Master of Smoke

by Angela Knight

  Some tasks are too important to the soul for shortcuts.

  Tristan grunted as Belle started for her dresser to begin packing.

  “It’s not going to work.” With narrow green eyes he watched her pull out a drawer. His seductive mouth drew into a tight frown. “You don’t like me.”

  “I’m a professional. I don’t have to like you.” She found the huge .45 pistol, pulled it out of its holster, and checked to make sure it was unloaded. Satisfied, she slid it back into the holster and tucked it into her Louis Vuitton pilot case. Then under Tristan’s glower she added a box of bullets and a couple of spare clips.

  “You’re a witch. What do you need a gun for?” He braced his hands on his hips. His shoulders looked ridiculously wide beneath the blue knit shirt he wore.

  She gave him the look that comment deserved. “Magic doesn’t work on Dire Wolves. As you damned well know.”

  “Which is why I’ll have a gun.”

  Belle stopped in the act of picking out a selection of shirts to take. “So, what? I’m supposed to stand there with my thumb up my butt while you fight giant vampire-eating werewolves?”

  “Why not? You spend most of your time with something stuffed in some part of your anatomy. I’m told you do your best work that way.”

  Belle imagined how he’d look after she hit him with a fireball: singed and blinking. It was such a satisfying fantasy she mentally added a curl of smoke from his nose. “You’re deliberately being a jackass.”

  “I do that. It’s why nobody wants to work with me.” He glowered and folded his arms. His biceps appeared as round and firm as cantaloupes beneath his tanned skin. If he would only shut up, he’d make good scenery.

  She considered conjuring a ball gag and stuffing it into that tempting mouth. “You do realize that if I bow out, no witch will work with you. Which will seriously crimp your werewolf hunt.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  She smiled at him sweetly. “Then go to Morgana and ask her to rescind my assignment.”

  A muscle flexed in his angular jaw. “Morgana doesn’t change her mind. She’s worse than Arthur.”

  “Then it would appear you’re stuck with me.” Belle strolled into the walk-in closet and considered the selection of pants. She didn’t find anything that looked suitable, so she conjured a few pairs in various shades and walked back into the bedroom with them.

  “Leather?” Tristan looked like a man sucking on a lemon. “You’re packing leather pants?”

  “They hold up better in a fight.” She bared her teeth at him. “And they make my ass look fabulous.” Just to piss him off, she conjured a pair of black boots with stiletto heels. No way could she fight in them, but he didn’t need to know that.

  When his nostrils flared, she added tight leather tops to match, each with a neckline plunging halfway to the navel. Then she threw in a corset, just to watch him turn purple.

  “Look, I’m going to be going up against Dire Wolves.” He stalked over to her, the better to loom. “We’re talking at least seven feet tall, with fangs, claws, and a tendency to disembowel people. And they shrug off magical lightning bolts like snowballs. You won’t stand a chance.”

  “I’m touched by your concern for my well-being.” She gave him a smile sweet enough to give cavities to an entire dentists’ convention. “I had no idea you cared.”

  “I don’t. I just don’t want to get killed trying to keep your hapless ass alive.”

  The hapless thing stung. “You won’t. I can take care of myself.”

  “With what? That ridiculous cap gun?” He pointed a contemptuous finger at her pilot case and its pistol. “All bullets do to werewolves is piss them off.”

  Belle marched over to the corner, picked up the long bag lying there, and tossed it on the bed with a leaden thump. Unzipping it, she drew out a five-foot great sword, admiring the way the massive weapon gleamed in the firelight with lethal grace. If it hadn’t been enchanted, she wouldn’t have been able to lift it. “Actually, I figured this would do a pretty good job of discouraging anybody the gun didn’t.”

  Narrow-eyed, he considered the weapon. “Do you even know how to use that thing?”

  That qualified as “asking for it.” She swung the sword in a flat, hard arc, stopping it a fraction of an inch from his throat.

  Tristan raised an eyebrow over the gleaming length of the blade. “I repeat, do you know how to use that thing?”

