Chapter Three
Never Again
Claire whirled toward the tall blond stranger who stood only a few inches shorter than Mike. His eyes were brown, I noticed. It should have been difficult to pick out such a minute detail so quickly. The fact that the man was wide-eyed in the face of what we all around here typically referred to as "the wrath of Claire," helped a great deal.
Yes a nice deep, dark chocolate brown, I reflected with mild curiosity. Beside me, Claire was now rigid and reaching for her knife, but I was calm-other than surprise and concern for whatever it was that had her freaking out. I wasn't afraid of the stranger. No hint of danger swirled in the air around us and neither Mark nor Mike seemed to be the least bit fazed by the blond man's presence.
No, clearly he had been invited into the home and as such, posed little to no threat. Besides, I smirked when the man held both hands up, palm out, in a wordless plea to Claire, this guy was scared enough on his own.
I watched her eyes narrow and her grip tighten around the pearl handle of her unsheathed knife. Then I glanced back to the blond's pale face. Beside me, Claire practically radiated tension and looked like she was ready to spring. Mike sidestepped neatly, easily placing himself between his livid sister and the man.
"What is he doing here?" Claire hissed without releasing her grip on the weapon.
"Please calm down and listen," Mike soothed while Mark stepped up behind Claire and placed his hands lightly on her shoulders. He leaned forward and whispered something in her ear that I couldn't quite make out, but in the next instant her tense stance relaxed. She didn't release the knife but let the tip drop a little lower; it was almost facing the floor of the porch now. I let my gaze drift back to Mike and the stranger, intensely curious.
"He's with us," Mike began, and boy wasn't that the wrong choice of words to lead with.
"He's what?" Claire growled. "Get out of my way, Mike. Where are my children?" She took a step toward the blond man. "If you've done anything to my family-"
"Claire, baby." Mark wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the floor by an inch or two while she struggled and kicked out. Her face was twisted in rage and beneath that?fear. A deep, churning fear.
"Who is he?" I asked.
Claire's struggles ceased just long enough for her to lock eyes with me. "I don't know his name, but he's one of John's hired goons from back home. Before I came here the first time, I found this one lurking in my house with some other criminals. In the dark. He'd been sent there to kill me and he would have if I hadn't shot him." She took a deep breath and hot color infused her cheeks. "I'm only sorry I didn't kill him that night." Her struggles resumed anew and I rounded on Mike with a sense of disbelief.
"Have you lost your mind?" I demanded.
"No." He was firm. "Claire, I know how this looks. I know this looks bad, but hear me out."
"No," she snapped. Mark remained silent but continued to hold her firmly in his grip.
"Aw, hell." Mike sighed. "He saved Megan."
This news actually succeeded in stopping Claire's struggles and even rendered her speechless for a second. The moment didn't last. "What do you mean he saved Megan? Didn't you just hear what I said? He tried to kill me. How could you bring him here?"
"If you would just take a minute and calm down, I'm trying to explain it to you," Mike said, clearly exasperated.
"Fine." Claire forced the word through gritted teeth and glared at the man beyond her brother.
"Earl Atkins came after us." Mike exhaled and his eyes became almost glacial. "And by us I mean he came after Megan. He cornered her in her garage when she'd returned home from a doctor's appointment in Seattle."
The blood seemed to drain from Claire's face but she remained silent and went as still as a statue.
"Carl-the man standing beside me-"
"The hitman," Claire interrupted.
Mike looked pained and opened his mouth only to have the man, Carl, speak up in a quiet, reserved tone.
"It's all right, Mike."
"You're damn right it's all right," Claire snapped. "First of all, you're in my house. Oh wait, you were in my house the last time, too, weren't you? The night you tried to murder me for money."
"Lady, if I'd wanted to murder you, you would be dead right now." The words were spoken in a very matter-of-fact way, without malice.
Mark and Claire didn't seem to see it that way. Mark's hands tightened reflexively against the honeyed skin of Claire's arms and he leaned forward to speak over her shoulder with a low snarl. "Watch how you talk to my wife. I agreed to let you step into my home, I agreed to let you live, but don't push me."
"I meant no disrespect." Carl eyed the larger man with a guarded expression. "I only meant I've never missed a shot in my life. I don't know why I took that job, the hit on your wife?but I had no intention of killing her. The thought of it made me sick and that's the truth."
