by T. M. Cromer
His other arm came around her, and he buried his nose in her neck. She could feel his calming inhale.
“I’m sorry, Win,” Zane murmured.
His lips brushed the tender flesh below her ear. Desire, unbidden and embarrassing in its intensity, rushed through her, setting her lady bits ablaze.
As abruptly as he’d grabbed her, Zane released her body and snagged her cup of coffee. He downed half the container before he returned it.
Had he just played her again? Goddess, she was feeling as dumb as a rock.
* * *
Zane almost laughed at Winnie’s stunned expression and the calculating gleam in Rafe’s eye. He’d made his point perfectly clear. Winnie was Zane’s, and if the poaching bastard wished to keep his limbs intact, he’d keep them to himself.
While he was at it, Zane decided Winnie needed a robe to cover her tank top and boy shorts. He didn’t care for the way Rafe’s eyes were repeatedly drawn to her braless breasts. He conjured one and draped it over her front.
“Why don’t you wait outside, Ray? Winnie and I need to chat a sec.”
“Rafe,” Winnie corrected on a hard note, struggling to untangle herself from where he’d tied the bow in back.
“Ray, Rafe, Randy—who cares?”
“I care. Stop being an ass, Zane.”
He patted her cheek. “You’re adorable when you’re mad, Win.”
Winnie growled, and both men stepped back.
“I should go,” Rafe said. “I don’t care to be witness to murder. But if you need help disposing of the body, I know people.”
If the guy hadn’t been after Zane’s woman, Zane might’ve liked him. As it was, he didn’t find Rafe the least bit amusing. “That line was probably original in nineteen forty-something when you were first born. But it’s been around the block a few times. Not dissimilar to yourself, I suppose.”
“What is wrong with you?” Winnie shouted and shoved at his chest. She’d succeeded in dislodging the thick robe he’d used to cover her.
Zane was dog enough to enjoy the picture she presented with her pale, flashing eyes and her hands on her hips.
Rafe surprised him when he laughed. “I’d love to stay and see the fireworks, but I have an appointment.” He bent to whisper something to Winnie and chuckled when she blushed. “Take care, qalbi. I hope to see you again someday soon.”
For a split second, Rafe’s expression turned forbidding. “Remember what I said about using your own name here. Be careful, Winter Thorne.”
“Thank you, Rafe.” She reached up to caress his cheek. “I’ll remember.”
The man’s face softened as he gazed down upon her loveliness. “Good.”
Zane felt a moment of unease press on his chest. These two had formed a bond of sorts. He prayed it was only friendship.
After Rafe left, Winnie turned on Zane and punched him in the arm. “You were a complete jerk!”
“Your point?”
“Why?”
“Ah, Win, if you don’t know by now…” he said with a shake of his head.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that you are a mental case, do you know that?”
He straightened and frowned. What about him came across as crazy?
She wasted no time clueing him in.
“One minute you are out to exact revenge against me. The next you are swearing your undying love. Then, the very next minute, you’re kissing another woman. And thirty-seconds after that, you are snapping and snarling at any man who looks sideways at me.” Winnie inhaled a deep breath. “You’re crazy.”
She wasn’t wrong. Zane was crazy. Crazy for her. He told her as much. “It’s you, Win. I’m mad about you.”
“I told you yesterday; I’m not doing this. What I thought we had is—in reality—a game to you. And what you seem to believe we have is all in your head.” She held up a hand when he stepped toward her. “I don’t want a relationship built on lies and anger, Zane. I told you yesterday. I don’t want you.”
“What can I do to prove to you that I’m serious? That I love you?”
The eyes she turned on him were filled with sadness and resignation. “Nothing, because I’ll never believe you.”
If she’d plunged a dagger into his heart, Zane might have found it less painful. As it was, his heart spasmed in his chest and found it difficult to maintain its rhythm.
“All relationships have rough patches, Win. Please don’t give up on ours.”
“What is it you miss, Zane? Tell me? The sex? You can get that anywhere. The blind devotion? I imagine you can find that, too. The thrill of getting away with cheating behind my back? Yeah, there’s a sucker born every minute. You’ll have no trouble finding a woman like that.”
The injustice of her accusations caused his anger to take hold. “Stop it! I didn’t cheat on you, Win. Not once.”
“You’re a damned liar! I saw you with her. Drinking, dancing, kissing. I saw you!”
The small sob she let loose hurt his heart. “It was staged for your benefit,” he confessed. “I knew you took my ring to scry. I can’t deny wanting to hurt you for what you did. But the moment my lips touched hers, I knew, Win. There isn’t another woman alive who matches me as perfectly as you. I love you.”
She shook her head.
“I do, Win. I love you. And I will find a way to prove it to you every single day of our lives.” He cupped her pale, tear-filled face. “I love you. You, Winter Thorne. Only you. If you believe nothing else, I need you to know that much.”
Her next words were spoken so low, Zane strained to hear.
“I need you to go, Zane.”
Sure the sound of his cracking heart had to be heard throughout the hotel, Zane pressed a fist to his chest. “Please, Win.” He wasn’t above begging. “Please.”
“I need you to go,” she said again, her voice stronger; her resolve firmer.
With no energy left to drag his feet out of the room, Zane took the path of least resistance and teleported to the one place he’d always found comfort. The clearing between their homes.
It was still dark, and a light rain sprinkled to the ground. He didn’t care. He sat beneath the old oak with his and Winnie’s initials and stared at nothing. If the moisture on his cheeks had little to do with the rain, no one was around to see.
He’d taken a gamble, and he’d lost the most precious thing in his world.
