Halflings (23 page)

She faltered. This was a lesson. Trust no one, perhaps even herself. Warring with her thoughts, Nikki licked her lips. “Raven,” she whispered, tilting closer. “Thanks for teaching me how to destroy you.”

“Anytime.” His eyes closed, and when they did she grabbed the pencils, clasped one in each hand, yelled, and came down hard to bury them into his chest. She stopped millimeters above his beating heart. A mixture of fear and horror swept her.

He didn’t even flinch. Raven lay motionless, eyes still shut.

Trembling, she dropped the pencils. They rolled off him passively. “Raven! You didn’t stop me!” She fisted a hand and pounded his chest. “What’s wrong with you?”

Slowly, his eyes drifted open while his trademark smirk tilted his cheek.

“You
taught
me to
drive through
!” She pushed angry, shaking
hands through her hair. In fact, her whole body was quivering and she knew exactly why. He’d given her the key to his destruction … then trusted her not to use it. “I could have
killed
you.” She smacked his chest with an open hand and tried to pull away.

He restrained her, hands closing on her upper arms. When he chuckled, she pounded on his chest again. “I could have killed you! Don’t ever do that again.”

His chuckle became a laugh.

“Stop it,” she said through hot tears.

“I saw you coming,” he said, casually. “I knew exactly what you intended to do. Besides, you’d never kill me, Nikki.”

She shoved off of him and stood.
Oh, I would. Right now if I could just reach my pencils again.
“What makes you think I wouldn’t?”

“You’re in love with me.”

Something jumped in her stomach. “I am
not
in love with you,” she gritted through clenched teeth. “I’m not even sure I like you.” She stomped toward the bike, crushing fallen leaves and soft grass as she went. She threw a look over her shoulder as he followed her. “And I certainly don’t trust you.”

He leaned forward and murmured in her ear. “Trust is for the weak.”

She shooed him away like a pesky fly. “And love is for victims.” She shoved her helmet onto her head. “And like you said, I don’t have that luxury anymore.”

A
s soon as she pulled into her driveway, warning alarms rang in Nikki’s senses like internal sirens. She parked her bike, then pulled her helmet from her head. In less than a heartbeat, she was being mauled by a monster of fur and a wet tongue.

“Bo,” she sputtered when his slobber made contact with her lips. “Ew. Stop.” She shoved the yellow lab away, but her giggle only enticed him into round two. She grabbed his massive head in a headlock. The dog squirmed, growling and wagging a golden tail.

When she trapped him he pleaded for release with eyes too innocent for a hundred-pound beast.

She melted, mumbled an “Aw,” and sank onto the ground. The headlock became a hug. “I know I’ve been neglecting you, Bo.”
Sorry, all my time is consumed with infuriating half-angel boys right now.

The huge animal sighed and nuzzled deeper into her side.

“Soon as I check in, we’ll go for a walk.” She scrubbed his ears. “Okay? Just you and me.” A walk would be nice. It would give her time to process the whole Raven and Mace thing.
Like it can be worked out in one trip to the park.

Bo mouthed her arm. “Okay, okay. We’ll go to the tennis courts. I’ll take your tennis ball.”

At the word, his ears perked, head cocking to the side. He barked.

“You’re so easy to please. I think I could forget to feed you for a week and you’d forgive my transgression.” Transgression? Now that’s what her dad would call a three-dollar word. Where’d she get that? Ah, yes, the Bible Will had given her. “Hope I don’t start talking in King James.” While she and Bo sat in the driveway, a black Camaro pulled in.

Mace stepped from the vehicle and slammed the door hard. “Where were you?”

Annoyance at his tone tightened her lungs. She stood, evening the playing field. “Why didn’t you use your
spider sense
to find us?”

He shoved a hand through his hair. “That’s not funny, Nikki. This isn’t some pastime.”

Her hands flew up. “Really? It’s not? But it’s
sooooo
much fun! Maybe you’re just jealous because I wasn’t with
you
.”

“Hardly,” he scoffed.

The words stung.

“You’re a job to me.”

That hurt even more.
How much of that is true?

“You’re an assignment, and, in case you haven’t noticed, one I take seriously.”

“Oh, is that right?” A more biting comeback failed to come. Words like
job
and
assignment
kept swirling in her mind.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Then why haven’t you taught me how to fight?” She closed the distance to him and shoved her finger into his chest. “You are constantly sending me these mixed signals. One minute you look at me like you’re going to kiss me and the next, you look like you want to vomit. I don’t get you, Mace.”

“I’m not sending mixed signals. I just — It’s very complicated.”

“Well, at least Raven is honest.”

Fury washed over him. “Honest?” he spat. “I’m not sure Raven remembers how to be honest. Do yourself a favor and stay as far away from him as you can.”

“Why?”

He gripped her arms. Hard enough it hurt. “Because he’s bad for you.”

“Why? Because he doesn’t want me to be a victim? Because he doesn’t have to be my personal bodyguard?” She wanted to lash out, strike him, but her arms were pinned. Her hands fisted and the fact they did angered her even more.

Bo growled.

She leveled her gaze. “Or is it because he can be honest about his feelings for me?”

She hated the look on Mace’s face. It was both hurt and regret. “You really think he’s being honest? He’s playing with you, Nikki. Nothing more. You’re just another piece of arm candy to him.”

Ouch
! She unwillingly pulled those hurtful words into her being. “Arm candy?”

“Ask him yourself. Raven admittedly looks for hot girls on every journey. He tends to go for the mean ones.”

And ouch again. She shook her head. “You’re the one who
runs hot and cold, not him. At least with Raven I know where I stand.”

“No, you don’t.” His tone was filled with as much certainty as her own.

“He’s in love with me,” she yelled.

