“Sorry about that, boy,” he apologized, still feeling pretty crappy about the dog going hungry all day long. He would have to start paying much closer attention to this weakness he was vulnerable to, start planning ahead and making provisions for all circumstances. He had to heed the lightening sky and not push it to the limits. After feeling that horrific and hot petrification clawing over him he had known it was not something he would ever willingly let happen to him again. And the vulnerability hadn’t been the worst of it. The whole time it had hurt, like someone was scraping up the length of every long bone in his body, the nails on the chalkboard kind of pain taken to the nth degree.

“You could have warned me about that,” he said dryly to himself … or rather Menes.

It seems to me that I did. On many occasions.

“I guess words can’t quite convey the honest intensity of the matter. I know I share your memories, but I can’t access them yet. I guess … I guess I thought I knew.”

You never know, Menes murmured quietly in his brain, until you experience it for yourself. As is true of most things.

Jackson nodded even though Menes didn’t need the gesture to know he agreed and understood. But whether the Blending was complete or not on a physical level, there was still a lot of space between them on a spiritual level. As he had many times over the past three weeks, he wondered just how much of himself he would end up losing in order to make them a single individual.

Nothing, Menes assured him. Nothing of your soul, your memories or the essence of who you are. But in the physical world … I am asking you to sacrifice a great deal, I know. I sometimes think we ask too much of our hosts. That asking permission in the Ether is such an inadequate way of preparing a human for what is about to come.

“Yeah, I have to agree with you there. And I understand what it is I have to do. I understand who it is we have to become,” Jackson said, a wistful sigh leaving his body. “There’s just things I’m going to miss,” he said as they scrubbed at Sargent’s ruffling fur.

“You know, normally if I entered a room and heard someone holding what seems like a detailed conversation without anyone else there they either have to a) be on the phone, or b) be a schizophrenic.”

He looked up, a smile touching his lips at her words. It grew as he took in her tousled and rumpled appearance. She looked like she’d just been engaging in bedsport, her hair victim to the ravaging stroke of his fingers as he held her in place for—

No, no … bad thought, he told himself hastily. He absolutely could not let himself run wild with that thought or he’d get hard, he’d start craving things and start wanting to kiss her lush mouth all over again. Bad enough that he still hadn’t erased the taste and feel of her from the front or the back of his mind.

“Good morning. Or … well, I guess it’s goodnight at this point.”

“Yes we’ve been here all day.” She frowned as she watched Sargent lick the bowl so enthusiastically that, now empty of food, it was moving across the floor with Sargent hot on its heels. “I called Landon on the way here last night. I told him my thoughts on the likelihood of finding the boy. Since Sargent isn’t a cadaver dog, do you think you’ll still be needed?”

There was a hell of a lot Sargent could do to help find that boy despite his training limitations. But …

“I won’t be going back out. Not after what happened. It’s time for me to leave town. Pack up my shit, quit the force, and just go.”

“Quit! Why would you quit? Where are you going? I mean … can’t you just work third shift? It’s at night—”

“In the summer it’s light until nine pm. Third shift starts at midnight, sure, but it runs well into sunrise. It’s just not possible. And Marissa, even if it were, I couldn’t bring my enemies into a place where innocents could be harmed as they try to take my life.”

“But …” It was a weak word, with her so obviously wanting to argue and yet her logical and reasoning self already knew it was an argument that could not be won. “Do you mean … forever? You can’t just … I mean you have to be able to come back at some point. You can’t possibly run away from creatures like that. No matter where you go they will find you and—”

Apparently she realized what she was saying because her eyes went wide with no little horror over the situation.

“Oh my god, it’s true isn’t it? No matter where you go those … those monsters will find you. And with all that power gunning for you, how can you possibly survive such relentless targeting? And don’t you think the best place for you to be would be familiar territory?”

Jackson straightened to his full height, leaning back against the counter and folding his arms over his chest.

“Why, doc, I’m touched. You’re practically heartbroken about this.”

She gasped in a startled breath, her cheeks pinking up and her eyes brightening fiercely in all of an instant. “You’re an ass,” she spat.

“Yeah, but I’m goodlooking so, it kind of evens things out.”

God he loved poking at her to see what kind of quills she’d shoot at him next. There was something about seeing her in full glorious temper that really turned him on.

All right you bastard, are you some kind of sadist or something? he demanded of Menes.

I’m not the one who traded desks after Sargent Kanus retired so I could see right down the hall to her office door, Menes was quick to single out.

Well, shit. The man had a point. At the time he’d told himself the desk had more room and a better filing cabinet. But the move had definitely put her and a really good perspective of her ass right in his line of sight dozens of times a day.

“Stay or go, it makes no difference to me,” she snapped at him. “I just … I mean to say,” she said, her hands suddenly becoming busy smoothing out the wrinkles in her sweater and skirt, “that wherever you go you should make certain you don’t isolate yourself. A-and perhaps you should find another counselor as well. I’d be more than happy to forward any records you might need.”

Officer Waverly. She didn’t say it, but it was right there. Sergeant Waverly and Doctor Anderson. He’d brought them to a personal level by taking her out of her comfort zones and forcing her to break all of her own rules. Now she was backpedaling, trying to find strength in the familiar and in the methods she used to distance herself from others.

