Hold Me If You Can (6 page)

Well, that was a load of crap. “Of course you can. All Mystics can influence Magicks. It’s automatic. Besides, you just said you were going to influence the deedubs not to attack you.”

She cleared her throat. “Well, yes, I did say that, but I can’t do it yet, exactly—”

“Really, Nat?” iPad woman had stopped typing to listen, her face soft with concern that Nigel didn’t trust. “Even under normal circumstances? You know, when you’ve got your mojo?”

Natalie’s cheeks turned pink. “No, but it’s not a big deal—”

“Of course it is. All Mystics can influence anyone,” the woman said. “You’ve never been able to? Ever?” She set the computer aside. “Sweetheart, I had no idea you had that problem. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Hey.” Nigel frowned at the gal. “Who the hell are you? I’m kinda busy here.”

“My name,” the woman said, sitting up and pulling her shoulders back haughtily, “is Ella Smitweiser, PhD candidate in Hedonism and—”

“Shit! I knew I’d seen you before.” Nigel stiffened. “You’ve consulted for Angelica.”

“Angelica?” Natalie whirled around. “You worked for Angelica? In the Den? You didn’t tell me that!”

“No, no, I didn’t work for Angelica.” Ella suddenly looked ill, but oddly enough, Nigel didn’t feel overwhelmed with pity. “My parents did. There’s a difference.”

“No, it was you.” Nigel scowled, realizing why her face had looked familiar. She’d been in the room on more than one occasion, muttering things under her breath… yeah… “I remember, very clearly, being locked down with one of the young warriors, and he was supposed to fight me to the death, and neither of us would fight. And then you walked in, whispered something, and then he attacked. He came after me until he died.”

Ella’s face was ashen. “No, no, no! It wasn’t like that—”

“I trusted you.” Natalie had her hand over her heart, and she looked stricken. “And you’re one of
them
? You hurt Nigel? And the others?”

“You’re a Mystic.” The females who worked for Angelica weren’t women. They were monsters, and too many young warriors had died at their hands before Nigel had finally accepted that the only way to save himself and others was to no longer see them as women, but as despicable creatures who had invited their own destiny upon themselves.

“Get out of my store,” Natalie snapped, her voice laced with hurt and betrayal, but there was also fury, anger, protectiveness. She moved in front of Nigel, as if guarding him from Ella. “I thought you were my friend, and it was all a ruse just so you could get to Nigel and the others.”

Oh, now, wasn’t that sweet? Natalie’s defense of him made him grin. Not that he needed defending, of course, but it was still interesting. Women never turned on women to protect a man. That female/female bond was pretty much inviolable. Men came second. Always. But Natalie wasn’t playing by those rules. Damn, but didn’t that just make a man feel like he owned the entire world.

“I have no designs on any of the men!” Ella rose to her feet and set her hands on her hips. “And I don’t owe anyone explanations for my past. It’s over and done,” she said. “I
am
your friend. I—”

“I don’t believe you.” Natalie’s hands were fisted. “How could you sit there and tell me that you understood what it was like to suffer, when you’re the one who hurt other people? How can you live with yourself?”

Ella pursed her lips as she swept the iPad from the counter and shoved it into her backpack. “I can help you both.” It was a last-ditch attempt, and Nigel didn’t buy it.
Nice
try, but no cigar.

“We don’t want your help—” Natalie said.

“I can teach you how to influence anyone,” Ella interrupted as she swung the bag over her shoulder. “Even Nigel.”

Nigel stiffened. Of course Ella would know how to influence him. Would he even realize she was messing with him before it was too late?

“What?” Hope flared in Natalie’s eyes. “You can teach me? I could take down a deedub?”

“Technically, yes,” Ella said, but Nigel heard the hesitation in her voice.

“But what?” he demanded, allowing her to hear the anger and aggression in his voice. He wanted her to feel his willingness to do whatever it took to protect himself and Natalie from her, and he wanted her to know that he was now free to do whatever he wanted. He spun the blade between his fingers, letting it catch the light, as he took Natalie’s arm and pulled her closer to him, inside the circle of his protection.

