23. Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

C onsciousness slammed into her head like a sack of bricks and Izzie gasped as she jolted upright.

Arms swinging, her fist knocked into flesh. Good. Get away. Strike again and again and again.

He was at the end of that alleyway, waiting to surge in at Thomas, that fucking demon from her past. Valentino had always waited, letting others get dirty—die—before he stepped in for the kill.

She had to get away—get Thomas away before it was too late and her bastard brother pounced.

Hands locked onto her wrists and she swung harder. Harder.

“Dammit. It’s me—me—Izzie. Stop. Stop. It’s me.”

Thomas’s voice.

Her eyesight blurry, she blinked. Blinked again as her arms slowed and she gasped for breath.

She found his face. Found his eyes where the blues and greens swirled and shifted in the low light from a fire that was somewhere behind her. For a long moment she stared up at him, transfixed by his eyes. The hard edges of them not absent, but buried deeper under a layer of muted softness she couldn’t identify.

He waited, silent, with unusual patience for her to catch up to her present circumstance.

“Wh-what?” She looked around. Not the alleyway. Not her brother’s viciousness looming over her. This had to be Thomas’s room at the inn—it was similar enough to her room, only the fireplace was on the opposite wall. “How did I get here?”

His hands latched onto her wrists brought her arms down on either side of her torso and he released her.

He was sitting in a fat wingback chair facing the fireplace and she was cradled on his lap, her legs draped over the arm of the chair. Bare legs and toes, for she was no longer wearing her shift and boots, she was wearing one of Thomas’s lawn shirts.

Her eyes went big and she found his face again. “I’m in your lap.” The words scratched raw out of her bruised throat.

“You are. I brought you back here from the alley.”

Her hand landed on his chest, panicked. “Those men that were attacking you?”

“Dead.”

She nodded, absorbing that information and churning it in her mind. When she’d crept up upon that first brute, two of those ruffians had definitely been alive—she didn’t know about the one that was already down in the mud of that alleyway. Nor did she know about her brother—and she was sure it had been him at the end of the alley—even in the dim light.

The panic didn’t ease from her face. “The fifth one?”

His brows lifted. “You saw a fifth? There were five in the tavern, but only four attacked me.”

She puffed out a breath, her eyes closing as she shook her head. “No—I don’t know what I saw.” That Valentino was even here, in Edinburgh, was an impossible twist of fate—there was no way he could have found her. Or maybe she imagined him. Imagined her worst nightmare in that moment.

That’s what had happened. Her imagination.

Her eyes opened to Thomas and started at the brutal look on his face.

What she did know for certain, was that she hadn’t killed any of those brutes. Which meant Thomas had—eliminated the threat of them and made certain it never came back. Verification of what she’d seen glinting deep within him, could see in his soul—that he came down on the side of kill or be killed—there was no in-between.

“Tell me,” he said simply, his voice hard.

“Tell you what?” It hurt to talk, but with the stone-set look on his face, she wasn’t about to complain about the pain.

The edges of his eyes flickered, narrowing slightly. “Tell me how you came upon me in the alleyway. Tell me why you came outside in only your shift. Tell me what possessed you to come into that alley and attack that man.”

Damn. She didn’t like how these questions were going, especially when she didn’t have her proper bearings about her. Still sitting on his lap. Half-naked.

She shook her head slightly. “I—I heard grunts and the sounds of flesh hitting flesh through my window.”

“And you decided to investigate? Why? We are in a city, Izzie. There are many people about. Many people that are of no concern to you.”

“You are of concern to me. I thought to help.”

His eyes closed as he took a deep inhale. His head dropped back, then came forward as he opened his eyes, his stare searing into her. “Tell me who you really are.”

The nerves along her spine sparked, sensing the dangerous waters she was in. Still, she set a blank, confused look on her face even as her shoulders tightened. “Who I am?”

“Are you a guardian?”

The question shot out, direct and hanging in the air.

She deflated.

There was no use fighting this.

No use trying to explain it away when the explaining would just make him angrier. And there was little to protect at this point—it wasn’t as though she was going to be a guardian for much longer for how she had mucked up this entire assignment.

Her shoulders drooping, she nodded. “I am.”

His eyes closed, his body tensing, his jawline twitching. He didn’t open his eyes to her, his words coming through clenched teeth. “Everything has been a lie? Everything you told me was a lie? Everything of your life and what you went through—all of it fucking lies?”

“No—the things I told you—no.” Frantic, she wiggled herself upright on his lap and set both of her hands onto his chest. “No lies. Everything I told you was true to some extent, just…rearranged.”

His eyes flew open, the cut of his voice getting sharper and sharper with each word. “Your past? Feral? Your father? The lamb? All lies you spewed.”

“No—rearranged.” Her head shook. “I swear to you—everything I told you has been true—it’s all happened to me, in one degree or another. Just with different circumstances around it.”

He grabbed the arms of the chair and jerked upward, letting her drop harshly off his lap as he stood.

She thudded awkwardly onto the wooden floorboards, landing with her left arm wedged under her back. Lucky it didn’t knock her shoulder out of socket.

