by Bonnie Vanak
Finally, as the woman moved off, Kelly skirted the bar and stood behind Sam. “Sam, we have to talk.”
Those broad shoulders tensed. He did not turn around. One of the SEALs glanced at her, growled a little. A Draicon werewolf. Wonderful. Sam’s friends had tried, judged and convicted her. But the muscular SEALs didn’t matter. Only Sam did.
“Please,” she said softly and placed a hand on his arm.
Sam picked up his beer and led her to a corner booth. A bowl of peanuts sat on the table. Her stomach grumbled. Kelly picked up a peanut and ate it. Suddenly ravenous, she devoured one after another. Sam looked at her, his mouth a narrow slash.
“You okay? That was a nasty bolt of energy Rogers tossed at you.”
“I’ve felt worse.” The two Mages back on the island made Rogers’s jolt of energy feel like a tickle.
His expression softened. “You’re hungry.”
Sam waved a hand. The bartender came over, his expression grim.
“I need a burger, medium rare, fries and a...” Sam cocked his head at her, his expression amused. “Still into root beer?”
“I can handle something stronger. What you’re drinking. Domestic, right?”
A ghost of a smile. “Tom, give her a Bud.”
Silence from the bartender.
Sam’s expression tightened. “Well, Tom?”
“You, I’ll serve. Not her.”
Anger flared in Sam’s eyes, the green sparking like fireworks. “I don’t like your tone.”
“I like you, Shay. But I’ve got two young daughters. They mean everything to me. I don’t serve no stinking Arcanes...” The word was spat out in disgust. “Especially Arcane bitches who steal kids just so she can suck out their powers for herself.”
Guess good news travels fast. Kelly’s appetite fled, the peanuts turning into cardboard in her stomach.
“I didn’t do it,” she protested.
Sam’s jaw worked. He drank his beer as the bartender left. Everyone was looking at her. Humiliation poured over her.
“Sam, please.” Kelly struggled to find the right words. After twelve years, she felt at a loss. What did you say to the man who once loved and now probably hated you?
He dug into his back pocket, pulled out a wallet, fished out some bills and laid them on the table. “Here’s enough money to get dinner and get a flight out of here. Go home. You’d better leave, Kel. We’re all pretty tight, and the guys can be very reactive. And they don’t like what they heard about you.”
“They heard rumors I steal children.”
“They heard what your father did to my family.”
Torment haunted his eyes as he looked up. “Don’t force me to take sides. Because this time, I can’t stand with you against my teammates.”
Her throat was suddenly dry. She tried to calm her shaky nerves. “Coming here was a bad idea. I should have known I was up for the pitchforks-and-torches routine. Now what? Do you give me a head start before sending the mob after me?”
“I would never hurt you,” he said softly.
“I didn’t kidnap Billy. Just because you believe my father killed your family doesn’t make me exactly like him.”
There. Out in the open. Sam’s jaw clenched hard as stone. Sparks leaped from his fingers. “Damn.”
Kelly stared. “Sam? What’s going on with your powers?”
“They’re a little haywire lately.”
Sparks sizzled in the air. The lights flickered as Sam’s hands glowed white. Uh-oh. She recognized the potent surge of power....
As she glanced at the bar to see if anyone noticed, a woman stared at Sam. Her expression was both sad and hopeful.
Sam raised his hands and flicked them toward the ceiling.
The lights flickered again, and Kelly glanced at the bar and the burly man standing by one of the SEALs. She stifled a gasp and looked away. Surely that could not be...
Her gaze cut back to the man. Suddenly he was gone. Replaced by...
Evil.
As the lights went out, Kelly shrieked.
Chapter 4
Shay jumped up, the beer bottle spilling. The lights flickered back on as suds spread over the table. Blood drained from her face, Kelly stuffed a fist in her mouth, staring at the bar.
She was okay. He ran to her, his fingers curling around her slender shoulders. “What is it?”
