by Cait London
“He’s been in here, since I was. He’s—I can feel his energy, taking mine. It’s sucking—that’s what powerful psychic vampires can do, suck away energy and make it theirs. They feed on the vulnerable and weak—apparently, I’m both right now.”
“He isn’t taking anything,” Owen stated grimly. “You’re too strong. Fight back, honey. Do what you do, protect yourself. Tell me how this works.”
Instinctively, Leona knew just what had happened. She ran her finger along the arm of her desk chair, and it burned her. She rubbed her hands together. “He’s imprinted his energy on everything. I think—I think he came in here, retrieved his electronic stuff, and deliberately set about touching absolutely everything.”
“Then clean it up.”
“Sure. That sounds good. Just take disinfectant and scrub the place down…. How?”
“You’re not completely afraid. You’ve still got that kiss-my-butt attitude. Speaking of your curves…” Owen studied her for just that instant. The next moment he tugged Leona into his arms and eased her feet apart. His knee nudged between hers, his muscled thigh pressing intimately against her. “Here’s how you might imprint both of our energies over this place.”
Instantly his heat and energy replaced the evil she’d felt; Leona’s breath came more quickly now, but for a different reason. She was already damp and soft and ready—and Owen’s intense expression said he felt her heat, too. His deep growl of pleasure and the bulge against her leg increased the low throb within her. She would soon get Owen into her bed. A little old-fashioned cave-woman therapy would definitely help.
“You know, I don’t feel his energy here anymore,” Leona stated lightly. She leaned in to nibble a trail across Owen’s jaw up to his ear. When she bit his ear and licked it, he tensed, heat pouring from his skin. His low growl of pleasure caused Leona to smile. “Owen? Maybe we should go home and imprint my bed.”
Owen’s hands slowly roamed over her body, his thumbs toying with her breasts. “Hey. Now, that’s a good idea.”
Rolf replaced the telephone in its cradle. The report hadn’t pleased him; one of his “helpers” had been taken out by Leona and Owen. Apparently, Leona had been able to override Rolf’s work with Dean. “Leona isn’t going to die easily. But nothing will be left of her mind when she finally does.”
He’d underestimated Leona. That was a mistake he wouldn’t make again. She was developing, getting stronger, but that only made his prey more interesting. During their previous brief meetings, he’d been able to block her. That might change. According to his father’s information, the Aisling women were unreliable, their talent able to leap out of their control—and the person trying to control them. His father would know…he’d caused the triplets’ grandmother, Stella Mornay, to go mad.
Rolf settled back to look at himself in his workshop’s mirror. Years of study had perfected this disguise as Vernon O’Malley. He eased off his wig, the net cap containing his long black hair. He winnowed his fingers through the strands. “Ah, that feels good.”
Slowly he removed the padding around his face and admired his reflection. He was really very talented, a chameleon, able to move into different social circles easily. Identity theft had always been so easy, and money was practically falling into his hands. Killing had also been very easy, and necessary as he assumed his prey’s identity. Vernon had also been chosen carefully, not only for his vulnerabilities, but because of his body build—somewhat near Rolf’s. Disguised as Vernon, Rolf could move easily through many lives.
Peeling off a bit of the silicone’s adhesive from his face, he angled his face to study it. He swiftly fastened the long hair beside his face into narrow braids, then bound the ends with leather strips. He was the image of the ancestor in his dreams. “I do look like you, Borg.”
He leaned closer to the mirror, fascinated with his own compelling, hypnotic eyes. That day in her shop, he’d snagged a psychic particle of Leona’s, and he’d made it his. But then, she’d caught something of his, too, just as Greer had.
“Aisling, the queen seer who started it all… I’ll take Greer down at the last. She needs to know how really good I am. Better than she thinks she is. Before I take Greer down, I just might have that repeat performance at the ‘Psychic Minds’. Only next time, she’ll play the fool.”
Only Rolf’s father had come close to destroying the Aislings. Rolf smiled smugly. “I am the one to do the job. I’ve always known it.”
