Embraced By Darkness (Riley Jenson Guardian 5)

"I can't - " The words came out an agonized cry. Of all the things I wanted in this world, that had to be second in line, right after a family of my own. I'd love to give up my job as a guardian, and just be another wolf working for the Directorate. Like I had been, before Talon and Misha and their psycho brother had come into my life.

But with the drug in my system starting to make huge changes, I dared not walk away, even if I could. Who knew what was yet to come?

I couldn't handle it alone. Couldn't rely on Rhoan. We simply didn't have the resources to monitor what was going on in my body.

"Can't, or won't?" he said, harshly.

"Dammit, Kellen, this is unfair!" I thrust to my feet and began pacing. "You've asked for a commitment and now that I'm ready for that, you're backing away and saying we can't work. Where is the justice in that?"

"There's no justice, just honesty, which in this case is more important."

He stood and walked up behind me. But I stepped away from his touch, unwilling to feel the familiar warmth of his arms. Control was tenuous enough as it was. I might just lose it if he held me tenderly while in the middle of breaking up with me.

He dropped his hands to his side, then added, "I can't help what I am any more than you can. I don't want to make this decision, Riley, honestly I don't. But I can't spend a lifetime waiting at home for you. Wondering if this time will be the time that you don't come home. I believe we could be good together, but I want the whole white picket fence ideal, and that just doesn't include a soul mate who risks her life and our happiness on a daily basis."

I wrapped my arms around my body and just looked at him. I was shaking, shivering, because suddenly there was no warmth in the room. Or maybe it was because my future suddenly seemed as bleak and as lonely as it had in the worst of my dreams.

Why do this now? I wanted to scream. You knew what I was, you knew about my job. Why do this when Yd finally decided to take that step, to take a chance?

But I kept the rage and frustration and hurt inside, and didn't do or say anything.

Because deep down I understood.

I mightn't like his words, might hate his actions, but the truth was, I understood them. I wouldn't want to be committed to someone whose job was so dangerous that I knew one day he simply wouldn't come home. That one day, I'd feel his death and know my life and my heart had just turned to ashes.

It was a big thing to ask of anyone.

Cops and firemen knew all about it. They had the highest percentages of divorce and relationship breakdowns for good reason.

Even so, I couldn't help saying, "Don't do this." Please don't do this.

He sighed. "I'm sorry, Riley, I really am. But the last few days have really brought home just what life with you will be like if you don't give up work. And I'd rather live without you than live with that."

My eyes were stinging, my body shaking, and my heart seemed to be just aching deep in my chest. And I couldn't think of anything to say, because there was nothing to say. His mind was made up, and nothing short of me quitting my job was going to change that.

I should have let myself smash down on the rocks. It would have hurt a whole lot less.

I took a deep, shuddering breath, then said, "Go. Just go."

"Riley - "

"No," I said. Forcefully, flatly. "No more. There's nothing else you can say or do to make this any better."

He stared at me for several seconds, an aching, angry heat I could feel more than see, then turned on his heels and walked out.

As the door clicked shut, the tears came. Great, sobbing gasps of pain that came from deep within, from the place that had held so many dreams.

Dreams that now lay shattered and broken on the ground.

Just like my heart. took care of Jorn while I rang Jack from one of the phones in the house. He'd actually had a team out looking for us, having realized something was wrong when both of us failed to report in. It might be normal for me not to, but Rhoan always did. He was the good twin when it came to that sort of stuff.

It took a good six hours for Jack's cleanup team to get to the island, because, as I'd suspected, we'd been shipped up to the twin's privately owned island off the Brisbane coast. The blackmailing business was obviously a well-paying one.

While Rhoan waited down near the dock for the boat, I went searching for our IDs and wallets. I not only found them, but Adrienne's soul as well. She was waiting in the back of the house, close to a huge walk-in freezer where her body undoubtedly was. I didn't go check. I had no need to see her flesh when her spirit was standing right in front of me.

You seem familiar, she said, her words running through my mind, as ethereal her body, which merely hinted at red hair and gray eyes, and little else.

And yet there was a strength in her, a surety in her words, that I'd not found with other spirits. Especially other spirits who'd been dead for a while. Generally when I saw the older spirits, they were little more than wisps who had no shape and who could form no words. I wondered if it had anything to do with the psychic gifts she had in life, or perhaps even the fact that she'd known her death was coming, and had been prepared for it.