Free Chosen by Fate by Virna Depaul

after tonight she wanted more? She couldn’t have more. She knew that. And they still had to work together.
    Sensing she was close to bolting, Wraith pushed her concerns out of her head. It was too loud in here. Too . . . happy. She needed to get outside. To be alone so she could think clearly for a moment.
    Desperately, she searched the room until she saw the doors leading outside. She strode toward the exit, and toward what she hoped would be clarity. Lord knows, she’d need it.
     
    Convincing Natia that he didn’t want to get back together or have sex with her had taken far longer than Caleb thought it would. Finally, he gave up trying to part on good terms.
    He barely shut the door to Natia’s room before the vase she’d been hefting crashed against the other side. The were standing guard next to the door looked at him from the corner of his eye, and although the burly creature’s expression didn’t change, Caleb could sense the amusement radiating from him.
    That had gone as badly as he’d thought it would, with Natia accusing him of fucking Wraith just to get back at her and her family. Then she’d started railing about her mother being right, that Caleb must have had something to do with Elijah’s death since he clearly had no respect for the feline race as a whole . . .
    Caleb sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t mind a little spirit or outright bitchiness in a female. In fact, he preferred it. The attitude certainly made life more interesting. Even so, Natia’s little temper tantrum should have had him reconsidering Wraith’s offer.
    It didn’t. Not at all.
    Natia didn’t hold a candle to Wraith in the bitch category. In all their years together, despite all the fights and hysterics, Natia had never pulled a gun on him. Wraith had already done it once, and she’d probably do it a few more times before things were settled between them. He didn’t care. Wraith had finally let down her guard. Admitted she needed something from him, something even more than sexual relief. She needed contact. Caring. Intimacy. And he was the man who was going to give her what she wanted. What she needed.
    He started the walk from the guest quarters back to the reception area. On the way, he thought of the vamp Wraith had been dancing with. There had been a familiarity between them that indicated a past physical intimacy, whether it had been actual intercourse or not. Hell, despite Wraith’s implication that she’d been fucked by a squadron of males, he didn’t even know if wraiths could have intercourse. That was one of the things he was going to demand from her tonight—information. He didn’t want just physical or sexual contact from her—he wanted emotional contact, as well. He wanted to know more about her, more than he’d been given in the team’s personnel files. He wanted to know what she was capable of taking and what she wasn’t.
    He’d already figured out his healing powers were worthless with her.
    Both in Korea and on the dance floor tonight, he’d tried to trance himself when he was kissing her. His healing powers had saved men whose insides had been blasted in four different directions, so why couldn’t they prevent the pain Wraith felt at being touched? Only it hadn’t worked.
    It wasn’t completely unheard of. Usually, his powers worked best when the person he was trying to heal was so far gone, their body so damaged that there was no natural mental barrier to block him. Healthy individuals, whether they knew it or not, had the power to protect themselves from the probings of the Otherworld, even when it was done for their own good. That’s why possession by dead spirits was such a rare thing. It was only when people were extremely weak, their natural defenses down, that their minds would let another in.
    That was also why wraiths in particular were feared by his people. They were thought to be the walking hosts of evil spirits from the Otherworld.
    Caleb didn’t buy it.