“Just those three wishes, eh?” James danced another pretzel over his knuckles and winked at her. “I like it. Done.”
He nodded his head once—and released the rush.
The woman drew in a swift breath, held it for an eternity, and then slapped her hands on the bar, eyes shining. “Y’know what? To hell with being scared. I’m going to do it!”
“You’re going to get up there and sing?” Kitt asked.
She grinned, slapped the bar again and nodded. “Yep. I’m going to go up there, sing ‘Living on a Prayer’ and have fun. Who cares, right? I don’t.” She frowned, as if contemplating what she’d said, and then laughed. “I truly don’t!”
With another quick gulp of water, she spun on her heel and almost skipped through the crowd to where her date stood, watching her. Flinging her arms around his neck, she smacked an enthusiastic kiss on his mouth, and then hurried up the ramp to the karaoke MC’s station.
“So are you responsible for—” Kitt started, but James silenced him with a finger.
“Shhh, mate,” James whispered, riding the tsunami of giddy emotion. “Let me just savor this for a moment.”
“Y’know you’ve lost your American accent, right?”
James didn’t care. He closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and readied himself for the rush of the third wish.
“You sound like a Brit again.”
Music began to play, the distinctive introduction of Bon Jovi’s seminal ’80s classic.
The first word, her first note, hit him. Slammed into him. Flowed through him. Made every molecule in both his solid and ethereal forms frenzied.
The rush of the wish fulfilled.
“Oh yeah.” If he still smoked, he’d light up. But it had been almost a thousand years and he wasn’t going to start again. “Oh yeah,” he repeated on a murmur.
“Yeah.” Kitt chuckled, twisting on his stool back to the bar. “I guess that answers the question whether you’re responsible for her getting up there.”
James smiled, eyes still closed.
The woman sang, her voice pure and strong and incredible. Sure, he may have given it a little tweak for the sake of her longing, but she had the natural talent. Would she ever sing karaoke again? He had no clue. That wasn’t his concern. Their interaction was done, finished, and he was okay with that.
Another of his kind may have extracted a price, a hidden condition to the covenant before granting her wishes, as he himself had been known to do, but for tonight, for these three wishes…
“You really are feeling generous tonight,” Kitt said, a note of approval and awe in his voice.
“Sometimes the world needs a reminder it’s not all hell in a handcart.” James opened his eyes and watched in the mirror as the woman sang up a storm on the stage. Joy and delight radiated from her, sweetening the rush still flowing through him. On the dance floor stood her date, the musclebound firefighter gazing up at her with the dopiest smile of utter adoration.
James reached for his gin and tonic and held it out to Kitt in a relaxed toast. “To the rush of being a good guy.”
Kitt laughed and chinked his glass to James’s. “To good guys. Even if few humans know we are.”
James winked at the wolf shifter. “Even then.”
They grinned and swallowed the rest of their drinks in one go.
“What’s with the changing accents?” Kitt asked, wiping at the residue of Scotch on his lips with the back of his hand. “Most of the time you sound British, and occasionally like you’re from New Zealand, but I’ve noticed when you interact with some people, you sound American. And the other day you were talking to someone on the phone and sounded like you were from South Africa. Then a month ago, you were muttering to yourself in the lunch room and sounded Middle Eastern.”
James snorted. “Did I? I must have been tired that day.”
Kitt lifted an eyebrow.
“When I need to sound American, I sound American. When I need to sound South African, I sound South African. You see where I’m going with this? My place of origin—I’m talking thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago—is the Middle East, so that explains that one, but I spent quite a substantial amount of my existence here amongst mankind in the UK before I moved to LA, so it’s sort of become my default accent.”
Kitt narrowed his eyes. “There’s a lot of secrets going on under that flippant persona of yours, Hastin.”
James laughed. “You could say that about every one of us bastards working at Guarded Souls.” He moved his attention to the woman now singing Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” on the karaoke stage. She was doing an amazing job, and her date was still gazing at her with rapt attention.
