But there was no before. Even as that distant rational Joey tried to reason, the new power pushed it back. The tiny voice became a breeze shredded by a blizzard. Why? Why are you so frightened? Why is this so unlike Richard, so unlike everything you’ve ever known? Why does this man who is not a man make it impossible to use all the safe, sane explanations that protect you from hurt? Why is there so much pain—the pain that only comes with something called love?
“No,” she gasped. The realization shattered both feral rage and distant voice in one terrible blow. Joey jerked back and away, a marionette suddenly cut loose from all familiar support—even the final surety of a carefully warded heart. She fell back, floundering, drowning in loss, and it was Luke’s hands that caught at her and kept her from falling. There was no strength left to fight. She panted against him as he drew her into his arms, so drained of all sensation that even her treacherous body did not react to his nearness.
When her gasping had eased, she felt herself moved, set back from the support of his body, her chin tilted up so that her eyes had no choice but to follow. Even through the utter blankness of her mind she could see the pain in his eyes, as blatant as the raw, bleeding place within her heart where the living walls had been torn away.
“No,” she said hoarsely. “This is too much. I can’t. I can’t… ” She tried to pull away, but he refused to release her. “Let me go, Luke Let me go.”
“Oh, Joelle.” The words were dredged up as if each one carried its own burden of despair. “I can’t let you go. I wish I could make you understand. I wanted you to stay with me for your own reasons. I hoped… ” He cut off with a snap, and a glaze of coldness filmed his eyes when he opened them again. Suddenly there was no more sadness. Nothing but the tearing pain that echoed hers.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Joey whispered, turning inward, escaping his burning intensity. “I need time to think I need to…”
“You won’t leave me, Joey,” he insisted in a raw, tormented whisper. And he caught her face in his hands, turned his gaze full on her then, that stare she had first seen in the tavern uncounted ages ago in another life. She knew the stare as she had recognized the stirring of that new and terrible power within herself, she knew it even as she felt the first effects of it, and something within her struggled to resist. But there was no more strength. No more will to fight the compulsion of those eyes and the things they promised and demanded. Joey felt her gaze unfocus, was pulled surely and inevitably out of herself to a place that offered peace and safety and protection from the turmoil her life had become.
When he released her, she lay against him as weak and helpless as a newborn kitten. There was no desire to do anything but be held in his arms. All the fear was gone, but Joey could no longer remember what it was she’d been afraid of, it all seemed nonsensical and unimportant. She was where she wanted to be. She felt Luke’s warm breath stirring her hair, his hands caressing her back until her eyes began to drift closed of their own accord. So tired and she was safe. Luke was there to take care of her.
“I’m sorry, Joelle.” Luke was very far away. “I’m sorry.” And she felt him bury his face in her hair as the meaningless words carried her to a place of peace.
Luke sat on the floor against the wall, willing his heart to slow and the instinctive reactions of his body back under sentient control. The shame he felt for what he had done choked him again and again, but there was no question of going back. No point in asking himself how he could have done it differently, better—so that she would have stayed of her own will.