Through The Veil (24 page)

She clenched her jaw against the tears that threatened. They
were almost there. Just another quarter of a mile and she could wallow in a bed
and escape the reality of her world for just a few hours. Then she needed to
talk to Bethany. She needed to act and try to rescue her friends and she needed
to know if she could count on help from the WS.

As the farm compound came into sight, Lori surreptitiously
glanced at Marcus. He held himself rigid, his jaw clenched, his shoulders
stiff, no longer moving gracefully with the gentle gait of the horse.

The gates opened and both Malcolm and Brooklyn came out to
take charge of the dead Predator. Lori knew they’d be there since she’d heard
the mental conversation between the two brothers.

She could steel her heart against Marcus, but her mind would
be a bit more difficult to control. They’d gotten too close over the last few
weeks and that made it too easy to slip into each other’s minds. In fact, she’d
had to build walls up in her head all day to keep him out as he kept pushing at
her to communicate with him. That’s probably why he was currently so angry.

As Marcus halted his horse to deal with the Predator, Lori
rode to the barn. She gave a sharp wave to Brooklyn and Malcolm as she passed
them. Exhaustion, both physical and mental, pulled at her and she just couldn’t
deal with any more pleasantries today. Drake met her at the barn and she slid
bonelessly
off the saddle.

As she began to groom her horse, Drake pushed her aside.
“I’ll take care of Isabelle. Go home and get warm,” he told her.

“Thanks, Drake.” She gave him a weary smile and headed out
of the barn. Home. What a joke. She didn’t have a home. The option to stay with
Marcus was no longer a good one. Tonight, she had no other choice because it
was too late to make other plans. But tomorrow, she hoped Bethany could give
her another option.

She planned to rescue her friends this week, with or without
the help from the inhabitants of the WS. But it would definitely help if they
had a place to stay when they crossed back over the Veil. She needed to touch
base with Bethany to see how much the WS was willing to help. This was the only
place they had to go, to escape. All of them would need a place to stay and
probably medical care. The five of them were a close group, but William’s needs
more than likely surpassed what they could handle, no matter how much control
Savannah had over him.

She also needed to flex her mental muscles and test just how
much stress on her power she could take. If she couldn’t get the group of them
back through the Veil and to the WS safely, then she’d be sentencing them all
to death.

Trudging through the snow and mud toward Marcus’s house, she
tried not to let the uncertainty of it all get her down. She needed to think
positively that she would get them out of captivity. If she went into the ES
with this attitude, she would end up dead, quick.

Finally, she arrived at Marcus’s home and activated the
pulley system to lower the stairs. Thank goodness they were finished so she
wouldn’t have to wait for transport from Marcus to get to the top.

“Lori…”

Ignoring the pleading sound of Marcus’s voice in her head,
she slowly peeled off her clothes and settled under the weight of the blankets
on the bed, shivering miserably. If asked, she would have said it stemmed from
the cold, but she really just missed his arms around her. How had she become so
reliant on him in such a short amount of time?

* * *

Marcus sighed as the three of them wrestled the heavy
Predator into Malcolm’s lab within the farm complex.

“What happened?” asked Brooklyn.

He dispassionately looked down at the beast that had ruined
everything. “We think it died of hypothermia.”

“No,” she said softly. “I meant what happened between you
and Lori?”

His vision blurred as he breathed in deep gulps. Oh Goddess,
the pain in her face after he said they would bring the Predator with them. He
hadn’t considered how that might affect her and now she was so hurt and angry
she wouldn’t even talk to him about it.

“Marcus?” Brooklyn prodded. Malcolm glanced at him with
concern, before turning back to examine the Predator.

“She didn’t understand.” His voice had deepened with unshed
grief. He waved his hand toward the creature. “She doesn’t understand what
these things are. And that they don’t deserve any measure of mercy. How
dangerous they are.” He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. “She’s
spent the last six years being experimented on in a lab and she sees us
treating it the same way. Of course, she wouldn’t understand.” He punched a
wall in frustration, not even feeling the pain that brought. “She won’t even
talk to me, Brooklyn. She’s completely shut me out.”