“How do I do it?” Natalie asked Ella.

“It’s not easy.” Ella glanced at Nigel’s blade, swallowed, then focused on Natalie. “You have to release your resistance and tap into your power.” Her voice grew more confident, stronger, and Nigel realized she was moving into her comfort zone. The world where she was the expert. “It’s scary, and that’s why you haven’t done it. Because you haven’t let go.”

Natalie’s cheeks turned pink. “I let go.”

Ella laughed. “Sweetie, you don’t even come close.”

He knew Ella was right. He’d felt Natalie’s strict control on her emotions. But there was no way he was letting Ella get her claws into Natalie. “Natalie doesn’t need your help,” he growled.

Ella’s expression grew shuttered, then she turned and faced him. She looked him right in the eye, and she allowed him to see her self-hate. “I am truly, truly sorry for whatever I did to you,” she said.

“Whatever you did?” he repeated. “You don’t even remember, do you?” Men had died because of Ella Smitweiser, and she hadn’t even bothered to remember a name or a face. But she thought that an apology would do it?

No chance.

“Three hundred and forty-six warriors died while I was there,” he said. “And I can tell you the life story of every single one of them.” And he had pictures to prove it. Portraits he’d made of every single fallen warrior, all of them framed and hanging on his walls. Memories of those who he hadn’t been able to heal, whose souls had been too broken for him to resurrect. Even the greatest healer, which he was, couldn’t save a soul that wanted to die.

But this time it was different. The men stashed in his condo wanted to heal, including Pascal. And it was time to get the kid back. No more time wasted on Ella and her baggage. He turned to Natalie. “Tell me I don’t need to draw,” he demanded. “Influence me now.”

“I can’t!” she protested. “It won’t work—”

“It can.” Ella was leaning forward again. “Let me help. I
need
to help you.” She glanced at Nigel. “I need to help you both.”

“No way.” Nigel took Natalie’s arm and pulled her away from the poisonous creature. “Touch Natalie, and you die. Touch me, and you die. Natalie might not be able to kill you, but I can—”

The cabinet door behind Ella opened, and a scared face peeked out. A young woman looked right at Natalie. “We’re both going to die, aren’t we?” Terror was etched into the lines of her young face, and she was staring at Natalie, asking to be told she was wrong. Desperate to be told she had a chance to live.

Natalie bit her lip. “Maggie—” Then she paused.

“You can’t save me, can you? Or yourself?” Tears filled Maggie’s eyes. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “You really can’t help me. I’m going to die.”

Shit.
She was an innocent. Another innocent about to die. He didn’t have time for this. He really didn’t.

Natalie got a stricken look on her face. “No, Maggie! You won’t die! I promise!”

“How can you promise?” Maggie shoved her way out of the cabinet and lurched to her feet. “You’ve got nothing, do you?”

“No, I—” Then she stopped, apparently unable to deny the accusation. She looked at Ella, and looked back at Maggie. Then, like the big bad monster coming at him in slow motion, she turned toward Nigel. He saw by the look on her face that she was going to say something he really, really didn’t want to hear.

“We need to let Ella help us.” Natalie knew her idea wasn’t going to be popular with Nigel, but it was the right choice. For both of them.

“No.” Nigel’s face darkened, and he grabbed Natalie, his words a fierce growl. “She murdered my friends. There can never be trust. Ever.”

“I know, I know.” She searched his face and understood where he was coming from. “But I’m not ready to die.” The words burned in Natalie’s throat, words acknowledging the true dimness of her future. It wasn’t irrational fear. It was logical and smart, because those deedubs would kill her, they would get her store shut down, they would get her deported to the tropics, and she couldn’t even use her own magic anymore. She didn’t have defenses, but she was putting precautions into place to make sure it ended up the right way this time. “I want to live, and I can’t do it by myself.”

