by Marie Harte
Chapter One
Remy Davis quickened her pace down one of Savannah’s seedier streets, noting the late hour, as well as the thinning crowd. Her hair swayed in the cold December wind as she ducked around the corner and moved in the opposite direction of her small apartment. She felt him following behind her, could feel his gaze burrowing into her back.
“Watch it, lady!” an angry voice yelled as she accidentally plowed into a large body. She murmured her apology and continued. The streetlights ended in another block, bringing her closer to a rundown section of the city she normally avoided.
As the moon slowly escaped the confines of dark gray clouds, a sliver of light illuminated the gravel before her. She glanced around, not surprised to see a few men warming their hands over a small barrel fire and a prostitute leaning in the window of an old Buick, sizing up a potential client. Remy dared to look over her shoulder and saw in horrified amazement that the man following her loomed closer.
At this distance, she could make out cold, dark eyes and a grim mouth marring an otherwise average male face. His shaggy hair flapped in the wind that now carried hard drops of rain. The menace in his stare made her shudder more than the cold soaking through her clothes. She gave up all pretense of ignoring him and ran as though her life depended on it.
Listening to the man’s harsh panting drawing nearer, she suddenly ducked to the right and ran to the fence at the end of the alleyway. Coming to a locked gate, she considered climbing it, but she could hear him behind her. She was out of time. Remy stopped, out of options, and turned to face her pursuer.
He slowed when he realized he had her trapped. He stopped with a good ten feet between them and drew a weapon from beneath his overcoat.
“Lizzie.” He shook his head. “There was no need to run. You know who sent me, so why not come along quietly? I don’t want to hurt you, and he only wants to see you again. It’s been over ten years.”
She glared at the man sent to take her back. It had been exactly ten years, four months and three days since she’d been imprisoned in that hellhole. She refused to go back. Time to get that message across, so there’d be no confusion.
“I’m not going anywhere with you. But I do have something I’d like you to take back. Make sure you give it to him for me, would you?”
The man cocked his pistol, and to her dismay she realized it wasn’t a gun with bullets, but tranquilizer darts. Something to keep her alive, useful, for…him. Before he could pull the trigger, Remy pointed her finger.
A visible jolt of electricity shot from her fingertip and enveloped him in a web of eerie blue light. He stared at her in horror—another casualty in the war between those who would oppress and those who sought to remain free.
“Forgot to warn you about that, did he?” she asked with cold amusement. Then, with a flick of her hand, she increased the power flowing through her. Her pursuer shrieked in pain before he slumped to the ground and slid into death’s embrace.
“Brava, my dear. You’ve exceeded even my expectations.”
Her throat dried and terror balled in her stomach. That voice. God, it had been so long. But not long enough. The sounds of a lock turning and the gate opening were overly loud in the sudden quiet. She had to face him. She knew that. But her feet refused to move, fear holding her stock-still.
“It’s time to come home, Lizzie,” he said in a smooth, cultured voice. “I’ve missed you.”
Energy flared through her entire body as six hundred milliamperes of direct current coursed through her. It was more than enough to kill a normal person, but Remy simply soaked up the flow, managing her resistance and the voltage with ease. A living, breathing conduit for electricity who could gauge it without trying, she shut down into a hazy state. The way he expected her to. The way he needed her to. This way she was his to be captured and controlled once more. And the foggy disorientation swiftly turned to pain…
She bolted awake in a sweat, still feeling the pinpricks of shock all over her body. No. Never again. He’s not here. I’m Remy now. Lizzie’s dead. Gone. She did her best to calm herself and mentally prepared to greet the day. Friday should have been her ticket to a fun-filled weekend with nothing to do but party. But Remy didn’t do crowds or strangers or dating. She couldn’t afford to.
On a groan, she left the bed and headed toward the shower. Yeah, today definitely called for a triple-shot espresso.
Make that two.
