Rebel's Desire (Iron Portal Paranormal Romance Series) (Iron Portal Series Book 4) (5 page)

But Sean wasn’t a warrior. After heavy lobbying from a few of the men, he was released from the jail pits, but he was banished from Cascadia forever. He was a man without a home.

Sean nodded once, pressed his lips into a thin line. “Good luck. I hope you find her.”

Toryn wanted to say that he hoped Sean was successful, too, that he’d somehow be able to get a glimpse of his loved ones when he drove through his old neighborhood. But he kept his mouth shut. Even for him, that would be too cruel.

S
omething wasn’t right
.

Pressing the phone to her ear and covering the other one with her free hand, Keely strained to hear what her sister was saying.

Becca didn’t sound like herself. Something was off about her. Like she was under the influence of someone…or something.

Crap. Was she using again?

Becca used to have a drug problem, back when they were going through all that stuff with their parents, but that was behind her now. She’d been clean for years.

Becca should’ve been yelling at Keely that she hadn’t gotten to the shop with the money on time. Or pleading with her to help, to do something to get her away from her captors.

But Becca was saying none of those things. In fact, she didn’t even sound frightened. Rather, she was going on and on about some great opportunity. Kept referring to it as her “big break.”

Keely didn’t understand. Was her sister being coerced or threatened into saying this? “Becca, what’s going on? Can you tell me the truth?”

“Aren’t you listening?” Becca said impatiently. “I’m trying to tell you.”

“So…a guy kidnaps you and you’re okay with that?”

Just then, the door to Freak Ink opened and another one of Harvey’s people came out for a smoke. Keely hurried around the corner for some privacy and took a seat on one of the park benches.

“He did not kidnap me, Keely.”

“Then what do you call it?”

“He came to the shop, and sure, he wanted to know about the money. But we talked. And I left with him. It’s as simple as that.”

“Yeah, without so much as a note. That’s not like you. Tell me what’s really going on. Is someone there with you right now? Is that why you’re talking like this, because this doesn’t make sense?”

Becca sighed. “Everything’s fine, Keely. I wish you would stop overreacting.”

Overreacting? This was not
fine
. She decided just to come right out with it. “Are you using again? Is that what this is about?”

Becca laughed. “You think I’m on a bender?”

“Well, are you?”

“I don’t have to listen to your BS, Keely.”

Anger surged through her. The Becca she knew—the clean and sober Becca—would never do something like this. “Well, what am I supposed to think? The man comes to the shop to collect his hush money and then you leave with him, voluntarily, without even telling me? No call. No note. No nothing. Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”

“Sorry, Kee.” There was a muffled sound on the other end of the line. When she spoke again, her tone was different. “You sound jealous of me.”

Keely choked. “Jealous?”

“Yeah, because
I’m
going to be having the time of my life and
you
weren’t invited.”

Being kidnapped and being invited were two totally different things, but she was done arguing with Becca. You didn’t try to reason with an addict who was clearly using again. “Where are you anyway? Who’s with you? Is
he
there?”

Becca laughed. “I’m fine. Really.” She sounded mellow. Too mellow. “I’ll be home tomorrow afternoon. We’ll talk more then. You’ll see...everything is going to be great.”

Relief rushed through her that Becca would be coming home. “Thank God.” Maybe she could talk some sense into her then.

“Yeah, I’ll be by to pick up my things.”

The relief she felt came crashing to a halt. “You’ll be leaving again?”

“You can handle the shop for a few weeks by yourself, can’t you?”

“I…uh…”

“Listen, we’ll talk more tomorrow. Okay?”

There was another muffled sound on the other end of the line and then a click.

“Becca? Becca?”

The line was dead.

Keely’s hands shook as she stared down at her phone. She considered calling their mother, then decided against it. They hadn’t talked in almost three years. Not since that horrible Christmas when she and Becca had tried to patch things up with them. Besides, what could her mother do? Not only did she have a hard time getting around after being injured in a train station bombing, she was LUI. Living under the influence…of a jerk.

“Hey. Are you okay?” It was a man’s voice. A very familiar, deep male voice.

Keely’s breath caught in her throat as a large pair of boots came into view in front of her. Slowly, she lifted her gaze.

