by Jaime Rush
“You tried to kill that bloke's brother with the Flare he was talking about. Some kind of power you’ve had since you were, say, a teenager, I bet. When I came up on you, you held out your hand like you were going to zap me into tomorrow.” He looked at the crisscross scarring across the back of the hand he could see.
She shifted so her body blocked her hand, but her eyes had widened at his words. This lass could kill. It raised some questions of his own. But first he had to gain her trust, because she wasn't going to tell him a thing before that.
He went on. “Let me guess. Your mother or father died while working for the government in a covert program.”
She maintained a guarded expression but gave him a subtle nod.
“Aye, it's all beginning to make sense now.”
“What is?”
“Why I was drawn to you at the bar.” The same way he'd been drawn to Jessie. He thought it was his imagination. “When I walked past you, didn't I feel different from all those other men you pick up?”
She winced.
“Sorry, that didn't come out the way I'd intended. But let's be honest; neither one of us is unused to the idea of sleeping with a stranger, eh? We both needed something the other could provide. Hell, I don't even know your last name. Which is?”
“None of your damned business.”
She had a tough shell, but something in her blue eyes said there was a good reason why. It was the same pain he'd seen after their disastrous encounter. She wasn't after a tumble in the sack for fun. He still felt bad for spoiling it.
“Look, Erica, we’re on the same side. We—”
“We are not on the same side. You’re some kind of beast that can rip out a person’s heart while it’s still beating!” Her voice cracked, broke, and her body trembled.
“So you admit to at least seeing the guy. Copeland's brother killed your boyfriend, and you zapped him.”
“He wasn’t my boyfriend; he was a preacher out to find the mysterious smoke. I tagged along. You can’t imagine what it was like, seeing his heart in that man’s hands. The blood. The gloating look on his face. Then he saw me.” Terror painted her expression. “And he said, 'More.'“
How the hell did he keep getting tangled up with women who were in trouble? First Jessie, who’d nearly gotten him killed, and now this lass, who’d inadvertently gotten him imprisoned. Still, the need to protect her pulsed through him at the thought of her facing a monster like that.
She thinks you're a monster, too.
He said, “I don’t blame you for zapping him. It saved your life.”
She hung her head low. “I should have done it faster to save Graham.”
He gripped the chain that held the cuffs to the wall and pulled it from every angle. No give. “I saw my mother get killed, and I thought the same thing for a long time. If. If I’d moved faster, done something, maybe I could have saved her.”
She looked up at that, shock on her face. “Your mother died in front of you?”
He nodded. No need to say that it was his own brother who had pushed a sword into her stomach, locked in a mental time warp and fighting British soldiers. His addiction to astral projection made him temporarily crazy. “You can’t change the past, no matter how many times you relive it. No way could you have seen that coming. Then I probably scared the hell out of you again.”
“I assumed you were one of them. Not a stretch, considering.”
“I suppose not. But the truth is we have more in common than you want to admit. We have special abilities because of that program I mentioned.” He studied the chain, searching for any weakness in the links. “If I knew your last name, I could tell you for sure.”
After a few moments, she said, “Evrard.”
He knew it, and a few seconds later it came to him. “You're Jerryl’s sister?”
Something frosty flowed through her eyes, even as she looked surprised. “You know my brother?”
“Of him. He worked for Darkwell, the man responsible for the deaths of almost everyone in that program. Of course, Jerryl didn't know that,” he added at the shock on her face. “I'm sure he thought he was on the right side.” Magnus worked on the bolt that held his cuffs to the wall while he talked. “It was the government, after all. But Darkwell was corrupt.”
“When my father called to tell me he was dead, he went on about some secret project Jerryl was involved in. He missed the irony that our mother died doing the same kind of thing, leaving behind a whole lot of questions.” Her expression opened just a little. “You know about the program?”