He didn’t help her up, instead, stepped over her as he walked across the room to the table and the wine that had been delivered to the room. He poured a full goblet, downed the whole thing, then filled it again as she got to her feet.

He didn’t offer her any. Not that she wanted a drink. What she wanted was to make him understand.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, the side of his lip lifting in a sneer, then turned his back to her, his knuckles pressing into the table on either side of the goblet.

“Start talking.”

She winced. She couldn’t see the vicious look on his face, but she clearly heard it in his voice.

Her fingers curling in and out of fists, she stared at the span of his wide shoulders for long seconds. His white lawn shirt stretched tight over livid muscles. How to explain the unexplainable?

But there was no taking back her words now. He knew exactly what she was. And that was the death nail for her job with the Guardians.

Fortitude.

If her life was going to fall apart at the seams, then she would walk this final gauntlet with as much grace as she could muster.

Maybe she needed that drink after all.

Stepping quietly past him, she forced her hands to stop shaking as she poured her own glass of wine and took a long sip, the liquid scratching hard against the pain in her throat.

His stare set on the table just beyond his goblet, he didn’t look at her. Not even a twitch of a glance.

“The story I told you about my lamb.” She started softly, her voice scratchy as she studied his profile, noting how the hard lines had gone to iron. How he looked to be holding back from choking her himself. “That was real. My father was a bitter bastard. A drunkard. And I was the one that suffered his wrath. My brother left home when I was small, because yes, he hated my father.”

His stare stayed locked on the table. “And your mother?”

“Died when I was older. Before that, she was never home. To avoid him as much as possible, I imagine. I only recall seeing her a handful of times in my life, and each of those times only lasted minutes. The day after my father…” She paused, a sudden pain striking her so raw in her chest it took her breath away. She had thought she was well past what had happened to her when she was young, but she’d never truthfully spoken about it. Not to anyone.

She couldn’t hide the shake in her voice. “The day after he fed me the meat, I left home.”

“How old were you?” He still did not look at her.

“I was young—still tiny compared to others my age, but I left. Fourteen, the best I could tell. No one had marked my birth. But I was old enough to know my chances at life were better on my own, so I stole my father’s watch when he was passed out drunk, and I made it to the port that Mrs. Dellcrane once told me about to the north of our town. I bought passage to England with the watch.”

“Where are you from?”

“The Netherlands.”

His look snapped up to her face. “Did you speak English?”

She shook her head. “No. And I had nothing when I arrived on the isle. I walked off that ship onto the cold London streets and I…I…” Her arms curled around her middle. “We came in with the tide at night, and I was lost into the darkness of that world almost immediately. I scavenged. I slept where I could. Little nooks I could hide in, ones outside of chimney stacks for warmth, when I was lucky.”

Her feet shuffled back, needing to distance herself from him for how viciously the memories were tearing their teeth through her. She didn’t want to let the agony of those days seep out of her, for it would only bleed onto him, staining him just the same as it had her.

Her head dropped, her arms tightening against her churning stomach. “I turned feral. There is no other word for it. I would let no one close to me. Especially not the orphaned street rats who were my age, who were just looking for more people to belong to. I knew I couldn’t belong with them—with anyone, because my existence didn’t matter. The only people I ever belonged to—my family—were nothing but pain and cruelty and I couldn’t go through that again.”

A heavy sigh came from Thomas, but she didn’t look up at him. Couldn’t for the shame weighing down upon her.

“I lived that way for three years. Lived under discarded crates and under wagons. Cold years, cold winters when I would wake up in the morning and lie in place, not moving, just waiting to die. Waiting for the cold to close my eyes and take me to a sleep I would never wake from. But somehow my body kept moving, kept surviving another day.”

She dragged a breath into her lungs, opening her eyes and looking up at him. “So yes, I know all about survival. And the feral part I played, it wasn’t an act, it was a revival.”

A wince cut across his eyes and he offered one grave nod. “And then?”

“And then a man named Hector Samson found me in his horse’s stall one bitterly cold night when I had crawled to the animals for warmth. I was weak and I couldn’t fight him when he grabbed my jaw, shoved my matted hair back from my face, and studied me for long, long minutes. I didn’t know what he was doing. I thought he was maybe going to kill me, but I was mesmerized by his face, by his brown eyes that looked empty, yet full of wisdom at the same time. He stared at me for those many minutes and then he spoke in a whisper, almost like he was sick and he couldn’t get his breath, and he said ‘I have an offer for you.’”

“That was when you joined the Guardians of the Bones?”

Her brow furrowed. That was the second time he’d mentioned them. “How do you even know of them?”

His head cocked to the side, his eyes narrowing on her. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“I hired one of the guardians to shadow my younger brother when I thought he was trying to kill me.”

“You did? Your younger brother was trying to kill you?”

He nodded.

Hell. Her look ran about the room as she took in that key piece of information, then her gaze centered on him. “Which guardian did you hire?”

“Callum.”

She took a step to the side, leaning against the wall by the table, her legs now shaking, threatening to give out on her. Her head tilted back and she stared at the fleur-de-lis border painted on the ceiling. “Well hell, that information would have been nice to have.”