He swore under his breath, hesitating, and then seemed to make a decision. One that fired him up and made him tense at the same time. “I’ll help you.” He pulled a black felt-tip marker out of his pocket. “You don’t need her.”

On the one hand, it felt sort of delicious to think of him helping her, but that feeling of excitement made her nervous. She didn’t want to get that close to Nigel. Well, she did, which is why she didn’t. Besides… “You can’t always be by my side. Someday you won’t be there and they will, and then what?”

Nigel cursed.

Oh, yes, he knew. She did, too. Teeth in her throat. Poison coursing her veins. And then embarking on round two of watching herself become stronger and more powerful and happier until she became deluded with her own power and attempted something that killed her. She’d watched her family die, one by one on their deedub suicide missions. And then she’d done the same. Tried to get herself killed by orgasm at the hands of the Godfather, for heaven’s sake! Death was bad enough, but to get yourself killed because you can’t live without the high of an orgasm?

That was the fate of a deedub bite. Instead of dying right away, it made the victim stronger and stronger and more powerful until she was so consumed with her power that she felt the need to push the limits, and then got herself killed. The path each death took depended on the natural inclinations of that victim.

Natalie’s power was sensual in nature, so pursuing a man who killed with orgasm had been the curse’s choice for her. She’d gotten her wish, the Godfather had killed her with an orgasm (which really wasn’t as fun as one might think), and then she’d been saved at the last second when her sister had switched her soul into the body of her sous chef, Gina Ruffalo. Gina gratefully went to the Afterlife and Natalie got another chance.

Too close. Too scary. And too horrific to know she was chasing her own death for a sexual high, and yet entirely unable to stop herself. “Never again. I won’t do that again.” She gestured at Maggie, who was still peeking out of the cabinet. “And they’re going after Maggie, and I can’t keep her safe. It’s all going to happen again, unless I do something to stop it, and I can’t do it alone.”

“Ella is not the answer—”

“No?” She poked at his chest. “How are you going to get Pascal, then? How are you going to control your drawing?”

He swore again and ran his hand through his hair. “You can do it. You don’t need her.”

“I can’t even influence a Dullet right now!”

Nigel frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve lost it.” She shoved her hands in her pockets, hating to admit her ineffectiveness. “There’s nothing inside me but this great emptiness. There’s no power. Nothing. Just emptiness.” As she said the words, she realized that was indeed what had happened. There was no more sensual power within her. It was as if it had died with her old body.

“You can’t lose your power. It’s yours, and it’s still inside you.” Nigel grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face him. “You exude so much passion and fire, I can hardly stop myself from drawing you at every given moment.” He laid his hand over her heart, his palm warm and strong. “But you’ve got it ratchetted down. Stop fighting your passion. It’ll come out.”

“Stop fighting?” She started to laugh. “Did you not see me when I was under the deedub thrall? When my inner passion was driving me toward my own death?” She folded her arms, hugging herself against the memory.

Nigel met her gaze. “But did it feel good? To unleash your inner being and hold back nothing?” His question was urgent, demanding, as if his soul needed to hear that answer.

She hesitated.

“Tell me.”

Finally, she nodded. “Unbelievable,” she whispered. “Like I was alive for the first time.” Granted, she’d been on a quest that was going to end in self-destruction, but the
feeling
of indomitability had been magnificent. After a lifetime of fearing every moment of health, strength, and good moods, it had been so liberating to embrace her strength.

“I bet it was,” he said quietly, with an undertone that almost sounded like yearning.

She shuddered, remembering her inner self screaming at her to stop, and her complete inability to tear herself away from the man who had already killed so many women before her. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore, but as God as my witness, I never want to be out of control like that again, and I never want to be a victim like that. I can’t go backwards, Nigel.”

“Going backwards.” Nigel closed his eyes for a moment, his grip tightening on his marker. “That’s a crappy place to be.”

