Turbulent Sea (15 page)

There had been a photo in a tabloid. The headline had read
Joley Caught In Her Love Nest
. He had been furious, not disillusioned—he knew she was no angel—that her lover hadn't protected her from that kind of exposure. Then he'd found out it hadn't been her at all, but that she'd dyed her hair and taken the blame to keep her sister from nasty gossip that might have harmed her sister's career. In that moment she'd ripped out his heart and took it into her keeping for all time.

There was no getting around wanting Joley. His body ached when he thought of her. And when she sang—or talked—or just stood there in silence—he found he was more aroused than he'd ever been in his life. She brought out things in him he hadn't known were there. Tenderness. Gentleness. Emotions that had never been in his life, not even as a child. She introduced him to laughter. She made him a better person, and she'd replaced despair with hope.

Ilya bent his head again and brushed a kiss along her cheekbone. "Life with you will never be dull." She also brought out the worst side of his nature, the need to dominate and control, his own protective instincts honed into fighting skills and determination. Ilya always won, no matter the cost, and he would win Joley. He had marked her because he couldn't stop himself from doing so, and that had scared the hell out of him. It was rare for him to lose control, and he knew putting his mark on her was not something he could take back. They were irrevocably bound together.

He shifted a little to slide down beside her, resting the back of his head on the pillow. She stirred, eyelashes fluttering before lifting. Her eyes, large and dark and glorious, smiled up at him. She nearly stopped his heart.

"Go to sleep, Ilya. I'll make sure nothing happens to you." She wrapped her arm around his waist and slid closer to lay her head on his chest.

His heart ached. An actual pain to rival the one in his groin. Even asleep, she'd felt his need, maybe it had registered in his voice. He was used to being alone. He didn't know any other way, had never considered anything else—he didn't know how to trust enough. But she made him want to learn—want to take a chance. She was the first person in his life who had offered to take care of him—ever. She had to be asleep and unaware.

"You talk in your sleep." He nuzzled the top of her head with his chin.

She smiled without opening her eyes. "I don't sleep."

"You're sleeping now—with me. For me."

Her smile widened and her arm tightened around him, before she relaxed completely into him again. "Because you're such a dick—tator."

He found himself smiling all over again.

Chapter 6

ILYA was gone. Joley kept her eyes squeezed shut tight, trying not to feel alone and panic-stricken. She hated waking up to the sound of silence. Growing up in a large family, she loved being home and hearing the comforting sounds of the household stirring to life. As strange as the night had been, she had fallen asleep and actually rested.

She sighed, opened her eyes, rolled over and stared up at the ceiling of her bus. She knew they had to be in the Red Rocks parking lot or the bus would still be in motion and Ilya would still be inside with her. Holding her arm up, she opened her fingers and stared at her palm. There was no visible mark, but she felt the faint itch that was often present, reminding her that Ilya had zapped her with something she couldn't get rid of. She hadn't realized how powerful it was, or just how the mark had tied them together. She ran the pad of her finger lightly over her palm. Nothing happened. Nothing at all.

With a little frown, Joley sat up and shoved back her hair. She needed to make her list of pros and cons. And the pros needed to outweigh the cons when she discussed it with her sisters, because she was already lost. She paced across the room to the small kitchen to put on the kettle while she got ready for the sound check. They only had a few hours to get things pulled together for tonight's concert. It was difficult to do two shows in a row, but Red Rocks was worth it to her. She already wanted to go outside and just breathe in the air. She was definitely going to go running and do a little exploring, as Red Rocks had to be one of the coolest places on earth.

She could still feel Ilya's presence in her bus while she showered. Had Steve seen him when he left? She doubted it. Ilya wasn't the kind of man to be seen when he didn't want to be, and somehow she was fairly certain Ilya would try to protect her reputation. And that was going on the pro side of her list. She was definitely making a list of pros and cons to determine if she should sleep with Ilya Prakenskii, because listing them was the only sane thing to do.

She sat down with a cup of tea, her pen between her fingers, drumming on the tabletop and trying to remember all the cons she'd thought of the day before. There had been a
lot
of them, but that thing he'd done with her palm had tipped the scales right back in the pro direction. In fact, the cons seemed to be permanently wiped from her mind.

Sarah. Before making up her mind one way or the other about Ilya, Joley should discuss the situation with Sarah. After all, she was the oldest and she really gave good advice—even when no one wanted to hear it.

Joley reached for her cell phone, then hesitated. She had time to do a little exploring and she definitely needed exercise. Maybe calling Sarah right now wasn't such a good idea. Everything was so crazy and she really was mixed up; nothing would make sense. There was no way she'd do more than babble and stammer, and she needed to be coherent and thinking when she talked to her sisters about Ilya. Now was not the right time. Besides, they'd talk too long, and then she wouldn't have time to go exploring before she had to do the sound check…

Her cell phone rang and she flipped it open. Joley held the phone away from her ear as Sarah's voice blasted her. "Joley Elizabeth Drake, just what are you up to?"