"If you did anything to my sister-"
"He didn't do anything to Megan," Mike interjected, looking warily from Mark to Carl. "That's what I've been trying to tell you, Claire. John tried to recruit him for another hit on our family. There's a price on all our heads?but there's fifty grand hanging over Megan."
"Sweet Lord," Claire gasped.
"Yeah." Mike's lips thinned. "Carl refused the job but felt guilty over taking the job on you year before last so he did some snooping around on his own."
"Uh-huh." Claire folded her arms across her chest and began to lightly tap the flat edge of her knife against her forearm. "Go on, I'm listening."
"I made contact with Earl." Carl skirted around Mike in order to face Claire and Mark and me. He addressed himself to Claire. "I knew when he was planning to do the job on your sister."
"You mean when he was going to murder my sister. My pregnant sister." The look she gave him and the emphasis she placed on the word told him exactly what she thought of him and his profession.
"Yes." Carl nodded and kept his tone even.
"So, Earl not only admitted to you that he was about to commit a murder but he told you when he was going to do it?" Claire's brows snapped together.
"Earl wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed." Carl shrugged. "The point is, I knew when he was planning to kill your sister. I got to her house before he did. I was already waiting inside when he tried to ambush her in the garage. I stopped him."
"You mean you killed him."
"Yes," Carl sighed.
The silence that followed was thick, tense.
Beside me, Claire drew in a breath. "Was Megan?hurt? At all?"
"No," Mike hastily reassured his sister. "She's fine."
"Yeah." Claire huffed out a breath. "She's fine. Sure she is. She's only about to have a baby and survived an attempt on her life-when? When did this happen?"
"Two days before we left for Africa and crossed the portal," Mike answered. "Carl stayed with her, and us, the entire way. In fact, he never let Megan out of his sight."
"Is that so?" Claire sized up the man again and glanced at me with a raised brow and a thousand questions lurking in the faint shadows beneath her eyes. I shrugged and finally nodded. She sighed and leaned down to sheath her knife. Straightening, she took a step forward, stuck out her hand and said a very grudging "thank you" to Carl.
I thought he looked pretty shocked at Claire's acceptance, or at least her willingness to hold off on stabbing him. Under the circumstances, I thought it was best to reserve judgment on Carl. The fact that he was a hitman didn't sit well with me. Still, I didn't get the same ice creeping down my spine feeling when I looked at Carl that I did whenever I'd been face to face with Kahn's army of guards. Hell, whenever I so much as thought of Kahn's guards. To be fair, the fact that Carl had never been actively out to kill me probably had something to do with it.
"So." Claire rocked on her heels and reached back to cover one of Mark's hands with her own. "You haven't left my sister's side in four days? How's Juan taking th
at?" When no one answered right away, she narrowed her eyes on her brother. "Mike. What have you done with Juan?"
"I didn't do anything to Juan."
"Hey, don't look at me. He was already gone by the time I got there," Carl insisted when Claire's eyes cut immediately to him.
"He left her," Mike said softly.
"He what? What do you mean he left her?" Claire sucked in a breath and shook her head. I shifted closer to the left, until our arms were almost touching. She looked like she wanted to draw her dagger again. "He can't leave her. She's having his baby, for God's sake. She's due any day now. What was he thinking?" she demanded. She looked stricken as she stared up at her brother.
Mike looked pained as well. "He said it was all too much for him."
"The baby?" Claire's brow furrowed.
"Not exactly. I believe he was referring to crossing the portal and coming here. Although, you'll have to get the full story from Megan when she wakes up in the morning. Juan was pretty agitated when he took off and half of his muttering was in Spanish. I heard the words loca and vamanos several times, if that's any indication."
Claire winced. "Poor Megan." She finally sighed. "She's lost her home and survived an attempt on her life and now she's lost her husband, too. Is she really okay, Mike?"
"She's holding her own. But she's pretty shook up. She cries a lot."
"What are we going to do?"
"I don't know. Maybe later on, when things calm down, we can go back and try to find Juan, convince him to come back with us and at least talk to Megan."
I cocked my head to the side and glanced at Carl to gauge his reaction to Mike's plan to try and reason with Megan's husband.
Carl gave little outward indication that he had even heard the exchange between Claire and Mike, but he gazed off into the distance for several long moments before he caught me staring at him. I raised a brow and something flashed in the depths of his brown eyes before he hastily looked away again. I thought so. Oh yeah, there was definitely going to be trouble there.
