The Immortal's Redemption
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“I don’t think...”
Admit nothing, whispered a discordant voice.
Pressing her back to the wall, Kennedy looked around. “What did you say?”
The woman stopped short, brows drawing together. “I called your name.”
“After that. What did you say after that?”
Pale brows relaxed over concerned eyes. “I asked if you were okay.”
“Oh.” Kennedy cleared her throat and, focusing, looked around. “So, I’m at the hospital?” Shaking her head, she held up a hand. “Sorry. I know I’m at the hospital. I work here. I mean, I’m here to work. As the director of nurses.” She closed her eyes and tried again. “You seem shocked to see me.”
The petite woman’s shoes squeaked against recently waxed floors. “You didn’t show up for drinks Saturday night, and you missed work yesterday.”
Kennedy’s eyes shot open. Denial burned across her tongue. “Not possible.”
“No one’s been able to reach you for something like three days.” She yanked Kennedy into a fierce hug.
Three days. “I’m sick.” The hoarse admission raked her throat with sharp tines. No. Not sick. Worse than that.
The nurse stepped back and tilted her chin up to accommodate the height difference between the two. “Seriously? Are you okay?”
There was that question again. Kennedy couldn’t answer because she had no idea what had happened or what she’d done, no idea where she’d been. She hadn’t had another blackout since... Friday night played through her mind. There’d been a bar. With bikers. A fight of some sort and she’d left in a cab. The cab. She’d been in the cab when she’d slipped off the precipice of consciousness.
The memory made her shiver. Hard.
“I need to get to work.” The beep of monitors, calls of patients and steady rush of feet up and down the hall punctuated the soft words.
A tiny V formed between the other woman’s brows. “I’m not sure you need to hit the floor if—”
“I need to work, to clear my head. I just...” Kennedy rolled her shoulders. “Grab me some scrubs and a patient care kit.”
The woman chewed her bottom lip and looked Kennedy over.
“I’m not contagious.” Of that much she was sure. When the woman still hesitated to move, Kennedy met her stare. “Don’t force me to make it an order. Please.”
“Okay.” She shook her head when Kennedy opened her mouth. “Don’t thank me. I’m not convinced I’m doing the right thing here.” Shoving her hand in her shirt pocket, she fiddled with a pen. Click. Click. Click. “Room 4410 is open. Use the shower in there. I’ll leave the scrubs on the counter.” Her pager sounded, and she backed away.
Kennedy slipped into the vacant room, rushed through her shower, dressed then headed to her office. This job was all she had left in a world that seemed determined to see her follow in the footsteps of every woman in her family tree—footsteps that led to the intersection of Crazy Lane and Dead Before Forty Boulevard.
* * *
The constant beeping of cardiac monitors was driving Kennedy insane only forty-five minutes later. The clang of every slammed medical cabinet made her jump. Every alarm that sounded made her want to scream. Her neck prickled like someone was watching her. Strange memories invaded her thoughts, providing abstract snapshots of a life she couldn’t recall living. A life that wasn’t hers. Not anymore.
Elbows on the wide counter, forehead in her hands, she craved silence. The second she had it, though, she knew she’d give in to the exhaustion that dogged her. “Someone hook me up to a caffeine IV. Stat.”
The nurse to her right laughed.
Kennedy looked over and tried to smile but couldn’t. “Don’t suppose you have a dollar, do you? I have to raid the vending machines before I lose my mind, but all I’ve got is a five.”
The woman’s grin faded as she studied Kennedy. “Girl, you look like someone beat you with a powder puff before putting your eye shadow on upside down.”
“Huh?”
“Pasty face, dark circles under your eyes,” she answered, digging a dollar from her pocket.
“Just tired.” She accepted the money and turned away before the inevitable “what’s wrong” question was asked. How the hell would she answer? My life’s falling apart, I’m disappearing in my own mind while I run around doing God knows what—and I’m scared I’m going to end up dead while my mind’s on autopilot.
Irritation rode her hard as she stormed into the employee breakroom. Her hands shook. Trying to force-feed the rumpled dollar bill into the recalcitrant vending machine made her long for a cutting torch. She’d take her time. Liberate bottles one at a time. Make the machine bleed quart after quart of whatever ran through its insides if the inanimate son of a bitch didn’t give her caffeine now.
