Текст книги "Oblivion"

Автор книги: Jennifer L. Armentrout

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 51 страниц)

Matthew sucked in an unsteady breath. “You came too close, then.”

“I did,” I admitted quietly, ducking my head under a low-hanging branch. “It won’t happen again.”

He didn’t respond immediately, so I continued on. “You should’ve seen her, Matt. I told her to run and to hide, but she came back. Like a freaking ninja,” I said, barking out a short laugh. I could still see her standing there. “Stabbed the Arum with the obsidian blade like she’d done it a million times. It was…yeah, it was amazing.”

“Sounds like it.” He walked side by side with me. “Not many humans would’ve done that. She’s a brave girl.”

“Yeah.” I smiled slightly. “Yeah, she is.”

Matthew’s steps slowed to a stop. “It’s not her I’m worried about, Daemon.”

Frowning, I stopped and looked at him. “It’s not?”

His expression was open. “No. It’s you.”

“Me?” I laughed again. “You need to add a little more detail to that statement.”

“All of this is so very familiar to me. No, let me finish,” he said when I opened my mouth. “I know you’re not your brother and this isn’t the same situation, but you obviously care about Katy. She’s not like the other human girls you’ve had…relations with.”

Huh. I had no idea Matthew kept that close of an eye on me.

“Katy is different to you, and you’re different around her. You threatened us to protect her, and that’s all the evidence that I need to know this situation could escalate very quickly. None of us took a stronger hand with Dawson, and look where that ended. I cannot allow that to happen to you.”

Looking away, I slowly shook my head as I watched a tiny brown bird hop along one of the narrow branches. Kat was different. I couldn’t deny that. “I can’t keep her away from Dee.”

“Dee’s not the problem,” Matthew informed me.

A muscle began to tick in my jaw, and then I laughed again for the third time. “I was thinking that it might be smart if Dee and I left. If we found another colony and moved there. Dee wouldn’t be happy with that, but…”

“That’s not what I want to hear, and I hope you’re not so…invested in this girl that leaving here—leaving us—is the only viable option. That means things have already gotten out of control, and that is not you.”

Was it the only option? If it was, then what did that say? I shook my head. “It’s not.”

Matthew clamped his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “You are like a brother to me, Daemon. I trust you with my life, and I know you’re going to make this situation right. You’re going to help get that trace off as her as quick as possible, using whatever means necessary,” he said, his blue eyes sharpening. “You’re going to take care of this and none of us are going to have to worry about history repeating itself. We’re going to move on from this and take care of the Arum, and then everything…everything will be okay. Can you do that? For Dee? For all of us, but most importantly, for you and for her.”

“I’m not—”

“You don’t need to lie to me, Daemon, and I don’t even need you to confirm or deny what is beginning to start between you and Katy, but you know—you know more than anyone if you continue down this path, it’s not just your fate you’re sealing. It’s Katy’s fate also.” Matthew withdrew his hand, his expression somber. “You don’t want to be the reason she disappears or is killed. I know you don’t. So take care of this. Soon.”

Chapter 22

Matthew’s words haunted me throughout Saturday and into Sunday morning. Man, he’d nailed it all on the head, hadn’t he? Things were already getting out of control between Kat and me, and nothing had really happened between us. At least not physically, if I wasn’t counting yesterday morning, but there was something between us.

And neither of us liked it.

I did a lot of thinking, even when I went out on patrols Saturday night. Matthew had been right. I needed to get this trace off Kat as soon as possible, and then once I took care of the last Arum, things…things would be normal.

Things had to get back to normal.

Leaving really wasn’t an option, at least not right now, and the likelihood of the DOD approving something like that was slim to none. So I needed to take care of this. I couldn’t allow myself to think of anything else.

Dee was with Adam, and I figured now was no better time to start getting that trace off Kat. After all, she didn’t want to be at risk or a danger to anyone else. Before I left, I grabbed the piece of obsidian from my bedroom. Rain poured down as I darted across the lawn, moving fast enough that the sheets of chilly rain barely hit me. Her mom’s car was gone, as usual. I knocked on the door.

A few seconds passed before the door inched open, revealing a very…sleepy-looking Kat. She squinted up at me, brows knitted together. Her hair was a mess of waves, falling haphazardly over her shoulders. She was in pajamas and I was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a—

“What’s up?” She broke the silence.

“Are you going to invite me in?”

Her lips formed a thin line as she stepped aside. I walked in, scanning the rooms. “What are you looking for?” she asked.

“Your mom’s not home, right?” Figured I’d better double check before we started getting down to business.

Kat shut the door. “Her car’s not outside.”

The claws were out today. “We need to work on fading your trace.”

“It’s pouring outside.” She stalked past me, grabbing the remote to turn off the TV. I beat her to it, flipping it off before she could hit the button. “Show-off,” she muttered.

“Been called worse.” I frowned as I faced her, finally getting a good look at what she was wearing. I laughed. “What are you wearing?”

Her cheeks burned bright. “Shut up.”

I laughed again. “What are they? Keebler elves?”

“No! They’re Santa’s elves. I love these pajama bottoms. My dad got them for me.”

My laugh faded off. “You wear them because they remind you of him?”

Kat nodded.

The green and pink bottoms were ridiculous looking, but I understood why she wore them. It made me think of something I remembered hearing the Elders say. “My people believe that when we pass on, our essence is what lights the stars in the universe. Seems stupid to believe in something like that, but when I look at the sky at night, I like to think that at least two of the stars out there are my parents. And one is Dawson.”

“That’s not stupid at all.” She paused as the hostility faded from her expression. “Maybe one of them is my dad.”

I looked at her and quickly looked away. “Well, anyway, the elves are sexy.”

She snorted. “Did you guys come up with another way to fade the trace?”

“Not really.”

“You’re planning on making me work out, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s one of the ways of doing it.”

She plopped down on the couch. “Well, there isn’t much we can do today.”

I arched a brow. “You have a problem going out in the rain?”

“When it’s almost the end of October and cold, yes, I do.” She picked up a checkered afghan and placed it in her lap. “I’m not going out there and running today.”

I sighed. “We can’t wait around, Kat. Baruck is still out there, and the longer we wait, the more dangerous it is.”

“What about Simon? Did you ever tell the others about him?”

I’d actually forgotten about him until Saturday evening. “Andrew is keeping an eye on him. Since he had a game yesterday, it faded most of his trace. It’s very faint now. Which proves that this idea is going to work.”

She fiddled with a ragged edge on the quilt, peeking up at me. Reaching into the pocket, I pulled out the obsidian blade. “This is another reason why I stopped over.” I placed it on the coffee table. “I want you to keep this with you, just in case. Put it in your backpack, purse, or whatever you carry.”

Kat stared at it a moment and then lifted her gaze. “Seriously?”

I focused on the blade. Matthew would flip his shit if he knew I was giving it to her. “Yeah, even if we manage to get the trace to fade, keep this on you until we finish off Baruck.”

“But don’t you need it more than I do? Dee?”

“Don’t worry about us.”

A moment passed. “Do you think Baruck is still here?”

“He’s still around, yes.” No point in lying to her. “The beta quartz throws off our presence, but he knows we’re here. He knows I’m here.”

“Do you think he’s going to come after you?”

Her question caught me off guard. “I killed two of his brothers and gave you the means of killing the third. Arum are vengeful creatures, Kitten. He won’t stop until he has me. And he will use you to find me, especially since you came back. They’ve been on Earth long enough to recognize what that can mean. That you would be a weakness to me.”

Her nose did that cute wrinkling thing whenever she was perturbed. “I’m not a weakness. I can handle myself.”

Damn straight she could.

Kat glanced up at me, and I realized I was staring at her like a freak. I glanced around the room. “Enough talking. We have stuff to do now. I don’t know what we can do in here that will make a damn bit of difference. Maybe jumping jacks?”

Her response to that was to open her laptop. Nice. Good to see she didn’t even attempt to pretend to listen to me. Her nose did the wrinkle thing again and she gave a little sigh as she eyed something on her screen.

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.” She went to close the lid, but I wasn’t having that. I kept it open. She glared up at me. “Stop using your freaking object thing on my laptop. You’re going to break it.”

Amused, I walked around the coffee table and sat beside her. On the screen was a girl…with pigtails. “Is that you?”

“What does it look like?” she grumbled.

A slow smile crept over my face. I’d seen these things before on her blog, but I couldn’t let her know that. Nothing like adding cyberstalking to what seemed like real-life stalking. “You film yourself?”

Kat took a deep breath, and it took every ounce of my self-control to not check out her chest when she did that. “You make it sound like I’m doing a live perv show or something.”

I choked on my breath. “Is that what you’re doing?”

“That was a stupid question. Can I please close it now?”

“I want to watch it.”

“No!” Horror filled her voice. You’d think there was an Arum in the room.

I cast her a sidelong glance, and her eyes narrowed as she turned back to the screen. The little arrow moved over the page and clicked on the play button.

“I hate you and your freaky alien powers,” she muttered.

A few seconds later, the video started and there Kat was, showing off books, talking in an excited way I’d only heard her do a few times. While the video played, she sat beside me, her jaw locked down and her face the color of blood. It was obvious she filmed the video either last night or this morning. It ended with her smiling broadly at the camera.

Dammit.

She was such a…freaking nerd—a hot freaking nerd.

“You’re even glowing in the video,” I said, and my voice sounded rough to my own ears.

Kat nodded.

“You really have a thing for books.” I closed the lid on the laptop. “It’s cute.”

Her head whipped toward mine so fast I worried she’d strain a muscle. “Cute?”

“Yeah, it’s cute. Your excitement,” I said, shrugging. “It was cute. But as cute as you are in pigtails, that’s not going to do anything to fade the trace on you.” I needed to focus. Standing, I stretched my arms above my head. When I glanced down at her, she was eyeing the section of skin that was exposed when my shirt rode up. “We need to get this trace off you.”

She was still staring at my stomach.

I lowered my arms. “The sooner we get the trace off you, the less time we have to spend together.”

And that got her attention. Her eyes snapped to mine. “You know, if you hate the idea of being around me, why doesn’t one of the others come over here and do this? I actually prefer any of them to you, even Ash.”

“You’re not their problem. You’re my problem.”

Her laugh was harsh. “I’m not your problem.”

“But you are,” I said, and that was the truth. Probably could say it a little nicer, but oh well. “If I had managed to convince Dee not to get so close to you, none of this would’ve happened.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. There isn’t much we can do in here that’s going to make a difference, so we might as well count today as a loss and spare each other the pain of breathing the same air.”

I shot her a bland look.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. You don’t need to breathe oxygen. My bad.” She shot to her feet, knocking the poor quilt to the floor. “Can’t you just come back when it stops raining?”

“No.” I moved back and leaned against the wall, folding my arms. “I want to get this over with. Worrying over you and the Arum isn’t fun, Kitten. We need to do something about this now. There are things we can try.”

Kat was two seconds from losing it, and I loved it. Her hands curled into tiny fists. “Like what?”

“Well, the jumping jacks…an hour or so should do it.” I was only half serious when I made the suggestion, but then my gaze dropped over the front of her shirt. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to see her jump around. “You may want to change first.”

Please say no. Please say no to changing.

She took a deep breath. “I’m not doing jumping jacks for an hour.”

And that was a damn shame. Crimson stained the tips of her cheeks. A sure sign she was angry. I couldn’t help myself, so I pushed at her again. “You could run around the house, up and down the stairs.” I met her eyes and grinned. “We could always have sex. I hear that uses up a lot of energy.”

Her mouth dropped open. “That will never happen in a million years, buddy.” She took a step forward, raising her pointer finger at me. “Not even if you were the last– Wait, I can’t even say last human on the face of this Earth.”

“Kitten,” I murmured, sort of offended.

“Not even if you were the last thing that looked like a human on the face of this Earth. Got that? Capiche?”

I tilted my head to the side and smiled. She was really on a roll now. Eyes bright and face flushed. Part of me hated to admit it, but she was amazing when she was like this. Absolutely amazing.

“I’m not even attracted to you. Not even a little bit. You’re—”

I was in her face before she had a chance to blink. “I’m what?”

“Ignorant,” she said, taking a step back.

“And?” I matched her steps, compelled. Compelled by what? I didn’t know. I came over to work the trace off of her and instead we were arguing with each other after a moment of nice conversation.

“Arrogant. Controlling.” She took another step back, but I didn’t let her get far. Oh no, I was all up in her face, sharing the same air. “And you’re…you’re a jerk.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can do better than that, Kitten.” And I knew she could. Kat had a mouth on her. Speaking of which, my gaze dropped. Her lips parted. Dammit. “Because I seriously doubt you’re not attracted to me.”

She laughed—the sound low and husky. Sexy. “I’m totally not attracted to you.”

I took one more step, and her back was against the wall. Staring down at her, I think I may’ve forgotten to force my lungs to inhale and I definitely forgot the whole point of coming over here. There was only one thing I was thinking about. “You’re lying.”

“And you’re overconfident.” She wetted her lips, and heat pounded through my body. “You know, the whole arrogant thing I mentioned. Not attractive.”

Man, she was so full of it. She’d say anything to keep arguing. Placing my hands on each side of her head, I leaned down, my mouth so close to hers I could almost taste her. I doubted her lips would be sweet. More like one of those red-hot Fireball candies.

I really, really liked that candy.

