Authors: Laurie London
He cradled his bad arm to his chest and tried to keep his breathing shallow. Even though he desperately wanted to fill his lungs with her scent to replace the chalky, sooty cloud he’d inhaled, it hurt too much. Every breath was painful and every cough felt as though his insides were being ripped apart.
Damn the Fates. He didn’t need this.
What he did need was to report back to the others. The Iron Guild had long suspected the army was behind the bombings in New Seattle, and now he’d seen it with his own eyes. But he was going to have trouble walking five steps, let alone getting back to his car parked several blocks away. Broken ribs notwithstanding, given how screwed up his knee was and the fact that he must’ve broken his collarbone too, driving a car was going to be next to impossible.
Opening his eyes, he noticed it had started raining again. Everyone on the street was getting drenched. Bloody hell. On top of everything else, he was going to have to deal with the weather now, too. Could his predicament get any worse?
Then he remembered Olivia’s employer near the back wall. Yes, things could be worse. Much worse.
Someone had draped an oversized jacket over Olivia’s shoulders. It fell to her knees, almost to the tops of her cowboy boots. The woman on the stretcher was moving and from where he sat, Asher had a better view of her now.
Bloody hell. Was Olivia’s patient the woman from the club? Monique? He narrowed his eyes and saw her red hair and blue sequined top. Yes, it had to be her. But hadn’t she been in the back when the explosion happened? She must’ve followed him outside, hoping to change his mind about leaving. An all-too-familiar feeling clawed and twisted at his insides that he might be responsible for the woman being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Don’t stop.” Monique’s voice carried through the din. He strained to hear more, but as soon as he shifted forward in his seat, he was again met by a sharp, stabbing pain.
Chewing on her bottom lip, Olivia glanced up and seemed to be searching the chaos around her. Looking for what? She turned back to the stretcher, rubbed her fingertips with her thumbs and touched the woman’s arm. With closed eyes, Monique smiled thinly. If the setting were different, he would’ve thought she was getting the world’s best massage. Olivia kept her fingertips on the woman’s forearm, and every few seconds, she’d slant a glance to the left and right, reminding him of a prey animal on the lookout for predators.
Why was she so nervous? Clearly, she was helping the injured woman. Healing her. Unless… And then it dawned on him.
She didn’t
want
anyone to know what she was doing.
It wasn’t just nerves he was reading in her expression. It was fear. Like she was afraid of being caught.
Suddenly, an aid worker in an orange vest appeared and Olivia jerked her hands away, confirming his suspicions. She’d done that when she’d touched him, too.
The man shouted into the walkie-talkie attached to his shoulder as he unlocked the brakes on the stretcher. “I don’t know,” he said. “Someone triaged her wrong, thinking her sitch was hopeless.” He paused for a moment, holding the device to his ear. “Well, she’s not dead, so get me a fucking ambulance.”
The aid worker quickly pushed Monique’s stretcher away, disappearing behind a parked car. Olivia rolled up the sleeves of the coat. Was she going to look for someone else who needed her help?
He
was the one who needed her.
A plan began to form in his mind—a cruel one, yes, but honorable men, particularly those who were desperate, often had to make difficult choices.
Olivia turned just as he pushed himself up to a standing position, and their eyes met. She had a wild desperation to her expression, and for a moment, he thought she might shrug out of that huge coat and run like hell.
He held his breath. If she bolted, he was as good as dead. He didn’t know how long he could continue to refuse medical treatment, but he sure as hell couldn’t get out of here under his own power. At some point, someone would take pity and force him to go to the hospital. And if that happened, they’d do a background check and discover his papers were bogus. It would be only a matter of time until they discovered he wasn’t from this world.
Come, lass. Come to me. I promise not to hurt you.
He was a predator, trying to seduce his prey.
After a moment’s hesitation, she headed straight toward him.
Relief raced through his body.
He would get her to heal him. And if she refused or tried to deny that she couldn’t, he’d threaten to expose her.
Chapter Four
Olivia’s cowboy boots turned to lead as she slogged her way back to what was left of the Grape and Bean. Though it couldn’t be more than ten or twelve steps, it felt like a mile. She was so exhausted she could hardly see straight. Healing the woman who was almost dead had drained her of all her energy. She hardly had anything left. She needed to grab her things and get out of here as quickly as possible.
The man—Asher—stood in what used to be the doorway, staring at her with an intensity that made her stomach do a couple of backflips. Gorgeous guys came into the wine shop all the time, so what was the big deal about this one? Well, for one thing, she told herself as she noted his scuffed motorcycle boots and the skull ring on his pinkie, he wasn’t pretty-boy good-looking. He had an untamed quality about him that suggested an uncontrollable side. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had a few tattoos and a piercing or two.
Oh God, why do I always seem to find the bad boys so attractive?
She seriously needed to employ the trick she played on herself in order not to eat fattening food.
Rough, rugged, badass guys with swagger are unhealthy for my well-being.
No. Wait. Who the hell cares if something is unhealthy if it’s tasty? She needed to frame it up differently.
Rough, rugged, badass guys with swagger make me nauseous and sick to my stomach.
There. Maybe if she said it enough times, she’d start to believe it.
