Immortally Embraced (11 page)

“You thought of everything, didn’t you?”

“I sure hope so.” He drew a hand around my waist. His grip felt warm and sure as he led me down a side path. Just as quickly, he let his hand drop, as if I’d burned him.

We made our way past the enlisted tents, dodging ropes and poles. They were packed in a lot tighter than I was used to.

“It will be safer to accomplish our job if we wait until nightfall,” Marc said, guarding his words. “In the meantime, you can stay at my place.”

I tried not to trip over my feet as dread warred with anticipation. No way, no how had his place been part of the bargain.

Besides, it could be dangerous. “What are we going to tell your roommates? I’m assuming visiting doctors don’t shack up on the first day.”

I could see his fists tighten in his pockets. “I live alone.”

No wonder the tents were so tightly spaced.

He snorted. “Here in the old army, the men live in huts, with the women serving.”

I looked up at him, shocked. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You have women doctors, don’t you?”

He nodded. “They live in two big barracks and they serve the men in their spare time.”

“I can’t believe they put up with that.” Then again, it didn’t seem like they had a choice.

“The old gods like to cling to what they can,” he said humorlessly.

“Wait. So you have a woman serving you?” I was still trying to get my head around it. “Getting your coffee, rubbing your feet?” As if Marc didn’t already have an ego. I couldn’t believe he was about to toss me into the middle of that.

At least he looked as disgusted as I was by the thought. “I don’t make anyone serve me. I never wanted that. But plenty of the guys do it, especially the immortals. They’re not big on change.”

All the same, “I can’t sleep in your tent.” It was bad enough I’d jumped him on the rock.

I wasn’t going to use Marc to get over Galen.

He didn’t look too happy about that. “You have to. I can’t send you to the women’s barracks, or someone else might call you for ‘service,’ so to speak. The only safe place is in my hut.”

Somehow, I didn’t think so.

After the enlisted area, we reached the officers’ tents. They were spaced just as close together, but seemed to have a little more room inside. The effect was one of us practically stepping over tent poles.

“Here,” Marc said, leading me to a wooden door that looked like all the rest.

I took an involuntary step backward. I wasn’t sure where I was going exactly, but this was too much too soon. I needed to get out. Being here, with him, was tough and confusing enough without spending time in the place he now called home.

“I don’t like this any more than you do,” he said, opening the door for me.

“Of course you don’t,” I said, feeling a flash of annoyance. That’s why he’d kissed me out on that rock and made me lose my mind.

I stepped inside.

Soothing green draping hung along the walls, held in place with ornately wound rope. He had a bed, a real bed, which must have cost a fortune to get through the portal. A homemade quilt was tucked onto it—one I recognized from his grandmother’s house. It had been one of her favorites, displayed proudly in her guest room before she passed away.

A small desk stood near the door, littered with pictures of Marc and his family. Marc and me. There were Christmases and birthdays and picnics and parties.

“I can’t believe you still have all of this,” I said, my pulse hammering in my throat.

“My mom put together a mean care package,” he said as the door snicked closed behind us.

The floor was covered in carpets I recognized from the house, a green and gold woven one in particular that I used to lay on in front of the fireplace back home.

It was like he was trying to torture me with everything that had been stolen from us.

I stood with my hands on my hips and tried to take it all in.

Keep it light.

I only needed to survive until nightfall. “No offense, but it almost feels like your mother decorated this place.”

He smiled despite himself and I could tell I’d hit a nerve. “I told her I didn’t want anything new. I wanted things from home.”

I itched to remind him that he still had a place to go back to. He had a home, if he wanted it, and people who loved him. But it wasn’t my business. It wasn’t my fight.

Against my better judgment, I picked up the picture of us at Sally’s Donut Shop. We were obviously pulling an all-nighter. I didn’t even remember that picture being taken.

Had I ever been that young? That happy?

Marc drew close and I felt myself soften.

God, this was so fucked up.

But no matter how hard I tried to forget, I missed my old life and everyone in it, including Marc. And if I was truly honest with myself, I missed my old life because of Marc.

