Chapter 7
Before my brain could digest that rusty nail in my coffin, I spied a tall woman approaching the SUV, her lustrous black hair raining down her back. Decked in black from her neck to her heels, she wore glossy, spike-heeled boots I’d sell my cats to own. Her porn queen chest filled out a skintight turtleneck sweater. Raspberry lipstick with matching fake claws completed the panther in heels.
Adam and Ronan swiveled to check her out. The early thirty-something Queen of Darkness parked her stilettos a few feet from the front passenger door. Her beckoning eyes twinkled so brilliantly under the fluorescent lights, her eyes appeared to shoot sparkling emerald icicles.
“You guys know her?”
Ronan drew his gun, his caustic aural energy spearing the air. “Melisande Aguire, my father’s right hand and number one tracker.” Without moving his sight off her, he pulled a silencer from his coat pocket.
The woman teased her tongue over her bottom lip, causing Ronan’s faltering energy to shift to sexual anticipation. I don’t know how I knew that, but I did and wished bleach ran through my blood to wash the sensation away. The witchy bitch probed the cab in his general direction, hunger brightening her eyes into emerald jewels.
“Ronan?” I gripped my necklace. “You’ve hooked-up with her, haven’t you?”
“Shit, Aria.” He fumbled, dropping the silencer on the floorboard.
“If you’ve had a relationship, it makes a helluva difference how this goes down.” I nudged Fin’s front paws off my leg before I knocked her over in my frustration. “She obviously knows how to push your buttons. Is she a Forbidden sorcerer too?”
Ronan slammed the glove box shut. “No. She used me, played me against my father.” His scowl deepened, his voice rasped. “She has some freakass coercion ESP, almost telekinetic, but she’s not Forbidden. Last I heard my father was doing her.”
Where’s that ear bleach when you need it? “Can you knock her out if it comes down to it?”
With careful deliberation, he flicked the safety off his gun, cocked the hammer. Answer enough.
“Well, alrighty then.” I dusted his shoulder with my palm. “It’s crunch time.” When I snagged a spare moment to think, I might detest myself from the murderous hell I’d landed in. “Is she capable of enthralling me?”
“Anyone.” His emotionless voice spooked me stiff. “It’s easier if a prior relationship exists. She can leverage off what she knows of you, your weaknesses.” He punched the dash, a dull thud in the aura storm brewing. “Asshole father. He figured out I came after you, and he knows what she can do to me. He wants to make sure I return and bring back the prize.”
Aka, moi. The five-million-dollar prize of three centuries.
“Obviously he knows you’re working against him now.” I fiddled with my stun gun’s safety catch, restraining the urge to blast her down a notch. Ronan gave a too sharp emphatic shake of his head. A warning went off in my brain. He held more secrets than Dominion Research’s closet vault of Forbidden Thirteen trade secrets.
Adam turned up the air conditioner. “Let’s find out what she knows.”
Sweat dripped down Ronan’s temples. The acrid smell of his turmoil filled the interior, his tension scraping the edges of my aura.
“I can’t go out there.”
“Avoid her eyes, man. She can’t be that good.” Adam dipped his head in case she was able to see through the dark window tint, even though it appeared impenetrable.
Ronan landed a mad dog look on Adam. “She is that good, especially when my telekinesis is screwed up.”
“Geez, do I have to bang down the double-D witch myself?” I made as if to open the door.
Ronan lunged between the center console and pinned me against the back seat, practically knocking the wind out of me. Poor Fin got shoved to the floor where she yelped and scrambled to steady her legs.
“Ronan, I know you’re in there.” Melisande’s low, sultry contralto carried on a current of air inside the cab. “I take it you have the psychic? Let’s have a little talk before you do anything with her.” She smoothed her hand down her pancake flat stomach. Skinny, sparkly bitch.
“Don’t be a total moron. I wasn’t getting out,” I whispered fiercely and shouldered Ronan’s hands off me.
A vein pulsed in his neck. “Get down behind the seat before she looks through the windshield. Don’t look into her eyes.” A palette of dread, anger, and bewilderment mottled his face.
