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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] the screaming woman and child, every night of every life. Since she'd been a child, she'd felt sorry for herself because she'd lost her parents and dreamed of a great winged beast. Now she wondered how many loved ones he'd lost, how many women he'd cared for and had to let go. Someday, maybe she'd have the courage to ask him, but it wouldn't be tonight. Patrick's eyes finally drifted shut, and Nathan laid him back in his bed and tucked the covers under the little boy's chin. He stepped into the hallway looking more weary than she'd ever seen him. More disturbed. He still wore the clothes he'd had on earlier in the night. His eyes were bleak and shuttered as they scanned the length of her, lingering at the scuffed knees of her jeans, the cut on the heel of her hand. "What are you Page 167 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html doing down here?" "I was on my way out." No sense lying about it. He'd already seen the evidence. "Out, how, exactly?" "Out the window." His arm jerked up and he dragged a hand through his hair. "Jesus, your room is on the seventh floor." She shrugged. "It wasn't one of my brighter ideas." He ran his hand through his hair again, as if he didn't know what else to do with it. She'd never seen him so lost. She felt his pain, his unease vibrating inside her, and it triggered an inexplicable need to comfort. To hold him and take away his hurt, to bury it in her body. To bury him in her body. She tried to quash the rise of awareness inside herself and nodded toward Patrick's closed door. "You were good with him." His eyes darkened. His nostrils flared, and she knew he'd caught the scent of her arousal. Damn the way their libidos trusted each other, shared with each other, even when the rest of them didn't want to. Nathan broke eye contact with her. "He's just a little boy." And you're the monster who holds him when he cries. "You were still good." Suddenly she didn't want to leave this place. She wanted to talk. She wanted to understand. Him. His people. This crazy connection they shared. She needed to know which he was good or evil. Man or monster. She wanted to know why the attraction she felt toward him, the need to be near him so strong it bordered on pain, hadn't gone away even with all she knew. "I need to talk to you," she said. She had lots of questions to ask, of him, and of herself. Raising her hand to his cheek, she let the energy arc between them. Let the warmth of her body, her curiosity, her burgeoning desire flow into him, felt his eddy back into her. It was getting easier to control now, this whatever-it-was between them. Easier to give herself over to it. Images of the two of them together, their slick bodies sliding against each other, flowed into her. She let the mind pictures, the heat of their joining, wash over her, through her, until the current between them stopped abruptly, as if the floodgates had been closed on a dam. Nathan wrapped his fingers around her wrist and lowered her hand. Page 168 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Her heart withered as he looked over her shoulder at the man charging up behind her, the one who'd been outside her door before her escape. "There she is," the man said between heaving breaths. "I've been looking all over. She " "Take her back to her room." Nathan handed her wrist over to the guard, his eyes hard. "This time keep her there. Nail the damned window shut if you have to." Then he walked away from her without a backward glance. Nathan leaned against the doorjamb in Teryn'squarters looking over the text the Wizenot had copied from one of the ancient tomes. Teryn sipped a cup of lemongrass tea. "You'll tell her what we found?" "Not tonight." "She deserves to know." "She's not ready." How could anyone ever be ready, he wondered, to learn that their whole life had been a lie? He shoved his hands in his pockets, shut the image of hurt draining the color from her face when he'd sent her back to her room alone from his mind. "You could send Connor to the congregation in New York." Teryn smiled tiredly. "The two of you really need to stop this feud " Nathan cut off the lecture. "Most of the major cities in the U.S. house at least a small congregation ofLes Gargouillen . New York's is the oldest. And one of the most conservative traditionalist. We might get more answers if someone went in person." "I'm sure the Wizenot in Syracuse is familiar with the use of the telephone. I've already left him a message." He squeezed Nathan's shoulder. "Besides, I'd like to keep everyone close to home right now." Nathan frowned. "The visions?" Teryn hadn't told him exactly what he'd seen, but whatever insight the deities had granted, it troubled the old man. Nathan had never seen him so concerned over a precognition. "Something is coming. I don't know what, or when, or whether what I'm doing might stop it or is the catalyst that brings it on, but something is definitely coming." He squeezed Nathan's shoulder again, and this time his smile didn't look quite so weary. "It's good to have you back, Nathan. We're going to need you soon. I can feel it. I'm going to need you." "You know I can't stay." Page 169 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html "Can't, or won't?" The first hint of irritation rang in Teryn's voice. "Can't, on my terms." He started out the doorway. "Won't, on yours." He left without turning around, not wanting to see the shadow he knew would have fallen over Teryn's hopeful expression. In all the time he'd been away, been excommunicated, nothing had changed between them. He still hurt the old man without even trying. He always hurt the people he loved most. Like Rachel. With the ache inside him spreading cell by cell through his body, Nathan clomped up the stairs to the seventh level, where he paused in the stairwell, leaning his forehead against the cool stone. It was this place, he realized. It brought everything back. Opened the wounds. Made him realize how alone he'd been. He hadn't wanted to fall in love with her. God knew, he'd tried not to. He still didn't want tobe in love with her. His fist joined his forehead against the stone. It was her fault. She'd opened the door to all these emotions, sifting into his mind the way she did. At least now he knew how she did it. Lifting his head, he gave the stairs down to his own room one last look, and opened the door to the seventh floor. Outside her room, he sent the guard he'd posted away with a jerk of his head. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |