The Panther and the Thief

by Veronica Sommers

  Finally I lie back against the cold porcelain, exposed and exhausted. The world keeps tilting and fading, then snapping back into focus. My eyelids are made of lead.

  As the hot water rises around me, Ryden soaps up a cloth, cleansing my skin and working suds through the matted locks of my hair. He handles me gently, respectfully, although when he's washing my chest his pupils dilate and he breathes harder, his lips parting.

  When he's done, he wrings out the cloth, still kneeling by the tub. "I can go if you want."

  "If you do, I might fall asleep and slip under the water," I murmur. "Help me out."

  He takes a deep breath, rises, and hooks both powerful hands under my arms, his thumbs brushing my breasts. In one smooth movement he lifts me out, and I'm standing, slick and naked, almost against him. Wrapping me hastily in a towel, he ushers me to one of the beds and tucks me into the sheets, smoothing back my damp hair.

  I try to stay awake. We have to talk about what happened, and make a plan. But it's no use. Darkness floods over me, a welcoming wave of unconsciousness.

  ***

  When I open my eyes again, the first thing I'm conscious of is pain. Not the sharp, searing pain of the soul-ripping spell, but a persistent, sickening ache in every part of me, from each tiny bone of my toes to the fused plates of my skull.

  I can't move. I don't think I'll ever want to move again.

  Ryden leans over me, anxiety and hope on his handsome face. He looks like some gorgeous god-prince, or heavenly angel—

  I blink the thoughts away. What is wrong with me? I'm thinking like a lovesick, sappy schoolgirl. Although he did just help me through the worst night of my life, carry me for miles, bathe me, and put me to bed. And judging by the purplish skin under his eyes, he hasn't slept at all.

  "Cilla," he whispers. "You're back."

  I move my fingers experimentally and groan. Every muscle in my hands is sore from the spasms.

  "I kinda wish I were dead." My voice scratches my raw throat.

  "You're still in pain? Where?"

  "Everywhere. I feel like a horse ran over me—no, a whole herd of horses."

  "I'll get you some medicine. And some breakfast. And some coffee. Are you okay to stay here by yourself awhile? I'll be as quick as I can."

  "Yes," I whisper. Reaching for his hand costs me a fresh wave of pain, but I do it anyway. The touch of his fingers is agony and delight all at once. "Thank you, Ry. If you hadn't been there, I would have died."

  His face darkens. "They were sure you would die. They meant to kill you."

  "Yes, they did. And I think I'll have to pay them back for that, someday."

  "Slow down, girl. You won't be going after anyone, anytime soon."

  "We can't let them win," I rasp. "They can't have the Madstone. Who knows what they'll do with it?"

  "What do they do with the other items you've collected, the other magical artifacts?"

  "Honestly, I'm not sure. I asked once, but they would only say that the items go to the application department, and from there, to sales and implementation. I'm guessing they're sold to other wielders, maybe even to humans who are willing to pay for a little magical assistance with their lives and careers."

  "The rich, buying the means to get richer." He sighs, laying my hand down on the blanket. "Try not to think about it now, babe. Our first priority is your healing, okay? I wish I could lend you a little of my shifter power, to speed up the process."

  "That would be nice." I close my eyes. "For now, I'll settle for a couple of ibuprofen."

  "Coming right up."

  It's hard for me to lie here, immobile and aching, while he brings me whatever I want. I've rarely had the luxury of anyone else caring for my needs. When I was small, before my father broke free of my mother's power, he used to take care of me; and when he left, she did a few motherly tasks out of necessity. But mostly it's been just me, managing to keep myself fed and clean and reasonably healthy. College wasn't the shock to me that it was to so many other seventeen and eighteen-year-olds, because I was already used to fending for myself in every possible scenario. It's a good thing, too, because Nali wasn't the type of roommate or friend to be bothered with someone else's neediness.

  Ryden is different. Over the next couple of days, he delights in pampering me, in bringing me anything I want, sometimes before I realize I want it. He's the kind of guy who probably picked flowers for his mother just because, or brought her a cool washcloth when she had a headache. A sweetheart, through and through.

