She felt a twisted self-pity ruling his actions. Loneliness, pain, and hatred combined with his considerable will to bind her to him, to use her to mute the myriad hurts in his spirit. There was nothing of her there at all, only Adam and his personal demons.
The knowledge tore at her, made her hate her gift and regret the impulse to indulge in the moment.
She twisted in his arms, pushing him away with her hands. She sought the protection of darkness. Brought a knee up to break his hold.
He grunted, but grasped her closer still, fighting the onslaught of shadow.
She bucked harder. Grabbed his hair to pull his head back. “You’re hurting me,” she said.
Adam stilled, his chest heaving with effort. One, two breaths…she felt him collect himself. Felt his control steel around his contemptible actions and bring himself to heel, his need condensed into a tight ball of frightening, devastating potency. He released her abruptly, catching hold of her arms so that she wouldn’t fall to the flagstones of the terrace.
Talia wrenched herself free, stumbled back, and fell anyway.
He held out a hand to help her up.
“Stay away from me,” she said. Her gaze flicked up to his face. She wished it hadn’t. If the man had been burdened before, now he looked utterly tortured and ashamed.
Talia scrambled to stand, vision blurring the way his jaw clenched, the way his eyes narrowed to sharpen his own sight in the dark. To see her.
She ran to the doors, fumbled with the code, and yanked them open to get inside and away from him.
Damn him for touching her. Damn Philip for finding that rite. Damn Jacob for his horrible choice in the first place.
“I’m sorry,” Adam said.
And damn her shadow-bred senses for being able to hear his whisper across the stretch of dark.
NINE
ADAM gripped the marble barrier overlooking the gardens. If Jacob had brought him to the brink of insanity, Talia was going to push him over the edge. She was supposed to be bookish—to take to her offices and use her amazing mind to develop a well-reasoned theory backed up by hundreds of pages of blindingly dense text.
Instead, she exposed Jacob’s damned choice, the one that ripped Adam’s family away from him again. Then, not two hours later, she revealed a strange connection some people have to Shadowman. Her father, of all people. Their art revealed that he was trapped somewhere, bound and unable to deal with the rising wraith threat.
And she gave him images. What images! Hadn’t he been dutifully and honorably blocking visions of her naked body from his mind from the moment he cut her dripping clothes off her in Arizona? Okay, mostly blocking them.
What was the daily Segue grind when Talia looked back at him with longing, glowing in vibrant color from an artist’s canvas? Naturally, he had an offer in on the piece already.
Talia. Sleeping Beauty. Aurora. She was a lightning bolt. Sudden, unpredictable, dazzling. She brilliantly illuminated in the dark, yet was capable of setting things on fire.
And then he had to be a dumb prick and maul her—hell, he’d wanted to use her sweet body to shut Jacob and the wraith nightmare out of his mind. Now he had screwed everything up royally.
The thought broke over him in a wave of panic that muted his lust. He should go after her. Make it right.
Adam crossed the terrace and stopped abruptly to pick up her fallen hair elastic. He stretched the tight, thin band round two fingers. Brought it to his nose to inhale. Caught a fresh, wet scent. He rolled the elastic along his fingers toward his palm. In a strange way—and everything about Talia was strange—the elastic became a link, connecting him to her. The tug of it felt good.
He followed her inside. The elevator took a moment to come—probably dropping her off on her floor.
When it arrived, he entered, reached out to hit her floor button, but paused at the sight of the black elastic on his hand, pushed up to the base of his fingers.
It was such a little thing, so restrained. Made him want her more. Why now, as the wraith madness was just peaking, should he find the answers to his riddles and an incomparable, desirable woman at the same time? And in the same package?
Ah, hell. He shifted his hand down. Hit Subfloor 2, instead.
One stop at his office, then a hard, killing run until he could trust himself again.
The elevator opened at his stop. He exited and found Custo approaching from the other end of the white corridor. Probably turning in for the day.
“Custo, with me,” Adam said, brushing by him on his way to Patty’s lab. So what if Custo’s face was haggard with exhaustion. They could both be miserable together.
Adam coded himself into Patty’s lab, Custo silent at his heels. Patty had said she’d be working late tonight, and she was. She straightened up from a microscope as he approached the table.
Her eyes flicked to Custo, then back to Adam. “What’s going on?”
Custo shrugged in Adam’s peripheral vision. “Damned if I know.”
“I need a word with both of you,” Adam said. “What I say can’t leave this room.”
Custo leaned forward on the lab counter. Patty pushed her wheeled stool away from the scope. “Of course.”