The Three Fates of Ryan Love (19 page)

He'd never seen a more beautiful woman.

He wanted to pull her tight against him and protect her. He wanted to run away from her—as far and fast as he could. And he wanted it all at the same time. She'd rung his bell and he wasn't sure he'd ever be the same again.

Brandy bounded out with an excited, apprehensive bark at the looming forest. Fur up, she patrolled the edge with diligence.

“You coming in or what?” Joel growled as he thrust open the front door of the cabin.

Ryan debated it for a moment, but he and Sabelle were navigating the treacherous waters of the Beyond and these two might offer them a boat—or at least a paddle. For all the strangeness of their appearance, Ryan didn't get the same hair-raising vibe off them that he had from the visitor that looked like his dad. He didn't see cunning in their eyes either. Just determination and, where Joel was concerned, hostility. If it was a fight the man wanted, Ryan was more than ready. Hitting something might release the ball of tension in his gut.

“I see what you're thinking,” Joel said when Ryan stepped through the door. “I may have some miles on me, but I can take anything you want to dish out.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Joel laughed.

“Do you two need a moment to beat your chests?” Elijah asked mildly. “Maybe whip out your dicks and measure them?”

“Nah,” Ryan said. “We're good.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Joel gave Ryan a smile filled with everything but warmth and Ryan sent it back. Man talk for truce. He could feel Sabelle's confusion as the tension ebbed but couldn't have explained it to her even if he'd had the chance.

In the kitchen, Elijah pulled two bottles of beer from the fridge and handed them to Joel, then opened a bottle of sauvignon blanc. Ryan glanced at the label. You could tell a lot about a person by the labels they flaunted . . . or didn't. Elijah poured a good white without the pretentious price tag.

Sabelle would like it.

He rolled his eyes at himself for caring.

Ryan took the beer that Joel handed him and the small rocks glass that came next. At the bottom, a healthy splash of whiskey floated without ice. A good swallow but not a full shot. He relaxed a little. If Joel had meant to loosen Ryan's tongue and dull his reflexes, the glass would have held more. Ryan had poured spirits for a living for too long not to recognize that.

“As nice as all this is,” Ryan said, taking a drink of the beer, “let's get to it. How do you know who I am?”

What I drink? And what does it have to do with this woman who's under my skin?

“Elijah saw you coming,” Joel said gruffly.

“Obviously.”

“He's been seeing it for about a month now.”

“How?” Sabelle demanded.

Joel raised his brows. “Same way you do, I expect.”

“But he's male.”

“Really? How did I miss that?” Joel slid Elijah an amused look that made the other man blush.

“Seers don't have to be female, ” Elijah said gently.

“You're wrong. The Sisters—”

“Lie.”

That was Joel, his tone hard as steel.

Elijah pulled up a chair and sat at the table beside Joel. He rested an arm over the back of the other man's chair and stretched out his legs. “Now that you're here, will you tell us your name?”

Instead of answering, Sabelle turned troubled eyes to Ryan, waiting for his cue. He felt the strength of her trust in that small gesture. They'd followed
her
instincts to get here, but she was relying on his to get them out safely.

He held a chair for her and hooked another beside it, sitting close enough that their thighs touched. Close enough that he could settle his free hand on her knee. At the click of his tongue, Brandy gave up her snuffling exploration and flopped at their feet.

“Her name's Sabelle,” Ryan answered at last. “How come you didn't know it already?”

Elijah shrugged. “It's a good question. Wish I could answer.”

“S'belle,” Joel said slowly, pronouncing it correctly on the first try. Sabelle stiffened at the look he leveled at her.

“Why don't you like me?” she asked Joel bluntly, taking a careful drink of her wine.

The cool sweet drink hit her tongue, distracting her from the aggressive question. Her lashes fluttered. Ryan watched her expression change with the same fascination he felt each time she showed pleasure. Sabelle was living, breathing sensuality. Every single thing she did made him feel tight and antsy. Territorial.
Possessive.
He forced himself to look away and found the other two men watching
him
with a look of concern.

Joel shifted his narrowed eyes to Sabelle. “I don't like what you've done.”

“What do you think she's done?” Ryan asked coolly.

“She knows what I'm talking about,” Joel said. “Isn't that right? Pulled out all the stops, didn't you?”

“You promised me you wouldn't do this, Joel,” Elijah interrupted.

Joel scowled at his friend, but he shut his mouth and leaned back in his chair.

“What's he talking about?” Ryan asked Elijah, but he was looking at Sabelle. She didn't look up.

Joel leveled a challenging stare across the table and Sabelle paled. “Ask her why she's here,” he taunted.

“I know why she's here,” Ryan shot back.

“You sure about that?”

Elijah turned on Joel in wordless warning and Joel fell silent.

Ryan shifted his gaze to Sabelle's downturned face, foreboding coiling inside him. The moment of reckoning had been coming since she'd opened her pretty mouth and lied the first time. Yet now that it was here, Ryan wanted to slow the clock. The gnawing anticipation holding the room hostage didn't bode well for any of them.

“I can't help you if I don't know what's going on, snowflake,” he murmured.

