Chapter Twelve
Ethan woke in the darkness of early morning. Dawn came late at this time of year. He’d slept unexpectedly well, and felt vital and alert and full of energy.
The reflector device was still on his head; he’d slept in it. Had he thought she might try and invade his dreams? There hadn’t been any.
He pressed the phone on the bedside cabinet that gave him a direct link to the control room. “I’m going for a run. Five minutes.” He got up and dressed in jogging pants and a T-shirt, added a sweatshirt and trainers.
His security team was waiting as the elevator doors opened. They were all dressed in black running gear so they wouldn’t look conspicuous, but he knew they’d all be armed beneath the sweatshirts. The crisp, cold air hit him as he stepped into the street, and he started running, keeping up a steady pace, clearing his mind. He reached the Thames and ran along the embankment, breathing in the salt tang of the river. The streets were quiet this early. He loved the feeling of having the city to himself. Well, him and his three bodyguards, but he’d told the truth last night. He’d gotten so used to them, he could zone them out.
He was heading back, running between two buildings when a sound behind him pulled him to a stop. As he turned, his guards crashed to the ground and lay unmoving.
He went on instant alert. There had been no gunshots, not even the muted sound of a silencer. But all three men were out cold, whether dead or unconscious, he couldn’t say. He stood immobile, waiting for…he had no clue. Was this some sort of kidnapping attempt, a power play within the Conclave? Or an assassination? But if so, why was he still alive? As his mind raced through the possibilities, a woman stepped out of the shadows behind the crumpled forms of his bodyguards. He recognized her immediately as the woman who’d been with Sadie that first night at Forrester’s. Though she didn’t look like a hooker this morning. She was dressed in black jeans, boots, and a black leather jacket. She stood, unmoving, watching him, studying him, her head cocked to one side. As he took a step toward her, she gave a slight shake of her head, and he stopped. She didn’t appear to be armed, and her hands hung loosely at her side.
He could take her.
He balanced on the balls of his feet, muscles tensing.
“Don’t do it.” The soft voice came from off to his left, and he swung around. A man stood there. Tall with midnight-black hair and piercing blue eyes. He was dressed the same, black jeans and a black jacket. A pistol dangled from his hand, not aimed at him, but held casually, as though it was an extension to his arm. He was clearly a man who felt at ease with weapons. Ethan breathed in deeply, forcing the tension out of his muscles.
“Very sensible,” the man murmured. In his other hand, he held a leash, which was attached to a huge glossy Doberman, who let out a low whine. The pair of them strolled toward him, though the woman remained at a distance.
“Are they dead?” he asked, nodding toward his bodyguards.
“No, just unconscious. They’ll wake in a few minutes with nothing more than a headache.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
He had an inkling who this man was. “You’re Jake?”
His eyes narrowed. “Sadie told you about me?”
“No. She mentioned you in passing.” He looked at the unconscious men and back at the woman. “She did this? Some sort of mind…thing?”
The man gave a shrug. What the hell? Sadie hadn’t mentioned that. No wonder Travis was interested. What else could they do? If the Conclave could harness those powers—
A smile flickered across Jake’s face. “Never going to happen.”
He frowned. “Can you read my mind? Even with the device.”
“No, but I’m good at reading faces.”
Ethan would have sworn he was impossible to read—he’d learned to keep his thoughts to himself at an early age. But maybe it was part of the telepathic thing. “You said you wanted to talk. So talk.”
A look passed between Jake and the woman, and her lips twitched. They were no doubt talking about him. He wasn’t sure he liked that. Hell, he knew he didn’t like it. “What?”
“Rose and I were debating whether to allow you to keep it.” He waved a hand at the device on Ethan’s head. “Or whether we should take a look inside your head, see what you’re really thinking.”
He glanced toward the gun. “You’d shoot me?”
“We wouldn’t need to. I’m sure between us”—he nodded toward Rose—“we could divest you of your little trinket.”
“Maybe.” But he wouldn’t bet on it.
“We won’t push it today. Sadie seems to think our best move at this point is cooperating with you. So we’ll cooperate. For now.”
“So what the hell do you want to talk about?”
Jake stepped closer. Slightly taller than Ethan, he held himself like a soldier. Ethan refused to back down. Sadie had said he was a good man, but he had an edge, a hint of darkness Ethan had only seen before in trained killers.
“Sadie says our best means of getting our friends back is to work with you. So that’s what we’ll do. But I’m handing her care to you.”
For a moment, the words didn’t make sense. He shook his head. “Actually, I think she’s quite capable of taking care of herself.”
“Maybe. All the same, if anything happens to Sadie on your watch, you will answer for it.”
“Do you really believe you can take on the Conclave?” He was curious to know the answer.
“Maybe, maybe not. But I’m talking about you, personally.” He nodded toward where his men still lay on the ground, unconscious. “That’s nothing. If anything happens to Sadie, we will strip the thoughts from your mind, leave your head a vast wasteland of nothing.”
