Courting Darkness (2 page)

“You’re wrong, Olivia. You need me,” Tate called after her. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”

At this taunting reply, she glanced over her shoulder, making sure he wasn’t following her. With each hurried step, her sandals clapped briskly against the gray tile floor. When the elevator doors slid closed, she caught a glimpse of Tate dragging his hand through his hair, growling what she could only imagine was a very unangel-like curse.

Olivia exhaled a sigh of relief to be away from the nut job and hastened her steps. The moment she was safely locked inside her car, she’d call up to Dr. Shriner’s office and report this Tate, whatever his last name was. Someone definitely needed to adjust that guy’s meds.

Rushing out the glass doors, her poorly anchored sandals slapped against the marble steps with rapid-fire
clap, clap, clap.
She was nearly to the sidewalk, her black Camaro in sight, when the stranger suddenly materialized out of thin air.

Olivia let out a startled yelp. Headed right for him, she put on the brakes, but the laws of physics were not in her favor. Momentum pitched her forward, her foot slipping off the step and hitting the one below. White-hot pain exploded in her ankle as it rolled beneath her. Her knee buckled under the duress and she reached for the iron railing, trying to catch herself before face-planting into the now scowling man.

He looked as if he wanted to come to her aid, but wisely stayed back. “Are you all right?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

She wasn’t buyin’ it. He was probably worried she’d scuff her knees and damage his skin suit.

“Are you all right, dear?” an elderly woman asked, hobbling over to her. The well-meaning geriatric looked like she needed more help than Olivia did, but she was limited on her choice of saviors, so granny was gonna have to do.

“No. I’m not all right,” Olivia replied, unable to keep the panic from edging into her voice. Lifting an accusing finger, she directed it at the stranger and accused, “This man is harassing me.”

Following the direction of Olivia’s outstretched arm, the old woman’s cataract-grayed eyes squinted to the bottom of the marble steps. After a moment of hard looking, she readjusted her glasses and gave it another try. “Dear, there’s no one there.”

“Oh Lord, I really am crazy,” she murmured.

Grandma laid a sympathetic hand on Olivia’s arm and gave it a patronizing pat.

“You’re not crazy,” the figment of her imagination piped in.

“Let me get someone to help you,” sweet granny offered. “Here, take my cane and sit on the bench.” She gestured to the vacant wrought iron bench on the sidewalk, precisely four feet from Olivia’s very large, very muscular illusion.

“She can’t see me,” he explained, taking a step up the marble stairs. “Let me help you, Olivia.”

The familiarity in the way he used her name added insult to injury. Ignoring his offer, she tested the strength of her ankle. When it refused to hold her weight, she begrudgingly accepted the old woman’s cane. “Thank you. I just need to sit for a minute. I’m sure my ankle will be all right.”

“I’ll get you some help.”

Before Olivia could protest, the Good Samaritan hobbled away, leaning heavily on the railing as she snail-paced it up the stairs.

“Are you always this stubborn?” her illusion asked, folding his arms across his wide chest. He followed a few steps behind as she gimped to the bench. On the plus side, if she was going to start imagining guys, at least she made them hot.

“Ignoring me won’t make me any less real,” he persisted.

Then Plan A was a bust, because that was exactly what she’d intended to do. “Will it make you go away?” she snapped.

“No. Not until I tell you what I came here to say.”

Somehow, Olivia wasn’t so sure that even then, he would leave her alone. But the way she saw it, she had two things going for her. One, if Tate was a figment of her imagination, then at least he couldn’t kill her. Two, if by some unexplainable phenomena he really did exist, then it was doubtful he’d whack her right here in public. So either way, it was unlikely death was imminent. Besides, Grandma was going for help, albeit not as quickly as Olivia would have liked, but help was on its way.

“All right then, talk,” she snapped impatiently, looking down at her watch. Shit…she was going to be late. “Tell me whatever it is you have to say and then go.”

He stood before her, dark brows scrunching in displeasure. Clearly, he didn’t appreciate her candidness—or perhaps being told what to do. This guy looked like he was more used to giving orders than taking them. She had to admit, for a figment of her imagination, his commanding presence felt pretty damn intimidating.

