Alterant

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Storm put his hands on the wall at each side of her head. “My hands promise to behave,” he teased.

  She looked up.

  His lips curved in a smile as lighthearted as his tone, but his eyes reflected the animal caged inside his body.

  Her heart pounded with him this close. The muscles in her chest twisted and tightened, shaking her body harder than the vibration from the approaching train did.

  Storm inched his face closer to hers. “You smell like a fresh shower . . . sweet and tempting.”

  Why did she feel as though she was still naked from her shower when he said it that way? She watched his mouth say something else but couldn’t hear the words over the train noise. Then he stopped talking and paused. The next look he gave her was one of internal resignation.

  She mouthed the word, What?

  He kissed her. His mouth settled on hers with a familiar feel, as though his lips had known hers a long time. He possessed her mouth, mated it to his, and turned her body into liquid compliance.

  He tasted tempting. Dangerous temptation she should be backing away from at a high speed. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

  His tongue explored, carefully at first, then with adventure in mind.

  The train roared past, vibrating the wall at her back.

  The rush of wind pushed Storm’s body into hers, brushing her breasts that felt too full.

  She shivered, breathing as hard as a runner at top speed when silence swept in behind the distant train with sharp abruptness. That’s when she realized his hands were still on the wall, but she had stepped up on the balls of her feet and cupped her hands around his shoulders.

  When she leaned back and dropped her arms, she licked her lips, tasting him again. If he kept this up she might lose her mind enough to step over that line one time.

  She knew better. “We can’t keep doing this.”

  He straightened away from her and ran a hand over his face in a frustrated motion. His voice reeked of disgust when he muttered, “I couldn’t agree more.”

  On a logical level, she wanted his agreement.

  On a female level, that hadn’t been what she’d expected. She clenched her hands and shoved past him. “Not like it was my idea to kiss you.”

  “Evalle.”

  Ignoring him, she kept stomping down the middle of the tracks.

  “Evalle?”

  “What?”

  “Come here.”

  She spun around. “Now what?”

  He was smiling, which confused and annoyed her in equal measure. He walked up to her. “I was irritated with myself, not you.”

  “I don’t understand.” Understatement. “And honestly, I don’t care.” Lie.

  Which he called her on silently when he arched an eyebrow. “When I agreed with you, I meant I can’t keep kissing you without . . . wanting more.”

  What kind of more? “So that kiss was”—she shrugged, searching for a word—“okay.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  She might drop-kick him again after all. She crossed her arms.

  Mischief twinkled in his eyes. “‘Okay’ isn’t even close. Kissing you is like a roller-coaster ride to outer space. The farther we go, the more I’m lost and the more I want to explore new territory.”

  He had an amazing ability to say things that lit sparklers in her heart and splashed bright colors across the ugly memories in her soul.

  Calling the kiss “okay” would have been much easier to accept. He’d stepped all over her boundaries since the minute they’d met, but he always seemed to understand she had barriers he shouldn’t try to breach.

  She’d never enjoyed a man’s touch until Storm.

  She even missed him when he wasn’t around her, missed the way his hands sneaked past her defenses without raising an alarm.

  Isak had kissed her, twice now, but not like Storm kissed her. On the other hand, Isak didn’t have the access to her that Storm had.

  The more time she spent around Storm the easier he managed to infiltrate her emotions—and without using his majik, as he’d agreed after the first time.

  He made her want that “more” part, made her consider tempting fate and taking a risk.

  Unsure how to respond, she started looking around and changed the subject back to a real concern. “We probably should keep moving.”

  He ran his finger along her cheek. “We’re about thirty yards from where Tristan’s trail ended the first time we were here. I’ll hunt for as long as you need me, but I want you to realize he has no intention of helping you by handing over the other Alterants.”

  That’s what Storm had been saying when the train had showed up. “Adrianna told you that?”

  The spell that had woven around them when the train had passed disintegrated with the edge to her question.

  Storm took a deep breath and expelled slowly. “Yes, and I think her information’s as solid as that Nightstalker you place so much belief in. What are you going to do if you find Tristan?”

  She’d asked herself that since landing in the jungle inside Tristan’s enclosure. “I’ll figure that out when I find him.”

  “Not sure I like the sound of that. Thought the whole point was to get this bunch locked up again. Right?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Evalle.”

  She didn’t believe any of them had gotten a fair shake, including Tristan, and she had never planned on just handing over the Alterants. “I can’t condemn someone to a life I’d rather die than face. If they come in with me voluntarily I have Brina’s support to protect them while we get the Tribunal to hear each of their cases. This would be a chance for real freedom for them, too, which should mean even more now that Alterants are being hunted.”

  “I agree with you in principle, but I’m not objective when it comes to your safety and freedom. I have no problem with handing them over to save you.”

  When had Storm become her champion? “I have a plan. If Tristan will just work with me, then all the escaped Alterants will have a chance to be treated fairly.”

  Storm didn’t like hearing that. His scowl could scorch the walls. “Tristan screwed you once already with the Kujoo, then again by leaving you in the jungle. Why would you help him at all?”