  “I’ve used it rather effectively before.” She glared at him. “And I’m strongly considering using it now.”

  “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you go find some pretty Latent boy and fuck him into the Gift? It would be so much more pleasant for all concerned.”

  “Tristan, I’m not really interested in making anything pleasant for you.”

  “Yes,” he gritted, “I noticed.”

  Eva had no idea how long she lay on the floor with David, a heap of dazed, exhausted flesh. At last she managed speech. “We really need to get up.”

  “Yes.” He blinked at the ceiling. “The floor is very hard.”

  “And I’ve got this bed. It’d be a hell of a lot more comfortable.”

  “It would have to be.” He sighed and rolled to his feet, lithe as the cat she’d dreamed about. Reaching down to take her hand, he helped her to her feet.

  For about two seconds, she considered showing him to the guest room, but that would be like closing the barn door after the horse won the Kentucky Derby. Instead, she led the way to her own bedroom, flipped back the covers, and crawled between them as he joined her.

  He pulled her into his arms and curled his big body around her like a boy with a teddy bear.

  Lying on her side, her head pillowed on his brawny biceps, Eva felt surrounded by him—not just the muscular power of his body, but the in-and-out puff of his breath on her cheek. A thick lock of his long hair lay across her face, mixing with her own chocolate strands. It felt ... good. She hadn’t slept with a man since she’d broken up with Joel. Being what she was, her nightmares could have ugly consequences for the man in her bed. Luckily, tonight had proved that David could take care of himself. It was safe to cuddle into him and drift off to sleep.

  Dreams would do no harm tonight.

  He ran with her through the rain forest, his big paws thudding over the ground as she raced at his side. He’d never felt such pure joy.

  Shooting through a tangle of brush, David plunged into a tendril of mist on the other side. The mist instantly thickened, going as impenetrably dark as a burning house. He skidded to a stop, afraid of colliding head-on with a tree.

  He listened to his breathing rasp in the blackness until it suddenly melted away. He was human again.

  Carnage surrounded him.

  Corpses lay sprawled among blazing huts, bodies twisted, horribly burned. Men, women, children, orbited by clouds of flies. Crows hopped among the bodies, pecking at flesh, cawing and squabbling and plucking out eyes.

  He turned in a slow, horrified circle. Grief tore at him, sharp as a vulture’s beak. He knew these people. They weren’t random victims of a horrible disaster. They were friends, relatives, brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews.

  Yet he didn’t remember them. How could he have forgotten his people?

  “This is on your head.” The woman’s voice was as chill and acid as iced poison.

  He turned to find a Sidhe female standing naked among the bodies. Blood smeared her body and hair, as if she’d bathed in it. Her blue eyes stared out of the gory mask of her face, pale and insane.

  “How could you do this?” he whispered, disbelief and betrayal a ball of cold lead in his chest. “How could you murder our people?”

  “Our people?” She curled her lips—the lips he’d once kissed with such delicious greed. “Your people. They loved you, not me. Yet you would be nothing without me! They would be nothing without me.” She smiled viciously, spreading her arms to indicate the carnage. “And now that’s exactly what they are. Nothing.�
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  Fury replaced the grief and shock with a blinding red haze. He threw up a hand and sent a roiling blast of magic right at her murderous face.

  “David! ” Eva’s alarmed shout snapped him out of the dream.

  He was kneeling on the bed, hand still lifted just as it had been in the nightmare. Across the room, one of Eva’s figurines lay in smoking fragments.

  “You blew up Batman.” Eva stared at the remains of the statuette. “How the hell did you blow up Batman?”

  “I have no idea.” He fell back against the pillow, his mind still reverberating with grief and rage from the remains of the dream.

  “That must have been one nasty dream.”

  He stared blindly at the ceiling. “It was. Gods, it was.”

  Warlock jolted up on the thick pile of cushions and silk. His heart pounded in his furry chest as he bounded out of his sleeping pit to stand there panting, fighting his fear, his clawed hands shaking.

