The Storm That Is Sterling (29 page)

“He says Damion is innocent. I was there. He isn’t.”

“I see,” Becca said, looking uneasy. “He seems determined and certain he’ll prove his innocence. Otherwise why would he be here?”

“For exactly that reason,” he said. “You were passed out. You aren’t going to remember anything. But him showing up here, demanding to see you, aware he might pass out, makes him look innocent—or so he hopes. He doesn’t fool me for a minute. I don’t want you anywhere near the man.”

“What exactly do you think he did?”

Backed into a corner, Sterling contemplated keeping the truth from her. But the way she saw into his head, who knew when she’d find the truth anyway. “He helped Tad capture you.”

She gaped. “And yet he’s still here with the Renegades?”

“He insists the half dozen or so bullets I’d taken made me delusional,” he said. “I wasn’t.”

“And Caleb?”

“There were other Renegades there that day,” he said. “No one saw what happened but me. Caleb won’t convict him on my word, not when I was injured. Damion is one of our most trusted Renegades. We were…”

“Friends,” she finished for him. “And his betrayal hurts.”

Could he hide nothing from this woman? “It didn’t make me happy, no.”

“I’ll do it,” she said decisively. “I’ll talk to him. I have to. We need to know the truth with so much on the line.”

We.
Why did her using that reference make him feel so damn good? He’d never been part of a “we” in his life. “I don’t like it.”

“I got that from the way you tried to slam the door on his foot,” she said. “Let’s do this and get it over with.”

A knock sounded on the door. “I’m not going away, Sterling,” Damion yelled.

“Hold your damn horses,” Sterling shouted over his shoulder.

Becca laughed, the sound resonating with nervous energy. “If he’s this eager to throw himself under the bus, let him do it. Open the door, Sterling.”

Sterling stood there, willing himself to move, but damn, if he didn’t feel a “me Tarzan, you Jane” rush that made him want to beat on his chest, scream “mine,” and then go hide Becca someplace safe. Only he couldn’t hide her—not from what she faced. There was no place safe. And as long as Damion remained inside the Renegade operation, they were all in danger. Still he didn’t move.

“I really don’t like this, Becca.”

“I know,” she said and walked to stand beside him.

“The anchor thing,” he said. “Maybe you should use me now.”

“I thought of that,” she said. “But you are pretty upset with him. I don’t want to risk what you’re feeling somehow clouding my own memories or upsetting me so much that I make him pass out.” She reached out and took his hand. “But thank you, and if I need you, I’d appreciate it if that offer stays open.”

Sterling stared down at their hands, hers so delicate. At that moment, he felt small and weak compared to the bravery of this little female. He’d been alone so long—all his life. Alone was easier. Alone didn’t come with good-bye or the emotion he had welling in his chest. Yet he was crazy about Becca, unable to turn away from her.

He brought her hand to his lips. “I am here if you need me.”
Always
, he wanted to add, but that inferred that “always” was possible. So he didn’t.

Sterling released her hand and turned to the door, prepared to lay out some rules to Damion before he walked into the lab.

***

With a deep breath, Becca steeled herself for Damion’s entrance by mentally touching the shield Caleb had taught her to erect around her mind. She found security in its presence. And by doing so, she felt a sense of much-needed control.

The door opened, and a man walked into the room—tall, broad, and athletic, like Sterling, but the similarities ended there. Damion wore army fatigues rather than the faded jeans and light blue T-shirt Sterling wore. His sandy brown hair was razored short, where Sterling wore his light blond hair thick and spiky. And the man’s eyes—the true GTECH black concealed under a façade of his natural human shade of forest green—contrasted with Sterling’s teal green.

For a moment they all stood there in silence, the unspoken expectation in the air that Damion would pass out, but Becca felt not even an inkling of fear. In fact, the way Sterling was standing over Damion’s shoulder, looking like the big, bad, boogeyman ready to beat his face in if he made the wrong move, almost made her want to laugh. Instead she smiled to herself. She found his protectiveness adorable and sexy. And it filled her with warmth.

