Drake Sisters 07 - Hidden Currents

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    â€œMaybe it was something else altogether, El e. Maybe we’re giving him too much credit.â€
    â€œMaybe.†She knew better, but whatever. She wasn’t going to argue with him. She’d felt Stavros’s fingers on her throat again, heard his voice, that soft monotone that never changed, not when he was hitting her with his fist, or carving up her body with a whip, beating her with a cane, and not when he was being gentle, his hands and mouth roaming over her as if he owned her. A sob escaped before she could suppress it.
    â€œKiss me.â€
    â€œI can’t.â€
    â€œLook at me, El e.†He waited until her gaze met his. There was shame. Pain. Humiliation. Panic. Most of al a deep sorrow for everything she’d lost.
    â€œKiss me. Feel me. He’s not here with us. I won’t let him be. He’s a monster that took you and you had no choice but to give in to him .
    . .â€
    â€œNo! I should have fought more. I should have done something. I’m trained, damn it. I’ve been trained in martial arts, in weapons. I have a hel of a psychic talent. It shouldn’t have happened to me. How could I let him do those things to me?â€
    â€œYou tel me, baby. You tel me how, with al my training, with my psychic talent, with my strength and my ability with weapons, I fel into enemy hands and al owed them to do those things to me. Explain it then, because I don’t understand.â€
    â€œYou’re such a bastard, Jackson. Why do you have to talk like that?†She tried to lay her head on his chest, wanting to hide.
    â€œYou’re fucking going to kiss me first, El e. He’s not standing between us. You understand me? I won’t have him standing between us.
    You fought a good fight. You survived. That’s what you were supposed to do. You survived.â€
    Her teeth sank into his shoulder and her tears burned against his skin. “I shouldn’t have,†she whispered. “I should have had the courage to end it and maybe him.â€

    His fingers tightened on her neck and he pul ed her head back so he could stare into her tear-drenched eyes. “Don’t you ever fucking think that, let alone say it. Would you want me to have died? Or Hannah? Or Abbey?â€
    She shook her head. “But this is my fault—what happened today. I heard him. I heard his voice. He said he’d kil everyone I love if I don’t come back to him.â€
    â€œYou listen to me, El e. He’s the one who needs to be afraid, not you. You’re not locked in by his psychic energy field. He doesn’t have you trapped. You’re strong and you’re lethal. Your sisters are as wel . Don’t you dare sel any of them short. Hel , baby, your house makes people disappear. And we’re not going to talk about me, but if that son of a bitch thinks he can take you from me, let him come and try. You’re down, but you’re not out. Do you understand me? Do you, El e? Look at me. Don’t turn away from me and pay lip service to what I’m saying.
    I’l kil the bastard for you right now. Say the word and I leave and go to work. It’s what I’m best at anyway. There’s nowhere he’l be safe and if you think I don’t want to, you’re very wrong. I dream about it, I think about it, day and night and none of what I do to him is pleasant or civilized. If you want to be scared of someone, you’re scared of the wrong fucking man.â€
    She stared down into his black, glittering eyes knowing every word he said he believed. She leaned forward and brushed her mouth across his.
    â€œStop saying ‘fuck.’ â€
    Jackson had been furious at the thought of Stavros possibly reaching across the ocean and frightening El e. Could he do that? Could the son of a bitch real y come at her psychical y? He and El e had first touched mind to mind across an ocean. He wanted to wrap her in bubble wrap, put her somewhere no one could find her, hire an army to guard her, get ten dogs. He wanted the bastard dead. And then she’d kissed him. Not a real kiss, just a brush of her lips against his. And scolded him in that prissy little lecture tone of hers he loved.
    â€œIt’s just a word, El e.†It was deliberate provocation, but he couldn’t help it.
    â€œIt’s not a nice word, Jackson and you