"Why is this place safe when the other was not?"
"It just is." He leaned against the car. "When you grow up here, you can tell the difference."
Gabriel pulled his hair out of the rubber band. Flipping over his hair, he shook it out and Loraine's heart stuttered at the sight. If she'd thought it looked amazing pulled back, it was nothing compared to how it looked loose.
Long and silky, it fell past his shoulders. She'd thought it was dark brown but now dry she could see it was all kinds of shades. Some of it was a deep brunet but most of it was auburn or chestnut colored.
Tying his hair back up, he met her gaze and she felt her cheeks heat. He knew she stared at him. Quickly, she looked at the ground. This was a man in a deeply committed relationship with a woman—Alexa—that he had known since they were babies. For all Loraine knew, they were married, even though he didn't wear a wedding ring. Not all men did or maybe he'd had it off for some reason while he'd worked on the dock of his house.
Without another word, she walked back to the driver's side of the car and slid into the seat. Turning the key in the ignition, she pumped up the air conditioning. Her body had already formed a layer of sweat from the heat outside. At least she hoped it was the hot weather that had done it and that she hadn't broken out in perspiration just by looking at Gabriel's hair.
If that was the case, she was going to take one of her coworker's advice and 'just go get laid' at the next possible opportunity because clearly she was hard up. Pushing down the rearview mirror, she looked at herself in its reflective glass. Mostly, she didn't want to be tempted to look at Gabriel as he pulled off his clothes on the side of the street.
Her own hair was a royal mess. Always frizzy, the curls were everywhere today. That was due to the humidity that was wreaking havoc on her body. But, it was also probably because she was just perpetually in disarray.
Some women were born glamorous. Loraine knew she'd been born to look like she'd just been through a tornado. It didn't really matter what she did, her appearance became chaotic again about ten minutes after she dressed.
If she put on eye makeup, it ran down the side of her face and she wound up resembling a raccoon. If she tried a new haircut, her curls would go wild and she'd look like what her grandmother called 'who did it and ran'. All in all, the best she could do was to cover her eyes with contacts and leave her hair free with her face untouched by a makeup brush. It was simpler and less disappointing.
She heard Gabriel dump his clothes into the trunk before closing it and walked to the front passenger door. Wrapped in the blanket, he shooed Futon to the back—who went, which surprised Loraine to no end—then climbed in next to her.
"Loraine," the way he said her name made shivers travel up her body. If she wasn't careful, she was going to end up one of those sad movie heroines who pathetically fell in love with every man who spoke to her.
"Yes?" Her voice hitched and she hoped he didn't notice but he probably did.
"Thank you and Futon for coming to my rescue. I don't think I fucking said thank you and even I know to do that. You could have, probably should have, let me drown."
She swallowed. "I'm not sure why we had to come get you, but Futon said we did. Over the years, I've learned to trust in his judgment. He doesn't often tell me what to do. Anyway, I'm glad we could help and I'll be happy to drop you off with Alexa before we leave."
She was proud of herself for not saying Alexa's name with the sneer in which she thought it.
Of course, she had no idea where they were going to go after dropping him off, having just quit her job to go rescue Gabriel and join some kind of war.
Her passenger seemed to be thinking about something. He'd leaned his head against his window and chewed on his lower lip. She wished she could kiss him.
Following the direction the GPS gave her, she pulled back out into traffic narrowly avoiding hitting another car.
"Hell," Gabriel cursed. "You almost fucking hit that guy."
"I know." She sighed. "I'm a very bad driver."
"Obviously." Surprisingly, Gabriel smiled, one side of his mouth smirking into a sideways grin. "At least you can admit it. Are you going to kill us or should I drive?"
"We'll make it there in one piece." She hoped.
He nodded like he believed her. "Let me ask you something, Miss I-can-speak to-that-dog, have you ever heard of people called the Outsiders?"
She wanted to be annoyed at the name he'd just called her, but Futon's head had darted up in the backseat when Gabriel had said 'Outsiders' so she decided it was better to just let it go.
"I can speak to all animals. Futon just speaks about the most interesting things and, no, who are the Outsiders?"
"I have this problem." Gabriel sighed. "I don't know what the rules are. I want to tell you this story except I need to make sure I'm allowed."
She had no idea what he talked about still she nodded like she did. Who was he going to check with? Alexa? "All right, well if you can tell me, I'd be happy to listen."
Truth was, with his melodic low voice she'd be happy to hear him read aloud the ingredients on the side of a canned soup.
"Do you have a cell phone I could borrow?"
"I do," she started to turn around to get it.
He grabbed the steering wheel. "You drive and keep your eyes on the road. Is your phone in your purse?"
She gripped the wheel and turned her gaze back to the street. He was right but it pissed her off. "Yes."
"I'll get it." He leaned over the center console, brushing her arm as he did and giving her a full on view of his firm backside. She rubbed her nose. Eyes on the road. Eyes on the road.
He sat back down in his seat and buckled his seatbelt. "Do you mind if I call Maine?"
Maine? She thought Alexa was wherever they were going. "Go ahead. I have a nationwide calling plan."
He nodded, flipping open her phone to dial.
