beside her. “You’re badgering her like she’s guilty of something.”

Point to her BFF. He answered the man without looking away from the woman. “I won’t leave without carrying out my duty.”

Kemp dropped a hand on her shoulder and stared at him, considering. “I already told you the whole thing was a mistake. She was...”

“Sleeping,” the woman blurted out. “Heavily.”

Dylan knew his smile didn’t reach the cold void of his eyes. “Heavy enough you didn’t hear your phone when I called? My knocks at your door when I came by?”

She scrubbed her palms against her thighs. “Right.”

He blinked slowly. “Sounds odd. Unnatural, even.”

A raspy growl slipped between her lips.

Tightening his grip on his weapon, he shifted his weight to the balls of his feet.

The woman pressed the heels of her hands to her temples. “Not me, not me, not me,” she whispered.

“Kennedy?” Running his hands down her arms, Kemp gripped her hands. “Talk to me, honey.”

Fool. “I’m ready to finish this.” Dylan knew the woman heard him when she darted a glance in his direction. Pupils enlarged, her chest heaved as he watched her fight to regain control.

“Noted,” she said in that odd voice, dipping her chin sharply.

So he waited. Seconds turned into minutes. At no point did he relax his grip on his weapon.

Kemp shot him a hard look. “I’d appreciate it if we could finish this later.”

Dylan’s free hand fisted. “She and I haven’t even started.”

The woman looked up again, the blue of her irises all but gone. She stood with exaggerated care. “Why are you here?”

Gods, that voice. It reeked of violent deeds done in the dark. He fought to squash the urge to claw at his skin and dislodge her words, words that stuck to his skin like poison-tipped cockleburs. Never had he heard anything like it.

Stepping closer, she smiled. “And now it seems I’ve asked you a question. Hesitation won’t be tolerated.”

Kemp reached for her, trying to pull her back.

“This is between the woman and me. It has nothing to do with you,” Dylan snapped. The man would back off or Dylan would be forced to divide his attentions, half on the woman and half on the Druidic arts to compel the man to leave. “If you have any sense of self-preservation, you’ll back off.”

“Back off, my ass.” Kemp put himself between them, the woman at his back. “She matters to me.”

May the gods save him from heroes. “More than your own life? Because if the answer’s ‘no’? Move. Now.” He shoved Kemp aside and stepped into the woman’s personal space. “I asked you to answer me, and more than once. I’m nigh done asking, woman.”

Sweat beaded along her upper lip. Shadows moved in her eyes. “Don’t...let me—” she bore down, panting through gritted teeth “—hurt anyone. Please.”

With that, her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed.

Well, shit.

* * *

Head resting on her forearms, a safari-esque drumbeat pounded through Kennedy’s brain over and over, her mental MP3 stuck on Repeat. Her head felt too full. Ethan rubbed her back, his warm hands turning her bones to Silly Putty. The mental drumming wound down to sporadic solo bursts when those magic hands slipped up her neck to massage her scalp. He chanted, voice so low she couldn’t understand what he said. Twisting, she looked up to find his eyes closed and face totally relaxed. She took his hands in hers. Their warmth hadn’t been imagined. Far from it. They were almost hot to the touch. How? Why?

“Better?” Ethan asked, interrupting her thoughts.

She settled back into his office chair. “Yeah.” Digging an elastic band from her scrub pocket, she pulled her hair up into a thick, sloppy topknot. Her hands froze midway through the act. “Where’s the Neanderthal?”

“Waiting outside.”

“Think we can sneak out? I...” Fear strangled her and made her breath wheeze. “I need to talk to you. About what’s been going on.”

Ethan’s gaze narrowed. “I’m up for a little spontaneous dissidence if you are. Put your head back down and give me a second to get rid of him.” He slipped out the door.

Alone, her mind wandered. Thoughts crowded in, layering one over the other to form a collage of memories, some clear, others clouded. She poked at the unfamiliar images, trying to paint clearer pictures of places she thought she’d been, things she believed she’d done and, worse, violence she’d probably carried out.

Velvet-clad fingers swept through her mind, as visceral and malicious as anything she’d ever experienced. The intimate violation made her stomach knot up. Her vision fractured. Reality was suddenly painted with diluted watercolors. Squeezing her eyes closed and clutching her head, she gasped. Not okay. Not even remotely okay. “Stop it.”

