Nothing, nothing, nothing. No sign of Ian Lewis at his apartment or any sign he’d been there in the last couple of months, possibly longer. Certainly since Emma’s death in London. Jet knew that the majority of investigative time brought dead ends, but this was all the more frustrating because he’d left Delphi to hunt evil.
Passion burned in him. He’d never felt anything like it before. Was it because he’d recognized her as his mate? He didn’t know, but distance and distractions weren’t working. He wanted her. Needed her. Something in him demanded her.
He was only thankful that Martin wasn’t a were. If Jet had been working with a were they’d have said he was in heat and kicked him out of the car to go to his mate. They certainly wouldn’t have risked him in the volatile, low-key conversations with potential informants in nearby streets.
But Martin was a mage, not a were, and seemed only tired and worried. “Nothing,” he echoed Jet’s thoughts. “We’re wasting our time. Ian Lewis isn’t anywhere around. We’ll have to dig deeper. I’ve got that hair from his apartment. We’ll find him. Tomorrow?”
Jet wasn’t about to argue with calling it a night, although just after midnight was early. He grunted agreement and had to force himself to get back into Martin’s car. The bear in him didn’t want to be confined. It, and he, wanted to run back to Delphi. He had to remind himself that the car would be faster.
Martin stopped outside Jet’s house. It was dark, but there was a light on in Delphi’s living room and in a room above. “Your kids okay?” It was the first personal question Martin had ever asked.
“Babysitter.” Delphi was so much more, but Jet wasn’t interested in discussing his arrangements; although after her gate-crashing of their meeting that day, the guardians would be aware that she and he had some connection. He got out of the car and tapped the roof, once. “Tomorrow.” They’d talk then.
He waited till Martin had driven away before running up the short path to Delphi’s door. He opened it and the scent of her arousal hit him. What had she been doing while he was gone? The scent was fresh and he was…he was up the stairs and hot on her tail.
She stared up at him from the floor of her sitting room. The room itself sweated her scent.
He was hard, so aroused he hurt. “What are you doing?” He could see magic symbols glowing on the floor and a plain terracotta bowl sat in front of her.
“Prophesying. I’m so hot.” She stripped off her sweater and threw it away. “Kids can’t see or hear us. Spell. We can hear them if…” She reached around and undid her bra. “Any problems.” She looked at him directly. “I never prophesy. It makes me too raw.” She threw away her bra. “But you’re here, now.”
He stooped and helped her up. “I want a bed.”
She stood on tiptoe and bit his neck. “Next room.”
Naked breasts, slim leggings hugging the smooth curve of her hips and thighs. Whatever she’d seen in her prophesying, it would have to wait. He sure as hell couldn’t. The skin of her back was silky and hot. Her breasts were full. He could see the blue veins.
He tugged her out of the sitting room and into her bedroom, sitting on the bed and pulling her between his legs so that he could—finally—suck her breasts.
Delphi screamed as Jet licked her right breast into his mouth and sucked hard.
He stopped.
She shook. “Spell. No…one…can…hear.”
“Good.” He resumed sucking, watching her.
It was more than good. She crawled onto his lap, riding over him as her climax crested. Her head tipped backwards, her whole body arching. When she could focus again, she was on the bed and he was stripping.
“I want you to do that again, with me inside you.” His eyes were golden, blazing.
She wriggled off the bed and got naked. She could blame the prophesying or she could acknowledge the truth. It might have loosed some inhibitions, but her wildness was all for Jet.
And judging by his reaction, he appreciated it.
They made love devastatingly, as if they tore open their souls to let each other in, and the pleasure ripped through them, reward and incentive.
Finally, they cuddled up, Jet on his back, her on her side, her head on his shoulder, her hand on his chest. He stroked her hip. She ran her foot along his calf.
“We’re mate bonded.” His voice rumbled in his chest.
“And that means?” She was utterly relaxed.
“It means any were can scent that we’re mated. What it means beyond that varies from were to were. Some couples feel no more than a tug of belonging. Others can communicate through their bond.”