With care, Rolf opened a portable thermal-and-humidity-controlled chest. It had taken years to reproduce the artifacts he’d seen in his mind—flashes of ancient times. As he slowly dressed in Viking costume, he relished how he appeared in the full-length mirror, which had been custom-made to accommodate his height and body. Once done, he posed, admiring his reflection. “Leona should see me like this. She will, eventually.”
He considered the sheathed weapons at his side, exact replicas of Borg’s. Rolf had seen them in his dreams and knew that they’d drawn blood. He considered what he should use to finish Owen Shaw, a short dagger or the heavier one? Or the sword?
As he let his fingers glide sensuously along the three-foot blade of the custom-made replica of a Viking sword, he read the angular characters on the grip. “Borg, the greatest of all Vikings. Strongest in battle, his sword tasting all who would withstand him, their blood red on his blade. His eyes see what others cannot.”
For an instant, other visions flashed at Rolf, scenes he didn’t want in his mind. Thorgood’s second-in-command, a hunter with some seer talent, had cautioned the chieftain about Borg. The hunter had used his gift to track Borg and kill him….
Rolf shoved that vision-flash away. It didn’t please him. He preferred to think of possessing Thorgood-the-Wolf’s brooch and building his revenge.
The powerful psychic bloodline of Borg and Aisling could have ruled the world….
As he studied his reflection, he remembered the shame Greer had caused him. “She thought I was a fake, one of lower ability. All that is going to change, Greer. I’ll have your peers laughing at you—not me.”
Rolf closed his eyes, letting the fantasy of Leona’s pale, naked, bound body appear in his mind, as it often did. She had interfered with his plans yet again. She would pay for that. “Nothing can stop me once I have that brooch.”
He glanced at the yellow, mixed-breed dog in the cage behind him. She was coming into heat, perfect to attract Shaw’s animal, to draw him away. Rolf had noticed the German shepherd’s keen senses were too alert to his own presence and psychic residue. The dog had evidently bonded with the man and was protective of Owen and of Leona.
Odd that animals never bonded with him. As a boy, Rolf had wanted a pet, but they never seemed to survive; there was always that need to hurt them.
Last night, Rolf had planned to visit Leona—in disguise, of course. But the dog had started barking. Leona had come to the window, peering out into the night. He’d stood on the street corner, letting her see him, just enough to make her uneasy. “Leona….” he’d whispered into the night air.
The dog’s barking and antics had distracted her; Leona’s senses had locked on to the animal and closed the link.
He glanced at Shaw’s revolver on the countertop littered with theatrical makeup, wigs, and padding. “If the female dog doesn’t work, there are always other ways. And that handgun still has Owen’s prints on the grip, perfect for a murder charge. I could always have someone in prison kill him there, but then I’d be missing the fun.”
He stood back and admired himself. Rolf’s features perfectly matched his ancestor Borg’s. “Aisling really should have chosen him.”
Images flipped through his mind, like a stream that wouldn’t stop. With the Celt village destroyed and burning behind her, Aisling had faced Thorgood and his Viking raiders. Unafraid, she spoke to Thorgood. “Take me, I am worth more than anything you will ever have. Leave my people alone.”
In the next heartbeat, she’d turned slowly to Borg. Her green eyes had lock
ed with his. She’d sensed his energy immediately and hadn’t liked it. Borg had caught the thunderbolt of her power, tempered with a feminine softness. His senses reeled with lust for the woman who could make his own seer powers even stronger. With her in his hand, doing his bidding, he would have everything that Thorgood would ever dream of possessing. Aisling was the prize he had to have in his bed and under his power. “I challenge you for the woman,” Borg had called impetuously to the famed chieftain.
Thorgood had turned to him slowly. “Do you, Borg?” he asked coolly, his hand already resting on his sword.
The seer’s small pale hand had rested on Thorgood’s muscled shoulder, staying him. “I would have you safe, my lord.”
“Stand back. This is not for a woman, let alone a captive woman, to decide. You will have to learn to obey me, pet.”
“Oh, go play your silly game then. But if you are hurt, I will not be happy.”
