A Taste of Ice (The Elementals)

by Hanna Martine

  Michael just stood there. Just stood there. And Xavier realized, with a sickness that almost doubled him over, that everything he’d guessed had been wrong.

  Michael ambled toward the TV parked in the bedroom corner.

  Oh, please, no…

  Picked up a remote and switched the TV on.

  Please…

  Up popped the black-and-white image of Cat. Gagged and bound at the ankles and wrists, she was tied to a post in the middle of a bedroom. A bedroom decorated almost exactly like this one.

  “You’re right,” Michael said. “I do like to keep everything I own with me.”

  Xavier roared and charged Michael, forgetting about Jase until the great gust of air swept around and threw him backward. Xavier didn’t care. His fists flew, his arms striking nothing but gale force winds.

  Michael just said, “I know how you feel. I don’t want to give her up either. Look what she’s become since I met her. Beloved, respected, successful. And now I know she’s special in ways I never even imagined.”

  Xavier finally collapsed back, chest heaving, arms aching. Nora had made him kill once. He’d fed a homeless man Mendacia, made him look like Gwen, and then stabbed him in order to make her people believe she was dead. After that, he’d vowed never to kill again. But staring at Michael, he wasn’t so sure he could honor that vow.

  “You know what you have to do, Xavier.” Michael slid his hands in his pockets. “And it should be easy. You were born for this. I won’t even tell Cat.”

  “You think this will make me? You think keeping Cat tied up is going to make me do what you want? You’re delusional.”

  Michael leaned forward. “I haven’t touched her. Yet. If you do this with Shelby, I won’t ever touch her.”

  Xavier scrubbed his face, feeling the itch of the skin he was dying to crawl out of. “You’ve already double-crossed me. I don’t believe you.”

  “Are you really willing to take that chance?”

  Fuck Shelby so Michael wouldn’t fuck Cat.

  It’s just once, said the Burned Man. Sex hasn’t meant anything to you for years. You expect that to change in a week?

  Xavier stumbled to the TV, touched the image of Cat. Her eyes were filled with anger. She hadn’t given up. Not his Cat. She was aware and strong and smart.

  “Why?” Xavier croaked. “Why Shelby? What’s the point?”

  Michael’s fist flew to the side, struck a print of the mountains hanging on the wall. Glass shattered. “Because Raymond Ebrecht may have ignored me, he may have tried to hide my powers from me, and he may have been the most successful studio head in Hollywood history, but he didn’t create new races. I can. And I will. I’m going after fucking godhood.”

  There was no reasoning with insanity.

  The music coming from below wasn’t stopping. The same beat over and over, driving into Xavier’s brain. He knew for a fact that mating a Tedran and a Primary produced no magic—Adine was proof of that—but Tedran and Ofarian? Or Tedran and another Secondary? Even he couldn’t predict what would happen.

  The Ofarians had no idea where he or Cat were, not even that they were in danger. Because he’d been blind and desperate while he’d searched for Cat, and Gwen hadn’t entered his mind. The Ofarians weren’t coming. Xavier and Cat only had each other. They’d get out of this, away from Michael and Lea, but to do that, they had to remain alive. And Michael had to believe they were his.

  “For you, sweetheart,” Xavier whispered to the TV in Tedran. “Everything, for you.”

  “That’s a ‘yes,’ I take it?”

  Xavier just bowed his head.

  “Bring Shelby up,” Michael told Jase on his way out. “Make sure it happens.”

  Jase watched Michael leave, then with a final glance at Xavier, he shut the door and locked it from the outside.

  Xavier rushed to the TV, gripping its sides in his hands. Cat was jiggling her ropes, trying to figure out the knots, trying to get free. Her mouth worked against the gag. Suddenly she went stiff as though she’d heard something. From the left side of the screen, Michael walked in. Xavier gripped the TV harder, his nose almost to the glass.

  “Don’t do it, asshole. Or I won’t.”

  Michael walked slowly toward Cat, saying something to her that made her eyes bulge. His lecherous gaze slid down Cat’s immobile body and Xavier almost put his fist through the TV.

