The Price of His Redemption

Chapter 1In the dead of night, in the dead of winter, even Chicago slept. Fresh snow blanketed roads, sidewalks, lawns. Snowplows wouldn’t be out for hours yet, which left streetlights catching the flecks within the crust and scattering them in a silvery glitter across the city. Gideon sat at his bedroom window, curtains thrown open to the now cloudless sky, and wished for brief seconds that he wasn’t cooped up inside. This was a night for hunting. The air practically begged him to come out and play. The blankets rustled behind him. Silently, he turned his head and watched Emma’s pale form rise from the bed’s sanctuary. Though it had been a month since her return, she had yet to cut her hair. It fell in thick, dark blonde waves to her waist, obscuring her naked curves. Gideon thought it made her look both younger and more seductive, but he kept that opinion to himself. He and Jesse didn’t comment on the changes in Emma since her rescue. They were too relieved she was back to dare disturb the balance. Jesse still slept in the middle of the bed, the blankets twisted around his waist. Both had fallen asleep naked, spent from an early night and hours of slow f*****g. The scent of come still hovered in the air, but Gideon had refused to give it power and distract him from his vigil. Tonight was his turn. He would not allow his baser desires to get in the way. Emma didn’t speak. She stepped noiselessly to her dresser and rifled through the second drawer. As Gideon watched, she slipped on panties, then sweats, then sat down topless on the floor to pull on socks. Her hair hung over her face, hiding it from view. The delicate arch of her spine was smoother now than it had been only a few weeks earlier. No knobs, no visible ribcage. Slowly but surely, she was gaining the weight she had lost. Nobody knew exactly how much time had passed in the other dimension for her, but it was enough for her to have dropped nearly twenty-five pounds. In some ways, she had been just a shell when Jesse had rescued her. They were finally seeing the light at the end of that particular tunnel. Gideon remained motionless while she finished dressing. She straightened, and her baggy T-shirt caught the hard peaks of her n*****s. No bra. Sometimes she wore one, sometimes she didn’t. At her full health, Emma’s breasts were ripe and luscious, and not wearing a bra during the day wasn’t really an option. But she wasn’t quite there yet. Soon, perhaps. Not now. She went into the adjoining bathroom. Without shutting the door or turning on the light, she used the toilet and washed her hands. Familiar rituals, both of them. Jesse stirred at the sound of water running into the sink, but not enough to realize Emma was no longer in bed with him. If he rolled over, he would know. He might even wake up and join Gideon. They did that occasionally, though they had set up the alternating schedule to prevent both of them being zombies during the day. Good intentions. He prayed they weren’t their downfall. When Emma finally went for the bedroom door, Gideon rose from his chair. He was already dressed, already prepared as he followed her out into the hall. She turned right, toward the stairs, her fingertips gliding along the wall for guidance. Light from a downstairs lamp that had somehow been forgotten sent long shadows skittering up the walls. Emma’s silhouette loomed taller, thinner, than her solid form. Her hand resembled a spider, finding its way along an invisible web. Still, she never said a word. He didn’t know why that always bothered him. Maybe because it made her seem like a ghost, like everything they had gone through to get her back had been a dream, and he and Jesse were stuck in some delusion together while Emma was still bound helpless against her will in another dimension. Or worse, that she really was dead, and this was their own personal hell. Gideon hated how silence made her so much more ethereal. It worked to his advantage on nights like this, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. At the bottom of the stairs, Emma paused. Gideon halted halfway up. She c****d her head, as if listening for something, so Gideon did the same. Heartbeats. Four of them. Emma’s. Jesse’s. Dominique and Michelle’s in their wing of the house. They were the pulses that breathed life into his existence, the reminders that he wasn’t alone. Even Michelle’s was welcome, though he would never in a million years tell her that. The refrigerator in the kitchen kicked in. Ice cubes fell into the tray. Emma would never have heard the latter. There were other distinct sounds he normally dismissed. The hum of electricity, both through the house’s wiring and in its appliances. The gurgle of pipes. The toilet upstairs was still running. Beyond the walls were the echoes of Chicago, but at this hour of the night, their residential neighborhood became a void. Nothing interesting there. And yet, every time Emma did this, every time she stopped in her tracks to listen, her intent was etched in every ready line of her body. What did she hear? Neither he nor Jesse had ever found a satisfactory answer for that. She began walking again. Her paths rarely varied. Sometimes she went into the kitchen