She glanced around nervously, probably looking for her pursuers.
“They’re long gone. You gave them the slip.”
“I hope so.” She flashed him a tight smile. “I…I think I can get it from here.”
“This isn’t exactly a safe neighborhood this time of night.” He’d witnessed a few drug deals go down and had run into a number of questionable characters, including a sonofabitch who tried to mug a homeless man. Toryn had seen to it that the bloke wouldn’t think about doing that again for a real long time. “Where do you live?”
She pointed down the alley. “It’s not far.”
It occurred to him that she didn’t want him to know where she lived, but he could no more let her walk home alone than he could stand idly by and watch an old man get mugged. “Then I’ll see you to your door.”
Without waiting for her to reply, he ushered her down the alley, where they stepped around a drunk passed out next to the Dumpster. A dark, rat-sized shape ran along the edge of the building just ahead of them.
“So are you going to tell me what you did back there or not?
His jacket was so big on her that he nearly missed her shrug. “It was called a kiss,” she retorted.
He chuckled. Should’ve seen that coming. Why so evasive, though? He wondered how far he could push her. “I’m talking about that jolt of electricity, Kitten. What was that?”
Something flared in her expression then quickly disappeared. If he’d been further away and not studying her intently, he’d have missed it.
Surprise? Yes, that was what it was. And worry.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
His eyes narrowed. She was lying, and he had a pretty good idea why.
That was a Talent’s energy he’d felt, and she clearly didn’t want him to know about it.
But before he could ask any other questions, a sound behind them drew his attention. He turned to see a Night Patrol vehicle moving slowly past the mouth of the alley. Then it stopped.
Almost instantly, the two of them flattened themselves against the brick building, the Dumpster to their left and several old plastic chairs to their right.
A run-in with the authorities was the last thing he needed. His papers weren’t exactly legit.
In the darkness, he could just make out her expression. It was one of sheer panic as she chewed on the inside of her cheek. He had the sudden urge to pull her into his arms, reassure her that everything was going to be okay.
A beam of light cut through the night. If they’d been on the other side of the Dumpster, they would have been in plain sight, but as it was, they were hidden.
“Hey, you down there. What’s going on?”
Before Toryn could figure out what to do or say, a voice—a man’s voice—called out. “Trying to get a little shut eye.” It was the drunk they’d stepped over a moment ago.
“Who’s with you?”
The man lifted his head, looked straight at Toryn and smiled. Then he turned back to the police. “No one. I’m here alone. Now will you please shut that off and let me be? I’m tired.”
The light clicked off and the alley was awash in inky black again.
Toryn glanced over to gauge Keely’s reaction. His leather coat was draped over one of the chairs next to him, and she was gone.
CHAPTER 3
A string of obscenities rang through the Iron Haven, its unfinished rooms acting as amplifiers for the noise. Toryn had been out in the garage, working on a custom piece of furniture that would go in the library, when he heard the commotion and came running.
When he arrived in the kitchen, Asher was standing in the middle of the room, hopping from foot to foot, cradling his hand like a baby. There was a hammer lying in the middle of the floor.
“Son of a bitch!”
Toryn half expected to see blood spurting, but there were only a few drops on the sawdust-covered subfloor at the other man’s feet.
Rickert, the leader of the Iron Guild warriors, had just arrived. He looked mildly irritated. It had better not be a waste of his time that he’d dropped what he was doing. The guy did not like getting interrupted. Vince and Zara were across the room, out of breath as if they’d just sprinted the entire length of the house.
Olivia had her hand on Asher’s back. “Let me see it.”
“It’s nothing—I’m fine. Everyone, just leave me alone. Go back to what you were doing.”
“I expected to see a bloody stump given all that racket,” Rickert said wryly.
“Come on.” Olivia tugged at his arm.
“No healing, okay?”
She was a Healer-Talent, able to mend tissue and bone, but Asher didn’t like his fiancé to use her special abilities very often, and certainly not on him, because it took so much out of her.
“I just want to take a look.”
He reluctantly relinquished his hand, and she gently opened up his fingers. “Jeez, Ash, you really did a number on the end of your thumb. It’s crushed. This does not look like nothing.”
Then Sean came into the kitchen. Unlike everyone else who’d been working on the renovation of the old mansion, he’d been sitting around on his ass, staring at a computer screen. If he wanted to be treated as a team player, he sure as hell wasn’t acting like one.
“Want me to take a look at it?” he asked.
Toryn tried not to laugh. The only medical training the guy had was as the self-appointed medic in his prison.
Asher’s head snapped up. “I do not want to be pricked or prodded, Sean. Sorry.”
Several people laughed.
Sean finally succeeded in getting Asher to let him see his hand. He manipulated the various joints as Asher gritted his teeth.
“Yep. It’ll need to be stitched and splinted. The tip is definitely broken. And you should probably get a tetanus shot.”
“No.” Asher yanked his hand away.
Olivia crossed her arms. “You’re going to have to let me heal it then.” When he started to protest, she held out her hands for him to stop. “Your choice, babe. It’s a quick fix. It’ll barely make a dent in me. But if it will make you feel better, I’ll go upstairs and lie down afterwards. Or Sean can do it his way, but—no offense—my way is faster and much less painful.”
