Ghostwalker 02 - Mind Game

continued to stare out over the water. Small whitecaps foamed on the river. A barge slid past them. Her stomach lurched and her fingers dug into Nicolas’s arm. “He’s going to kill him.” She said the words so softly it was impossible to hear, yet she knew immediately that Nicolas was aware of it as well.

    Dahlia was already on overload from the earlier violence.

    Another wave of it might bring on a seizure. Nicolas forced a laugh and swept her up in his arms. Two tourists having fun on their vacation. She settled her arms around his neck and buried her face against his throat as he swung her around and carried her to the other side of the ferry. “You are not going to get sick, Dahlia.” He made it a command.

    There was a small silence, and he felt her lashes flutter against his skin. “I’m not? Why is that?”

    In spite of the gathering force already battering at her defenses, there was the smallest note of amusement in her voice. He could feel the way her skin heated as if she were burning from the inside out. A fierce need to protect her welled up in him. It was so strong it shook him. “Hang in there, Dahlia, we’ll get you through this. And you’re not going to get sick because I told you not to.”

    He felt the brush of her lips against his throat. His insides did some sort of curious melting thing that annoyed the hell out of him. Why was it she turned him inside out? He lived his life able to walk away from anything or anyone, yet he knew his life was tangled up with hers and he’d never be able to extract himself. At the touch of her mouth on his bare skin, his groin tightened. It would have been so much easier if it was just the explosive chemistry between them, but he knew it was far more. He wanted to carry her off, just keep going. He could take her into his beloved mountains and no one would ever find them. Not even the other GhostWalkers. He could keep her safe there and away from the things that were so hard on her body and mind.

    Dahlia leaned into him, pulled his head down to press her mouth against his ear. “Your energy level is coming up, and it isn’t sexual. You’re allowing yourself to be upset over me. This is who and what I am, Nicolas. If you’re going to spend any time at all with me, you have to accept it.” She pulled back to look up at him, her dark eyes very serious. “I want you to really know what it’s like being with me. I’m never going to be the type of woman you go out to dinner with or sit in a theatre with. I don’t have that kind of control.
    Think about what life would really be like with me, not some fantasy that is so far from reality it would never last more than a day or two.”

    “My fantasy is to have you to myself, not in a restaurant or a movie theatre. I’d like you to myself. I’m not someone who needs a lot of people around me, Dahlia.”

    She felt the burst of violence blossoming over her, through her. She took a tighter grip on Nicolas, pressing herself into him, the only sanctuary left to her against the aftermath of a killing. The breath left her lungs in a rush. She closed her eyes, knowing the body was in the water and no one had seen it go in. The man in the blue shirt had been stabbed and shoved overboard, but he wasn’t dead as the water slipped over his head and took him below where no one could see his last struggles for life. But she could feel it. And she could feel his last energy rising up to scream for acknowledgment and justice.

    Her throat swelled, closed, so that she was gasping for air. The violent energy slammed into her body hard, driving her to her knees in spite of Nicolas’s grip on her. She couldn’t see, couldn’t think, the pressure building in her head, in her brain.

    Nicolas pulled her to his chest, and she was helpless to stop him. Helpless to warn him that she had to get rid of the energy or the seizures would start, Dahlia stared at the water in desperation. Too many emotions churned in her stomach, adding to the terrible washing of energy over her.

    “Look at me, Dahlia.”

    “No!” She hissed the word at him, clenching her teeth, fighting off the need to claw and scream. Her body was on fire, burning from the inside out.

    Nicolas’s fingers bit into her arms. He gave her a small shake. “Share it with me. He’s a pro, Dahlia. He killed with everyone around and no one saw it,” Nicolas said grimly. “If fireballs start hitting the deck or you start vomiting, he’s going to