"Well, damn," Claire swore and moved to stand next to her brother. "I don't like it but I suppose that's as good a plan as any." She zeroed in on Carl. "Don't think for one damn minute that you are sleeping under the same roof with my family. The road's about a mile that way. Thank you for saving my sister's life. It almost makes up for you trying to take mine. Goodnight."
"He saved her again, all of us, in Africa, Claire. We were ambushed near the caves. It's a miracle we made it here, really." Mike rubbed the space between his eyes and sighed.
Claire was quiet and still for so long that I didn't think she was going to respond at all, but then her shoulders slumped and she muttered a resigned curse. "You can bunk down with the soldiers. Mark," she turned back to her husband, "would you-"
"Yes." He nodded. "Come on, Carl, I'll show you where the bunkhouses are."
"Thank you," the blond man said simply and inclined his head to the rest of us before he followed Mark down the wide steps of the porch and out into the night.
"What a night." Claire exhaled, hands on her hips. "Come on, Aries, let's go pig out. I need some serious comfort food right now. You coming, Mike?"
"Not yet. I want to have a word with Aries," he told her without taking his gaze from mine. His expression could only be called tender. Oh man.
Claire paused in the middle of the doorway, one foot over the threshold. "Oh. Right. Ari?"
"I'll be along in a few minutes," I managed with a curt nod. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was face Mike, alone. Then again, there was a small-tiny, really-piece of me that wanted nothing more.
But I had a name for the little voice that reared her head from time to time. She was dumb bitch Aries and it didn't pay to listen to her-ever-and with good reason. She didn't have a lick of sense, plain and simple. She never used her head. She wanted too much, needed too much. She hurt too much and she longed for things that were?impossible.
Mike was suddenly in front of me and dumb bitch Aries was practically swooning. Gathering resolve around me like a cloak, I took her firmly in hand and told her to shut up. Then I shoved Mike's hand off of my face.
"Aries?" His eyes widened.
"If you want to talk then we'll talk but let's get one thing straight right now. I want you to keep your hands to yourself."
"You want?" he uttered, still wearing that same look of confusion. His eyes focused on me intently and this time they traveled the full journey, from the top of my head all the way down to the dark boots with the blackened silver buckles as if he were seeing me, truly seeing me, for the first time. He paused noticeably over the lace mesh top and cargo pants. I knew the exact moment he spotted the knife strapped to my right thigh. His eyes became orbs and flashed back to my face.
That's right, I thought harshly, things have changed since you've been here last. I continued to defiantly stare him down and he didn't voice any of the questions that I knew he was dying to fire at me. Apparently, he was willing enough to humor me, for the time being at least.
"Okay." After a moment, he nodded. "Okay, then. I've missed you," he added quietly.
"Let's walk down the yard a bit." I exhaled and wrapped my arms around my waist, shivering a little even though the night air wasn't particularly cold.
Mike frowned. "We're safer here, Aries."
I glanced over my shoulder at him, surprised by his reluctance to move from the porch, until I remembered Mike had a tendency to live on the wrong side of paranoia. I didn't laugh at him or point out that if anything dangerous lurked about, the porch, especially lit up as it was, provided a dubious shelter at best. All I said was, "This porch is shining like high noon and it's beginning to give me a headache."
"Yes, it is rather bright, isn't it?" Mike looked thoroughly impressed. "I wonder what wattage these bulbs are?"
"Look," I heaved a sigh, "if you want to talk, then follow me out into the front yard. If not, then tell Claire I'll see her in the morning."
One muffled curse and a few stomps later, Mike was striding down the porch steps and into the relative semi-darkness of the yard.
I walked clear to the edge of the driveway before stopping and turning around to face him. He came to rest a few feet away and glanced nervously at the tree line beside us.
"I don't think this is a good idea."
"Relax, it's fine. There are over a hundred men in the bunkhouses behind the main house and almost three hundred more clustered in and near the safehouses in the woods surrounding the property. There's no safer place to be right now and besides, our fences are still holding strong. Nothing's getting in here. Not tonight, anyway." I purposely neglected to remind him that crime of the everyday two-legged average citizen variety was still alive and well.
Really, petty crime around here wasn't all that common and residents committing violent crime on one another was downright rare, even if overall crime had increased proportionally with the recent population swell. Still, we were safe enough, I reasoned, so there was no good reason to make Mike any more edgy than he already was.
He was mute for so long I'd begun to think he'd given up on his plan to talk to me. But then he ran his fingers through his hair and the words "my God, Aries, what happened?" burst forth like a dam breaking.