At last the blue eyes came up. “You won't want to help me when you do.”

He shook his head once. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

She searched his eyes and he tried to show her that she didn't need to be afraid. He hated being lied to, but that didn't mean he couldn't understand why sometimes lies felt like the only way out. If Sabelle had lied, the reason was probably born of fear. He'd had a taste of the tactics Aisa used. He couldn't blame Sabelle for being afraid.

“She's here to steal the crown,” Joel blurted, disregarding Elijah's disapproval. Ryan frowned, wrenching his gaze from Sabelle and narrowing it on the older man.

“What does that mean?” Ryan demanded. He felt dense and pissed off at the same time. Joel had pricked his last nerve, and fair or not, Ryan wanted to reach across the table and plant his fist in the older man's face.

“Give yourself a minute,” Joel said. “You'll figure it out.”

“You're an asshole, you know that?”

“He knows,” Elijah said.

But Joel was right. It took less than a minute for Ryan to start piecing it together.
Steal the crown
couldn't have too many meanings. Sabelle was a slave; Aisa, her master. Sabelle had made it clear that she wanted to help free the other slaves left behind—that's why she'd been so desperate to answer the call she'd felt from the north. But
steal the crown
implied overthrowing the queen and taking her place . . . going
back
 . . . didn't it? He wished she'd look at him, but she remained stonily silent, her head bent, eyes fixed on her fingers.

“She thinks it's her birthright.”

Joel again, ever helpful. Ryan shot him a glare. “Next word out of your mouth is going to come with teeth.”

Joel grinned. “Think you're pissed off now? Ask her how she plans to do it.”

“Joel,” Elijah said sharply.

“He's got a right to know. You hear me, sweetheart? That's why I don't like you. He's got a right to know.”

“I mean it, Joel—”

“Know what?” Ryan demanded.

“Hell,” Joel shouted. “She's got you so spun up you couldn't find your dick with both hands and a hard-on. It's what they do. They get in your pants and then they fuck with your head. Both of them.”

The bitter words came like a hard punch to the solar plexus. The imposter who'd pretended to be his dad had chosen a different way, but he'd said the same thing.

She blinded you and then she let you dip your stick and suddenly you're thinking with the wrong organ. Isn't that right?

Sabelle had called the dad-imposter a liar. An illusion from Aisa, the master of the mind fuck. Now doubt crept in with the mists of betrayal. What if Ryan had it all backwards?

He wanted to laugh. God knew, he wanted to laugh.

“She
selected
you,” Joel said, leaning into the hot tension. “If it takes yanking your chain to make you see, so be it.”

Ryan looked at Sabelle again, his jaw tight, his heart racing. “Say something.”

“He's twisting things around,” she muttered.

“Which things?”

“Yes, I chose you, but not for the reason he thinks.”

Ryan could feel Joel simmering like hot butter in a skillet, hissing as it melted, turning black at the edges as it burned. Elijah put a restraining hand over Joel's but the older man wouldn't be able to keep it in—whatever
it
was.

Ryan stood and pulled Sabelle to her feet. Whatever was coming, he wanted to hear it from Sabelle, in her words.

“The bedroom is right around the corner,” Elijah offered with obvious relief. “You're right. You should have this conversation in private. We'll wait.”

“Lucky us,” Ryan said as he led Sabelle from the kitchen.

R
yan switched on the lamp and watched Sabelle move away from him, still silent. Still a mystery he wanted to believe could be solved. She eyed the bed, but didn't sit, looking everywhere but at him. He opted to keep standing, too, and leaned against the door, letting the silence stretch, wishing just once she wouldn't make him drag each word out of her.

“Talk,” he demanded at last, unable to temper his frustration.

Angry because of it. Angry that he had to demand at all. Most of all, angry that Joel was right. She had him in fucking knots. She'd slipped beneath his guard and laid him open from balls to brain. He'd had warnings from inside, from out, from the fucking Beyond, and still he'd let it happen. He'd let her in. And now she was going to make him pay for it.

“I was going to tell you,” she said in a low voice. “I
should
have told you before . . . this.” Her hands fluttered in front of her, bracketing the distance that now separated them. “I just didn't get the chance.” She shoved her betraying hands into her pockets and shook her head. “No, that's not true. I had chances. I just . . .”

She stared at him, her eyes begging him to understand. He might have been swayed if he had even an inkling of what was coming. Instead he crossed his arms without a word and waited.

“I—I've been
watching
my whole life, Ryan. Outside, looking in, just like you said. Then I saw you and now I'm here. You're here.” She shuffled her feet. “I'm not watching anymore. It's happening
to
me, not because of me or in spite of me.” She flashed him a shaky smile that didn't stand a chance. He didn't even pretend to return it. “I knew when I told you . . . you wouldn't turn me away. But whatever this . . .” Her hand moved between them again, this time a fragile sail in the winds of storm. “Whatever it is . . . I wouldn't have that anymore.”

“You always planned to go back,” he said flatly.

“Yes.”

“Not just to help the others get free.”

“No.”

“Why? Why go through the trouble to escape in the first place? Why drag me here? What the fuck is that guy talking about?”