“Okay. Okay.” I wiped a rivulet of sweat off his face before it plopped onto my pants. My fingers lingered on his cheek. His sick aura kicked into gear at my touch, but it wasn’t the stinging sensation of before. This trail of power sought aid from mine. The scared, sensual mix warming my center of power startled me. I snatched my hand back, my lashes twitching rapidly. Surely, I must have misinterpreted the sensation. Ronan attracted to me? Put the crazy back in your cuckoo clock, Aria Elle.
Melisande poured herself over the front fender in a seductive pose. She scrutinized her smooth, flawless face in a compact mirror and patted powder on her button nose, slowly sweeping her tongue over her collagen plump lips.
“Aria?” Ronan croaked out.
“Whatever. Um…you can back off. I’m not going anywhere.” Except down a deep, dark hole. No hole in sight, I dipped behind the headrest. “Oh!” An idea flowered, the thought cooling my untimely passion.
Excitement fluttered in my chest. “I can trip Ronan’s brain to resist her when he steps out. Then I’ll stun her brain to sleep,” I said in a loud whisper. They ogled me as if I’d fallen into a vat of crazy. “What? It’ll work. We’ll figure out what to do after she conks out.”
“Won’t work.” Ronan wiped the sweat off his forehead. “You can’t split off your telekinesis to resist her and knock her out at the same time.”
“Get real.” My scoffing became an evil grin. “Who do you think’s been dumping ice on your prick and preventing the witch from skipping to the front of the SUV? At the same time, I might add.” By absorbing extra energy from around me, I can use my telekinetic receptors to hinder someone else’s actions and also knock another out. Without absorbing the energy, I was pretty limited to one action. Holy hell! Was I a descendant of a Forbidden sorcerer or what?
Scarlet embarrassment painted Ronan’s face. “You can invoke two telekinetic spells at once?” He squirmed in his seat.
I gave a start in surprise. “Can’t you?”
“No.” Swiping a hand across the back of his neck, he asked hesitantly, “How many can you?”
I thought back to a bullying incident when I was ten. Those three brats deserved my smackdown for taunting my best friend just because she was a little on the hefty side. I speedily chased the disturbing episode away for a snow day in hell. It was the first time my telekinesis had split off into three targets. “Three, maybe. I might need to connect to your aura for an extra boost of energy.” If my unluck didn’t plunk a jinx on my luck, that is. Even with Ronan and Adam’s tainted aura thrown into the mix, I shouldn’t have a problem with two spells. I hoped. I nibbled on the inside of my mouth. Hell, I’ll just pull energy off the Queen of Darkness. “Or I’ll just stun her.” I patted my pocket with my trusty stun gun.
Defiance tightened Ronan’s square jaw. “You negate me. I have no power with you around. What little I have is nearly dead.”
My eyes prepared to roll before I put the skids on them. “I can still use your faulty aura to pull energy from, or even hers. Leave the rest to me.”
“Ronan, come out to play.” Melisande’s purring voice seemed to filter from the speakers. “If you’ve got the psychic in there, I can help you with her. First, I want to chat.”
Ronan’s psyche responded to her false allure, his desire palpable in the air around us.
“Dude, rein in your horses.” I slapped another dampener on his mind. “She’s too old for you.”
“Uh, yeah, thanks.” His voice mimicked the crackling of a pre-pubescent teen. He not so fur
tively adjusted the crotch of his pants.
“Can we get on with this? Remember my kidnapped friend, Zoe?” My pitch intensified with my irritability.
“It’ll have to work.” Adam reclined his seat and faced the driver’s door.
“Aria, get on the floor. I don’t want her locking eyes with either of you,” Ronan barked out in a loud whisper.
The moment I dropped down, Fin planted a soppy slurp on my chin, her energy filling me with warm and fuzzies. I patted her and peeked around the seat to glue my sight on Melisande, avoiding her weird, overly bright eyes. Time to get it on before she licked the collagen out of her lips.
Adam merged his aura with mine, expanding our natural fusion, leaving the mix warm and inviting. I hardly noticed his taint as my cleansing aura stole the limelight from him. He almost didn’t have to worry about hiding from the witchy bitch since his entire body wavered in and out of visibility. Guess his body couldn’t choose a side: human or fae, life…or death. I gulped down a lump of air lodged in my throat.