“I saw...” She closed her eyes and then opened them, the fear gone. “A Death Mask. The skull face of a Mage who’s slaughtered another Mage to gain his powers. The first step to becoming a Dark Lord.”
Conversation around them quieted. His teammates stared at him and then at Kelly. Someone muttered a curse.
“Impossible.” Tom shook his head.
“I know what I saw. He’s here. Or was.” Kelly craned her head to peer past Sam. “He’s gone now. Left when the lights went out.”
Silence draped the bar. Shay studied Kelly’s tight expression and could tell her pulse was galloping. She was scared but resolved. Her gaze scanned the room.
Tom spoke, his voice tight with anger and fear. “You’re lying. Get out of my bar.”
Unease rippled through the room. Two burly support staff from Team 21 cracked their knuckles and got off their stools.
Whispers and more stares. Shay glanced up and saw Renegade and the other SEALs tense. It was going to get ugly fast. Fear did crazy things to people, even paranorms. The crowd would fast turn into a mob if Kelly didn’t leave now.
She turned to him.
“Sam?” A shallow breath and whisper. “You believe me, don’t you?”
A razor’s edge of silence. He studied his former lover’s face, and then her hands. Steady and resolved. He drew on all his instincts and inhaled the air.
He smelled a tinge of something familiar...and foul, as if evil brushed the air and then fled.
“I believe something nasty was here.”
Turning, he glanced at his teammates, his friends and Tom. He’d known Tom for years.
“We don’t,” Tom said flatly. “She’s lying. Get out of my bar.”
Two lines furrowed Kelly’s brow. He recognized the look. It would take force to remove her. “I know what I saw. And I’m not leaving until I search every inch of this place and see where he went.”
He turned and saw his teammates maneuver around the bar, getting ready to intercept.
“Shay,” Sully said quietly. His teammate nodded toward the door.
Right. As Kelly slid out of the booth, Shay got out and scooped her over a shoulder as if she were a sack of flour. She let out a startled “Oomph.” He ignored it as he jogged toward the door Renegade held open.
As the heavy wood door banged behind him, Shay set her on her feet. He hated her stricken look, as if he’d killed her favorite kitten. A knot of barbed wire cinched his guts.
She was dangerous and outcast. He should send her far away before he got involved. Too late, he thought dimly.
“Sam, you have to let me back in there.”
Leaning against the door, he shook his head. “Kelly, I’ve had a bitch of a day. Watching you get your head torn apart by dozens of drunken vampires, werewolves and Mages is not how I want it to end.”
“He’s in there. I have to find him. Someone’s hiding him, Sam, and you’re not standing in my way.”
Her fingers flexed. He felt the quiet hum of power in the air. Behind him, the door rattled on its hinges. Sam’s own powers surged.
“Back off,” he said quietly.
She dropped her hands, her luscious pink mouth trembling. “So that’s it. Now what? Go to a motel? No one will rent me a room. My name’s been flashed across every television screen in America as a suspect in the kidnapping of Senator Rogers’s son. There are no flights until morning. Where am I supposed to go?”
“Home with me.”
* * *
This new steely, conservative Sam Shaymore still harbored a hint of wildness. It roared with the big, shiny chrome Harley he rode.
Clinging to his back, Kelly closed her eyes as the big bike rumbled beneath her. Wind slapped at her cheeks. The ride was exhilarating and one she’d have enjoyed—if not for the tense male driving.
She hooked her arms around his muscled waist. Sam had always been fit, but the navy had turned him into granite. As her thighs nestled against his long limbs, she felt a jolt of pure sexual awareness. The sharp leather scent of his jacket and his own masculine smell sent her female hormones surging.
Bad timing.
Sam turned a corner onto a quiet street lined with trees and trim, tidy homes. He pulled into a driveway before a two-story white house with green shutters and cut the engine.
Ever the gentleman, he helped her dismount. Kelly pulled off the helmet, smoothing down her tousled hair.
Sam quietly studied her, his full, sensual mouth drawn in a flat line. Unreadable, his expression shuttered.
