CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
All at once, the monumental reality of it hit me.
The truth about what I’d learned, and what I might have to do.
Feeling overwhelmed and hungry for some normality, I exhaled loudly and glanced at a clock on the wall.
“I should go. I have a closing shift at the bar tonight. Thanks for the dress, Laur.”
I shot a parting smile up at him and turned for the door. I knew I’d see Collith later. If he wasn’t waiting for me in the parking lot at Bea’s, he usually stayed up until I got back to the loft. Ever since I’d been attacked by that yar demon, he hadn’t been taking any chances.
“You can’t go home,” Laurie called after me.
“No, don’t—” I heard Collith say at the same moment I halted.
I turned, raising my eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”
Collith shot Laurie a look that said, Now you’ve done it.
I scowled at him. I was about to remind Collith that I wasn’t a child when he said, “Home is the first place Lucifer will look for you. The Dark Prince has probably had a spy posted there for months, giving regular reports on us. He’ll know the second you step foot on the property. ”
I shrugged. “Okay … and why am I hiding from Lucifer? He’s known where I am for months.”
“He saw you get hit by the blast,” Laurie put in.
“He actually does know what that means. He might want to kill you, or he might have some other terrible use for you. Collith put you onto Cyrus’s back a split second after it happened and brought you straight here.
One of the Dark Prince’s creatures tried to follow, but we beat it to the Door. ”
“No. I’m not going in to hiding. Not again.”
“We’ve considered every outcome, Fortuna, and going home is a bad idea.”
Frustration blazed in my veins. Fighting for control, I raked my hair back and let out another breath. I knew they were trying to help me, I knew that. They thought they were just being protective. But … it didn’t feel right. It was like the bars of a cage were closing in around me.
“Could we not fight, for once? Please?” I asked. A faint note of pleading slipped into my voice.
I expected Collith to answer, and a jolt of surprise went through my frame when Laurie said, “This isn’t a fight, Firecracker. It’s a discussion.”
“What makes you think either of you get a say in what I do?” I countered. Even as the words came out of my mouth, I knew how unfair they were. I let out a breath and closed my eyes for a moment, clenching one of my hands into a fist. “I’m sorry. I don’t … I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?” Collith asked softly.
I opened my eyes and looked at him. Both of them.
Collith’s expression was patient, his gaze gentle.
Laurie’s expression revealed nothing, and he’d gone still.
It was his stillness that betrayed him, though.
Betrayed how much he cared about my answer, as if taking just a single breath would frighten me into silence.
I swallowed, and my insides quaked. Why did it feel like we were standing at the very edge of something?
Like whatever I said next had the potential to change everything between us?
The room was so quiet that I could hear the birds outside. I looked at Collith and Laurie again, knowing they deserved the truth, no matter how much it terrified me. “I—”
An image filled my head, a vivid slam of lines and colors that struck without warning.
I bowled over, crying out as pain crackled through my body.
I clutched my skull so hard that I felt the bite of my own fingernails.
Collith and Laurie were both saying something, and one of them had grasped my waist to steady me.
Their voices were like humming power lines.
I could only focus on the pictures, the agony, the way my teeth ground together.
It should’ve hurt, but it was nothing compared to what was happening in my mind.
I heard voices that weren’t Collith or Laurie’s.
I saw a hand pointing at a faded piece of paper.
I saw shapes in ink. I moaned and leaned against the warm body holding me upright. Make it stop, make it stop …
All at once, the pressure building inside me eased, and the claws tearing through my brain retreated. I started breathing again, in short bursts at first, then slower and deeper. After a few seconds, I relaxed against Laurie. I knew it was him now because of that distinct springtime scent.
As I rested in the circle of his arms, I waited for the Seelie King to make a joke or give a rousing speech, but he was silent.
Once again, stillness hovered through the suite.
It reminded me of the forest in deep winter—the sort of silence that only happened when the entire world, even the trees, had gone to sleep.
The image, along with Laurie’s scent, made me think of that night in the snow, when he’d held me just as he was holding me now. It felt like years ago.
Eventually, I felt normal enough to open my eyes.
The walls of Laurie’s room looked back at me.
I glanced around, noting that we were alone again.
Collith had probably left to get Savannah.
The only way to fight magic was with magic, and she was the most powerful witch we knew.
What the hell was that? Some residual effect of Michael’s power? Would it happen again?
Laurie’s voice rumbled against my ear. “What does my fear taste like, Fortuna?”
At first, I frowned in confusion. He knew I couldn’t get past his mental barriers. Laurie was too strong, even for—
I could sense it, I realized in a rush. It was faint and distant. I held myself completely still, absorbing the flavor of Laurelis Dondarte’s fear. “Like rain, I think,” I whispered. “It tastes like rain.”
There wasn’t much that frightened Laurelis Dondarte, but the sound of my screams was one of them.
I finally sat upright, and put my hand on Laurie’s shoulder for balance as I shifted, putting my knees on either side of him. His eyebrows rose. “What are you—” he started.
