Chapter Ten
When I woke, sunlightstreamed in from the windows. I took a deep breath and smiled through the pain-free exhale. I lifted my chin to peer over the edge of the bed, but the chair behind me sat empty. Fin must have left in the night, hopefully to get some rest. He’d tended me for the last two days.
Risking both men yelling at me when they found out, I pulled myself up to sitting, focusing on using my arm muscles and not my stomach. Once upright, I let my head settle and then slid off the edge of the bed, placing one foot on the warm hardwood first, then the other.
With a little sigh, I shoved away from the bed the tiniest bit. No floundering, no weakness. Shit, I actually felt kind of good.
I grabbed the clothes on the table, stripped off my dirty underwear, and put on the fresh clothes.
The shirt felt too soft, too rich, for my blood. The black leggings stretched over my body as if they were made for me alone. Maybe I should let these boys clothes shop for me more often. I tended to buy cheap cotton t-shirts because it hurt my wallet less when my targets ripped them or bled on them.
Once I was dressed, I grabbed a bottle of water from the bedside table beside me and drank it. It would take me time to build up my strength. That was always the worst part of being injured for me: the time I spent down while the rest of the world continued on without me.
Once I drank half the bottle, I settled onto the floor and moved through some of the physical therapy stretches I’d learned over the years, careful to stop any time I felt a twinge in my muscles.
The door opened behind me and I continued the stretch, resituating my hands as I grabbed my feet at the end of my outstretched legs.
Fin glared at me; I didn’t even need to look at him to feel it. The bond seemed to be in place this morning too.
Yay.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“Contemplating my place in the universe and how we are all small cogs in a very large machine,” I said, glancing up at him from beside my elbow.
His hands were anchored on his hips. Today he wore a white button down, untucked, over black jeans. His feet were bare, and I marveled at seeing his toes all over again.
Still staring at his feet, I smiled “Did you spend days on end wearing shoes for my benefit? Because, I promise, you lose none of your mystique even with your toes showing.”
He wiggled them and I did a quick scan up his body. Somehow, I’d become so much more aware of every inch of him. Probably not a good thing when he glowered at me like I’d stolen the last piece of bacon.
“You should be in bed,” he said.
I twisted slightly to stretch the other side of my ribs. Nothing pulled or ached. “I’m feeling fine and I’ve been moving slowly. I promise.”
He crouched beside me, still wearing the same put out expression. “You could have at least waited for me or the Captain to check before you decided for yourself.”
Sitting back, I released the stretch and shook my head. “If you want me in your life, you’re going to have to learn that I do things myself, or not at all.”
He thrust out his hand and hauled me to my feet. “And if you want me in your life, you’re going to have to learn to ask for help when you need it and not barrel through every situation like a child.”
I blinked at him, tasting his anger and his hurt feelings in the air. How did he really feel about me?
“I’ll let you check me over now if that will make you feel better,” I said. “Also, why is the floor so warm?”
He tugged me into a chair and crouched down in front of me without answering. When he molded his hands to the outside of my ribcage, an onslaught of emotions pummeled me, straight through the bond.
I gritted my teeth and shoved the emotions away, focusing on breathing. “Can you shut that off for a minute? I can’t think.”
He tilted his head as if he might lay his cheek on my lap while he gently squeezed and prodded my belly and ribs. “I think everything is fine. You should still be careful for a couple days and don’t get into anymore fist fights. And the floor has warmers.”
I nodded, watching him warily, waiting for another emotional maelstrom. When he removed his hands, the feelings ebbed, and I sat back with a sigh.
My stomach grumbled and I braced to stand up, but he waved me back down and shifted to sit on the floor.
He stared up at me and said, “No, no breakfast until you tell me what the hell happened the other day. From the beginning. And don’t leave anything out this time.”
After everything he’d done to save my life, he deserved the truth. And with all we’d shared in the past couple of days, I found I didn’t want to keep it from him.
“Well, I went to that shop to find out about the watch I gave you.” I held up my hand. “Before I continue, I need you to promise not to freak out. Just listen, and then you can have a meltdown afterward.”
His gaze sharpened but he gave me a single nod.
I rushed through the next part. “I stole the watch from Esteban when we were fighting him.” He shifted as if he wanted to speak and I pressed my fingers over his mouth. “No, let me finish. I was going to tell you about it when we got back to the house and everything settled down, but then you pulled the mind control thing and I freaked out and left. I admit probably not one of my best moves, but you were an ass as well.”
He blinked rapidly and I covered his whole mouth with my palm.
“The next day I tried to find out about the watch but didn’t get anywhere with an old client who deals with antiques and jewelry. He referred me to Echo, the man I met where you found me. Unfortunately, I ignored my gut instincts and let him look at the watch. Then he tried to steal it. He brought out some thugs with muscles and tried to beat me into giving it to him. When I threatened him, saying Esteban would probably come after whomever possessed it, he got spooked and they all ran away. Then I crawled out of the building and that’s when you found me. The end.”
Fin gently pulled my hand from his face, his eyes angry, his jaw set hard. “Are you sure you’re finished?”
I nodded and tugged my hand from his before he did whatever and I got blasted through the bond again.
“First, let me ask what in the hell were you thinking? Why would you ignore your instincts like that? I know you’re one of those people who know how valuable that gut reaction can be in a crisis situation, and yet you ignored it and stayed because of what?”
