Parallel Heat (30 page)

Something had happened! She broke into a sprint, knocking on the door frantically. From within she heard Jared thunder, ‘‘You kissed my wife! Did I
misunderstand
that?’’

She knocked again, but there was no answer, only the quiet rumbling of voices competing to be heard. Without waiting for an answer, she barged in.

‘‘What’s going on?’’ she demanded, her gaze sweeping the dimly lit room. Marco stood by the fireplace, both hands held up in a defensive posture of denial. Jared towered upon him, stabbing the air with his forefinger. None of them seemed to even register her presence.

‘‘My lord!’’ she interceded. ‘‘Tell me what has happened!’’

Kelsey turned pleading eyes upon her, silently begging her for some sort of assistance. Thea crossed the room to her side as Jared roared again: ‘‘Tell me why you kissed my wife!’’

Oh gods, no.
Thea’s heart grew sick within her.
Not this, no, no.

‘‘Commander, you must listen to me,’’ she reasoned in the calmest voice she could muster. ‘‘It’s not what you think.’’

Jared whirled upon her. ‘‘Not what I think? How could I have misunderstood him kissing Kelsey before my very eyes?’’

‘‘I repeat, cousin, it is not what you believe. There is an explanation.’’ She spun to face Marco, urging him to confess his true nature. ‘‘Tell them,’’ she said. ‘‘They need to understand.’’

Marco’s black eyes were wide and he shook his head almost imperceptibly. ‘‘I should leave,’’ he muttered, fixing her with his stare. Transmitting every fear he bore about his gift.

As he pushed past her, she caught him by the arm. ‘‘Don’t let him send you away like this!’’

‘‘He
should
leave,’’ Jared pronounced with chilling calm. ‘‘It’s evident that he’s not the man I believed him to be.’’ His words were like an arrow, clearly hitting Marco’s heart like a killing bull’s-eye.

Marco stopped in his tracks, then slowly pivoted to face Jared one final time. Dropping to his knees, he bowed his head, thrusting his fist over his heart. ‘‘You are my lord, my king, and I serve no other but you and my queen,’’ he swore in a low voice. ‘‘I beg you to listen—to find it in your heart to forgive me. To understand.’’

For a long moment there was only the crackling sound of the fire, the whining wail of wind against the windows. Thea’s heart threatened to burst forth from her chest, it beat so loudly and rapidly. Yet no one spoke. She met Kelsey’s eyes across Marco’s bowing form and again thought her queen was pleading with her visually for some sort of intercession. That one glance propelled her into action.

‘‘Marco,
tell
them.’’ Thea took a step toward where he knelt before Jared.

Marco’s chest heaved with quick pants. ‘‘Jared, I’m begging you,’’ he beseeched. ‘‘Please don’t do this. Let me explain.’’

Yes, tell them about the connection. They must know . . . he’ll understand. Just tell them,
she transmitted silently.

Jared shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘‘No, I want you to leave tonight,’’ he demanded again in a tight voice. His behavior was so uncharacteristic, even at a moment like this one, that Thea couldn’t help staring at him aghast.

‘‘Won’t you even hear him out?’’ she demanded hotly.

‘‘Jared, think,’’ Kelsey interjected in measured tones. ‘‘Think about what you’re doing here. Think about the letter.’’

‘‘What letter?’’ Thea asked, but the question hung suspended in the air, unanswered.

Their king stared down at Marco’s prone form, his face a mask of derision. Everything hung in the balance. Thea held her breath, and prayed that Jared would tell Marco to stay. At last he blew out a disgusted sigh and shook his head, sealing Marco’s fate. ‘‘I want you to leave. Tonight.’’

Marco nodded, rose to his feet, and left the room without another word.

 
‘‘Where do you think he’s going to go?’’ Thea stared at her cousin in disbelief. ‘‘He has nowhere else, Jared. He’s your Madjin, for All’s sake.’’

Jared stared at the empty doorway as if Marco might reappear. ‘‘He betrayed me.’’

‘‘He did not!’’ Kelsey snapped. ‘‘You are so ridiculously stubborn. Go after him, Jared.’’

Jared glanced between them both, clearly seeing hot anger in both their eyes. His shoulders slumped and he rubbed a palm over the top of his head. ‘‘You saw what he did, Kelse—hell, you felt it.’’