Incensed at the developing intimacy between Thorgood and the seer, Borg moved to quickly unsheathe his sword. Blades clashed, the metallic sound echoing off Rolf’s basement workshop. Men grunted and sweated and fought brutally, then Borg lay on the ground.
Rolf inhaled abruptly, disgusted by the image of his ancestor, defeated…. He’d envisioned that scene so many times. Aisling’s clear green eyes had stared directly at Rolf, as if he were Borg. She seemed to peer into his mind at the cruelties, the lust, and the greed. Then she’d raised her head to look straight into the eyes of Thorgood’s guard, tall, hardened warriors who would give their blood for their chieftain and the woman he had claimed as his own.
Rolf tapped the sword’s honed blade on the countertop next to Owen Shaw’s revolver. “He may not have won the seer, but Borg did know how to lay a good curse on the Aislings.”
In the mirror, the compelling eyes of his ancestor pinned Rolf. Along that sharp face, thin braids swung like snakes. Lifting his blade to the thunderous sky, he shouted his curse upon the Aisling-Thorgood line.
Then he repeated Aisling’s words. They echoed eerily in his underground workroom.
“Men of Thorgood-the-Wolf,” she had called. A small woman, Aisling faced a band of warriors much taller than she, their blades red with the blood of her people. Touching the wolf’s-head brooch at Thorgood’s shoulder, she lifted her head as she spoke to the warriors. Borg knew that Aisling would replace him as counsel to the chieftain and others. Borg’s power would be torn away, shredded, by this little red-haired witch who declared, “I give myself freely to Thorgood. You will protect our line as if it were your own.”
Thorgood had laughed outright, amused that a mere woman could tell his men to protect their children, as yet unborn. At the same time, Borg’s vision had revealed the seer’s womb rounding, with red-haired, green-eyed girls, one after another, flowing through time…. Aisling’s power would pass to those resembling her. And through time, the warriors’ descendants would protect the women of the Aisling-and-Thorgood line.
“Damn them all,” Rolf cursed violently as he sank the blade into the wooden countertop. He fought to control the temper that was his one weakness, then surveyed the photographs pasted around his well-lit mirror.
The Aisling triplets and Greer stared back at him. His finger caressed the photographs, one by one. Rolf issued his father’s familiar chant. “Take one down, weaken the link, take them all down, get the brooch, get the power.”
“So this is what psychics do for a comedown.”
Leona looked up at him, a smile on her lips as she said, “It beats making pies.”
Still tangled with Leona in her guest-room bed, Owen smiled against her hair, letting himself float in the aftermath of their lovemaking. Leona’s lips traced a path to Owen’s nipple and nibbled gently. Her breasts snuggled against his side, and her thigh lay between his. His hands roamed her naked, soft, warm curves. At the moment, life was good for Owen Shaw.
This time, he had been determined to keep their lovemaking controlled.
Leona did not have the same determination.
In the brief ride to her home, the looks she’d given him had a sexual charge that had him aching. When she’d licked her lips, Owen could almost feel her pulsing around him. He’d kept his mind on bills to keep himself from pulling over and shocking Lexington’s residents. Inside her home, Owen had thoroughly searched the house. He’d wanted no interruptions or filming of the sexual marathon he had planned with Leona.
Meanwhile, Leona had gone straight to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. He’d realized that Leona’s tea-making had begun to be a habit, especially when she was stressed. It seemed to give her thinking space. Max had prowled the house, sniffing for any harmful residue of psychic energy. With a sudden huff of approval, he had plopped down on a rug and lapped the water from his bowl. Leona had given Max a bonemeal-and-grain doggie cookie from the tea shop, and Owen had tilted his head to study her curved backside. When she straightened and turned, Leona had caught him looking at her.
“I’m afraid your tea might be a little cool, by the time you get to drink it,” Leona had said as she moved toward him. She’d dropped her clothing in front of him, then held up her rune bracelet for him to unclasp. She had that hot, determined look, as if nothing could keep her from him. The nice thing about the lady was that she knew how to make a point, Owen had decided. She’d unbuttoned his jeans and slid his zipper down, cradling the fullness of him in her hands. By the time they reached the guest room, neither of them was dressed.
