by Sara Daniel
The door slammed open, and Fiona jerked in alarm.
Rekkus stood on the other side, seething. “My apologies, ma’am. I don’t mean to bother you. I’ve come for this man.” He turned his attention on Armando. “Leaving through the portal tonight wasn’t a suggestion, Mr. Verdad. It was an order. Let’s go now.”
Fiona stepped between them and touched Rekkus’s arm. “He hasn’t done anything wrong. I was the one who practiced vetting when I didn’t have the power. I indecently exposed myself in your lobby. If you’re going to kick anyone out, I’m the one you want.”
Armando blinked. She was defending him. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had stuck up for him. He wanted to wrap his arms around her in a tight embrace.
“Nobody gets kicked out for walking naked through the lobby. I’d be the first one to go,” Rekkus said.
Thank Apollo he’d missed that.
“You’re here to heal from the vetting nonsense,” Rekkus continued. “Armando, on the other hand, is attempting to conduct a Syndicate investigation—on you.”
“I just told him everything he needs to know,” Fiona said.
Rekkus scowled. “Then he must be ready to leave.”
Armando swallowed. Rekkus was right. He needed to reevaluate the case under the assumption that the person who had killed Lizbet had also murdered her lifebond partner. Even if the police eventually apprehended the suspect, his lead and his Department of Truth-Finding would have gathered the crucial evidence to make the arrest possible. That should be enough prove his worth to the Syndicate.
He looked at Fiona one last time. The only thing he wanted was to stay and pursue her as his lifebond partner.
Rekkus grabbed his arm and dragged him from the room.
Fiona’s soul ached, hollow and empty. She didn’t eat and didn’t sleep. Before dawn, she left her room and took her easel and paint palate downstairs to the stone bench at the edge of the portal room. The first rays of sunlight lit the sky through the small window across the room. A soft tremble and pop filled the air, much quieter than the Saturday portal opening that she’d come through. Nonetheless, the portal was open.
She paused with her pencil over the paper. She had her crystal in her pocket. She could run straight through. She could go to Armando.
And then what? She might have fallen for him, her soul might recognize him as her mate, but he didn’t return her feelings and share her psychic connection. He’d only used her to get answers for his job.
His damn job. Even if she went to him, she could never let him discover the truth of who she really was.
He didn’t just work for the Syndicate. He held a high-level position. She wouldn’t fool him into believing her power had no practical use. As long as he believed powers should be used for the greater good, he’d expect her to have sex with evil men to uncover their plots against her world. Her birth mother had killed herself after enduring a similar fate.
She was destined to live alone with an empty soul. If she was lucky, her future would include art—specifically, painting. For today, she stuck to roughing out the portal drawing with a pencil.
She paused to study the stately stone archway that stretched up to the ceiling. Those who didn’t recognize the ancient symbols of the portal would simply see unusual old-fashioned architecture.
Suddenly, the air shimmered, and a man stepped through the archway. She drew madly, trying to capture his presence before he was fully formed.
A string of curses shattered the moment. Rekkus yanked the man’s arms behind his back. Fiona dropped her pencil and half-stood before she realized the man who was being treated like a criminal and an intruder wasn’t Armando.
“You’re not welcome here, Dex.” Cyrus got right in the man’s face.
Rekkus growled. “How did you get a crystal to come through?”
“Call off your kitty-cat,” the man drawled at Cyrus, not looking concerned, despite his near-prisoner status and the fact that Rekkus’s inner animal was just below the surface. “I’m not after you, Cyrus, although that damn bounty on your head would set me up for life and solve my troubles. I just want to talk to the Vetter—get an exclusive scoop, you know.”
Fiona inwardly recoiled, but her feet stayed rooted in place, unable to move.
“You’re pretending to be a journalist?” Cyrus demanded.
“Whatever pays the bills this week.” Dex shrugged carelessly.
The portal shimmered again, and this time a tall, closely-shaved, dark-skinned man wearing a long overcoat appeared. Fiona’s soul cried out in recognition. She stared, trying to memorize the image, so she could commit it to paper later.
