Authors: Tina Folsom
She’d always thought she was, but this stranger had just proven to her that she was nowhere near close to dealing with the unpredictable. She made a mental note to work on that, how, she wasn’t quite sure. “You had an advantage because I showed it to you.”
She felt the need to defend herself, not wanting to come across as a weak woman who needed a man’s protection. She didn’t need anybody. For many years now, she’d taken care of herself and built a well-ordered life.
He smiled and put his hand over hers. Instinctively she tightened her fingers around the can.
Aiden nodded appreciatively. “Good, you’re learning. Because anybody could be an attacker.”
“Even you? Even though you saved my life?” She had no idea why she asked him that, her lips forming words without her permission.
He briefly squeezed her hand, then severed the contact, a strange look on his face. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
Leila lifted her chin. “And why should I trust you?” Had he not just shown her that he could attack her if he wanted to? She shouldn’t have let herself be fooled by his handsome face.
He leaned closer and reached for her free hand. His eyes penetrated her as if he was trying to see deep into her. When his lips parted, he did so only to whisper so quietly she barely heard it, “Maybe you shouldn’t.”
Then he pulled her hand to his lips and pressed a warm kiss on the back of it. When he let go, a smile played around his lips. Her belly fluttered excitedly in response. Now she understood. It had all been a joke. He’d just pulled her leg.
She drew in a breath of relief. As she exhaled, a laugh burst from her lungs.
He stared at her in surprise. “What’s so funny?”
“You. You were trying to scare me, but you couldn’t keep a straight face. Do you always do this to charm women?”
“I was charming you?”
She preferred not to answer that question.
Aiden smirked. “I guess you found me out.” For a moment, she could see the little boy he must have once been.
“How come you know so much about safety and stuff? Are you some sort of security consultant?”
“Not exactly.”
His short answer caught her by surprise. He was probably the only man she knew who didn’t want to talk about himself. “Military?” God, she hoped not.
He hesitated as if contemplating what to tell her. Was he going to dish up a lie? Hell, why was she so suspicious? “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s f—”
“I’m a bodyguard.”
Of their own doing, her eyes instantly roamed his body. Yes, he was tall, and when he’d carried her, it had seemed without effort. She’d felt his muscles flex beneath her. Yet he wasn’t just muscle and strength. He had speed too. The quickness with which he’d grabbed her and moved her out of the way of the speeding car, had been a blur.
Excitement and disappointment collided inside her. He was a man with a dangerous job, somebody so very different from herself, from her ordered life. A man not to get involved with no matter how hot he was and how much she owed him. She didn’t need to add another person to her life who she would worry about. She worried enough about her parents. That took all her energy. There was nothing left for a man who would be gone for days on end, likely without a word. No, she would never be able to do that.
The one-night-stand she had contemplated only minutes earlier lost its appeal. She didn’t want to be tempted to want more. Because things happened, and what if a one-night-stand turned into two nights, a week or a month? It was the same reason she never dated a policeman, fireman, or anybody who was in the military. A bodyguard fell into the same category.
With regret she allowed her lips to form her next words. “I should call a cab.”
He seemed jolted by her answer for a moment. Then he emptied the last of his drink and looked into his glass. “I’ll make sure you’ll get home safely.”
SEVEN
Aiden insisted on waiting for the cab with her. As he helped her into the taxi, his mood was gloomy.
Why did it bother him that Leila couldn’t get away from him fast enough? He should be relieved. Wasn’t that why he’d warned her in the first place? He’d become angry when he’d realized that she thought her little can of mace gave her protection, when in truth, any demon seeing her with it would simply laugh in her face.
Leila’s rejection suited him fine, his mind insisted. The more distance he could keep between him and her, the better. They weren’t friends, and she should never make the mistake of seeing him as such. Neither should he want anything from her but her compliance, so he could protect her. End of story.
No, it’s only the beginning,
his inner voice insisted while his heartbeat accelerated in agreement.
Not wanting his thoughts to go farther down that road, he watched the taxi disappear around the next corner and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed Manus’s number and started walking in the direction his car was parked.