Narrowing his focus on the firefighter’s emotions and thoughts, James chuckled. The man was head over heels in love. Her courage to get up and sing had been the final push for his romantic heart.
James closed his eyes, savoring the final waves of the rush. Like the last glimpses of light from the sun as it sank behind the horizon, the final rush flared stronger and more intense, and for a split second he was nothing but elemental force. And then the rush was over. Finished.
Sated, he opened his eyes and let out a long sigh.
“Does it ever piss you off?” Kitt asked. “Not getting any of the credit when you do something like this?” He indicated the singing woman with a slight tilt of his head.
“Something like this…” James smiled. “I do something like this for the rush.”
“That good?”
“You have no idea.”
Kitt chuckled. “If the expression on your face when she first started to sing was any indication, I think I do. You looked like you were about to blow your load.”
James grinned, plucked a pretzel out of thin air and studied its perfection for a second. “Clearly, Rover, you’ve never seen me just as I’m about to blow my—”
“And I’m eternally grateful for that simple truth,” Kitt cut in. “I like you, Genie Boy, but not that much.”
“Genie Boy?”
Kitt flashed white teeth at him. “You call me Rover, I call you Genie Boy.”
James held aloft his empty glass. “I’ll drink to that.” It filled to the brim with fresh gin and tonic, at the same moment Kitt’s filled with Scotch.
“Ah, now see?” Kitt raised his primed glass. “This is why I hang out with you.”
“Free booze?”
“Free booze.” Kitt tapped his glass to James’s. “Cheers.”
James laughed. “So, Rover, now I’ve had my fun, wanna tell me what’s the deal with the mysterious text messages you keep getting from—”
James’s cellphone vibrated to life in his waistcoat’s inside pocket, at the exact moment Kitt’s phone did the same on the bar top.
“Message from the boss,” Kitt said, frowning at his phone screen even as a wave of relief rolled from him so potent, James felt it. If the text hadn’t been from Kade, James would have pushed the issue. Something was troubling the wolf shifter, something dark enough to put him on edge. “He wants us in the office ASAP.”
Pulling his own phone from his waistcoat, James read the message on the screen: Will the wolf and the djinn please get their hairy asses into work pronto? Got an emergency job and I need both of you.
“Okay, I’ll accept your arse is hairy,” he said, throwing Kitt a grin, “but mine?”
Kitt snorted, shoving his phone into his pocket as he straightened from the barstool. “Did you drive here?”
“Ah, Rover, you’re too adorable for your own hairy-arsed good sometimes.” James squeezed Kitt’s shoulder. “Ready?”
Kitt’s eyes widened. “No. No! Don’t you—”
James clicked his fingers.
“—dare,” Kitt groaned. He scowled at the Guarded Souls’ entry foyer, before turning the scowl on James. “I hate it when you do that.”
James grinned. “I know, Rover. I know.”
Kitt dragged his hand down his face, shook hi
s head then his shoulders, and let out a ragged breath. “One of these days, I’m going to shift form and cock my leg on—”
“You two took your time.” Kade appeared at the door leading into the security firm’s offices, his expression as enigmatic as ever. “Hurry up. This is a tricky one.”
Without another word, he turned and walked away.
James flicked Kitt a look. “Smell anything fishy?”
“Ha ha.” Kitt rolled his eyes, and then drew a slow breath. “Although whoever the tricky client is, she’s wearing Chanel No. 5 perfume.”
“Why do you know what Chanel No. 5 perfume smells like?”
Kitt dropped him a wink and strode after Kade.
“Fair enough.” James followed. Regardless of the fact it was almost midnight, when the boss said it was time to work, it was time to work.
Beyond the quiet entry foyer, Guarded Souls was silent. Individual offices and meeting rooms sat dark except for Kade’s at the end of a wide corridor. White light spilled from the partly opened door, the low murmur of his deep voice rumbling on the air like distant thunder as Kitt stepped into the room.
