Safeword: Storm Clouds (17 page)

He asked her to go back to New York with him, for a visit, let him show her around the city as a tourist. She said she had obligations here. When he asked her if she was seeing someone here, she avoided the question. She realized she didn't really know for sure how to answer it. When he left he told her he'd be back once he fixed things with Marco and then did whatever he needed to do to get Abbot to allow him back into his territory.

In a way Kendra wished that Eric hadn't been so clear that they weren't exclusive, because then she'd have had a reason to not kiss Norris goodbye. And that kiss practically made her come undone.

Chapter Twelve

Kendra had an email from Eric when she awakened that night.

Ranger had a great interview today, I think he's seriously considering accepting their offer. I want to be able to talk to him about you, can we tell him your secret? It's going to be hard to explain why you're only around at night, and why you don't eat with us.

She emailed him back that if Ranger came to live here they would figure something out, but that telling him right now was out of the question.

Thirty minutes later she got the buzzing vibration she would get when someone who was bound to her was thinking about telling the secret. She followed it to see where it came from, knowing where it would lead before she followed it.

Since Kendra didn't have a mind link with Eric she couldn't warn him without calling him on the phone, so she let Abbot know what was going on and asked him to contact Eric via the mind link and let him know he was treading on dangerous ground.

And then it hit her. Eric was just another form of the bad boy that she used to be attracted to. The danger element was different since he did it by hang gliding and parachuting instead of breaking laws and rules, but it was still there. Damn, maybe she hadn't outgrown her bad boy fascination after all.

She also realized she didn't have anything to do tonight. She decided to take a trip to The Library and see what they'd managed to get done since the last time she checked on it.

As she was pulling out of the driveway her cellphone rang, it was Eric. "I didn't tell him anything, I was just thinking in my head that if I let him test the game for me it might be obvious to him what you are. As I was telling him the storyline I considered how he might figure things out, since he's so suspicious of you. I wasn't going to tell him."

"You were laying the foundation for him to figure it out later. It's like Abbot said, the binding keeps you from telling in any way. You can't even play twenty questions with someone to help them figure it out. Look, if Ranger comes here to live, we'll figure something out. Trust me, I'm not going to put you in a position to keep an impossible secret."

As she hung up Kendra wondered if Eric was ever going to feel comfortable with her binding him to her enough so they could mind link. She hadn't liked having to ask Abbot to talk to him, but she'd also known that a phone call right then would have put Ranger on edge, since he'd have heard enough of Eric's side of the conversation to know that she wanted him to not tell Ranger something. Also, she kind of needed that mind link with people she was intimate with, it was like there was something missing when it wasn't there. But Eric had asked her to not do anything else metaphysical, and she would honor his request.

Maybe she should have taken Norris up on his offer to visit New York. Norris was less likely to break her heart than Eric. And Norris had almost undone her with that kiss. But on some level she knew that Norris was part of her past, not her future. Or, she thought she knew it, anyway.

An hour and a half later she was pulling into TBR, happy with what she'd seen at The Library. She saw Eric's Range Rover in the parking lot and it made her all warm and fuzzy inside. She chided herself that this was getting a bit ridiculous.

When she walked in she smelled him before she saw him, and she was immediately hungry. She walked over to them and told Eric she wanted to go in the back and check on things and that she'd be back in about ten minutes. She headed through the kitchen to the vampire room and ordered eight ounces of blood. She drank it and then got a bourbon on the rocks to drink before heading back out to Eric and Ranger to watch them finish the game they were playing.

Ranger asked her if she was good at pool and she told him she could hold her own. Ranger won the game and Eric told him to rack the balls while he talked to Kendra. Eric took her to the side and said, "You fed after you got here, didn't you?"

She was surprised that Eric could already tell when she'd fed and when she hadn't, that was something most humans took months or even years to become intuitive about. "Yes, I did. I'm impressed that you've learned so quickly how to tell when I've fed and when I'm hungry."

"Who did you feed on? I was here, you could have fed on me, you know."

Was he jealous? Or did he just want the experience? She put her hand on his arm, "Eric, we have bagged blood in the back. I poured some in a glass and drank it. I didn't feed on anyone. Not like you are thinking, anyway."

Ranger won, though Kendra played a really good game. While Eric and Ranger were playing their game Kendra heard a disturbance and looked across the room to see two girls arguing. Mike the bouncer was paying attention but she knew Mike would have trouble if the girls started fighting, he just wasn't good at restraining girls so they couldn't hurt him, he was always too gentle with them. Mike was headed to them, using the right voice and words to try to calm down the situation, but it wasn't working. And then one of the girls jumped the other and Kendra headed over to help Mike. When Mike stepped in between them one of the girls hit him, and he grabbed her to restrain her, which made her boyfriend jump in on Mike. Kendra told Mike to handle the boyfriend and she'd take care of the girls. Within a few seconds she had the girls under control – she'd grabbed an arm on both of them and twisted them around so she was holding their arm on their back, high up so she had leverage and they didn't. After a bit of a scuffle Mike had the boyfriend handled in a similar way and the rest of their party had decided to stay out of it. Kendra spoke. "You three need to leave and not come back. The rest of the party can choose to stay or go. Mike and I will be escorting your friends out though, so if they rode with one of you then you'll be obligated to get them out of here. The options are to leave quietly or we call the police and press charges". One of the men stepped forward and said one of the girls was with him and he would take her home. The other two, the boyfriend and girlfriend, had come together so they'd go together. Mike and Kendra walked the three of them out. Kendra kept the girls held like they were, which kept them from looking at each other, which kept them from fussing with each other as much. And when they did start in Kendra just pulled up on the arm of the one talking until she shut up again. When they reached the cars she handed one girl off to the boyfriend that had not gotten involved and then put the other girl into her boyfriend's passenger seat, and watched the cars pull out of the parking lot.