“I think you’re missing part of the point here, hummingbird. Before you go flitting away, if you recall someone got a good look at you and saw me protecting you. If they think they can use you to get to me they will. So, you’re coming with me. For a little while anyway.”

“I am not going with you! I have a job! I have family!”

“Yeah. And if you want to keep them safe you need to leave them for a little while until I’m sure that no one is focusing on you. Think of it like the witness protection program. How many people have you had to coax and counsel to relocate? To change their identities in order to keep themselves safe? Why would you do anything less than that for yourself?”

“It’s not the same! Those people were witnesses to terrible crimes and had to testify—”

“Oh it’s very much the same, Marissa. It boils down to this … if you want to keep our coworkers and your family alive, then you will leave with me right now.”

She drew breath to argue almost automatically, but then the words stopped in her throat. He watched her eyes widen and suddenly she was clasping one hand in the other, making a serious effort not to twist them together with worry.

“What if it’s too late? What if they are already in danger? Who says they won’t hurt her anyway?”

“Her?” He straightened away from the counter. “Who are you talking about?”

“My sister.”

“Honestly, I don’t even think they know who you are. But if you go back to the office they will see you there and figure it out really damn quick. That’s when she’ll be in trouble. And unlike me, you won’t have to leave forever. Just to give me enough time to make it known I’m in New Mexico so they’ll concentrate their efforts in that direction and no longer need to concern themselves about anyone in Saugerties.”

“You mean you’re going to tell them where you are?” She gaped at him. “That’s utter lunacy!”

“No doc. I assure you I’m quite sane. The people who will protect me in New Mexico are just as powerful as I am. Some perhaps more so. It’s not something you can quantify. You’ll see what I mean once we get there. Now if you’re going to freshen up, you’d better get a move on. I’m leaving in twenty minutes. I have … I have to return some police equipment.”

His voice turned quiet and he reached out without looking, knowing the wet nose and thick fur he was seeking would be right there.

It was a damn shame he couldn’t promise the same in return.

Chapter Seven

“What are we doing here? I thought we were going to the precinct.”

“And I thought I told you that you going there was a bad idea. I’m leaving you with a friend I trust while I go about handing in my service weapon, my badge … other things.” She saw him glance in the rearview mirror with no little amount of regret in his eyes. She had seen him tilt it down just enough so he could see his dog. Whether Jackson wanted to admit it or not, he’d grown attached to Sargent. She couldn’t help but realize he was going to have to grieve all over again, essentially losing two relationships in under a year. “I’ll … I don’t know … I’ll just say the dead kid was the straw that broke my back,” he said with a shrug. “You can back it up with some shrink talk about my ‘inability to accept the grieving process’ or whatever it is you want to say.”

Tommy Slattery had been found dead an hour ago. His mother was being interrogated probably at that very moment, using Marissa’s insights to guide them. Oh, how she wished she could be there to be instrumental in the punishment for the horrendous crime against her own child. The boy had been … almost unrecognizable. Whether it was from the initial incident or done afterward to hide one crime by making it look like another … it didn’t matter. She knew the mother was at the heart of it and any woman who could do something like that to her own child …

She reached for the door handle. “I won’t lie for you, Jackson. But I won’t tell the truth either, so you have no worries there. I’ll treat this like I would any other doctor-patient confidence.”`

He reached out to snag her wrist suddenly, pulling her back when she would have alighted out of the car.

“I am not your patient anymore,” he said roughly, his hand wrapping around the thick braid she’d worked her wet hair into after a hasty shower. He used the grip to make her look him dead in the eyes. “Do you hear me? Doctor-patient went out the window when I kissed you. You can’t shut the barn door now, counselor, so get it out of your head because you kissed me right back. You’re a liar if you say otherwise.”

He was so full of raw male temperament in that moment that her breath snagged somewhere in the lower reaches of her throat. Not so much anger, but dominance. Full lines that he would not allow to be crossed. Not a challenge, but a firm statement that he wouldn’t stand for anyone to challenge him. Apparently the always polite, always conscientiously lawful Jackson Waverly no longer existed. Now he was half owned by this other entity, this unknown element she was beginning to see in bolder and bolder stretches. Or perhaps it was still parts of Jackson, but much less of a desire to control what was seen by others or what he would do in any given situation. Perhaps, she thought, it was best that he resign after all. Jackson had made the perfect cop. A cross between tough and respectful, mindful of the law and of the job he represented. Whoever she was seeing now, she had no doubt he wouldn’t hesitate to rip the head off the next bad guy to come down the line if he felt it was warranted. Not indiscriminately, no. She didn’t think he was that far over. But he wasn’t pulling punches he felt were needed to be thrown in order to save his life or the life of another. Mainly, her. And that was what had gotten her into this mess. His overinflated white-knight syndrome.

And damn him, she liked him all the more for it.

“Okay Jackson,” she agreed gently. “I’ll nix the doctor hat from now on, okay? I can’t shut it off, it’s who I am, but I’ll stop trying to pigeonhole you into the role of a patient.”

“Good. Because if you do I’m going to kiss you again. And given the reactions all around from last time, I’m thinking I’m not going to try and stop at just a kiss.”