She shook her head. Dwelling on it wouldn’t help anything.
“Why me, in particular?” Pixie demanded. “There are plenty of thieves who would do this for a fee, which you could clearly afford. Why go through all this effort to recruit me?”
“That’s not your concern. Your names are Marie and Thomas Cahill. You’re wealthy art patrons from the Garden District of Playa Linda. You will need to show them picture i.d. Here it is.”
He handed them two driver’s licenses, which had been printed up with pictures of Dominick and Pixie, but with the Cahill’s names on them.
“Here you go,” he said.
“These are real people, aren’t they?” Pixie said. “Or they were. You would need to send people that were actually on his guest list. You hacked your way into this man’s guest list, found people who more or less looked like us, and…”
She didn’t bother to finish her sentence. He’d killed them.
She stared at him, at the twin mirrors of his sunglasses which hid his strange dark eyes. She could see her angry face reflected back at her. “Do you ever wonder what Hell’s going to feel like?” she said coldly.
He threw back his head and laughed. “I won’t have to worry about that for a long, long time,” he said, a mirthless smile quirking his lips, and then he turned and strode away.
Don’t be too sure, Pixie thought, loathing flowing through her body.
* * *
Dominick’s arm was looped through Pixie’s as they walked up the marble steps of the McMansion monstrosity. Fluted columns soared three stories high, topped by a massive portico.
They’d been driven to a neighborhood close to the mansion, and then given a Mercedes to drive. The whole way there, they could see Ion’s men following them in several different cars, in case they tried to escape. They’d already decided not to, though; at this point, they might as well grab the ruby and see how everything played out. Dominick had removed the copper ring from his ankle as they drove, though, so he could shift whenever he needed to.
Their i.d.’s, checked at the mansion’s gate, had worked perfectly, and they’d driven to the large parking area where they surrendered their car to a valet.
Security was heavy, with muscular humans and shifters in suits wandering very conspicuously among the guests, scanning the crowd. They were surrounded by the rich and beautiful, Playa Linda’s elite who streamed into the mansion’s ballroom in a sea of perfumed, flawlessly coiffed humanity.
“I think I’m breaking out in hives,” Pixie said. “I’m allergic to rich stuck-up assholes. Oh wait, these are your people, aren’t they? Sorry.” She rolled her eyes.
Dominick laughed. “Money doesn’t have to turn you into a douche. My family is pretty down to earth. You’ll see when you meet them.”
“Why would I meet your family?” she asked, baffled.
Dominick didn’t get a chance to answer; he just nudged her and jerked his head in the direction of a silver-haired man in a custom tailored suit. There was a throng of people crowded around him, eagerly competing for his attention.
“Is that Ion?” Pixie asked, startled.
“No, it isn’t. It must be Craig Biltmore. And they must be brothers, and the name Craig is a fake as well.”
“Check out those sunglasses,” Pixie murmured.
“I am.” Dominick glanced at him quickly, then guided Pixie towards a table filled with hors deauvres.
“So they’re both into black magic.”
A string orchestra on a stage played classical music, and a massive crystal chandelier hung overhead. There were indeed jugglers, and men on unicycles, and fire eaters. The atmosphere was festive and the crowd was eating it up.
Dominick turned to a man who was standing nearby grabbing stuffed grape leaves.
“Do you know Mr. Biltmore?” he asked the man. “We were sort of invited by friends of friends.”
“Not really. Nobody really knows him that well.”
She glanced around. “I’ve got an idea,” she said to Dominick. “I’m going to go mingle. I’ll be back.”
Dominick nodded, walked up to the bar, and ordered a drink. He waited for Pixie and fended off the attention of half a dozen attractive women in low cut gowns who brushed up against him, giggling and batting their eyes.
Looking at the other women, he felt nothing. Nothing stirred in his loins, his pulse didn’t quicken. He felt annoyed. He felt impatient. He wanted Pixie to come back.
He began making his way through the crowd, scouting for her. Soon, the lights would be turning out, and they needed to be ready to flee.