Ronan opened the door and Melisande’s over-sexed enchantment collided with our combined forces. A gasp escaped her, and I suppressed an urge to gloat.
Ronan left the door slightly ajar, standing just outside it. “What the hell are you doing here, Mel?”
“Ronan, love.” She tried to sprinkle holes of bitchcraft magic in our aural shield. We hung tough, and I intangibly spackled the holes as fast as she created them. “Richard doesn’t want you involved in the capture of the Walker girl. You were to remain at the compound. Now it’s my duty to take you in with the girl. If you got her, that is. But maybe we can make a deal?”
“What else does he know?” Hostility poured from Ronan’s tone. Yet fear, in a mix of sweat, spice, and leather wafted off him. Come on. Man up, man.
Melisande’s ESP strained against ours. “You resist me.” A raspy laugh followed. “I taught you too well of my charms.”
“Cut the crap. Why’re you really here?”
“For you. What else?” Another gag-me laugh. “Do you think I’d stoop so low as to play bounty hunter for some idiotic psychic?”
I bristled and readied a knockout spell. Keep talking, witch hag. Maybe you’ll say something intelligent.
“Aria,” Adam cautioned. “Not yet.”
Cramps were tightening my calves as I squatted on the floor, peeking out a corner of the back window.
“Give me a fucking break. You’re Dad’s number one hit man. Did you tell him I was here?”
“I considered calling him after detecting your bio-footprint in the girl’s condo.”
She stepped closer to Ronan, her spiky heels clicking on the tarmac. Her nearness fenced in our combined auras, but she couldn’t penetrate the shield even if the proctologist freed her magic.
“I’m giving you a break.” She uttered an uneasy, silvery laugh.
“What’s your deal, Mel?”
“I’m on your side. Don’t be so hostile.”
“Prove it. What hand can you play in this game?” he asked. “You’re holding shit without Richard Riley backing your ass.”
“We can be a force, you and I.” She paused, held out her arm, her black bag sliding off her shoulder to her wrist. “Take my tablet out.”
“Why? What’s on it?” Wariness laced his words.
“What proof will sway you to my side?” she taunted him.
“The Illuminaria.” I celebrated Ronan’s sneering voice.
Our merger began breaking, and I faltered, allowing holes to form. “We need to speed it up,” I whispered.
Adam held up a finger. One minute to Catwoman blastoff.
“Then I guess we just sealed the deal.” Melisande’s husky voice crawled evil over my scalp, lifting the hairs by the roots. “I want you, Ronan. You’re the power force, not your father. He’s a useless old man relying on his son. You and I could destroy him, take over his mission. Check the tablet. Your idiot father scanned the translation into electronic format.”
“And encrypted it to hell.”
“And I broke his encryption,” her voice slid to a conspiratorial hush.
Stunned, I peeked over the headrest. Melisande caressed his arm with one hand, her other stuck inside her purse. She kept flicking her eyes toward the driver’s seat. I strengthened my spell, helping Ronan cope easier. Adam nodded, giving me the signal.
My left pinkie twitched, then my right. A little late for that, you think? I concentrated on wielding two separate threads of energy. Just as I was about to toss my mental knockout spell at her, a gunshot shattered the air, booming through my chest as if the bullet struck me. From the shadows of the garage to the right, a second shot chased the first.
Melisande screamed a shallow gurgling noise. A shot knocked Ronan against the fender. Grunting, he clutched his left shoulder. Strangled screams rolled up my throat. Fin’s mournful howling joined the din. The blast punched our aura, moved over me in a red haze, shooting fiery arrows into my cramped leg muscles. I rose from my elevated crouch and latched onto Adam’s shoulder. He said something, but I didn’t understand him, all my senses riveted on the scene outside. Terror seized my heart, left my aura quivering around me.
A dark stain spread across the upper sleeve of Ronan’s black T-shirt. Melisande tottered on her spike heels, and I saw the point of impact, a gelatinous mass on the side of her head, soaking her long, midnight hair. I gagged and quickly looked down. She fell toward Ronan, her limp form slithering down his arm to the ground in a blot of ink. The last of her nine lives streamed down the side of her head into a darkening puddle where her black-clad body and the tarmac morphed into one.