“Aye. My father was in it, too. Darkwell recruited people with psychic gifts to spy on our enemies. Dad studied slime molds and was especially fascinated with pwdre ser, the slime that meteorites leave behind. One day what he collected was actually the remains of someone from the other dimension.”
“Dimension?” she asked. “Like a parallel dimension?”
“Exactly. It's called Surfacia. This bloke accidentally flew his aircraft through one of the portals between dimensions and crashed. His brother cleaned up the site, but apparently he missed some. My intrepid father found it and ended up ingesting his Essence. He discovered it enhanced the psychic abilities he already had. Darkwell then gave it to the program's subjects, who eventually went crazy and had to be terminated before the public found out. You inherited that Essence—and, I suspect, the bloke's ability. Recently, Darkwell started recruiting the subjects' offspring to resurrect the program. I'm sorry to say your brother was killed because he worked for the man behind that program.”
“I hope he burns in hell.”
“No doubt Darkwell will for everything he's done.”
“I mean my brother.” She turned away, which was good because Magnus couldn't have been more shocked by her response.
He wanted to know why someone would hate their sibling that much, but he didn't have time to delve into her troubled psyche. “Do you remember anything when they brought us here?”
“No.” She followed his gaze as he scoured the cell they were in. “A blinding flash went through me as hot as fire and then nothing until I woke here. You?”
“The same.” His gaze lighted on the toilet and sink in the far corner. How they were supposed to use them while manacled, he didn’t know. He had good aim, but really. “We’re in a basement, I think.”
“Why would they have a jail cell in their basement?” The implications of that shadowed her eyes. “Only people who regularly kidnap and torture others would have something like this.”
“I can't think it has anything to do with the robbery they're planning.”
“Robbery?”
“I overheard them talking about it as I came to.”
“Oh, great, so they're not only aliens from another dimension but common criminals.” She shook her head. “We are so screwed.”
“Well, no need to give up just yet.”
She shook her manacled hand. “Oh, don't worry, I have loads of hope.”
Her hopelessness and fear tugged at him. No matter how hardened she was, he'd seen her vulnerable side, the pain in her eyes when she'd asked him to leave her motel room. He'd been inside her in the most intimate way and yet hadn't connected with her. That bothered him.
There were a lot of things about her that bothered him. One, however, surged above the rest.
“You being out there in the same area I was, at the same time…that is a coincidence that's hard to believe. What were you doing out there?” He studied her carefully masked face. “You were following me. Why?”
She clamped her mouth shut, avoiding his gaze.
“Were you going to punish me for calling out another lass's name, zap me with your Flare? Are you some kind of psycho revenge bitch?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I was madder at myself than you, in any case.”
“Why?”
“It's not important. None of it is now that we're going to die.”
“You were stalking me then? You became o
bsessed, couldn't get me out of your mind.”
She laughed though there was no humor in it. “Hardly. And I don't call it my 'Flare.' I call it Lightning.”
Now he was sure she'd been following him, but he was also sure she wasn't about to tell him why. Though it bugged him like a chigger itch, he focused on questions she was more likely to answer. “Why didn’t you use it on Copeland?”
She flexed her hand, staring at her palm. “I can't use it twice in a row, apparently. And it's painful. But this cuff is made of the same metal yours is.”
“How well do you know how to use your power?”
Something fierce lit her eyes. “Very well.”
He had no idea what he was getting into with her. But he wasn't going to let her give up hope.
CHAPTER 6
Erica was in the grip of a drug-induced nightmare. There was no other explanation. She'd had sex with a hunky stranger who laced her drink with LSD, and she was now lying inert on her bed while he did God-knew-what to her body. And that was far better than this version of reality.
She could believe that if she couldn't feel the bite of the cuff around her wrist, the scrape of the stone wall at her back. If this didn't feel so dreadfully real.
A lone set of footsteps sounded down the stairs, and her whole being tightened. Lanna came into view with a bright, anticipatory expression and stepped up to the bars. Erica wondered if the woman always had that carnal light in her eyes. At least she seemed to when she looked at Magnus. Lanna unlocked the door, stepped inside, and locked it again.