  For a moment, the Demigod had taken some of his power and memories back. Warlock had felt them being dragged away, had felt the ruthless strength of the immortal’s mind.

  He’d felt himself weaken.

  His shaking morphed from fear to rage. Weakness was unacceptable. Merlin had chosen him to become the wizard werewolf because he was the strongest, the most worthy of his Saxon race. And Merlin had needed someone like him to make sure Arthur’s knights didn’t turn on humanity.

  For centuries, the Direkind had followed him in his quest. Even those who had no idea of his existence—which was most of them—had followed the Chosen he led. The Chosen, who were the aristocratic descendents of those Merlin had personally selected to become Direkind. Most of the rest were Bitten—transformed by the magic of a werewolf’s bite.

  The Direkind, unlike the Magekind—or him, for that matter—were not immortal. Another thing that gave him power.

  He’d taken the strength Merlin had given him and built it. Now, with Smoke’s added magic, he had become stronger yet. Strong enough to meet the hated Celt king’s power, even with all the witches Arthur could command.

  Always, always he’d feared failing his people—going against Arthur only to be defeated by the overwhelming magic of the Magekind. That fear had become an obsession, eating at him for centuries, until he’d known he could let nothing stop him in his quest for power. Even if it meant doing the necessary but distasteful. Even if Merlin would not have approved.

  Merlin, after all, was gone. Warlock was the one left to clean up the Celt’s mess—unnecessary wars that could have been prevented, starving children, racial and religious hate boiling over into violence. If the Celt had only had the balls to use the power at his disposal, so many lives could have been saved. But Arthur didn’t have the stomach for the job.

  Warlock did.

  He just had to get Arthur out of the way so he could do it.

  So he’d fathered sons, attempting to create magic-using partners, but one by one they’d become a threat, and he’d had to eliminate them all. More recently, he’d gotten a daughter on a woman of the Chosen, reasoning that since she was a female, she could be no real threat.

  The grandsons she’d give him would not have the talent to be true competition, while still providing the magical assistance he’d need to go up against Arthur’s witches. It would take decades to put such a plan in motion, but since he was immortal, he had all the time he needed.

  Now he’d suddenly acquired the power he’d craved for so many centuries. And it was everything he’d ever dreamed of, as intoxicating as any drug.

  It was delicious being a god.

  As for the alien memories that came with that power, he’d realized he needed them. Otherwise he wouldn’t have the experience to shape all that wild magic.

  I’m not going to give this up. Not any of it.

  The Demigod had to die before he could take his powers back. Because he would. Eventually Smoke’s spirit would call the magic back to him, and it would answer that call. Only the cat’s death would allow Warlock to keep his stolen abilities.

  Should I do it myself? It would be easy. Stripped of his magic, Smoke would be unable to defend himself.

  But what if proximity allowed Smoke to draw on his powers? What if they jumped back to him when Warlock got within killing range? Now that he’d tasted the cat’s magic, he knew he definitely didn’t want to be on the receiving end of it.

  So, no.

  Fortunately, he had plenty of killers at his disposal. Handpicked murderers he’d bitten to create Dire Wolves. Those men feared him so much they would do anything for him.

  Even kill a god.

  Miranda Drake sprawled on her belly on her pink lace canopied bed, reading Guilty Pleasures for something like the fifteenth time. Whenever she got particularly depressed, she liked to read about Anita Blake kicking monster ass. Especially since kicking any kind of ass was something Miranda was never allowed to do.

  Thus the whole depression thing.

  She supposed it could have been worse. The house she lived in was a thirty-room Gilded Age mansion with high walls of cream stone and a low-pitched roofline. It had been home to Drake werewolves since 1898, and it was drafty and pretentious as hell. Miranda’s very pink bedroom was better suited to a tween than the twenty-four-year-old she was.

  But at least she had books.