A large hand settled on her shoulder and she whipped around, fist connecting with ribs before she could stop herself.
“Ow!” Her best friend, Ethan, jumped back, clutching his side while eyeing her carefully.
“Sorry.” The apology nearly stuck in her throat as she shook out her fist. The idea of hitting again was more gratifying than making sure she hadn’t hurt him with her first swing. That’s not me. Opening her mouth to ask if he was okay, the words turned to ash on her tongue. No matter how hard she tried, they wouldn’t come.
Stumbling back in a rush to put distance between them, she tripped over a chair and did an ungraceful ass plant before sliding across the hard tile floor. “Damn maintenance! Is this the only place they get the wax and polish right?”
Ethan’s gaze narrowed.
Kennedy could almost hear him ticking off marks on his checklist for mental instability, and the implication there was something wrong with her chafed. Even if it was accurate. It gave her fear a tangible foothold. Made it all too real.
Still sprawled on the floor, she glared up at him. “Stop looking at me like that.” The unguarded hostility in the command forced her to close her eyes and take a deep breath. Undiluted anger simmered in her blood. Not me, not me, not me, she silently chanted.
A whir followed by the thunk of a plastic soda bottle being dispensed made her shoulders sag even as she opened her eyes.
Ethan extended a broad hand and hauled her to her feet, still eyeing her silently.
“You should’ve left me there and run for your life.” Goose bumps decorated her arms, and she rubbed them briskly.
“I thought about it, but we both know you’re only director of nurses until you can take over the world and make me your consort.” He waggled his brows and offered a lopsided grin. “And everyone who’s anyone knows you can’t rule the world from the floor.” He held out the bottle of Coke. “Caffeine.”
Kennedy clenched her jaw shut and forced a close-lipped smile. “I suppose.” What in the world is wrong with me?
Holding the soda as a bribe, Ethan pulled out a chair and sat. He toed a second chair away from the table and tilted the bottle toward it in invitation. “Scared me, disappearing like you did.”
The urge to run kicked her adrenaline into overdrive. Fighting it, she sank into the proffered seat hard enough it slid back a few inches. “Caffeine first. Logical word exchange second.”
“Caffeine while you explain.” He handed over the bottle.
“If it helps, it scared me, too.” The soft admission hung between them, the impetus to a conversation long overdue. Toying with the lid, she finally spun it off and took a deep pull. Ethan’s silence made her shake her head as she picked at the bottle label. “Any other day you’d score me on depth and clarity.”
“There’s not a damn thing about this that I find funny.”
His sharp tone made her look up. “That makes two of us.” She took a second sip before setting the bottle on the table.
Raking a hand through his dark blond hair, he snagged the soda and took a sip. “Where’ve you been?”
“I can honestly say I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s been a bad eighty-four hours.”
He considered her, eyes guarded. “That’s a long run of bad.”
“Yeah.” Adrenaline mixed with anxiety to form a wicked cocktail that spread through her with immediate effect. Breaths came faster. Heart pounded. Sweat prickled her nape. “I haven’t been this screwed up since losing my dad and finding myself both devastated that he was gone but also horrifyingly relieved I could stop trying to please him while forever failing.”
Ethan stood and moved behind her, laying a palm between her shoulders and rubbing tiny, soothing circles. “Slow down.”
Panic folded in on itself and left her hollow, her skin too loose, her clothes too tight.
He gradually widened the circle. Heat emanated from his hand and spread through her at a lethargic pace.
Pervasive calm soothed the raw edges of her psyche. Her chin dipped forward. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but don’t stop.”
“It’s nothing, really. Just touch.”
“Whatever. I swear you’ve got magic hands.”
His touch slowed further then stilled. “Tell me what’s going on. You fell off the face of the earth. Didn’t call. Didn’t answer your cell. Scared me bad.” Tense silence stretched between them, fragile as spun sugar.
If my life had a soundtrack, this moment would cue the dramatic orchestra piece.
Ethan pulled his hand away. “Something bad happened.”
“What are you, psychic?” She twisted to look at him. “Because if you are, you should give all this up for the glamour of your own nine-hundred number.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ll cut you a good deal on my by-the-minute plan. Now stop trying to redirect the conversation and answer me. Where’ve you been?”