Pain speared my head and my knockout spell went wild. My thread of energy sped toward the source of danger hiding in the shadows. Uncontrollable brain waves leached out of me, leaving me shuddering from the force. A gargled yell echoed in the garage and a body thudded onto a car near us. The memory of last night’s deathblow resurfaced, and I shielded my mind, cutting off my telekinetic waves.
I scrambled over the back seat to the door on the right, dropping my stunner and bumping Fin onto the floorboards. My heart seemed to stop beating. Gasping, I flung open the door and launched off the seat. My right foot landed on Melisande’s open hand. Her rings crunched into the asphalt, the sound of bones creaking renewing the turmoil in my full stomach. I hopped to the right, wanting to dunk my foot in that mystical bleach to rinse the feel of her death away.
Ronan leaned against the fender, holding his wounded arm tight to his side. Blood drained from his face, pain mirrored in his eyes. All thoughts and emotions escaped me. Only one thing mattered. I stepped over Melisande’s prone body toward the man who’d saved me last night. The one who mattered.
“Get in the car.” Adam jogged toward us, surveying the area for shooters.
I clasped Ronan in my arms, anchored down by his weight. Lines etched his forehead, his eyes glazed over.
“You okay?” I struggled against his weight, not taking stock of the weird ache in my chest.
“Yeah,” he ground out. “Get me into the seat.” Before we moved a step, he bent double and pulled the black purse off Melisande’s arm.
I helped him into the vehicle. Adam hefted Melisande up and carried her like a giant sack of cat litter between two other hulking SUVs.
“The bullet didn’t penetrate.” Ronan gritted his teeth, hoisted his legs onto the floorboard.
Warm blood soaked his sleeve. The coppery tang filled my nostrils, invoking gruesome memories of last night. Gently, I probed his bloodied arm, patting it with a stack of napkins he’d handed me from the glove box. I breathed in deep to steady my frantic heart.
I assessed the damage, gently plucking the T-shirt from his skin. As it rasped over the open wound, Ronan mumbled a string of blue curses. He had an ugly gash and it needed stitches. Even though the bullet only grazed him, it had to hurt like a mother. I offered him a bleak smile, until I looked at my rusty-red, tacky fingers holding pressure to st
em the flow of blood. My smile disappeared.
Ronan placed his hand over mine. “You’re alright in a crisis.”
Another one of those jolts of warmth weakened my knees. Before I could make fairy heads or dragon tails of what it meant, Adam raced back to the SUV.
“We’re on the move.” He shoved the doors shut, then bolted to the driver’s side.
Ronan twisted into the front seat, his hand replacing mine on his wound. I climbed in, left with no choice but to straddle his legs. I had doctoring to do, didn’t I?
I’d barely seated myself on Ronan’s lap, our faces inches apart, when Adam slammed the vehicle in reverse. Ronan’s arm encircled my waist to keep me from knocking myself comatose against the dash. I managed to press on the wad of napkins without causing him a world of hurt.
“Where’s Melisande?” Ronan shifted to give my knees better purchase, one knee between his legs, the other on the side of the seat. Any other time and a girl could love that.
The tires squealed out of the garage as Adam sped deeper into the rear of the casino complex. “Dead. Sorry, man.”
Ronan’s aura spiked, settled. “Who shot at us?”
“Guy wore a Celtic sword pendant. Probably one of your father’s bounty hunters.”
The knot in my stomach reformed. I touched Adam’s arm. “Did you kill him?”
He kept his focus forward, his mouth compressed. “Didn’t need to.”
The knot unraveled into a pool of acid. “He’s dead?”
Adam nodded. Ronan gently squeezed my waist, more solace than support.
“My energy went wild. I didn’t mean to do it.” My free hand spasmed and I pressed it to my gut. What the hell was I?
I focused on the immediate situation before I ran screaming for the loony bin. What had Melisande done to incur such murderous intent not just from Ronan but from her peers, if you could call bounty hunters peers? “Ronan, what did she do to you?”
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