Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
W hat the devil! I pat my shirt, my pants’ pockets, but the Doomsday Diary is gone.
A litany of possible reasons scrolls through my head as I dash back to Sydney’s room. The familiar red volume sits on her night table, stacked under the other two books as if I never touched it.
Cursing, I snatch the book again, hoping more than believing that I can leave with the volume. But as I step over her threshold, it dissipates in my hands. Another quick glance reveals that the book found its way back to her bedside table.
Bloody unpredictable magic.
I rake a hand through my hair. How the hell do I return this book to Bram? I would call him, but I don’t dare linger. Sydney will wake soon…and she’ll start asking questions.
As I turn to leave, the covers rustle. Over my shoulder, I glimpse Sydney sit up, halfheartedly holding the sheet over her tempting little nipples. Instantly, I’m hard for her again.
After last night, how can I still be craving her?
“Going somewhere so early?” she asks. “Without saying goodbye?”
Sydney is usually full of moxie. She can be tough as nails. But dawn light illuminates a tension in her soft brown eyes. She looks fragile. Vulnerable. She’s aching for reassurance that last night wasn’t a hit-and-run. She’s hoping that I care, that I find her worthy. That she’s somehow worked her way into my heart.
It’s too dangerous for me to assure her that she has.
“Of course you are,” she answers herself, drawing the sheet higher over her breasts. “You’ve had your night with me. Box checked. Curiosity fulfilled. Another notch in your bedpost. It’s not as if you made me any promises.” She hangs her head, looking very much like she’ll berate herself the moment I’ve gone. “Go.”
I can’t stand to see her hurting. “Syd?—”
“Don’t. I’ll find someone else eventually and forget last night, and that will be that.”
Like hell you will!
Full of possessive fury, I take her face in my hands. I can’t bloody stay. I can’t risk claiming the lifelong mate magic intends for me. I’m a danger to her, and I fear she’ll be my undoing.
But seeing her dejected is agonizing.
If I leave her without a word, our relationship will be over. I’d rather give myself a lobotomy with a rusty knife before I crush her. To complicate matters, every bit of trust I’ve rekindled will disappear as quickly as the Doomsday Diary if I simply walk out.
Bugger all! What a ball’s up.
If I want to find Anka, escape this magical freak show, and avoid hurting Sydney, I must reassure her, get the necessary information, then devise an escape plan that won’t crush her heart—or leave a hole in mine.
“Sydney, I’m not some Lothario sneaking off the morning after. I need to shower and dress for work, and I’d like to call and check on my brother.”
Her face softens. She never wears her emotions on her sleeve, and it’s disarming. Can I read her because I know her better? Or…because I feel so bloody connected to her?
“I’m not stopping you. Go.”
Not when she’s upset.
I sink onto the bed beside her and take her hand. “It would be better if I didn’t smell like sex in the office. Our boss may not appreciate it.”
“It doesn't take long for Holly to catch on,” Sydney concedes with a halfhearted smile.
“Not only do we not want her angry, we have important work to do.” I take a deep breath and plunge in. “This magical war story may be quite dangerous. Let me protect you. Please. Don’t meet your source again without me. I’ll set her at ease and?—”
“Let’s leave work at the office. Any time we spend together away from Out of this Realm should be about us. Besides, if this isn’t a one-off, shouldn’t we be focused on getting to know each other? Tell me more about you.”
I’m going to be magical soon, and I’m fairly certain that if I kissed you, I would issue you a Mating Call that would shock you to your pretty toes. How do you feel about being a wizard’s mate and living for a thousand years?
I clear my throat and try to think of something benign to say. “I plan to move back to Texas. I miss Mexican food.”
A reluctant smile spreads across her face. “We Brits don’t make it well?”
“I’ve seen dog food with more appeal.”
Sydney laughs. “That’s harsh.”
“The truth often is.”
Some of the uncertainty leaves her eyes, and I see a flash of the Sydney I know. “All right. But that’s not personal. You know all about my parents, but you’ve hardly spoken of your own.”
“As I said, they’re elderly and frail. They live outside of York.”
“Are they able to visit Lucan?”
“They don’t know about his condition.” That’s another thing that makes me feel like a shit. “I don’t dare tell them. I fear them knowing their elder son is…unwell would be too much at their age.”
She nods sympathetically. “What will you do if the worst happens?”
“Lucan is receiving care from experts. He’s strong, and I’m by his side. I can’t lose faith that he’ll pull through.”
“Thank you for sharing that. I’m sorry about your brother. Tell me about his condition.”
Some part of me wants to open up to Sydney, share my burden with her. The urge is nearly as compelling as my need to make love to her again.
“His disorder is mental. They’ve put him under because he’s a danger to himself and others.”
“Oh, my god.” Empathy softens her dark eyes.
“That’s why I haven’t wanted to talk about his condition.”
She nods, her fiery hair sliding over her bare shoulders. “I’m sorry. I have a nasty habit of prying. The curse of being a reporter.”
“I understand.”
“While I’m prying, I wonder if you’d answer another question for me.”
I stiffen. Already I’ve said more than I should. With Sydney, I’m walking a tightrope. Using her leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but staying by her side until I get the information necessary to help my brother is critical.
“I’ll try.”
