“How did you get in here? And what in the name of Apollo are you doing with my laptop?”
I faced him, trembling in spite of myself. What could I say? There was no way to explain this. Talk about caught red-handed. I’d had some close shaves in my time slipping in and out of other people’s houses, but I’d never been caught like this. The shock of the email had focused my attention so much that I hadn’t heard him approach.
I licked dry lips and stared at him across the dancing flames. Was it my imagination or was the circle of fire shrinking around me, moving closer? “I’m … I’m looking for my cat.”
He folded muscular arms across his chest and leaned against the doorframe. I wasn’t fooled by his casual stance. A muscle jumped in his jaw, as if he was clenching his teeth.
“I doubt your cat is hiding in my laptop.” Yep, he was pissed. All the stories I’d heard about shaper “justice” nagged at the back of my mind, turning my knees to water. “Why are you in my house?”
I said nothing. The wall of flame in front of me pushed closer. Definitely not my imagination. I stepped back and the flames followed. Gradually the ring of fire herded me away from the desk until I stood in the centre of the room, tightly encircled. I was sweating hard, the heat of the flames uncomfortable on my skin.
He moved to the desk chair I’d just vacated and dropped into it. His gaze flicked to the laptop screen, checking to see what I’d been looking at, then back up to me. Flames danced in his eyes as he leaned back and waved a languid hand.
“I can keep this up all night, you know.”
I just bet he could. That bed upstairs spoke of a certain dedication. But right now his sexual prowess was of less interest to me than his control of his shaping. Those flames were hot.
“You’re going to tell me what you are. Right now.” The flames licked closer, and I shut my eyes. “It would be a shame to damage that pretty face. Are you a new kind of shadow? But whose?”
I had no idea what he was talking about. Someone’s shadow? He was making no sense.
He slammed his hand down on the desk, and I jumped. “Answer me! Don’t think I won’t hurt you, because I will. I don’t care what Alberto says. You’ve obviously managed to fool him. Why can’t I sense your shaping energy?”
“I don’t have any shaping energy.” My face prickled with heat, beads of sweat forming on my upper lip. “I’m not a shaper.”
“Then how did you find those boys?” There was no mercy on his face. No humanity at all.
My heart beat a frightened rhythm against my ribs. He would kill me, and then who would help Syl?
“I just … have a knack.” It was lame, but I had to say something. His anger was terrifying. I would have told him anything to make him drop those flames, if only I’d had the faintest idea what he wanted to hear. “I’ve always been good at finding things.”
“Yet you can’t find your cat. So much for your knack.” His muscles were tense, like a spring coiled to break free. “I assume this is the little cat shifter I saw in the bookshop?”
I said nothing, which answered his question. His lip curved into a sardonic smile. How had he known Syl was a shifter, when not even the other shifters in town could tell? She’d buried her humanity so deep.
I could feel my skin scorching, and the acrid smell of singed hair made my eyes water. Anger welled up inside me, deep and fierce, burning away my fear. He was as bad as Anders.
“Why are you looking for her here?” Flames flickered in his eyes, the reflection of the flames that danced around me, ready to kill me on his whim.
That was another question I couldn’t answer. Because she was here spying on you when she went missing? Because someone attacked her and I thought it might be you? I was ready to believe him capable of anything. Bastard. The air around me was so hot it hurt to breathe. I reached out to the glittering web of life that surrounded the house, hunting for something that might help me, but the closest thing was the ginger tom I’d brought with me. I urged him up the tree and across to the balcony door that I’d left open.
He sighed. “You’re wasting my time. You could at least have come up with a better excuse. Looking for your cat.” He snorted and got to his feet in a lithe movement. He moved like a shifter himself, a panther maybe. He stopped just the other side of the flames. I could have reached out and touched him if I hadn’t minded getting crisped. “Tell me what you’re really looking for, or your cat won’t be the only one missing.”
