Warrior Reborn (11 page)

“We were told you were, were—”

Jason missed the rest. “Excuse me, Detective. Can I call you right back? Thanks.” He snapped the phone shut and moved behind Sanyu.

“I got bumped off the system so quickly for what reason? Is someone concerned that my dead body might try to access patient results? I’m obviously alive, fit, and need my access back immediately.”

“Dr. Hyden, be reasonable.” Sanyu ducked his head. Jason suspected he was making plans for escape.

“Reasonable is expecting a day before my work accesses are rescinded, not an hour after the police call. I need access restored just as quickly.”

“I will see what I can do. But it’s standard procedure when we are informed of a death.”

Briet glanced to Jason. He gave a quick shake of his head. Fortunately, she didn’t bring him into the conversation.

Sanyu turned and seeing him, considered he had an ally. He gave him a pained look, which Jason didn’t reciprocate any more than he had Briet’s plea.

“If you’ll excuse me, Dr. Hyden, I have a meeting.” Sanyu bailed toward the stairwell, evidently not risking the chance of Briet stalling him again in the elevator.

“The police must have contacted several people,” she said in a huff.

“That’s not what they led me to believe. I was just on the phone with the detective.”

Briet's brow furrowed. “Then how did Sanyu know?”

Jason considered for a moment then forged ahead. “I don’t have an answer for you and you’re not going to like what I suggest, but people rarely tell you what you want when you attack them for information.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I didn’t attack him.”

“Listen to what I’m saying, not what you think you hear.”

She pursed her lips and waited. Not patiently, but he tried not to laugh because it was as patient as she got when she was riled. “You’ll find out more if you sit back and let a man like Sanyu talk himself into circles. I agree something’s odd. Keeping your eyes open will provide you with more information than confrontation.”

She looked to the stairwell again and back at him. With an exaggerated gesture, she stretched her neck and closed her eyes. “All right. But I still need my access back.”

He leaned close enough to whisper in her ear. “Now,
that
I can fix.”

She met his gaze. A wide, wholesome smile broke across her face, combined with bright eyes and sweet lips.

Oh, so worth it
. Jason opened his phone and punched the number for the computer admin on the Welson team.

***

Briet
folded
in to the Sanctum’s council room. The tiered rows of seats were all empty—not a soul to be seen. She let out a frustrated breath only to hear it reverberate back to her from the high stone walls.

One quick turn on the balls of her feet, and she headed into the wide hallway. Her shoes echoed softly on the slate tile floor. The plateaus of rooms and suites, composites of stone, wood, and now newer technological additions, were the work of centuries. The original base structure, now housing the current council chamber, had been built by the first of the Guardians after their creation in Eden.

Generations had added their influences: a floor here, a redesign there, security measures, and artwork, practical and sensual. The Sanctum’s buildings and grounds, isolated and protected from human detection, were the only place the Guardians were truly safe.

Her people had ventured to live among humans, but this was the home Ansgar had brought her to after they'd lost their parents. At six years old, Briet had joined the few other Guardian children sequestered in safety after a viral wave of death had swept through the adults of her race hundreds of years earlier.

Home.

From the stone pavers at the top of the gardens she watched Tsu. His blue-black hair, held back with a leather tie, gleamed against the pearl white of his cotton shirt. His fingers gently manipulated limbs of tomato plants along a bamboo teepee.

“Ansgar’s not here today,” said Tsu. He didn’t turn from his work as she sat on the wooden bench behind him.

“I know. He’s working with his salvage team today.”

Tsu’s held the tomato stalk in place, then knelt to the ground and laid his hand on the soil. Green shoots pushed through the dark loam and unfurled in thin vines. Weaving their way around the tomato’s base and up, they spread and multiplied in fronds and leaves until they reached the bamboo’s top.

Grace and beauty. His power revealed itself in every flower and blooming patch of vegetation across the Sanctum’s grounds.

“Isn’t it late for tomatoes?”

