by Linsey Hall
And I really wanted to wash the demon blood off me. I was starting to smell weird, and it was grossly sticky.
“Your place is near here?” Though I wanted to look at him—I wanted to do that way too often lately—I kept my gaze on the moonlit countryside. Hills rolled in the distance, dotted with sheep whose white wool glinted in the moonlight. I knew we were probably pretty close to where he lived. I didn’t have a great idea of the geography of Ireland, but I knew we were in the south, and when I’d raided the temple on his property yesterday, I’d been in the south.
“Yes.” He turned onto a narrow lane that climbed upward. The car bumped over potholes and rocks. “Just down this road. That’s another reason I chose to borrow Mack’s boat. Conveniently located.”
We pulled up to the house a moment later.
“I see you like the simple things,” I said as I gazed at the enormous structure. It was all sleek glass and stone, modern, yet it blended with the landscape beautifully.
“It’s all right,” Aidan said as he climbed out.
He opened my door before I’d even touched it, because I was too busy staring at the house. When I climbed out, my dragon sense tingled. Somewhere far underground, there were treasures. The ones that I’d left behind during my temple raid yesterday.
“Is your house on a cliff?”
“Yes.”
Made sense. I’d entered the temple through a gap in a cliff. That’s why it had been so easy for him to feel the magical disturbance when the demon had gone nuts on me. He’d been right on top of me.
I needed to be better about my recon, it seemed.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get some dinner.”
“Yes, please.” This guy knew the way to my heart. I followed him into the foyer. Lights turned on as soon as he walked in the front door, illuminating a simple but beautiful foyer. The ceiling soared overhead, and a modern glass chandelier shed gleaming light on the wood floor. Maybe if I didn’t put all my money into the holy trinity of boots, jackets, and weapons, I could live in a place a bit closer to this.
Nah. I liked my set-up.
“Pick any bedroom upstairs and get cleaned up. I’ll get dinner on.”
I waved a hand down my bloody front. Most of it wasn’t even mine. “What? You don’t like me like this?”
His gaze met mine, and there was more than humor in his eyes. Heat. “I’ll take you however I can get you.”
I swallowed hard. Oh, man. He was bringing out the big guns. Desire coiled within me. Though it was stupid, I wanted to take him up on it.
“I’m going to get that shower.” I turned and ran up the stairs.
His low laugh echoed from below. It pissed me off and turned me on at the same time.
Idiot.
But I didn’t know if I was talking about him or me.
6
When I finished with my shower—which took longer than expected because the freaking thing had eight shower heads, and I’d had to try every one—I called Nix on my comms charm.
“Well, Cass? What happened?” Her voice came through clearly.
“I didn’t get the scroll. But I have a bead on its location. We’ll get it tomorrow.”
“Good.” The relief was clear in her voice. “Because Dr. Garriso didn’t know much. He said the scroll has been lost for at least three hundred years. When it was first stolen, the Order of the Magica and the Shifter Council sent out a search party. But they never found it. No one has heard about it since. It just disappeared.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah. I spoke to Del. She’s almost done in Nicaragua. When I asked her about the Scroll of Truth, she didn’t know anything either.”
“No surprise. If she’d known there was a threat to us, she’d have told us.”
“Yeah. Just figured I’d try. You never know what she’s read about.”
True. When she wasn’t beheading demons, she was big into books. It was why she was our Seeker. Most of the treasures I hunted were written about in ancient scrolls and texts. They provided the information I needed to find them.
“How’s everything else?” Nix asked.
“What else?”
“Uh, you’re hanging out with a super-hot, super-powerful, super-rich dude—who we all like, by the way—and you can’t think of what else I might be asking about?”
“Oh, yeah, that.” I blew out a breath. “I mean, he’s cool and all.”
“Cool? Yeah, he’s cool. I met him. Tell me something I don’t know. Something good.”