“Callum didn’t tell you?”

“No. I came up here at his request, but he did not share with me any history he had with you. Not that I would have ever asked him. No one knows much else of the other guardians’ whereabouts and jobs. It is designed that way to protect all of us.”

“And keep you all vulnerable.”

“And to keep us alive.”

“And to keep the lies easy.”

She shook her head, and her gaze dropped to him. “I know you will not forgive me, as much as I wish it. But I am sorry and you need to know I despise this part of my job—the farce I need to create about who I am, again and again and again.” Her lips pursed, her look dropping away from him. “Just know I never wanted to do anything other than to keep you safe.”

His voice went grave. “Just who is it that Callum thinks I need to be kept safe from?”

Her look stayed on the floor next to his feet, pondering for a long moment.

The full truth, or a half one?

Would anything but the whole truth be justified at this point, with her job already forfeit? Probably not.

She met his glare. “Yourself. Callum and Nemity think you need to be kept safe from yourself. And I don’t disagree.”

Both of his eyebrows lifted high, anger filling his brow. “What do the two of them know of it?”

Her shoulders lifted. “Probably more than you are willing to admit to yourself.”

With a snarl on his lips, he spun from her, his chest heaving. “You think I am broken.”

“I don’t think you are as broken as they have made you out to be. But when you are outside late in the day at Ravenstone, just before dusk when darkness is settling over the land, and you are walking along the cliffs, I hold my breath. Hold it, watching your boots, waiting for one of them to just…step off into oblivion.”

He looked over his shoulder to her. “You watch me on my walks?”

“I do.” There should have been shame in her voice for spying on him, but she harbored no guilt on the matter. Her job had been to protect him, and that was what she’d done. She wouldn’t apologize for it. “Most of the time, I was too far away to do anything about it, should you have decided it was time to part this earth. But I was there with you so you would not leave this earth alone, whether you knew it or not. Not exactly why Callum hired me, but just as important, if not more so, in my estimation.”

The line of his jaw dropped and his head jerked to the side, hiding his face from her.

He walked across the room to stand in front of the fireplace, and he threaded his arms across his chest, silent.

Izzie stood in the silence with him, leaning against the wall and waiting for what seemed like ten lifetimes as the fire died half down. It was a lot to take in, that people thought he would kill himself. A very direct question to his own sensibilities as to where he stood on the matter.

She waited until she couldn’t stand to wait any longer, the ominous weight of the situation creeping under her skin, making her nerves twitch.

The silence thick in the room between them, she took several steps toward him, standing two arm’s lengths behind him, staring at the line on his neck where his dark hair, just a touch longer than fashionable, met the white of his wrinkled lawn shirt. Her fingers itched, wanting to reach out and sink her hand into his hair, cradle the back of his neck, pull him back from whatever eternal darkness was nibbling away at his soul.

But she couldn’t.

She didn’t have any right.

In fact, she had betrayed him most grievously—everything she’d done by entering his household and staying there had been a lie.

She drew a breath deep into her chest. “You know about me now. I am sorry for all of it. My deception—it was my job, but I am still sorry for it.” She paused, looking to the door. She knew exactly what she should do in the moment—leave.

But she couldn’t lift her foot, start in that direction. Not before she knew for certain.

She swallowed hard. “Yet I am not sure what you wish to do with me now. Should I just disappear out that door, disappear into the night?” She looked to him. “I will, if that is what you want.”

She’d give him that—leaving without a word. Even for as wrong as it felt in the moment. Wrong for how she wanted to slip her arms around him, hold his body close to hers and ease the pain that swirled in a constant undercurrent beneath his skin.

His shoulders lifted in a deep breath and he exhaled the words, “I don’t know.”

“Then why did you bring me back here? If you knew I wasn’t what I pretended to be, why didn’t you leave me in the muck of that alleyway?”

Long seconds drifted by before he looked over his shoulder at her, his hazel eyes heated and piercing her through. “If there was one thing I wasn’t going to do, it was leave you behind.”

“Why?”

“Because, despite my honorable intentions to you, I find myself incapable of ridding myself of the dishonorable thoughts of you running rampant in my mind.” He turned fully toward. “That is why I did not leave you in the alleyway.” One step toward her. “That is why I brought you back here, held you in my lap and tried to not want to kill you for your lies.” Another step.

Her head bobbed in a nod. “And where have you ended on that accord?”

His head tilted down, his eyes blazing as he took another step. “You are currently breathing, no?”

She couldn’t move, her stare locked on his hazel eyes. Mesmerized by the fury and the lust and the wild agony palpitating within them, as though he was so close to exploding into thousands of pieces, but he was holding fast against all of it.

Her mouth dry, she swallowed hard. “I am.”

He stopped less than an arm’s length away, directly in front of her, his hands solidly at his sides, even if every speck of his being looked like he was about to devour her. “Then I haven’t taken your breath away yet, have I?”

The devil take her.

Her heart pounding, near to exploding, she gave a slight shake of her head. “Not the way I want you to.”