He watched her a moment in contemplative silence. Then, as if deciding on something, knelt on the sidewalk before her. “Let me see your ankle.”

She didn’t miss the note of impatience in his voice. Before she could refuse, he reached out and gently but firmly grasped her foot, slipping off her sandal.

His touch sent a jolt of awareness flooding her veins. “You are real,” she gasped, unable to deny the power coursing through his hands and seeping into her ankle. Liquid heat spread up her leg as the throbbing pain steadily diminished. “Why can I see you, but that woman couldn’t?”

Tate stopped the assessment of her injury and glanced up at her with a dark violet gaze that made her heart ache with unexplainable loss. She didn’t like the way he made her feel. The emotions he stirred to life were painful and confusing. As a surge of overwhelming grief knifed into her heart, she suddenly found herself fighting back the urge to start sobbing.

“That old woman couldn’t see me because I wasn’t in corporeal form. You can see me because you have the gift of Sight, Olivia. Your eyesight can transcend dimensions, which means you possess the ability to see angels and demons. I can block your sight, demons cannot, which is why you’re in danger. You are a threat to the Dark Court because you can expose them. They want you dead. My job is to make sure that doesn’t happen. Your job is to let me do my job, and so far you haven’t been cooperating very well.”

He focused his attention back on her ankle, and Olivia winced when his fingers found a particularly tender spot. His grimace looked genuinely remorseful. Maybe, just maybe, he was telling her the truth. And if he was…God help her.

“Back in the elevator, you said you were my new guardian. What happened to my old one and why can’t I remember him? What was his name?”

Seeming overly focused on his task, he looked reluctant to answer, his dark brows furrowing in contemplation. “Look, Olivia, I’m not even supposed to be here, and I’m sure as hell not supposed to be telling you this. But the way I see it, you haven’t given me any other choice. Your life is at stake—”

“Tell me his name,” she pressed, believing Tate more and more with each passing second. Something told her he spoke the truth. The comforting heat infusing her ankle warred with the dread churning in her gut. Could it be possible that this…angel held the answers she’d spent the last eight weeks seeing a shrink to get? After two months of therapy, she wasn’t any closer to the truth now than before. “Tate…”

He gave a pensive sigh and met her stare. “His name is Liam.”

Her heart hammered against her chest at hearing the same name her mother had spoken the night she’d picked Olivia up from that hospital in Duluth. She hadn’t uttered it since, and wouldn’t talk of it now, even when Olivia had pressed her for answers. Her mother claimed she didn’t know anything. The only thing she could tell her was that Liam was an “old boyfriend” from several years ago. Minutes before she was to walk down the aisle and marry Mitch, he’d snuck into the church and abducted her. Kim didn’t know anything beyond that, other than there had been an accident. She’d been in a coma for days before Liam had called her mother and father to come and get her. By the time Olivia had awoken, he was gone, and so was her memory.

“There were rumors…that he loved you. That he…” Tate cleared his throat, seeming uncomfortable to continue. Casting his gaze to the ground he murmured, “That he…crossed boundaries of an intimate nature with you.”

Oh Lord…had he? Did they? She couldn’t remember.

“I should say, in his defense, that these allegations were never proven in court. But ultimately, he lost his guardianship of you because he violated Universal Law. Even though his bond to you has been severed, and he can no longer feel your emotions, I believe your connection to him remains. Although you can no longer remember him, I think you’re still in love with him, Olivia. And as long as you are, I cannot bond to you. Without that bond, I can’t sense you. I cannot tell when you’re in danger so I can’t keep you safe.”

Tate’s hands left her ankle to grasp one of hers—pleadingly. Were someone to see them across the street, one might think he was proposing to her. His grip was strong, surprisingly gentle. It seemed crazy, but she’d swear she felt his energy coursing through her veins as he looked up at her, imploring, “Olivia, you have to let him go. If you don’t, I can’t protect you and you will surely die.”

