by Julie Leto
Clucking her tongue, she glanced over to the trailer behind her. The one with the gold star on the door.
Lauren’s.
“Crying shame,” she lamented. “You would have looked very nice next to Ms. Cole.”
He shifted his stance to better accentuate his…assets. He’d done worse to get jobs before, though not usually as an actor. But now that he knew how close he was to Lauren, it was time to put his theatrical skills to good use. This woman wanted to be seduced, though her motives seemed entirely more personal than professional. Not that he cared. He smoothed a fingertip along the curve of her elbow. Intimate and yet…not. “Then maybe you should rethink your casting decision,” he suggested.
She nibbled on her bottom lip, and David couldn’t help but feel a twitch of arousal as he imagined her teeth grazing his own mouth. He pressed his lips tightly together and glanced aside. It wasn’t like him to get the hots for a woman after only a few seconds of conversation. In California he’d learned that barracudas operated mostly on land. Since he had his own prey to hunt, he had to remain out of this one’s clutches. He could tease and toy, but nothing more—no matter how much the deprivation might hurt.
“Hmm,” she hummed wistfully. “Wish I could.”
“Any smaller roles not yet cast?” he asked.
Her gaze drifted up from his chest and met his. “Bold as brass, aren’t you?”
“This is Hollywood. Can’t survive otherwise.”
Without warning the lights above them blinked, then went off. The power tools sputtered to a halt. Cursing echoed all around them while dim emergency lights clicked on near the exits. Then, just as quickly, the power came back on. “Wait here. Let me consult with my leading lady. It might be a good idea to have backup.”
As Helen Talbot curved around him, brushing his arm even though there were yards of empty space on either side of him, he turned and watched her walk away. Either she was swinging her ass especially for his perusal, or the woman had a walk that could stop traffic. On the L.A. freeway. At rush hour.
Even with the carpenters and scenery technicians working their table saws and forklifts with screeching accuracy, he heard Helen’s knock on Lauren’s trailer intensify to an insistent pounding. He walked closer. She was calling out the star’s name with a definite tinge of concern in her voice.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
Helen waved her hand dismissively. “She’s probably in the shower. But where the hell is that assistant of hers?”
She dug into her pocket and extracted her phone, tapped a few times until Lauren’s picture flooded the screen, and then held the device to her ear. Seconds later they heard Lauren’s phone ringing inside.
“Maybe she’s not there,” he offered, though the tight worry on Helen Talbot’s face kicked his instincts into overdrive. Helen was more than a little concerned. Why?
“She’s in there. She hasn’t left her trailer.”
“You think something’s wrong?” he asked, trying not to sound too anxious to get involved.
Helen skewered him with a look that made him feel like a complete idiot. Wow. The woman had clearly honed that expression to a fine point.
“Move,” he directed, giving her a gentle push to get her out of the way and digging in his pocket for the tool he kept there. Always.
He had the sharp end inserted into the door lock before Helen could say, “Let me call security.”
The click was hard to hear amid Helen’s warnings that she had to go in first and that he should stay outside and that if anything he might or might not see inside the trailer made it into the tabloids, she’d make sure he never worked in this town again. Obediently he swung the door open for her and stepped aside. She called out Lauren’s name, and despite the threat to his career, he couldn’t help but glance into the small but clearly plush trailer.
Helen burst through an open door at the other end. She screamed, swung around with a pointed finger and ordered him to call 911, then disappeared through the door.
He did as she asked, waving over two of the crew who’d stopped dead at the sound of Helen’s shout. He handed the phone to one of the guys, told him to order an ambulance and dashed inside. He found Helen in the back room, dragging a towel over Lauren’s naked body, the star’s flesh wet and the distinctive smell of smoke and singed flesh lingering in the air.
“What happened?” he asked.
Helen, her face stoically passive, shook her head violently as she smoothed the hair away from Lauren’s face. Her hands wavered over Lauren, as if she wanted to do something to help, but had no idea what.
