by Sharon Kay
She stopped at a red light and plugged her iPod into the car’s sound system, needing her favorite pounding eighties rock. She turned up the heat and rubbed her hands together. Every muscle felt like jello from the triple punch of fear, shock, and confusion.
Her arms trembled and she flexed her hands on the steering wheel. She pictured Mathias’s warm hazel eyes that melted her with one glance, and the way he moved. Strong but light on his feet, like a panther. Her gaze dropped to the parka she wore, which suddenly seemed too hot. She didn’t have her nicer coat, since it was still at the theatre—
Shit! The show. Voo de Dragao. He said he’d seen the troupe in Brazil. Had he known it had a fire act? Did he know about her? Did Ria? Oh God. She breathed out an audible sigh, rocking forward in her seat. This can’t be happening.
A honk sounded from behind her and she looked up to see the light had changed. She gulped a deep breath and hit the gas, guiding the car toward the entrance to the interstate.
On the ramp she pressed the gas pedal down, every cell urging her to flee. I can help people. I can do good things in the world. Why can’t everyone leave me alone? In the past three months her sisters had pressured her to use her fire power, and now demons were at her door. I don’t care. I’m not part of their world!
Flying past corn fields lying dormant in the cold, her shock morphed into anger. She and Ria had instantly bonded over their favorite books, music, and hot celebrity bad boys. Had it been an act? She had thought of Ria almost as another sister. Wait! Does Ria know my sisters? Does she know about their talents?
Gin’s heart rate sped up as a new wave of confusion washed over her. If Ria knew about her curse, why hadn’t she said anything in all this time? The demons in Chicago were falling all over themselves to help Nicole and Brooke with their skills.
Then realization slammed into her. Skills, or curse. Yeah that’s why Ria hadn’t said anything. I wouldn’t listen if she did.
A frisson of possibility sparked in her heart, attempting to soften the raw edge of her hurt. Maybe Nicole and Brooke had asked Ria and Mathias to protect her? But that would mean they had this all planned out.
And those guys with the tails…had they known they were coming? No. Not a chance. She clung to the knowledge that her sisters would do whatever they could to keep her safe. And that’s exactly what Ria and Mathias had done.
Mathias…Gin thumped the steering wheel with her fist. He’d come waltzing in, looking sexy as sin. Ria’d been around for months, but why him? Why now? He’d seduced her and she’d willingly fallen for it, entranced by everything about him. Anguish and rage exploded in her mind. “Asshole!” she shouted to a green sign announcing the exit to a connecting highway.
Had all his words been lies? That he had a boisterous, happy family? Not that it mattered now. She didn’t plan to see him again. And if he showed up she’d…
I’d what? What could she do to a man who had cut down four or five demons in as many minutes? She’d known he had muscles. She’d felt them under his shirt that first night when they’d danced. And again, when he’d loved her so thoroughly in her apartment.
She gulped a deep breath, trying to regulate her breathing. I was so stupid. He was playing me. But why? The question plagued her.
Ministry’s “Revenge” blasted from her speakers and she turned the volume up. Al Jourgensen’s vocals echoed exactly how she felt. She didn’t have time for an ass like Mathias. And she certainly didn’t care how he felt. Maybe the why of it would stay under her skin, but she’d learn to deal with it. Preferably from far away. The other side of the world would maybe, just maybe, be far enough.
CHAPTER 21
“FUCKING SHIT!” MATHIAS RAKED A hand through his hair as Gin’s car sped away.
“I put a tracking device on her car. There’s also one on her phone. We’ll always know where she is.” Ria propped her hands on her hips. “We can give her a two minute head start. I’ve never seen her that mad.”
Mathias glared at the sky. He’d fucked up and they both knew it. Pissing off the woman he was supposed to win over was a huge mistake. Not that he’d never pissed off a female before, but his life centered on the job. It had to, when he was the one Watcher who could always locate his objective. Arawn counted on him. If some woman developed feelings for Mathias, that was her problem. He did what he needed to complete his assignment. And Gin was his job, so why did he feel like such an asshole?