Eyes on the road, Loraine, remember he has Alexa. He doesn't want you.
The thought made her sad but it was important to remember. Whatever her journey was, it wasn't going to include drop dead gorgeous Gabriel Ward. No matter how much she wished it could.
Chapter Three
Sebastian slammed his hands down on the wood desk in what had been his 'father's' study when the annoying man had actually been alive. He blew out a breath. How hard was it to kill Gabriel? He'd sent a tidal wave. It should have done the trick. He'd even gone so far as to stop the infuriating Outsider from being able to move his legs.
Standing, he cursed aloud knowing Alexa wasn't home to hear him display his temper. His power had grown exponentially since the removal of his sister from this plane of existence three months earlier. It seemed, for some unknown magical reason, or at least not one that he knew, that he had inherited her power when the Outsiders had expelled her.
All in all, his sister was going to end up being the reason the prophecy came to pass. He'd always hated that stupid thing, but rules were rules and even evil rulers of the universe had to follow some of them.
It had seemed simple enough thirty years earlier. The prophecy stated that eighteen children would be born to the Outsiders on the same day; each with a soul mate, and together those eighteen would come together to destroy a child, who was really a demon, also born on the same day. The Outsiders had been born and, boom, so had Sebastian.
The hows and whys that had taken place to actually let it happen were a bit more complicated and even he couldn't have predicted them. He'd been biding his time in the hell dimension, knowing that he'd been prophesied to come to Earth. He hadn't known this would exactly be when the stupid Outsiders, the ones who would turn out to be the parents of this current batch of prophesied children, had tried to usurp the prophecy by calling him to earth and binding him using Earth magic.
The imbeciles had screwed up the spell.
In fact, if he wasn't mistaken, it was Gabriel's mother who had uttered the words that had ultimately let Sebastian escap
e his bonds and take the body of a human baby waiting to be born. Nine months later, there he was squealing and eating in New Orleans, Louisiana while thousands of miles away the very thing the Outsiders had tried to stop took place with eighteen babies coming all at once.
It was the ultimate irony. By trying to stop the inevitable, they had made it come to pass ahead of its intended schedule.
Gone were the days when he tried to capture the Outsiders. From this day on, he was strong enough to kill them. Any Outsider he found, died. He'd lock them in his basement and bleed them. That way he could drink their blood. Starting with Gabriel and eventually ending with Alexa. That was, of course, after he fucked her. Yes, he looked forward to that day as well.
* * * *
Leonardo looked down at his phone display and debated not answering the ringing. He didn't recognize the number. Drumming his fingers on the kitchen counter, he finally picked up, hoping he didn't regret it. In no way did he want to have to deal with a telemarketer or someone trying to gauge his political views.
"This is Leonardo." He found an abrupt greeting like that tended to put off people who didn't really want to speak to him.
"It's Gabe."
"Gabe?" Leonardo looked at the caller ID again and it wasn't Gabriel's usual number, not even his area code. "What number are you calling me from?"
"Loraine's." Gabriel paused.
Who the hell was Loraine?
"Listen, I need to ask you something."
"Shoot."
Leonardo had one goal when it came to Gabriel, and it was to get him up to their island base in Maine. It was pivotal that they find their missing kin and bring them home. The prophecy, which Leonardo really needed to study more and couldn't until he located their deceased leader, Abraxas's journals, seemed to be very clear: all the Outsiders needed to be joined as a unit and with their soul mates. Otherwise, the whole thing was going to go to hell.
Well, he amended silently, maybe they were already in hell. Maybe hell had started the day they were born. Gabriel was making him crazy because they'd found him, they knew who he was, and he still resisted coming home.
Gabriel's voice sounded tight. "What is the rule about telling other people about, you know."
"In general, it's a bad idea." He paused as he reconsidered the question. "Who do you want to tell?"
"Loraine."
The conversation was getting way too cryptic for Leonardo's taste. "Is she sitting there with you? Is that why you're speaking in code?"
"Exactly."
"Who is Loraine?"
There was a long pause on the other side of the line, and Leonardo wondered if Gabe had hung up. "She saved me from a giant tidal wave that nearly killed me after my legs stopped working."
"What?" Leonardo shouted into the phone.
"Fuck man, that's my ear here. I don't need you yelling at me. There's one more thing about Loraine."
Leonardo thought he heard a woman's voice saying something on the other end. He couldn't make out what she said, but she clearly wasn't happy if her tone was any indication.
"She thinks she, or maybe that is to say she believes, she can talk to her dog."
"Hold please." Leonardo took the phone from his ear.
One of two things was happening here. A crazy person had either saved Gabriel or he'd stumbled onto one of their kin. Stranger things had happened. Kal, one of the Outsiders Leonardo had grown up with, and Isabelle, Kal's soul mate who been raised thinking she was human, found each other when they collided in the woods. They'd been the first soul mate pair to reunite since Abraxas had separated all eighteen Outsiders during a botched spell.
Charma, one of the other Outsiders Leonardo had lived with during his childhood, had freed her soul mate from a mental institution where he'd been trapped in his own mind by a demon. They'd also located another Outsider at that time named, Eden, who had also been in the mental institution in New Jersey.