“You don’t live on base?”
“Team 21 has off-base privileges. This is our street. I’d tell you who all my neighbors are, but it’s classified.”
“And you’d have to kill me,” she joked.
“No, the base security officers would.” His gaze was even and unblinking. As she gulped, the ghost of a smile touched his mouth. Sam touched her nose. “Gotcha.”
The tension between them eased. Kelly breathed a sigh of relief and followed him inside.
Sam had always had taste, but the modest living room surprised her with its plain but comfortable furniture. This was more a home suited for someone like her.
She trailed him into the kitchen, a more elegant room with gleaming granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances. Dumping her pack on the floor, Kelly sat on a stool at the breakfast bar. Sam needed time to download and process before she hit him with the heavy-duty artillery.
He grabbed two bottles of beer and offered her one. Kelly sipped as he hunted through the fridge, setting bread, deli turkey slices, lettuce and Swiss cheese on the countertop. He frowned and braced his hands on the counter, studying her a long minute.
“Do you have any memory of where you were two hours ago?”
Confused, she nodded. “At your base, SEAL Team 21’s compound. You’re all paranormals, aren’t you?”
“Curt didn’t take your memories right before you left the base,” Sam said softly. “I’ll be damned. Civilians aren’t allowed on our compound, and any who do have their memories erased. No one is supposed to know about our team. SOP.”
“Maybe your commanding officer has more faith in me than your standard operating procedure. He asked questions, but I didn’t answer them.”
Because I don’t trust him. I trust only you.
“Kelly, you’re in deep trouble. And these rumors about a Dark Lord aren’t helping your case.”
“I will discover the truth. I haven’t changed.”
But you have.
He cut the bread into four neat quarters. “Late-night snack?” she asked.
“It’s for you.” He slid the sandwich across the bar. “Turkey on whole wheat, lettuce, no tomato, lots of mayo and Swiss cheese.”
Emotion clogged her throat. After all these years, he’d remembered her favorite. Kelly nodded thanks as she devoured the sandwich. Sam remained standing, tipping back the bottle and drinking deeply. Muscles in his throat worked as he swallowed, and then he backhanded his mouth. Green flared in his eyes as he studied her mouth.
“You have mayo...here.”
He reached across the counter and touched the corner of her mouth with his thumb. Sam brought his thumb to his lips and licked it slowly, his intense gaze never leaving hers. Heat sizzled in the air. Her limbs felt loose and pliant, her nipples tight.
Hot, heavy need surged. She wanted him badly. Wanted to feel him naked against her hot skin, feel those hard muscles rub against her body. Fingertips ached with the need, the yearning to touch him, explore muscle and sinew.
Kelly quivered, her lips parting. The air grew heavy with expectancy, overlaid with sexual awareness.
She jerked her gaze away, staring at the counter. “I’m not here to rekindle anything, Sam. I followed you because I need your help.”
A douse of icy water on both of them. His mouth became a firm slash. He turned, jamming his hands into his faded jeans and presenting her with his rigid spine as he stared out the kitchen window. The moment had vanished.
But for an instant, she desperately wanted it back.
“Kelly, you don’t know what you’re up against. Rogers has a lot of influence and can convince the council to imprison you.”
She sighed. “I didn’t know he’d be that rigid and hateful. I’d heard he was more tolerant of Arcanes.”
“Yeah, Rogers surprised me. He never was that much of an asshole. Guess when his son got kidnapped, it sent him over the edge. So now the only fair shake you’d get is my uncle, and he’s out of the country. So if they wanted to bypass the rules and imprison you, they could.”
“Al is still on the council?”
“He’s only there because of me.” Sam turned, his jaw tightened. “He saved my ass once, and told me if anything ever happened to me, he’d resign. He’s not too fond of those stuffed shirts and their bureaucratic ways. Go home, lie low and wait for this to all die down.”
“You know I can’t do that,” she said.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Against ordinary humans, even other Mages, yes. But not if the council wants your ass.”