I set the photo back down on the desk, harder than I’d intended. He’d made a decision for all of us—me, his mom, his family. He’d “sacrificed” without even thinking about what it cost the rest of us. “What are you going to tell them if the war ever does end?”

He let out a sad, strangled sigh. “You know that’s not going to happen.”

“It could.” It might.

He remained silent, and for a moment it seemed he almost wanted to hope. I almost thought I imagined it for as quickly as he slammed into clinical mode. The barest tickle of irony touched his lips. “In the words of a very smart woman I know,
bullshit
.” He gave a tight smile.

Yes, we were enemies in an eternal war. It didn’t mean we should just stand here and grin about it. But I had to think the fact that we were standing here, as unimaginable as it was, meant something.

“I know I was never a big believer,” I said. All science, no art.

How ironic that I was now in Galen’s old role as the one who wanted to have faith in something larger than myself. But I’d seen firsthand how it worked. I’d been changed.

Mark drew closer. “I don’t believe in fate. I only believe in what I can see, what I can touch.” His fingers seemed to move of their own volition as he reached to brush the hair at the nape of my neck. A long moment pulsed between us. “I want you, Petra.”

My breath hitched. I tried to ignore the way his fingers traced the sensitive skin at the back of my neck. Awareness tingled straight down to my toes.

I pulled away.

“You need to get some rest,” he said, working to find that stoic mask that we’d both worked so hard to perfect. “Take my bed,” he said, retreating.

No. I wasn’t going to steal his bed. “I’ll take the chair.”

He stood, arms crossed. “Fine. I’ll sleep on the rug.”

“You don’t always have to be the one to make the sacrifice, you know.”

He pulled the chair away from his desk and dragged it in front of the only door. “We’ve been going all night. You skirted the Great Divide. Don’t tell me you’re not exhausted.”

Yes. I was completely fried, but that didn’t mean I wanted to lie down on his bed, on his grandmother’s quilt.

“It’s okay, Petra,” he said, taking a seat in front of the door.

“No,” I said, forcing myself to sit, “it’s about as fucked up as it gets.” He stood and unfolded a knitted afghan at the foot of the bed. “Sleep,” he said, easing it over me.

I watched him retreat. “What about you?”

He returned to his post at the door and dropped into the chair. “I’ll be all right.”

I lay stiff and uncomfortable. “You’re not going to watch me sleep.”

“As long as you don’t watch me read,” he said, picking up a book from the desk. I couldn’t see what it was. Probably one of those thrillers he liked so much.

It wasn’t my problem.
He
wasn’t my problem, “Good night, Marc.”

I settled into his bed, pulling the soft afghan up to my chin. It smelled like him, and of home. My body sank into the comfort as my mind scrambled to find a way to process it all.

Sleep was smart. It would help me be alert and ready tonight. This was about the mission, not about me snuggled up in his bed, surrounded by his things.

I’d lived without him and without any of this and I’d been perfectly fine.

The light-blocking shades were down. He extinguished the lamp on his desk and the room darkened.

I was helping him for one night, nothing more. We’d get into the lab, see what Dr. Keller had to say, and then get out. No complications. No strings. No more Marc.

He’d clipped a book light onto his paperback. He sat with his book open, but he wasn’t turning the pages.

“I missed you,” he said softly.

My blood felt heavy as it pulsed through me. I watched him through half-lidded eyes. “I know.”

I didn’t even remember falling asleep, until a sharp pounding at the door jolted me awake.

“Belanger,” a male voice called. The pounding grew more insistent. “Belanger!”

Marc stood, his chair scattering as he held the door closed.

I sat up, half dizzy with a head full of cotton.

“I know you’re in there.” The door vibrated. “Open up,” the man ordered.

There was nowhere to go. Panic shot up my throat as I scrambled off the bed, fighting the afghan.

Marc held the door closed with the entire weight of his body. “I can’t do that, sir.”

“Belanger!”

“Colonel,” Marc gritted out, “trust me. You don’t want to do this.”

The man outside cursed.

I searched frantically in the dark for a place to hide, but I knew I was trapped. Maybe I could pry my way out the back.