“Does she have a pulse?” David prompted, dropping to his knees beside her.
Helen’s hands shook so much that her charm bracelet rattled. David leaned across and checked the vein at Lauren’s neck. He tried to feel some movement, but if it was there, it was slight.
“The ambulance is on its way,” the crewman shouted, rushing in with the phone.
“Is that nine-one-one?” Helen asked.
He handed her the phone. Helen ordered him to alert the gate to let the ambulance in, commanded his cohort to stay by the door and ensure that no one else came in, then rattled off the circumstances to the emergency operator on the other end of the phone, conveniently leaving out the name of the woman lying on the floor.
“Do you know CPR?” Helen asked David, clearly repeating the question posed by the operator on the other end of the phone.
David was by no means an expert, but with his past, he knew a few emergency medical tricks. With a quick nod he checked Lauren’s breathing, and after he found nothing, he did what he’d wanted to do for a very, very long time.
He covered her sweet mouth with his.
Aiden instinctively sought the sword, but just as quickly resisted the pull of the handle and the call of the blade. Overwhelming instinct told him that the wastrel lowering his lips over Lauren’s was doing more than accosting her as she lay unconscious on the floor. Otherwise he would have struck the man down on the spot. Despite the terror ripping through him, he heard enough of the conversation to know that these people were trying to help.
He, on the other hand, was helpless. Or was he? He moved closer to the sword and felt a surge of something dark, dangerous, but powerful. Could Rogan’s magic help Lauren? He placed one invisible hand on the hilt of the sword and held the other toward her, concentrating completely on restoring her life.
Seconds later she gasped, but did not regain consciousness. As Aiden strained to see her more clearly, the number of people in the room doubled. All sorts of foreign apparatus were dragged inside, and the voices grew to a near-hysterical cacophony that kept him from understanding what was going on. After men in dark uniforms strapped her to a cot with wheels and took her away, he tried to follow. But just as he caught sight of the sunlight, he was yanked back into the tiny trailer.
He cried out in frustration, a howl that burned as it ripped from his soul. Was she dead? Had Rogan’s dark magic killed her or saved her?
The door to the trailer was flung open. The dark blond woman named Helen burst back inside. Aiden was careful to move out of her way. Clearly she could not see him, but had she heard him?
“Ms. Talbot,” the man who’d put his lips on Lauren called from just outside the door. “The paramedics are leaving.”
“Did you hear that?” she asked the man.
“Hear what?”
“That scream.”
The man stuck his head inside and eyed her as if she’d lost her mind.
“Don’t you want to ride along with her?” the man asked.
She shook her head. “Michael knows the chief of staff at the hospital. He wants to go with her.” Her eyes betrayed that she’d been ordered to stay behind. “I’ll be right behind them. I just want to…” Her voice drifted off as her eyes narrowed on the sword. She then spun on the man and pointed out the door. “Can you wait for me at the gate? I have something I need to do.”
The man
’s jaw tightened, but with a silent nod he disappeared and shut the door behind him.
Helen Talbot dashed into the bathroom and did a quick search of the cabinets, drawers and floor. She shot back into the main room and checked the closets and under the cushions of the couch. She sniffed the glass Lauren had left on a table, then took a tentative sip.
“Water,” she said aloud, then pressed her lips into a thin, flat line as she surveyed the room with eyes that would miss nothing.
Eyes that landed again on the sword.
Aiden stiffened. Did she mean to steal the weapon? Could he stop her?
Seconds later she’d wrapped the sword inside the blanket and shoved it into a canvas bag she found in a closet. He expected to be wrenched back into the weapon, but though he felt a tug on his stomach, as if the tether between him and the metal had tightened, he remained where he stood. Or floated. Or…existed.
He had much to learn about this new reality—until, at least, he figured out a way to free himself entirely. To find his family. To defeat the curse.
Something he could not do without Lauren Cole, who at this moment might very well be dead.