  Michael loosened his tie. He looked right into the camera lens—right at Xavier—then turned, walked past Cat and sat on the edge of the bed. Waiting.

  Don’t know why you’re so worked up, said the Burned Man from the bed. This is you. You’re home.

  “This is not my home!”

  The lock clicked. The door swung open to reveal Shelby and Jase in the hallway. Xavier slapped off the TV. Whatever was about to happen, he didn’t want Cat in the room with him, not even in two dimensions.

  Shelby peered into the bedroom. “Who were you talking to?” She had short, curly brown hair and a round face, the skin under her eyes heavily smudged.

  “I don’t want to do this,” he told her outright.

  Though her own reluctance was painted plainly across her face, she still said, “We have to.” She charged across the room, right for him. He panicked, backed up. His shoulders struck the wall near the bathroom and then she was touching him, her foreign hands grabbing for the snap on his jeans.

  “Jesus! Stop!” He shoved her off and spun away, blood hammering in his veins. The trained desire sunk its talons in nice and deep, enough to hurt. He could feel the erection starting, growing, no matter how hard he mentally stamped it down. This woman had touched him, the Burned Man watched from the corner, and Xavier had no control over his own body.

  Cat, I’m so sorry.

  He thrust out his arms to Shelby, his eyes closed, quick breaths hissing from his nose. The need made him tremble.

  When he opened his eyes, she’d moved closer to him. Gone was the reluctance, replaced by determination. “We have to,” she told him again, stronger this time, “because if I don’t, Lea will give the Campos family my brother. She and Michael took over my debt and saved the only person in my family I care about. I’m not about to have them take it all back. I already screwed up my life once. I’m not doing it again.”

  In the doorway, Jase hung his head.

  Xavier scrubbed his face. Another innocent person at stake. Destroy a life…or make one.

  “You’d have a baby?” he asked, incredulous. “For him?”

  Shelby slowly shook her head. “Don’t care. I have a lot to make up for.”

  Part of him understood. What one person would do to make up for past mistakes wasn’t for him to decide. But her solution and his were very different, and satisfying Michael wasn’t on his list.

  Think think. He scanned the bedroom—the dresser, the corners, the TV. Was there a camera in here, too, so Michael could watch them? He couldn’t find any; but then, would Michael really need cameras if he had Jase to enforce his orders?

  Xavier threw a long look at the blank TV. Cat’s image still lingered, maybe not in wires and light, but certainly in his mind. Even though his body was reacting in the way he’d been conditioned, she’d changed him. Ruined him, even. Because mentally he’d never be able to sleep with any woman ever again if that woman wasn’t her.

  That was it.

  Shelby was inside his space again. Eyeing him with very little desire and a whole lot of desperation. She’d trapped him between the bed and the wall. The Burned Man’s vulgar words layered with the bass of the music still coming from below.

  “All right. I’ll do it,” he said. Shelby eased back, exhaling in what he could only take as gratitude. Xavier looked to Jase. “But I need help, man.”

  Jase pushed off the doorframe where he’d been leaning. “With what?”

  Xavier looked to the TV again, and Jase’s gaze followed. “I’ll do it—no protests, no questions—if Shelby looks like Cat.”

  Jase swiveled hi
s head back to Xavier. “And how do you propose that?” But by the clench of his jaw, he knew exactly how.

  Xavier lifted his cuffed arm, the end of his sleeve tugging back to reveal the sickly green neutralizer light. Jase was already shaking his head. “No. No way.”

  “I don’t care who I look like. Just do it,” Shelby said, taking another step closer.

  “See?” Xavier said. “Shelby is up for it; you won’t get any fight from her. She’s probably dosed with nelicoda anyway. And you and I both know that if you’re commanding air, I’m not going anywhere.”

  Jase just stared. Xavier had to touch Shelby’s shoulder to get her to move aside. She offered no resistance, but he felt the stirrings of a wind cage swirl around his feet.

