I couldn’t breathe deep enough as I got close. I felt like I was getting almost high off just the remnants of her aura. Holy shit, when she’d still been human, she must have been glorious. And her face was perfection. Between her karma and her angelic looks, she was downright ethereal.
She looked nervous as I approached her and I could understand. Being introduced to this world by Malokin when you weren’t of his ilk must have been jarring to say the least. I held out my hand, trying to reassure her I wasn’t looking to kill her. “I’m Karma.”
“Faith,” she said, as she tentatively took my offering. Her eyes darted to the men behind us, watching. “Can they hear us?”
“Probably. But I think the office is sound proofed,” I offered, seeing how she clearly didn’t want to be overheard.
There was a tiny single nod to her head as her eyes darted to Lars and back to me. She headed toward the back but before we could enter the office, Lars was blocking our way.
“Where are you going?”
I looked to Faith, expecting her to take the lead but she didn’t. So I stepped up.
“We want a minute to talk without all of you guys hovering.”
When he didn’t budge, it hit me like a sledgehammer to the back of the head. He’s totally into this girl. This wasn’t just a crush. This was a killing blow. Wow, how the mighty have fallen.
“We’re fine. Get out of the way,” I said, waving my hands and demonstrating I wanted a clear path with him out of it.
His overprotective ways might have pissed me off if I didn’t understand. I could see it in his eyes, if I harmed this girl even an iota, he’d rip me apart. Why? Because Lars was utterly in love with her to the point of absurdity. Or maybe there was nothing absurd about it. Maybe it was beautiful.
Why couldn’t Fate be a little more like that? I knew he had my back, but this was I’ll tear you piece by piece because the sun rises with this girl in the morning and my life would be perpetual darkness without her.
“We’re fine,” I repeated, giving him some slack since he was new to the whole caring-about-someone-other-than-himself phenomenon.
Finally, he nodded back and stepped out of our way.
Faith stepped into the office and I followed, closing the door behind us.
“How are you doing?” I asked, even though I could see the answer clearly in the drawn look about her eyes.
“Getting by. I’d heard you were human first.”
I nodded but remained silent, hoping to encourage her to speak what was bothering her.
“Does it get better? I mean, it’s not bad, I just feel…”
“Lost?”
“Kind of.”
It was obvious she wasn’t a natural complainer. I liked her already. I knew from personal experience how lousy the last few weeks must have been but she wasn’t going to cry the blues. It was a good thing too. In our situation, you needed to be able to suck it up or you’d crumble under the pressure. All she was looking for was answers.
“It gets a lot easier.” I nodded a head towards the door that closed us off from the rest of them. “I’m not sure if they start seeming less crazy or we get more so, but you’ll adjust.” And then I couldn’t stop myself from digging for some dirt. Maybe I was getting more like my coworkers. “You two involved?” I asked when it was so clear something was going on with them.
“I don’t know what you’d call it,” she answered, somewhat evasively.
“He’s very protective of you. I’ve never seen him act like that.”
“He also thinks I might have been the scum of the Earth in my mortal life so I’m not exactly sure why.” She said it somewhat jokingly but there was an edge to her voice that made it very obvious how much it hurt her, at least to someone who was listening.
I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms. “There’s an easy fix to that.”
She sank into his office chair, defeat written all over her as her shoulders slumped. I came around and perched my hip on it.
“I know what you do. And I know if you told him I wasn’t a bad person, he’d believe you. But do you know how that feels? That he needs to hear it from someone else?”
“Why make this difficult? I can tell you care about him and that he cares about you. A handful of words from me and you two can get a—maybe not a fresh start but something better than the place you’re in now.”
“And be with a man that can’t take my word? Can’t believe I’m a decent person unless someone else tells him so?” She shook her head.
There was a knock on the door before Fate yelled, “You almost done?”
Faith stood. “I’d appreciate it if you refrained from telling him anything.”
I nodded, even though I had my doubts. It would be so much easier to set this right but I respected what she said. And to hell with it, I had my own issues. If she didn’t want me butting into hers, I should be happy to leave it alone.
I opened the door to Lars looming close by and Fate looking inpatient. Faith followed me out, walking right past Lars without a word, his eyes following her as she moved across the room. Yep, that relationship was seriously hitting the skids.
Lars moved in closer to me. “Well?” The one word asking for information he desperately wanted and only I could give.
A huge part of me felt for the big stupid jerk but my eyes met Faith’s. I got it. If Fate had to go around asking people if I was a good person, I’d be pretty teed off too.
“I couldn’t get a read on her,” I lied.
The disappointment in his face made me want to smack him upside the head.
“Nothing?”
“Yes.” I was short with him and walked away abruptly. I couldn’t help it. If he was going to be this stupid, maybe he deserved to lose her.
Fate was back at my side, his hand wrapping around mine.
I looked to the table that had been set up in the middle of the room. A line of instruments sat next to it, a scalpel among them. Oh goodie.
I let go of Fate’s hand to lie down on the spot so clearly meant for me and unzipped the jeans I wore. I glanced over to make sure the shades were drawn before I tugged them down and took off the wrapping I kept over it.
Fate pulled a chair up close and grabbed my hand again but my eyes were only on the tray and Cutty.
“Karma, I’m going to give you a shot of something to numb up the area,” Cutty said as he moved into place.
I nodded. “Good idea.”
“Don’t look at them,” Fate said by my side, drawing my attention back to him. “Look at me.”
I did. He was sitting there, a smile I know he didn’t feel on his face. Both hands now wrapped around the one of mine and my breathing grew ragged.
“Don’t be scared.” One hand reached forward to brush the hair from my eyes and then cupped my cheek. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”
Suddenly I was scared to death, and it had nothing to do with Cutty or the fact that they were going to slice into me at any moment.
I looked at his dark hair waving back from his face, the light green flecks in his eyes, which, when he stared at me like he was right now, seemed to glow. The way his hand grasped mine with such confidence, like he wouldn’t ever let go, and there was no denying it anymore.
I loved him. And it didn’t seem to matter how he felt or what I wanted to feel. It just was.
“If you don’t stop looking at me like you’re completely freaking out, I’m going to make them stop,” he said. If he hadn’t been smiling, I might have believed him, but he was clearly teasing me.
“I’m okay.” More accurately, I was okay with what Cutty was about to do. It was the love that scared me to pieces. How had this snuck up on me? I’d thought I’d been doing such a good job keeping my emotional distance.
“Close your eyes and I’ll tell you a secret,” he said as I felt the needle entering an area near my tattoo.