James threw his own office a quick glance as he walked past. What were the chances his peace lily was still alive? Feathers was probably making certain it was; the angel had a thing for keeping plants going even when water didn’t come anywhere near their roots. James himself rarely used the space, with its state-of-the-art office equipment and luxurious, modern furniture, preferring to do any official paperwork either at home or wherever he happened to find himself when it needed to be done.
Plus, there was the fact Nim had foolishly said to him she’d do anything for a Reuben sandwich, and he’d granted her wish. The wiccan was now doing his paperwork for a month. (She really did need to rethink how loosely she threw the W-word around in the lunchroom.)
As far as work went, being on the Guarded Souls payroll was pretty cushy; most of the clients engaging the agency’s protection and security services were extremely rich and, in the majority of cases, more paranoid about being under threat than they were any kind of actual target. But it did make for some interesting work hours. Not really a problem for James—or any of those employed by Kade. Given that none of the protection staff were human, common human hours weren’t an issue. But the ancient vampire did like to maintain a human façade for the firm, which meant keeping normal business hours for the ancillary staff.
Being called in for a job at midnight, though? That was… different.
Even more different? Kade using the term tricky.
In the years that James had been a Guarded Souls member, he’d only ever seen Kade stressed once. And that was when the entire security team, including Kade himself, almost—
“… getting tired of being treated like a fragile victim here.”
James froze at the female voice coming from Kade’s office. His heart smashed up into his throat.
Fark.
He knew that voice, that Northern English accent. That fierce confidence.
It’s not her. Can’t be. She’s in London. You know that. She’s—
“Because I’m not,” the woman went on, the calm challenge in her voice more familiar than his own reflection. “Fragile. Or a victim. I merely heard something I wasn’t meant to.”
Yep. It was her.
Shite. Why in the name of all things British was Tahlee Hope here in LA?
Bracing himself for what was about to happen, James stepped into Kade’s office and smiled at the woman he’d left three years ago. “Hey, Hope. Long time no speak to.”
*
At what point in her life had she done something so heinous that she deserved to be kicked in the arse by karma like this?
And more to the point, what would the other two men in the room do if she stood up and unceremoniously kneed James Hastin in the nuts?
“Hello, James.” She bestowed a wide smile on the tall, lanky man leaning against the doorframe, letting him see her teeth. “You’re still alive? Huh. Who knew?”
James—the bastard—ducked his head and gave her a sheepish grin. He hadn’t changed much. Still looked like the embodiment of mischief and sexual rapture all wrapped up in one delicious package.
“You’ve been well?” he asked.
“Wait.” The towering man with the dark hair who’d first met her at the police station an hour ago held up his hands, his green eyes swinging back and forth between her and James. “What’s going on here?”
James did that sheepish chuckle of his that had always reduced her to a quivering mess of arousal and adoration. Flipping hell. She wasn’t going to let that happen now, not after what he did to her. “I knew Hope when I was still living in London,” he said.
Living in London.
Huh. More like living in her flat. Sleeping in her bed.
Agitated, she reached for the small pendant normally hanging on a fine gold chain around her neck, but it wasn’t there. She’d left it in her hotel room, tucked in the room’s safe along with her passport, before heading to the Getty Museum.
Bugger.
“Define knew,” said the man who’d arrived in the office a few moments before James, arching an eyebrow. Kitt Newton? Was that his name? She’d been too busy arguing with Guarded Souls’ owner—Kade Somethingorother—about whether she really needed protection or not to pay attention when introductions were made. Uncharacteristic of her, to be sure. Normally her mind was a steel trap on details like that.
“Do you know what?” She rose to her feet, shaking her head. “As I explained to Mr…” She waved her hand at Tall-Dark-and-Brooding.
“Just Kade is fine,” TDB provided, a half-smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.
