Seduced by the Storm (40 page)

"Faith…ah,
Jesus…no…" He sank to the ground, still holding the motherboard. The amber
glow signaling the power-up of his gift lit his gaze and she braced herself for
a strike.

It
never came. Wyatt fell over and she knew—
knew
—he could have hurt her in
that single second before he passed out, but he hadn’t.

Sobbing
with a combination of pain, guilt and misery, Faith grabbed Gabe’s hand as
Paula approached, her curt hand signals sending operatives out to secure
enemies—and Wyatt. "Liberty…dangerous. Take her to…Hill…Hill…"

"Hill
Heritage?"

"Yes."
The psychiatric hospital near TAG headquarters was the same one where both
Faith and Liberty had been taken to as children, a place where they specialized
in caring for and containing people with special abilities. Faith hoped Liberty
could be rehabilitated, but reality had just kicked her ass, and she would
never again let herself believe in happily-ever-afters when it came to her
sister.

Or
Wyatt.

"Wyatt.
Telekinetic. Send him…" Home. To ACRO. But she couldn’t get the words out.
The world had gone dark, and she couldn’t hear anymore.

She
was bleeding out.

Body
and heart.

When
Remy joined ACRO, he thought he’d finally understood the power behind his gift,
had been relieved that there were so many ways to actually help him when the
storm surged outside and hot through his blood.

But
this, this was like nothing he’d ever seen before and he prayed that if he made
it through this night he’d never, ever have to see it again.

His
entire body had been on pins and needles for twenty-four hours—he’d been living
on adrenaline, brute strength and sheer will.

And now
he was living for Haley and their baby. If anything, that made their time
together even more precious.

He’d
forced himself to eat one of the MREs they’d brought with them, although he was
beyond tasting anything but ozone and electricity, as though they’d taken up
permanent residence in his body and weren’t ever going to let go. And he would
swear that this time Mother Nature was actually on his side, was as confused as
he was by the man-made weather system that now both he and Mother Nature were
forced to contend with.

Sometimes
he could hear her in the wind’s howl, like she was begging him for help, didn’t
understand the fury that swirled around them, desperate and out of control.

"Are
you ready?"

He
looked up from where he lay on the bed to see Haley standing over him—she’d
been hunched over her equipment, muttering to herself for the last hour, like
the prettiest mad scientist he’d ever seen, and he hadn’t bothered her.
Whatever she was cooking up had made her smile a few times, and if anyone could
smile in the face of all of this shit, his Haley could. He certainly wasn’t
going to discourage it, no matter how shitty he felt.

He
put a hand on her still-flat belly. "I’m ready. Are you two ready?"

"It’s
time to find out."

He
stood. "Tell me what I need to do."

"The
eye wall has collapsed. The storm has decreased in intensity—it’s a cat three
now."

"Still
packs one hell of a destructive punch, though."

"She’s
as weak as she’s going to get." Haley stroked his hair, pressed her face
against his chest for a second before she spoke again. "You need to break
apart the eye wall even more, keep it from building again."

"And
as I break it?"

"Send
wind shear into her top. An upper-level stream from the west will blow her
apart."

He
nodded. "Okay. Give me a few minutes out there alone. When I need you,
I’ll call."

"You’d
better, Remy."

He
jerked his head up as he saw the diagonal rain hit the window—cat two winds
right now, which put the eye about fifty miles out. Reluctantly, he let Haley
go, didn’t bother to tell her to stay away from the windows.

The
rain slammed him the second he opened the sliding-glass patio door—he was
soaked through to the skin in seconds, the wind making it nearly impossibly to
breathe, let alone hold steady. He put one hand on the iron bars across the
patio so he could be as close as possible to the sky and still not get blown
over.

Lily
may have started out as a man-made hurricane, but now she was pure nature. A
big part of his nature too—and suddenly he was all wrapped up in the storm’s
intensity, seeing into her eye with a clarity he hadn’t been able to achieve
before. One Haley assured him that he would, one day.

Storms
are just doing their job—no one’s ever happy to see them. Think of them like a
little kid throwing a tantrum—concentrate on getting them to their happy place.

He
spoke to the burgeoning sky: "It’s okay, Lily. Everything’s gonna be fine.
You just need a new home to hang out in."

Decision
made, he summoned all his strength, felt the all too familiar tingle tighten
his entire body, toe to scalp, and as he smelled the electricity burning in the
air, the acrid scent of ozone and water, lightning struck nearly right in front
of his face, hit the ground below him with an intensity that seemed to shake
the hotel to its foundation.

He
closed his eyes and raised one fist, and in his mind he envisioned the storm,
pushed her with every muscle he had, out to sea, where she belonged. "Go,
Lily, go back to the water."

Still,
she fought him, wanted to make landfall and do so with a twisted path of
destruction.

His
erection strained painfully against the soft cotton of his robe and he was
going to need release soon. But he kept his eyes closed and let the sexual urge
propel him harder, used the arousal to bring his mind to that floaty place he
could only get to once the storm was actually over.

For
the first time, he actually felt that Mother Nature was working with him
instead of against, and still the pull was excruciating. And the pain of his
arousal was clouding everything…The winds picked up, and shit, he was losing
the battle.

"Let
me help you, Remy." Haley had to be shouting, but the words in his ear
sounded like a whisper, soft and sweet, and her hand slipped inside his robe
and down the wet skin of his abs.

"Haley,
no—I’m afraid it’s going to ramp it up."

"You
can’t concentrate when you’re in this much pain," she countered, her hand
beginning a long, slow rub that nearly made him shoot off sparks of his own. He
closed his eyes and concentrated on ripping apart the eye wall, let some of the
pleasure give him the strength to do so.