So it was entirely possible this Lorraine person was one of them but he wanted more information before he agreed. He needed to see Eden now.
Bellowing at the top of his lungs, since the newly discovered member of their group couldn't yet speak telepathically to him, he ran up two flights of stairs to the library where she was supposed to be training with another Outsider, Marina.
"Eden!" he screamed as he walked through the door. Both women, who had been sitting doing what looked decidedly like drinking coffee and not training, rose as he pushed through the door.
Marina spoke first. "Why are you shouting?"
He ignored Marina's remark and turned to Eden. "I need you."
She nodded. The tall woman with the golden eyes moved forward. "What can I do?"
"I need you to use your power of foresight and tell me if it's okay for Gabriel," he held up the phone to indicate Gabe was on it, "to tell this woman Loraine, who he is with, about the Outsiders."
Eden looked down at the floor. "It doesn't work like that. I have no control over what I see and what I don't see. I'm not in the driver's seat. I'm only a passenger."
Leonardo huffed. That was not what he wanted to hear. "Try. I'll help you. I'm a power enhancer."
Marina held up her hand. "If you do that you're going to bring on a vision she might not be able to get out of, and you can't guarantee it'll be about Gabriel."
He wanted to punch a wall. "Then, what would you recommend?"
"Let me take a look."
What did she mean by that? Marina was always coming up with new things she could do. She could spell cast, she could read energies, track them, use them… the list was becoming endless.
He could feel her power push against his. She wanted assistance to send her energy to Gabe's location. Damn it, couldn't she just ask and say please? Gritting his teeth against what felt like an invasion of his privacy, he joined his power to hers, making her stronger.
He put the phone to his ear. "Marina is checking her out."
"She's pretty mad at me for telling you about the dog thing. I told her you're used to odd stuff."
"You have no idea." Leonardo covered the phone with his hand so Gabriel couldn't hear what he said. Odd stuff didn't begin to describe the things Leonardo was getting 'used to'.
Marina grabbed his arm. "She's one of us."
He nodded. That's what he'd hoped.
Marina continued speaking. "And she's his."
"She is? You can tell for sure?"
"Their energies are the same."
Removing his hand, Leonardo spoke into the phone. "She's an Outsider. Tell her." He clicked the phone shut, hanging up on Gabriel.
Marina narrowed her eyes at him as Eden stepped forward putting her hands on her hips.
Marina spoke first although he could tell Eden wanted to. "Why didn't you let him know she was his soul mate?"
"That's for them to figure out."
Eden cocked her head to the side as she studied him. "Since when are you the romantic?"
He shrugged. Now that his task was complete the last thing he wanted to do was hang out in this room being interrogated by a woman who couldn't control her powers and another one who was currently so bitter about the opposite sex after being slighted by her soul mate, Drew, that she could hardly see straight.
"I'm not. It just makes sense to let these things play themselves out. Gabe doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who wants a lot of interference in his life. I can't even get him to visit. He's not going to thank us for telling him what he should and should not do with his love life. He might even rail against it just to be obstinate."
Marina crossed her arms over her chest. "Do you manage all of us like that?"
"I wish I didn't have to. We do, after all, have a life and death prophecy coming true all around us. What I need to be doing is finding Abraxas's journals, not interfering in the mating rituals of my kin."
He knew he'd opened himself up for Marina to make a rude remark the second he heard himself utter the words.
"Jealous?"
r /> But he hadn't been expecting that. "No," he shook his head. "Frustrated. You," he pointed at Eden. "Get your powers under control. None of us get to be at half power. Fate didn't give you the ability to see the future if it didn't expect you to learn how to use it."
Eden's eyes flared. "That's not fair. I've only been using my powers for three months. Before that, I strained not to use them."
"Life's not fair. You're an Outsider. It sucks. Get over it." He whirled around to stare at Marina. "And you, get your soul mate back here. Whatever you did to drive him away, undo it."
Marina, who he knew was much more likely to throttle him than Eden, fisted her hands at her side. "I didn't do anything."
"Figure it out."
He walked out of the room knowing he'd just taken his temper out on two people who didn't deserve it. Who the hell had appointed him the keeper of everyone's problems? They were supposed to be eighteen individuals, paired off in groups of nine, each helping to defeat the demon. It wasn't supposed to be Leonardo scrambling around trying to pick up the pieces of everyone's dysfunctional life.
Gabriel needed to come home. Enough was enough already.
* * * *
Dr. Christophe Roux cracked his knuckles over the tray table in the first-class cabin he currently sat in on his trip across the Atlantic. They'd taken off from Charles de Gaulle Airport just one hour earlier so, even if they caught a good tailwind, he had at least another five hours until they landed at JFK. He sat back and tried to relax.
"Nervous flyer?"
The little old lady who sat next to him had been looking for an excuse to make conversation since they'd taken off. She didn't speak French, that much he could tell, and the flight attendants had a good amount of laughter at her expense after she'd tried when they first boarded. Really, such gauche behavior from the staff in first class was beyond ridiculous. If the woman had understood what they'd said, she'd be furious.