“Yeah?” his second answered immediately. Of all people, the council had assigned Manus to him.
“I need you to check on a license plate for me. My charge was nearly run over by a car tonight.”
“No shit.”
“Could be a coincidence ...”
Manus snorted. “Since when do you believe in coincidences?”
Manus was right. He didn’t.
“What’s the plate number?”
Aiden recited it from memory. “I didn’t get the last number. There was some dirt on the plate, obscuring it.” He’d only had a split second to read the plates as the car had whizzed past him. But his preternatural senses had picked up what they could anyway.
“What kind of car was it?”
“Toyota, looked like a Corolla.” A very indistinct car, like millions of others.
“Give me a few hours. I’ll text you what I find.”
“Good, I’m going to Leila’s place now—”
“Ah, it’s Leila now. Interesting.”
Aiden’s hand tightened around his phone, anger surging. “Dr. Cruickshank’s apartment,” he corrected through clenched teeth.
“What’s she like?”
“Not your type,” Aiden bit out, his hackles rising once more. It would be a cold day in hell if he ever allowed Manus to guard her in his stead. She was his assignment. His responsibility.
“Ah, so it’s like that now.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You want her—Leila, is it?—for yourself,” Manus guessed.
“Bullshit! She’s my charge, that’s all. I don’t get involved with my charges.” He obeyed the rules. Even if his body wanted something different this time. Something that would not only break the Cloak Warriors’ rules but his own code of ethics.
“You’ll see the light one day, believe me.”
“Just do your job!”
Aiden disconnected the call and looked down the dark alley at the entrance of which he’d parked his black Ferrari. It was the same type of alley where only days earlier he’d lost a charge. Shaking off the unpleasant memory, he unlocked the car and slunk into the driver’s seat.
The engine howled seconds later, and the car shot into the street. Traffic was light, making it easy to slip back into his thoughts even though he didn’t want to.
He forced his thoughts away from Leila and back to his best friend. Best friend? He had no best friend anymore: Hamish was gone, by the looks of it seduced to the dark side by the demons. Was that what had happened? Had he turned bad? If that was true, then next time they met, it could be as enemies, clashing swords.
It was a gruesome prospect, one that for a moment even drowned out his thoughts about Leila. Aiden felt the blade that was lodged in the side of his right boot, a dagger forged in the Dark Days. Would he have to use this weapon against Hamish one day? He felt his heart clench at the thought of it, but he knew it had to be done.
As a Cloak Warrior, Hamish knew too much. He was aware of the portals that connected all compounds with each other. Like worm holes, they allowed their kind to step into a portal at one compound and emerge, seconds later, at another, even if it was thousands of miles away. It made travel between their strongholds child’s play. But should demons ever get wind of the location of their compounds and therefore the portals, they could destroy the Cloak Warriors from within. A frightening prospect, and the reason why no charges were ever allowed inside the walls of any compound, even though it would be the safest place for them.
Aiden pulled the car to a stop opposite the small building Leila lived in. Her apartment was on the second floor and faced the street, making it easy to watch from the outside. The lights in two rooms were on, the living room and her bedroom. Earlier, before he’d gone to Inter Pharma, he’d entered her apartment, passing through the locked door as if it were air, and had scoped out her place. He’d found nothing amiss, no traces of demon activity, nothing unusual.
Her bookshelves were stuffed full with medical textbooks, her coffee table littered with medical journals, and her fridge bare. He knew that Inter Pharma had a canteen, and he assumed she ate there rather than cooking at home. The apartment was neat, yet it lacked the frills he’d encountered in other women’s homes.
His sensitive hearing picked up the ping of a microwave, and moments later he saw her limping back into the living room, plate in hand.
Aiden drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, contemplating whether to go up there and sit with her. He knew it wasn’t necessary, because from the short distance he was at, he had no trouble cloaking her with his mind. She would be invisible to any demon in the vicinity. Yet, something inexplicable made him want to draw closer.
The decision was made for him when he heard a doorbell ring in Leila’s apartment and saw her rise. His head shot to the front door of the building, but there was nobody.