Black combat fatigues. Long legs set shoulder-width apart. Powerful thighs. Slim hips. Charcoal T-shirt stretched over flat abs and a muscular chest. Leather coat, unzipped. Broad shoulders. A ruggedly handsome face with striking gray eyes staring down at her.

“Toryn?”

Before she could wonder how he’d found her or what he was doing here, he took a seat next to her on the bench. He reached out as if to take her hand then changed his mind and folded his arms across his chest instead.

His gaze raked over her, his pupils two dark specks of intensity. “What happened? Did someone hurt you?” His nostrils flared slightly and a muscle in his jaw ticked. It looked as if he were capable of ripping off someone’s head right now.

She found his outrage on her behalf strangely comforting and shook her head. “No, no. I’m fine. It’s…it’s my sister.”

“What about your sister?” he demanded.

She took a deep breath and wondered where to start. “She’s in trouble. Bad trouble. It’s all my fault and I don’t know what to do.” She covered her face with her hands.

She felt Toryn’s hand on her back. His touch was calm and soothing amidst the chaos spinning out of control in her head.

And just like that, she spilled everything. Toryn sat there and listened patiently. Not once did she get the vibe that he was repulsed that she and her sister were Talents. It was a relief, almost cathartic, to talk to him about what had happened.

“So the other night when I ran into you,” she said, “I’d gone to Mr. Reaux’s club to find Becca. To reason with him. You know, come up with some sort of payment plan and—”

“Reaux? As in
Davin
Reaux?” Anger flashed in Toryn’s dark eyes. “That’s who came for your sister?”

“You know him?”

Toryn cursed, scrubbed a hand over his face as if he were trying to wipe away what he’d just heard. “You went to confront Reaux? What the bloody hell were you thinking?”

What was I thinking?
Wasn’t it obvious?

“He has my sister! What else was I supposed to do?”

“That was foolish, Keely. And stupid.”

She jumped to her feet and started to leave. She didn’t need his criticism. She’d been criticized enough in her life, thank you very much. Clearly, she’d made an error in judgment opening up to this man.

He stood, grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. She hit his chest with an
oomph.
She tried to take a step backwards, but he wouldn’t let go.

“Reaux is a sadistic, dangerous son of a bitch, Keely. Ye shouldn’t have tried to handle this situation on your own.”

She was vaguely aware that he’d lapsed into a foreign accent.

“What? And call the authorities? Admitting my sister and I are Talents would get me a one-way ticket to army boot camp.” She punched his chest in frustration. “So I’m supposed to wait around for something to happen? Hope the guy changes his mind? Well, I’m not a piece of driftwood, hoping that someday the tide will take pity on me and take me where I want to go. I make things happen or I go down fighting.”

Something flickered in his eyes, but she was too angry to care what it was.

“Confronting him isn’t the answer.” His tone was a little softer. With a hand on her back, he held her closer, and this time she didn’t fight him.

“Easy for you to say,” she said, suddenly aware of how muscular he was. “In a perfect world, I’d have some recourse. But then, in a perfect world, my sister and I wouldn’t have to pay over a week’s worth of profits to that jerk just to keep the army from raiding our business and dragging us away.”

Toryn remained quiet for a few minutes, a rock of strength before her. She felt the rise and fall of his chest as she breathed in his brisk, masculine scent, and her anger started to melt. It felt nice like this. In his arms. A respite in the face of a rising storm.

She relaxed a fraction. “Becca says she’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, so hopefully I’ll find out what’s going on.”

“Very well then,” he said, as if he’d just made up his mind. “Come on.”

She cranked her head up to look at him. “Where are we going?”

“To get you something to eat and then I’m taking you home.”

T
oryn left
the food truck carrying two plates of food and set them on the picnic table where Keely was sitting.

“Thanks.” She handed him a napkin and a small package of plastic utensils, then wasted no time spearing a piece of meat from her plate and popping it into her mouth. She quickly followed that up with a huge bite of noodles.

He enjoyed watching her eat and smiled to himself as he unwrapped his fork. Women here didn’t normally eat with such enthusiasm. Seeing her take pleasure in something as simple as a plate of food made him wonder what else made her happy.

She must’ve noticed his amusement, because she looked embarrassed and covered her mouth with a hand. “Sorry, I’m really hungry, I guess. Can’t remember when I last sat down for a meal. Plus, their balsamic-glazed beef with homemade garlic noodles is one of my favorites.”