“Telepathy?” She raised her head to stare at him.
He traced her lips with one finger. “Something like that.” She sucked on his finger and he smiled, slow and slumberous, daring her to continue.
She slid on top of him.
“You don’t care we’re mate bonded?”
“Nope.” She guided his hand from her mouth down her body. “Unless it’s contributing to this feeling so good, in which case.” She felt the wickedness of her smile. “Bring it on.”
He brought something. They made love a final time before falling asleep.
Delphi woke to find Jet gently disentangling himself from her. He’d been spooned around her.
“Kids are awake,” he said.
She couldn’t hear them, but she trusted his bear-were senses. Still, she stretched sleepily and dragged him down for a kiss. “Good morning.”
His smile was sunshine and warmth in her heart, and he looked as sexy as sin with his stubbled face, stern jawline, and gorgeous, muscled body. “Morning, beautiful.” He pulled on his jeans and shirt. “Do you have time to talk after the kids are at school?”
She could be late to work. Or not go in at all. “Yes.”
Outside she heard one of her cousin’s shouting instructions about reversing a truck.
“Left. Left! You’ll hit the fence.” Slam! “I told you you’d hit the fence.”
Clearly, despite their night together, today wasn’t going to be her and Jet alone in some romantic idyll. Delphi laughed and jumped out of bed, feeling muscles pull in interesting places. A hot shower helped with the sore muscles. She dressed in a ruby red knit top and black trousers, practical clothes for whatever the day held, and left her hair loose. Last night, Jet had run his hands through it and she liked that feeling. The caress.
The morning was chaotic. While Jet drove the kids to school, Delphi cleared away the terracotta bowl and other evidence of her prophesying. She slipped her phone into her pocket and returned to the living room to put away the couple of building blocks Tony and Grace had missed in their tidy up of their toppled castle. Jet returned, but her cousins and an uncle walked with him into her house.
He met her gaze over their heads. His message was clear: if they wanted some private time to talk, they’d need to leave her house.
Leaving her family to sort out the damage to the fence between her and Jet’s front yards—“I’ll tear it down, later,” Jet said which got a few raised eyebrows and amused looks—Delphi went with him to his car.
Rather than drive aimlessly or battle the traffic to reach his office, he parked by the river. Runners and people merely half-awake and walking their dogs on autopilot went past. The water was a muddy color, a barrier between home and Manhattan on the other side. Fall leaves hung on the trees in faded gold and dull orange.
Jet leaned across and kissed her.
The world receded. She melted and surrendered and craved. It was as if his kiss was the strum of a guitar and her body the instrument; as if she’d been made to resonate with this man.
He sat back in the driver’s seat and exhaled. “Kisses every five minutes and I might stay sane.”
“What?” She laughed, surprised, yet understanding.
He smiled at her. “It’s overwhelming being newly mate bonded.”
“What does it feel like to you, as a were?”
“As if I c
ould die and your kiss would bring me back to life.”
She stared at him.
His smiled shifted to wry. “Not that I’m planning on dying. Just…you’re the beat of my heart.” He took her hand and lifted it to his face. “Our scents have mingled. You, me, us. No longer alone. Never alone. I’ve never smelled anything so…rich. So satisfying. I feel complete when I didn’t know a part of me was missing.”
“Stop,” she pleaded. “I’m going to cry.” There was truth in his eyes and in his emotions—she could feel them and they tore her open in the sweetest way.
His thumb traced her cheekbone before he kissed her, tenderly, devoutly.
Their kiss steadied her. They held hands, her hand in his, on his thigh, and watched the river for a few minutes. Being together.
“About the prophesying.” Her fingers tightened. “No one knows I prophesy.” She met his startled, questioning gaze. “Not my family. Not the Collegium. I didn’t discover that I could until midway through training at the Collegium. I came across a nineteenth century book on folklore and customs of the Mediterranean. It had some symbols, ones that called to me. That was a freaky feeling. It’s unsettling. It woke something primitive in me. Something wild.”