“Every time you lie, your cheeks turn red,” I told her.

“Nuh-uh,” she said.

I slid my hands down the wall, stopping beside her hips. “I bet you think about me all the time. Nonstop.” As much as I thought about her, which was…nonstop, so it only seemed fair and right that she did the same.

“You’re insane.” She pressed back against the wall, her chest rising and falling sharply.

“You probably even dream about me.” My gaze dropped to her mouth again. Fireball… “I bet you even write my name in your notebooks, over and over again, with a little heart drawn around it.”

She laughed this breathless sound. “In your dreams, Daemon. You’re the last person I think—”

Tired of arguing, I kissed her…just to shut her up. And yeah, I’d keep telling myself that. Just keep right on with that train of thought. That’s why I was kissing her. No other reason.

But the moment our lips met, a shudder rolled through my body and I half growled, half moaned. Because I was right—her mouth was like a hot-as-hell Fireball.

Kat wasn’t arguing anymore.

No, she was shivering.

Kissing really wasn’t necessary anymore and I should stop, needed to stop, but then she pushed off the wall, fitting her body against mine. Her fingers sank in my hair and she moaned against my mouth.

This was so not about shutting her up.

Something came unhinged in me. Like a lock that had been turned. Or a dam that burst. Or, hell, it was like being struck by lightning, run over by a truck, and then shocked back to life. I was moving and doing without really thinking.

My hands gripped her hips, and I lifted her up. Her legs went around my waist and she was kissing me right back with a passion that almost startled me, and I was hoping she didn’t notice that my hands were trembling. Hell, my entire body was shaking. There was a fire under my skin, and I was out of control. Seconds away from going full Luxen on her and what good would that do?

Aw hell, it didn’t matter. Not when I pressed into her and she made this beautifully feminine sound that really had my blood pounding. And I could feel it building in me. Pure power—and it had nowhere to go but out. This had been building for months. Maybe always leading to this.

I never wanted someone as much as I wanted Kat.

Then we were moving along the wall. A lamp toppled over. Kat didn’t seem to mind, thank God, because I was beyond the point of caring about anything other than who was in my arms.

Kat.

Vaguely, I was aware of the TV switching on and off. I tried to rein it all back in, but her hands went to my collar and then she was wiggling down, pulling at the buttons. I could only obey her silent command. I moved back and let her take off my shirt.

I’d pretty much let her do anything at this point. Kind of scary…and all kinds of hot.

I captured her cheeks, pulling her back to my hungry mouth. Man, I couldn’t get enough of her taste, of how she gave it right back to me on all fronts. Her hands went to the button on my jeans.

There was a cracking sound in the house. Most likely something had just gone up in flames. But we were moving toward the couch and then we were on it, our hands everywhere, tugging on clothes, on each other. Our hips were molded together like our lips.

Kat whispered my name, and I was crushing her against me one second and then the next, I was giving up space to explore—for me to explore. Sliding over her arm, down the front of her shirt and lower, and her shirt was off. I don’t even know how, but it was.

“So beautiful,” I said, because she was beautiful. Damn, she was, and that flush I’d seen yesterday did spread everywhere. It took me a long time to lift my gaze, but when I did, I kissed her again. Kissed her until I knew she needed air, claiming her mouth as long as I could.

My body took over completely, rolling against hers, but something else clicked inside me. Another hidden door was opening. I slowed down, taking my time. Where everything had been so frantic and crazed, it was now more tender and controlled. I was still shaking, though, on the verge of…

Of not being able to stop—not wanting to, of needing her more than I should.

You don’t want to be the reason she disappears or is killed.

I stilled and forced my lungs to work like hers. Inhaling ragged breaths that weren’t enough, I lifted my head and opened my eyes. I knew they were glowing, speaking a thousand things I couldn’t say and she’d never understand. Probably not want to hear, either.

Our gazes locked. The look in her eyes, the way her body melted into mine, I knew she’d let me do…anything. But if I didn’t stop now, I wouldn’t stop ever. And even though I was prone to moments of “great dickdom,” as Kat would say, it wasn’t right. Not under these conditions. Not on a freaking couch.

Not when her life was in my hands.

And I kept messing up with her. I was the one who traced her and led an Arum to her at the library. I was the one who pissed her off and all but chased her into a street. I was the one who exposed our kind. I was the one who was repeatedly putting her in danger.

So I said the only thing that came to mind. The only thing I knew that would snap both of us back into a cold, harsh reality.

I forced my lips into the half smile I knew always got under her skin and said, “You’re barely glowing now.”