It was impossible to meet his open stare. “I don’t know.”
Fingers tightened against her jaw. “Come again?”
“I’m having blackouts.” The words, nothing more than a whisper, yowled through her mind in desperation.
“You mean blackouts as in passing out and waking up, or episodes of fugue?”
“It’s worse than fugue. I... I lose time, but always in short periods. Hours at most. Until last Friday anyway.” Wrapping her arms around her middle, she gripped her elbows and pulled tight. “I’m having violent thoughts, might even be getting violent while I’m out of it. I don’t know.” She forced herself to look at him.
His mouth worked wordlessly. He grabbed the soda and took a huge swallow. And choked. Waving her off, he wiped at his streaming eyes. “Violent how? Like temper tantrum violent, or I’ll cut you seventy-three different ways before I castrate you with a spork violent?”
The hiss of the door’s hydraulics saved her having to answer.
Kennedy shoved out of her seat and faced the nurse who hovered half in, half out of the break room. “You need me?”
“No. I mean, yes,” he stammered. “A guy’s out here asking for you.”
“Asking for me?” Her stomach plummeted, hitting bottom hard enough to bounce.
Ethan cleared his throat. “Is he a cop?”
Glaring at him, she fought against the invisible vise tightening around her chest. “Why would you think he’s a cop?”
“I, uh, sort of filed a missing person report.”
“Oh, man. Okay.” She bit her bottom lip. “I’ll be right out.”
The nurse said something over his shoulder as he left.
A deep, unfamiliar voice answered.
“I can’t believe you involved the cops,” she whispered, the words low and harsh.
Familiar, warm hands rested on her shoulders. “I’ll explain that it was a simple misunderstanding.”
“Sure.” Yanking the door open, Kennedy stepped into the hallway only to stop so abruptly Ethan slammed into her. She hardly noticed.
The smell of the sea, with its salt-saturated air and rain-fueled storms, washed over her the moment she met the burning green gaze of the man waiting for her.
Chapter 2
Dylan O’Shea stopped breathing the moment the woman came into view. White noise wiped out all but the thundering sound of his heart in his ears as he felt every ounce of blood drain from his face. He hadn’t been prepared. Not now. Not after so long spent looking for one face among millions over the centuries. He’d given up faith, and that’s when the gods, with their arbitrary natures and impossible demands, struck.
Wide blue eyes were fringed in black lashes. Long hair, glossy as a raven’s wing, curled loosely to the middle of her back. Porcelain skin flushed prettily. Tall but fine-boned, she couldn’t weigh nine stone.
She pulled up short only to be driven several steps closer when the man following behind crashed into her.
Dylan hardly spared the guy a glance. Instead, with need flowing through his system like spirits after a night of revelry, he reached for her. He had to touch her, to know with certainty she was real. His hand cupped one side of her neck. One thumb moved of its own volition and tenderly stroked her jaw. Never in all his years had he wanted anything as badly as he craved this woman, body and soul. Desire choked on duty and left him struggling to breathe. Don’t demand this of me, Danu. Anything but this.
“O-officer?” she stammered, the last of her soft color fading under his scrutiny. “May I help you?”
Her voice, sultry as sin with a smooth burn like fine whiskey, rolled through him. He blinked slowly, fighting like mad to retrieve his scattered wits, and jerked his hand away. “Kennedy Jefferson?”
“Yes? That’s me.” She pressed her fist into her middle before absently gesturing to her companion. “This is Ethan. Ethan Kemp. He filed the report.”
Dylan looked him over, entertained to find himself being equally scrutinized. “And who is Mr. Kemp to you, Ms. Jefferson?”
“A friend.”
“Her best friend,” Ethan amended, eyes narrowing.
“The distinction is duly noted.” Dylan spread his feet and crossed his arms, ignoring the question.
“Your accent.” She rubbed her forehead. “Where are you from?”
“Ireland.” The admission was out before he thought about it. Control. This is about control. It seemed she’d wrested it away the moment she appeared. The idea that a woman could scramble his sensibilities with no effort galled him so badly, he forcibly pulled himself together with only brute strength of will. “I need to speak with you, Ms. Jefferson. In private.” He hadn’t intended to needle the other man. Had no interest in it, actually, as it would only waste effort and potentially complicate things, and Dylan was all about efficiency.