Arriving to work a half hour late, she darted past security with a wave and gave the elevator a little extra juice to move faster. Exiting onto her floor, she brushed past Cole Sainte, her boss’s nephew and one of the firm’s top investigators, and ignored his raised brow.
Like he’d never been a few minutes late. Of course, she’d made it a habit of always being early, doing her best to earn her keep. But she thought she’d done a fairly decent job as Buchanan Investigations’ IT rep.
She hurried to her office and stopped short at the sight of a yellow sticky note. A summons from her boss. Terrific.
Racing down the hall and up the stairs, she made her way to his office. At a nod from his secretary, she knocked on the door.
“Come in,” he barked, not sounding at all happy.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, trying to catch her breath, and gave him a hesitant smile.
As always, Max Buchanan looked dashing, his dark hair threaded with bits of silver, his features enhanced by the power that caged him like a living thing. He could read minds and influence thought. But, frankly, he was a hot mess when it came to network security, spreadsheets and databases. She hoped her skill with electronics would compensate for her miss today.
He gave her a half smile, as if reading her mind. And with Max, who knew? Then his gaze shifted to the man seated on the couch along the far wall of his office. “Our guest specifically asked for you.”
Surprised, because for the duration of her time at Buchanan Investigations she’d made sure to stay out of the limelight and away from anyone but Max and his employees, she turned.
Remy watched as Jurek Westlake stood and came toward her, holding out a hand. She hadn’t seen him in years, not since the fire that had changed her life. Like Max, he had an aura of competence and power he wore like a second skin. A thick head of dark hair framed a masculine face any woman would have a hard time denying as handsome. He had to be close to Max in age, yet like her boss, he seemed almost ageless. His perpetual smile—as well as the ability to charm the skin off a snake—had enthralled more than one bad guy into turning himself in to the police. As the brains behind Westlake Enterprises, Buchanan’s rival investigative firm, he made an odd guest for a Friday morning.
She wondered what he thought while they shook hands. As she’d expected, she read nothing from his face he didn’t want her to see. A pleasant smile, a polite greeting. But no hint of loathing, disgust, or the dismay he must feel at being near Dr. Benjamin Carter’s niece.
The door opened behind her and a deep voice apologized, “Sorry I’m late, I…”
Ripping her gaze from Jurek, she turned to see who’d joined them, stunned by the familiarity in his voice.
A handsome blond man stood in silence, a grown version of the boy she’d once loved and ten times as overwhelming. He stared back at her with eyes wide with shock. But when he spoke, he said no more than what she could have expected.
“You cold-hearted bitch. You’re still alive?” J.D. had trouble thinking straight as the object of his darkest fantasies and deepest pain stood before him, in the flesh.
She’d grown more beautiful, were that possible, in the years since he’d last seen her. At fifteen, she’d been sweet, inn
ocent and adorable. He’d been with her for two years and had seen her mature into a lovely young woman. On the outside, at least.
But now, ten years later, at twenty-seven, she was simply stunning. Those big blue eyes looked impossibly innocent in her heart-shaped face. Cropped black hair showed the fragile lines of her neck and chin. She was both lovely and vulnerable as her full lower lip quivered, and damn if he didn’t want to hug her tight and protect her from the world.
No, I’m not that stupid. Not again.
He took a few steps back, needing to maintain his distance. To come any closer might put Jurek and Max in real danger, since he felt hot enough to blast through the room—a loss of control he hadn’t experienced in ages. He could feel the energy building inside him, aching to be set free. His confusion and anger grew, and he worked to contain them. “What the fuck, Jurek?”
Jurek glanced from J.D. to Remy and his eyes narrowed. “Hell. It’s really her.”
J.D. glared at Max, then back at Remy again, unable to look away from her for long. What the hell was she doing here, in this office? Then he put the pieces together. Remy. Max’s IT rep. It fit all too well.
“Elizabeth Remington Sinclair.” Unable to stop himself, he approached her. “Do you know who she is?” he asked Max, his voice hoarse with contempt.
