Shattered Spirits

by C. I. Black

  Capri scrambled off the stairs and ducked into the space under the kitchen window. Miller shoved in beside her, squeezing them between the concrete steps and a prickly shrub. He gave her a questioning look, probably wondering why they weren’t making a mad dash across the backyard into the woodlot. He probably wondered a lot of things.

  But Diablo’s night-sight was just as good as hers, and if he glanced out the window, he’d see them.

  The kitchen light turned on, sending a swath of illumination across the undisturbed snow blanketing the yard. She hadn’t thought Diablo was so cocky… okay, who was she kidding, everything about Diablo screamed cocky. He probably didn’t care if the neighbors saw him poking around. He’d just offer them that sexy smile of his, and man or woman, they’d forget what their problem was.

  She resisted the urge to peek inside to see what he was doing. If she got desperate, which she doubted she would, she’d work Reynolds’s murder into casual conversation and see what his reaction was. She didn’t think she’d get much, which was why she’d save it for when she was desperate.

  Which was highly unlikely, because Detective Miller here was going to give her answers… about Reynolds, not the desire she was sure she’d imagined radiating from him.

  She subvocalized her power word and leveled her gaze on him. “We have an unfinished conversation.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Ryan’s pulse jumped at Jones’s look. It sizzled through him, filling him with so much want, he ached. This woman was going to drive him crazy. What was he thinking? She already was driving him crazy, and he barely knew her.

  Oh, man. Now was not the time or place. It wasn’t the time or place for a conversation, either, but whatever was between them certainly wasn’t finished. He had questions, like if she was here on duty, why was she searching in the dark without a flashlight, and why flee when someone else showed up?

  “Meeting three times in one day is not a coincidence,” she hissed.

  “The second time wasn’t a coin—” The words blurted out before he could stop them. He snapped his mouth shut. Where had that come from? Aside from the fact that the abandoned factory had been off the beaten path, he was pretty sure he hadn’t told her outright that he’d followed her. Except he was still having trouble remembering all the details about today.

  Cold seeped through his coat where his back pressed against the siding. It slid up his neck, and over his skull, and tingled in his sinuses behind his eyes. Jeez, he hadn’t thought it was that cold. Perhaps the lack of activity made him feel it more.

  “The second time—at the old factory?” Jones rolled her eyes, the whites catching a hint of the light coming from the window. “Yes, that much was obvious. Care to tell me why?”

  He opened his mouth, then forced it shut. The words were on the tip of his tongue, ready to spill out. What the heck was he doing? There wasn’t anything he could say that wouldn’t look bad. He certainly couldn’t tell her the truth, that she was going to be hurt, maybe even die sometime in the future, and he had to stop it. As it was, she could charge him with interfering with a federal investigation. Although if she was on a case, it didn’t explain why they were currently hiding. “Want to explain why we’re sitting here in the cold?”

  “No.” She pursed her lips. She was so close. If he was less of a gentleman, he’d swoop down and capture her mouth with his. Maybe he should. And now he really wanted to.

  He imagined her moment of shock, then the glorious feel of her melting into his embrace, pressing her body against his. Even though she wore a heavy winter coat, and probably layers of clothing underneath to keep warm just like he did, he would savor the feel of her curves against him.

  Yeah, and then he’d be feeling the hard muzzle of her sidearm because fantasy did not equal invitation.

  This was not good. They were hiding in the snow, she was probably on the verge of arresting him, and all he could think about was kissing her… and more.

  He shook his head.

  He should just tell her what he was really up to. The urge to say everything was overwhelming. The cold in his head muddled his thoughts, and he struggled to concentrate. All he needed to do was explain himself, explain about his curse, that he could see the future, and how Pete, or rather Andy Reynolds—at least that was the name on the information Hiro had sent him—was already dead, and…

  And then she’d lock him up in the psych ward. No, he couldn’t reveal that he saw the future. But he needed to tell her something. If his vision of her in danger was true, he needed a reason to stay close to her.