“What is this? Send the riff-raff through the portal day?” Cyrus demanded.
“Didn’t you get the memo?” Rekkus chuckled as he held the first man with one hand and twisted Armando’s arms behind his back with his other.
Fiona ran across the room, her soul aching in response to the pain Rekkus was putting Armando through. “Don’t hurt him. Please.”
Armando didn’t flinch, despite his arms contorting in an unnatural position. “Throw me back through the portal if you have to, but let me tell Fiona this. She deserves to know.” He straightened as Rekkus released him and looked her in the eye. “You were right.”
“About what?” She glanced from him to Cyrus and Rekkus. Both of them, along with Dex who Rekkus still held prisoner, were watching Armando closely.
“About everything. I had the investigative team reevaluate their evidence under the assumption the Vetter was right, and the couple was supposed to have a happy lifebond, making the husband just as innocent and unsuspecting as the wife. Immediately, they found Philippe’s body hidden under the floorboards.”
“Philippe,” she whispered, her stomach twisting more than Armando’s arms had been.
“He’d been murdered by the same person who killed Lizbet. It’s almost certainly an act of revenge on the commander from one of the few remaining members of the Chameleon race.”
Fiona’s legs wobbled, and she sank to the floor. Philippe had been a nice man, deeply in love with his new bride, and he was dead. She was responsible for his death too.
Armando knelt in front of her. “Don’t you see what this means? They did have a happy lifebond for the few hours they were together. Your vetting assessment was correct. Your family is reinstating your standing as a Vetter and calling on the Syndicate to renouncement their condemnation of the Vetter profession.”
Her family’s reputation was intact. Maybe they wouldn’t forever consider her a shameful disgrace.
“You’re the Vetter,” Dex shouted, struggling in Rekkus’s hold. “Damn, you made it easy.”
Fiona froze. Even vindicated, she didn’t want to give an interview or call attention to herself in any way. She met Dex’s gaze. His blue eyes rolled back, revealing a second, bright purple set of eyes. They radiated a laser-like heat, as they raked up and down her body.
“Holy shit, you’re not a Vetter.” Dex lunged toward her, but Rekkus’s hold insured that he didn’t budge.
She shivered. She didn’t know how, but he somehow knew the truth. Her secret was out. She couldn’t go through the portal. The Syndicate would snatch her. She couldn’t stay here either, not if this man could find her. If he exposed her before she mated, she would never be safe, not in any world.
Armando grasped her hand, returning her attention to him. Her soul relaxed, as if his mere presence made her safe. “I know you don’t have vetting powers,” he whispered. “You have sound judgment and create a personal relationship with your clients. I’d pick your intuition over a cold power any day if I needed my future lifebond vetted.”
A chill settled deep in her chest, and she eased her hands free. She could never objectively vet Armando’s lifebond. Thinking of him with anyone else made her nearly as ill as imagining the horrors of Lizbet and Philippe’s last moments.
“Forget the journalism career, Cyrus. I’m back to being a bounty
hunter. I’ve found the second of the triplets. This one won’t land my ass in jail, and she hasn’t mated yet.” Dex’s eyes returned to their steady blue again.
His glow of satisfaction chilled Fiona more than returning to her life of lies, even more than accepting a future with the Syndicate, using her real powers. Whoever he planned to sell her to, to force a mating and meld her powers into someone else’s would be so much worse—not just for her soul but for the entire Para world.
Chapter 10
THE FLOOR TREMBLED.
“The portal’s closing. Get these guys out of here,” Cyrus shouted.
Armando didn’t plan to stay. He’d used a Syndicate crystal just so he could relay the truth to Fiona, needing her to know she’d been right and her reputation was above reproach again. As much as he wanted to stay with her, he needed to return to his duties with the Department of Truth-Finding, now that he’d been reinstated and commanded to work in conjunction with the police.