  Anita was locking horns with Jean Claude when her mother tapped on the door. “Miranda?” Without waiting for permission, Joelle walked in. She paused with one nervous hand on the doorknob, a too-thin, perpetually wary woman in a Vera Wang tank dress. Its flowing emerald silk contrasted with the flaming red tumble of her hair. All that color only emphasized her pale skin and the dark hollows under her green eyes.

  Miranda looked up, frowning in surprise. Her mother normally had more respect for her privacy. Unlike her stepfather, who usually barged in like a man hoping to catch her at something.

  Her surprise became unease when Harold Worthington sauntered in at her mother’s heels, an expression of ugly anticipation on his handsome face. Worthington was a big man, tall and powerfully built, with silver threading his black hair. Dressed in a tailored pin-striped gray suit with a red power tie, he looked like a bank CEO. Which was exactly what he was.

  He was also a very big, very nasty werewolf.

  None of which explained what the hell he was doing in here. Her parents had never let any male in her bedroom before.

  Miranda rolled off her bed and faced the two warily. “What’s this about, Mom?”

  Joelle licked her lips and pasted a too-bright smile on her face. “Randy, you remember Mr. Worthington—uh, Harold. He’s been a friend of the family for years.”

  “Yes, but he generally doesn’t make a habit of coming into my bedroom.” She met her mother’s gaze. “Especially not during my Burning Moon.”

  Worthington grinned at her. “Then I’d think you’d be glad to see me. Leave us alone, Joelle.” He gave the order without even looking at her mother.

  Joelle hesitated, her expression torn. “This is what your father wants, Miranda.”

  Oh, fuck. “What about what I want, Mother?”

  “That’s not even relevant, Miranda. Get out, Joelle.”

  “This isn’t your house, Harry,” Randy spat. “You don’t tell my mother what to do in her own home.”

  “Miranda, please don’t make this harder than it has to be. Please!” Joelle turned and fled. The door banged closed behind her.

  So much for mother love.

  Randy stared at the older man coldly. Her heart was hammering, and she wanted to throw up, but she kept the fear and dread from her face. She’d perfected an expressionless mask before she could read. “If you think I’m going to sleep with you, you’re out of your mind.”

  “Do you really think you have any say in this?” He tossed his jacket on her bed and went to work on the gold cuff links fastening his French cuffs. “Warlock wants you pregnant, and I’m going to make sure he gets what he wants.�
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  Yeah, that’s what she’d figured. “I’m not going to let you rape me, Harry.”

  He looked up from tucking his cuff links into his pants pocket. “You’re in your Burning Moon, my dear. It won’t be rape for long.”

  Some part of her growled in agreement—her wolf had been denied a lover for far too many years. She snarled denial at both the beast and Worthington. “Burning Moon or no Burning Moon, I choose who I sleep with. You’re twenty years older than I am, for God’s sake. You could be my father!”

  “But I’m not.” He coolly unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a powerful chest covered in a thick mat of black hair. “If I were, I assure you, you’d be a lot better behaved.”

  She curled her hands into claws and glared at him. “I’ll fight you.”

  “And I’ll win.” He folded the shirt and put it aside, then began to unbuckle his belt.

  “Maybe.” Reckless rage curled her lips into a snarl. “And maybe I’ll make you hurt me too bad to give Warlock his grandson.”

  He gave her a supercilious smile that gradually faded as he realized she meant it. Then he snorted and tossed his belt aside. “You’re just a woman. You don’t have the guts.”

  “Try me.” Being Dire Wolf, she could heal virtually anything he did to her. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but she would survive.

  “You’d let an innocent baby die?”

  “That’s almost funny, coming from you. Anyway, it’s not a baby until you get me pregnant. And you’re not going to get me pregnant.” She started to reach for her magic ...

  “If you change, your mother pays.”

  Miranda froze, horror slicing through her fury. “What?”

  Worthington stared at her through eyes like icy slits. “If you fight me, I will beat your mother bloody.”

  She was going to be sick. Swallowing hard, Miranda forced a laugh. “You wouldn’t dare. My stepfather ...”