Because she’s not just a job. She never was. The words hammered, staccato-style, straight from his heart.
He turned to his car. “I don’t care how mad she is. We need to catch up.”
“Agreed. And we will. But if she sees us in her rearview mirror, she might freak out about us chasing her and get into an accident or something. We don’t know how fast she heals. And since we have your super-sniffer, she can’t get far.” Ria broke into his thoughts, eyeing him critically. “You okay?”
He shook his head. “Sure.” No, he was fucking not okay. His limbs were heavy with the feeling that he couldn’t undo his actions, and his chest ached with regret that he couldn’t take back his choices. He wanted to race after her and make her listen to his explanation. Fuck, his apology. But he knew on an instinctive level that no apology would be enough. Not now.
“Okay, well that’s a mixed signal if I ever saw one,” Ria drawled with eyebrows raised. “I’ll clean up. Give me thirty seconds.” She summoned a ball of demonfire and tossed it at the last Deserati that had gone down. After the flames consumed him, the parking lot was left with eight dark piles of ash. Whirling into a spin, she built up speed and maintained it, ensuring the ashes had all blown away.
She stopped and leaned to one side, threading a hand through her hair. A last sliver of glass fell out, landing with a delicate clink. Straightening, she looked at the vehicle with the broken windshield. “One more thing.” She slid into her car, rummaged around and emerged with a scrap of paper, then ran over to tuck it between one windshield wiper and a portion of intact glass.
“Let’s go.” Mathias jogged toward his SUV.
Ria hopped in on the passenger side and pulled out both her gem phone and cell phone. “I can track her with either of these.” She touched the screen of her cellphone. “There she is. Heading north on I-57.”
“Think she’s going home?”
“To her sisters? That’s one possibility.” Ria shrugged. “She has a few friends in the same area. She may want to stay with them.”
“But I thought she, Nicole, and Brooke are inseparable.”
“Yeah, but when she gets really pissed, she needs her space. She may not want to be around her sisters right now. Especially if she thinks they know us. Or about us being here with her.”
“Fuck.” Mathias steered the Tahoe onto the interstate. His stomach felt like a lead weight had settled there. Like he’d let down the one person that he never in a million years should’ve let down.
“If it makes you feel better, I think she’s just as mad at me as she is at you.”
“Thanks.” He frowned. “Doesn’t help.”
“I know. I feel like the world’s biggest bitch right now.”
“You were doing your job. And doing it damn well from what I could see. Arawn thinks so too.”
“Yeah well, he doesn’t know about this latest development.” She rolled her lips together and released them with a pop. “How about we don’t tell Mr. Grumpy just yet?”
“Fine with me. But we do need to let him know eventually.”
“I know.” She blew out a breath and looked at her phone again. “She’s still headed north.”
He nodded. How had this gone so FUBAR in a matter of minutes? His mind wandered back to this morning, waking up next to her. So damn soft and sexy.
“I’m calling her.” Ria twirled a curly blond lock around one finger and dialed her phone with her other hand. “Her phone goes straight to voice mail. What do you want to tell her when we find her?”
“First
we need to find her.”
“Agreed, but she’ll demand answers. That’s if she’s speaking to us.”
“Fine. It’s time to tell her everything she wants to know. And the stuff she doesn’t.” He’d fucked up. He needed to make this right. And he still needed to get her to see how vital she was to the entire world.
Too bad she no doubt meant what she said. She never wanted him to speak to her again.
Gin focused on her breathing as she drove, willing herself to calm down but at the same time feeling like that was impossible. She turned down the heat. Her anger was doing that job just fine.
Mathias. Ria. God, why had this all happened? The passing mile markers offered comfort, clearly measuring the space between her and them. Each ticking number helped her relax a fraction more. And once she got on that plane, she’d feel even better.