“You always said it was a fine ass.”
Sam closed the distance between them. He stroked the side of her cheek with a single finger, the well-remembered gesture tender. She struggled with the urge to lean against him, absorb his strength.
“And I’d hate to see anything happen to it.”
“This is bigger than me, Sam. It’s a lot deeper than anyone realizes. I did see the Death Mask. I have the ability.”
He looked at her with the same wariness his teammates had shown. She pushed away. “I hate it, but it’s part of me and I’ve learned to accept it.”
Ever since childhood, Kelly knew she was different. She sensed things more than ordinary Arcanes could. Fearful of alarming her father, Kelly had set out to learn on her own. She studied ancient texts forbidden to Arcanes, stealing away minutes in the vast Shaymore library under the pretense of dusting the shelves.
And in the library, she’d discovered that a few, very few, special Mages had the ability to discern a Mage who killed another merely to siphon his power, the first stage of transforming into a Dark Lord. These Mages could see a shimmering Death Mask, a skull with glowing yellow eyes, superimposed over a normal-looking face.
Exactly what she’d witnessed at the bar.
“But I can’t accept someone is stealing Phantom Mage children to gain their power. An Arcane, organizing other Arcanes to gain magick for a bigger purpose.”
“What?”
She dragged in a deep breath. “To gain power, and exterminate your people. All of them. A genocide.”
The stunned look on his face would have been comical if the subject wasn’t so grim.
Kelly’s fingers curled around her bottle of beer. “Now will you listen, really listen to me?”
Eyes narrowed, he leaned on the counter. “Spill it. Everything.”
“A few weeks ago, Sight Finders received an anonymous tip about the bodies of two Elemental Phantom Mages reported as missing. It had been assumed the women, who had been divorcing their husbands, were out having a wild time.”
“I remember Uncle Al telling me about it. The council made sure the bodies were taken away before human authorities were notified. They didn’t want mortals asking questions. The council investigated, concluded the women were drunk and careless,” Sam said.
“They didn’t tell you what condition the bodies were found in.”
Kelly fished out her wallet and withdrew a small photo print o
f two shrunken corpses. “They were sucked dry of their magick. We believe this was a first attempt at gaining power from Elementals.”
Blood drained from his face. “Where the hell did you get these?”
“The anonymous tipster sent them, along with the location of Billy Rogers.”
A muscle ticked in his hard jaw. “Even if this is true, there’s no way Arcanes would get close enough to kill us all.”
“Not unless they assumed the identity of someone who’s trusted, say the son of a U.S. senator who also sits on the Council of Mages.”
Sam drew in a sharp breath. “You think that’s why they kidnapped Billy. By killing him and assuming his Phantom powers, an Arcane could duplicate him and move freely about.”
“Yes. The Arcane can even duplicate his aura. There is no way to tell them apart. These rogue Arcanes are targeting children to imitate them and assume their places. Then they’d kill their parents and from there...”
Kelly set down the beer. “We believe they’re smuggling the kids out of the country. Billy told me he remembers his nanny coming into his room. Then he was drugged. Later, when he woke up, the nanny shifted into a man he didn’t recognize.”
“The kidnapper’s real form,” he mused.
“We suspect both Arcanes killed the Phantom women, stole their powers and then used the magick to shape-shift into other forms, one being Billy’s nanny. The real nanny is probably dead.”
“And the Arcane imitating the nanny was the one we took out on the island. Which means the other who stole the Phantom’s powers may still be out there,” he mused.
Picking up the sharp knife, Sam began to twirl it like a baton. Kelly watched this new skill with wary eyes. Seeing her expression, he set it down.
“If Arcanes are planning a mass extermination, why didn’t you alert the council?”
“And give them an excuse to round up my people like cattle?” Sam never knew the humiliation of having to show an ID card simply to enter a Mage store to buy healing herbs. Or being physically searched by Mage authorities, laughing as they shoved their hands between the legs of her jeans.