As threats went, it was pretty effective. Ethan had faced death many times. In fact, he’d grown almost indifferent to the concept. But the idea of anyone meddling with his mind, leaving him a vegetable, made a shiver of unease run through him. This time, though, he kept his thoughts to himself. He wouldn’t respond to threats.
“Piss off,” was all he said.
Jake grinned. “At least you’ve got balls.”
“He’ll need them if he’s dealing with Sadie,” Rose spoke for the first time.
“I could almost feel sorry for him.”
“Yeah, if he wasn’t an evil bastard scumbag.” The words were spoken almost conversationally, but there was real hatred in her blue eyes when she looked at him. Another shiver ran through him.
“You’re the enemy. We’ve lost people close to us because of the Conclave,” Jake said. “But Sadie seems to think that you may not be entirely unredeemable. So for now we will go along with this. But we don’t forget.”
“Fair enough. No harm will come to her through me.”
“More than that. You keep her safe. You protect her from the rest of your evil little group of power-hungry monsters.”
For a moment, he thought about defending the Conclave. But how could he? “I’ll protect her.”
Jake gave him a long look and then nodded. “See that you do.” He took a step closer and held out the dog’s leash to Ethan.
He frowned. “I don’t need a dog.”
“He’s Sadie’s.”
“Actually,” Rose said, “he was Forrester’s, but Sadie sort of adopted him.”
“And the fucking mutt won’t stop whining since she left. Which means he’s part of the deal.”
Had he made a deal? Actually, he’d promised to protect a woman who was his sworn enemy, the sworn enemy of the Conclave. Great way to start a day. But he’d already made that commitment to himself the moment he’d walked into that room of torture and seen her strapped to that chair. He’d known then that there was no way he would allow anyone to hurt her.
“His name is Max,” Rose said as he took the lead and looked down at the dog. He did look sad. Growing up, he’d never had a dog. They’d moved around too much. He supposed there had been guard dogs, but he’d never been encouraged to make friends with them.
“We’ll be around,” Jake said.
“Say hi to Sadie for me,” Rose said. “Tell her we’ll come and get her anytime.”
Then they were gone. Ethan stood in the dim early morning light. On the ground, one of his men groaned and curled into a ball.
He considered waiting for them to come around, but in the end, he called Fergus, told him where to find them, and then headed off in the direction of home.
In two days, he’d got a live-in woman and a dog.
His life was changing.
At the thought, a sense of foreboding ran through him. His path had been set in stone so long ago. It would take a cataclysmic force to shift it from its predestined path. But he had a feeling a storm was coming…
…
I love you.
The words filtered through her dream. Vague and insubstantial. She tried to catch hold of them, turn them to something concrete, but at that moment a cold, wet object jabbed her in the face, and she came fully awake with a jolt.
Her eyes flashed open, and she stared straight into a set of liquid brown eyes. A warm, wet tongue swiped over her cheek and a feeling of…love washed over her.
Here was someone she could love unequivocally.
She pushed herself up, then patted the mattress beside her. The bed was huge, plenty of room for another. “Up, Max.”
Where the hell had he come from?
He jumped up beside her and she buried her nose in his soft fur, stroked her hands over him, and he rolled over, asking for a belly-rub, and she obliged. His simple doggy thoughts soothed her.
The bedroom door was wide open. Someone must have let him in. Reaching out with her mind, she encountered a disgruntled Fergus in the sitting room—he was a goddamn dog minder now as well as a babysitter. Her lips twitched. She reached out farther, but couldn’t pick up either Ethan or the muted hum of the reflector device. Which meant he wasn’t here.
And she really didn’t like the sense of disappointment that realization brought with it. She gave Max a last rub and dragged herself out of bed. She’d found a T-shirt in one of the drawers to sleep in—it covered her to mid-thigh. Fergus wouldn’t be too shocked. Or maybe he would. No doubt she’d find out. But she needed coffee. That wouldn’t wait.
Max stayed close to her side as she wandered out into the main room. Fergus stood at the window, staring out, but turned, as if sensing her presence. He was worried. It filled his mind, but was wiped away as he caught sight of her.
His gaze dropped down over her. Hell, no need to be so shocked, she was decently covered. He lingered on the long length of her legs beneath the T-shirt, and his mind hazed with desire, though nothing showed in his face.
Her lips twitched again—she’d keep Fergus around for amusement value—and she patted the dog at her side. “Hey, Max, Fergus thinks I’m sexy.”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t make anything of it. I think most half-naked women are sexy. I have low standards. But believe me when I say—I would not go there.”
No, he wouldn’t. He thought she was dangerous. He also considered her Ethan’s property, which was interesting. He wasn’t happy about it. But she was the boss’s woman. She delved a little further. He thought this was going to end badly. The Conclave was too powerful to cross. And he didn’t trust her.
“And you’re quite right not to trust me, Fergus.”
“Get out of my head.”
She was considering her answer, but she couldn’t make important decisions like that without caffeine.