And
fuck, it was working. He thought about Haley and the baby, his friends—and now
family—at ACRO, about the bayou that Katrina had screwed with, and he let all
of that power loose on Lily.

He could
visualize individual cloud elements as though he were standing in the eye. The
ring of clouds swirled around him, holding him in a spinning vortex. In his
mind, he punched through the wall of rain and clouds, shredded it like cotton
candy.

Lily
howled, the sound of a train barreling down on him. Haley’s touch grew firmer,
faster. Golf ball–sized hail shot from the sky as though it’d been fired from a
grenade-launcher. Remy spun, shielded Haley with his body. The hail cracked
against the building, the glass of the slider, his back.

Mother.
Fuck.
Lily could strike at
him,
but she wasn’t going to touch Haley. As his wife’s mouth closed over his cock,
he emptied his lungs in a violent roar of rage and vengeance and death.

This
ended
now
.

He
struck out with his mind, tore through the weakened eye wall like a nuclear
bomb. At the same time, he blasted her top with wind shear, blindsided the
hurricane while she was trying to repair the damage he’d done to her center.

He
felt the entire storm wobble. The hail stopped.

For a
moment, he wasn’t sure if she was done. The throbbing in his head and balls
said no, and sure as shit, the winds suddenly doubled back, as if reaching for
him with one last final attempt at a grasp. The air felt like a fist around
him, trying to tug him over the railing. Remy refused to let it, kept pushing
even as Haley pulled him closer to the brink of orgasm.

Haley
licked up his length, flicked her tongue over the tip of his cock. "You’re
doing it! It’s working, Remy!"

It was.
Exhaustion had his legs trembling and his mind fading into mush, but as his
balls tightened and his release tingled at the base of his spine, he found the
power to send one more blast into the storm. A shriek, a long, high-pitched
death wail rattled the hotel. Then, abruptly, the hurricane’s winds decreased,
the pressure in his head eased. While the rain continued, it fell horizontally
now.

It
was over. His muscles felt watery and his back stung from the hail, but nothing
was keeping him from Haley. He hooked her under her arms and pulled her to her
feet. He gave her a long, slow kiss, tasting rain and himself, before he picked
her up and carried her inside to finish the job the storm had started on him.

"WAKE
UP, SLEEPYHEAD."

Squinting
into bright overhead lights, Faith blinked the fuzz out of her eyes. Where was
she? She was lying down, and the room looked familiar…

The
medical lab at TAG.

Her
mind seemed to be as fuzzy as her vision, because she couldn’t remember what
had landed her here. She sat up, wincing at the stiffness in her muscles.
"How long?" she croaked, her voice as unused as everything else.

Morgan,
the chief medical officer with a gift for visualizing medical conditions inside
a patient’s body better than any X-ray, adjusted her stethoscope around her
neck. "Only a day."

Twenty-four
hours. The gunshot wound must have been severe.
Gunshot wound. Wyatt.
The battle on the Irish coast came crashing back in a flood of visions that
made her head hurt. "What happened?"

"You
were shot. It was bad, but Gabe was able to repair much of the damage on the
spot. You’re lucky he was there."

Gabe’s
skills were similar to Faith’s, though not as strong or developed. Faith rubbed
her belly, remembering the agonizing pain. He’d done a good job; she didn’t
feel a thing.

"While
you were out, I gave you a post-mission workup. You’re perfectly healthy. There
are no poisons, parasites or foreign objects in your body. Not that I expected
any, but you know Itor."

Bastards.
It was because of their slimy methods that TAG had been forced to institute a
mandatory post-mission medical checkup policy.

"I
also performed the standard general purging to rid you of psychic tagalongs,
virus-borne diseases, pregnancy—"

"What?"
A curtain of red colored Faith’s vision. Without thinking, she leaped out of
bed and slammed Morgan to the wall, her forearm across the doctor’s throat.
"Did you kill it? Did you kill Wyatt’s baby?"

Morgan
gasped. "Y-you aren’t…weren’t…pregnant."

Trembling,
Faith backed off, unable to believe she’d attacked like that. Not being
pregnant was a good thing, right?

And
yet, there was a vague sense of disappointment she couldn’t explain.

"I’m
sorry, Morgan. I—I have to go."

Holding
her throat protectively, Morgan nodded. Dressed in a hospital gown, Faith
darted out of the lab, which was on the third floor of the agency’s
headquarters, a converted mansion set on several acres of private property.

She
ran straight into Paula, who must have been coming to see her. "Paula.
Where’s Liberty?" She grasped her partner’s forearm.
"Where’s
Wyatt?"

"They’re
both at Hill Heritage," Paula said slowly, as though Faith had taken a
blow to the head and couldn’t understand English.

Faith
understood all too well, and she broke out in a cold sweat. "That’s not
right. Wyatt was supposed to be sent to America!" She felt her throat
closing up. Her colleagues had dumped Wyatt into his worst nightmare. Nausea
made her unsteady, and she had to brace herself against the iron railing that lined
the third-floor balcony.

"Easy,
Faith." Paula wrapped her arm around Faith’s waist to keep her steady.
"Let’s get you back into Medical."

She
shook her head. "Why did you send Wyatt to Hill Heritage, dammit?"

Paula’s
blond brows drew together. "You said he was telekinetic. They’re better
equipped to handle hostiles. He’s the ACRO agent you told me about?"

"Yes,"
Faith bit out. "Shit." She dragged a hand through her hair, which
felt like a tangled pile of straw. Paula, with her fine features and waist-length
sandy hair, always made Faith feel as if she looked like a street rat, and now
more than ever.

"He’s
been treated well. ACRO has no reason to come down on us. We weren’t sure how
much he knew about us, so we figured we’d wait until you woke up before we did
anything with him." A young recruit walked past, and Paula lowered her
voice conspiratorially. "We also picked up an extra asylum patient."