  The cold now burned in his sinuses. He struggled to focus. “I knew Pete—Andy Reynolds. I can help your investigation. Andy and I—” He bit the inside of his cheek. He’d been about to say they had been friends when they were kids, but if she didn’t think his knowledge of Reynolds was recent, she might not want his help. “We’re old friends.”

  “So that explains why you were illegally searching his house?” Her tone said she didn’t believe him.

  “Listen, I just want to find out what happened.” He needed to think up an explanation, something she’d believe. “We lost touch when I trans—” God damn it, was he going to tell her everything? He almost mentioned the forced transfer to Elmsville as the reason he’d lost touch with Pete… no, Andy. Shit. What was wrong with him?

  They were sitting in the dark; there was nothing about this situation that would compel him to open up to this stranger. But perhaps that was it. She was a beautiful, mysterious FBI agent, all fire and fight coiled in a seductively tiny package, and he wanted to know her better.

  Her eyes narrowed. “When you what?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You didn’t finish your sentence.”

  No. He hadn’t. And he didn’t want to continue. “We lost touch.”

  “There was more to that sentence before.”

  Yes, there had been, and from the look in her eyes, he didn’t think he’d get away without saying more. “We lost touch when I transferred to Elmsville.” Please don’t let her ask about that right now. If she did, he knew the words would come spilling out, and, well, an Internal Affairs investigation and transfer to small-town-nowhere Pennsylvania didn’t make a man look good. It made him look guilty.

  The wind picked up, and the trees on the yard’s other side creaked. The cold in his face eased away. Guess he was getting used to it, but his hips and knees were going numb from staying crouched for so long. Now he was even more aware of the heat of Capri’s body beside him and the rectangle of light falling through the kitchen window making the snow sparkle.

  He clenched and unclenched his hands, trying to keep them warm as well as to keep from reaching for her.

  “I want to find out what happened, too. Perhaps we should join forces.” Her whisper sent shivers racing over him, and the chill in his face returned. “I have a few ground rules, though.”

  Of course she did. But why the change of heart? Why did she suddenly want to work with him? “Why don’t we negotiate this when we’re someplace warm?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “This is not up for negotiation.”

  The light in the kitchen flicked off and heavy footsteps moved away into the living room. Jones inched up, peeking in the window. The front door thudded shut, and she stood but didn’t relax.

  Ryan strained to hear the crunch of feet coming closer, but instead, a vehicle started. He glanced around the side of the house, and a dark-colored Jeep pulled away from the curb and drove off.

  “So.” Jones stood and brushed snow from the rear of her coat. “Find anything during your search?”

  “I didn’t have a lot of time, but I wasn’t sure I’d find anything. We’d probably have more luck looking into his phone records and financial statements.” He hadn’t really thought he’d find anything at the house. All he really wanted was evidence that the victim was or wasn’t also Pete Matthews. He hadn’t expected to find a birth certificate lying around, but a part of him had hoped
it would be something as simple.

  “I agree. I’ve got a man looking into that. I suggest, since Reynolds was found in an alley near his work, we start there.”

  “Okay, good.”

  She crossed her arms. “Good.”

  He didn’t know what else to say. Attraction hung between them, full and heavy, caught in an eternity of silence and heat and uncertainty.

  Moonlight broke from the clouds above and reflected in the crystalline snow. The light danced through the gentle swells of drifts behind her, like a swarm of illuminated creatures, flashing in and out of life, darting this way and that. Darkness followed, another cloud passing over the moon, enveloping Capri and the yard in grey, but a light still emanated from her eyes.

  Ryan blinked. Her eyes really weren’t glowing. It was the contrast between her pupils and pale irises. But the illusion didn’t disappear. In fact, for a heartbeat, he swore it grew, radiating across her cheeks and forehead until a hint of light haloed her. An angel fallen from heaven. An angel with a dusting of freckles across her nose. She opened her mouth, ever so slightly, and a breath, frozen in the chill, curled out, caressing her cheeks.