“None taken,” Sean said.
“All I need is some ointment and butterfly bandages,” Asher muttered, “and I’ll be fine.”
Olivia let out an exasperated sigh. “Listen. You might as well know that I’ll just heal you when you’re sleeping tonight. No use fighting me about it. I can do it now and be done with it, or you can be stubborn and spend the rest of the day in agony until I fix it after you fall asleep.”
Asher scowled. “What happened to those days when you had to do what I told you?”
“Those days are loooong gone,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Now give me your hand.”
“Holy Fates, how I miss those days,” he muttered.
Zara snickered from across the room at her brother.
Asher glared at his sister. “What are you laughing at?”
Olivia looked over at Zara. “Has he always been like this?”
Zara nodded. “A baby? Difficult? Bossy? Unfortunately, all of the above.”
“Glad I have so much support around here from the people I love.” Asher made a low, guttural sound then begrudgingly held out his hand to Olivia. “Okay, do it.”
She gave him a quick kiss on the mouth. “I’ll be fine. Promise.”
Placing her hands on the bare skin of his forearm, she closed her eyes and concentrated. It took only a few moments for the skin to knit back together and the bone underneath to mend.
Sean was transfixed as Olivia worked her magic. “Simply amazing.”
“You’ve never run across a Healer-Talent before, Sean?” Rickert asked curiously.
The man shook his head. “Back in college, there was a woman in the class ahead of me who left school abruptly. Rumor had it that she was
a healer. But I never saw what she could do.”
“What happened to her?” Zara asked. There was a slight catch in her voice.
Sean shook his head. “Don’t know.”
“I’ll tell ye what happened,” Rickert said, scuffing up the sawdust under his boots. “She was forced to give up everything and join the bloody army.”
The man’s anger was well founded. Something similar had happened to his fiancée, who had once owned a thriving costume design business. Clearly it still rankled, even though it had happened before they met. Neyla was expecting their first baby and designing clothes again. Although Toryn seriously didn’t get the whole fashion thing, she apparently was making a name for herself already. Recently, he and a few of the other warriors had been in one of the open-air markets when he’d overheard a group of women raving about Neyla’s shop, saying they were on her waiting list.
Zara coughed. “Or resist and spend years in prison while the army tries to break you.”
Vince pulled her into his arms and pressed a soothing kiss to the top of her head. “We know all about that, don’t we, Sean?”
The big man rubbed a hand over his close-cropped black hair and nodded.
Asher was flexing the fingers and thumb of his injured hand over and over.
“How does it feel?” Olivia asked, a faint shadow of fatigue hovering under her eyes now.
“Perfect, Lass. As good as new. Thank you.” Then he brushed his lips tenderly over hers and led her out of the kitchen, presumably up to their room to tuck her into bed.
Everyone turned then and went back to what they were doing. Sean looked stunned, as if he still couldn’t quite believe what he’d just witnessed. He went back to the table and took up his position in front of the computer screen again.
Toryn picked up Asher’s hammer from the middle of the floor and set it on the counter.
The renovations on this Iron Haven—the second one—wouldn’t be finished anytime soon. There were whole wings that hadn’t even been touched yet.
It had been Rickert and Neyla’s idea to set up a few places for warriors to call home while on this side of the portal, since you couldn’t cross back over for a few weeks without getting iron sick. The compound had once been a resort for the rich and famous at the beginning of the last century until a flood wiped out the only road leading in. It lay abandoned for decades, forgotten by Pacificans. But just to be on the safe side, Esmerelda crystals had been brought over and strategically placed around the property’s perimeter, hiding it from the outside world.
Toryn turned to head back out to the garage when something on Sean’s screen caught his attention.
“What’s that?” he asked, stepping closer to get a better look.
Sean glanced up, surprise registering on his face before he looked back at his screen. “Pictures I took of the club the other night. I thought maybe I could figure out another way in. See that window up on the second floor?” He enlarged the image. “It looks like it’s open. I was thinking we could…”
Sean kept talking but Toryn wasn’t listening. He was looking at something else in the image.
“Those men. Down at the bottom. Who are they?”
“The bouncers, I think. Hold on.” Sean pressed a few buttons. Toryn wasn’t very familiar with computers or how digital cameras worked, but whatever the man did, that section of the picture got bigger.
“Yeah, those are the bouncers, and that one there,” Sean said, touching the screen, “is the Psychic-Talent who ousted Asher and Konal.”
“What the bloody hell?” Toryn rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin, confused as hell. They were the same two men who had chased Keely. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Did the Psychic-Talent shake their hands?” he asked. “Make skin to skin contact? Is that how he read their minds and knew what they were there for?”
Sean shook his head. “I don’t think so. As soon as they got about ten feet from the entrance, the bouncers just knew.”