Twelve
“She’s dangerous,” Ben warned.
“I’ve dealt with dangerous women before,” Paschal assured him, though his voice was weak and his face pale. Sitting at his father’s bedside, Ben had watched a veil of advanced age unfurl over his father’s usually robust body. The aftereffects of Paschal’s psychic episode, brought on by his contact with the antique button, had knocked the ninety-five-year-old man into a terrifying state. Paschal had slept nonstop since that morning, but had gotten very little rest. His muttering testified to disturbing dreams and secrets Ben had not wanted to know about. Though his father had finally woken half an hour ago, a haunted glaze still shadowed his silver-gray eyes.
“Speaking of dangerous women,” Paschal said, a shadow of a smile playing over his dry, cracked lips, “where is Cat?”
“Doing some research on how to find your friend Gemma Von Roan before she finds us.”
A sneer curled Paschal’s mouth. “Gemma Von Roan is not a friend. She’s a means to an end. As Farrow Pryce’s lover, she’ll be an invaluable ally. If nothing else, she’ll be able to tell us what that rat bastard lover of hers has found out about my brothers.”
“She could lie,” Ben countered.
“She could,” Paschal admitted. “But if she does, I’ll know.”
Ben’s frown was starting to make his jaw ache. He rubbed his unshaven face and wondered how the hell his life had turned from roller coaster to kiddie ride back to roller coaster in such a short period of time. He’d had a profitable career trading in valuable antiquities. Then his mother had died, leaving him responsible for his father’s care. Until a few months ago that task entailed becoming his father’s teaching assistant and grading derivative, undergrad essays on Gypsy lore and tradition. Now he was in a race to find a cursed sword and a missing uncle, all while dodging a ruthless cult that had already attacked Paschal once. If not for Gemma Von Roan, Paschal might have been killed. But Ben still didn’t trust her. And clearly neither did Paschal.
“You like her, though,” Ben said, catching a sudden twinkle in Paschal’s eyes.
“She’s interesting.”
“Like a close personal friend would be?”
His voice had dipped low with innuendo on the words “close” and “personal.”
“Means to an end,” Paschal repeated.
Ben chuckled. “Make all the denials you want, old man, but I haven’t left your bedside all day. You talk in your sleep. This Gemma Von Roan was more to you than just a means to an end.”
Paschal’s scowl evoked childhood memories Ben would have rather repressed. Normally a peaceful man, Paschal could be formidable when the situation warranted.
“I’m over ninety years old,” Paschal grumbled. “On a good day, any woman who is more than a means to an end could send me to an early grave.”
With a cough, Ben covered his laughter. His father’s face had gone from pasty to an enraged red. No doubt thinking of Gemma, the woman whose name he’d muttered quite a few times since his interaction with the button, had added fuel to the old man’s fire.
“Technically, you’re nearly three hundred years old. You missed your chance at an early grave years ago,” he quipped.
“Impertinent,” his father snapped.
“Just calling it like I see it.”
“Maybe you should spend more time worrying about your own love life and leaving mine the hell alone.”
Ben shoved away from the bed, needing distance from his father’s crotchety attitude. Or perhaps from his on-the-mark comment.
His father had shut his eyes and drawn his mouth into a tight line. Ben turned to the shaded window. Cracks of sunlight filtered from around the curtains, reminding him of a sunny afternoon three weeks ago when he and Cat had made love against the picture window facing the ocean until the clouds had rolled in. In the maelstrom of thunder, lightning and the whistling strains of wind, they had explored each other’s bodies in ways that made him long for the days when seducing a woman had been his one and only concern.
With a groan he pushed the memories aside. Now that Paschal was awake, Ben had to concentrate on finding out what his father had seen after touching the button—what new aspects of this mystery he’d keyed in to. Ben could no longer fool himself into believing that his father would live forever—the curse had not made Paschal immortal. While he’d been trapped by the Gypsy magic, the aging process had stopped, but immediately on his release it had restarted. Ben suspected that Paschal’s unusual robustness and age-defying energy had been a residual effect of the magic, but his father could rely on that power no longer. Searching for his brothers had sapped it out of him.