“You can speak to both of us since I’m the one who filed the report.” Steel underscored the man’s superficially congenial words. “Clearly it was a misunderstanding.”
Dylan shifted his cold gaze to meet Ethan’s heated one. “Then why was the report filed?”
“Like I said, it was a misunderstanding.”
“Not good enough. I’d like details.” He looked at the woman. “Do you want to give them to me, or shall I take my pound of flesh from your best friend?” Sure the exaggerated air quotes were another jab, but the guy was pissing him off.
“That won’t be necessary.” She ran a hand—a trembling hand—around the back of her neck.
Bingo. “Somewhere private, then.” He swept out an arm. “Shall we?”
“I’ll donate that pound of flesh. I filed the report, so I’ll answer your questions.” Ethan dropped an arm over the woman’s shoulders and steered her down the hallway, dipping his face toward hers. “My office or yours?”
The woman looked up at him, brows furrowed. “Mine, I guess.”
Dylan followed, silently weighing his options. There were several ways he could approach the situation, none of them ideal. Every scenario involved first dealing with her self-appointed guardian. Friend. Riiiiight. Best friend. He snorted.
She glanced back at him, teeth worrying her bottom lip.
He drew in a breath, opened his mouth to speak and stopped, jaw hanging open like an eejit’s. A soft brush of vanilla wafted around him. Lavender wove its way through the dominant scent until the two were indistinguishable. His mind shut down as lust settled into the driver’s seat. The click of her shoes on the tiled floors drew his gaze to her feet. “You always wear stilettos to work?” he asked softly.
“No.” The response, quick and unguarded, returned color to her cheeks. She looked so vital in that moment. Alive. Innocent.
His lips thinned. Can’t be my concern.
They took the elevator to the first floor. Tension wound around him as he followed the pair across the crowded lobby and through a lush and winding wing decorated with deep colors and saltwater fish tanks. The woman unlocked her office and stepped inside, Kemp hot on her heels. That left Dylan to follow on his own.
He did, letting the heavy door swing shut with an authoritative whump. Leaning against it, he surveyed the small room. The door was the only entrance. Or exit. Excellent.
Kemp pulled out the executive’s chair on the far side of the desk and saw the woman seated before squaring off with Dylan. “I filed the missing person report. Since Kennedy’s obviously not missing anymore, tell me what we need to do to close the file.”
Dylan zeroed in on one word—anymore. He crossed his ankles and casually studied the toes of his boots. “Where were you, Ms. Jefferson?”
“Call me Kennedy. Please.”
Not happening. Making this any more personal would destroy what little sense of self he retained. Lifting his chin, he peered at her through narrowed eyes. “Where’d you run off to...Ms. Jefferson?”
Her nostrils flared, eyes glittering. “I didn’t run—”
“Truth.” The barked command was all the louder for the heavy silence that followed.
A sultry laugh escaped her. “So demanding.” She slapped a hand over her mouth. The voice that had come out of her mouth wasn’t hers.
“Care to explain that little trick?” He watched her. Waited. When she didn’t answer, he pushed off the door and slipped a hand behind his back to grip his primary weapon. “I asked you a question, Ms. Jefferson.”
Those blue eyes were wide with undisguised fear. “I didn’t mean to...that is, I... I’m...sorry.” The last word was ground out.
“Accepted. Now, stop stalling and answer me.” His arched brow issued a silent challenge to her burgeoning temper.
Kemp stepped up beside her. “You’re badgering her like she’s guilty of something.”
Point to her BFF. He answered the man without looking away from the woman. “I won’t leave without carrying out my duty.”
Kemp dropped a hand on her shoulder and stared at him, considering. “I already told you the whole thing was a mistake. She was...”
“Sleeping,” the woman blurted out. “Heavily.”
Dylan knew his smile didn’t reach the cold void of his eyes. “Heavy enough you didn’t hear your phone when I called? My knocks at your door when I came by?”
She scrubbed her palms against her thighs. “Right.”
He blinked slowly. “Sounds odd. Unnatural, even.”
A raspy growl slipped between her lips.
Tightening his grip on his weapon, he shifted his weight to the balls of his feet.
The woman pressed the heels of her hands to her temples. “Not me, not me, not me,” she whispered.