  God, to be that breath, to touch her face and warm her skin.

  As if reading his thoughts, she reached for him. Her fingers trembled, drawing closer and closer to his jaw. Her gaze held him captive: breath, body, and soul. There was nothing else in the world but her and the promise of her touch. He ached for her to close the distance, even with just her fingers.

  Her index finger brushed his jaw. Lightning zinged through him, crackling along his senses and swirling around his heart.

  Her other fingers joined the first, sliding from his jaw into his hairline to cup his cheek. With lips parted even more, she leaned closer. Her breath entwined with his, easing warm and moist across his face.

  He was crazy to want to kiss her. She didn’t like him, never wanted to see him again. Or at least, that’s what he’d thought from their last encounter. From this one as well. Yet everything about him was on fire, and she was close, so very close.

  The chill billowed across his face, tingling his skin. His mind whirled, filled only with the desire to know how she’d feel and taste. He dipped forward, brushing his lips against hers.

  She froze.

  He froze in response. What the hell was he doing? He should stop, back off—

  With a growl, she grabbed the front of his jacket and kissed him back, hungry, commanding, as if she needed his breath to survive. Warmth, chill, everything vanished, save for the feel of her against him and the passion promised with her lips. He’d never experienced such fire, such need.

  And it burned both ways. Kissing him had to be proof of that. But a kiss wasn’t going to be enough for them. One night wouldn’t be enough. Even if he lived a hundred lifetimes, it still wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the ferocious desire filling him, or the ferocious woman who’d just kissed him. But damn, he loved a challenge.

  She growled again and jerked away.

  He stumbled at the sudden loss of contact, and cold rushed across his skin where her breath had warmed it. “That was—” What could he say? Unbelievable? Incredible? Stupid?

  Her chest heaved with quick breaths, and the air about her billowed with mist. Her blue eyes glowed with that eerie light, and the desire with which she’d all but consumed him simmered there.

  “That was inappropriate,” she said, her voice low.

  In so many ways, and yet he couldn’t think of any of those ways at the moment. God, he had never had a kiss like that before.

  “If we’re going to work together, we need to concentrate on that. Work.” But her gaze still said she wanted him naked right now, and she didn’t care that they were outside in the snow.

  She growled again, punched the siding beside her, and drew in a harsh breath. With a blink, the desire in her eyes disappeared, but the glow remained. Ice bled into his sinuses again. They needed to work together. Kissing her had been a mistake. He didn’t really desire her.

  Of course he did—

  No, he didn’t. Focus on finding the truth about Andy Reynolds. That’s what they needed to do.

  But that kiss had been wonderful, amazing—

  Not real?

  He couldn’t get his thoughts straight. He and Capri… no, Special Agent Jones, needed to work together. Focus on the job. But—

  “I’ll meet you at the Newgate Youth Center, 10 a.m.,” she said.

  There was something he wanted to do, but he couldn’t remember what. It had something to do with Jones and her lips and…

  “10 a.m.,” she said again, jerking her chin toward the path leading to the front of the house and his car.

  “10 a.m.” Tomorrow he’d get answers about the body in the morgue and be able to keep an eye on Jones. He was sure he was forgetting something, but he’d worry about that when it came up.

  CHAPTER 13

  Capri forced herself not to punch the house again.

  Shit. Shit shit shit.

  She had lost her mind. She had to. Kissing Miller. What the hell had she been thinking?

  She hadn’t been. That was the problem. He looked so much like Eric, and she missed him so much, and she just had to kiss him one more time.

  Except that wasn’t true. She’d known Miller wasn’t Eric. They might be twins, but there were differences in their personalities. Whereas Eric had been a gentle professor, Miller had that cop’s edge, the one that said he’d seen trouble before and knew how to handle it. Eric had treated her like a princess, worshiped her with soft gauzy love that had made her feel like she was floating all the time. Miller would challenge her, bring out her drake, make her growl.