“I’m sorry that my husband hit you the way he did,” she said, walking close to Magnus. He said nothing, regarding her warily.
She pulled a tube from her pocket, her gaze on the ripped muscles of his stomach. “Black Lavender, from my dimension. It’s amazing for healing pain. You’ve got a bruise,” she said, pouting. “He’s a mean man. So Callorian. But you, you’re much more human.” She feathered her fingers across his abs. “You’ve got heat.”
Heat. The way she said the word sounded hot. Sensual. Erica took in the expanse of his stomach, too, the emerging bruise, his ribs, wide and deep, and the way his waist tapered to slim hips. She hadn't let herself touch him beyond the necessary contact. But she'd wanted to.
Lanna squeezed out some dark purple gel from the tube and rubbed it across his skin. She was mesmerized by him, moving her hand in slow circles, as though she’d never touched a man before. She probably hadn’t touched a purely human male, and Magnus was a beautiful specimen, after all.
“Just like in the books I read. Strong, sexy, and you smell so good.” Lanna breathed him in, her eyes closed. “We don’t sweat like you do. It’s a provocative scent.”
The violation shuddered through Erica. But something sensual stirred beneath that, and she was disgusted by it.
“What kind of books do you read, Lanna?” he asked, his voice level and normal, as though one participant of the conversation wasn't shackled to a wall.
“Erotic ones. Fifty Shades. BDSM. Spanking. And lots of sex. Whenever we go into town, I visit the romance section of the bookstore. Humans like having sex. They like touching, breathing in, tasting.”
Not all humans, Erica thought.
Lanna perched on her tiptoes and ran her tongue down his neck.
His body tensed. “I don’t think your husband would be very pleased to find you like this.”
“No, he wouldn’t.” The thought of that obviously doused her heat for a moment. “Callorians don’t have sex for fun. We procreate, we release, but we don’t play.”
Oh, God, Erica was part…whatever the hell they were. Sex for release, nothing more. No, you've just been damaged.
Lanna pressed her body against his and nuzzled his neck. “I want to play. With you.”
Magnus’s gaze found Erica, sending a flush over her cheeks. “It’s not right, Lanna. Your husband nearby, Erica right here, having to watch.”
Lanna flicked her a provocative look. “Maybe she likes to watch.”
Erica’s cheeks flamed hotter. “It’s disgusting and wrong to force yourself on someone else.”
Magnus met her gaze on her vehement words.
Lanna laughed, deep and hearty, and gracefully waved her hand Vanna White style toward the ridge in Magnus’s shorts. “It’s not forcing when he likes it.” She turned back to Magnus, a smile on her face. “You do like it, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “A man’s body reacts.”
Lanna obviously didn’t take it as the noncommittal answer that it was. She ran her mouth down the center of his chest, kissing across his stomach. One of her hands snaked behind him and squeezed his ass. “You taste like fresh air and desert. And man.”
Erica squeezed her eyes closed, wanting to shut it out. The smacking of moist lips against skin lured them open again. Magnus’s jean shorts were loose enough to gap at the waistband but tight over his hips and derriere. A tendril of desire spiraled through her, even though the hands sliding over the denim weren’t hers.
What the hell was wrong with her? She didn't read bondage stories.
“See, she likes watching,” Lanna said, flicking a glance at Erica again. “I can feel her excitement, among other things. Some people get turned on by watching another couple have sex.” She pushed to her full height and up on her tiptoes, even with Magnus’s face again. “Let’s turn her on.”
Magnus’s eyes met hers, and Erica realized he’d been looking at her a lot more than he’d looked at the woman who was actually touching him.
“I don’t like an audience when I’m making love to a woman,” he said. “And while bondage, in theory, sounds like a great idea, having no feeling in your hands is a bit of a turn off. Half the fun of sex is feeling someone touching you; the other half is doing the touching. So you see, Lanna, we would both be cheated.”