The scent of freshly brewed coffee tempted her into the kitchen. She wandered in and found a pot, poured herself a cup and breathed in the fumes. There was also a paper bag by the coffee machine. Inside were half a dozen doughnuts, covered with sugar. They were still warm. She glanced up to find Fergus leaning in the doorway watching her.
“Did you bring me breakfast, Fergus?”
He shrugged. “The boss’s orders. He said you’d probably be hungry.”
“Yeah, and I get real bitchy when I’m not fed regularly.”
He thought she was real bitchy anyway.
“Aw, you love me really.”
No. he didn’t.
She grinned as she took a doughnut out of the bag, bit into it, and groaned. She finished it off in three bites, washed it down with coffee, then picked out another. Leaning against the counter, she ate this one slower. After taking a third, she held out the bag to Fergus.
He shook his head.
“Scared you’ll get fat?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. She poured another coffee and sipped it, pondering on what to say to him. It occurred to her that having Fergus on her side would be a whole lot better than having him fighting her at every step. But Fergus was Ethan’s man. That was unchangeable. And she liked that.
“I’m not one of the bad guys, Fergus, whatever you might think. In fact, I used to work for the government,” she said.
“So did I.”
“There, see, I knew we had something in common. Anyway, they promised us a world with no more lies.”
“A dream.”
She shrugged. “You can’t lie to me, Fergus.” He didn’t say anything, but then he didn’t need to. “So what’s happening? Where’s Ethan? And where did my dog miraculously appear from?”
“Ethan’s already at the office. He’s usually in by six.”
“Ugh.”
“He said he looked in on you, but you were snoring.”
“I so was not.”
“And he didn’t want to wake you.”
It made her twitchy thinking of Ethan watching her sleep. Had she been dreaming of him? Making love to him. She could have had him for real last night. And she’d been so tempted. That kiss at her door had awoken her body, making her realize how long it had been since she’d had sex. But maybe it was how much she had wanted him, the extent of that need, that had given her the strength to push him away. Sleeping with Ethan would change everything. She had a feeling there would be no going back. And that scared her. She still had no clue what the ending to all this would be. The Conclave had to be destroyed—that wasn’t an option. They needed to be obliterated. For Sam, for Josie, for all the others who had died. But she’d spoken the truth to Jake. Ethan wasn’t part of that and he wasn’t evil.
Christ, she was a mess.
“He left you something,” Fergus said. He waved to a piece of paper of the table.
He’d left her a note. How sweet.
She picked it up and read…
I met your friends this morning. Apparently, your dog was pining for you and so they decided to introduce themselves and hand him over. See you at the office. Don’t be late. Ethan.
She had a quick rummage in Fergus’s head. They’d knocked out Ethan’s bodyguards. That’s why he had seemed so worried—he didn’t understand and wasn’t sure he could protect Ethan. Now, he wanted to know whether she could do the same.
“No,” she said. “I can give you a headache, but that’s all.”
His eyes narrowed, but this time, he didn’t tell her to get out of his head. He was nothing if not a fast learner.
“But I won’t…as long as you don’t piss me off.” She smiled brightly. “I take it you’re here to escort me to work.”
He nodded.
“Can I make a call first?”
“Do you need to? Can’t you just…think at them?”
“No, I’m too far away. Besides, this particular person isn’t telepathic. You can listen in.”
She wanted to talk to the colonel—okay, she didn’t want to talk to him, but she needed to. A series of clicks sounded down the phone as the number was patched through relays, rendering it untraceable. He picked up.
“It’s Sadie,” she said.
“What do you need?”
That was one good thing about the colonel, he didn’t waste time on pleasantries that he was quite aware would not be returned.
“All the details of the cell you built to contain Kaitlin. The materials, where they were sourced, the building schematics, anything else you can come up with.”
“You think you might trace the hostages that way?”
“Well, if you’ve got a better idea.”
“No. It’s unique enough that it might work. I’ll get it for you straight away. Where do you want it sent?”
“Rose has my email account. She can send it to me.”
“Okay.” He was silent for a moment. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
She didn’t answer, just closed off the call and put down the phone. When she glanced up, Fergus was watching her. “What?”
“Not a friend of yours?”
“Very perceptive—are you reading my mind now, Fergus?”
“No, just the expression on your face.”
“No, not a friend.” She gave a tight smile. “He’s a fucker who’d be dead now if he wasn’t more useful alive.” And there was also the little fact that he was Jake’s father-in-law. Christa probably wouldn’t be very happy if they killed the colonel, however much he deserved it.
“I’ll go get dressed,” she said. “And we can be off.”
She straightened, picked up the bag with the doughnuts, and headed for the door.
Hopefully the information would be there by the time they got to the office. She needed to get to work finding Kaitlin and the others. Where were they? Were they isolated? Alone? Did they believe the rest of the Tribe was dead?
Once she’d found them, she’d bring this thing with Ethan to an end.
How she’d do that, and whether he’d be alive afterward, was another matter. And in the meantime, she would keep her distance.
Because really, this time, no way were her dreams coming true.
She just had to keep remembering that.