Jurek placed a hand on J.D.’s arm—to calm him or stop him, J.D. couldn’t say. He shrugged it off.
“Let him go, Jurek,” Remy said in a soft voice. So sweet sounding, yet so contemptuous underneath. She obviously knew Jurek.
J.D. cared less about their byplay than about the emotions passing over her traitorous face. He felt too much sensation, like a live wire exposed to the elements, as all the pain and fear and fury from that day so long ago raced back, sizzling in his blood.
“I know who she is,” Max answered quietly. “So does Jurek. The question is, who is she to you?” Max motioned subtly for Remy to stay still when she would have moved away.
J.D. saw the motion, and the room literally crackled. Blue sparks danced in the air.
Jurek calmly folded his arms and watched the scene unfold. J.D. had the insane urge to laugh. Nothing, not even Jurek’s normally easygoing computer whiz having a nervous breakdown, could shake his boss’s cool resolve.
“Let me tell you who she is.” He took a deep breath and strove for control. He moved another few steps back from her, glad when Max and Jurek finally showed some sense by stepping clear of them.
The last time he’d seen Remy, she’d been staring down at him through a wall of Plexiglas after literally setting him on fire. “She’s a liar, a user and an unfeeling bitch out for number one—herself,” he said concisely, not to be misunderstood. “She’s probably a plant for the ISPP. No doubt, right now she’s planning the capture of just about everyone working for you, Max.”
The ISPP, or Institute for the Study of Psychic Phenomena, had been shut down ten years ago by the man watching him with concern, his boss—Jurek Westlake. The Institute had been conducting inhumane experiments on its test subjects, not to mention breaking several laws regarding kidnapping and murder. All led by Dr. Benjamin Carter, Remy’s loving uncle.
Unfortunately, not everyone involved in the organization had been found. Rumors circulated every now and then about a new ISPP, one funded privately rather than by the government subsidy it had once enjoyed.
Watching Remy, J.D. felt all the hurt and torment of those years spent within white walls, unable to break free. She had been his one enjoyment, his one source of freedom from the relentless tedium of confinement. And then he’d found out she’d been working against him all along. “I’m doing this for your own good, Joshua,” she’d said before trying to end his life. God, what a joke. She might not have liked her uncle, but she’d only ever been about helping herself. The agonizing pain, both physical and emotional, returned to him in waves, and a hazy blue light enveloped his hands.
He could see her understanding and wondered how she’d respond. Part of him wanted her to fight back, so that slapping her down and ending her once and for all would bring the closure he’d been needing for so long. Yet the other part of him he’d thought long buried wanted to protect her and wrap her in his arms. What a fucked-up mess.
The hair on her forearms stood on end, as did the cropped silken cap on her head. She shot Max a warning look, and both he and Jurek cautiously retreated behind the desk.
“Go ahead, Joshua,” she said quietly.
“You don’t think I’ll do it?”
“Do what you need to.” The guilt in her big blue eyes turned him inside out.
His rage warred with shame—that he’d succumbed to this, the beast that lived buried deep, that only Benjamin Carter had been able to bring out of him.
To his shock, a bead of greedy energy flickered within her. He sensed it rather than saw it, a ball of power licking at his. “Cut it the fuck out.” Didn’t she realize how close he was to killing her?
“Do your worst,” she goaded while he struggled to hold on to his precious control.
And why bother? She wanted him to hit her with it? She could have it.
“Fuck that. You want it? You got it.” Tired of holding himself back for her, confused and ashamed that his intense feelings hadn’t faded as they should have, J.D. let forth a burst of power that would instantly have killed a normal person.
Max and Jurek ducked as a thunderclap preceded an explosion of electricity. But Remy, his target, flew back into the wall with enough force to break through the drywall. Instead of succumbing to the blow, she slowly picked herself up and dusted off her arms, breathing hard.