Then I bent my head and kissed him.
Laurie responded instantly, his hands pressing to the small of my back.
He pulled me so close that our chests smashed together.
He tasted as good as I remembered. My tongue moved with his as if we’d done this a thousand times before, but it wasn’t enough, it never was with Laurie.
Our breathing became ragged and his fingers were tangled in my hair now, touching me with that hint of roughness I liked so much, as if he was claiming me.
As if this was the last chance we’d ever get, and he intended to make the most of it.
But eventually, I pulled back. I sighed through my nose, my entire body moving with the breath. My mouth felt deliciously swollen. “Collith …”
“It’s okay. He knows, and it’s okay,” Laurie murmured, arching his head back. One of his rings flashed as he tucked my hair behind my shoulder.
I gave him a bemused look. “Good to know, but I meant that we should tell him I’m okay.”
“Already done.” Laurie held up his phone as proof. But Collith could still come back any second, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for—
Laurie’s palms skimmed up my bare thighs, pushing up the dress.
While his erection pressed against the thin material of my thong, he reached up and undid my buttons.
His tongue and lips teased and explored the skin he exposed, little by little, as he pulled the front of the dress open.
Open air whispered over my breasts. Laurie cupped one of them, thumbing my nipple through the thin lace of the bra he’d given me, while his other hand slipped downward.
I bit my lip and held his shoulders tighter.
“I need to be inside you,” Laurie breathed against my chest. A moment later, I felt his fingers slide along the wet folds of my labia. “Let me be inside you, Fortuna.”
A helpless sound escaped me. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to ride Laurie in a way I hadn’t done for so long. I wanted to watch the ecstasy fill his eyes while I brought him to the brink, then back again in a torturous rhythm, just like he’d done to me.
Laurie must’ve smelled my arousal, or maybe my thoughts were shining nakedly from my eyes. The look he gave me made liquid pool between my legs. “Dirty little Nightmare,” he said huskily.
And I knew, then, that I was about to give in. But just as Laurie was on the verge of slipping his fingers inside me, my eyes shot open. In a jolting rush, my arousal was replaced by panic. By an inexplicable urge that didn’t feel entirely like my own.
“Paper,” I said urgently, getting off Laurie. I hurried to fix my underwear and fasten my dress. “I need paper!”
“Do you really need that right now?” he asked, his voice strained.
“Yes.” I hurried over to the piano, where everything Laurie had pushed onto the floor still lay scattered.
I snatched up the pen I’d spotted when it had fallen.
I whirled around, about to search the entire suite, and I drew up short with a startled sound.
Standing right in front of me, Laurie wordlessly held out a sketchpad.
“Thank you.” I didn’t spare him a glance as I flipped it open. I set it down on the piano, clicked the pen, and began to draw.
“What’s going on?”
Collith had returned. I still didn’t look up, and Laurie’s voice floated across the room, followed by the clink of a spoon against china. “Fortuna has been struck with the all-consuming need to do an impression of Picasso, evidently.”
Soft footsteps rippled through the stillness, and then Collith’s enticing scent teased my senses. He didn’t say anything, but I felt his silent concern. The scratch of my pen filled the air between us.
“I think when Michael died, I didn’t just get his memories. I got a message from him,” I muttered as I drew, my movements abrupt and frantic. The images in my head were already fading. Soon they’d be completely gone.
It wasn’t a map, exactly, but that was the closest thing I could think of.
There were no notes on it. No keys or discernible reason it should hold significance for us.
Just a bunch of lines and shapes, some of which weren’t even connected.
But I knew, I just knew in my gut that these images meant something.
It hadn’t been an accident, me getting Michael’s memories.
In his final moments, the angel had been trying to help us. He’d interfered.
“What is that?” Collith asked. Laurie came over to the piano, holding his teacup, and peered down at the sketchpad.
A frown pulled at his pouty mouth and there was no recognition in his eyes.
Apparently they were just as lost as I was.
I felt my heart sink at the realization.
Part of me had hoped something would make sense to them.
“I don’t know,” I said finally. I kept staring down at the lines of ink.
After a few seconds, it clicked—there was something missing.
A slight difference from one of the images in my head to what I’d put on paper.
This one was more vivid than the rest, and maybe it was because I’d been there before.
As a kid, with my parents, on the last road trip we’d ever taken together.
Yet another coincidence? Or had it been another one of those “nudges” Michael had mentioned?
Leaning forward again, I drew the last shape on the map. It was a place. A landmark called Teter Rock. I still had the picture of my family standing in front of it. I’d looked at that rock countless times over the years.
Once I was finished drawing it, I leaned back and smiled at Collith and Laurie. “I better get that shift covered. Lucifer may have the location of the grave now, but he’s not the only one,” I said.
Laurie’s eyebrows rose. “You mean …”
I nodded. Triumph raced through my veins, headier than any drug, and it made my heart pound so hard I knew they could hear it. “I know where they are.”