and fixed herself something to eat. On those nights, Gideon sat opposite her at the table and watched her glazed eyes, waiting for her to notice him there. She never did. Other nights, she went into the living room and sat in the middle of the floor. Nothing else, just sat. Always the same spot. Cross-legged, with her hands in her lap, like she was a child waiting to be noticed. There had been one time, very early on, when she had gone downstairs to the playroom. Gideon had followed, curious about what she might do, but when she’d gone straight to the toy closet and one of the more dangerous whips, he’d jumped in and pulled her away. He’d guided her back upstairs, helped her back into bed, and told Jesse about it the next morning. They had agreed then to keep the basement door locked at all times. Emma never remembered her nightly sojourns, and they understood enough about sleepwalking to know she might not be completely rational. Better to be safe than sorry. Tonight was something new. Her gaze swept slowly around, settling on the library door. Her steps were slow and methodical, her hand reaching out to open it as she approached. She left it slightly ajar, and Gideon slipped in unseen behind her. A long, shuddering sigh wracked through her slim frame. For a second, Gideon thought she was crying, but there was no other sound, no scent of salt, nothing to indicate tears. She stood several feet within the room and simply waited. So Gideon waited, too. The library was one of the rooms that had been the house’s bestselling points for Jesse. It was two stories high, with shelves lining all but one of the walls. A balcony ringed the second level, making it possible to look out over the main room, and tall ladders slid along installed railings to make it possible to reach even the highest shelf. Emma had equated it to the My Fair Lady set, which wasn’t really far off. Gideon had only known that Jesse got hard just standing in the cavernous room. Considering he had lost a library it took him twenty years to accumulate, indulging Jesse had been easy. Minutes passed. There was no set time for Emma to be up; it varied from night to night. Once she returned to bed, she would be in for the duration, but until then, the sky was the limit. She moved to Jesse’s desk and flipped on the lamp in its corner. Its golden glow cast a circle over the stack of books he’d left behind, but otherwise, the top was tidy. Their case load had been remarkably light since Emma’s return. By choice. While Jesse still had his Guardian responsibilities to take care of, he did nothing to demonstrate that in front of Emma. Michelle picked up the slack there. Without bitching about it, which was unusual for her. Gideon wasn’t complaining. It was about time they started catching a few breaks. The leather of the chair creaked when Emma sat down. Her hands skimmed over the surface of the bare blotter—exploring, not touching. She perched on the edge of the seat, her gaze cast downward. When her fingers reached the edge of the desk, they disappeared behind it. A drawer slid open. Gideon frowned. That was new. He edged closer to see her extract Jesse’s pewter letter opener. It was heavier than it looked, with an ornate handle decorated with whorls and curlicues, and though the blade itself was not sharp, the sight of it in Emma’s delicate hands sent alarm running through Gideon’s veins. He poised at the side of the desk, ready to snatch it away, even if the sudden jarring meant waking her up. Jesse had warned him about that. It would disorient her, he’d said. Make her unpredictable. In that moment, Gideon preferred unpredictability to bloodshed. He didn’t relax when she set it in the middle of the blotter. It balanced oddly on the metal band separating the blade from the hilt. With a quick flick of her fingers, Emma sent it spinning in a stationary circle. Shards of dull gray flittered across the book spines lining the walls. More flashed across Emma’s face. When the letter opener started to slow, she caught it with her hand and set it dancing yet again. Over. And over. And over. She didn’t blink once as she watched it spin. But her heart did quicken. It raced in time with the revolving implement, and slowed when its tempo eased. Not just once. Every time. Gideon crouched down to get a better view of her face. In spite of her odd pulse, her breathing remained slow and even, her eyes empty. Her flawless complexion looked sallow in the poor lamplight, with dark shadows along her cheekbones. Unable to resist, he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. His fingertips grazed along her jaw, but the familiar jolt of emotion was missing. It always was when she was like this. It was like…she simply wasn’t there, which was far more terrifying than when she’d been physically absent. “Emma,” he said softly. He waited for a response, an acknowledgement, anything to indicate she’d heard him. He received only silence. She wasn’t like this during the day. When Emma was awake, she burst with life. Happiness radiated from her, and if she got tired a little easily or couldn’t quite finish dinner, that was okay. She complained good-naturedly about Jesse and Gideon’s hovering, but accepted their care with