“It won’t do any good. I’ll just get myself another crystal from the Syndicate’s stash and come back for her. The way they guard those things is a joke.” Dex laughed.
Rekkus flicked his arm. Dex flew through the portal with a full-color shimmer of air.
The police would want him to follow Dex and find out what the blood-line seer and bounty hunter was up to now. But Armando hadn’t realized how hard it would be to leave Fiona’s company a second time.
“Lock up those Syndicate crystals where Dex can’t get into them again,” Rekkus warned, grabbing him. The were-tiger flung him at the portal, as if Armando were a small toy. The shimmer of air abruptly stopped though, and he bounced off the hard stone wall.
The portal was closed. He was still on the Wiccan Haus side. Dex was gone.
Rekkus’s lips curled, as if he’d enjoyed the sound of Armando’s body crunching against the wall. “That was good throw. Maybe instead of locking you up until sundown, I can practice tossing you at the wall.”
Armando’s shoulder throbbed too much for him to enjoy the were-tiger’s sick sense of humor.
“You leave Armando alone.” Fiona pushed against Rekkus, quite ineffectively, considering how tiny she was against his large body.
To his credit, Rekkus didn’t attempt to restrain her or fight back. In fact, he looked like he was trying to hide his amusement so he wouldn’t make her angrier.
“Armando never did anything to you,” she continued. “He’s a guest of this island on vacation, and you’re treating him like a criminal.” Her eyes flashed, and she looked ready to take on both security men at once. For him.
“We’re protecting you,” Cyrus pointed out to her, when he could have pointed out that Armando had indeed violated their policy by conducting a Syndicate investigation during his so-called vacation.
“If I wanted protection, I’d ask for it,” Fiona said. “I came here for a quiet vacation away from the pressures back home, and I bet Armando did too. You know what kind of reputation you’re going to give this resort when I tell everyone how the guests were treated here?”
Now Rekkus did laugh at her.
“I can only hope that it will so bad everyone stops coming and we get the place to ourselves,” Cyrus said.
“She does have a point,” Armando said, annoyed they were blowing off her concerns. In addition, they were treating him exactly the same as the wanted, only-looking-out-for-himself, for-sale-to-the-highest-bidder Dex. “Right now every journalist in the Syndicate wants an interview with the wrongly-accused Vetter, so she’ll certainly be able to get the word out.”
Fiona looked more horrified by that proclamation than Rekkus or Cyrus. She finally turned away from the security guys to focus on him. “Let me see your shoulder.”
She eased his arm out of his ripped coat. Blood soaked through the sleeve of his shirt. She winced. “Come on. We’ll get a poultice from Sage.”
Armando was resigned to letting the scrape burn for a few days. It was no more than he deserved for disrespecting the authority of the island. But he couldn’t deny how much he enjoyed having Fiona fuss over him.
“She better be right about you,” Cyrus called.
“If you’re half as smart as she is, you’ll convince her to mate with you before Dex comes back,” Rekkus added.
Fiona shuddered.
“Mating has turned you into a big puss,” Cyrus joked to Rekkus.
“Funny. Dana still thinks I’m being an overprotective tiger,” Rekkus replied.
“I’ve seen you with Dana. Big. Pussy.”
Armando kept step with Fiona until they were too far down the hall to hear the men’s banter. Rekkus had misspoke. Neither his race nor Fiona’s mated. That was only for shifters and psychics. The Verdad family traditionally sealed their commitment to their partner with a lifebonding ceremony, after receiving the blessing of a Vetter.
In Armando’s case, he never wanted a partner who would mate with him. He would lose his truth-finding power with her when she did. He certainly didn’t trust Fiona to tell him the truth without his power to discern what was real.
“Thank goodness we don’t have to worry about mating,” Armando said. “Growing up surrounded by Vetters, I imagine you’ve thought about your future lifebond partner a lot.” He, on the other hand, had never considered invoking a lifebond. But for the first time the idea intrigued him. To bond with Fiona, to share his life with her.
“I’m meant to go through life alone,” she said.