Clouds rolled overhead, covering the blue in mountainous blankets of gray. Perfect. No more brightness. Just like her mood. The Violent Femmes’ “Kiss Off” popped up on shuffle, and she nodded. “Damn right. Everyone just stay the hell out of my way.”
A small orange light flashed on next to her speedometer. Crap. She always lost track of how much gas was in the tank, since she usually only drove around town. Now she’d been on the road for an hour. She was lucky she’d made it this far. Luckily, central Illinois was dotted with enough small towns that you never had to go too far to get to a gas station.
A green sign loomed from the side of the road, announcing a small town one mile away. She slowed to exit and drove down a two-lane road to a small gas station. A car was parked at one pump, so she pulled up next to the other one and checked her phone before she got out. She had six missed calls. Two each from Brooke and Nicole, one from Ria and one from Mathias. She shook her head and shoved her phone back into her purse. Not in the mood to talk.
She grabbed her iPod and headphones, needing music to push her distressed thoughts away. Hopping out, she stretched, her muscles uncurling deliciously from the car’s cramped confines. She popped the nozzle into her tank and watched the numbers crawl on the display. Slowest pump ever. She didn’t know if it was the cold, or if it was this tiny station’s craptastic pumping machines.
Whatever. No need to rush anymore. She had to have put enough distance between her and Ria and Mathias. They might try to follow her, but they wouldn’t know where she was. And soon she’d be in New York.
Her iPod started playing an eighties Christmas song. She shook her head, not knowing where she would spend Christmas this year. If it was going to be with her sisters, they had a lot of explaining to do.
“Come on,” she muttered to the pump that seemed like it could only operate at the pace of a turtle. Tick, tick, tick. The digits all resembled the number eight, the display affected by the frigid air.
With a thunk, the gas flow shut off. She shoved the nozzle back in place and turned to go into the store. Need coffee. Chocolate too, after this day.
The song ended and a new one began. Oh no, not that one. She stopped in the middle of the lot, digging in her pocket for her iPod. With cold clumsy fingers she pressed a button, any button so that she wouldn’t hear that song. The song that played on repeat when she and Mathias had been in her kitchen, his lips and tongue teasing her…She ended up hitting pause instead of skip, but that was fine. Too damn cold to mess around with it. She jogged into the store.
Xavier’s cell phone chimed from his pocket, and he walked to the back of the gas station’s mini mart before checking it. He stopped in front of an obnoxiously brightly colored drink machine. At least it was warm in here. His leather duster didn’t do much to block the cold. He’d rather be in the southern region of Torth, where it was balmy all the time.
Soon. Elegia’s plan was in motion. He’d have a high position in her ranks and knew the exact location he would request for his home base. A lush peninsula called Tarsa.
He pulled out his phone. It was a text message from his hotel, confirming his reservation for today. Good. There weren’t that many hotels here. Not like in the densely packed suburbs where he’d started this assignment.
He eyed the drink options with distaste. Humans put some truly awful liquid concoctions in their bodies. He smirked and shook his head. They’re not afraid to drink dozens of chemicals they can’t pronounce, yet the sight of my tail would terrify them. No wonder Elegia said Earth was teeming with mindless beings.
Deciding on coffee as the least offensive option, he reached for a cup. The front door swung open. Xavier froze with his hand mid-air.
Fae. Her scent swirled, carried through the tiny store on a cold draft. He’d encountered none since he’d arrived. What was a fae doing here, in the middle of nowhere?
But something was off about her scent. He couldn’t place it. Not a nymph or fairy. He peered around a display of snacks, his eyes zeroing in on the female standing at the cash register. Medium height, brunette, nothing special that he could see.
He pulled out his gem phone and activated the energy recognition program. This function had a data base of hundreds of species, cataloged by smell, appearance, or magical ability. He could also simply hold it up and ask it to discern her race.