  Mother of All, he had made her growl. It had taken everything she’d had within her not to bare her teeth in invitation.

  Miller’s footsteps crunched down the driveway and up the street.

  Capri’s lips curled back of their own volition, and she hissed out a cloudy breath. She shouldn’t have used her magic to distract him and make him forget what she’d done, but she hadn’t been able to think of anything else to do.

  Oh, Mother. He looked like Eric. That was all.

  Eric. Dead Eric. Eric who she’d had to rip her heart into pieces to leave. If she gave in to her desires for Miller, she’d be faced with the same agony. She would stay young, he would grow old, and dragon law demanded she’d have to leave.

  She couldn’t do that again. Never again.

  She marched to her car and drove home. She didn’t even know anything about Detective Miller. Even if she wasn’t going to continue kissing him—but Mother of All, she really wanted to—she was still going to work with him. At the very least, she needed to know who she had at her back.

  And if Tobias or anyone else found out, she was in deep, deep shit. Working with a human on an unsanctioned case that involved drakes was a surefire way to get reborn.

  But the man kept showing up everywhere. He had a vested interest in the case. She doubted it actually was that he and Reynolds had been friends. Regardless, he was going to keep getting underfoot unless she started working with him.

  She stepped into her front foyer, locked the heavy oak door behind her, and tossed her keys into the dish on the sleek round table in the center of the wide space. In the dim light, it was hard to tell the entrance was decorated in gleaming cherry and gold. Eric had loved how it had shimmered under the light of the then-candle chandelier hanging above.

  Stop thinking about Eric, damn it.

  Focus on Miller. Her best way to deal with him was to use him and whatever insight he brought to the case, then erase his memory.

  The thought made her sick.

  But it was the only way. If she kept him away from her fellow drakes, creating new memories would be easier, but it would still be intrusive… and painful.

  Her lips burned at the memory of kissing him.

  She had no choice. It was the only way to deal with him. No matter how much she wanted
to deal with him in other, more satisfying ways. Her stomach flip-flopped again, and her lips burned hotter.

  No choice. No choice. God damned dragon laws.

  She grabbed her laptop from the hall table and stormed through her kitchen to her greenhouse. She flicked on the light, illuminating a mass of greenery, vines, shrubs, miniature trees, and orchids. Hundreds of beautiful, mesmerizing orchids.

  The sweet aroma of her cymbidium tracyanum slid across her senses. Everything would be all right. She’d figure it out. And she’d resist the need to kindle a romance with the twin of her dead lover. A man she still knew nothing about.

  She eased onto a plush-cushioned couch in the heart of her hoard and booted up her laptop. The glass wall of the greenhouse reflected a stunned woman. Her eyes were too big, her face too pale, and half of her strawberry blonde locks had fallen from her chignon.

  This was ridiculous. She was a dragon. Sure, she was a water drake, not as fierce as a fire drake, but she was still a predator. A man, a human man at that, didn’t break her. And yet, that’s what being with Eric had done to her. Leaving him had shattered her, making her carry on while missing pieces. And now with Miller—

  Her phone beeped. She jerked. Her laptop teetered on her lap, and she grabbed it before it fell to the ceramic tiled floor.

  “Jones,” she said.

  “I think you’ve forgotten something,” Hiro said.

  “Forgotten?” Ah, shit, what time was it? After eleven. Girls’ night.

  “Or has someone distracted you?” Hiro asked, sliding out the word someone.

  Yeah, they both knew who that someone was. Detective Ryan Miller. “Really? You think I’d mess around with a human?”

  “You could do worse.”

  Right. From the way Miller had entered Hiro’s exam room and invited her to dinner, they had to know each other. How convenient she and the good doctor were about to share margaritas. If she was going to work with him, she had to know more about him. Really. That was the only reason she wanted to know more about the man.