“Why move to the States? Why leave for so long if your parents are elderly? Why join the U.S. Marines? Why?—”
“One question at a time.” I hold up a hand to stay her with an indulgent glance. “I moved overseas at eighteen. Went to school for a bit where I met some Marines and decided to join them. I obtained a green card, quit school, went to basic.” I shrug. “My parents and I…didn’t see eye-to-eye about my future, and a dozen years ago, putting distance between us seemed like a good idea.”
A huge understatement. My mother, once a gifted seer like many witches in her line, insisted that I would someday embrace my considerable magic and distinguish myself as a champion. Rubbish!
By the time she started making such predictions, Westin was dead, and I swore to disavow magic. After leaving home, I avoided magickind and made a home for myself in the States among humans. I haven’t wanted life another way since.
“So you moved to another country?”
Put like that, my decision sounds extreme. “They had Lucan to carry on the usual traditions. I wasn’t interested.”
“A family business?”
“Something like that,” I hedge. “Anyway, I joined the Marines because it was far, far from home, and I wanted to fight—something my parents were against.” At least in the human sense.
“You were a rebel.”
“Quite. I don’t regret anything, and I’ve made some great friends.”
While a Marine, I felt as if I fit in for the first time in my life. No one knew about my magical family or had expectations of me becoming a wand-waving Superman. Sure, my platoon ribbed me about being British and having a teacup up my ass and the like, but they respected the fact I was a crack shot, could wipe the floor with most in hand-to-hand combat, and was without peer when it came to explosives. I bloody miss them like hell.
I’m happy to help Bram and the Doomsday Brethren learn those skills. But lending my magic to their cause? I don’t have any. Nor do I want it.
“Are you still friends with them?”
Pain is a stinging reminder, like a wound that just won’t heal. “Sadly, many died in Afghanistan. A few committed suicide after coming home. Another went to prison. One is missing. I’m one of the few left standing.”
And Sydney is the first person I’ve confided in. Sharing my sorrow with her is dangerous, but it feels so good to unburden.
She throws her arms around me, as if she knows exactly how much it hurt to lose friends like Walt, who everyone called T-Rex because he was huge and had such lumbering footsteps. Or Brian, the prankster with the weird tattoos. Damn hard to believe that he’s gone missing under mysterious circumstances.
“I’m sorry,” Sydney murmurs. “I never meant to bring up something painful.”
For a brief moment in her arms, the hurt of the past and the worries about tomorrow are silent. I’m desperate to stay in this peaceful moment, but I can’t avoid reality. I need to leave before I do something stupid.
“I won’t ask if that satisfies your curiosity, since I know better. But I should get going.” I’m unable to resist filtering my fingers through her soft hair one last time. I drop my hand away with regret.
“One last thing.” Sydney grabs my wrist. “Kiss me. We never got to that last night.”
Her plea is so tempting, and I crave her mouth, but the increasing sweats, sex drive, and tingles tell me that I’m likely to be a wizard soon, and I’ll have the “gift” of being able to sense my mate by taste. If I give Sydney what she’s asking for, if I open my burgeoning magical senses to her, I worry I’ll speak the Call, caution be damned.
If I lost her, it would devastate me and leave me vulnerable to the kind of lunacy that could kill me.
Besides, magickind is fast becoming a dangerous place—one in which Sydney doesn’t belong. She’ll be safer if she stays away from me. And if she stops writing stories likely to catch Mathias’s notice.
So unless I want to risk tying Sydney to me forever, kissing her is forbidden. And mating aside, I have no intention of staying, so kissing her would be more cruel, not less.
I put a hand over my mouth. “Not before I’ve brushed my teeth. You’ll thank me later.”
She frowns. “You say the right things, but I get the feeling that once you walk out the door, we’ll never be this close again.”
I try like hell to keep my expression neutral, but the distress on her face tells me I’ve failed Subterfuge 101.
“It’s…um, a complicated time in my life, with my brother, my parents, and assorted other issues. If it weren’t for all that, everything between us would be different. I would choose you, Sydney, and I would never let you go.”
I force my mouth shut. Stop. There. Now. The canned response I should have given her about being interested and taking it one day at a time? Not in my vocabulary. What on earth possessed me to be so honest?
Despite not lying—or perhaps because of it—she clutches the sheet tight against her breasts and looks ready to cry. “Are you leaving because I won’t give up my source? Had you hoped to shag it out of me?”
Regret slices me to the bone. “No, you’re right. Mixing business and pleasure isn’t wise.”
“Then go. We’ll forget last night ever happened.”
Impossible.
Her face is a kick to the heart. I’m heartily sick of playing this wretched game. Why the fuck did Bram drag me into his problems? “Sydney, later, if my life becomes less complicated…”
She shuts her eyes and shakes her head. “Don’t say anything you don’t mean.”
I nod. I won’t spew reassurances I can’t give her.
Reluctantly, I turn and leave her bedroom with a last glance over my shoulder at her pale curves barely concealed in the white sheet, surrounded by a halo of that fiery hair. I struggle for the fortitude to leave, knowing my chances of ever holding her again are slim.
But I force myself to put one foot in front of the other and disappear down her hall.
Halfway to the door, I hear her murmur, “We both know there’s no ‘later’ for us.”
The truth is like a brutal uppercut to my abdomen. I brace myself against the wall and, fists clenched, try to catch my breath. It takes everything inside me not to return to her.
Damn it all! I stupidly thought I could leave here with my heart intact, but I’m at least twelve hours too late.