“You’ve been worried. That’s understandable. Makes it hard to eat.” A fact he knew too well. He hadn’t been able to eat much the summer his father died. It took a long time to get his appetite back at the orphanage. Had his mother taken him in, it still would’ve been hard, but she wasn’t interested. After abandoning him and his father when Toryn was a baby, she wanted nothing to do with him…even after his father’s death.

He shoved those thoughts away and turned his attention on his ridiculously tiny fork. He was tempted to use his fingers like they often did back home, but that wasn’t done over here. People would see that and instantly peg him as a savage, a barbarian from Cascadia.

Despite the fork challenges, he eventually managed to make it work and he took a big bite. No wonder Keely was shoveling it in. The meat was tender and flavorful. And the noodles
were
delicious.

He thought about their earlier conversation. “I’m not surprised to hear you are a Talent.”

She looked around before turning her attention back to him. “Why?”

“I felt the signs of it when you were kissing me,” he said, trying hard not to slip into his Cascadian accident.

She lowered her eyes and concentrated on twirling noodles with her fork. “I…I’m really sorry about that. It was rude.”

He wasn’t sure he understood her. “Rude?”

“You know. Not polite. I shouldn’t have used my Talent on you without your permission.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kitten. It was not offensive to me.” Quite the opposite, in fact. It had been almost as intimate as that kiss.

Her mouth quirked, not quite a smile.

“You’re a Shield-Talent, aren’t you?” he asked softly.

“Yeah, I guess so, but I’ve never had much of a handle on it. If you were to ask my father, he’d call me a manipulator.”

“Whatever you did, I’m grateful. It prevented a Psychic-Talent thug from reading our minds.”

She stopped twisting her noodles and looked up. “Are you talking about those guys chasing me?”

He frowned. Didn’t she know? “One of them was a Psychic-Talent. I assumed that’s why you put up that mental shield. That you did it on purpose.”

She shook her head. “I…I…don’t know what I did. I just kept wishing they would run past us…and they did.” She gazed at him, a curious look on her face. “Why are
you
grateful they weren’t able to read your mind?”

He couldn’t exactly tell her that he was a warrior from Cascadia. People here didn’t look kindly on those they thought were terrorists. “Let’s just say had they known my intentions, they’d have been after me, too.” He needed to change the focus of this conversation. “So why did you say it was rude?”

She shrugged. “That’s what I was taught. You don’t flaunt something that should be kept locked away.”

“Locked away like a shameful secret? So your family doesn’t consider your Talent a gift?”

Her laugh was bitter. “Hardly. When they found out about my sister and me, they kicked us out of the house. I was fifteen. Becca was seventeen. Given that my mom was permanently disabled by a bombing a few years ago, you’d think they would have called the army to see if they could use our Talents in their fight against the terrorists. Guess I should be thankful they didn’t.”

He let out a slow exhale and let her words sink in. If she believed Cascadian warriors were responsible for hurting her mother—regardless of whether Keely was estranged from her or not—he couldn’t tell her the truth about himself.

He looked over the table at her, as if seeing her for the first time. Although from very different worlds, they’d both faced circumstances they couldn’t control and were forced to grow up quickly. His heart ached for her because he knew exactly how it felt to be abandoned by your mother, the one person who should love you unconditionally.

He reached out, clasped her hand in his. Their gazes met and held. Seeing the vulnerability beneath her dark lashes, he had the sudden urge to pull her into his arms again. Protect her from sadness and harm. Fix everything in her life that needed fixing.

After they finished eating, they made the ten-minute walk to her shop. He enjoyed being with her and used every excuse to touch her, keeping his hand on the small of her back most of the time. Stepping onto the curb. Guiding her around a break in the sidewalk. At one point, when two young girls weren’t watching where they were going and almost ran into them, Toryn cupped Keely’s shoulder and drew her out of their path. She flashed him an easy smile, lighting up the dark corners of his heart. She was uncomplicated and enjoyed his company.

When they rounded the final corner, Keely hesitated, then frowned.

His hand tightened on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Our sandwich board sign.” She pointed down the street. “It should be on the sidewalk below that blue awning, but it’s not there.”