He stepped closer, pretending to decide between items on a shelf, and held up his phone as if taking a photo. It only required a few seconds to gage a given creature.
She turned and walked toward him.
Shit. He moved his phone down, eyes glued to the screen as if it was the most interesting thing in the world, but he studied her with his peripheral vision. He wanted to be unobtrusive, at least until he could glean more information about her.
Grabbing a bag of candy, she beelined straight for him, stopping two feet away. “Excuse me,” she said politely, picking the top coffee cup from a stack next to the machine. She filled her cup, releasing the aroma of fresh coffee, and didn’t spare him a second glance.
She should be able to scent him. But he’d seen no flare of her nostrils, no widening of her eyes, nothing to acknowledge she was standing next to a predator. He scowled at his phone. It hadn’t given a reading on her. This was taking too long. What the fuck?
Numbers and text raced across the screen as the phone assessed the female. It didn’t stop on any one category. Was it having trouble recognizing her? He frowned. That had never happened before. Suddenly his screen went blank, then three words flashed. “No known results.”
No results? He stared at her as she walked to the register. How could his phone not recognize her? She was clearly not human. Though the man behind the counter didn’t seem perturbed. He was grinning at her like a puppy dog. They exchanged polite banter for a minute, then she turned around and started toward the door.
Xavier set his coffee and a few dollars on the counter and walked toward her. Reaching the door before her, he held it open. “Allow me.”
She was pretty, but she didn’t have any specific features that stood out to Xavier. With her boring clothing and earbuds, she looked human. But his instincts warned that she was anything but.
“Thank you,” she murmured as she passed him.
He stepped aside and inhaled. Cinnamon and orange. That wasn’t specific to any race.
He stared at her retreating form and waited until she had walked a few yards from the building. He followed behind, as she was parked conveniently near his car. Closing the distance between them to get into her personal space, he growled, “What’s your business here, fae?”
She whirled, eyes wide.
Only then did he notice what lurked in them. Huge and green, they held…fire? It wasn’t a glow like the Lash demons gave off. This was more of a flickering within. What the hell?
“What did you call me?” Her voice was high, laced with equal doses of surprise and panic.
“You heard me.” He stared down at her. She wasn’t tall or short, just a medium height. She was the perfect person to blend in anywhere she was needed. “What type of fae are you?”
She took a step back
. “Look, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what you’re talking about. You must have me confused with someone else, so I’m just going to be on my way.”
He reached for her, grabbing her arm in a fluid motion. “I asked you a simple question. You’re not going anywhere until you answer it.” He tightened his grip. “What are you? My gem phone didn’t recognize you.”
“Your gem what? Let me go!” Her green eyes danced with panic, and those flames…
Xavier’s decision formed with a stab of clarity. He would take her. He could use some female company, and she didn’t seem like she’d challenge him. He didn’t know what she was, but Elegia might. And if she was obstinate, Elegia could dose her with the lily extract. That’s what would happen to her anyway if she stayed here on Earth. “I’m tired of waiting. Let’s go.” He jerked her arm close, pulling her against his side. His tail was hidden at the moment, but he would use it if he needed to.
“No!” She tried to move away. A pink object fell from her hand and clattered to the pavement. Some stupid electronic gadget that humans loved. With a wild look, she glanced around the small station, deserted except for them.
“We’re going to get in my car. Or we can just leave for Torth right here.”
Terror flared in her eyes. “Torth?” Her voice came out in a whisper. “No!” She raised her knee toward his groin, but he anticipated it and turned her so that her back was against his chest.
With his free hand, he retrieved a transportation amulet from his pocket. She flailed and struggled, but he was stronger. Speaking in Demonish, he uttered the words that would open a portal.
A shimmering ring appeared in the air in front of them, about six feet in diameter. It wavered in the cold air, iridescent waves skating across its surface.
“No! I’m not going!” she shrieked. She kicked his shins with her heels in an attempt to free herself.
