CONTINUITY: When All Hell Threatens Part 12
DISCLAIMER: Nope, still not mine…damn it!
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Please, dear readers, accept my deepest apologies for having delayed so long in continuing this tale. I have been so humbled by your kind encouragement towards taking up the keyboard in an effort to keep BT alive and am honored to be amidst such wonderful fans and writers as yourselves. Thank you for all your kind words and thanks to the DP and every special person who graces the BLOG there. You know who you are, and you have not been forgotten.
HHHHHHHH
"Vicki, where did you find this?" Henry asked as he stared at the image in her camera.
Moving away from both Henry and the picture, Vicki wandered towards the edge of his bed. "On the tree in the backyard of my mother's home."
"But this looks old."
"Yep." She said brushing a hand across the nearest pillow. The satin of the cover tickled the tip of her finger.
Watching her with narrowed eyes, Henry guessed she was not finding this conversation easy. "How old?"
"Oh, 'bout thirty years."
"At your mother's home. She was living there at the time?"
"We all were. Mom, dad, and me." Her voice cracked and with a sigh she sat upon the bed.
Within the next beat of her heart, he was beside her, pulling her close against him. "Tell me what happened today."
Dropping her suddenly heavy head onto his perfect shoulder, Vicki focused on the blurred wall across from her. When she was certain she could tell her tale without the extra emotions running through it, she began.
And Henry listened.
When she was finished, she reached out and traced the image burned onto the digital screen. In a voice barely above a whisper, she asked the one question she dreaded the answer to. "Is it a mark of Asteroth?"
"No." Henry's voice reverberated against her ear, deep and definite, but it took several moments for her heart and head to catch up with its meaning. When they did, she pushed herself from his shoulder and met his dark blue gaze. Though his words had been an unexpected blessing, the serious expression casting the planes of his face into hardness did little to relieve her.
"What aren't you telling me?"
Henry sighed. "This is a symbol of protection."
"Against what?"
"I can't say."
Vicki frowned. Rising to her feet, she moved several steps away, her famed anger beginning to rise. "Can't or won't, Henry?"
From the edge of the bed, he watched her. With her gone from his side, all warmth seeped from his flesh, leaving him cold once more. Dear God, he thought. Even in her anger she is everything he never dreamed to look for. He felt a stirring in his blood. As his cock hardened, he turned his will upon himself. Now, in spite of his body's desire, was not the time. With the grace of a prince and the stealth of a vampire, he rose and crossed the room to stand before her. His hands ached to take her in his arms, to pull her heat into him, but he did not. Instead, he simply looked at her, willing her to see the truth in his words and the regret. "I cannot."
Her fingers clenched. The muscles in her left arm tightened. Bare toes curled into the thickness of the carpet beneath her feet. Vicki Nelson instinct screamed that she beat the answer out of him. How dare he hold out on her? How dare he keep the secrets that obviously had everything to do with who she was and who she has become?
But that other Vicki, the new Vicki who had so recently opened her heart to him, begged her to hang on, to reign in the rage and listen. "Why?" she asked. Her voice was raw and needy and she hated it, but she could not block out the pain his answer had engendered.
Hearing it, Henry winced. He heard more than just the nuances in her voice, he heard the rapid pounding of her heart, its steady rhythm building with the anger he could smell seeping through her pores. Anger and pain and confusion. She wanted to trust him, wanted to lash out at him, wanted to be held and denying her was killing him. He felt his body sway, betraying him. He pulled up tight and took a jerky step back away from the greatest temptation he has ever faced. "I swore an oath, Vicki."
Vicki drew a breath and felt as if it were the first one she had drawn in hours. "Just swear to me that you had nothing to do with this, to do with my father's death."
Henry's hand shot to his heart as if somehow something inside his chest pained him. "You can ask that of me?"
"I would ask it of anyone who is keeping secrets whether they are your own or not," answered Vicki.
He flinched, but he could not argue the point. Before he knew his own intent, he was once more standing within touching distance, this time her right hand cradled in his. Threading his fingers through hers, he brought her palm to his lips, pressed a sweet kiss in the vulnerable center, then placed that very same spot against his heart. "I swear, Victoria Nelson, I have had not contact with your family prior to meeting…and loving you."
Fingers curling tightly beneath his, Vicki nodded. "But you know who has."
"I know."
"And you're going to…."
"Find out everything I can."
"That will do." A slow smile lifted Vicki's lips, but it did nothing to warm or ease the hard threat in her blue gaze. "For now."
HVHVHVHVHVHVHV
The minute Mike pulled his car up in front of the shop, he was flooded with second, third, and fourth thoughts. The two signs posted on the door proclaiming wit subtle intensity 'Psychic Readings and Tarot Readings' railed against his hormonal urge for vengeance, igniting instead a healthy dose of fear and misgiving instead. Settling his car into park and cutting the ignition, he used the time it took him to get out and move around to the passenger side to paste on what he hoped was his honestly regretful, but I really would have enjoyed it face. Yanking open the door, he held out his hand, cringing inside as her black nailed fingers delicately rested into his upturned palm. When she stood beside him, nearly of an equal height, he ducked his head and sighed. "I am so sorry, Sinead, but I find myself in a bit of an embarrassing situation."
Sinead frowned. "Certainly not, detective."
"Indeed. I have forgotten I had made arrangements to cover a friend's shift tonight."
Feeling her quarry attempt to slip by her, Sinead leaned her body forward until her chest was just a deep breath shy of brushing up against his. "Surely, you have a little time for a quick chat or a nightcap?"
Shaking his head, Mike took a step back. "I'm afraid not. I'm sorry. How 'bout I call you tomorrow after the shift. Maybe we can meet somewhere for coffee."
"Coffee." The word left her tongue with the same tone as if she had stepped into something foul. With eyes ever watchful of her prey's retreat, she slowly dropped her hand to her small black handbag.
Mike, having offered her up another apologetic smile, turned to maneuver himself around the back of his car.
"Detective?"
He jumped, unprepared for having her so close behind him. Suddenly, inexplicably, all desire to retreat flowed out of him as another, more destructive force flowed in; lust. On heels worn thin from always turning back toward something he knew he should walk away from, Mike felt his body twist back toward the devastating beauty who stood grinning against the right bumper of his car.
"Are you sure you don't want to reconsider….Michael?"
Her voice was deep, slow, and filled with the kind of tones no man in his right mind could resist. A hot spear of desire woke inside him, the fierceness of it taking him by surprise.
"She doesn't deserve you, you know," murmured Sinead as she reached for his tie and pulled him toward her. Running her fingers up the silk and across his broad shoulders, she brushed her breasts against him.
"Who…who doesn't?" Thinking was a sober man's vice, thought Mike. Why on earth had he even once considered walking out on all this bountiful temptation?
"Vicki Nelson, of course."
Mike frowned. Vicki….Vicki….His mind struggled to recall the name, put the face to the woman, but for the life of him, he could not remember anything beyond the moistened lips beckoning him to take a taste. So he did what any red blooded smart male who wanted to get laid did; he agreed with the woman. "No, no she doesn't deserve me."
Sinead smiled. Gotcha.