“Thanks for seeing me, Becca,” Damion said, when he’d apparently decided he was not going to end up a floor mat.

Becca glanced from Sterling back to Damion, studying the sharp lines of his face, trying to find a memory of that day at her house. His skin was sun-stroked, the slight lines around his eyes and mouth aging him to what she guessed was early thirties. He was handsome in a rugged kind of way, but not familiar.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her lips thinning in disappointment. “I don’t remember you. Not from that day at my house, only from the backseat of the car, when you were trying to cut out the tracking device.”

“Damn it,” Damion cursed, shaking his head. “Try again. Try harder.”

Looking exceedingly irritated, Sterling barked, “She said she doesn’t remember. And if you think showing up here to see her somehow makes you look more innocent, it doesn’t. It makes you look desperate.”

Damion whirled on him. “We were in the same army unit together,” he said. “I’ve fought by your side for years. I’ve bled for you. How can you think I’d hand Becca over to Tad?”

“A lot of men we both served with are now Zodius,” Sterling said. “So tell me what part of serving together proves a damn thing.”

Damion made a frustrated sound and turned to Becca. “Caleb says you have abilities you haven’t accessed yet, like getting in people’s minds. Try and get into mine. Try and see what happened that day.” He took a step toward Becca, and Sterling grabbed his arm.

Damion shoved off Sterling’s grip and turned his attention on Becca again.

“I don’t know,” Becca said, taken off guard. Could she do this? She’d been able to get into Sterling’s mind because he’d let her do it. Or, she thought, maybe it was because they were Lifebonds. She wasn’t sure she could get into Damion’s.

“She’s not giving you a chance to somehow open her up to another one of Dorian’s mind attacks,” Sterling said, stepping in front of Becca. “You’re gone, Damion. You got your chance. It didn’t work.”

“Oh come on now, Sterling,” he said. “We both know why you don’t want her in my head. You’re afraid she’ll see what really happened and hate you, not me.”

The next thing Becca knew, Sterling had a hold of Damion and was shoving him backward. They crashed against the door in a hard thud that rattled the supply shelf resting a few feet away.

A horrible feeling twisted in Becca’s gut. What had happened that day at her house that Sterling wouldn’t want her to know about? She had to know—needed to know. She inhaled and charged toward the two men, no idea what she was doing, but determined nonetheless. She stopped at the side of the two men and grabbed both their arms, focusing her mind at the same time. And the images started to flow.

Images rushed at Becca, spiking her mind like needles in a pillow—thin, sharp, precise. She gasped and stumbled backwards, landing on something sharp.

“Becca—” She heard his distant voice, an echo in a tunnel that suffocated her with darkness.

Suddenly she was in her house again, in Sterling’s arms as he ran down the stairs, in his head, and in his body. There was pain, so much pain, and fear for her. He wasn’t going to make it. He wasn’t going to save her. He ran harder, smoke rasping through his lungs—time stood still as pain shattered his side, his back, his arm. He burst through the back door onto the porch and found Damion waiting for him. He resisted handing her over—something told him not to hand her over—but he trusted Damion, and he was no longer capable of protecting her. She felt the relief for her safety swelling inside Sterling, even as the pain of his injuries splintered through him like a million pieces of broken glass, biting through his muscles with unbearable pain.

Explosive anger roared through him a moment later at what he saw in the distance—her in Tad’s arms. Sterling shouted in utter disbelief, but he was weak, and the sound was a hoarse whisper. He launched himself toward the stairs, running for her, but another bullet pierced his leg, then he fell and blankness followed.

The images shifted in her mind, and Becca was seeing through Damion’s eyes. Sterling was handing her over to Tad a moment before he crumbled to the ground. Damion was running toward them, trying to stop Tad from taking her, but it was too late.