My fingernails tore as I tried to wrest the canvas bottom away from the ground. Maybe I could crawl out.

But it was tied down tight.

“Belanger,” the voice bellowed, “now!”

chapter nine

“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod,” I chanted to myself, trying desperately to open an escape tunnel. The canvas bottom was stretched taut over the hard-packed ground. I couldn’t even force a finger under, much less my entire body.

Maybe I should start digging. I made a quick, frantic visual search for anything I could use as a shovel. It was too dark. Damn it. Besides, all he had was a bed and a desk. Pictures.

The pounding stopped. “You have a girl in there, Belanger?”

He winced as he flipped on the lights. “Yes.”

I about fell over sideways. Marc had outed us!

His cool gaze caught my wide-eyed stare. He’d still kept a hand braced against the door, but at that point, he might as well have swung it open wide.

I was new to this whole pseudo-spy business, but I was pretty sure giving up one’s partner was a big no-no.

The man outside chuckled. “She has a pretty voice.”

And what did that guy outside have? Super hearing?

It wasn’t exactly rare in the supernatural community.

Hell.

I scrambled to my feet. Marc had admitted I was here. Mister Mouse Ears out there had heard me. I didn’t know what to do. The primitive, panicked side of me still wanted to hide.

“She smells nice, too,” Marc’s superior officer commented.

“He can smell me?” I hissed.

Marc placed a finger to his lips. “So now you know,” he said to the man outside.

He motioned for me to come up and stand next to him. I did, because, frankly, I had nothing else to lose.

“I’ll be damned”—the voice lightened—“that’s the first girl you’ve had in what? Ten years? How long you been here anyway?”

My breath caught as Marc slid an arm around me.

He hadn’t wanted to be with anyone else in all that time?

I took in my silent, sexy ex. A small, angry part of me was glad he’d suffered. He’d brought this down on us. He’d chosen to cut me out of his life.

Now it seemed like he’d been just as paralyzed by it as I had. I wasn’t sure what to do with that.

He moved the window shade aside just enough for a fat-nosed, red-faced man outside to see me.

The stranger chuckled and gave us the thumbs-up.

I forced myself to raise a hand and wave. I was both sad and weak with relief. If they were going to be sexist pigs, at least it worked in my favor.

Marc dropped the shade closed as we watched the officer’s retreating form.

“Come on,” he said, “let’s get you away from the window.”

As we stepped back, I almost tripped over a book on the floor. “You were still reading?” I wished he’d tried to sleep. I didn’t know how long I was out, but my head had cleared and I felt better for it.

“I got distracted,” he said, blocking me as I reached down for the blue binder-style book. This wasn’t the thriller he’d picked up before. If I wasn’t mistaken, it was something I’d made for him.

I ran my fingers along the worn cover.

It was.

He cursed under his breath. “I haven’t gotten that out in a long time,” he said as I carried it to the bed.

“Why now?” I asked, sitting down.

“Because I’m an idiot.”

It was missing the photo I’d glued to the front, but I would have recognized it anywhere. I’d made this for him on our second anniversary.

It was a hellish year. I was in my third year of residency and he was in his doctoral fellowship. We didn’t have time to see each other as much. So I’d put together a memory book of ticket stubs, greeting cards, the stupid poem he’d written me on a Sam & Ace’s bar napkin.

I intended to find that epic bar napkin, but instead opened the book on a torn notebook page he’d left on my door.

Roses are red

Violets are blue

Don’t freak out

I’m in your bed

P.S. I have chocolate sauce.

I broke out in a smile. “You’re right. You are an idiot.”

“You think that’s bad.” The bed dipped as he sat down next to me. He flipped a few more pages. They were soft-edged and worn.

I knew it as soon as I saw it. “The bounce house!” I’d forgotten we had a picture. Well, it wasn’t of us. It was of the goofy, multicolored blow-up contraption with eighteen kids running around it. But still …

We were at my cousin’s fifth birthday party and my aunt had rented it. The kids had jumped and ricocheted off the walls like Tasmanian devils and then run off somewhere—probably for cake and ice cream.