grace. She’d been more than a little surprised to learn Michelle and Dominique were permanent houseguests, but even with that, she’d fallen into their routine as if she’d never left it. She filled the hole she had left behind with love and smiles. They had even finally resumed their s*x lives, though she had yet to do anything too hardcore since Jesse was a mother hen at the best of times. Seeing her as a shadow of her day self always stung. He wasn’t sure what Jesse did, or how he felt when he kept an eye on Emma like this, but the most common element to Gideon’s emotions was helplessness. Because they couldn’t actually do anything except make sure she didn’t hurt herself. They had asked her after the first time it happened, of course. Her blank look and confused emotions were enough for them not to press about it again. Emma finally looked up from the desk. With the letter opener still spinning lazily in place, she pushed the chair back and stood, going around the opposite side to the nearby steps that led to the second level. Her nails clicked lightly against the rail as she climbed, a staccato rhythm that burrowed beneath Gideon’s skin. He frowned when she grabbed the ladder and dragged it behind her, like a child pulling a wagon. She didn’t even look at the shelves as she passed the books. She rounded the corner, traveled the length of the shorter wall, and rounded the next corner, too. On the desk, the letter opener drifted to a stop. Its tip pointed at the exit to the front hall. Emma halted. Gideon didn’t have to turn his head to see where she was. All he had to do was lift his gaze. She’d come to a dead stop directly over the door and pulled the ladder to the rows in front of her. One rung. Two. Three. Her socks seemed precarious on the slick wood, but her step remained sure. She pulled out a thick, leather-bound book with gilt edging. She didn’t skim over the spines in search of it. Her hand went unerringly to its spot, as if that was the one she’d meant to retrieve all along. From its position in the library, Gideon knew it was magic-related. Dimensional magic. Jesse was as anal about his books as Gideon was about his clothes. He didn’t like this. Not one bit. Emma shouldn’t give a damn about dimensional magic. Her interest in other kinds of magic was only what it meant for Jesse and whatever cases they might be working on. Outside of that, she’d never expressed any interest in learning. Her talents rested elsewhere—in the arts, in the tangle of human emotions. If magic couldn’t be used for either of those, she had no use for it. Until now. Rather than return to the stairs, Emma sat down on the second floor balcony and opened the book onto her lap. Now this position, Gideon recognized. She did this in the living room. The book was new, though. For a moment, he debated waking Jesse up. He needed to see this. Except that would mean leaving Emma alone in order to go upstairs and get Jess, and that wasn’t an option. Behind him, the letter opener started turning again. His head whipped around to stare at it. Nothing touched it. No breeze disturbed the air. It simply revolved like it had when Emma had sat at the desk twirling it. Enough was enough. This was definitely Jesse territory. His hand slapped down over the tool, squashing its momentum. The metal was hot to the touch, but it ceased movement immediately, clattering against the blotter from the force Gideon exerted. A small cry came from the second level. Gideon looked up in time to see Emma crumple to the side. Forgetting the opener, Gideon flew up the stairs, three at a time. The book had slipped from Emma’s lap, and he pushed it the rest of the way off to bundle her in his arms. Her body was warm, too, her temperature slightly elevated. Not feverish, and certainly not as warm as the letter opener, but enough to be noticeable, enough for him to rise to his feet. She hung limp against him as he carried her out of the library and back to their room. If not for the heat rising from her skin, he would have just thought her asleep. Even her pulse was completely normal, and her eyes darted behind their lids like she was in REM. What he’d seen hadn’t been normal, though. Jesse was still in the same position when Gideon laid Emma out next to him. As soon as her arm brushed Jesse’s, she rolled onto her side to snuggle into his chest. He, in turn, drew her in even closer, his head turning to brush a kiss against the top of her hair. He wasn’t awake. It was an automatic response. Gideon had witnessed it time and time again, just further proof of the connection between them. When Gideon dared to brush his knuckles down the side of her neck, a faint jolt leapt into him. It went straight to his c**k and made his ears hum. A softened version of what touching her awake felt like. She was back. From wherever she went when she slept. Gideon sighed as he sat back down in the chair by the window. Tomorrow, he and Jesse were going to have to discuss what to do about this, once and for all. They couldn’t afford to hide their heads in the sand any longer. Emma wouldn’t want them to. Tonight, he would watch. Wait. Guard what was his. He’d made a promise—to them, to himself. He wouldn’t break it for a few hours of lost sleep.