He loomed closer, and I shrank back as far as the flames permitted, trying to get him between me and the door. I was only partially successful, but with all his attention on me he wasn’t likely to notice a small cat.
“It’s awfully hot in here.” I unbuttoned the top two buttons of my shirt. It was hard to act sexy when I felt like a chicken on a rotisserie. It was even harder to pretend I felt anything other than deepest hatred for him right then, but those flames were a powerful motivator. The fabric of my shirt clung to me, damp with sweat, and I pulled it away from my skin, fanning myself with one hand. “Why don’t you drop these flames and we can talk about this like civilised people?”
“Or like one civilised person and one traitor,” he growled, and he stepped through the flames as if they weren’t there.
I moved closer, until the heat of his body rivalled the heat of the flames. His eyes flicked to my exposed cleavage, but there was no mercy in them when he met my gaze again. His burning need for answers was the only thing keeping me alive now, and I licked my lips nervously. Flames danced in his eyes. He was almost where I wanted him; I just needed him to turn a little bit … that way.
What I needed was a diversion and, despite that brief look, he wasn’t falling for my seduction routine. In desperation, I leapt toward him, plastering myself against him, and dragged his face down for a kiss.
It certainly wasn’t the greatest kiss I’d ever had. He froze in surprise for a moment, his mouth soft under mine, then thrust me away. Rejected by the fireshaper—it sounded like one of the titles from the romance shelves in the bookshop. In real life it was damn embarrassing. But his flames had sunk low—almost gone out—with the unexpectedness of my move, so I was calling that a win.
I summoned the cat as Steele glared at me, nonplussed. It streaked into the room like a ginger rocket, leaping and clawing its way up his body. He swung around, shouting. The flames snuffed out completely as he lost his concentration. The cat yowled, clinging to the back of Steele’s head as he groped for it. If this had been a romance this scene would have ended very differently.
Since it wasn’t, I shoved him hard in the back and leapt for the door.
***
I flew along the hallway back to the foyer. The taste of him was still on my lips, and my cheeks were bright with embarrassment. Clearly, “temptress” wasn’t going on my resumé any time soon. The look on his face as he’d flung me away made me squirm.
Behind me there was a sudden roar of flame and my link to the ginger cat was abruptly severed. I thrust the almost-kiss from my mind and cast my net wide, searching for allies. Charging through a door at the back of the foyer, I found a long, high-ceilinged room. This end was a sitting area, like a family room. Down the other end was a billiards table and a bar, and through the archway I could see the pool waters lit from below, gleaming a bright blue, still and inviting.
A man lay on one of the couches. He didn’t stir as I ran past. It was the lion shifter, apparently still sleeping off the effects of Alberto’s attack. Shifters had great regenerative powers, but they needed food and sleep to work. Steele had dumped him on the white couch with no regard for the blood that covered his clothes. Whoever had to clean the upholstery wasn’t going to be happy, but I was guessing that wouldn’t be Steele.
I skidded to a stop at the glass doors that lined the back wall of the room and wrenched open the nearest one. Cool night air hit me in the face as I plunged down the steps and ran across the wide lawn towards the safety of the trees, my shadow stretc
hing out before me. I borrowed a distant owl’s night vision to keep myself from losing my footing in the dark.
I was almost at the tree line when a fireball whizzed past and exploded in the treetops, lighting up the night with orange flame. I yelped and tried to move faster, though I was already running at full stretch. Another fireball landed closer; its heat warmed my face. My heart pounded as my legs and arms pumped desperately.
A wall of flame erupted in front of me, cutting me off from the trees. I turned, searching wildly for sanctuary, but Steele was nearly on me and there was nowhere to run. I was caught, back to the leaping flames, like an animal brought to bay.
He stalked toward me across the lawn. The night was alive with fire, sending dark shadows writhing across the grass between us. Blood ran down his face from a scratch above his eyes, and there was more blood matted in his hair. His smile was almost feral.