Pixie was walking through the crowd, drawing the admiring glances of a leopard shifter in a tux. He felt his temper rising, and he strangled on a low, angry growl as Pixie pushed her way towards him. His fur itched underneath his skin, and his bones ached as he struggled to retain human form. She was his, and other men were looking at her. They wanted her. He should hurt them. Kill them.
She saw the look on his face when she reached him, and she put her hand on his arm. Instantly he felt himself calming down.
Pixie stood on her tiptoes, and whispered into his ear.
“You have nothing to worry about,” she said, her hand tightening on his bicep. “You’re the hottest guy here.”
“Well, that’s true.” Dominick felt a grin spread across his face, and sunlight bathed his soul. “I’m starting to feel better. I don’t know, though, I’m still kinda tempted to shift and rip out the throats of every man that’s looking at you. You’d better tell me more.”
Pixie stifled a snort of amusement. “Really? Okay, you big baby. You were the best sex I’ve ever had. I didn’t even think it was possible to have that many orgasms. And when I see all these bitches checking you out, I want to rip their faces off.” Pixie pressed up against him, and he felt warmth and contentment flowing through him.
“Really. I like it that you’re jealous of me.” He loved it, in fact. He wanted her to be territorial. He wanted her to want only him, and he wanted her to want him all to herself.
It was strange to think of the effect that she’d once had on him, the irritation that had pricked under his skin like burrs every time she walked in the room. Of course, it would happen again as soon as he donned the talisman.
Suddenly he found himself wishing he didn’t have to don the talisman again. He didn’t want to forget this feeling.
Maybe he wouldn’t. It had been three years. Maybe it was time for him to start living his life again, and to try to make a life with Pixie.
But was that wrong of him? Was it selfish? He’d already met his fated mate, so it couldn’t possibly be Pixie. That meant if they stayed together, he’d basically just be using her for sex. He cared about her too much to do that. In fact, he cared about her a whole lot. He wanted to stay friends with her after all of this was over – but who knew if that was even possible. Sex complicated things.
His head started to hurt. Why, of all the shifters in the world, did he have to be the one whose fated mate cheated on him?
His arm tightened around Pixie’s waist. Having her press up against him felt so good, so right, that he never wanted to let her go.
Pixie flashed him a grin.
“Listen. I’ve got good news,” she said. “When I went to use the restroom, I-”
Before she could finish her thought, Craig Biltmore slipped in through the throng of people standing around them, and tapped her shoulder.
“May I borrow your wife for a dance?” he asked, and before Dominick could say a word, the man had whirled Pixie away.
Dominick swallowed hard. He didn’t like it, didn’t want any other man touching Pixie, and especially not that man. He felt a darkness rippling around the man, the same kind of darkness that clung to Ion.
He had no choice, though. Pixie needed to get close to the man in order to take the jewel. Everything was going exactly according to plan.
Uneasy, he glanced up at the clock on the wall, and started movin
g towards the back of the ballroom to wait for the lights to go out.
Chapter Ten
“You dance divinely,” said the man whose name probably wasn’t Craig Biltmore.
Pixie doubted that very much; waltzing was not in her repertoire of skills.
His accent was very similar to Ion’s.
Pixie glanced across the room, and saw Dominick watching her, and she felt safer. She knew, somehow, that Dominick would die before he let anything happen to her.
“What is your real name?” he asked, as they slowly glided across the dance floor.
“Marie Cahill,” Pixie said uneasily. This wasn’t starting out well.
“Oh, I don’t think so. I’ve met Marie Cahill. You are lovely, but you look nothing like her.”
His hand still rested in the small of her back, his other hand holding hers up high as they spun and twirled.
Pixie tensed.
She waited for him to say something, but he just kept moving, graceful as a gliding swan, leading her along.
She stared at him, and he smiled and stopped dancing.
“Why haven’t you called your bodyguards, then?” she asked.