“Well, he’s healed me twice. And he’s funny.” I thought back. Being with him made me happy. I barely knew the guy, but I was getting butterflies over him. Yet I was also afraid of his ability to sense what I was. It was whiplashy. I needed to get my head on straight.
“But he wants me to find this scroll,” I said. “Which, I’ll remind you, could totally spill our secret. And all that power you say he’s got…well, yeah. He’s got it, all right. He turned into a griffon today.”
“A griffon? Whoa.”
“Yeah. With that kind of power, it’s easier for him to sense other supernaturals’ power. Even if I don’t want to use mine, I’m scared that if I hang out with him long enough, I’ll be in a situation where I’m forced to use it and I’ll reveal myself.”
Nix sighed. When she spoke, her voice was grim. “Yeah. That’s serious.”
“Deadly.”
“All right, well a girl can hope. I’d like you to get a life, you know. Date, meet a guy, all that.”
“Uh, like you do?” We kept to ourselves because of our secret and our work. Connor and Claire didn’t know we were FireSouls, and they were our only real friends. With survival and running our business being our priority, dating hadn’t been on our agenda much.
“Yeah, yeah. I see your point,” Nix said. “Look, take care of yourself, all right?”
“I will. I’ll be back soon. Remember—if I show up with the scroll, be ready to duplicate it real quick. Otherwise, I’m going to destroy it.” Then I would have Aidan to deal with.
“I’ll be ready.”
“Miss you.”
“Back at you,” she said.
I reached up and tapped the silver charm with my finger, dimming its magic, then followed my nose toward something delightful.
On my way, I peeked my nose into an elegant family room and an enormous library, but it wasn’t hard to find the kitchen. I’d been grateful not to see any food laid out in the elegant dining room that I’d passed before I’d reached the kitchen. Fancy dining rooms weren’t really my natural habitat.
“How do you feel about pasta?” Aidan asked as I walked into the bright kitchen. It was all gleaming white and stainless steel, and even though nice kitchens weren’t really my thing either, I couldn’t help but like it.
My gaze landed on the big bowl in the middle of the kitchen table. There was salad and bread too, but it was the noodles tangled up with veggies and sausage that really got my attention.
“Fabulous,” I said as I met his gaze. His hair was wet. “You managed to take a shower and make all this?”
He grinned—damn, I wished I could get over how good he looked when he grinned—and said, “I can’t claim credit for the pasta. There’s a housekeeper. Iona. She lives in the cottage out back. She made it but had to get back in time for her TV show.”
“Well, thank her for me next time you see her, because this looks amazing.” I sat down and reached for the pasta and piled my plate high. I didn’t even bother to look at the salad, not when all this Italian goodness needed a home.
“Pasta fan?” Aidan asked as he sat down.
“You don’t even know.” The first bite was divine. Al dente noodles, rich sausage, flavorful veggies, and the sharp bite of some kind of cheese. Gorgonzola? “Heaven.”
I plowed into the food.
“How exactly are you able to find the artifacts?” Aidan asked after a few bites.
I glanced up, my mouth full. I swallowed
and got ready to deliver my spiel. “I have a bit of Seeker blood. My mom’s side.”
“That’s strange,” Aidan said. “Seekers usually don’t have other powers. And you’re a Mirror Mage, too?”
That part actually was true. I found that hiding lies with the truths helped. “Yep. A weird combo, but it works for me.”
“I’ve never met a Seeker. How do you find the artifact?”
“Yeah, Seekers are rare.” From my research, I knew that Seekers found artifacts basically the same way I did, so at least I could tell the truth. “I’ve never met another either. For me, when an artifact is far away, I get a feeling for its general location. Like I have a map inside me. It’s kinda hard to explain.”
“Try.”
“All right. Once I have a general idea—like Norway—I go there. When I’m closer to the artifact, I get a better idea. I keep narrowing it down. Eventually, it’s like I have a string tied around my waist that pulls me there.”
I shut my mouth abruptly. I’d never shared that much detail with anyone before. Glossing over was more my style. What was it about him?