“Another friend of yours?” he asked, stopping just out of reach. “You do seem to know a lot of cats.”
“You killed it.”
“I killed it. Or did you? You were controlling it somehow, weren’t you? Cats don’t just attack people out of the blue like that.”
I swallowed hard. That steely glint was back in his eye, and I was fresh out of options. My unbuttoned shirt had lost whatever meagre attraction it had held; Steele’s expression was all business again, and there was nothing bigger than a bush rat within call.
“Maybe that cat was just a great judge of character. You’re going to burn us out if you don’t shut that fire down.” I was proud of how calm I sounded.
He waved an impatient hand and the flames fell away to nothing. Then that same hand shot out and grabbed my arm. The contact burned into me, and I gasped.
He dragged me close. “Last chance, Lexi. Tell me who sent you.”
“No one.” I held his fiery gaze, tilting my head to look up at him. “I told you, I came here to find Syl. I know she’s in danger.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Why look here? Why assume it was me? It’s a big town. She could be anywhere.”
The smell of smoke filled my nostrils. I could feel the distress and confusion among the nearby creatures. That smell meant danger.
“Because you’re new.” This man meant danger, too, but I was already up to my neck in trouble. Couldn’t get much deeper. “Everything was fine until you arrived. Did you take her?”
He laughed, a sneering sound. “So protective! What are you going to do? Set another kitty cat on me?”
I lifted my chin. The bastard needn’t think he could be condescending.
“Afraid?”
“You caught me by surprise, that’s all.” His grip on my arm was like iron. “You won’t get lucky like that again.”
“If you had nothing to do with it, why did she disappear the minute you showed up?”
A thoughtful look appeared in his eyes. Well, that was an improvement on naked fury. He was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, he sounded much calmer.
“You know, it’s not polite to read other people’s emails.” He caught my wrist and marched me back toward the house. “Particularly if you have to break into their home to do it.”
The long white room dazzled my eyes after the darkness outside. Steele shut the glass door firmly behind us and frowned down at me.
“I’m not the only stranger in town. Let’s ask Mason if he’s seen your little cat shifter.”
He turned toward the couch, and it was only then that I noticed the lion shifter was no longer lying on it. He’d left some lovely blood stains, so it was definitely the right couch, but there was no sign of the body that had been passed out there only moments before.
Steele’s frown deepened as he towed me through the door into the foyer.
“Mason? Are you there?”
So now Steele knew his name? In the bar he’d acted like he had no idea who the guy was. Why had he pretended he didn’t know him? What was he trying to hide?
A car started up in the driveway, and Steele hauled me toward the front door. We got there in time to see taillights, gleaming red, disappear around the first bend in the road.
“Is that him?” I asked, then felt like an idiot. Fireshaping didn’t come with X-ray vision, as far as I knew. “Where’s he going?”
An equally stupid question, but all Steele said was: “Let’s find out, shall we?”
He hurried me to the garage, which was a freestanding building to one side of the main house. Inside, a red convertible stood alone in the cavernous space, all gleaming curves and sleek, powerful lines.
“Get in.” He pushed me toward the passenger side. “He’s taken the limo. Shouldn’t be too hard to catch.”
He started the car and backed out. It was small, only big enough for two, but the engine throbbed with power. It smelled of leather and luxury. We roared down the driveway, my hair streaming behind me until I caught it into a hasty knot at the nape of my neck.
“North or south?” I asked. North was the big city lights of Crosston, but perhaps he’d go south instead, expecting us to choose the more likely road north.
Steele didn’t take either direction at the turn-off to the highway. Instead he headed into town.
“I doubt he’ll leave straight away. The limo’s too conspicuous. He’ll want his own car.”
He turned into the first motel on Marine Parade and did a circuit of the parking lot. No sign of the limo. Back on the road, he headed for the next motel, just around the corner, and repeated the procedure.