“Last night, you were aroused before I got home. I smelled you when I walked in the door.”
She winced.
He shook his head. “Let’s get out of the car. I need to hold you. This conversation…we’re trying to use words to describe something that’s deeper than words. More primitive, as you call it.”
The wind had a cutting edge, carrying the cold of the river.
They walked to the shelter of some trees, away from the dog walkers, and he hugged her to him. “Tell me about your prophesying. Our mate bond might be stronger than I thought, linking us at an instinctual level that I didn’t think magic users could access.”
“Because we’re too trapped in our formulas and spells?” She held him tight, her face pressed against the softness of his jacket.
“You protect yourself from the world.” He sounded wary, as if afraid of offending or hurting her. “For weres, our senses are too open to the world to protect ourselves from it. We know we are of this earth.”
“So do I.” That’s why she used rainwater and mud to prophesy. It was a tie to her land as she scryed. And blood. Maybe primitive was the wrong word, laced with Collegium snobbery of shamanism and simples magics. Maybe her prophesying abandoned all mediation and tapped her essence. She was the descendant of the Delphic Oracle. “But what I do is private.”
“Yes.”
She didn’t need to continue. His agreement was there in his tightening arms and the possessive growl in his voice. She relaxed. “I forgot you’re not an alchemist. We want to analyze everything.”
“Some things you just accept and protect.”
As he would for her.
His acceptance steadied her. She smoothed a hand over his chest. “When I was looking to buy a house I was trying to decide between two. The one I bought and another one two blocks away. It was in better condition. I don’t like to trust in a prophecy, but…it was an important decision. So much money.”
“I know,” he agreed fervently, a wry note in his voice. “My mortgage is the stuff of nightmares.”
Money hadn’t been her primary concern. “I wanted to be happy. I wanted to choose…” She’d wanted a house that fit her dreams of a family home. “I was living at my parents’ house. No one was home. I set everything up for a prophecy and I saw myself with blonde hair, not black, and three empty chairs in my house, in the house that I ended up buying. I thought it was nonsense and I ignored the prophecy and went with Granddad’s advice on which property would be a better investment. But now…”
“I moved in and I’m a bear-were.” Jet wound one of her black curls around his finger and tugged gently. “Not blonde, but gold. Goldilocks and her three bears.”
“I think so.” She looked at him, wondering if he’d be freaked that she’d prophesied their future.
He smiled. “You can eat my porridge any day.”
She giggled. “That sounds…naughty.”
“It wasn’t meant to.” He cuddled her close. “I’m fine with you prophesying or not prophesying. I’m fine with anything you do.” Unconditional acceptance. Unconditional love.
She kissed him before she reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone. “My prophecy last night was more complicated than the Goldilocks one. I recorded it.” She clicked on the recording.
Played back, her voice sounded odd to her. She was speaking the images she remembered seeing in the terracotta bowl. “I have angel wings and a flaming sword. Cutting the world. But I don’t fly. I am vengeance.” A pause and her recorded voice deepened to harshness. “He shouldn’t have trapped Jet. My bear. Mine.”
Listening to the recording, Jet leaned against a tree and bent his knees, fitting his height to hers. Together, they heard her prophesying terrible things.
“Gravestones. Stone teeth. Teeth.”
In the momentary silence of the recording, Delphi whispered. “One prophecy, but in parts. I asked to help with your investigation, to find the rogue mage trading in death magic and transmutation.”
Her recorded voice took up the tale—or gave warning. “We’ll be running through the city-wild. Hunter and hunted, his eyrie lost. The books will burn!”
“That’s it.” Delphi switched off the recording and shivered.
Jet rubbed her arms. “The car will be warmer.”
“Better outside. Here, you can hold me.” And she valued that physical contact. “Prophesying isn’t like ordinary thinking. It’s like reaching through a veil to view a dream. Prophecies have their own logic. They’re not a prediction, not inevitable. They’re both true and not true. Real on one level, but which level?” Agitated, she lightly thumped Jet’s chest.
