Eyes to the Soul Page 17

Knowing she should ask permission but needing to touch, she let her fingers trail across the strong cheekbones, lean, taut jaw and on to the large forehead. In passing, her fingers slipped across eyelashes that women would die for. She sighed as her fingers found the silkiest hair she could ever imagine a man having. It went to his shoulders. She exclaimed in joy as her fingers stroked through the waves. In her mind a picture was forming close to the image she’d kept in her heart after meeting him in her dreams. She had no way to know how close it would be, but it helped her to identify with him.

  His shoulders were broad, the muscles corded, lean. She wanted to stroke his skin, explore those muscles. Foolish of her. Probably what she was doing wasn’t wise either. She no longer cared. Who was this man that had walked into her life like he had the right? And taken up residence daringly close to her heart. She hadn’t known about him days ago, but she knew him somehow. She couldn’t help her fingers stroking down his long arms, getting a sense of the breadth of him, the lean, muscled look of him. On their own accord her fingers explored upward again, coming to rest on his lips.

  His lips moved beneath her fingers.

  And kissed her fingertips.

  She gasped and pulled her hand back.

  “Don’t,” he murmured. “Feel free to touch.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have asked first.”

  “Why?” he asked curiously. “Is that some sort of blind etiquette thing?”

  “I don’t know.” She laughed ruefully. “I’ve been very obstinate about learning anything that would help my condition. I don’t want to be in this state.”

  “So you have resisted. That sounds normal.”

  She heard the hairbrush land on the bedding beside her and something in the air changed. Warmed. Reminding her that some things hadn’t changed. She was still nude in her bed, under the cover of night, with a gorgeous man who was still a stranger.

  Yet some crucial things had shifted. She knew that he was important to her. She was important to him. He cared. She was open to caring. And she’d let go of a lot of pain from old relationships, making room for a new one.

  She smiled, the curve of her lips tilting high on one side. “Hello again.”

  He smiled and brushed his thumb across her lips.

  His hand slipped around the back of her neck, long fingers sliding deep into her hair, and he tugged her closer.

  Twisted and off balance, she fell – into his arms. He tugged her up close to his chest, her head back over his arm. She waited, again a sense of fatalism in her response. This was right. Whoever this man was, he was the right man at the right time. Now.

  Just before she felt the touch of his lips against her his breath warmed her eyes, down over her nose to her lips. He whispered, “Hello.”

  And kissed her.

  She’d been kissed before. She’d been kissed lovingly before. By a man she’d loved and who had loved her. This was different. This was a coming home. This was a realization of something she had been missing all her life – and only now just found. An awakening to something she hadn’t known she’d been missing. And now that she knew, she understood the gift he was offering.

  A sense of completeness.

  She didn’t know when the tears started to trickle. Didn’t even know that they had started. Stefan lifted his head and kissed the corner of her eyes. “Tears,” he said. “Why?”

  “How can I answer that when I don’t know?” Still, she groped for one that would satisfy. Held strong against his chest, no quiver in the muscles of his arms, she opted for the truth. If he was this strong inside, then she could be too. “The emotion is so deep right now. So momentous, there’s a well opening up inside.” She stopped and shrugged. “I know it sounds stupid…”

  His lips touched hers, coaxing them to silence before she let the rest of her sentence out. His breath wafted gently over her skin as he whispered, “There is nothing stupid about this. About right now. It is momentous. For both of us.”

  And damn if huge tears didn’t well up again at his words.

  “Shh.” He kissed the corner of her eye, his tongue gently catching the falling drop. “It’s going to be fine. Just rest.”

  Celina’s lips twitched. “I’m in bed with a gorgeous man and he says rest. Who’d believe me?”

  He laughed, the sound bringing up images of deep, dark midnight dreams. She wished she could see him, but fancied that she saw him as he was inside. She had never met any man like him.

  She was laid back down on the bed, the covers pulled up to her chin, with a brief but bordering-on-hot kiss before he stepped back. In bemusement she heard him walk toward the door.

  “Wait.”

  She heard his inwardly drawn breath, sensing the stillness of his movements.

  “What do you need?” he asked.

  “You.”

  *

  Stefan paused, his heart hammering against his chest. Did she realize what she was saying? Inviting? And was this what he wanted? His loins screamed yes, but his mind said it wasn’t a good idea. She was vulnerable.

  His heart told him to stop talking and seize what he really wanted.

  He approached the bed slowly. “Are you sure?”

  He studied her energy, searching for the truth. And saw what he had hoped not to see. Doubts.

  “You’re not ready,” he said slowly, almost hating that small part of himself that needed the truth and only truth between them. That knew he had to take the high road this time. Every time.

  “No,” she whispered. “Maybe I’m not, but I’m not far off.”

  He laughed, loving her truth. “Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

  She patted the bed beside her. “Stay with me, please.”

  “Are you nervous?” He settled on the bed beside her. She rolled over, giving him her back. He stretched out, wrapped an arm around her, and tugged her up close. “Sleep. I’ll look after you.”

  And she closed her eyes and slept.