I wasn't sure if he meant Terlain or me so I decided to assume he'd been referring to my homeland. It was the easier question to answer and that was sure as hell saying something. "This place looks a little different than you remember, huh?" I shook my head and toed the ground with the tip of my boot before looking at him again.
"A little?" He gave a short, harsh bark of laughter. "For a minute there, I thought we'd landed in the wrong alternate universe," he muttered.
"Are there more?"
"God, I hope not."
"Well." I shrugged. "Anyway, this place is pretty torn up." I sighed. "It's been a long year."
"When did all this happen?" Mike asked, gesturing with one hand to the forest and, mo
re specifically, to what lay beyond.
"Not long after you and Claire and Ashley left Terlain. Kahn found a way to breach the protective barriers of the fences. At least, we think Kahn is responsible. So far no one has been able to figure out exactly how he managed it. But who else would have, and could have, done such a thing?"
"I don't know. I can't think of anyone right offhand." Mike frowned.
"Neither can I. Although, I've got to admit that if our people have a more formidable enemy than Kahn, at this point I'm not certain I even want to know. But back to the fences-they began to fail one afternoon just as the sun was setting?"
I swallowed and gazed off into the woods beside us. "The fence panels on the Lerna boundary were the first to go." I bit my lip. "There were a handful of survivors, the few people who were on the outskirts of town, the northern edge, when the attack came. Those people had time to run, to get away, but the rest of them," I broke off, shaking my head and feeling an acute ache in my throat as pressure began to build behind my eyes. "There wasn't time to get away."
"Were you there?" Mike took a hesitant step toward me.
I took a deep breath and retreated a step and he halted his sympathetic pursuit. I knew I had to get a hold of myself and fast. It was just that, even after all these months, talking about Lerna was still a little like ripping the scab off a partially healed wound.
So I stood there in my combat boots and lace underwear and focused on one breath in, one breath out until the bleeding stopped and it was safe to go on. "Not during the attack. I showed up?after. Tara and Juliette and I were part of a rescue team that went in the next day, at first light. It was the soonest anybody could-" I sucked in another lungful of air.
"The only thing we recovered that day were bodies," I bit out, refusing to feel guilty when Mike flinched at the brash talk. Lately, some of the other nymphs, and Juliette in particular, seemed to be constantly chastising me for using what Juliette dubbed my angry voice.
And yeah, my tone was bitter right then, but I didn't give a damn. Rage beat the hell out of despair any day of the week. Rage didn't paralyze you in its tenacious grip. It didn't turn you into a victim.
I thought back to that nightmarish day and welcomed the anger that rushed clean and bright through my veins, bringing with it a hot tide of warmth that energized me and shook loose the last remnants of a fear I'd sooner die than confess.
"God, Aries, I'm so sorry. I wish?"
That it hadn't happened? That you'd been here? Yeah, so did I. Once. The words flitted through my mind but I didn't dare speak them out loud. Instead I shrugged and rocked back on the heels of my boots.
"It is what it is. So?that's how I know the residents of Lerna hardly had time to panic. People lay in the streets, slumped over their kitchen tables, on their sofas. Most of them were just sort of frozen in whatever it was they had been doing before the attack. Like they'd heard a loud noise and then the front door had crashed open and those-things-were upon them before they really had time to react. At least that's our theory. We could be wrong, of course, since there aren't any eyewitnesses to contradict us, but only a handful of people showed defensive wounds on their hands." I shook my head and kicked at a few leaves that skittered along the ground between us. "By nightfall, we had evacuated maybe a third of the town when we realized we weren't alone."
Mike took another small step forward. "What was it?"
"Retrievers. They were hidden throughout the town, especially in the residential sections. More bodies," I added when Mike raised a brow. "They had been hiding, watching us, and when the sun set they filled the streets and attacked. Several search and rescue were killed. There wasn't much to do but run, at that point."
"Your family? Were they?"
"No," I answered. "None of the nymphs were harmed that day. We're faster than the dogs." My chin came up a notch.
"The warriors who met us today said Lerna is secured now. The beasts don't try to come back?" Mike wanted to know.
"Retrievers? No." I tossed a section of black hair over my shoulder. "Once the food supply was exhausted there wasn't any reason for them to stay and they haven't been back. The main problem now is the coatyl. They keep trying to get into the abandoned houses. But we're holding our own. So far." I shrugged.
"What are coatyl?" Mike frowned and leaned in close.
"Things to stay away from," I retorted.
Over the past several minutes Mike had been invading my personal space by small degrees and I just now noticed how close he was standing.
