A/N: Standard disclaimer applies to this story. Highlands Girl, thank you for being the most amazing beta. I couldn't have done this without you.
Chapter 11. If you love me, won't you let me know
"Some immortals turn out more deranged than others," Ranger said, rising up from the couch and striding over to the sliding library ladder. The second rung creaked under his weight, as he reached inside the top shelf and pulled out a worn leather-bound volume.
"This is the Atrocitati Maleficarum, Horrors of Witchcraft. Unlike its better known counterpart, the Malleus Maleficarum, Hammer of the Witches*, which served the Inquisition as de facto prosecution handbook during the witch trials, this treatise documented the most heinous crimes committed by the condemned."
With a mixture of awe and bewilderment, Stephanie watched Ranger, no, she corrected herself internally, not Ranger, or any other alias he might have chosen, but Carlos, the man he kept hidden behind the blank mask, corporate attire, or badass persona, as he leafed through the pages of the book.
The rustling of the old pages in the deafening silence of the room made her skin crawl with morbid anticipation, but she was wary of breaking his concentration with idle questions. His eyebrows knitted together and his lips moved ever so slightly, mouthing the words, as he searched for the relevant passage. The wait was testing her patience, and she was slowly working up the courage to speak, when he found what he was looking for, and his voice grew louder with the words of the recitative. His timbre, pitched lower than usual, was entrancing her, and with each word, she felt as if the air was getting sucked out of the room, the space converging to the spot, where he stood, absorbed in the narrative. The shadows lurking in the corners slowly encroached on the daylight, submerging the room into darkness, despite it being early afternoon. Her knuckles turned white from the death grip she had on the couch cushions, as she listened to his voice, not realizing he was speaking Latin, until he looked up from the book and explained.
"Between the years of 1560 and 1707, the witch trials in North Berwick, Scotland took more than three thousand lives of men and women for practicing sorcery. Declared servants of Satan, the majority were strangled and burned at the stake, except for one man, who, for three centuries prior, during the Anglo-Scottish Wars, drifted from battle to battle, fighting alongside the Scots. Instead of moving on to find another conflict worthy of his skills after peace was restored in the region, he remained, crossing the fine line separating a warrior from a murderer. The massacre at Lammermuir Hills** was a killing spree that took him along the settlements at the border with Lothian. No one was safe from his wrath: he took lives of women, children, elders... Caught red-handed, he was taken to a cell in the dungeons, where the condemned were held until they confessed their sins and awaited execution. The carnage he'd caused had the townsfolk clamoring for his blood, and his trial, unlike most that lasted years, was swift, but far from painless. And his ability to heal was used as evidence against him to speed up the conviction."
A chill went through Stephanie as the meaning of Ranger's words sunk in; she knew enough about medieval torture to appreciate that he didn't go into detail. Shivering, she rubbed her arms and was jarred from her thoughts, when his hands started kneading the muscles in her neck and shoulders. Even though she missed when he'd moved from the center of the room back to the couch, she was grateful that he did. Closing her eyes, she soaked up the comfort of his touch, as he worked the tension out of her body. When she opened her eyes again, the illusion of darkness had faded from the room; the afternoon sun was flowing in through the French doors and landing on the hardwood floor in patches of bright light.
"You okay, Steph?" Ranger asked, running his hands up and down her arms. "Can I go on?"
Her gaze fell on the page of the old book he'd left open on the coffee table and, unable to tear it away from the sketch of a man's face, she almost missed Ranger's question. Unconsciously committing the man's features to memory, she asked in a shaky voice, "Is that…?"
"Yes," he said, keeping his tone deliberately even, as he leaned forward to close the book. Briefly pausing to consider how much detail to give her so she would have sufficient incentive to learn self-defense, he studied her face and saw that her initial blasé reaction had given way to apprehension. Stephanie wasn't sold yet, but she would be, once he was done with his tale, he was sure of it.
"Ingwar Thorgard was the name he used when he was strangled. Before his body was burned, he recovered, and his executioners met their demise on the scaffold meant for him. After he was finally overpowered by the crowd of spectators, he was taken back to his cell and immured inside."
She gasped, clamping her hand over her mouth, before whispering, "Omigod. What a horrible way to go."
The capacity for compassion in this vibrant woman never ceased to amaze him, though, on some level he had to agree with her, even if she misunderstood him.
"No one deserves the punishment he got, but the world is a safer place with him locked away."
He tucked a loose curl behind her ear – an action that normally would've settled her nerves – this time did absolutely nothing to ease the feeling of dread, coiling in her stomach. "You mean he's still there? Sealed inside the dungeon?"