To her surprise, he rumbled a sound of approval.
“I’d be suspicious of easy answers,” he said. “What do you think your words of prophesy mean? You’re an angel with a sword?”
“There’s a sword I’m studying in the Collegium. It could be Excalibur.”
“King Arthur?”
“That’s the one. The sword glows in the presence of evil—when I hold it.”
He looked at her quizzically. “You’re the Lady of the Lake?”
She sighed. “While I’m impressed you know the Arthurian legend, I think I’ll grow tired of that joke. My colleagues have mentioned it.”
“Right.” His mouth twitched, kissable but amused.
She twisted her fingers into his jacket. “I don’t like that I prophesied a trap for you, but nothing is clear in prophecy. It could be a physical trap or magical or just a snare for your thinking.”
“Except, you’ll avenge me.” He ran a hand up and down her back, thoughtful.
“I don’t see how. I’m not a fighter.”
“Maybe, as with your sword, you’ll be part of seeing some truth I miss.”
She breathed a little easier. That she could do. “I’ll go over the case again.”
He nodded, his gaze absent. “Teeth.”
“That means something?”
“Where the murdered boy was left, there was a scent trail of clove oil. Clove oil deadens toothache.”
“Dentists?” She didn’t see how a history of toothache could help. There were thousands of dentists in New York. “Graves and teeth. Death magic might use teeth and bones. Gravediggers.” She gave an all-over shrug, a wriggle of exasperation. “Prophesying is so allusive.”
She frowned at a Maltese terrier running in the distance, ignoring its owner’s calls. The little dog bounced and scampered in the rough grass. “A mage scared of dentists would go to a healer, but a healer would recognize and report to the Collegium a death magic practitioner. Their magics are antithetical. Maybe a healer couldn’t even heal a death magic practitioner. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe the rogue mage won’t go to a hea
ler because he doesn’t trust anyone. Teeth and blood are used in death magic. The rogue mage might be afraid someone would use his tooth and blood against him, and linked with gravestones…maybe a lack of trust will kill someone?”
“Not us,” Jet said. “I trust you.”
“And I trust you,” she said quickly.
“But a lack of trust is a problem for criminals,” Jet said thoughtfully. “Betrayal could be Graham Monroe’s undoing. Someone must know more about him.” He ran a hand down her spine, resting it on her hip. “City-wild interests me. I know where I run as a bear.”
“You run as a bear in the city?” she squeaked, shocked.
“On occasion.” He grinned at her expression. “But mostly I wait till I’m home.”
She stared at him. “Your home’s not here?”
“I have a place in Maine. I don’t plan to live there, but for holidays and visits…it’s on a lake. There are woods and streams. Deer. Ducks. Freedom for weres.”
“That sounds good,” she said quietly, hearing in his voice how important the land was to him. She felt it, too. A tug of yearning for open space and wilderness. And suddenly she knew where he ran in New York. “Central Park!”
“Plenty of places overlook Central Park. An apartment high up could be called an eyrie and if the guy has grimoires stored there, they could burn or otherwise be destroyed when the Collegium came calling.”
“They certainly could,” Delphi said. She straightened, no longer needing his support. “You’re good at interpreting my prophecy. It feels concrete now, not just ominous. As if there are things we can do.”
“There are always things we can do.” They walked back to the car hand in hand. “I won’t mention your prophecies at the Collegium.” He opened the passenger door for her. “But I’ll follow up on them. Teeth, a graveyard, and a Central Park apartment.”
“And a trap. For you.”
He closed the door on her and she watched him walk around the front of the car and get in the driver’s seat. She said earnestly, having had time to think of what the trap prophecy might mean. “You’d walk into a trap for Tony and Grace. At least tell someone—me, for instance—before you do. If you ever feel you have no option but to do something, tell me.”
Alchemy Shift Page 10