“As I explained to Mr. Just Kade before you arrived, I’m fine. I don’t need protection. I just need to go home. And by home, I mean London.”
To the flat she and James used to share a different lifetime ago.
Sheesh.
The prickling caress on her profile told her James was studying her. She’d always known when he was looking at her. It was as if her body was intrinsically tuned into his. When he’d been close, she’d just felt… more alive. It had been a wonderful feeling when they’d been together. The emptiness, the betrayal replacing it when he disappeared three years ago? That had been a flipping crappy feeling.
“What’s the story, Kade?” James wandered into the room, dropped himself on the chair beside the one where she’d been sitting and dumped his heels on Kade’s desk, crossing his ankles. “Why does Hope need protection?”
Her heart quickened at the sound of his voice saying her last name. In the years she’d known him, in the months they’d been together, he’d rarely called her anything but her last name. She liked it back then. Now…
Kade’s direct stare made her want to fidget. “Please, Ms. Hope,” he said, voice smooth and deep and calm. So calm, like a bottomless lake undisturbed by wind or life. “The situation you’ve found yourself in is worrying. And dangerous. Let us pro—help you.”
She narrowed her eyes. He’d stopped himself from saying “protect”. That was a good sign. He’d already identified she didn’t like the notion of being vulnerable or dependent on anyone. Of course, he’d also hired a lying sod like James Hastin, so she’d reserve final judgement of Kade for a while.
“Wait wait wait.” James’s feet thudded to the floor, and he snapped his stare from her to Kade and back again. “Dangerous? Hope’s in danger?”
Rolling her eyes, she sighed and shook her head. She did not need him going all caveman on her. “I’m not in danger, James. I overheard something, reported it to the police, and now they feel I need a security detail, which is why I’m here. And come to think of it, why are you here? The last time we saw each other,” when you walked out of the restaurant where we were having dinner a second after I told you I love you, never to return, “you were a dog groomer.”
“A dog…” Kitt Newton gaped at James for a second, and then threw b
ack his head. Tahlee’s lips twitched. Damn, his laugh sounded almost like a howl. “A dog groomer?” He grinned. “That’s priceless. Next time I need a haircut I’ll give you a call, Jimmy Boy.”
James pointed his finger at Kitt, his smile savage. “Be my guest, Rover. While I’m at it, how ’bout I give that pretty gray fur of yours a dye job?”
Tahlee frowned. What?
“Enough,” Kade murmured.
James chuckled, smile turning smug. Kitt shook his head, even as he ran a quick hand through his ash-blond hair.
Tahlee frowned deeper. She didn’t know what she’d expected when Kade had arrived at the police station, but it wasn’t this. She’d had experiences with security firms before—she was an investigative journalist for London’s biggest newspaper, after all. Her byline came with clout and made some people—influential, significant people—nervous. She’d had more than one death threat against her back home.
But Guarded Souls wasn’t like any of the previous agencies.
For starters, none of them had employed the bastard who broke my heart.
“This is all very weird and entertaining,” she said, shoving the thought aside. She’d deal with James later. She’d get him alone somehow and tear strips off him, but for the moment… “But I really would like to just go home. Or even back to my hotel room.”
Three sets of stares focused on her. She met James’s for a second, her stupid pulse quickening at just how green his eyes still were, before turning to Kade. Of the three men, the owner of Guarded Souls seemed the most… grown-up. “I know the police insist I’m in danger, but the men I overheard didn’t know I was there. As far as I know, they still don’t. So why would they—”
“What men?” James sat up straighter. Impossible as it was, he seemed to suddenly look bigger. Menacing. Which was ridiculous. Tall, rangy James Hastin was far from menacing or dangerous.
She’d fallen for James Hastin because of his goofy, relaxed approached to life. His quick smile and wit. Dangerous, menacing men did not push her buttons.
Hope's Wish Page 2