He catapulted from the car and raced across the street, bolting through the door and up the stairs. He turned the corner after the first flight of stairs and looked up to the next landing, just as Leila opened the door to the young guy who hovered there.
“Hey, Jonathan,” she greeted him with a tired smile, but a smile nevertheless.
Who the hell was this guy? Her boyfriend? Aiden perused him quickly: tall build, slim, short blond hair, his arms behind his back, dimples in his cheeks when he smiled. Which he did now. He positively grinned back at her.
“Hey, Leila. I heard you come home. Didn’t want to miss you.”
Aiden noticed how she leaned against the door jamb, her injured leg slightly lifted off the floor. Darn, this guy shouldn’t keep her. Didn’t he see that she was tired and needed to rest?
“I was just about to turn in …” Good, it seemed she wasn’t in the mood to talk to this interloper.
He brought his hands to his front, and Aiden instantly went on alert, in case he was about to touch her. Yet, his hands held a square box about ten inches long on each side, wrapped in colored paper, a ribbon and a bow around it. “Just wanted to be the first one to give you a birthday present.”
“Ohh,” she cooed. “You shouldn’t have.” Yet she took the box from his hands.
Now get lost
, Aiden wanted to growl.
Jonathan raised his finger. “But you’re not allowed to open it until tomorrow. It’s not your birthday yet.”
She smiled back. “Promise.” Then she paused. “I’d invite you in, but …”
No!
Aiden took a few steps up toward them to interfere if necessary.
“No, no, don’t worry, I can see you’re tired. We’ll hang out some other time.” Then he bent toward her and kissed her on the cheek. “Happy Birthday!”
Piss off!
“Good night, Jonathan, and thanks again.”
She turned and disappeared back in her apartment. Aiden watched as Jonathan waited until the door closed behind her, then walked up a flight of stairs. So that jerk lived in the same apartment building. This wasn’t good. It meant he had to stay with Leila day and night, there was no way around it. He couldn’t allow this guy to slip past him.
He put Jonathan on his mental list of people to check out. For all he knew the guy could work for the demons. He was clearly human, but that didn’t mean a thing. The demons had plenty of humans on their payroll—humans who didn’t even know who they were working for.
The asshole had kissed her, only on the cheek, but nevertheless it was a kiss. Leila hadn’t seemed surprised by it either, as if he’d done it before. Had he?
Aiden looked down at his hands that had balled into fists, as if wanting to hit someone, preferably Jonathan. What the fuck was making him so aggressive?
He knew he couldn’t jeopardize this assignment and draw attention to himself, so he forced himself to relax and unclench his fists. If the council got wind of his erratic behavior, they’d take him to task. Not even his status as the son of the current Primus
would help him then. Not that it had ever helped him before: now that he thought of it, he’d never received any preferential treatment because of it. On the contrary, sometimes he felt that he was being treated harsher just because he was Primus’s son. Well, he didn’t care. Whatever they threw at him, he could handle it.
Without another thought, he entered her apartment. Whatever was driving him, he didn’t care to analyze.
EIGHT
Aiden smelled her arousal.
Leila had taken a brief shower after finishing her dinner, a shower he had forced himself not to watch. It was inexplicable enough that he lusted after her. Watching her as hot water ran down her naked body would have snapped his control like a twig in the path of a herd of elephants. Merely imagining pearls of water trickling over her lush flesh made him wish for a dip into a frozen lake to cool down his overheated body.
Now she lay in bed, naked, the covers pushed to the side.
He glanced at her face, but her eyes were closed. She wasn’t sleeping yet and she wouldn’t for a while, because he knew what was coming next. Anticipation made him hard and pushed aside the guilt that he felt rising in his chest. Because what he was doing was dishonorable. He should give her privacy, but he couldn’t tear himself away. A better man would have left her bedroom and gone into the living room, guarding her from there. Maybe he was just as depraved as Manus. Wasn’t that what his second had alluded to a few days earlier? That given the right woman, he would disregard the council’s rules the same way Manus did?