She blinked at Kadan, unable to comprehend the rush of images and impressions, shivering with cold, fighting hard to keep the voices at bay. “What does that mean?”
Kadan brushed back her hair and leaned into her, taking possession of her soft, trembling lips. “It doesn’t matter, honey, come back to me.” His voice was a velvet-soft lure, stroking and caressing along her skin, teasing at her nerves until she was wholly aware of him—just him.
She made a little sound in her throat, distress pouring into his mind, and she stepped into his arms. It was the first real move she’d made for comfort, and he tightened his hold around her, caging her in with a protective gesture. Lips skimming her hair and temples, he murmured soft, soothing words, uncaring what they were, only wanting to push out evil and fill her with warmth.
She buried her face against his chest. She didn’t make a sound; there was no outward sobbing, but in her mind, he could hear quiet weeping, and when he lifted her chin, there were tears tracking down her face. He bent his head and licked at them, following the tracks to the corner of her mouth.
Kadan lifted her. “You’re going to spend a lot of time in bed if you keep this up.”
She didn’t smile, just circled his neck with her arms and let him carry her without protest back to his bedroom. He undressed her, careful not to jar her, when he could feel the pain pounding in her head. He found the headache pills and gave her one with a glass of water, then stretched out again beside her, fully dressed, after snapping off the light.
“You don’t have to stay,” Tansy protested. “I’ll be all right. The dark helps.”
“I’m staying, baby. I have to chase away the nightmares if any are stupid enough to visit you tonight. Go to sleep.” He flipped her onto her side, her back to him, curving his body around hers, one hand sliding beneath her shirt, palm locked over her rib cage. His breath was warm and rhythmic on the nape of her neck. He couldn’t resist curling his fingers into a fist and allowing his knuckles to run along the underside of her br**sts with gentle caresses.
Tansy found his touch soothed and relaxed her, easing all the tension out of her when it should have done just the opposite. Maybe because she’d spent her life without skin-to-skin contact, the tactile feeling of the pads of his fingers, the brush of knuckles, or the heat of his palm took the tightness from her muscles and melted her body.
She floated on a sea of pain, the waves crashing in her head, voices rising and sinking, the whispers loud and then soft, but instead of fighting it, curling up in the fetal position and enduring hours, or even days, of agony, she drifted also on a tide of warmth and security, feeling Kadan riding out the pain with her.
His breathing steadied her own. The stroke of his knuckles distracted her from the pounding in her temples. If the pain threatened to overwhelm her, he leaned in and brushed kisses along the nape of her neck, and then tugged at her earlobe with his teeth. She was caught between pain and pleasure, drifting . . . drifting . . . until finally the pain began to ebb and she slipped into sleep.
Kadan dozed for a while, waking every now and then when she moved. He cuddled her and whispered until she settled down. He closed his eyes briefly again, drifting a little himself, continuing to stroke her soft skin, the undersides of her br**sts and down her flat belly. She didn’t ever think of stopping trying to track the killers. Not once. He monitored her thoughts carefully, and once she’d started on their trails, no matter what she saw or how loud the voices called to her, even now, with the direct threat of an elite tracker, she was scared, but there was no thought of stopping.
He let his breath out slowly, his belly tight with knots, everything in him protesting her choice, when he’d been the one to draw her into the mess in the first place. And now someone had her parents. The bodyguard had been a plant, probably Whitney’s, and he most likely was a GhostWalker. He was too cool, staying with the parents, living in their home, side by side, watching Tansy . . . And what had her father said when her mother had screamed? His voice wasn’t surprised by what the bodyguard had done. In fact, he’d sounded for a moment as if he was still in charge.
Kadan rubbed strands of her silky hair between his fingers. She’d been in danger the entire time, and hadn’t known it. She couldn’t read thoughts, only objects, and wearing gloves had prevented her from seeing the danger. If she’d sensed that any of them felt guilt, she would have never connected the emotion to her. She believed in them. All of them. Even the bodyguard.
Fredrickson’s betrayal had hurt her. Kadan had felt the piercing pain knifing through her heart. The protest in her mind. Sadly, it was Fredrickson’s betrayal that had shaken her steadfast belief in her parents’ love. She hadn’t said anything to Kadan, and he tried not to let that bother him, when she should be sharing everything, but part of him didn’t blame her. He wasn’t sympathetic to her parents in the least.
Fredrickson had been around the Meadows family for years. Tansy believed him to be more than a friend, part of her family. She trusted him almost as much as she did her parents, and he’d made her mother scream in pain. Kadan replayed the sound in his head. He was sound-sensitive, and few things got past him, even over the phone. The sound had been genuine, but then the bastard part of him knew he could hurt an ally just for the necessary effect. And it brought results. If Kadan hadn’t stopped her, Tansy would have delivered herself into their waiting hands. As her father had said she would.
If Whitney had planted Fredrickson into the Meadows’ home to keep an eye on Tansy, why didn’t her father know? Or had he known? Had there been a break in trust? If so, why hadn’t Whitney simply killed Don Meadows? And why hadn’t Meadows turned him in for the childhood experiments? Kadan turned the pieces of the puzzle over and over in his mind, but nothing fit. The moment he realized all the thinking in the world wasn’t going to solve anything, he turned to the problem at hand. Tansy.
She was so unexpected. The man she called the puppet master was going to come after her. Kadan knew it with an absolute certainty. There had been shock, of course; an elite tracker was the last thing the man had expected. He must have been very shaken, although he recovered fast. There had been respect, and that made sense. Few could do what Tansy did, walk in blood and death and the filth of a killer’s mind, hear the screams and pleas of victims dying, and emerge intact as she tracked the killer to his lair. Yeah, the puppet master would feel respect, but it would be more than that.