Something hot, practically deadly veiled his eyes. His jaw clenched so tightly, she thought it might break into pieces. “No. He. Is. Not.” And with that, he threw his hands down.

“How do you know?” she countered, and took a step back, desperate to leave the charged atmosphere that constantly surrounded Mace.

“Because if he was, he’d feel the same way I do.”

She sucked in a breath at his admission.
The same way he does? Did he mean, does that mean he loves
—

“And,” Mace continued, “he’d be slightly more upset about the situation.”

“Why?” Her feet carried her back to him, his words a magnet drawing her in.

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” Now it was Mace’s turn to attempt to get away. He stumbled back.

“It matters to me. Why would he be upset?” There was an emotion surging over him she couldn’t place, couldn’t hope to understand, and it terrified her.

After a long, slow breath, he said, “Because for Halflings, falling in love with a human is the unpardonable sin.”

H
er heart stopped and with it, time itself. “What does that mean?”

Mace was shrouded in despair — it almost bled from every pore of his being. “If we fall in love with a human, it guarantees we’re doomed for all eternity, because we’re furthering the enemy’s plan. It voids all our journeys. Everything we’ve worked to obtain. Everything we’ve done.”

And Nikki knew that meant, very simply, destroying everything Mace was. He was nothing without rules and orders and boundaries.

The world flew off kilter, spinning out of control. She wanted to grab it and stop its rotation. No air, she couldn’t get any air. With no oxygen to her brain, she was about to pass out. Everything began to slowly darken. Nikki reached instinctively but grabbed nothing, until strong arms closed around her. The muscles of his chest became a wall of safety. For a moment, she savored his touch, but cold reality blasted her and she shoved away.

Unpardonable sin.

Her feelings for Mace and his for her were that wrong?

“Look,” Mace offered, sliding his hands into his pockets. She knew it was so he wouldn’t reach out to her again. “You couldn’t have known. Don’t worry about it.”

Indescribable pain tore through her. Her vision blurred with fresh tears. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Embarrassment shot like a rocket in the cold, wintery place that was now her heart. “Why didn’t you stop me? I made such a fool of myself.”

Mace looked away and something — a tear? — slipped down his cheek. He scrubbed at it with a flat hand, but another followed. Nikki watched in agony as her angel, her beautiful invitation, warred with the unfair world that was his prison. He swallowed and choked back a sound so filled with pain, she could barely stand hearing it.

No. No. No. No. No. No.
She hated herself right now for causing this.

She’d reduced him to a broken pot. Her words slipped from her lips, hardly a whisper. “I’m … I’m so, so sorry.” She turned and fled into the house.

Mace stood outside on her front porch for nearly a half hour, trying, unsuccessfully to think of another way. He started to knock — again — but lowered his hand from the wooden door. She was asleep in the living room with the TV on, its glow throwing a blue haze against the walls of the room. All this he witnessed from the glass pane in the front door. He rested his head against the cool window, and a moment later his hand rummaged across the top of the doorframe. Nothing. The front
porch was dotted with plants. He began lifting their pots until he spotted the key.

Once inside the night quiet house, he made his way to her. Mace stood for a moment at the edge of the couch. It was wrong for him to be there, he knew, but what was one more rule to break? He’d already sought Will and asked for reassignment. Will had reluctantly agreed. But he couldn’t leave without telling her good-bye.

“Nikki,” he whispered.

She roused, but only to turn onto her side and mumble his name. His fingers itched to touch her. Thanks to the extremely remote assignment he requested, it would be the last human touch for him for a long time. Maybe ever. But if the rest of his days were to be spent without human contact, he wanted her touch to be the last upon his flesh.

“Nikki,” he whispered again, this time louder. Her brown hair covered part of her face, so he traced a finger along her hairline.

When she moaned, his heart shattered into a million pieces. But he’d readied for this. Every argument she might construct to change his mind, he’d gone over. There’d be no dissuading him from what he had to do.

Her eyes finally fluttered open.

“I have to go, Nikki. My presence on this journey is putting you at greater risk.”

She sat up, shaking off the sleep. He plunged into all the reasons, powered through every argument, and all the while she remained silent, listening. Her hair framed sleepy eyes that blinked now and then, but revealed nothing. Her full lips pressed together when she swallowed and he wanted to rub a finger across them and feel the velvet smoothness. She’d drawn
her knees up to her chest and hugged them, holding on and refusing to crack. She was light and life and he was about to walk away from the only thing that had ever made him feel real happiness.

When he reached the end of his speech, she said one thing. “You promised to see this through to the end.”

It broke him. Mace sank onto the couch. What could he do? He was the one who’d learned everything about Nikki: her ticks, her impulses. He was the one who could protect her the most. She trusted him, or had. And worst of all, she was right. He
did
make a promise.

A fresh war began to rage in his gut. Could he actually leave her? Could he walk away from the girl who, time and time again, had shown her strength by facing whatever horror was thrust upon her? She’d met every challenge with a fierce fighter’s drive. She’d been tossed into an unseen world and had taken it on like a champion.

One challenge is thrown at me and what do I do? Try to run away.

Nikki inched closer. “You promised to see this through.” She repeated the words gently, knowing, somehow knowing, they eroded the walls of his resolve.

With a sigh, Mace reached out and caressed her cheek. She leaned into his touch.

He tilted her chin up so he could look at her. “Nikki, there are so many things Lost Boys can never have. Our world is different from yours — I’m simply bound here, an outcast on earth and heaven. As a result I never thought I’d feel like I belong somewhere, but you did it for me. For a few untainted moments, I was able to forget. You made me feel human, Nikki. You made me feel alive.” On a long exhale, he said, “I’ll see it through.” Because, really, what choice did he have?