"Okay."
I watched his chest rise and fall with each breath he took and knew it was past time for me to put an end to the night and walk away. I didn't at all like the way he was suddenly staring at me. His eyes didn't waver from my own and I felt off-balance, too warm.
"Goodnight," I said abruptly, spun around, then began the long trek down the driveway, only to be pulled to a halt a second later.
"No." Mike's face was harsh in the moonlight. "Don't run away from me. Please. I need to tell you, to explain, why I had to leave. Then, if you still want to leave, you can. Okay?" His expression softened infinitesimally when I tried to jerk my arm out of his grasp but his fingers didn't loosen. I felt my temper start to rise.
"I know why you had to leave. Claire explained that a long time ago. The only thing you could possibly have to say now is why you stayed away. But I guess I already know the answer to that question, too," I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my tone. "Let go of my arm. Now."
Mike shook his head. "I'm sorry but no, I can't do that."
"You had damn well better do that." It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to stay calm and refrain from screaming at him, the stubborn jackass. "I am seriously beginning to wonder what the fuck I ever saw in you," I snapped, forcing myself to save what dignity I had left and not engage in a useless struggle, but I took some satisfaction in the way Mike's eyes grew wide, the way his nostrils flared with his sharp intake of breath at my newfound curse words.
"Well, that wasn't very nice," he finally murmured and damn him he looked like he was trying not to laugh! His mocking, bemused expression effectively snapped the last threads of my control.
Quick as a striking snake, I twisted down and to the side, and in a matter of seconds the knife that had been sheathed and strapped to my thigh was in the hand that Mike wasn't holding-and it was pressed to his throat.
"Let. Go. Of. Me. Now." I thrust my face close to his and glared at him.
Something flared in his eyes and his fingers tightened around my arm for an instant before, abruptly, he let me go.
His dark gaze was shuttered, wary as he backed up a few steps and regarded me in silence.
"That's right. Things have changed." I've changed. "Don't grab me unless you want me to defend myself."
"Would you have really cut me?"
"Yes," I said automatically, although I wasn't at all certain what I would have done. Was it stupid and dangerous to draw on a man when you couldn't follow through? Sure. But this was Mike. And the truth was, I probably wouldn't have cut him, not that I had any intention of telling him that. Let him think I'd stab him the next time he was fool enough to grab me. It was good for him.
"Okay." He held up both hands. "I don't want you to go. But I won't touch you. All right? Will you stay a while longer? Stay and talk to me. There's so much I want to say to you."
"I don't know that you have anything to say that I'm interested in hearing. And I have to go. I've been on patrol all day and I'm tired."
"Fine. Then I'll see you in the morning." He made the words into a challenge.
"No."
"See? You are running from me."
"I am not running from you. You aren't that intimidating," I snorted. "I'm busy tomorrow morning," I lied.
"That's interesting. Didn't you say you would be by to see Claire in the morning?"
Damn. I had said that, hadn't I? And I did need to see Claire tomorro
w, and Mark as well. We needed to plan the upcoming search and rescue of the coast.
"Look, Claire's husband," he paused and smiled faintly. "That's going to take some getting used to," he muttered. "That my sister is married now. Anyway, Mark told me how close you are to Claire and the kids. He said you're as close as sisters and you practically live here. Don't change on my account. I get that you aren't keen on spending time with me. I think I even understand why. But don't disappear because of me. Please."
"I wasn't planning anything of the sort," I lied and re-sheathed the knife. "Tell your sister that I will see her in the morning."
Mike nodded and before he could say anything else, I turned around and left. Because I didn't want to turn my back on him, though I couldn't say exactly why, I disappeared into the tree line we had been standing next to rather than using the driveway.
One way wasn't necessarily any shorter than the other, although if I'd wanted to fly the distance between Claire and Mark's place and my cabin, the trip would have at least been faster. But I didn't want to fly. I needed the slower pace of walking, the repetitive action of putting one foot in front of the other to give me something to do. I had nervous energy to burn and knew from experience that when I got home I wouldn't sleep, despite the fact that my body desperately needed rest.
No, I would toss and turn and eventually pace the width of my bedroom and replay the night's events ad nauseum. Mike was back. I deftly skirted the gnarled, exposed root of a large brown-and-gold tree and sighed. It was easy enough to understand why he'd returned, but there was no denying things would have been so much simpler if he'd stayed away. Worse, I had the distinct feeling our situation would only become more impossible before this was all over.