Her shoulders hunched and her arms crossed defensively. “There's a prophecy,” she began.

“Enough of the bullshit, Sabelle,” he barked. “I don't give a fuck about prophecies of the Beyond. I want to know about
you.
I want to know what
you're
doing
here
.”

With me. To me.

Her chin came up and her jaw set. If not for those liquid eyes, she'd have pulled off the tough-as-nails look she gave him.

“I'm trying to tell you, but you're going to have to listen to hear it.”

“I'm all ears, snowflake.”

“The prophecy foretells the end of the Sisters' reign. It goes like this: ‘The owned will become the owner, the fruit the poison.' ”

“You can't be serious.”

“It means that one of their own will bring them down.”

Ryan cursed softly. This was like a bad movie. Except for the fist clenched around his heart.

“How do you figure that?”

“I am an oracle,” she said in a steady tone. “I see.”

“And you think it's you? Is that it? You're the one who's going to bring them down?”

“I'm the most gifted of all the seers. Of course it's me.”

“What are you doing
here
, then? Why pull me into it?” She turned away and it took everything he had to keep from grabbing her shoulders and forcing her to face him again. “Why, Sabelle?”

“I needed you to get me here,” she said in a low voice.

“One-Eight-Hundred-Taxicab. You didn't need me. You could have fucked a ride out of anybody.”

She flinched, but his cruelty did the trick. She turned to him.

“Does that make you feel better, hurting me?”

“Little bit.”

“I needed you,” she said angrily.

Past tense. He heard it. He hated it. Right that second, he hated her almost as much as he hated himself for being such an idiot.

She's using you. She
told
you she's using you. And you agreed to it.

Thanks, Dad.

“I needed you,” she went on, unaware of the waves of self-loathing washing through him. “Just as I need them.”

Them being Joel and Elijah. But they didn't seem to be rallying to her cause.

“You think they're going to help you kill Aisa? That's your big play, huh? What then? You're going to be the new master of all those slaves?”

She looked so horrified that for a moment his certainty wavered and hope glimmered like a distant star.

“My rule would never include slaves,” she said proudly.

And there it was, a truth so bald it shone. He hadn't admitted it to himself yet, but he'd been dreaming of a future that had a place for them both. She'd been dreaming of scepters and thrones, manipulating him into willingness so she could use him to get there.

“How are you going to handle this coup of yours?” Ryan asked. “Did you come here to draw your sisters out?”

“They're not my Sis—”

“What about the rest of us? What are we? Bait?”

“No,” she gasped. “I didn't have a grand plan. Yes, I'd been thinking about it. There's injustice—with the Sisters, with how they treat the seers. With how they treat the
world
, Ryan. No one could live knowing about it and not want it changed. But my plans were fantasies. Dreams. I had no idea how to get there. I didn't even know how to get
here.
When Nadia told me you were going to die, I acted. She told me how and I came. Once I was here, I realized I had a chance to do something.”

Ryan wanted to believe it, which only seeded his doubt.

“Believe what you want,” she said quietly. “But it's the truth.”

“So what now?” he asked, and it felt as if the words had been coated in gunpowder. “You said the sisters couldn't follow you here. So how are you planning on getting close enough to do the deed? How can you . . .”

The words trailed off like a dirt road into a perfect storm, churning, gritty, blurred where it met the horizon. Then suddenly everything was clear. Ryan braced against the door as realization rained down on him. He couldn't believe he'd missed it before.

She'd told him she'd hitched a ride with a reaper to get to this world. It didn't take much to guess she'd need to find another reaper to ferry her back.

She
selected
you.

Not because he'd pulled her by the heartstrings and made her yearn to be in the same space with him. Not because she felt compelled to save his life. She'd chosen him because his sister had a fast pass to a reaper. She'd chosen him because she'd known—after all those years of watching, guiding,
pushing
—she'd known that all it would take to spin Ryan into chaos was the destruction of the glue that held his life together. Love's, his family's center. And once that was gone, he'd be adrift. Easy prey. The sisters hadn't blown Love's up. Sabelle had.

Do you know where your sister and her reaper are?

She'd asked on the way here, couching the question beneath a longing that had damn near broken his heart. Fuck. He was such a dumbass.

“You think I'm going to hook you up with my sister's boyfriend, don't you? That's what this is all about. You think those two”—he jabbed his thumb over his ­shoulder—“can help you win and you turned me into your fucking errand boy so you could have access to Roxanne and her reaper.”

Sabelle shook her head, but her expression said it all.

Ryan pushed away from the door and stalked closer. He knew touching her would be the wrong decision, but he couldn't seem to help himself. He brushed the back of his knuckles against her jaw and tilted her face.

What he saw in her eyes shattered something inside him, something that had been too fragile to survive all along. Rage and pain bubbled up and spilled over. He turned away, needing to vent the steam or be poached by his own ire. Cursing, he slammed his fist into the wall, once, twice. Drywall caved in and turned to dust. It didn't change the facts, but his seared knuckles gained him an iota of focus. Without looking back, he yanked open the door and strode out.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

Ryan didn't bother to answer.