  Too good for me.

  Too good for a woman who has spent the past two years learning how to infiltrate houses, lie to their owners, and quietly steal their most precious treasures without ever arousing suspicion.

  Too good for a girl who has never seen a real-life, loving, functional couple before. I'm sure I've seen them at a distance, but never up close, never in day to day life. I don't know how it's supposed to work—the give and take, the conflict and comfort. How close is too close? What if I'm too needy? He seems perfect now, except for the messiness, the sloppy eating, and the occasional cluelessness—but what if I find out he hates children, or has the exact opposite political views from me, or believes that the earth is flat?

  I'm lying in the bed, thinking these things and watching him as he watches the TV. The soreness of my muscles and bones is far less prominent today, two days after my near-death experience. The Patronage techs have probably already begun experimenting with the Madstone. Maybe they've even sold it.

  I'm not so sure I should try to get it back. Even if I did, they would only come after it again—unless I could find a way to drain it of all its power, preferably without blowing anything up or killing a lot of people.

  I could forget all of it—the Patronage, the Madstone, everything—and stay here, with Ryden. Maybe build a new life with him somewhere.

  Which brings me back to the list of his potentially undiscovered faults.

  "Do you like kids?" The words pop out before I realize how stupid they will sound. And then I'm tempted to dive under the covers.

  Ryden turns, alarm in his eyes. "Ye-es." He drags out the word. "Why?"

  "No reason. Sorry, that was a dumb question. I don't want kids—I mean, not right now. Someday, of course, before my insides dry up, but—oh gosh. This isn't going well."

  He mutes the TV. "What is this, exactly? Are you—"

  "Oh, hell no. I'm not pregnant."

  "But you are turning a really great shade of red. Like ketchup."

  "Shut up." I cover my cheeks. "I was thinking of everything I don't know about you, wondering what bad stuff I haven't uncovered yet."

  "Oh, I get it. You're looking for reasons not to love me. Forgive me if I don't want to help you with that."

  "That's not it. Well, not exactly."

  "You're scared I'm going to disappoint you, and that's normal. I'm a little scared too. Three exes, remember?" He smiles, but his eyes don't. "But what's love without risk, yeah?"

  "Self-preservation," I mutter.

  He hesitates, stroking the buttons of the remote with his thumb. "You're pulling away, Cilla. Did I do something wrong?"

  "No. You've done everything exactly right. That's what scares me."

  "Perfection scares you? Then relax, babe. I'm far from perfect." He moves off the bed he's on and sits on the edge of mine.

  "Then tell me what's wrong with you."

  "Aw, damn. Okay, here we go. I'm kind of messy, I guess. You saw my room at home. I'm not the neatest eater, either—but you already know that, too. I hate chocolate, and I—"

  "Wait, wait. You hate chocolate?"

  "Yeah."

  "Nobody hates chocolate."

  "Is this a dealbreaker?" He runs a hand up my arm, from the back of my hand all the way to my shoulder.

  "No, as long as you like ice cream."

  "I love ice cream."

  "What about the earth? Is it round or flat?"

  He looks at me like I grew a second hea
d. "It's round, babe."

  "Okay, good. Believe it or not, some people still think it's flat."

  "Damn."

  "Anything else I should know about you?"

  "I'm kind of an animal," he says, bracing himself on one bronzed arm and leaning in. "I tend to disappear into the woods occasionally and not come back for hours."

  His eyes, earthy brown flecked with green, glow with a heat that quickens my heart rate. I reach up and trace the arches of his dark brows, the slant of his cheekbone, the bridge of that perfect nose. I flatten my hand across his cheek, the scruff of his jaw scraping my palm. Slowly I smooth my thumb across those soft, full lips of his.

  "An animal, huh?" My voice quivers, breathless, a clear sign of the desire building inside me. "The untameable kind?"

  "Yeah," he says, with a growling undertone deep in his chest. In a bare moment, he's switched from caretaker to predator, and though both are sexy, it's the predator in him that has me breathing quicker than usual, shifting my hips under the sheets.