I’m meant to go through life alone—truth.
Her conviction smarted. Wasn’t she even open to the possibility? Well, truth was as the person believed it to be, not an absolute. He’d take her words as a challenge. “I’m glad you convinced Cyrus and Rekkus not to lock me up so I can prove you wrong.”
Armando’s words reverberated in Fiona’s head as they walked through the halls. He was talking about lifebonds, but what if she did mate with him? Since he wasn’t from a mating race, he wouldn’t be obligated to stay with her. She liked him more than she’d ever liked any man. She actually wanted to have sex with him. She’d never wanted that with anyone, not since she’d known she had Orgasmic Psychic powers.
If she could train herself not to look into Armando’s thoughts and turned off her powers, then the sex could be as good as when he’d pleasured her with his hands and mouth. She could truly be a woman with no powers. She wouldn’t have to lie or hide anything from him.
And then there was Dex, the bounty hunter with the creepy eyes. She didn’t know what he wanted, but she could guess. From the moment she’d discovered her real power, she’d memorized the list of races that became more powerful after mating with an un-mated Orgasmic Psychic and spent her life avoiding them. If she mated with Armando, she could satisfy her soul and keep her psychic power away from the bounty hunter.
But how could she mate without giving away what her true powers were? She’d have to try. Once she’d mated with him, she’d keep training herself to turn off her powers during sex. She’d read a study once that it could be done.
At the front desk, she asked Myron to contact Sage for a poultice for the nasty wound on Armando’s shoulder.
“Do your cards say I made the right choice to come back, or am I going to regret it?” Armando asked Myron.
The gypsy looked straight at him. “The only thing you’re going to regret is staying so true to your high and mighty principles.”
Fiona shivered. Not exactly a forecast of success in turning off her powers.
Armando turned to her as they stepped into the elevator. “Do you know what Myron’s talking about?”
Fiona shrugged and casually removed her hand from his arm before answering. “Not a clue.”
Myron was wrong. He wouldn’t ever have to know Fiona wouldn’t use her powers for the greater good. She wouldn’t make him choose between her and his principles.
She took Armando to her room and carefully removed his shirt. Then she laid him on her bed. “Did you really return ju
st to tell me about the status of the investigation and my reinstatement as a Vetter?”
“That and I like testing Cyrus and Rekkus to see how far I can push them,” he joked.
Fiona tried not to read anything into the fact that he didn’t meet her gaze. She would trust him. She wouldn’t look for answers she didn’t want to hear. She was reinventing herself as a woman with no powers.
A knock sounded at the door, and Fiona crossed the room to answer it. Sage handed her a poultice, along with a basket of herbs and candles, rattling off enough instructions to make Fiona’s eyes cross.
Closing the door and crossing the room to Armando, she settled the medicine wrap on his shoulder and lit the candles. Then she sat next to him on the bed and checked the bandage. “How’s that feel?”
“Like it’s healing.” He smiled at her.
She smiled back. “Good.” She patted the poultice in place and then smoothed her hands over his bare chest. “Close your eyes. I’m going to make sure you’re relaxed.”
“Mmm. I spent all last night wishing I was lying here with you.”
“Now you are.” She leaned over him and kissed his mouth. She’d missed him, and now that he was back, her soul yearned more intensely than ever. Well, she wouldn’t fight it anymore. She’d satisfy her soul and his physical needs. As she did, she’d ensure her safety from bounty hunters and forced matings, a necessity now that she’d been discovered and could no longer hide in the Vetter community.
Dipping her tongue in his mouth, she reveled in his decadent sweetness. He gripped her shoulders, telling her wordlessly he enjoyed tasting her too. She spread her hands across his bare chest, careful not to disturb his shoulder. His skin warmed her on a much deeper level than simple body heat.
She kissed her way over his smooth, well-defined chest, down his navel until she reached the waistband of his pants. They tented beneath her cheek with the proof of how much he wanted her, the only evidence she needed. She had no need for her power here.