“Not completely,” Malcolm said.

“What do you mean?” Marcus asked. What the hell could
Malcolm know that he didn’t? Marcus was the one who’d spent the last few weeks
with her constantly.

“Like I can with you, I can sense her emotions. I can also
tell when she’s checking you. She does it when you’re distracted so you don’t
realize, but she’s constantly checking in with where you’re at emotionally. I’m
not even sure how aware she is that she’s doing it.” His brother watched him
for a moment. “There’s something different between you two. Your connection is
different. I’ve never seen anything like it. When you sleep, it’s like you’re a
single person. You become so entwined mentally that I honestly can’t tell from
your mental threads where one of you begins and the other ends.”

A jolt surged through Marcus. This tiniest bit of
information gave him a glimmer of hope. He didn’t want to believe what they had
could be over so easily.

“Marcus, have you told her what happened to Audra?” Brooklyn
gently asked.

He shook his head. What he had with Lori existed so
different from what he’d experienced with Audra. He hadn’t wanted Lori to feel
threatened by that memory, when it didn’t even compare. It didn’t matter that
he and Audra had been together for five years and he’d only known Lori for a
few weeks. This thing between them felt so much stronger than what he had in
the past.

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

“It matters, Marcus,” Brooklyn insisted. “It matters just in
the fact that you saw what one of these did to Audra the day she died. You need
to tell Lori.”

“Okay, tomorrow.” For tonight, he was exhausted and
heartsore
. He didn’t want to think anymore.

When Marcus got back to the tree house thirty minutes later,
he had to check on Lori. He couldn’t just pretend like she wasn’t there.
Quietly, he stepped into her room. She lay on her side, her fine, multi-colored
hair in disarray over the pillow. Shadows of stress and exhaustion darkened
under her eyes. He liked to think her life had gotten better here, but looking
at her now, she looked as worn out as she had when he’d found her at the edge
of the bridge. Her body trembled in sleep and he needed to give her comfort.
Just for one more night.

Leaving his jeans on, he lowered behind her in the bed and
pulled her into his arms. She turned to him in her sleep and he wrapped his
wings around her to shelter her as she relaxed into him.

Peace fell over him, even though they were far from fixed.
Home, she was his home. His soul settled when they were together. They had to
work this out.

* * *

When Lori awakened the next morning, she smiled lightly at
the warmth and pure spicy, male smell of Marcus holding her in sleep. But then
she remembered and had to push down the sob that threatened. Damn, how could
something so wrong feel so right?

She gently slid out of the bed and got dressed, trying not
to wake him. The covers had shifted in the night to expose his gorgeously
rugged chest. With her gaze, she traced the lines of his muscles, leading up to
his neck. It had been a couple of days since he’d shaved. The shadowed line of
whiskers on his chin and cheeks just enhanced his square
jawline
.
Her arm ached with the need to reach out and touch him. She clenched her fist,
resisting the urge.

She could sense him trying to find their mental connection
in his sleep. She’d severed it as soon as she woke up and realized he lingered
in her head again. When she slept and her defenses were naturally down, she
couldn’t stop it from happening. That separation would wake him soon. She
needed to get out of here before that happened. It was a weak, cowardly thing
to do, but she couldn’t face him this morning when she was unsure if she had
the strength to push him away again. She’d go plead her case with Bethany about
her friends in the ES and hopefully, find a new place to sleep, too.

Slipping silently out of the room, she rounded the circle of
stairs winding down around the tree until she arrived at the landing. As she
watched the stairs lower, it occurred to her that Marcus’s house was the only
tree house with stairs like this leading down to the ground. Damn, how would
she even get to Bethany? Sighing, she ran a frustrated hand through her hair.
She’d figure it out when she got there. If nothing else, she could simply yell
at Bethany to let her know she needed to come up. Nothing about her life was
easy, was it?

