Laying her head on his chest, she listened. There was no heartbeat, no rise and fall of his breaths. He was dead.
The world fell away and agony detonated somewhere deep inside her chest. Grief came at her from all sides. Her nose burned and her eyes watered as she denied her body’s demand to cry.
She closed Dennis’s vacant eyes and rested her head on his chest. She wouldn’t survive this loss. This would leave utter devastation in its wake.
Dennis had been her champion. He protected her, saved her from the mental illness that plagued the life she tried to build in Circle City. He fought side by side with her, helping her to overcome her issues and took on the fight alone when she didn’t want to fight for herself.
Her thoughts were dismal and self-centered. She needed him for everything. There was no recovery from this.
Sometime later, Jordan became aware of Xander standing over her. Concern was blatant on his face. She knew what she must look like with her tear-filled eyes and devastated heart. Her skinny body, pale skin and round eyes made her resemble a waif when she cried. She knew because she’d seen it in the mirror more times than she could count. It was not a side of herself she let people see.
“Say your goodbye, Jordan, and then I’ll take you home.”
Jordan pressed a chaste kiss to Dennis’s forehead and rose.
“Would you rather stay with Jaci and me?” He squeezed her with a muscular arm around her shoulder while turning her in the direction of her building.
“No,” she said numbly. “I’ve got to meet with the contact. He told me to be there tonight.”
“It can wait a day.”
She looked up at Xander and nodded and then squirmed out of his grip. “I’m fine. I can walk home by myself.”
She turned and walked away from him, hoping he wasn’t following her.
Instead of going up to her apartment when she entered building twelve, she walked straight through the lobby and out the front entrance.
It took a tremendous amount of repression to turn her thoughts away from the scene she’d just walked away from, and she was utterly unsuccessful at it for any length of time.
The hole Dennis’s loss would leave in her life was massive, and the ramifications were starting to circle the outskirts of her mind. Her life was a perfect example of why every female had a male roommate assigned to her. She needed the created link of family because she had no one else. Dennis had been better family to her than the people she’d been born to. He was someone safe to touch and be touched by without expectation of anything more. She could be herself when she was with him.
He knew everything and cared for her anyway. She was bereft.
It took a good half hour of walking before her brain started to emerge from the fog, and then during the next half hour, her grief turned into anger. She fumed as she finished her hike to the border gate station. Those miserable fuckers would pay. She would have her revenge.
In the pitch-dark of another moonless night, Jordan’s feet took her where she needed to go while her mind worked, trying to assimilate the drastic changes of the last twenty-four hours.
Jordan stood outside the circle of light surrounding the border and hid in the shadows, watching intently. The windowed building was a brightly lit fishbowl with every detail of the interior easily visible. Two Guardsmen stood talking next to the row of turnstiles. Neither one was Patrick.
It was incredibly stupid not to have backup for this meet, but there was something within her that trusted him, and that was a rare occurrence.
Minutes later, Patrick walked into the building from the Sapphire side of the border. She absorbed every detail about him. He was average weight, average height with brown hair.
His eyes. They were extraordinary. She remembered flashes of the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. They had startled her the night before. Growing up in Amber, she was accustomed to being surrounded with brown-eyed gazes and hadn’t remembered how startling it was to be regarded with indigo eyes. Having them pointed at her, scrutinizing her, increased her heart rate and shortened her breathing. They were a constant reminder he was forbidden to her. There was no mistaking the flashes of desire or the air of playfulness she’d seen in them the night before. It was as if a tiny devil sat on his shoulder, whispering in his ear, because when he looked at her it was very clear the things running through his head would land them both in Hell.
He had affected her on some level during their first encounter several months before because a short time later she experienced a jolt of excitement when she thought she’d seen him in a crowd. She was actually changing direction to walk toward him when she realized there were no National Guardsmen living in the Amber Zone. She distinctly remembered a momentary twinge of disappointment at the revelation but never thought of him again after that. Until last night.
She closed her eyes and mentally put herself back under that desk. Just thinking about his hand running up and down her arm fluttered her insides and made her part her lips so she could take in more air. She swallowed and raised her lids to look again at this man that made her pant just a little bit every time her mind wandered to him.
In the cluster of four men wearing the same uniforms, she was able to easily identify which was Patrick O’Connor. He was–
She shook her head, having a hard time putting words to the vibe he gave off. Inviting. It was as close an adjective she could bring to mind. The expression on his face and the way he moved his body was warm, relaxed. He possessed an easy leisure, from his gorgeous narrow-hipped, sweet, tight ass to the slightly off-kilter canter of his words. She felt it even from this distance away.
He was not like the men she knew in Amber who, because of their life experiences, grew to be stoic and imposing, needing to control everything.
Jordan frowned into the darkness. She was sure by the way he carried himself that Patrick’s life had been easy. He had no reason to be angry and stoic. She forced herself to remember he was on the wrong side of this fledgling war, and she should be terrified of him. But when he looked at her, she felt the opposite. Somehow this liaison felt right inside.
She silently regarded the change of shifts and continued to watch while he talked with his partner. A few minutes later, she moved to the alley he’d pulled her into the evening before.
She walked deep into the shadows between the two buildings and sat against a wall, bringing her knees up underneath her chin. It was a familiar position she felt compelled to assume when she was scared or threatened.
As a child she’d realized when she tucked her head and covered the back of her neck with her hands, she could easily withstand the most severe of beatings. She was sure reverting to this protective pose was a reaction to losing Dennis, because she hadn’t given in to the compulsion to assume that position in several years. She spent the wait rocking slightly and rebuilding her defenses.
It seemed to Jordan like several hours had passed before Patrick stepped into the gap and sat on the ground beside her. She hadn’t heard him approach, and she jumped at the sudden shadow man sitting shoulder to shoulder with her.
She held her breath, waiting for him to make the first move, waiting to find out whether her judgment about him was good or if this folly would ultimately result in her demise.
He grasped her hand and whispered, “I have to make this short. Tonight hasn’t been a usual night. There’s been a lot of traffic back and forth. Did you talk to your people?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“We’re a go. For now, you’re on a need-to-know basis with me as your only contact.”
He nodded. It was an almost imperceptible acknowledgement in the darkness of the night. “I have