"If Thorgard ever got out..." he thought better of finishing the sentence. The man was a monster, but the chances of his escaping his confinement were slim, which was why Ranger choose him for an example of the danger she could face. Telling Steph that he'd go to any length to protect her, even against her will if necessary, should Thorgard become a real threat, wasn't part of his plan. It would undoubtedly lead to another flare-up of her temper, and that didn't bode well for their friendship.
"He's a cold-blooded killer, who's had four centuries worth of time to plan his revenge against mankind."
"Ranger, if you wanted to freak me out, it worked. I'm sorry I asked. I don't want to know," she rambled, picking off nonexistent lint from the hem of her shirt, hoping that he'd indulge her, so she could slip back into denial land. As loath as she was to admit, she might have liked it better when he'd stuck to one word answers. But when she looked up into his face, the set of his jaw told her that she wasn't getting her way.
"Not really a choice, Babe. Not anymore. There are a few things you have to know." His dark brown eyes softened, as the edge in his voice ebbed. "Things I have to tell you."
Silently, she nodded, urging him to continue.
"Most immortals abide by their own moral code, which may or may not fall in line with the law. Like Thorgard, some consider killing mortals morally right, while others take it upon themselves to live for cleansing the world of our kind. Our ability to sense other immortals gives them the ability to ensure the kill sticks." Pointedly, he looked at the stand, where his sword gleamed in the afternoon sun.
Following his gaze, she knew that her earlier hunch about the basement was right, but needed him to confirm it. "So… the armory downstairs?"
"Best to be prepared."
"For what? An invasion of Knights Templar?" She gaped at him. "There are enough weapons down there to arm the entire staff of RangeMan. Including Ella and Louis."
"Babe." His eyes twinkled with mirth, crinkling in the corners, as he gave her an almost smile.
"Oh, I'm such a dope." She rolled her eyes. "That's the point, right?"
The corners of his lips tipped up again, but he said nothing to refute her assumption. She bit her lower lip, trying to decide if she should ask him the question that had been bugging her since she'd cut her finger on his sword.
"Why do you keep the sword up here?"
"There's an edged weapon in every room of this house," he said with an infinitesimal shrug.
Stephanie shook her head in astonishment. "Paranoid much?"
"I've learned the hard way to never underestimate the enemy. You never know who's going to come knocking."
"Ugh. You're serious." She sighed, finding it disconcerting that she no longer had trouble believing something that would have seemed surreal a few days back. But it didn't escape her that he didn't answer the question she'd asked, so she clarified, "I meant why this sword? You took it downstairs earlier instead of picking one from the cages. It has to be special."
"Material possessions don't mean much to me. You know that. But this sword was a parting gift from Don Francisco*** before I left for the Americas… and it's saved my life more times than I care to count."
"Oh." Of all the things Stephanie would've expected to hear, it wasn't that, and she didn't know how to respond, except to ask another question. "And the sword fight with Tank?"
Without saying another word, Ranger rose from the couch and walked over to the stand with the sword. He wasn't about to confess that, if he didn't fill in the gaps he'd left during their conversation at dinner the other night, Tank promised to beat his ass and then talk to her himself.
"Well-honed skill requires daily practice." Wrapping his fingers around the hilt, Ranger stilled, and then released it, turning back to face her. "To be the best you can be when you need to."
"You've gotta be kidding. Don't you know me at all?"
The loathing she had for the gun range and fitness requirements was legendary at RangeMan. Surely he wasn't expecting her to learn to wield a sword. Yet, judging by the stony expression on his face, he was.
"Ranger, my gun's in the cookie jar. And unless you took it upon yourself to load it and leave me a box of ammo, I'm all out of bullets. What in our history together would possess you to think I could handle a sword? I couldn't even lift the damn thing!"
"The weight isn't the issue here, Babe." He turned his back to her to look outside at the ocean waves crashing ashore and added quietly, "Steph, you're the most determined person I know. You can do just about anything. But choose not to."
She thought she heard him sigh, and the resignation with which he said the words, sparked an epiphany that threw her for a loop. "Is that it? Why you've been pushing me away?" Her voice cracked and she had to take a deep breath before she could continue. "You knew I could become immortal. You thought I'd never last."
He ran his hand over his face, inwardly cursing the vicious cycle of misunderstanding they were unable to break. "That couldn't be further from the truth. I thought that you'd be safer that way. I could protect you better, if we weren't involved," he said, his voice rough with emotion, "I was wrong."