“This is crazy. How can you expect me to stop loving someone I can’t even remember? And what exactly does that mean? Violating Universal Law?” Her mind was reeling, trying to absorb the information he’d just dumped on her. She was still stuck back in the conversation where her guardian was in love with her. And she loved him, too? Really? Was that why her heart ached so? Why she felt like a part of her was missing?

“Universal Law demands that at all costs, a human’s free will must be honored—even unto death. You don’t have amnesia, Olivia. Liam stole your memory—”

“There you are, dear,” an aged voice called from the stairs.

She swung her head to look over her shoulder. A security officer was escorting the hobbling old woman toward Olivia. The warm hands that held hers disappeared, and when she glanced back, Tate was gone.

Chapter Two

“‘Tis for your own good they keep you here, Liam.”

Liam turned his head, casting a seething glare at his old friend. He then returned to the monotony of watching the Monarch batter its wings against the window pane, trying to escape the glass barrier to the promised paradise on the other side.

“Does it appease your conscience to say these things, or do you really believe the line of bullshit you’re trying to feed me?”

He lay upon the cot, elbows bent, fingers locked to support his head. Legs crossed at his booted heels, Liam resumed the immobile position he’d taken two days ago when the High Court imprisoned him for violation of Universal Law. He stood accused of far more than that. If they expected him to repent, they’d be waiting until hell froze over. He couldn’t lie. Even if he could, he would not disgrace Olivia by discussing the intimate details of their relationship.

Now, he and the court were at a stalemate. He awaited sentencing with nothing but time to ponder the decisions he’d made, actions he’d taken, and compromises he’d indulged in that led him to this point. How ironic that he’d existed before the creation of the earth, and yet every mistake he’d ever made could be condensed into the last three years of his life.

His first had been falling in love with a mortal. Love…an emotion he proved no more able to govern than the humans. How arrogant he’d been to believe he could control his feelings. Yet, he knew love was so much more than an emotion. It was energy, as alive as the Creator Himself, for it was from Him that all power flowed.

His second mistake had been giving Olivia Immanuel’s Stone for her eighteenth birthday. What had been a heavenly gift marking her as protected, had turned out to be a source of power sought by an evil Nephilim who should have died back in the Great Flood.

His third mistake was showing up in Olivia’s dressing room three years after letting her go, minutes before she was to walk down the aisle and give herself to another man. Tossing her over his shoulder, he’d stolen her away. And from that point on, he’d pretty much stopped counting his mistakes.

As undeserving as that bastard was, Liam knew in his heart that had Mitch been a better man, the outcome would have been no different. Ultimately, Liam hadn’t been able to let her go, and God knows he’d tried. Three years he’d spent in bondage, a slave to his heartache, and now he was in another prison—this one of his own making, as well.

“They do this because they care, Liam. They know as well as I do that if they let you out, you’re going to fall for her. They want to give you time to clear your head, time to heal. Think this through—don’t fuck this up.”

Think this through? He’d done nothing but, since leaving her. It was all he could think about. And fuck this up? Well, clearly that ship had already sailed. He’d been prepared to do the right thing here, resolved to loving her from afar and finding his consolation in the knowledge that although she would no longer remember him, no longer love him, he at least had her guardianship. He’d wiped himself from Olivia’s mind—her heart—and honestly, knowing she wasn’t suffering the same heartbreak as him, was the only thing keeping him sane right now.

With a burst of simmering fury, he leapt up, facing his best friend. Liam met Balen’s gaze through the bars and wanted to lash out at him for the sympathy he saw in those violet eyes. Dammit…he didn’t want his pity. He wanted Balen to get him the fuck out of here.

“I can’t feel her anymore, Balen. They’ve severed our connection. I don’t know if she’s safe, if she’s happy… She could be dead for all I know,” he cut off with a vivid curse. “I had no choice. I did what I had to do to keep her safe, to protect her from Haden. If the court can’t see that—”

“You violated her free will, Liam. You broke Universal Law by erasing her memory. Right or wrong, justified or not, you had to know there would be consequences. I’m not even going to mention the other charges. Just be glad they couldn’t prove them, or you’d be in a hell of a lot worse place than cooling your heels here for a little while. Three squares and a room with a view ain’t bad, considering the alternative.”