Low, angry hisses wicked along her skull. Her scalp tried to crawl down her face and escape the infinite voices trapped in the sound.

“Stop it,” she repeated through gritted teeth.

“Stop what?”

The room snapped into focus. Somewhere nearby, a phone rang, the noise hammering her eardrums.

Ethan stood across the desk from her, a deep V carved between his brows. “What’d I do?”

“Nothing.” She swallowed the bile that blistered her throat. “Is he gone?”

“Yeah. Off to get you a glass of water from the cafeteria.”

A shaky breath escaped. “Okay. Let’s get out of here.”

Ethan hesitated. “We’ll need to stay close. No way am I going to risk making this worse for you.”

“I can’t afford for things to get worse. We’ll just go across the street to The Daily Grind, talk there.”

“You’re not worried about being overheard?”

Absently working loose tendrils of hair into the topknot, Kennedy shook her head. “We’re regulars. I doubt anyone will pay us any attention.”

“Let’s go, then.” Ethan peered out into the hall before gesturing her forward.

They walked hand in hand through the lobby, out the front door and across the street. A rush of warm air brushed over them as they stepped inside the coffee shop favored by hospital staff. The smells of fresh bread, cinnamon and ground coffee beans swirled around them. Cashiers took orders and baristas called out names. Fire crackled in the fireplace. Conversation buzzed, giving the café a distinct hive feel.

Ethan pulled his wallet and handed her a few bills. “Get me my usual while I grab a sofa.” He took off, stalking the floor and looking for a group getting ready to bail. Kennedy watched him approach a couple packing their things. After a fast exchange, the couple left and Ethan flopped down on the leather seat. He sent her a thumbs-up and wide grin, making her smile absently in return.

“Lady, your order all ready?” The cashier, a small, short-tempered young woman cracked her gum as she waited on Kennedy to turn around.

“You’ll address me with respect,” Kennedy snarled.

The cashier popped her gum. “Your order, Your Highness.”

Peripheral vision diminishing, something foreign rose in her, shoving at her will. She raised a trembling hand to her temple and whispered, “Not right now.”

“Then step aside,” the cashier spat, leaning around Kennedy to motion forward the next person in line.

“Not you, you idiot.” The words were out before she could stop them. She lifted her gaze to the woman behind the counter and the woman gasped, stepping back a strong pace from the counter.

“I saw... I saw...” the woman sputtered.

“What? What did you see?” She ran her hands over her face, relieved to find nothing more than her own flesh and bone.

Still, the cashier kept backing away. She hit a rolling cart loaded with baked goods and sent it crashing into the wall. “Your eyes.”

Fear lashed Kennedy’s feet in place even as her pulse took flight. “Look, it was probably the light. Take my order and I’ll get out of your hair.” Kennedy’s gaze darted around the coffee shop. “I need two chocolate mocha lattes, heavy on the cream, topped with whipped cream, and two croissants, warmed, butter on the side.”

The cashier nodded and inched back to the register but still had to try three times to call the order as she rang it up.

Kennedy managed to pay without causing a scene, though the cashier refused to touch her when she handed over the money. Irrational anger flooded Kennedy. Who did the girl think she was to treat Kennedy like some type of pariah? She opened her mouth to demand an apology when the barista called her name. Spinning, she shouldered a stranger aside, grabbed the drinks and headed toward Ethan, desperation dogging her every step.

He’d understand. He’d help her get through this.

It seemed to take forever to reach him. Setting the cups on the little coffee table, she dropped onto the sofa and clutched her bag. The fine hairs on her neck stood up. Someone was watching her. She looked around but only saw curious glances in their direction. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Ethan grabbed his cup and blew across the lip. “What’s going on, Kennedy?”

“This stays between us.”

She could see a look of hurt tighten the corners of his eyes even as his brows drew down. “Always. It’s always been that way.”

“I know, I know.” She buried her face in her hands. “I just... I needed to say it this time. I need to hear the promise. Words have power.”

Ethan’s cup clattered against the saucer. “Where’d you get that last sentiment?”

“No idea.” She looked up. “Does it matter?”