  “Look,” Xavier said to Jase, lowering his voice. “You’re not playing lackey to Michael and Lea out of the goodness of your heart. Like Shelby, I bet you’ve been forced to do this because of someone you love. Well, guess what”—he thumped a fist to his chest—“so am I.”

  Jase swallowed. Pain and regret flickered behind his light blue eyes.

  “It’s just glamour,” Xavier went on. “I’ll weave it, give Michael what he wants. Everyone gets what they want. The people we’re all protecting stay safe. Michael told you to make this happen. I’m telling you, if you take off the neutralizer and let me use the illusion, it’ll happen.”

  For someone who could control wind and create powerful forces of movement, Jase stood very, very still. Xavier thought for sure Jase would refuse, but then the air elemental reached into his back pocket and pulled out the cuff key.

  Xavier almost collapsed to the floor, he exhaled so hard.

  “We both know,” Jase murmured as he slipped the key into the neutralizer lock, “that if I’m commanding air, you’re not going anywhere.”

  Xavier listened to his own words, thrown back at him. The cuff fell off. “Take that thing out in the hall,” he told Jase, and the other guy tossed it far away.

  “I want to see you do it,” Jase said.

  So Xavier turned Shelby into Cat. He didn’t even have to think about it. Cat’s wavy, sun-kissed hair, the tanned skin coated in delicious freckles, the glimmering smile…her image came to him instantly, and suddenly she was there in front of him. Only it wasn’t her, because there would never be another man in the bedroom when he wanted her as much as he did just then.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Cat said, and the illusion—in Xavier’s mind—winked out. That was Shelby’s voice, not his Cat’s.

  Xavier slowly pulled the tails of his shirt out of his jeans. He reached for the buttons. If he looked too anxious or nervous, Jase might see through him. “You going to watch?”

  For a brief, terrifying moment, Xavier thought Jase would say yes. That he’d sit over there in the corner with the Burned Man and snicker. But Jase cleared his throat, ducked his head, and left.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Thirty minutes later, Shelby rapped lightly on the bedroom door.

  “Yeah?” said Jase out in the hall.

  “We’re done,” she said.

  The lock clicked. The door swung slowly open. Jase took a long look at the woman standing just inside the bedroom, her short, curly hair a bit messier. Clothes on but rumpled, her shoes dangling from her fingers.

  Shelby wouldn’t meet Jase’s eyes. He peered over her head at the bed, where Xavier lay naked, half covered by a sheet. His mouth hung open in sleep, one long arm thrown up high on the pillow.

  “You okay?” Jase asked her softly, making careful assessment of her face and body. His concern surprised her.

  “I’m fine,” she snapped, because she’d done what she had to do. “Can I go?”

  He nodded. “Find Lea downstairs. I’d walk you down but I can’t leave him.” He jutted a thumb at sleeping Xavier.

  She waved the hand that wasn’t carrying the shoes. “Basement jail cell, here I come.”

  Shelby left Jase standing in the hall and walked down the corridor, being careful not to run. Careful not to panic.

  Because Shelby wasn’t really Shelby, and the Xavier asleep on the bed wasn’t really Xavier.

  Xavier wore Shelby’s image like a coat. For this to go down the way he wanted, he was banking on Jase not touching who he thought was Xavier lying in that bed. If he did, the glamour would vanish.

  Ryan, the Fresh Powder bartender and part-time fighting instructor, had taught Xavier how to apply just enough pressure to someone’s throat to make them pass out, but Xavier had never actually done it for real. Shelby had been his practice and trial, all in one.

  The moment Jase had left the bedroom, Shelby had lunged for him. The glamour dissolved. She realized Xavier’s duplicity too late. His hands had gone around her neck and she’d clawed at him. He’d pushed her to the bed and hoped that the creaking sounds of the mattress and her struggling grunts sounded somewhat sexual. The whole time he’d whispered apologies and promises that he’d get her away from Michael, and tried not to let guilt stay his hand.

  When she’d fallen unconscious, he’d woven another glamour spell over her, making her into him. He’d stood beside the bed for a moment, staring down at himself. It had been a really long time since he’d paid any attention to his appearance, and he prayed he’d gotten it right.