  "Want to show me?" I whisper, and I kiss him, my tongue darting lightly between his teeth.

  "I want to. But you're not fully healed yet." He draws back, but I slip my hand behind his strong neck and tug him closer.

  "Just kissing, then."

  He obliges me, smoothing his lips over mine, close-mouthed at first, then with broad, hungry kisses that have me panting and melting. And aching, not with need, but with lingering weariness. Finally, reluctantly, I push him away and sink lower on the pillows. "I need to sleep," I murmur.

  He scrapes a lock of hair away from my face. "All right." He disappears into the bathroom, and when a faint moan floats through the thin door a few minutes later, I smile sleepily. It's good to know that I have power over him.

  My eyes flash open, nausea twisting my gut. Was that how my mother felt when she was controlling my father's emotions, making him love her? Did she love that sense of power too?

  But that was different. Totally different. Ryden loves me of his own free will, because of who I am, despite what I've done.

  Still, I can't shake the feeling that my thirst for power makes me similar to my mother, and I don't want that. I don't want anything to do with her. If I could tear her genes out of my body, remove whatever she contributed to my DNA, I would.

  -18-

  Hideaway

  The next day I'm stronger, less fragile. The ache in my muscles is faint now, and I pace the motel room, testing my body's limits. Gingerly I tap into my abilities, siphoning gravity to different spots so that the objects of my choosing fly to those points—the pillows, the remote, the thin motel notepad and the scratchy pen. It all works, and I'm not particularly tired afterward. When Ryden comes back from a food run, I wait until he has set down the bags and then I hit him with a pulse that knocks him flat on the ground. Quickly I gravity-bind him there, his arms flung outward, legs apart.

  He strains, muscles surging under his shirt. "Cilla!"

  "I like you this way." I smile wickedly.

  "Oh yeah?" He grins back.

  Yeah, because having six-foot-plus of gorgeous male sprawled helpless in front of me is probably the sexiest thing I've ever seen.

  But the food is hot, and we need to eat, and make plans.

  "We don't have time for fun, unfortunately," I tell him. "I've wasted enough days here, and the money is running low. We need to figure out our next step. Promise, if I let you go, you'll be good?"

  "Fine," he grumbles.

  Sighing, I release him, and we sit across from each other at the tiny motel table, our knees touching beneath it.

  "I don't want to let the Patronage have the Madstone," I say. "But I don't think we have a choice, at this point. We're kind of free and clear right now. We can go anywhere, do anything. We could go back home—well, you could. I can't go home now, or they'll find out I'm alive and try to finish the job. But you can get back to your job, your life." I avoid his eyes, poking the noodles in the takeout container with my plastic fork.

  "You can come with me."

  My heart leaps. It's exactly what I hoped and feared he might say. "And do what?"

  "Live with me. Be my—my girlfriend. My person."

  "Your person?" I look up, quirking an eyebrow.

  He glances away, embarrassed. " 'Girlfriend' doesn't seem to encompass what you are to me."

  "How about 'mate'? Isn't that a whole shifter thing?"

  "Mate?"

  "Yeah, in romance novels, the shifter guy is always claiming some human girl as his mate, willing or unwilling. Well, she's always willing by the end."

  Now it's his turn to raise his brows. "How many of these books have you read?"

  "A few. This girl that Nali and I hung with in college used to read paranormal romances all the time. Nali always scoffed at them—she hates shifters."

  "Why? We're so charming."

  "She thinks you're basically animals with low-class magic who take on human form to fool everyone. So sleeping with one of you is akin to bestiality, in her mind."

  "Is that why she scowled at me when you and I hung out at the house?"

  I nod. "She really didn't want me to be with you."

  Thinking of Nali is painful. She probably believes that I'm dead, which hurts even more, because I know how many people she has lost in her lifetime—her dad to a heart attack, her mom to ovarian cancer, her grandmother to a fall down the stairs, her little brother to a drowning accident when he was four. The girl has had more than her share of grief.