He ignored her question. “I assume that means my brother killed Marie and her husband. A pity, they were a lovely couple.” He didn’t sound particularly distressed. He sounded as if he was talking about having to cancel dinner plans, or some other event that ranked on the “mildly disappointing” scale.
Pixie felt queasy. These men who played with life and death, who played with people as if they were puppets, sickened her to her very core. “Who the hell are you people? And what is the matter with you?” she hissed
“Something that can’t be fixed, I’m afraid. I’d much rather talk about you. Tell me about your life. Are you happy?”
“Everything’s just peachy,” Pixie said coldly. “Couldn’t be better.”
“I’m glad to hear it. That lion shifter back there. He’s your fated mate, I see.”
“No, he isn’t.”
“Of course he is. I can see things, my dear, things that other people can’t see. I know he’ll treat you well. You’ll have beautiful children. You’ll have a long and happy life.”
For the first time, she heard real emotion in his voice, a strange yearning wistfulness.
“He isn’t,” she insisted. “He already met his fated mate, and she cheated on him. He swore never to be with another woman again.”
“Nonsense. That doesn’t happen with fated mates,” the man said. “There was some dark sorcery there. Believe me, I am an expert in such things.”
Pixie stared at him. None of this was going as planned, and nothing that he was saying made sense.
But then, he let go of her hand and reached around his neck, fishing under his collar. He pulled off a golden chain with an enormous red ruby attached to it, and dropped it into her hand.
“I assume that my brother sent you here to steal the Bloodstone,” he said. “And here it is. Did he tell you why you were the only one who could take it from me?”
“No,” Pixie said, startled. She stared at the prize in her hand. Could it truly be this easy?
“Of course he didn’t,” Craig said, and then the room went dark.
There were shouts of dismay, and calls for calm. People pulled out their cell phones to use them as mini flash-lights. The fire-eaters’ torches gave off an eerie red glow.
Pixie ducked and ran, the ruby clenched in her hand.
She tripped over someone, scrambled to her feet, made it to the door, and Dominick grabbed her arm. Shifters had excellent night vision, even when they were in human form.
With Dominick guiding her, they pushed their way down the hallway, through the kitchen, and out the back, with no problem.
It had all gone much too smoothly. It made Pixie nervous when things went this smoothly. “Craig just gave me the necklace,” she told Dominick. “I swear I felt like he knew I’d be here. How?”
There were dozens of people pouring out the back door, and they were swept up in the tide of humanity. Half a dozen catering vans sat at the back door. Nobody was paying attention to them.
The catering van was waiting exactly where Ion had said it would be, in a large paved lot directly outside the kitchen door. None of Craig’s men seemed to have followed her. Then again, why would they? He’d handed the necklace to her.
The back door to the back of the van swung open as they approached. Ion was in there, with half a dozen armed men. Still wearing those glasses; how could he see in the dark with those things? Pixie wondered.
He gestured at them impatiently.
“Get in!” he snarled.
Pixie and Dominick stopped, a dozen feet from the back of the van. “Give us the antidote, and I’ll give you this,” she said, holding up the jewel in her hand. “Throw it to me.”
Ion’s face contorted, and he lunged forward, reaching out with a claw-like hand. “Give it to me! Give it to me now!”
Before Pixie could say anything else, they were surrounded by more bodyguards who slipped from the shadows, pointing guns at them. Ion wasn’t leaving anything to chance.
Party goers, spotting the guns, screamed and scattered.
The guards jabbed at Pixie and Dominick with their semi-automatics, and hustled them into the back of the van.
The van shot out of the parking lot, screeching onto the road. He lunged at Pixie and grabbed the jewel from her hand.
The second he had it in his hand, his face flushed dark red with rage.
“You think this is funny?” he demanded.
“What are you talking about? That’s the jewel you wanted,” Pixie protested.
“It’s a fake! Your friends are going to burn and die!” he raged.
As he spoke, the jewel cracked open, and a scroll of paper rolled out. He read it quickly, then threw the fake jewel to the ground, screaming and swearing.