  “Tristan fell in league with the Kujoo because no one else had offered him any hope of freedom. I might have done the same thing in his shoes. He did leave me in the jungle, but not until you were there. He could have let the demons kill me or left me at the mercy of any animal with my knee crushed. But he didn’t.” She’d been thinking on that for a while. “I have to believe any person with a soul deserves a chance.”

  She felt Storm pull away from her emotionally. Why?

  He asked, “You’re so sure he has a soul?”

  “Yes. He’s not some demon.”

  Storm scoffed silently to himself, sarcastically whispering, “No, he’s so much better than a demon.”

  She would have dismissed this as just another case of posturing if Tristan had been present. Storm and Tristan matched up like two rottweilers snarling over the same bone.

  This would be easier if they could get along. She tried to smooth things over. “All I’m saying is that I’m willing to give Tristan a chance if I can find him.”

  A booming male voice behind her said, “In that case, this is your lucky day.”

  Evalle stepped back from Storm and turned to find Tristan striding up to her. “Where did you come from?”

  “The Maze of Death.”

  “Where is that?”

  “You’ll see. That’s where I’m taking you.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Fury and aggression swept around Evalle on all sides. Storm’s earlier teasing vanished. In one step, he moved slightly ahead of Evalle and told Tristan, “She’s not going into the Maze of Death or anywhere else with you.”

  “She’ll go anywhere I say,” Tristan argued, moving entirely too far into Storm’s space.

  Evalle considered blasting t
hem both against opposite walls. She stepped between them. “She’s right here and not agreeing to anything anyone says right now!” She put her hands up on each chest. “Take a step back before I get testosterone poisoning.”

  She asked Tristan, “What makes you think I’m going anywhere with you after you just vanished this morning?”

  Tristan held his hands out, palms up. “I stayed with you until this alley cat showed up. I had to get back to check on the other Alterants.”

  “You could have teleported all of us to Atlanta,” she argued.

  “No, I couldn’t. I can only teleport one at a time.”

  Evalle had an even bigger beef with Tristan, now that she thought about it. “Why didn’t you teleport me and you to that village or back here so we wouldn’t have had to face those demons?”

  Storm interjected, “Obviously his superpowers aren’t so super.”

  Tristan cut a warning look at Storm and ground his jaw muscles.

  She warned him, “If you aren’t going to give me straight answers, I can’t in good conscience go anywhere with you again.”

  Tristan finally told Evalle, “I could have brought you back here when I first escaped, but I couldn’t have teleported again right away. That meant risking that you would call in someone before I had a chance to locate the Alterants. Your Belador buddies and those in VIPER would have swooped down to snatch them.”

  So Tristan couldn’t transport a group, eh? She filed that away for later. “Okay. Never mind. We’re here. You’re here. Where are the other Alterants?”

  Tristan shook his head. “They’re not where I left them in the maze.”

  She checked Storm’s face, since he was the walking lie detector.

  He gave a little hike of his eyebrow, which she took to mean that he’d heard the truth but had reservations about accepting that as the entire truth.

  What might have happened to volatile Alterants in a place like the Maze of Death? She didn’t like the idea of being trapped with spirits from a hundred and fifty years ago, whom Grady had intimated were not necessarily friendly. “You left them in that maze for the past week with all those spirits? Maybe they freaked out and found some way to escape and got caught in the fog outside.”

  Tristan put his hands at his hips. “Teleporting is the only one way in or out that I’ve found. None of my three Alterants can teleport. I don’t think they’ve left the maze.”

  She said, “So you know about the fog.”

  “I saw the yellow haze and all the crazies when I was topside.” He grinned with malice. “That should keep VIPER busy.”

  Evalle chastised Tristan with her frown. “Did you get near the fog?”

  “Hell, no. I don’t want any part of something that could force me to change.”

  She kept it to herself about her encounter with the fog.

  Storm asked Tristan, “Why’d you put the Alterants in that maze?”

  Tristan just stared for an answer.

  “I do not have time, Tristan,” Evalle said. “If you want my help, then you’re going to have to give both of us some straight answers.”

  Storm helped not one bit when his lips tilted with a smile.

  Tristan gave him a look that promised they’d have a chance to finish their discussion some day when Evalle wasn’t around to stop the bloodshed.

  Storm’s smile broadened in an easy-to-decipher message of any time and any place.

  Tristan answered Storm’s question, but he spoke to Evalle. “The maze was the only place I’d found where the Alterants couldn’t hurt anything if they turned into a beast and no one would find them there. At least, I’d hoped no one would find them.”

  She sent a look of question to Storm.

  He gave a little nod that Tristan was telling the truth. But from the closed look on Storm’s face, he’d figured out something else Evalle hadn’t picked up on yet. She stayed quiet to let him keep prodding.

  Storm scratched his chin, pondering. “What do you plan to do when you find those three again?”

  Tristan’s jaw shifted with a grimace. “I’m going to give them a better chance than I had.”

  Tristan clearly wanted to save his fellow Alterants, which could mean he intended to work with her. Maybe.