  Stefan closed his eyes and relaxed behind Celina spoon-fashion. He hadn’t thought to get this far so fast with her, but when the chips were down she’d known whom to trust. He loved that. He was her rightful partner, but just because he said he was didn’t make it so – especially not in her eyes.

  And speaking of her eyes, what was going on there? He’d studied them as much as he was comfortable doing and still didn’t understand. He would be sad for her if she had lost her sight completely and he’d rejoice if she hadn’t. It was her life, her world that would open up more or stay as it was now.

  He hoped for her sake that this could be fixed, but if not it changed nothing for him. She had the ability to see so much on other planes of existence that he knew he could help her to see more than she’d ever thought possible. It wouldn’t be like before, when her eyes were healthy and strong, but it would be something.

  He made a mental note to look into her accident a little further. Maybe that was the connection – to her blindness, the asshole, maybe even the other cases. And depending on what was going on and how, this could potentially only end when this asshole was stopped.

  Like so many other assholes before him.

  Stefan knew he should get up, but he wanted every moment he could have with her – especially like this.

  His mind freewheeled through the bits and pieces of information that he’d learned this last week. Holding a mental canvas, he kept splattering the bits and pieces on the canvas, hoping to see a pattern. A connection. It wasn’t easy to do, as he had many cases to sift through. Even the locations of the burning sensation that Sam had been picking up, a poison maybe, were in different parts of the body. He continued to place the pieces on his canvas, hoping that one piece would fit. Then another.

  His mind spun endlessly on the possibilities. The clues were the burning heat and the fact that there were no similarities – that they could see. Still he understood Sam’s talent, and he had no doubt the connection was there. He also believed Celina had no idea what was going on. She al
so knew more than she understood. Teasing it out of her would be the problem.

  As Celina slept, the room had slowly filled with ghosts. He shifted his vision so he could see the energy as they floated in and around. They weren’t sure what to do with his presence, but none attacked him or appeared bothered in any way. They all had very long, thin cords into Celina’s energy. Cords that couldn’t be released permanently until Celina let them go. No wonder she was exhausted and likely had been for a long time.

  Had these guys been siphoning off her energy to keep up their existence here? It happened. And not always with malicious intent. Anyone who felt pulled in many directions with a lot of different friends could have the exact same problem. Celina would have to learn to cut the cords to gain her freedom. That way, if the ghosts wanted to stay around they could, but at the same time their presence wouldn’t drain her.

  Her injury also exhausted her. She probably had no idea how badly she’d been burning through her life force with her constant rejection of her blindness. Plus, this predator had become a parasite on her system. By using her abilities without protecting herself, Celina had left herself open to being taken advantage of on an energetic level, and as a result she’d become a host to many parasites.

  She could change that, but as she’d given her permission for this to happen, she was the one required to make the changes. He stayed silent at her side, watching the kaleidoscope of energies filter in and out. The parasite wasn’t here.

  He waited, his mind slipping back in and out of his consciousness. It expanded outward, softening, accepting and open to anything. He’d learned this trick from another incredibly talented friend, Shay Lassiter, who had the ability to spread her energy so thin as to no longer exist – or rather exist – everywhere… at the DNA level. Following her lessons he spread outward and outward and outward. He had no purpose behind this exercise other than as a practice session. He was in the living room, the bathroom, the bedroom, out in the hallway, down the elevator, out in the lobby, and into the night.

  His consciousness filtered down even smaller as he let himself mingle with the night.

  He floated in peaceful contentment, leaving his senses wide open but relaxed as he lay there. After a few minutes he raised the level of awareness, looking for something out of the ordinary in Celina’s world. Her energy pathway from her day’s travels floated in faint wispy color around him. It was easy to follow her trail to Dr. Maddy’s office and backwards along the pathway that she’d taken throughout the day. He could see the taxi carrying a little of Celina’s energy moving throughout the rest of the afternoon, picking up other people’s energy and adding it to the pile. By the time the cab itself parked that night it was a seething mass of pulsating energy.

  Interesting that the cab continued to stand out as he walked through Celina’s movements. Stefan studied the cab and where it had parked. It wasn’t in a garage with many other cabs; it had gone to a house and parked there. It wasn’t that the cab still held traces of Celina’s energy, which it did, but it was so finite as to not be visible anymore. That the vehicle continue to stand out could only mean one thing – the cabby had been affected by Celina.

  Stefan smiled. That would make total sense.

  With something tugging at him, he turned to one of his favorite projects. The children’s hospital and the wing he and Maddy had set up, similar to her other project on Maddy’s Floor. He dove forward, zipping to the children’s ward, pulling the tiny bits and pieces of errant energy back into alignment.

  Inside the special ward, a wobble had formed on the edge at the back end. Where Eric was lying. Eric, who had been with them for only a couple of days but had managed to affect the energy field. The doctors were concerned about his mental health. He’d had surgery and had taken a violent dislike to the bone the doctors had used. What should have been an easy surgery had turned into a nightmare with the child’s reaction. His medication had been changed several times and his mental state watched closely, but there’d been no improvement. Stefan zoomed in to the child’s bed.

  His heart hurt. Everywhere else the children slept in peaceful healing sleep. Like they were supposed to. Yet, this little boy twisted with terrible nightmares. His body couldn’t heal because it couldn’t rest. It couldn’t rest because the boy’s mind had filled with terrors.