“I’ll kill you!” he raged at Pixie. “You’ll die like your mother did, you bitch! You’ll die screaming!”
Pixie’s mother had gone into a coma when her liver failed, and died in a hospital bed. What was he talking about?
Dominick let out a warning grown, and fur rippled on his face. “Touch her, and you die,” he snarled, moving in front of Ion.
Before Ion could do anything, Pixie heard the sound of screeching tires and honking horns coming from all around them outside the van, and then they slowed to a halt.
“What are you doing?” Ion bellowed. His face was purple with rage. His sunglasses had fallen off, and his face was contorted with fury. He barely looked human. “Don’t stop, you fools! I’ll kill you!”
“Sir, we’re boxed in!” one of the men yelled from the front.
Pixie could hear men running towards the van, and then a pounding on the van’s rear door, and then the sound of metal tearing. The rear door was yanked open. Dominick chose that moment to shift, and as Ion’s men pointed their guns at the group of armed men who had pulled the door open, he pounced.
There was screaming, and the spray of hot blood, and then Pixie and Dominick fell out of the van onto the ground. They were about twenty blocks away from the mansion now, in one of the wealthier neighborhoods of Playa Linda.
Pixie landed on top of Dominick, in his massive lion form. He still had his jaws clamped on the head of one of the guards, who was gurgling his last breath.
Ion had scrambled towards the front of the van. His bodyguards moved in front of him. The door to the van was pulled shut. Sirens were wailing, and the cars which had boxed in the van took off, scattering in traffic. The catering van took off too.
Dominick shifted back into human form and stood there naked, wiping blood from his face. The guard lay silent at his feet, in a spreading pool of blood, and the air smelled like copper. Pixie struggled not to retch.
“Are you all right?” he asked Pixie.
“I’m fine. We don’t have the antidote, though. Damn it to hell. What are we going to do? They don’
t have much time left!” As she spoke, Pixie took off the blue wrap she had slung around her shoulders and handed it to Dominick, who wrapped it around his waist like a sarong.
“Your friend Anastasia might come through for us. By the way, I recognized some of those guys who saved us,” Dominick said. “They were the security who worked for Craig. He sent his guards after us, to save us. Why?”
“I don’t know, but I do know why he stole that jewel from his brother,” Pixie said. “Apparently all this is a shakedown over money. I palmed the note and read it really quick when he wasn’t looking. The note told Ion that in exchange for the ruby, he wants a hundred million dollars and the deeds to all of their property. He told Ion he wants to meet with him tomorrow, but he didn’t say where. He said he’d be in touch. I guess he likes to play the same games as his brother.”
A car pulled up next to them, and Fraser stuck his head out of the window. He had three of his goons with him.
“Get in!” he yelled.
Pixie and Dominick quickly scrambled into the back seat.
“Nice loincloth, lover boy,” Fraser said. “And Pixie, you clean up real nice.”
“Don’t push your luck,” Dominick snapped. “How did you find us?”
“Oh, that was me,” Pixie said. “What I was going to tell you, right before Craig asked me to dance, was that when I went to the restroom, I stole someone’s cell phone. I called Tyler and gave him our location and told him Ion’s plans, and put the phone back before she even noticed it was gone.”
“You returned it? Pixie, are you a reformed thief?” Dominick asked in mock astonishment.
Pixie punched his arm. “Reformed? You take that back, you bastard.”
“I’ve got some good news, in case anyone cares, “ Fraser said. “Anastasia’s waiting for us back at the warehouse. She says that they caught the guy who created the virus. That means they’ll be able to make the antidote.”
“Oh, thank God,” Pixie said fervently. “Because Ion screwed us over and didn’t give us the antidote, if he ever even planned to. That bastard.”
Then she flopped back in her seat. “We still have a ton of questions. What did he mean when he said my mother died screaming? She died in a coma, and how would he even know anything about my mother? And why does he want that particular ruby so badly?”
Pixie the Lion Tamer Page 6