  Evalle asked Tristan, “Why are you here? You don’t need me to find those three.”

  “That’s true,” Tristan agreed. “But I may need your help containing them and getting them out of there. I don’t know what kind of mental or physical shape they’re in since they’ve moved from where I left them.”

  “Oh, hell no, Evalle.” Storm stepped in front of her. “He hasn’t told you the truth since you met him. He turned a demon loose on you in Piedmont Park—”

  Tristan interjected, “That was before we knew each other.”

  “—then he almost let the Kujoo kill you after you knew each other,” Storm continued. “Then he lies to you when he escaped and could have teleported you when the demons attacked. Now he’s here wanting you to walk into a concealed space where you have to fight three—or four—Alterants?”

  Tristan deadpanned, “If I wanted to kill her I could have done it in South America.”

  Evalle took into consideration all that Storm said, but actually . . . “He has a point, Storm. I landed inside his spellbound cage with no way to use my powers against him and he didn’t harm me there. If I want to find those Alterants, I have to go with him.”

  “Evalle, don’t,” Storm said in a voice so close to pleading that it surprised her.

  “She doesn’t have a choice,” Tristan pointed out.

  She’d rather not ever see the Maze of Death, but Tristan had given voice to her thoughts. She could either go with him or wait until the sand ran out of the Tribunal’s hourglass. But the look of betrayal on Storm’s face sliced past her need to appease the Tribunal and her trepidation over entering the maze.

  She didn’t want to part like this, so she told Tristan, “I need to talk to Storm.”

  “Make it fast.”

  Storm moved toward Tristan. She put a hand on his chest to stop him and felt his thundering heartbeat. Once Tristan had backed off, she told Storm, “Please don’t call in Tzader or Quinn.”

  “If I agreed to that I’d double over in pain from the lie.”

  That surprised her. “Is it because of your ability to tell if someone is lying?”

  “Yes.” He brushed his palm against her face. “Don’t go somewhere I can’t get to you.”

  Guess that cleared up any question about whether he thought he could get to her in the maze. There went her safety net if Storm couldn’t find a way in. “Then do me this favor. Give me two hours before you contact anyone.”

  “One hour.”

  “Ninety minutes.”

  “One. Hour.”

  She had to give him a reason that would overrule his concern for her. “Ninety minutes. If you call in Tzader and Quinn before I find these three Alterants, the Tribunal might twist it around to appear as though I called them in.”

  He nodded, unhappy about it, but he agreed to the compromise.

  She moved close and lifted up to whisper, “Please understand. If you need me to face something like the Maze of Death to help with finding you-know-who”—she didn’t even know the name of the woman Storm was hunting—“I will.”

  He nodded again, not any happier, but understanding swept his face, uncovering a gaze filled with caring that warmed her heart.

  “Need to go,” Tristan called over.

  When she turned to leave, Storm pulled her back around and into his arms, kissing her before she could say a word.

  Embarrassment heated her skin at Tristan watching them, but only for the two seconds it took for her to realize this was a new kiss. Her empathic senses burst awake and told her this kiss had a name and a meaning—possession. Any other time, she’d have shoved a man on his butt and straightened him out about the fact that no one possessed her, but her hands refused to untangle from their grip on
Storm’s shirt.

  She rode a heady wave of feeling at the idea of a man like Storm wanting her this much.

  When Tristan made a disgruntled noise, she smoothed her hands against Storm’s chest and gave him a slight push until he lifted his head. “I have to go.”

  He dropped his forehead to hers. “Be careful.”

  “I will be.”

  She’d made three steps away when Storm told Tristan, “Bring her back with so much as a scratch on her and VIPER won’t end up with enough of you to satisfy a pack of hungry rats.”

  Tristan smiled and hooked an arm around Evalle’s waist. “See you, tomcat.”

  She closed her eyes, hoping she’d been right about Tristan having a soul, because he was her only way out of the Maze of Death. Sen wouldn’t come unless the Tribunal sent for her, and even then he’d probably pretend he couldn’t find her.

  One way in. One way out.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Voices skidded through his mind, playing dodgeball with his thoughts.

  Quinn kept his eyes shut tight even though the room was as dark as a moonless night and he had an ice compress over his forehead and eyes. He tried to thicken his mental shields to stop the onslaught of voices, but the effort almost sent him back to worship the porcelain god.

  He had nothing else left to throw up.

  Images flashed in and out from minds he’d linked to and probed. Images as garbled as the voices.

  “Quinn?”

  Had he heard that voice in his head or in the room? Couldn’t have been in the room. No one could get in but Tzader.

  No room service allowed since a bullet between the eyes wasn’t on the menu.

  Energy swirled in the room, whipping the chilly air to frost level. No, not now.

  “Quinn?”

  He gritted his teeth and tried to reinforce his mental shields, but they were weak, too shaky to battle any real power. “You shouldn’t be here, Kizira.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have called me.”

  Huh? He tried to lift up, but an invisible hammer pounded his head with vicious enthusiasm.