He glanced at her over his shoulder but continued with his work. “It’s still warm here. With the sun and some encouragement they’ll flower and produce in the next two months and give the peas here some shelter. Quan’s compound will have snow for many more months and her charges need a more diversified diet than I can create in that habitat right now. Next spring perhaps.”

“Her effort must be going well.” Briet waited for him to brush his hands and come to sit beside her. His sister had left the Sanctum to start a refuge on an island bordering southern China. With security and seclusion, she welcomed women and children of abuse and neglect, providing them the safety and training to reclaim their lives. Tsu split his time between his duties at the Sanctum and supporting his sister’s construction of a new home.

“Her efforts are successful. The shame is that there is so much need for them.”

Briet nodded. There were so many options for ways to contribute and so few Guardians to make a difference.

“But you aren’t here to catch up and see the gardens.”

He was nothing if not insightful. Perhaps the reason he was so successful in his role as the Guardians’ defense master.

“I’m not your brother, Briet, but you are part of my family. Please speak and share your burden.”

“What makes you think I have burdens? I’m doing what I love. I have freedom again with Turen now leading our people and Salvatore gone.”

“Yes.” He gave her a long look. “You are free to be in the world of humans, perhaps even seek your mate, yet you are hiding here.”

She glanced away and wrapped her arms around her body.

“Or have you already found him?”

Where in the world was she to start? Hardly able to determine for herself why she was here, how could she explain it to Tsu? Baby steps. That’s what he’d always taught her. “I’ve found him.”

“You seem uncertain.”

“No. It’s just that it’s not like with Turen and Mia.” Finally, the problem. She had a fantasy about finding her mate. It should have been comfortable and easy.

“Ah. As the first Guardian to find a mate and have a successful relationship in more than two hundred years, Turen’s relationship with Mia receives a great deal of scrutiny.” He leaned back against the bench, his legs out and crossed, his fingers casually twined over his stomach as he fixed his gaze on the expanse of Eden’s fields and orchards.

The casual pose was a pretense. Briet knew him well enough to sense the subtle lecture coming. “They are so well suited and work together with such intimacy.”

“Many nights together in the dark, dangerous cells of Xavier’s dungeons developed a unique bond of trust between the two. The rest of us did not have the benefit of witnessing the difficult choices and trials they endured to reach their current level of happiness. The illusion is ease and suitability. The reality, I believe, was hard work and commitment.”

At least he wasn’t demeaning in his lessons. But he was right. She was taking their ending and comparing it to her beginning with Jason, both unfair and unrealistic.

“Is your mate unkind? Unscrupulous? Ugly?” He kept his expression calm, though his dark eyes sparkled with a hint of humor.

“He’s no ogre or troll.”

The sparkled disappeared, replaced by faint lines of concern. “Is he married? Committed?”

“No.” She waved away his worry. “He’s successful, very good looking, and very experienced.”

His eyebrow shot up with her comment, but she hurried on.

“People like him, respect him and women—” She wasn’t going there. “He has an outward persona of ambition, but his focus and actions are generous and protective.”

She rubbed her hands, trying for warmth. Even with the sun beating down, she found it hard to stay warm or perhaps just stay objective. The conversation felt like a personal flaying, her thoughts laid open for assessment. Not Tsu’s intention, she knew. He was nearly as protective of her as Ansgar. Though he had objectivity when it came to her, where her brother did not.

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, watching her face. “Does he not have feelings for you?”

“I think…” She swallowed uncomfortably. “No, I know he cares for me. His actions, his reactions reflect it.”

“And you?” He asked the question quietly, but his look never wavered.

“I care very much for him.” Every time she heard his voice, every time she saw his face. With every touch and thought, her tether to Jason grew stronger. Fine webs of emotion tied her heart closer in a bond she feared she couldn’t break. The potential existed for infinite happiness or never-ending pain.

Tsu finally looked away. “Remember when you started training with the staff? You would attack and learn any position. But when confronted with a sparring match you would back off.”

The memory still goaded her and she shifted uneasily. The lessons had been fun until she’d had to compete with the boys and some of the older girls. “You used to tell me I was my biggest handicap.”