“Depends. But I give you my solemn vow that I won’t repeat this conversation.” He watched her carefully, waiting for her to speak.

She let her attention drift to the fire. There was comfort in the blaze, something she’d never experienced before. Watching the gas flames as they rose and fell behind the fake logs seemed wrong, or inorganic at the very least.

Ethan broke her line of sight, and she shifted her attention back to him. Taking the cup he offered, she sipped. The drink was perfect, the bitterness of the coffee offsetting the sweet whipped cream and thick chocolate. Things like this made life seem better, even if only for the length of time it would take her to finish the drink.

“So spill it, Kennedy, and I’m not talking about the coffee.”

“Right.” She set the cup on the coffee table by her knee. “About six months ago, I started having blackouts. At first they were really rare but, as time passed, they became more frequent.” She waited for him to react, but he only nodded and gestured with his cup for her to continue. “Okay, so these blackouts have always been preceded by vision-reducing headaches.”

“How fast is onset?”

His clinical approach stopped the encroaching panic, forcing her to think past it and answer his questions. “It begins peripherally, narrowing to tunnel vision before I lose sight altogether. I retain the ability to hear for—I’m guessing—approximately two minutes. My heart rate accelerates, but I attribute it to stress. Something in me shifts, like I’m harboring a different...this sounds so crazy.” She shook her head and reached for her coffee cup, taking a scalding gulp.

“Don’t edit this, Kennedy. I need to know exactly what’s happening.” Ethan’s firm voice was more command than request.

“Look, this isn’t easy.” The heat from the cup seeped into her hands as she rolled it back and forth across her palms.

“Keep it clinical. If it’s unexplainable, just do your best.”

She snorted. “What, are you diagnosing me?”

“Consider this a free evaluation.” He bumped her knee with his. “Go on.”

Her voice dipped lower, and Ethan leaned in to listen. “When my hearing begins to fade, it’s as if my will is being superseded by something, and then that entity’s will pushes mine out of its way. I feel it, Ethan. I can tell my consciousness is being forced out of the way, but it’s unstoppable. My will is shoved aside, and then I’m gone. I wake up in the strangest places having done some of the most inappropriate things—dancing nearly topless on a bar top to ‘Tequila’ at a biker bar was my most recent fete.” She paused and looked up to gauge his reaction. When his face remained neutral, she let loose the craziest idea. “I don’t like light anymore. Darkness is more comfortable. I’ve even started living with my drapes closed all the time to avoid sunlight. I know it sounds crazy, but if I step into the shadows? It goes away. Ethan, I’ve got this creepy-ass feeling, like I’ve got some parasite sucking on me.”

He ran his fingers through his hair several times as he considered her. When he finally spoke, his voice was sharp, his words clipped. “You’re losing how much time per episode?”

Kennedy rolled her shoulders, trying to ignore the tension that had snuck back in. “It ranges. This last time was the worst. I lost days.” Her voice trembled and she hated it, hated that whatever was happening was breaking her. She chewed on her bottom lip and looked anywhere but at him. When he touched her knee, she startled and sloshed coffee over the rim of the cup. It coursed down both sides of her hand and she cursed out of habit, hurrying to set the cup down. Mid-motion, she froze and slid her gaze to Ethan. “It doesn’t burn.”

He reached for her hand, taking the cup from her and setting it down before examining her hand. Though slightly pink, the skin was neither burned nor blistered. Ethan looked at her, his face a blank mask. But behind it, she thought she saw both fear and awe.

Taking her hand back, she mopped up the mess the best she could. “What?” she finally demanded. “Why are you staring?”

“Just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Kennedy kept scrubbing at the table though the mess was long gone. “What makes you think there’s another shoe?”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Kennedy.”

Pausing, she looked around the coffee shop. No one was paying them any attention. Dropping the napkins, she clasped her hands together and leaned forward. “I had a second episode Friday night. It’s never happened before. I was in the cab and then, next thing I know, I’m standing in the hallway on the fourth floor wondering what day it is—today.” She lowered her voice even more. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I have this...this knowledge that I’m going to...” She swallowed hard and jumped when he took her hands.

“That you’re going to what?” he asked, low and hard.

“I’m going to be responsible for a lot of death, Ethan. More than you can imagine.”