Ah, he was trying to get her to release his arms.
Lanna stepped back. “As intriguing and delicious as you look there, you’re right. And I do want to feel your hands on me. I’ve never been touched like the men in those stories touch the women.” She pinned Erica with her frosty eyes. “Is that how men touch women here?”
Erica couldn’t help the widening of her eyes as Lanna approached to her. “I wouldn't know; I don’t read those books.”
“But you’ve been with a man, haven’t you?” Lanna was standing too close. “You’ve had a man touch your breasts, slide his hands all over your body, plunge his finger inside your vagina and move it just so, grinding his thumb into your clit until your whole body shudders in complete ecstasy. Had a man need you so badly that he pushes you against the wall and thrusts his pulsing rod of manhood into you right then and there?”
Erica shook her head. “Those are fantasies. Want to know what's real? Most men only care about getting off. They might squeeze your breasts and tell you how beautiful you are. The next thing you know, they’re knocking on your door. In and out, and it’s all over. He rolls over and turns on the television. Or makes an excuse and leaves.”
Magnus’s eyebrow lifted at that. Yeah, she knew he'd tried to pleasure her. She'd been the one to ask him to leave. I'm not talking about my sex life. If that's what you want to call it. She was relaying what she'd heard women talking about over their lattes or glasses of wine. The guy in the easy chair with the beer belly, Bud in one hand, remote in the other.
Lanna crossed her arms in front of her chest. “That’s how the men in my dimension are. Utilitarian. But there must be men like those in the books.” She shifted her attention back to Magnus. “You’re not like that, like how she described, are you?”
Again, Magnus was looking at Erica. “When a woman leaves my bed, she has been thoroughly loved up one side of her body and down the other.”
Erica shivered and turned away. He would have done that to her. If she'd let him. But what he'd done…oh, yeah, he wasn't lying.
Lanna’s voice dropped lower. “Will you spank me? I like how a man throws a woman over
his knees and spanks her bare ass. Then you can—”
“Lanna.” She whirled around to find Copeland coming into view.
He had come down very quietly. “Just as I suspected. What did I tell you about cozying up to him?”
She quickly exited the cell and locked it behind her, a woman cowed. But her lascivious spirit wasn't. “He's a living, breathing manifestation of the men in those books. I can't resist.” She slid the tube of gel into her pocket. “I think it’s cruel to leave his hands above his head where the blood drains away.”
“Why make them comfortable? I'd like to find out more about how they came to have our Essence, but only for my own curiosity. As soon as Nester comes around, he’s going to want revenge on the person who zapped him.” Copeland's hard gaze slid to Erica. “For once I won't mind him digging into their chests, since it won't be splashed all over the paper.” He shook his head, a sneer twisting his mouth. “The Heart Ripper.”
Erica could already feel a hole in her chest at the words and memory of what he’d done to Graham.
Lanna walked up to Copeland and put her hands on his shoulders. “Darling, I have a better idea for them. Well, for him, anyway.”
“You can’t have him for your love slave.” He picked her hands from his shoulders but gripped them hard. His eyes blinked several times. “You’ve been touching him.” Not a question.
“I put some gel on the bruise you left.”
“You did more than that, you wanton bitch.” He slapped her so hard she stumbled as she cupped her cheek.
Erica saw Magnus wince and tense. Was he reacting on some ingrained instinct to protect a woman, any woman? He’d tried to protect her, too.
“Lanna, you know how much is at stake here,” Copeland hissed. “Our plan isn't going to work if I can't depend on the two people at my side. I wasn't gone for three minutes, and you're down here acting out your filthy books. When everything happens, you will leave them here in the house to be destroyed. They're corrupting you.”
That thought sent a ripple of fear over Lanna's expression, but she wiped it away and replaced it with a contrite one. “I'm sorry.”