With her body lying soft against him now, Owen caressed her breast. He’d been sizzled well and good, but he was hoping for more than just helping Leona find escape from her stresses. He needed reassurance that Leona was his—to keep. “That was a great tea shop,” he murmured just to jump-start his plan.
Her hand roamed his chest, and she snuggled closer, toying with his nipple and licking it, sending hard jolts straight southward. “Mm. There are others in town. We should try them, too.”
Owen rubbed a strand of her hair across his lips. He enjoyed the scent—exotic, fresh. At Tea-Mart 4 U, Leona hadn’t liked the other woman’s flirtations. Her eyes had turned that dark gold color, which Owen took to be a good sign. Part of good plan was to make certain that the other party involved recognized the advantages of playing one-on-one. “This is nice. Monday noon, and you and I are in bed.”
“It’s already been a long day,” she murmured drowsily against his throat. “I really should get back to the shop and start going over applications.”
“Your briefcase and laptop are here. You could do that here, couldn’t you?”
She stretched out on her back, and arched her body, pale and curved in the shadowy room, the September day bright and warm outside. “I suppose. Right now, I can’t move.”
Owen kicked aside his undershorts, still tangled around one ankle. He turned on his side and looked at her. Those soft green eyes were half-closed, her breasts peaking against his caressing hand. “Your claustrophobia is why you don’t want to be pinned down, isn’t it?”
Her eyes flickered as if an unpleasant memory had crossed her mind. “Uh-huh. I’m really sorry, Owen.”
“I’m not complaining.”
He traced her nipple, then bent to kiss and flick his tongue over it. Owen noted her slight gasp, the way her hips arched as his hand smoothed a path down her belly. Her hips lifted to the slow rhythm of his fingers and she closed her eyes and sighed. “There’s something big, hot, and hard against my hip.”
He nudged her slightly and grinned. “Can’t think of what that might be.”
Carefully easing his leg between hers, he moved very slowly. As his arms moved to either side of her to brace himself, her lashes fluttered slightly, her gaze on him as he moved fully over her. His instincts told him to pin her securely. But he wouldn’t. The choice to accept him in this position was hers. “Scared? Tell me, if you are.”
“I will,” she whispered so softly that the shadows almost swallowed the sound.
His body
trembling with the need to thrust into hers, Owen waited and watched for signs of her fear. Did Leona trust him enough to put fear aside?
Her body seemed to be a slow hot wave, rippling beneath him, her legs easing slightly open, allowing him closer. “I know what you’re doing. You’re making a point, aren’t you?”
Owen forced his desire down, concentrating instead on holding Leona’s trust. “Something like that.”
Her arches cruised his calves slowly, allowing just the tip of him to enter her. Then her feet slid over his ankles, firmly trapping him. One of her hands slid from his shoulder down between their bodies as Leona met his slow, soft kiss. He wanted to give her gentleness and understanding, but his body raged on. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe, then raised slightly to look down where her hand gloved him.
“Owen…” Her voice seemed to ache, her need echoing his, building his.
Braced above her, Owen’s body trembled with the desire to possess her quickly. As he entered her slowly, Leona seemed to melt beneath him, her lips parted, her uneven breath stroking his face.
“Owen,” she whispered again as her hands raised to his back, her fingers pressing deeply. “Owen…”
Fully gloved within her tight body, he braced his weight away from her. “All right?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered unevenly. “I can’t trust myself like this.”
“Then trust me.” He moved slightly, taking the thrust deeper, and she closed her eyes. Then he eased away and thrust again, moving very slowly and watching Leona’s expression for signs of fear.
There was only the waiting within her, her senses prowling around her body, testing herself. “It feels good. Your weight, this closeness.”
He hadn’t rested fully upon her, but it was enough for now. But as he began to ease to his side, her arms and legs gripped him. “More.”
Taking a deep breath, Owen braced himself over her again. Leona began to move beneath him, an experimental lifting of her hips and taking him deeper. He strained against the intimate squeeze of her body, his blood pounding hot through his veins, every muscle tense and waiting for release. “Ah—I don’t know if I can—”