“You were. Your fear of failing and getting hurt led you to avoid practical moves to defend yourself. Once you were able to confront and conquer those fears you were able to win your bouts.”

“We did hours of those drop and roll drills, even the punching drills. I still have bruises when I drop on my knees.”

“I doubt that; unless you are not doing the sequence of training correctly.” He looked back again, his expression kind as he covered her hand with his. “What fear is holding you back now?”

She blinked away the tears threatening. She didn’t do fear well. She didn’t do failure well. “What if I can’t be what he needs?”

CHAPTER 12

Briet exited the rear entrance of the lab building, surprised to see Jason joining her from the opposite direction.

He had just left the hospital’s side entrance as she’d walked across the bridge span between the two buildings. That would mean he had walked all the way around the block to reach this point instead of walking through the building?

With a quick nod, he gestured toward the street instead of into the adjoining parking garage. “You mind if we take the ‘T’? The restaurant is on the river, near one of the stops.”

He addressed his question to her, but his gaze went over her shoulder, flickering back and forth between the lab’s exit and the street. Hands in his pockets, he didn’t attempt to close the distance between them and waited on her answer.

She nodded. Giving into the compulsion to verify what he was looking at, she glanced back over her shoulder to check as well, though found nothing. There were no people. No cars. This exit was low traffic. Then again, all the security cameras were focused on the garage areas and the hallways inside because this pathway registered as low risk. He’d specifically asked her to meet him here. Coincidence? She doubted it. Jason did few things without premeditation, not driven as she was by emotion.

Her instantaneous responses had gotten her in trouble several times.

She preceded him down the stairs to the subway’s entrance. Out of the shadow of the hospital, his hand moved to her arm and guided her to the platform for the correct train.

Amid the vibration of trains, they waited and listened. A man played his violin several feet away, case and coat at his feet. The sound and lilt of his music, delivered with vibrancy and energy, were at odds with his drab weathered clothes, bedraggled hair, and gnarled fingers that spoke to a harsh existence. Despite the calloused look of his fingers, magic flowed from his graceful motions. The soul-soothing notes drifted to the curved ceilings and tunnels of the rail station.

Their train rumbled in and Jason pitched a rolled bill into the man’s violin case before he moved her to the opening doors. His body pressed behind her and he held her close as the platform swelled with people, young and old, weary and sly. Ushering her into the car, he shielded her against the wall, a hand on the overhead rung, the other protective at her waist.

“So, where’s the baby?” she asked feeling the need to distract herself from his close proximity.

He titled his head in surprise. “I don’t think I’ve ever even mentioned my car to you?”

“Your reputation precedes you and you knew immediately what I was talking about.” Jason’s six-cylinder, three hundred eighty-five horsepower Porsche Carrera was the only topic nurse Groden had deemed worthy to discuss with Briet. She’d spared no detail of her
friend’s
ride in the vehicle.

Jason grimaced. “Don’t believe everything you hear. It’s in my condominium’s garage. The restaurant is close to my place. I figured you might like the walk instead since it’s a nice evening. I can give you a ride home in the monster.”

“Monster?”

“It’s high maintenance. Cars need to be driven and pampered. She’s not bad on mileage for a sports car, but she’s a cop magnet.”

He laughed when she couldn’t stop her eyebrow from shooting up.

“I don’t get pulled over for tickets as much as I get pulled over by state troopers who want to see the car.”

The train lurched. Briet grappled to stay upright and Jason pulled her tight against him, his hard body warm all the way from her breast to her thighs. The layers of their clothing didn’t dampen the electricity of the contact between them. His breath whispered in her hair, sending a tremor along the nerve endings of her neck and down her spine. Hot and cold, lust and want spiraled into sharp spiking need.

Seconds later, his hand was gone, as if he’d realized he had been hugging her to him. But the sense of desire lingered. Briet clutched her purse, holding onto the pole at her side and watched the other occupants of the car to hide the heat of her cheeks. Bodies were wedged so close she couldn’t even see the windows.