I shrugged, shame swamping me. “To get information about the watch. To find Esteban. To finally get justice.”
Fin huffed and shook his head. “You were going to do this all on your own, right? Take him down by yourself because we’ve been super successful as a group so far? And yet you thought you could match him? Who do you think you are that you seem to feel your rage is bigger, your revenge more deserving of vengeance?”
The quiet of the room settled between us. His sharp words had cut deep. Shame and embarrassment warred in my chest in a sickly current.
“I won’t apologize for being who I am,” I whispered, “but I will say thank you for saving my life. And I’ll add, I guess we aren’t so different, because it’s the exact same thing that happened before when you went off on your own.”
His anger hit me in a flash, shoving me back into the chair with the staggering weight of it. He heaved himself off the floor and anchored his hands on the sides of the chair to press his face in close to mine. His breath smelled of peppermint and cilantro, a strange combination that turned my stomach upside down and sent my heart pounding against my chest.
I swallowed heavily, and the sound reverberated between us. “What do you want me to say?”
He leaned in closer and past the anger I felt a sharp desperation for me to understand. To understand and feel what he did. I reached out to touch his cheeks and in that moment my feelings and his coalesced into an inferno that settled around us like a blanket.
I sucked in a breath and clamped my lips shut so I didn’t say or do anything stupid. He leaned in further, his mouth millimeters from my own. I stared into his eyes, trying to focus through the heat of our combined pent-up resistance to each other.
He spoke first, whispering against my lips. “Do you understand what would have happened if you died?”
So slowly, he closed his eyes, but stayed hovering in front of me.
His next words threatened to break me. “I would have burned the world down. Razed it to ashes to bring you back to me. I would have risked my very soul.”
His breath trembled as he exhaled and finally levered off the chair to stand.
The cool air slapped me in the face, drawing me back into the room, out of the silent circle we’d created a moment ago. The sounds of the birds outside, the pacing of a guard in the hallway, it rushed back with brilliant clarity.
All I could do was stare up at Fin.
He spun away, so I stared at his back, my heart aching in a way I’d never felt before.
Then I said the words I rarely ever admitted. “I’m sorry.”
It was like a floodgate opening. He swung on me, grabbed me up into his arms, and hugged me tight. Unable to react, I hung there in his hold, until reality broke in. I wrapped my arms and legs around his long lean body and buried my head into his neck. It wasn’t sexual, but an exchange of comfort between us. A shiny second of us converging on the exact same book, on the exact same page, at the exact same time.
His arms loosened and I reluctantly let him go to slide down his body. My feet hit the ground and then he released me completely. I didn’t like the world outside of his arms. That realization alone was enough to send me staggering back into the chair.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Fine, fine. Just lightheaded is all. Must be all this freewheeling sharing and all that. It’s getting to me. Don’t let the Captain see it or he’ll think I’ve gone soft.”
Fin snorted. “Since your ordeal, he seems more your second in command than mine. Ordering the doctors around, checking that you have everything you need to be comfortable. If I didn’t know for sure he liked men, I’d say he has a crush.”
I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m awesome.”
That earned me another snort, but then he sobered, his mouth forming into a thin line. “I don’t want you to leave again, Zoey. Please, just stay here with us. Work with us, live with us.”
“You say us, but I think you mean you.”
He hung his head. “Astute as ever. Yes, I say us because the Captain lives here too, but I do mean me. I want you to stay here with me. We can work together, be a team.”
God, I wanted to tell him yes. To all of it, give him everything. But in a moment of weakness, he’d reverted to his basest self, forcing me to his will. It wasn’t something I could just ignore. It didn’t mean I was ready to walk out the door again. Not after seeing so much of what he’d been hiding from me, and so much of what could possibly grow between us.
I also couldn’t forget what he could do too. How he could hurt me, and I realized, belatedly, how I could hurt him in return.
Maybe there was a special kind of power in that, too. The ability to rip apart someone so much that they can’t possibly control themselves, even when they should. It wasn’t forgiveness, but something I needed to consider as I moved forward.
“For now, I’m staying,” I said. “I don’t know what that looks like for us yet. Do you know what I mean?”
His smile shot something warm and liquid through my chest. “Yes. I understand. We can talk more about it later if you want. For now, it’s enough to know you’re staying.”
I let him pull me up to my feet. When I shifted to sit down on the floor again, he caught me by the waist.
“Wait, we should eat something first. You’ll want extra calories to keep your strength up while you heal, and you need it for your magic.”
“My magic?”
His nostrils flared as he inhaled sharply. “You drained it when you almost died, but it’s been coming back. I can feel it stronger now than it was before. It’s the only reason you feel my emotions so keenly through the bond. Otherwise, it would be a mere whisper to you.”
Great. Something else to add to my ever-growing list of worries.
“I need to learn to control it. To use it. To understand it.”
He locked eyes with me and brought my hand to his lips. I couldn’t help but lean into him as he pressed his mouth to the top of my knuckles.
“I vow to help you control your magic. Anything and everything you want to know will be available to you.”
A shot of pure lust rocked through me. “What if all I want to know is where your bed is?”
I expected him to be shocked, or to play off my words as a joke. I wasn’t prepared for a spike of heat to arch through me. Or the devastatingly sexy smile curling his lips.
“Breakfast first,” he whispered against the back of my hand, then tugged me out the door.