  I rise abruptly, jostling the table and knocking a paper carton of General Tso's chicken off the edge. Ryden catches it expertly. "Whoa there, babe."

  "I have to call Nali. I have to let her know I'm alive."

  "Do you think that's wise? She might tell the Patronage."

  "She won't. And even if she does—I have to risk it."

  He pokes a piece of chicken into his mouth, twirls the chopsticks, and nods. "All right. Go for it. But we should switch locations afterward, just to be safe."

  After a minute's thought to figure out the time zones, I decide to call the loft next door to the one I share with Nali. The guy there has a landline, which Nali and I used a few times when we switched to a low-budget carrier. Turns out the low-budget carrier also had limited coverage areas, and our building happened to be in a dead spot. We couldn't use our cellphones in our apartment for a couple days while we tried to sort out the problem. Eventually we gave up and went back to the expensive provider with the complete coverage. Lesson learned. Besides Nali's cell and my dad's, our neighbor Jack's number is the only other one I've memorized. And calling him means that the Patronage won't be able to trace my call or listen in somehow.

  Now if only Nali is home when I call. She should be—it's Sunday afternoon, and the only thing she does on Sunday is watch old episodes of shows like Ghost Whisperer or Medium and poke fun at the plots.

  Jack answers on the third ring. "Hello?"

  "Jack! Can you go next door and get Nali for me?"

  "And who is this?" he drawls.

  "It's me. Cilla."

  "Cilla?" His voice shrills. "She said you died!"

  "I almost did. But you can't tell anyone I'm alive, okay? Go get Nali for me, please."

  "What are you two, some kinda spies? Secret agents?"

  "Jack."

  "Okay, I'm going, I'm going! Geez."

  Ryden cocks his head quizzically, and I roll my eyes and wait. In a few minutes, Nali's breathless voice says, "Priscilla Blythe, if that's really you and not your spirit, I'm swear I'm going to crawl through this phone line and rip your damn head off."

  "It's me."

  She explodes in a cloud of profanity so loud that I have to hold the phone away from my ear. Then she says, "Where are you?"

  "I can't tell you that."

  "You can't really think I'd turn you in. Not after they killed you—tried to kill you. I warned you, you know. I thought this might happen—but did you listen to me? No. You n
ever do. You never give a shit what I think."

  "I do, Nali. It's just—I can't risk telling you my location, in case one of the mental-class wielders plucks it from your brain, okay?"

  "Cilla, what happened, exactly?"

  I sketch the scene for her quickly, glossing over the anguish I went through the night the Trio attacked us. When I'm done, she says, "Cilla, every member of the Zenith Trio is dead. The Madstone is missing."

  Sinking onto the bed, I press the button to put the phone on speaker. "Say that again."

  "From what I've heard, the Trio called in that night and reported that they'd killed you and retrieved the Madstone. They were on their way to the Omaha airport. No one at the Patronage heard from them after that, so yesterday the Sages sent out Zephyr Team. Zephyr tracked the Trio to a pasture, and they were all dead. Something shredded them. Zephyr Team didn't even bother trying to scrape up enough remains to bring home. The Sages called off the mission, said the Madstone isn't worth any more losses."

  "What could tear apart the Trio?" I gasp.

  "They're blaming shifters."

  "Well, that's not true."

  Nali's voice hardens. "Are you still with him? Is he listening right now? Ryden Ashton, if you're there, you answer me!"

  "Hey, Nali," Ryden says, wincing.

  Another stream of foul words, and I smile apologetically at him. He nods through it all, waiting until she's done.

  "Nali, Ryden saved my life," I say. "I would never have survived without him. And he wasn't responsible for the Trio." I glance up at him, a question in my eyes, and he shakes his head.

  "As much as I'd like to claim responsibility, I didn't kill them," he says. "And my family is still back East, trying to set my father's affairs in order."

  His voice wavers, and I curse myself because I haven't been thinking of him in all this. Ryden and his father weren't close, but he's probably still grieving the loss, on top of everything else he's had to deal with.

  "Then it must have been that cowboy creep," Nali says. "He might have tracked you, too, or followed our team when they went after you."