Becca’s fingers dug into her hair, curling around the disarrayed strands, replaying both men’s memories, trying to figure out what felt so wrong. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Becca, sweetheart.” Sterling pleaded. His voice permeated the confusion, warm and gentle. She blinked away the images, fighting a battle in her mind, and found Sterling squatting beside her on the floor. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I…”

Damion appeared over Sterling’s shoulder, an anxious look on his face, the deep hazel of his eyes melding with hope. She opened her mouth to speak when Sterling said, “Your hand. You’re bleeding.”

Turning over her palm, Becca stared at the blood, blinked twice, and then felt the rise of panic, the fear of accidentally creating a blood bond. She scrambled to get up. “I’m fine.” She defied that claim by ramming into the bar stool and smacking her head. She sat back down. “Ouch!”

Sterling wrapped his hand around her calf. “Hold still, and let me help you. You’re hurt.”

“No,” she said, pushing away from him again. She managed to get to her feet, noting the red blotch down her lab coat. “I’m fine.” She grabbed the hem of the coat and pulled the material around her hand. “How did I cut myself?”

“One of the vials busted, and you fell on it,” Sterling said, his voice husky, waves of emotion pouring off him. He thought her panic was directed at him, that she’d seen something about him she found upsetting.

“If you touch me,” she said, grasping for an excuse for her behavior, “I’m afraid I’ll get confused. I’ll lose the images in my head. I’m… I’m trying to make sense of what I saw.”

“Becca,” he breathed in a tormented whisper, unconvinced by her excuse. “Whatever you saw—”

“I don’t know what I saw,” she assured him, wrapping the lab coat around her hand with an iron-clad grip; the adrenaline pumping through her veins was, no doubt, making the bleeding worse. “One minute I saw Damion handing me off to Tad.” She swallowed the heartbeat that darted into her throat and hoarsely added, “The next it was you handing me to Tad. It was… confusing… jumbled.” Emotion swam inside her, and not her own—Sterling’s.

“You said you didn’t recognize me,” Damion pointed out and gave Sterling a stern look. “If I’d been the one to take Becca from you that night, she’d have to remember me.”

“I know what I saw,” Sterling ground out between his teeth.

Damion cast a pleading look. “You don’t remember me.”

She was at a loss at what to say. “I was leaning over Sterling’s shoulder shooting at the door when I was handed off, and the gun was ripped from my hand. I fought wildly, blindly.” Her gaze flickered between the two men. “I could have been handed off more than once, I guess. I was rattled. It all happened so fast.”

She glanced at Damion and weighed what she was about to say for certainty. She trusted him. Right or wrong, she felt it to her core. Not the way she trusted Sterling, but she trusted him.

Slowly, she shifted her focus back to Sterling. “Whatever happened that night, Sterling, Damion wasn’t working for Adam. I’m sure of it.”

Damion let out an audible sigh of relief while palpable tension banded around Sterling.

“I know this sounds silly, but I have this sense of illusion. Like someone made one or both of you see something that wasn’t there.” She shook her head. “I have to think, to process, and see if I can make sense of it.”

“I’ll go,” Damion said. “Thank you, Becca.”

“Thank you for trying to save me,” she returned with sincerity.

Surprise flickered across his chiseled features, quickly masked. He inclined his head and turned to leave. Neither he, nor Sterling, acknowledged one another, the strife between them still too raw. Somewhere in the midst of what she’d experienced between these two, she’d felt friendship and trust—sadly, now torn apart.

As Damion made tracks for the door, Becca’s gaze collided with Sterling’s, his face guarded, impossible to read, but she didn’t need to read his expression. She felt the need in him, the sudden, possessive desire, the white-hot lust, and fear—fear he was losing her, like he somehow needed her before she was gone. It all rolled off of him, a part of the tidal wave she’d sensed in him before, crashed into her, and silently pulled her toward him, engulfing her with the force, demanding response.

Respond she did. Desire pooled low in her stomach as heat slid along her skin. Shaken by his ability to provoke such instant lust and how easily she could forget the danger of the blood on her hand, she cut her gaze.