Joley strove for complete innocence. "I have no idea what you're talking about, I just woke up, and at this precise moment I'm drinking a cup of tea and making out an important list."

"I'm not buying that. You were going to call me and then you decided not to and I could feel the backlash of guilt. What's going on and what do you have to feel guilty over?"

Joley rolled her eyes, thankful her eldest sister couldn't see her. Sarah knew all kinds of things before they happened. She always knew before someone called. "Well, I did want your advice on something, but I just woke up and wasn't certain what time it was, so I didn't want to chance calling and waking everyone up if it was early." She drummed her fingers on the table, looking for a way to distract her sister. "How's Damon doing?"

Joley had grown very fond of Sarah's fiancé. He was a good man, quiet but brilliant, and he obviously adored Sarah, and the minute anyone mentioned him, Sarah was distracted.

"He's wonderful. Libby has spent some time trying to help his hip and leg, but the injury is old enough that she's not getting the results she'd like. But Damon says there isn't as much pain. He's in San Francisco today, working on some project I'd rather not know about."

"I'm so glad Libby's able to help him a little. He's a good man, Sarah."

"Yes, he is. And speaking of men, I'm sensing this problem you have involves one," Sarah said, returning like a dog with a bone to the point of her call.

Joley winced a little at the note of suspicion in her sister's voice. On the blank paper in front of her she wrote out
Pros
and
Cons
with a line separating them. Under cons she wrote,
Gets me in trouble with my sister
—
received lecture
. Because it was coming—and Sarah's lectures were never pleasant, because she knew exactly what to say to make a person feel guilty.

"Joley?" Sarah prompted. "Tell me what's going on."

"Well…" Joley tried to hedge, but that wasn't too smart with Sarah. "It's just that I've been considering having a relationship and I'm trying to be practical." She was fairly certain she heard a snort, and then Sarah was coughing. "Did you choke on something?"

"Sorry. You're being practical—over a man?"

"Hey! I don't think that comment was strictly necessary." Joley was indignant.

There was a small silence. "Really? Who is he?"

Joley pressed the point of the pencil so hard into the paper it broke. Of course Sarah would ask. "Ilya Prakenskii."

There was a silence. Joley felt the gathering explosion and rushed into an explanation. "I don't think he's any of the things everyone says he is. I really don't. He's just too—nice." Even she winced when she said the word. Nice wasn't a description one could use for Ilya.

"He's dangerous, Joley.
Dangerous
is not
nice
. You stay away from him."

Her palm itched and she rubbed it over her thigh. "He has all the same gifts that our family has, Sarah—but the gifts are little different. When my magic touches his, or our auras get close, they merge and flow together. I can feel the difference in the way he summons and uses energy."

"I noticed that when he was holding Hannah to him," Sarah agreed. "And Hannah spent a lot of time connected to him, and she tried examining the way he gathered and cast energy, but he's cut off. His aura was too dark, hiding everything from her."

"Well, it's definitely different. I know you've been studying the books our ancestors have on the ancient ways, and I wondered if you ever came across anything in our history about marks." Joley drummed out a nervous rhythm with the pencil on the table. "Maybe something to do with binding two people together, or claiming, or I don't know, anything, any mention at all."

"Are you talking about your hand? Describe the mark."

There was comfort in her sister's matter-of-fact, practical voice. That was Sarah, getting to the heart of the matter and gathering information.

"That's the problem, Sarah. There is no visible mark. I can't describe something to you I can't see. There are times when my palm itches and other times I think I see a faint color, like a bluish-purple, but it's never strong enough to be certain and it fades quickly." With a little sigh, she took her pencil sharpener out of the drawer beneath the table and began shaving a new point on the pencil. She had the feeling she'd be doing it a lot.

"When you do see the color, is it linear? Vertical? Horizontal, or all over the place?"

"It's in the exact center of my palm and it appears almost to be two circles intertwined, but that could be my imagination. Most of the time there's nothing there at all." She examined her palm. It looked smooth and unblemished.

"
Joley."
Sarah bit her name out between her teeth. "Why didn't you ever tell us about this?" She sighed when Joley didn't answer. "I want you to describe to me how you got it again.
Exactly
. Every detail you can remember."

Joley resisted the urge to hang up. The mark was private. Very intimate. And she felt almost as if she was betraying Ilya by describing the events to her sister—although they'd all been there when it happened. "We were at the Caspar Inn dancing. Prakenskii was there and he made me mad. Nikitin had forced me to sing and then he wanted to meet with me. I said no and Prakenskii turned his back to me and was walking away. I pushed energy at his back. It was just a little shove and maybe I shouldn't have done it, but he'd been lecturing me and disapproving of me all evening. I was sick of him. I was only trying to make him stumble, but the energy came back on me. I heard crackling and popping, like electricity, and I could see sparks all around my hand. My palm burned, for just a moment, really burned, deep inside. I remember I sort of yelped and held my hand."