Kelsey turned to face her. ‘‘We were working with our intuition,’’ she explained, and Thea’s heart plummeted to her stomach. ‘‘He was helping us learn about our gift, and then . . . he kissed me. Just like that.’’

‘‘Just like that,’’ Thea repeated dully. Why hadn’t her stubborn, beautiful love not listened to her? Why had he been so hell-bent on such self-destruction? She wanted to thrash and weep and cry her anguish to the rooftops. But he needed her too much right now—if he had any hope of a future at all. Because without his protected, a Madjin had nothing. His life meant nothing. She shivered at that thought, pacing first one way, then another.

What would he want me to do?
She wondered, rubbing a hand over her chest in a pointless attempt to still her thundering heart.
Wouldn’t he want the truth?
Whatever Marco would want, she knew what she had to do. ‘‘There’s a lot you two don’t know—I wanted him to tell you, but he obviously didn’t.’’

Kelsey waved her on. ‘‘Then you tell us—at least
I’m
listening.’’

There was a noise on the landing, and then Sabrina appeared in the doorway. ‘‘You said you trusted me, Commander,’’ she announced bitterly upon entering. ‘‘You said that if I vouched for him, that was enough for you. Why would he come on to your wife, right in front of you? Think about the illogic of it, Jared.’’

‘‘I will admit it does not make sense. If he desired her, then surely he wouldn’t have made a move in the midst of our training session.’’

‘‘Precisely!’’ Thea said, clapping her hands together for emphasis.

‘‘He knew this was coming; that’s why he warned us in the letter,’’ Kelsey observed cryptically. ‘‘He said that if he ever did something that seemed totally unforgivable—’’

‘‘To try and find it in my heart to understand,’’ Jared finished with a look of horror. ‘‘Gods in heaven.’’

‘‘What letter?’’ Sabrina and Thea asked simultaneously. Kelsey had mentioned it earlier, and in the heat of the moment, Thea hadn’t pursued it further.

Jared and Kelsey traded a look; Kelsey nodded her encouragement, then Jared strode to the small, utilitarian desk that served his needs in this upstairs study. He opened a central drawer, retrieving a plain envelope.

Without a word, he extended it to Sabrina.

 
Marco was literally in the middle of nowhere, hunkered down in the back corner of some dive on Highway 189, the perfect geographic location for him after everything tonight.
He
was nowhere; nameless; lost. He didn’t even know which bar he’d landed in, only that there were a half-dozen pool tables and a haze of cigarette smoke shrouding the place. And beer . . . racks and racks of beer, and Marco didn’t give a damn about his protector’s vows, not now, not tonight. He was going to get drunk and free fall into a painless state of oblivion if it was the last thing that he did.

Something about that decision felt strikingly familiar—as if he’d already lived it, as if he would always be living it for the rest of his life. Marco gave his head a slight shake, blaming the alcohol for addling his mind.

His waitress returned, her low halter top revealing a small butterfly on her right breast, and slid yet another bottle of Heineken across the scuffed wooden table toward him. ‘‘What’s that mean?’’ he asked, pointing at her tattoo.

She gave him a blank stare, so he swung his finger closer. ‘‘That,’’ he slurred. ‘‘The butterfly.’’

With a laugh, she patted the tattoo as if it might somehow fly off her chest. ‘‘Oh, hon, that’s nothing but an ole drunken dare.’’

She was southern; practically nobody in these parts was actually from Wyoming. He was just more alien than most, he reflected, suppressing a gurgle of drunken laughter. He nodded mutely at the woman before she walked away, figuring the halter top was about right for how hot the place was. Another aspect of this frigid territory—ice-cold outside, overheated indoors. Shrugging out of his coat, he kept seeing her butterfly in his head, flapping away at his subconscious. There was something about it, something haunting. That’s when it hit him—he would always bear his Madjin’s mark. It couldn’t be removed: Fifty years from now, if he was alive, he’d still be branded as a protector to the royal houses.

I’ll always be a servant,
he thought darkly
. I just have nobody to serve now.
It caused a horrible, bottomless feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Taking another heavy swig of beer, he felt the world around him grow even hazier—the dark bar was so cloaked in cigarette smoke, that he could hardly tell if it was the effect of the alcohol on his system or just the cloud hanging over the place. His eyes burned, and for a moment he closed them, feeling the world swim woozily all about him.

Yes, let me forget
, he thought.
In All’s name, just let me forget tonight.