“What about you?” I asked, hoping to distract him. “You turned into a freaking griffon today. But you’re more than just a shifter.”
“Just a shifter? I’m the shifter.”
I grinned. “Oh, so now you’re cocky about it.”
He grinned, not embarrassed. “It’s the truth. It’s hardly bragging if it’s true. And I want you to like me.”
“Ah…” I did not know how to deal with flirty Aidan. “So, you’re the shifter. And you have powers you’re hiding. Big powers. Even a weak mage like me can feel them. What are you, exactly?”
“That’s a bit forward.” He smiled.
I shrugged. It was a slightly rude question, but I didn’t care. There wasn’t a lot of outright fighting or warfare anymore—it was the modern age, after all—but supernaturals had a long history of duking it out with their magic. In any kind of fight, you had an advantage if no one knew your gifts or weaknesses. Hence everyone’s silence on the matter, and Aidan’s interest in getting the Scroll of Truth.
“Come on, impress me,” I said. He already had, though. He was a griffon, for magic’s sake. And he’d more than proven himself in the fight today.
“Shifter and Magica,” he said.
So it was true. A hybrid. The first I’d ever met.
“And you’re the Origin,” I said.
He shrugged. “The real Origin died millennia ago. She was my great-grandmother about six hundred times back. She was the real first shifter. I have her gifts, but I’m not the actual Origin.”
“But you still go by the name.”
“It’s good for business.”
“Which is?”
“Security. Origin Enterprises guards things that people want guarded. There’s also an imports and exports division, specializing in things of value. And bodyguards.”
“So you protect things, and I steal them.”
“You’re the shifty one in this pair.” He indicated both of us.
“Hey, my operation is legal.” Primarily because I stayed away from human artifacts and put back the magical ones that I found. “You really want to go on a date with me? I figured you’d want to stay away from slumming with the likes of me.”
“You’re interesting,” he said. “I’d heard of you before. Anyone in the security business keeps up with the people who’re experts at breaking and entering. But it wasn’t until I met you that I realized there’s something different about you. So, you’re a Mirror Mage.”
“Yep.” I tried to keep my face expressionless. He didn’t need to know the extent of my power. Or what I was.
“So that’s how you get past the enchantments that protect the tombs.”
“Exactly.” Being a Mirror Mage allowed me to easily break the enchantments that protect temples and tombs. Because I could reflect back any kind of magic I came into contact with, I was perfectly suited to understanding and breaking enchantments. Fighting fire with fire.
Except the reality was that I used my wits and strength most of the time because my magic was so damned uncontrollable.
“Except I didn’t sense any magic when I went down to the tomb after you broke in,” he said.
“I’m not a very powerful mage, so I don’t leave a lot of trace. And I don’t use it often. It’s more fun to go all Lara Croft on a place.”
“Lara Croft?”
“Tomb Raider? Badass chick who’s strong and smart and gets by on her wits?”
He grinned. “Yeah, I see it.”
I relaxed a bit, hoping I’d thrown him off the scent. “What kind of Magica are you? Weather witch? Transport mage?” I asked to distract him. And I wanted to know.
He shot me a suspicious look, as if he knew I was trying to change the subject. Okay, so I wasn’t going to get off that easy with him. Distraction was my chosen method of keeping people from asking questions, but Aidan struck me as the still-waters-run-deep kind of guy. Which was a good thing if you were looking for a date—but not if you were trying to keep a secret. He might act like nothing was up and he wasn’t suspicious, but the look in his eyes made goosebumps pop up on my skin. I couldn’t identify it.
Finally, he answered my question. “A variety.”
My lips parted in surprise. “More than one?”
That was rare. Most Magica were born with one root gift. He was the Origin and a multi-gift Magica? That was off the charts.
“Yes,” he said. “Go on a real date with me, and I’ll tell you what they are.”