“Kennedy?” Running his hands down her arms, Kemp gripped her hands. “Talk to me, honey.”
Fool. “I’m ready to finish this.” Dylan knew the woman heard him when she darted a glance in his direction. Pupils enlarged, her chest heaved as he watched her fight to regain control.
“Noted,” she said in that odd voice, dipping her chin sharply.
So he waited. Seconds turned into minutes. At no point did he relax his grip on his weapon.
Kemp shot him a hard look. “I’d appreciate it if we could finish this later.”
Dylan’s free hand fisted. “She and I haven’t even started.”
The woman looked up again, the blue of her irises all but gone. She stood with exaggerated care. “Why are you here?”
Gods, that voice. It reeked of violent deeds done in the dark. He fought to squash the urge to claw at his skin and dislodge her words, words that stuck to his skin like poison-tipped cockleburs. Never had he heard anything like it.
Stepping closer, she smiled. “And now it seems I’ve asked you a question. Hesitation won’t be tolerated.”
Kemp reached for her, trying to pull her back.
“This is between the woman and me. It has nothing to do with you,” Dylan snapped. The man would back off or Dylan would be forced to divide his attentions, half on the woman and half on the Druidic arts to compel the man to leave. “If you have any sense of self-preservation, you’ll back off.”
“Back off, my ass.” Kemp put himself between them, the woman at his back. “She matters to me.”
May the gods save him from heroes. “More than your own life? Because if the answer’s ‘no’? Move. Now.” He shoved Kemp aside and stepped into the woman’s personal space. “I asked you to answer me, and more than once. I’m nigh done asking, woman.”
Sweat beaded along her upper lip. Shadows moved in her eyes. “Don’t...let me—” she bore down, panting through gritted teeth “—hurt anyone. Please.”
With that, her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed.
Well, shit.
* * *
Head resting on her forearms, a safari-esque drumbeat pounded through Kennedy’s brain over and over, her mental MP3 stuck on Repeat. Her head felt too full. Ethan rubbed her back, his warm hands turning her bones to Silly Putty. The mental drumming wound down to sporadic solo bursts when those magic hands slipped up her neck to massage her scalp. He chanted, voice so low she couldn’t understand what he said. Twisting, she looked up to find his eyes closed and face totally relaxed. She took his hands in hers. Their warmth hadn’t been imagined. Far from it. They were almost hot to the touch. How? Why?
“Better?” Ethan asked, interrupting her thoughts.
She settled back into his office chair. “Yeah.” Digging an elastic band from her scrub pocket, she pulled her hair up into a thick, sloppy topknot. Her hands froze midway through the act. “Where’s the Neanderthal?”
“Waiting outside.”
“Think we can sneak out? I...” Fear strangled her and made her breath wheeze. “I need to talk to you. About what’s been going on.”
Ethan’s gaze narrowed. “I’m up for a little spontaneous dissidence if you are. Put your head back down and give me a second to get rid of him.” He slipped out the door.
Alone, her mind wandered. Thoughts crowded in, layering one over the other to form a collage of memories, some clear, others clouded. She poked at the unfamiliar images, trying to paint clearer pictures of places she thought she’d been, things she believed she’d done and, worse, violence she’d probably carried out.
Velvet-clad fingers swept through her mind, as visceral and malicious as anything she’d ever experienced. The intimate violation made her stomach knot up. Her vision fractured. Reality was suddenly painted with diluted watercolors. Squeezing her eyes closed and clutching her head, she gasped. Not okay. Not even remotely okay. “Stop it.”
Low, angry hisses wicked along her skull. Her scalp tried to crawl down her face and escape the infinite voices trapped in the sound.
“Stop it,” she repeated through gritted teeth.
“Stop what?”
The room snapped into focus. Somewhere nearby, a phone rang, the noise hammering her eardrums.
Ethan stood across the desk from her, a deep V carved between his brows. “What’d I do?”
“Nothing.” She swallowed the bile that blistered her throat. “Is he gone?”
“Yeah. Off to get you a glass of water from the cafeteria.”
A shaky breath escaped. “Okay. Let’s get out of here.”
Ethan hesitated. “We’ll need to stay close. No way am I going to risk making this worse for you.”
“I can’t afford for things to get worse. We’ll just go across the street to The Daily Grind, talk there.”