The depth of his voice struck her, and she realized he understood how she felt in her desire to be able to live freely, all the way to the depths of her soul. She had no clue how a man as powerful as Nigel could understand what it was like to hide from life or the power within, but she sensed that he did. She took his hand, needing his touch, the feel of another person who understood what she was saying. “If Ella can help, I want to let her.”

Nigel swore. “She can’t be trusted.” He took the cap off the marker, a move so quick it seemed almost desperate.

Ella’s face tightened, but she said nothing. She was waiting.

“I know she supported Angelica—”

“I don’t anymore,” Ella interjected, then shut her mouth when Nigel glared at her.

“But if we stand together, we can protect ourselves if she tries anything.” Tears began to burn in her eyes as Natalie contemplated fading back into the woman she used to be. “I have to take any chance I can get, because I can’t go back to who I used to be. Could you go back to the Den? Could you?”

“I’m going to as soon as I leave here.” His voice hardened as he began to draw on his hand. “I have to rescue Pascal—” He stopped, staring at the marker in surprise, as if he had no idea how it had gotten into his grip. “Did you give this to me?”

“The marker?” She blinked, confused by the change of topic. “You took it out of your pocket.”

Fear flickered over his face, chased by raw longing. Nigel was afraid? Dear God, what could be so bad that
he
was scared?

He thumbed the tip of the marker. “Give me your hand.”

“What?”

He looked at her, and she saw the need in his eyes. “Your hand.”

She knew what that kind of desperation felt like. She’d lived it. So she set her hand in his, hoping she could give him respite or peace. No one should feel like she’d felt, and like he apparently did.

His touch was firm, just like before, but this time, his grip was cold, as if he was treading the edge of an emotion he didn’t like. He wasn’t burning with energy and adrenaline, like he had been when he arrived in her shop. He was tense and on edge. His jaw set in a grim line, he studied her, and then he began to draw on her palm.

Her body tingled at his intense scrutiny, at the way his gaze bore into her, as if ferreting out all her secrets. This was the Nigel she knew. The one who intrigued her. The one who made her feel like there was more to her than the woman who huddled in fear and ran from shadows. A woman worthy of his attention.

His pen was flying across her palm, the touch featherlight, as if she were the greatest treasure and he was afraid to harm her. He wasn’t looking at what he was sketching. His gaze was riveted on her face, and she knew he was drawing her. He was drawing her the way he saw her, not the way she looked. “What do you see?” she asked.

He was almost in a trance, his place of utter peace, of absolute serenity, of ultimate power. “A woman who beats with fire, who’s flushed with passion. A bird who wants to fly, but has chained herself to the earth with cement.” His eyes darkened and he caught her chin, even as he kept drawing with his other hand. “You have so much fire inside you, Natalie. And so much restraint. Cold, hard restraint. Fear.” His thumb moved over her throat, his touch so soft and tender that it made her belly jump. “Fear sucks, little one. It will break you.”

“I know.” Dear God, did she know. “That’s my point. I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I want to own my life.”

He nodded. “Good. That’s the first step—” He swore suddenly, and his fingers tightened on her throat, pressing more firmly. Not hurting at all. But reminding her of the intense, deadly strength in this man. How easy it would be for him to kill her with no more than a breath. “Take your hand away from mine,” he said. “Get it out of my reach. Right now.” His command was ruthless, unflinching. Demanding.

She tugged, but his grip tightened as he fought to keep drawing. “You’re holding me too tightly—”

“Now!”

Galvanized by his command, she yanked her wrist out of his grasp. He whirled around and grabbed the counter. He gripped the marble and bowed his head, his muscles rigid in his arm, the tendons bulging in his neck.

She rubbed her wrist where he’d held her so mercilessly, her skin still throbbing with the strength of his grip. She wasn’t afraid. He wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that. But something was not right with him. “What’s wrong with you?”

He didn’t lift his head, his shoulders still flexed. “I was drawing you. I was focused on you, and I was drawing you.”