No skin-to-skin contact. The Psychics he knew had to be touching you to read your mind. But if that thug’s Talent was so powerful, why hadn’t he read their thoughts when Toryn and Keely were kissing? The men had paused on the sidewalk less than ten feet away then sprinted off. If the Talent had been able to read their minds, he would’ve known that Keely was the one they were chasing and that the man she was kissing was plotting to kill their boss.
Since Konal or Asher could easily corroborate Sean’s claim that this was the same guy, Toryn had to assume he was telling the truth.
Then he remembered the jolt of electricity when Keely had kissed him. And it couldn’t be chalked up to his reaction to having that hot young woman throw herself into his arms and press that sweet little body of hers to his. He slowly rubbed his palms together at the memory of how luscious her curves were, and he ached to have her in his arms again.
No, as electrifying as that kiss was, what he’d felt was something different.
Keely had done something. Something to block their thoughts from her pursuers.
He’d suspected she was a Talent, but could she be a Shield-Talent, someone who was immune from the psychic attacks from other Talents? And if so, could she have shielded him as well? Holy Fates. Was that even possible?
Toryn grabbed two beers from the kitchen and handed one to Sean who mumbled a quick thanks.
If his hunch was correct, maybe he could use Keely’s Talent to get into the nightclub. With her by his side, he could waltz in and kill Reaux right under their noses. Those bodyguards would have no clue what was going to happen until it was too late.
Plus, it would give him the perfect excuse to see her again.
It was absurd that he couldn’t stop thinking about her, couldn’t get her off his mind. He tried to brush it off as no big deal—hell, he’d kissed plenty of women before this one—but there was something so…different about her. He took a long swig of his beer, trying to recall if he’d ever been this intrigued by a woman before. But then, he’d never had a woman throw herself at him like that before either. She’d roused all of his male instincts.
But he couldn’t let himself get too carried away. He’d once made that mistake with a Cascadian girl he thought he had feelings for. Turned out she was only using him to get through a portal into Pacifica and left him the first chance she got. He would not make that same mistake by trusting the wrong person again.
Other than the fact that Keely lived somewhere in or around the Circus District, he didn’t know much about her. He didn’t even know her last name. How would he be able to find her? She’d taken off without a word. One minute they were together in the alley and the next minute she was gone. She’d been reluctant to tell him much, but just when it seemed as if she was going to open up to him, the Night Patrol had shown up and spooked her. That girl had secrets and he wanted to know what they were.
He looked at Sean. The man was built like a tank—probably pushing six-six or six-seven—with cords of muscle on top of muscle, his dark skin straining to keep it all in. He looked like a professional body builder, someone whose physical prowess was his most important asset. Not like a guy who spent hours and hours studying and writing computer code before the army got hold of him.
“Vince tells me you’re a Tracker-Talent,” Toryn said.
Sean nodded but kept pecking away on the keyboard.
“What do ye need in order to…uh, track someone?”
Sean was probably wondering why the warrior who hated him the most was asking him all these questions. “An article of the target’s clothing is best,” he said, his tone even.
Damn. He didn’t have anything that belonged to Keely.
Pushing away a strand of hair that had slipped into his face, Toryn quickly redid the knot at his nape and thought about the trashcan where she’d stuffed her sweatshirt. It was probably long gone by now. Then he saw his leather jacket hanging over the back of a nearby chair.
“What about someth
ing the…the target recently wore?” He felt a twinge of guilt about referring to Keely in such a callous manner, like she wasn’t really a person but a means to an end. He couldn’t forget the look of sheer terror in her eyes.
Sean frowned and thought for a moment. “But he or she doesn’t own it?”
“No. Is ownership of an item important?”
“That’s part of it, yes.” His dark eyes scanned Toryn’s face.
He was probably thinking: Why should I help this asshole? He’s been nothing but a jerk to me.
But then he said, “I’m certainly willing to give it a try.”
CHAPTER 4
Keely carried the cup of water through the tattoo parlor and handed it to the customer at Verla’s station.
“Thanks,” the man said, then knocked it back as if it were a shot of whiskey.
Verla looked up at him over the rims of her glasses. “You doing okay, hon? Want to take a short break?”
“Yeah, that would be great,” he said, sounding relieved. “Need to hit the john, make a couple of phone calls.”
According to the girl at the front desk, Verla had been working on the guy’s intricate sleeve pattern for over an hour.
“Right on,” Verla said, setting down the needle and stripping off her black latex gloves. “Meet you back here in ten?”
“Sure.” The man pushed himself up from the chair with grunt and headed toward the bathrooms.
For the past two days, Keely had sent countless texts to Becca, but all of them had gone unanswered. Up until now, she’d spent every waking moment in the bookstore, sitting near the front door. She only left her post if she had a customer. Whenever a car turned down the street, she jumped, straining to see if it was Mr. Reaux’s limo bringing Becca home.
“It was all a terrible misunderstanding,” he would say. “I did not mean to worry you. Please, accept my apologies...”
But of course that never happened. Becca was still gone, and Keely had no idea what to do to get her back. She hoped her sister was still in the Circus District somewhere. No doubt she was scared. Terrified, even. Had that bastard hurt her? Was she calling out for help but there was no one to hear her?
Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 73