  Then he’d wrapped himself in Shelby’s body and voice, and knocked for Jase’s attention.

  Now Xavier rounded the corner, exiting the east wing of the house. The music downstairs drowned out his footsteps. Where were Lea and Sean? According to Jase, Robert was probably locked in the basement. And Cat was with Michael in one of these bedrooms on the upper floor.

  He’d need a weapon. Glamour and fists weren’t enough, not in this house of freaks. He slinked down the stairs, careful to keep his feet on the center, carpeted parts. The dining room was at the bottom of the stairs, the table still piled with dirty dishes from his half-assed dinner. Perfect. Xavier padded for the table, found what he was looking for, and climbed the stairs again, two at a time. The big steakhouse knife felt cool and comfortable in his palm.

  Back in the upstairs hall, he jogged to the west wing.

  There. A crack of pale light in an open doorway halfway down on the left side. The sound of muffled voices—one male, one female—shifted his adrenaline and rage into high gear. He wasn’t even fully aware of his body’s movements. The demanding pulse of his blood and the need for vengeance and freedom flogged him into action.

  Xavier charged for the door. Of course Michael wouldn’t have locked it. Of course he was confident that Xavier would remain contained. And of course Michael hadn’t kept his end of the bargain. Again.

  The asshole covered Cat’s body from behind. He’d untied her ankles and brought her to stand. Her chest pressed against the post carved like a tree, and Michael had his arms around her, picking at the rope knots at her wrists. His face was buried in the crook of her neck, his lips making words Xavier couldn’t hear over the furious thud in his ears.

  Xavier shut the door behind him. At the sound, Michael looked up. Did a double take. He released Cat and stepped away, combing fingers through his hair. “Shelby? What are you doing here?”

  Xavier charged across the huge bedroom, shedding the glamour along the way.

  Michael’s squinty, confused eyes bulged in surprise. Xavier launched himself through the air, knife drawn back, coming down down down toward Michael’s shoulder. Michael’s image blurred in a shudder of light, a shifting of atoms. Crazy how fast it happened, how quickly he split apart. Cat was calling out warnings, but it was too late.

  The two Michaels stepped away from each other. Xavier, his momentum carrying him forward, sailed through the middle, past the bed, and crashed into the bedside table. He tumbled to his side, his head and shoulder striking the wall. His only thought was to keep the knife away from his body so he wouldn’t fall on the blade, but that left the weapon exposed.

  One Michael kicked the knife out of his hand, and it flew back t
oward the posts. The second Michael kicked Xavier, a hard-soled shoe to the ribs. Pain exploded in his torso; Cat’s pleading voice filled his ears. Both Michaels fell on him, two full-fledged attacks—fists and knees and feet—with Xavier literally backed into a corner. He had to get out. He had to get up.

  Michael was no fighter—smaller and older and weaker than Xavier—but there were two of him, they were relentless, and Xavier was on the floor. He finally managed a leg strike of his own. He lifted his knee, got a decent angle, and plowed his foot into One Michael’s gut. One Michael stumbled back and Xavier got a half-second look at Cat. She was pulling at the loosened ropes with her teeth, almost free, her eyes wide with hysteria.

  One Michael was picking himself up off the carpet, coming back for another attack. Xavier found his feet, pushed to standing, and threw successive punches into Two Michael’s kidneys and then his ear. Digging deep into the power of his thighs, he propelled himself forward, tackling Two Michael. The force sent them both flying into the bed. Xavier locked his legs around Two Michael and rolled, tumbling them over the far side. As they hit the floor, Xavier glimpsed Cat peeling away from the post, the ropes falling away. Xavier flipped Two Michael on his back, braced his knees on either side of his hips, and just pummeled away.

  “Xavier, he’s coming!” shouted Cat.

  Over his shoulder, Xavier saw One Michael had recovered from the kick and was rushing around the bed.

  One Michael threw a brilliant punch to the side of Xavier’s head, which sent a shock of sickening, swimming lights across his vision. Xavier sagged then immediately drew himself up. There was no way he was going down from a sucker punch from Michael.