“This is a tourist town,” I said. “Plenty of places to stay besides motels. He could be anywhere.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Are you always so positive? Just keep your eyes peeled for the limo.”
If I was negative, didn’t I have reason? Life hadn’t exactly been a picnic, unlike his no doubt luxurious existence. Fuming, I looked away and sent my awareness out instead, enlisting other eyes to aid the search. The limo should be easy to spot. You didn’t see too many of those in Berkley’s Bay. We were a little too laid-back for the limo crowd.
A rat turned up something that looked promising. “Try the Star, on Fulton Street.”
He cast me a curious glance.
Belatedly I added, “They have the best rooms. Lions like their luxuries.”
I doubted he believed my hasty excuse, but the little sports car zipped around the corner and we were soon pulling into the parking lot of the Star, one of the more upmarket motels in Berkley’s Bay. As we passed the office, a white sedan zipped past us going the other way. I saw a flash of blonde hair in the lights from the office, and then the car was gone in a screech of tyres.
“That was him!”
Steele spun the wheel and set out in pursuit. Mason was heading for the highway and he wasn’t bothering himself with the speed limit. The white car squealed around the corner into the main street. Just as well it was late at night and no one was on the crossing, because he would have run them down. He swerved around a lone car that was doing a sensible speed and roared down the street.
I clutched my seat as Steele overtook the same car. “Try not to kill us.”
He flashed me a grin, his hands relaxed on the wheel. He was actually enjoying this. “You want your friend back or not?”
I couldn’t argue with that so I kept my mouth shut and held on tight. We’d come to the long straight stretch just before the road went into a series of sharp bends. The turn-off to the highway was just beyond that. Steele put his foot down, and the distance between the two cars closed rapidly. The road was climbing now, and the shifter’s car obviously didn’t have the same power under the bonnet as the red convertible.
We topped the rise, only a couple of car lengths behind him now, and closing rapidly. The first bend was approaching and I glanced at Steele uneasily. He still looked as relaxed as if he were out for a nice Sunday afternoon drive, and showed no sign of slowing down for the corner.
Mason took the corner at high speed. His back wheels fis
htailed out to the side, but he managed to get the car back under control. We flew around the corner right behind him, the low-slung sports car gripping the road securely.
Trees flashed by in the light from the headlights, disappearing into the dark behind us. Only two more bends before the highway. Which way would he go?
“Are we going to drive like this all the way to Crosston?” I asked, still holding on for dear life.
“If we have to.” He glanced at me, his face unreadable. “I could blow him up now if you’d prefer.”
“Not if Syl’s in there!” It was too dark to see if anyone else was in the car. He might even have left her at the motel. We hadn’t had time to check. Of course, that was assuming Steele was even right about him taking her in the first place. And assuming that Steele wasn’t lying through his teeth. Those were some big assumptions right there.
He and Mason obviously knew each other. But why had Mason stolen his car and taken off like that, if they were on the same side?
“Why did you act like you had no idea who your friend Mason was at the pub?”
He threw me a brief glare. “He’s no friend of mine.”
Okay, bad choice of words. Friends didn’t usually steal each other’s limousines. “But you know him. You can’t deny that.”
Steele edged the sports car closer. For a moment I had visions of him ramming the other car, the way they did in movies, but apparently he had more respect for his car’s bodywork.
“If you start asking questions you might have to answer a few yourself. What’s so special about your little cat friend that Mason wants her?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never seen him before in my life.” But if he was the one who’d surprised Syl earlier, then obviously she had. I’d felt the shock of recognition as she’d said, What is he doing here? Of course I’d only known Syl for a year, so I didn’t know all the people she was acquainted with. Maybe he was a long-lost cousin. But I doubted it. “As far as I know, there’s nothing special about Syl at all. How do you know this guy? Who is he?”
“No one. An enforcer.”
Stolen Magic (Shadows of the Immortals Book 1) Page 9