Through the din of loud honky-tonk music, he could hear the phone at the bar ring, jarring him from his dazed state. The bartender—a burly guy with tattoos up and down each arm—grabbed it off the receiver. After listening a moment, he rounded the bar and stepped out back, shouting into the wintry darkness. Shortly thereafter a hippie chick with a wool knit cap tugged down over her ears entered the place, waving at someone as she picked up the receiver. As she talked, she pressed a hand against her cheek, beaming radiantly.

Even she has someone who cares about her,
Marco thought miserably, sinking down into the booth.
But not me.
He was utterly alone—without his unit, without his king and queen, without his homeland—and absolutely without Thea Haven. How could he possibly explain his actions to her, not that he’d ever see her again after tonight. And yet he’d witnessed firsthand how she believed in him, felt her unshakeable faith when she’d battled with Jared on his behalf.

She loved him, of that much he was certain now. Not that he’d doubted it before, because he’d already felt her heart. And he loved her more than she’d ever know, or ever believe for that matter, because he could never explain that when he’d kissed Kelsey, in some confused way, he’d believed he was kissing her.

He lifted the bottle of Heineken to his lips and took a long drag on the bottle, and sensed a gentle movement just beside him. Slowly he raised his head to see a very familiar figure. Yet her appearance made no sense whatsoever because he couldn’t imagine how she might have possibly found him.

Marco tilted his head back against the wooden booth, amazed by her angelic appearance. Maybe that’s actually what she was, his own guardian angel—
his
protector—sent to watch over him tonight. She stood in front of him, and turned her head slightly sideways to match his own skewed angle.

‘‘Marco?’’ she questioned gently, stepping closer, and he widened his eyes in reply. She sounded a lot like Thea, so that pretty much shot the angel theory.

‘‘Hey, baby,’’ he slurred and stared up at her. He suddenly felt as if it was years ago, once when he and Riley had bought a six pack for the first time and gotten drunk, and Sabrina had discovered them on the apartment floor—totally busted. Only Thea stared down at him, those full lips slightly open, her gorgeous curls tucked back in a braid, and he felt an explosion of desire. ‘‘Beauuti
ful
,’’ he pronounced, dragging the word out. Yet he couldn’t even seem to lift his head from where he’d rested it sideways against the back of the booth.

She smiled faintly, knitting her blond eyebrows together. ‘‘I see you didn’t waste any time tonight,’’ she observed, slipping into the booth right beside him.

‘‘Nah . . . I’m drunk,’’ he announced, sitting up more straight in the booth. ‘‘Best thing for me about now, don’t you guess?’’

‘‘No, not really,’’ she answered, stilling his hand as he reached for the beer bottle again. Keeping one hand atop his, she shoved the bottle out of his reach with the other. ‘‘The best thing for you is to sober up and come back with me to camp.’’

He shook his head vigorously, feeling morose once again. Somehow, for a brief moment when he’d first seen her, the world had become all lightness and beauty—he’d even set aside the weight of his betrayal.

Thea turned to face him in the darkened booth, her thigh brushing right against his. ‘‘Marco, you’ve got to come back with me.’’

‘‘Jared kicked me out,’’ he explained, uncertain if she really knew that fact.

‘‘I know,’’ she answered gently, threading her fingers together with his. ‘‘I was there, remember?’’

Oh, yeah, she’d been there. Of course. ‘‘Yeah, well, see,’’ he offered, squeezing her hand. ‘‘I may be drunk as hell, but I know that he kicked me out, and I can’t go back, Thea. I can never go back.’’

He didn’t miss how distressed her delicate features became, the fear that suddenly shadowed her water blue eyes. And he wanted to take that look away—had to do it. He cupped her face within his hands and drew her lips to his own. ‘‘Baby, I’m so sorry,’’ he whispered, kissing her deeply. There was nothing tentative or gentle about the way he took her now. He wanted her to see inside his heart, and to know that at least there, he belonged to her completely.

She didn’t resist him at all, and in fact threaded her fingers roughly through his hair, deepening their kiss heatedly. Her tongue danced with his, warring for position and as she melded with him like that, he felt his body gain clarity again. Thea Haven held the key to his soul, he’d known it practically from the moment they’d first met.

Slowly, he broke the kiss and just stared into her eyes. The fear was gone from her blue depths, replaced now by the specter of uncertainty. He stroked her cheek gently with his thumb, and pressed a soft kiss against her forehead.