Her eyes glowed neon, likely as bright as his own. Using their powers always made them into obvious freaks. Suddenly his world shifted, and everything looked slightly blue, patterns of energy coloring the world around him.
Christ, he hadn’t seen this in ten long years. Yet it felt like only yesterday when he’d played in the world they’d created for themselves, together. He wanted more, to let the river of energy swirl and take him up in it, to rally in the chaos of entropy.
“J.D.,” he heard Jurek yelling. “Shut it down. The wall is on fire. Shut it down.”
He didn’t care. He watched Remy, waiting to see what she’d do next. He could feel the concentrated power in her and realized she must have absorbed most of his energy. Her uncle had never understood how the pair of them could share so well. Unfortunately, it seemed that hadn’t faded with time.
Remy released the energy he’d rocketed into her, blowing several fuses while rays of light leaked from her eyes, forming a nimbus of energy that slowly settled over the room.
As the last of it left her, she gasped and fell to her knees.
Unable to help himself, he hurried to her side and brought her to her feet. But the moment his hands touched bare skin, a waterfall of energy passed back into her, recharging her.
The memories intensified. Her lovely smile, the feel of her soft mouth under his. So innocent, so young and stupid to believe anything he thought she’d been.
He forced himself to regain control. It wasn’t easy when everything inside him demanded he either kill her or take her, body and soul, until she made matters right again. Yet J.D. refused to be held hostage by his abilities or emotions. Not again.
He yanked his hand away and eventually the world righted itself. A few of the pillows on Max’s couch had caught fire, so he grabbed a pitcher of water from the desk to put out the flames before the overhead sprinklers took charge.
Remy looked ill, and he felt her distress as if it were his own.
“Are you…” He stopped himself and scowled.
“Is she all right?” Max asked, sounding shakier than J.D. had ever heard him. The man took a step in her direction before Jurek grabbed him and held him still.
“Damn it, she’s fine,” J.D. snapped. He refused to touch her again and shoved his hands in his pockets. “She’s a witch. And nothing kills a witch, not even fire,” he mo
cked before turning on his heel and storming out of the office before he blasted her again.
Or kissed her. Even worse. Kissing—not killing—the woman who once left you to die. You are one fucked up idiot, for sure.
Chapter Two
Remy sagged against the wall, amazed at Joshua’s outburst. He’d worked so hard while imprisoned in her uncle’s laboratory not to hurt anyone. And he’d had good enough reason to kill back then.
The knowledge that he’d lost control must have enraged him. It saddened her as well, that she’d brought him to this state. Once again she’d caused him harm, and she felt no better knowing that now, as then, she hadn’t done it intentionally.
Before she could speak, Cole burst into the office and gaped. “Holy shit,” he exclaimed as he stared at the three of them.
“You can say that again,” Max said wryly. He moved to assist Remy, but she quickly righted herself, needing an immediate escape. Her eyes misted, and she had to leave before she broke down. Or worse, unleashed the energy she’d just absorbed.
Max shook his head, his expression compassionate. “Remy, we need to talk.”
She stepped around Cole, who made no move to stop her, and passed through the doorway. “I know, but not now, Max. Later,” she said over her shoulder and fled.
“Well, Max, that was more than interesting. You know, working with you Buchanans is never dull, I can tell you that,” Jurek quipped as he ran his hand through his hair.
Cole didn’t know what to think. He grabbed the nearly empty pitcher of water, hoping to pour himself a drink—and nearly fell to his knees when a burst of emotion hit him hard.
His psychometry—his ability to know things by touching objects—suddenly overwhelmed his conscious mind. J.D. must have handled the pitcher, because Cole got an eyeful.
What the fuck? J.D. frying people with electricity shooting from his palms? Remy taking the hit and living and breathing afterward? The pure emotion driving J.D. and Remy was crazy—a dysfunctional history filled with love, hate, longing and guilt. What the hell had he stepped into?