The old man had had enough verve nine months ago to seduce a woman who might be the key to their next move. Either Paschal Rousseau was more of a dog than Ben had ever suspected, or this Gemma Von Roan had her own nefarious reasons for succumbing to his father’s charm.
Ben fingered the curtains in front of the window. “If Gemma Von Roan is still Farrow Pryce’s lover, you can’t deny that she’s our best bet for finding out whether he’s gotten his hands on the sword.”
Paschal shook his head. “He doesn’t have it. If he did, Aiden would be dead.”
“Maybe he is,” Ben said, wondering when he’d become the voice of doom. “The fact that you got Damon back after all these centuries is inconceivable. There’s a very good chance he’s the only brother you’ll ever reunite with. You need to prepare yourself.”
Paschal smirked, then coughed before he snapped, “Did you have Defeatist Flakes for breakfast?”
“I’m trying to be realistic,” Ben insisted.
“Since when? I miss the old Ben.”
The old Ben. He hardly remembered the guy. Used to get into trouble a lot. Once served time in a Moroccan jail. Had his picture posted with the word “wanted” above it in several foreign countries.
“The old Ben never called home,” Ben reminded his father.
“At least I knew he was out doing something exciting rather than fretting over my every move.”
“I don’t fret,” Ben countered. “Besides, what could be more exciting than catching snippets of the erotic interlude of your liaison with a woman young enough to be your granddaughter?”
“Technically, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, give or take a ‘great,’ “ Paschal said, counting off the “greats” on his fingers.
“You’re a strange old man.”
Paschal snorted. “You don’t live two hundred and sixty years past your prime and not develop a few quirks. And unfortunately, our interlude was too brief to be considered anything more than an old man’s error in judgment. Taught me a man needs to be at the top of his game to deal with Gemma. Bit of the old Ben wouldn’t hurt, if you meet up with her. There’s more to her than meets the eye.�
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“Shouldn’t we be more worried about Farrow Pryce? He’s the brains of the operation, isn’t he?”
Paschal waved his hand weakly. “He’s the money and the power, but brains, I’m not so sure. So long as he doesn’t get his hands on the sword or realize we’re onto his game, we’ll stay one step ahead. Gemma’s another story. There’s something about her…I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that the blood running through her veins is more powerful than even she imagines. She’s Rogan’s direct descendant. That might explain…”
Paschal’s voice drifted off while Ben tried to take his father’s warning seriously, but it was hard to muster up fear of any so-called sorcerer who’d died centuries ago. It wasn’t as if the K’vr, the cult dedicated to Rogan worship, had successfully taken over the world. Hell, Pryce hadn’t even managed to take over the cult. Their run-in with the group nine months prior taught Ben and Paschal that factions remained within the organization and it had begun to crumble from within.
Which was why Pryce was so desperate to get his hands on the sword. With an object reported to possess Rogan’s magic, he could become the definitive leader of an organization that was, according to the scant information he and Cat had been able to find, worth millions of dollars in devotions and tithes.
Ben understood that Rogan’s magic had been formidable in its time. The proof—a man born in 1717—was lying on the bed across from him. But if Gemma Van Roan had even an ounce of her ancestor’s power, why was she hanging out with a gangster like Pryce?
And why was her brother, also a blood descendant of the sorcerer, locked up in a Florida penitentiary awaiting trial for murder?
“I think we can handle Gemma Von Roan,” Ben reassured him.
“Yes, but, why would we want to?”
Cat had slipped into the room, a steaming mug of strong-smelling tea cradled in her hands. “I met her. You didn’t. And think I’m still limping.”
Paschal moved to sit up, slapping Ben away when he started to help.
“I’m not an invalid,” Paschal barked.
“Funny how his energy came back the minute you came into the room,” Ben muttered to Cat.