When she went back in and saw Ranger looking at her she realized she'd just set off his radar again. She grinned at him, "Hey, I told you that bouncing duties kept me on my toes, you just didn't believe me."

"Right. You have had formal training, and it bothers me that you are not being honest about it. I want to know what Eric has gotten himself into. I want you to be truthful with me, but if you aren't then I have the resources to dig and find out."

It wouldn't be good for him to dig. She had good paperwork, the vampires specialized in being able to fake the things to make a person official. The document that they needed most in order to start over every ten to fifteen years was a new birth certificate, since having one of those could get you a driver's license and social security number and passport. They had people who could make it look like a social security number and birth certificate had been linked to each other for a really long time, even though they had not. But, if someone went snooping extra hard at a federal level, at the level of someone who seemed to be some sort of international spy, she didn't know what they would find.

"I don't know what you are expecting to find. It's not like I'm in the witness protection program or anything. I told you, I've been exposed to several different styles of martial arts, and I have lots of brothers. All I did was immobilize two girls who were cat fighting. No big deal."

"The boyfriend took a swing at you that would have cold cocked most men, and you just shook it off.

Oh yeah, she'd forgotten about that, but maybe he'd seen it an angle. "It was a glancing blow, looked worse than it was, I saw it coming and moved my head. Another split second and I'd have moved it enough to keep from getting hit at all. Still, I managed to move enough that he didn't really get that much impact."

"But that's the point, you immobilized two people and still had enough focus to dodge a third person's fist coming at your face."

"Ranger, I don't know what you want me to say. You want me to admit that I can hold my own in a fight? Okay, I officially admit it: I can hold my own in a fight. But that doesn't mean that I used to be an international spy and now I'm hiding out in Chattanooga and then you came along and accidentally found me."

Abbot, I need you to call Aaron Drake, find out if he's going to hire this guy, and if so how long it will be before he tells him about supernaturals. I think we may need to tell him something before he leaves. Either that or mojo him so he won't go digging into my past and trying to see if I used to be an international spy or something.

He's still curious about how you managed to immobilize him the other night?

Yeah, and then there was a small incident at TBR tonight that I helped Mike handle. Nothing major, I handled both girls while Mike handled a boyfriend that jumped into the mix... but, it's got him convinced all over again that I've had some sort of training and that there must be something I'm not telling them.

Okay, I'll call Aaron.

Kendra played Eric in the next game of pool and beat him, which meant she got to play Ranger again. She decided to let Ranger win, so he was playing a game with Eric when Abbot walked in with Aaron and Nathan.

Kendra saw them and said "Aaron, Nathan, it is good to see both of you. It's been a long time."

Aaron smiled, "Hi Kendra, it's good to see you, lovely as always. Abbot and I handled all of the necessities when we first moved to town, of course, but we haven't had need of much else until now. Is there somewhere we can take Ranger to talk?"

Ranger looked from Kendra to Aaron, and then back to Kendra. "Wait, Kendra, you know Aaron and Nathan? Why didn't you speak up about this last night? And, does this mean I was right about you?"

"No Ranger, it does not mean you were right. I am not in your line of business, I have not had the kind of formal training you think I have had. However, there is some information you don't have, and I guess that Aaron and Nathan are about to supply you with that information."

As she said the last part she looked at Aaron with a question so he answered. "If you can show us to somewhere private to speak with Ranger then Abbot can fill you in on things out here."

"Of course."

She took them back to the office and then went back to Abbot and Eric.

What's going on Abbot? If they tell Ranger of werewolves and werelions then Ranger will know something Eric won't know about. And Eric still won't be able to talk to Ranger about the fact that I'm a vampire. Or, is Aaron going to tell him of shifters and vampires all at once?

He's going to tell him of shifters in general and Nathan will demonstrate by partially turning into a lion and then coming back to human. He will tell him there are other supernatural beings as well, and that he'll find out about them on a need to know basis. I have given him permission to admit that you are a supernatural with strength and speed much faster than a human. Aaron will do whatever it is he does that will keep Ranger from sharing the secret, they don't call it binding, I'm not sure exactly what they do, but it works. We are going to tell Eric that Ranger is going to be told of supernatural beings, but not vampires specifically. He will have permission to speak of you as a supernatural being, but not as a vampire.

That's going to put the two of them in kind of a tough spot, Abbot. It's almost setting them up to fail.

There is no way around it right now. I'm not comfortable with Ranger knowing our secret until he is living in my territory. He still belongs to the government now, and I've never felt comfortable with an enlisted man knowing our secret. To add to it, Aaron isn't comfortable with Eric knowing of shifters until he can spend some time with him.

What if Ranger doesn't accept the job? Aaron won't have as much control over him, will he? Or does their binding process work different?

If he doesn't accept the job then Aaron will make him forget, and in the process will put the suggestion in that he isn't interested in your history, and that he thinks you are good for Eric and is glad Eric seems to be so happy with you.