Stephanie barely restrained herself from doing a double take. Having a hard time believing what she had heard was real, she surreptitiously pinched herself, before making her way to his side and laying her hand on his bicep. "What are you saying?"
He didn't shake off her hand, but didn't make a move to increase their contact. "By fighting the attraction between us, I put you in greater danger. You were taken again because you were linked to me. If that had been an immortal…"
Her imagination didn't need him to finish the thought to fill in the blanks from the comment he'd made earlier. If the guy who'd kidnapped me had been an immortal, he could have made sure I stayed dead after I got shot. She shuddered at the thought, but then recalled the chain of events as it unfolded that day and shook her head emphatically.
"Ranger, that had nothing to do with you. I wasn't kidnapped. Not this time. I tailed my skip…" she paused, as the words of the elderly gentleman she saw when she'd snuck into the back room of the warehouse, floated into her mind. 'What a pleasant surprise, Miss Plum. So nice of you to join us.' The greeting, which had seemed odd at the time, made so much more sense now. She sighed before stating the obvious. "It was a setup."
Without taking his eyes off the horizon, Ranger said, "Alembert was a pawn. The mark we were after, Decker, used him to lure you to the warehouse."
"What did he need me for?"
He turned his head to meet her gaze, and she was struck by the remorseful expression in his eyes. "Leverage, Babe. He knew I was after him. And his plans for Trenton didn't include getting caught."
"But you nabbed him, right?"
He skipped a beat, thinking that she didn't need to know what had happened to Decker. "Last night."
His reverting to single word answers was enough for Stephanie to suspect that he was glossing over something. "Okay, Ranger, what aren't you telling me?"
Reminding himself that he promised to be more forthcoming with her, he took her hand in his and, after rubbing his thumb over her knuckles a few times, said, "Bobby had to leave town. He caught a bullet and was declared dead at the scene."
Feeling the telltale sting of tears behind her eyelids, she squeezed her eyes shut and blinked to stop them from falling. "Bobby's fine though, right? Please, tell me he's fine."
He started rubbing her knuckles again, before saying, "Santos flew him out to Toronto. Both checked in with Tank a few hours ago."
Assuming that this was what had set off her spidey sense during the phone call with her mother, she asked, "Did they take him to Mercer County M.E.'s office?" When Ranger arched an eyebrow, she explained. "A rumor about a body that vanished from the morgue in Ewing is all over the 'Burg."
As she was going to ask if Bobby's rushed departure meant she'd never see him again, Ranger got a call. She stepped back, and he jerked the offending gadget off his belt, before flipping it open.
"Talk!"
After exchanging a few terse phrases, he hung up. "I have to head back. TPD is investigating the disappearance and Morelli's the lead on the case. He's waiting for me at RangeMan."
Pulling her to his chest, he couldn't resist brushing his lips against her temple. "Babe, stay here as long as you want. RangeMan can cover your skips."
"Thanks, Ranger." Her voice came out barely above whisper. She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, before adding tentatively, "For everything."
His arms tightened around her. "No price, remember?"
Needing space for what she was about to say, she stepped out of his embrace, and he let her. "I've been hiding out here long enough. I should go home."
Nodding, he studied her face, feeling as though he was missing something. The sadness in her eyes bothered him, but he had to wait until after he dealt with TPD to pry its cause out of her. "Have dinner with me on seven tonight?"
While she had a feeling he didn't tell her everything he'd meant to, she'd reached her limit. She wasn't ready to continue and definitely not on seven. The memory of their last conversation and the heartbreak that came with it was still too fresh in her mind. Having reconsidered her rash 'all or nothing' mentality, she needed to figure out a way to be his friend without pining for the relationship she couldn't have. It wasn't as if she planned to tell him again that she loved him, but she didn't exactly plan to tell him the first time either. And as content as she was living in denial, she had to take the time to process everything she'd learned over the past few days.
Shaking her head, she said, "Not tonight. Rain check?"
A/N A few endnotes.
*The Malleus Maleficarum is a real book, while the Atrocitati Maleficarum is not. I've read the former and 'created' the latter for my nefarious purposes with my limited knowledge of Latin and help from Google.
**Lammermuir Hills form a natural boundary between Lothian and the Scottish Borders. During the period after the Anglo Scottish wars there were isolated incidents of violence in the settlements along the border, but the 'massacre' isn't historically accurate because it's a figment of my imagination. Places, historical figures, and events used in this story were rewritten to fit with the plot line.
***Ranger told Steph the story of his life before he'd become immortal, at the end of chapter four, mentioning Don Francisco Fernandez de la Cueva, the Second Duke of Alburquerque.