Destiny's Wrath (Destiny Series - Book 3) by Straight, Nancy (read full novel .txt) 📗

about this from another angle, I answered, “You’re right, I didn’t decide. But I’m not feeling guilty for being thankful you’re alive. I’m thankful every day. We both know the Council would have killed you that day. We owe your life to that murderer.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“I think you’re trying to find a way to pin the nine murders on yourself, or at least take partial blame for them. You didn’t do anything wrong. The kid wanted to host Samael. If you would have kept him inside you, the Council would have killed you and destroyed me in the process.”

“I know.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

“Lauren, even if it isn’t my fault, I can’t help but hate the circumstances.”

“Me, too. I want to get in to see Jimmy, to see if there is anything I can do for him.”

“What’d you mean you? Don’t you mean, we need to see him?”

“I want you close, but I don’t want you close to Samael. I think he could easily transfer right back into you, and then we’d be right back where we started.”

“Lauren, we’ve already talked through all this, you’re not going to go see the kid by yourself.”

“Fine, I’ll take Renny, or better yet, Dakota - but not you.”

“Lauren, if, and that is a big if, we get to see him, we will see him.”

“At what point do you stop trying to protect me and realize that you have even more to lose than I do? When do you face the reality that we’re a team, and sometimes good teams are individuals working separately?” I opened the truck door and let myself out on the desolate road.

Max followed suit, standing, resting his arms up over the hood of the truck. He sighed deeply, looking across the truck. “I just…can’t…you wouldn’t understand.” He trailed off and refused to look at me.

“Tell me what I wouldn’t understand.”

Max’s eyes caught mine, “Everyone who has ever meant anything to me in my life is gone, but you. I can’t sit back and watch you take unnecessary risks.” He dropped my gaze as if this confession somehow made him weak.

“You don’t have to sit back. As long as we’re a team, they’re our risks, our victories. But you can’t go near Samael. I don’t know how I know, but I know he can’t possess me. We both know he is perfectly capable of setting up house in you.”

Max still looked at the ground, refusing to make eye contact with me. “Have you ever watched me sleep?”

An odd question. “Sure, lots of times.”

He did a little double nod with his head, “You ever watch me sleep for a full day and night?” I eyed him closely, knowing exactly where this was headed. He threw out another rhetorical question: “You ever see me sleep for weeks and months on end, feeding tubes running into me, a ventilator to keep my lungs going?” I watched him wide-eyed, knowing what was coming next. “Lauren, if anything happens to you again, I won’t live through it. I can’t live through it again; the last time nearly killed me.”

I walked around the hood of the truck, refusing to allow him to fall into a depression of “what ifs.” He was leaning over the truck, his arms crossed on the hood, unwilling to look at me. We were here in the middle of nowhere; I had the urge to take advantage of the remoteness. I walked up behind him, wrapped both my arms around his body, and leaned my head onto his shoulders. “Max, there’s something you need to know.”

He pivoted his body toward me, with his back to the truck. The driver’s side window was rolled down, and he was leaning against it. I looked into those same incredible eyes, the pain shining back at me, when I reminded him, “I’m still very much alive. I don’t think we’ve been doing enough living lately.”

I wrapped both my arms around his neck, wrapping myself around him. Max’s eyes widened. He was trapped with only two options: unwind my body from his or enjoy the electricity I knew I was sending through him.

He smiled, enjoying my offer, but said only, “Not here.”

I didn’t let him get another word out as my mouth latched onto his, and I reminded him there was far more to life than wondering what major catastrophe would happen next. He seemed to be a near unwilling participant. “Yes, here, right now.”

His struggle against me lasted mere seconds when he said, “Okay, you win. Let’s go back to the room.”

“No, here.” The words were no sooner out of my mouth than I could see a car coming down the road in the distance. We were stopped in the middle of the road, not even pulled off onto the shoulder, clearly not the ideal location for a tender moment. I begrudgingly agreed, “Okay, you’re right - not here.”

Chapter 12

That night Max and I decided together that if we could get in to see Jimmy, we would go: not he, not I. Max believed that Samael couldn’t simply insert himself into a host’s body without being an invited guest. I don’t know where this notion came from, but in all honesty, Max knew Samael better than I did.

My cell phone rang late the next morning, “Lauren?”

“Yes, this is Lauren, who’s this?”

“I got…your letter arrived…I just wanted to say, thank you.”

“Ms. Jacobs? I’m so glad you called. I was worried that you might think I was a crack-pot or something.”

“The thought crossed my mind, but then I realized I hadn’t gotten any support from friends or family, so it would be bad karma to turn down kind words from a stranger. How do you know Jimmy?”

“Ms. Jacobs..” she cut me off.

“Please, call me Maggie.”

“Maggie, I met Jimmy a few months ago when he came to my house. I’d really like to talk to you in person, if that’s okay?”

“I’d rather not meet in person until I