As she crossed the forest floor, the chill in the air sent a
wave of goose bumps down her arms. The cold remained, but steady drips of water
echoed across the quiet forest proving the snow had begun melting. Right now,
the frost and icy snow crunched under her boots as she walked in the early
morning twilight. Strange. She looked up into the sky. The ever-present fog
seemed a bit lighter today than normal.

Just as she rounded the corner below Bethany’s house, she
ran into Shane, the young redheaded worker from the farm.

“Hi,” he said with a shy smile. “Lori, right?”

“That’s me. I’m surprised to see you. There aren’t many
people out this early today.”

“Yeah. I wanted to get to the barn early. The animals have
been having a hard time with the low temperatures so I wanted to make sure they
were all okay. Drake stayed overnight, but I need to see them with my eyes,
ya
know?” He gave her a sheepish look.

Lori thought about the Predator that froze to death. “You
didn’t have any animals that died with the cold temperatures, did you?” Guilt
assailed her. They could probably blame her for the change in climate. How many
creatures had died because of it? Was it fair of her to even consider crossing
again not knowing how much more damage could be caused?

He must have seen something on her face akin to the panic
she felt because he quickly set to reassure her. “Oh no, we’ve kept them all
good and warm. Our barns are big enough to house all the livestock when we need
them to. It’s a bit crowded, but that just helps to generate more body heat for
them all.”

He looked around the area, confused. “But what are you doing
out so early? I’m actually surprised Marcus let you out of his sight. He can
get a bit overprotective.” He gave her a rueful smile of encouragement. “He’s a
good guy. It’s nice to see him happy again.” His gaze slid away from hers, as
he frowned at the ground and gnawed on his lip.

Happy again
. There it was…that mysterious reference
to something truly horrible in his past that changed everything. She wished
Marcus trusted her enough to share it with her, but they were probably past
that now anyway with the way things stood between them. A nauseated feeling
rose through her gut at the knowledge that this could be the end of them. Oh,
God, but she couldn’t think of that now. She had to concentrate on other
things. Now wasn’t the time to worry about her crumbling relationship with
Marcus or the fact she’d scurried away from his house like a thief in the
night.

Ignoring the momentary pain of guilt for leaving Marcus
asleep in her bed, she waved a hand at the tree house above them. “I need to
talk to Bethany.” She gave him a considering look. “I don’t suppose you would
mind giving me a lift up, would you?”

His eyes widened and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped.
“You want to go see Bethany? Does Aaron know you’re coming?”

“Um, no. I don’t quite have the handle on that telepathy
thing with everyone like you all do. I can only connect with a few people that
way. Would you mind letting them know that I’m here?”

“O…
kay
,” Shane looked worriedly up
toward the house. “But if Aaron maims me, you’re in charge of getting my bloody
body to my brother, Drake. Aaron is not a morning person and he hates it when
people drop in on Bethany unannounced.”

“It’s okay, I promise. I’ll take the full blame for this
one.”

“Yeah, sure you will,” he muttered. “But I don’t think he’s
going to be asking who’s to blame.”

She chuckled lightly. Shane being nervous helped to
dissipate her jangling nerves.

After a moment of concentration, Shane’s gaze lit back onto
Lori. “We’re lucky. Aaron went out on an errand so he’s not here right now.
Bethany asked me to bring you right up.” He reached his arms out to her. “I’m
ready when you are.”

Lori threaded her arms around his neck. It seemed odd to be
doing this with someone besides Marcus. But Shane maintained his distance as he
grabbed her around her waist and shot into the sky. He landed on the platform
where Bethany stood waiting for them.

She wore workout clothes—loose knit pants and a sports bra
like Brooklyn always wore. Her hair was pulled off her fresh-scrubbed face with
a narrow headband. The hair around the side of her neck curled with damp sweat,
but whatever she had been doing as a workout must be over because she had a heavy
coffee mug nestled in her grip. “Good morning, Lori and Shane. What are you two
doing up and about so early this brisk morning?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you so early, Bethany. Shane was just
passing by and offered to give me a lift up. Thanks, Shane.”