  He drifted over Eric’s bed, laying a delicate blanket of healing energy over the child’s body.

  The small boy stiffened, his eyes flying open to stare right at Stefan. And damn if he didn’t whisper, “Are you an angel?”

  *

  Sam opened her eyes, pain in her leg exploding through her dreams. She kept the scream back to a whimper. She’d felt this pain before. This person’s pain before. Going on instinct and dropping her training lessons, she settled deeper into the person.

  And realized something else. He wasn’t dead or dying – at least not yet. She dropped lower into his psyche and heard him speak. And realized it was a child. A little boy. Her heart throbbed with the pain of what was to come in his life. Yet it wasn’t happening right now, and that made no sense to her.

  She opened her eyes and gasped. He was talking to a spirit in energetic form.

  The little boy’s question echoed in the room. He’d asked the spirit if he was an angel. She took another look and smiled. The little boy was talking to Stefan.

  She watched Stefan start, then lean closer, his gaze intent. He smiled and said, “No, I’m not an angel, but you have an angel watching over you.”

  Sam grinned. How absolutely bizarre to have her inside the boy’s psyche and Stefan on the outside watching. They’d been here like this once before, but this was so different. The boy wasn’t dying. He wasn’t an old friend of Stefan’s needing help to leave the earthly plane like last time.

  And if that was the case, why was she here?

  She’d never been called unless to a scene of violence.

  She puzzled on it, then closed her psychic eyes and sank deeper into the boy’s system. The boy was at a hospital. What had happened to the poor thing? Her heart always melted whenever she was drawn to a child. The nasty, cruel things people did to each other were amplified when they did it to a child. This child had been or was a victim of violence, she knew that for sure. As much as she wished her abilities would allow her to connect to other people for other reasons, it wasn’t to be.

  What she didn’t know is if this boy was connected to the other weird things she’d been seeing lately. If so, the killer had either failed in his attempt, the act was going to happen immediately, or it was happening now but no one knew. Still the boy was alive, and that meant there might be a way to save him. If only she could find something that would connect this boy to the others so that she could find the killer.

  She heard Stefan, understanding and comprehension in his voice, say, “What’s wrong, Eric?”

  Sam turned her attention back to the child. The boy had had surgery, recent surgery, but there was no air of healing. More a black wall of energy, as if a war going on in his body. The little boy whispered, “You won’t believe me.” He scrunched lower into his bed. “Adults never believe kids.”

  “But I’m not an adult,” Stefan whispered. “Now tell me – what’s the matter?”

  And the words, so faint, so full of terror and fear broke Sam’s heart. “There’s a bad man inside me.”

  *

  He stretched and groaned. If he had to be here, he’d be damned if he’d do this half-existence any other way than his way. If that meant knocking off a few people, then who gave a shit?

  If he could have put a stop to this a long time ago he would have. But no, it wasn’t to be. So he’d taken this life and he’d owned it. Bit by bit. He wouldn’t be here for too much longer – he knew that, and it was amazing how living such a good life had turned him into a man so bent on revenge and regaining his freedom that he’d toss those scruples away and become someone even he no longer recognized.

  Still, it was all goo
d. He’d have his freedom and she’d get her just end.

  If he could just pull this off. He needed more power. He needed to stop the splintering process from happening even further. Better to have all those pieces blown up at once.

  He froze.

  Could he do that? It would make this so much easier. So much faster. And bring about a lot of chaos.

  He used to hate strife and discord.

  Now he’d do anything to create such hell.

  Chapter 20

  Celina woke with a booming headache again. They’d been getting worse for weeks, but since the accident at the bar she had to wonder if she had hit her head and hadn’t known. The chaos there had been seriously crazy, and it was quite possible she’d been banged up more than she thought.

  She fleetingly considered contacting the doctor, then realized she’d already seen the eye surgeon and had two visits with Dr. Maddy. If there had been anything wrong surely either of those specialists would have seen it.

  They had not mentioned it. Neither had Stefan. At the reminder she reached across the bed and found it empty.

  An unexpected sense of loss filled her. He’d left. Then again, what had she expected? He had a life. He’d stayed with her out of compassion. There was little to keep him here.

  “Feeling better?”

  That deep, sensuous voice reached her from the doorway. Her insides danced. She gasped in joy. “You’re still here?”

  “Of course. This place isn’t as comfortable as mine, but you needed looking after and as much as I want to shift you to my place, I decided this was home for you so I stayed here.”

  It took her a moment to digest all of that, and she realized he’d actually wanted to take her to his place. That thought filled her with an odd sense of excitement, yet also discomfort. A new place to learn to navigate.

  She didn’t want to be confined to her apartment, and she wasn’t in the sense that she went out on a regular basis, but those trips were stressful. She’d like to avoid them altogether if she could. And that wasn’t good for her. It would be too easy to become a hermit and hide away. She could even do her groceries by ordering online. She’d never have to leave again. That the suggestion was oddly appealing scared her. She didn’t want to be so narrow in her focus, her world that she became that person, too scared to leave.