Heat washed through her body, like a hot spring had exploded in her belly and poured over her. “I know you were. I could feel you inside my soul, probing me.”

He raised his head to look at her. His eyes were dark, smoldering with heat. “I’m always inside you.”

She swallowed. “I know.”

He didn’t take his gaze off her. “Look at your hand. Tell me what I drew.” His voice was raw, desperate. “Tell me it’s you.”

Natalie flipped her hand over. At first, she couldn’t quite tell, and then she saw muscles that weren’t hers, shoulders too broad for a woman, a jaw that was too defined, cheeks too gaunt. Then she looked into the eyes, and she knew. “It’s Christian.”

Nigel’s grip on the counter tightened, and anguish flashed across his handsome face. “Is it finished?” He gritted out the question, as if each word was poison, ripping at his throat as he spoke it. “Did I finish it?”

She looked at it. “I think so—”

“No!” Ella was leaning over her shoulder, peering at the drawing. “His left foot is missing.” She pointed to the base of Natalie’s palm. “See?”

Instead of Christian’s foot, there was a red imprint from where Nigel’s thumb had been gripping her so desperately. “Oh, yes, I see—”

“Sweet Mary.” Nigel let out a breath and leaned his head back, as if he’d just been granted the gift of a lifetime. “You’re certain it’s not finished?”

“Yes.” She started toward him. “I’ll show you—”

“No!” He threw up his hand to block her, quickly backpedaling, as if terrified of her. “Keep it away from me.”

She stopped instinctively and folded her hand over. Her heart ached for the anguish she saw on his face. Her serene, poised, powerful warrior was struggling. Waging an internal battle. “Nigel? What’s going on?”

“Wash your hand. Wash it ’til it’s gone. Now. Before I can finish it.”

His tension was evident, and she went cold at the fear on his face, the self-hate. God, she’d been there. She knew what he was suffering, and her heart softened for him. “Okay, okay. I’ll get it off.” Natalie hurried over to the sink and began to scrub. The marker wasn’t permanent, and it flowed off easily. By the time she finished, Nigel was gripping the counter again. Sweat was dripping down his temple, and his muscles were shaking with the effort of controlling himself. From coming after her? He looked like someone was flaying his back with a whip, and only sheer force of will was keeping him on his feet.

“It’s gone,” she said quietly. “It’s okay, Nigel.”

“Take the pen.” It was between his fingers. “Take it now.”

“Okay.” She moved quietly across the room and set her hand on the back of his. His skin was ice cold, the flesh taut across the bones in his hand. The moment she touched him, he sucked in his breath, and his body tightened. But he didn’t lift his head or open his eyes. Carefully, she slid the pen free and handed it to Maggie. “Go throw that away.”

Maggie scrambled to her feet and hurried into the back room.

Natalie put her hand on Nigel’s shoulder. It was rigid, his muscles bulging as if he were fighting a battle. “Okay, so the pen and the drawing are gone.”

Nigel’s shoulders shuddered and he lifted his head. He met her gaze, and his face was haunted. “I really thought I was drawing you.”

She nodded. “So did I.”

“I couldn’t stop it.”

She frowned. “Yes, I noticed.” And then she understood. It was exactly like it had been when she’d been dying from the deedub poison. Her mind had been conscious, aware, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself from doing things that were so dangerous, so deadly, and so not in her best interest. But they had felt so good, and that had been the addiction.

Like his drawing. Oh, no. Not him, too. Being out of control like that was a horrible feeling, and for him? A warrior who’d been fighting his captor for control his whole life and finally gotten it? She knew exactly what it felt like to go backwards, to a place of being out of control.

She rubbed his shoulder, wanting to give him comfort. “Why is drawing bad?”

Nigel smiled grimly. “Long story, sweet girl.” He took a breath and unpeeled his hands from the counter. There were cracks in the marble spiderwebbing out from the pressure. He met her gaze. “I need you.”