“What are you still doing here?” She honestly thought he’d be gone by now. Hurt or not, he seemed like a take-charge kind of guy. The kind who made things happen, who didn’t wait around for things to happen to him.
“What did you just do?” His eyebrows were two fierce slashes above his eyes.
“Excuse me?”
“To that woman?”
She looked at him warily. What was he getting at? He couldn’t possibly know what she had done. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was bone dry. “I did what they told me to do. That’s all. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She took a step forward, hoping he’d move out of her way, but he didn’t. He just stood there like a brick wall in front of her. A big, huge, muscle-y one.
Thankfully, the plate glass window next to the door had been completely blown out. Taking care not to cut herself, she stepped up and over the sill. There. She was going to get her things and get the hell out of here.
But before she could move toward the office in the back, he grabbed her arm. Even through the heavy fireman’s coat she still wore, she felt the strength of his hand.
“I
saw
you,” he said, his voice low and menacing, “so don’t try to deny what you did.”
Her heart banged around in her chest like a jarred moth looking for a way to escape. This was not good. “Let go of me.” She tried to pull away from his grasp, but his hand was like an iron wrench.
Two seconds ago, she thought she would die from exhaustion, but now she felt as if she could run a marathon.
“Weren’t you watching?” she asked. “I helped stop an injured woman’s bleeding until an ambulance became available and took her to the hospital. That’s all.” One quick jerk and she was free of him. She had a feeling she wouldn’t have been able to do that if he hadn’t been hurt.
His gray eyes bore into her as she took a few steps back. She could tell he didn’t believe her. “Don’t bullshit me. You healed that woman.”
She wanted to clamp a hand over his mouth. Despite the chill in the night air, a bead of sweat trickled down the middle of her back.
Think, Olivia! Think!
As he stood there, waiting for a reply, her brain finally came up with a few options:
(1) Laugh. Make it seem as if what he’d said was the funniest, most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. But given what was going on around them and the fact that her employer’s dead body wasn’t very far away, laughing would be a terrible response. Scratch that.
(2) Beg. With tears. Lots of them. Even though she was truly freaked out and could probably cry without too much effort, it wasn’t her style. Next.
(3) Run. Grab her things and run like the devil was chasing her. She was an expert at it—she’d been doing it all her life. But she was too exhausted. Just the thought of sprinting out of here made her want to curl up in a ball and go to sleep. Scratch that, too, for now.
(4) Barter. Tell him she’d heal him if he promised not to say anything. But she wasn’t sure she had enough energy left to help him. If she didn’t, she’d have exposed her secret for nothing. He’d be pissed and would go to the authorities. Nope. That wouldn’t work, either.
(5) Lie. BS her way through it.
She settled on number five, the only reasonable choice. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He frowned. A muscle in his jaw flexed. “You expect me to believe that horseshit? She was almost dead until you got to her. Even the aid workers thought so.”
“That’s ridiculous. The EMT came over here and asked for my help. You heard him. You were here.”
“Yeah, probably because he felt bad that he wasn’t going to be able to help that woman. He didn’t want to leave her there to die on that stretcher by herself.”
“You’re wrong. What kind of aid worker would do that?”
“It’s battlefield medicine. In a crisis situation, you have limited resources and sometimes you have to make a choice to help others who have a better chance of surviving. Admit it, Olivia. Her situation was hopeless until you came along.” She opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off. “It’s pointless to argue. I know what I saw.”
Why would the guy know about battlefield medicine? Was he a former soldier? If he was, then he probably still had connections in the army, which meant this was worse than she thought.
The BS route wasn’t going to fly, not in the face of this new revelation. She really did need to get out of here. If a stranger could guess her secret, then others could as well. What an idiot she’d been to expose herself like that. She should’ve been more careful. Who knew how many others had noticed what she’d done?
She decided to change her mind and go with number three, no matter how exhausted and drained she was.
Shrugging out of the fireman’s jacket and tossing it in the direction of what used to be the register counter, she stepped over a few broken bottles and trudged toward the office where she kept her things, exhaustion weighing down each step.
“You’re wrong,” she called over her shoulder. “I’m nothing special. If what you say is true, then why wouldn’t I be out there helping other people? Think about it.” She grabbed her jean jacket and messenger bag from a hook just inside the door and turned to go.
Suddenly, he was there in front of her, all six foot whatever of him, blocking her from going anywhere. Holy crap. If the guy wasn’t a bouncer, he really should think about becoming one. He was supporting most of his weight on one booted foot while holding onto his bad arm. Although he was injured, there was something really strong and commanding about the way he was looking at her.
“I think it’s because you’re hiding your ability.” His pupils were two little pinpricks surrounded by gray. “You don’t want them to know.”
Them? So he wasn’t with the army, but the fact that he knew her secret made him just as dangerous.
She took a step backward, the broken Reidel stemware making a crisp, crunching sound beneath her cowboy boots. He moved with her.
“What do you want from me?” she rasped.
“It’s my turn now,” he said, his voice almost a whisper as he towered over her. “You’re going to heal me.”
All of the oxygen disappeared from her lungs as if she’d been punched. Her ligaments turned to rubber.
He was trying to intimidate her into using her abilities for his gain. Just like David. A slow burn of indignation ignited in her belly. She would not let it happen again. “Excuse me?”