I leaned back. “I can figure them out for myself, thanks. I’ll just let you take on the baddies in whatever temple or tomb this scroll is hidden in. Then I’ll see what you’ve got.”
“Maybe it’ll work. Don’t count on it though.” He grinned and it made those damned butterflies start flapping around in my stomach again.
Being around him was getting to be too much. He was too much. Too hot, too powerful, too wealthy. Worse, he was too much in the ways that mattered. He was nice, smart, and funny.
And he seemed to actually like me.
Nope, I could not handle this. It was way outside my pay grade.
I shoved the last bite of pasta into my mouth and pushed away from the table. “I’ve got to hit the hay. I’m exhausted. We’ll leave early tomorrow?”
He nodded. “6 a.m.”
“Great.”
I headed back to the room I was borrowing and collapsed into bed. As I fell asleep, I realized that the expression I hadn’t at first recognized on his face was one that should have made me nervous.
It was patience. As if he knew I had a secret and would wait to figure it out. Or, like he wanted to get to know me.
There was no way I could let that happen.
The helicopter hovered over the glittering water of the fjord, its rotors beating in the wind. The noise roared in my ears as the bright sun shone through the glass windows.
We’d flown to Bergen, on Norway’s west coast, this morning and picked up a helicopter at the same airport. I had to admit, my job was a lot easier when the way was paved by Aidan’s influence and money.
Norway’s green mountains and glittering fjords spread out beneath us. I’d used my dragon sense to lead us here, following the pull of treasure at the other end of the line. Our pilot, Neilson, had followed my ambiguous directions to a T. She was in her sixties and had chin-length brown hair, cool sunglasses, and nothing fazed her. In short, she was the perfect helicopter pilot.
Aidan and I were strapped into the back. I squinted down at the forest below. It sat in the middle of a valley that ran perpendicular to the fjord. A river poured from it, feeding the massive body of water between the cliffs. The familiar strong tug of recognition pulled at my middle, directing me toward the valley.
“There!” I pointed below. “We need to land there.”
“There’s nothing down there!” shouted Neilson over the rotors.
“Just put us down,” Aidan said.
“You’ll have to use the ropes,” Neilson said. “Nowhere decent to land.”
“Not a problem,” I said.
On the plane ride over, Aidan and I had discussed the possibility. Because of Norway’s steep terrain, helicopter was the best way to scout for the site. But since landing a helicopter on a mountain wasn’t always possible, we’d planned on a mid-air descent. Aidan had offered to jump out of the plane first and turn into a griffon so that I could jump onto his back. While it sounded totally badass, and I’d almost taken him up on it, it also sounded way to intimate. No way was I riding on his back.
So we were going the old-fashioned way.
Neilson hovered the helicopter over the trees about forty feet from the ground. Once it was stable—relatively—she shouted, “Whenever you’re ready!”
Aidan and I glanced at each other and nodded, then turned to our separate doors on either side of the chopper. I pulled mine open and braced myself against the wind that whipped at my hair. My eyes watered. With my heart in my throat, I looked down.
Forty feet. Not so bad.
Enough to splat, but that was unlikely. At least, that’s what I had to tell myself. I grabbed the hook and cable near the door and latched it to the harness I was wearing.
“Ready?” Aidan shouted against the wind.
I met his gaze. “Yeah!”
“Watch out for the trolls!” Neilson added.
Of course there would be trolls.
We both crouched at our door. With one last look at his ridiculously handsome face—I was weak, what could I say?—I lowered myself out of the helicopter. My weight on the rope made the gears kick in and it slowly lowered me to the ground. The wind buffeted me. Hell of a ride.
When my feet touched down, I unhooked my harness. Aidan did the same. We stood in the middle of a sparse forest, the narrow-trunked pine enveloping us. With a wave, Neilson took off. We’d call her when we needed to get back out.
“You good?” Aidan asked.
“Better than.” I closed my eyes and focused on the tugging sensation at my middle. “We’re close.”