17
After Zane had disappeared, Winnie sprawled on the bed and stared at the rotating ceiling fan. She swiped at the tears leaking from the corner of her eyes. She would not cry! Crying should be reserved for real situations: real love and real relationships. Not falsehoods and games. Those things to which she refused to fall emotional hostage. She was a Thorne, and Thornes were made of stronger stuff. And if she kept telling herself that enough, she’d eventually believe it. Continuing on in this vein wasn’t conducive to getting over him. If he repeatedly showed up at every turn, he would lay waste to her emotions.
Mind made up, she headed for the shower. As she lathered her hair and luxuriated under the steaming spray, she recalled how happy she’d been to wake and find Zane in her bed. No other man had ever made her feel that way, yet she wanted someone who could. Truth be told, she wanted someone to truly love her in the way her Uncle Alastair loved her mother: so strongly that he would bend time and space, manipulate people to do his bidding, and destroy anyone who got in his path to save her. His love for Aurora was single-minded and spanned decades.
Rafe had potential. But rebounding within a day of her breakup was stupid on every level. Perhaps down the road, when her life was back on track, and her mother had awakened from the stasis state, Winnie could explore a relationship with him. She mentally dismissed the age difference. It didn’t matter between witches and warlocks. Their life expectancy was easily two to three times that of a non-magical human.
Winnie stepped from the shower and dried off. She snapped her fingers to style her hair. Nothing happened. With a frown,
she snapped twice more in succession. Aghast, she stared at her fingers. She fought to center herself, held out her palm, and tried to conjure another cup of coffee. Nothing.
Alarm swelled in her mind, nearly sending her into a panic. Magic on the fritz? It just didn’t happen—and definitely not to a Thorne. For a split second, she wondered if Zane was playing games and had cast a spell. Winnie dismissed it. He wouldn’t take that risk—or at least she didn’t believe so. As much as she’d like to believe she knew him, she didn’t. But as he’d said, enemies were on the loose. She only prayed he didn’t hate her enough to make her vulnerable.
Tucking the towel tightly around her, she wrapped her palm around the pendant Alastair had insisted she wear. “Uncle Alastair, I need you.”
On my way.
Winnie took clean clothing from the stash she’d conjured the day before and quickly dressed as she ran over different scenarios as to why her magic might not be working.
The knock on her suite door came two minutes later. That had to be a record for her uncle. Usually, his appearances were instantaneous. The door had cracked open only six inches when she realized her mistake; she’d never checked who was on the other side!
Winnie was thrown back as the door was forced inward. A dark-haired Asian man stepped over the threshold as if he owned the place. Behind him were at least a half-dozen men dressed in black.
Zhu Lin.
Winnie tried to keep her terror at bay. With no magic, she had no way of fighting him.
“Who are you?” she demanded in hopes of bluffing her way out. She certainly wasn’t teleporting anytime soon. But perhaps if she could convince him he had an everyday mortal, he’d depart.
“I should think you’d know who I am, Winter Thorne.”
“You’re mistaken. I’m just a guest here. I don’t know who… what did you say the name was again?”
He sneered as his icy green eyes swept the length of her body. “Nice try. But you are the spitting image of your mother.”
She wrapped a hand around her necklace and prayed the physic connection the stone provided would continue to work. Stay away. Lin is here.
Teleport now!
Can’t. Magic is gone.
Winnie had no way of knowing if Alastair received her last transmission.
“What did you do to the room?” she asked. “How did you neutralize my magic?”
“I see you’ve given up the pretense.” Lin casually strolled toward her. “It’s not difficult to do if you have the right resources.”
Winnie lifted her chin and stared down her nose at him. “What do you want?”
He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes as if she were a novelty to him. A fleeting glimpse of humanity flickered to life in his eyes before he ruthlessly suppressed it. His eerily pale-green gaze returned to cold.
Without answering, he glanced to one of his men and lifted his brows.
“All clear,” his minion said in his heavily accented voice.
Lin nodded and returned his attention to her. “Since your family is exceedingly difficult to kill, I’ve decided to take you hostage.”
Oddly enough, once murder was taken off the table, her nerves settled. She laughed, sat on a nearby chair, and crossed her legs. “What’s the long-term goal for taking me hostage?”
“Unless I miss my guess, I believe your uncle Alastair will gladly give himself in exchange for you.” Lin rested on the armchair beside her and picked up a strand of her damp hair to run through his fingers.
She wanted to smack his hand away but refrained. “You’re wrong. Alastair only cares about himself.” Winnie sent a silent apology through the tanzanite stone.
Lin laughed. “Am I? I doubt it.”
She didn’t doubt her uncle would stage a rescue. She only hoped no one was hurt in the process. The last time Lin had made an appearance, there was an all-out battle in the city park of Leiper’s Fork. Had her father and Alastair not joined forces with Coop, Spring, and herself, the situation might’ve ended in more casualties.
“What happens to me when he laughs in your face?” Her plan was to keep him talking as long as necessary. If he didn’t shoot her or drag her from the room, she might be able to stall long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
Lin frowned and dropped her hair. “I will be forced to kill you, pretty Winter Rose.”
Her heart rate kicked up at the death threat.
“Winter Rose?” she asked curious despite herself about how he knew her middle name.
“I have a dossier on all your family members. But your name fits you. You are like the most delicate bloom. Beautiful in every way, but with long, wicked thorns.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong. She did have her thorny side. And she intended to prick him with it the first chance she got. “Who would’ve thought you were poetic, Mr. Lin?”
He smiled with genuine amusement. “I hope your uncle decides to sacrifice himself for you. I’d hate to kill you.”
“Well, like you said, we are exceedingly difficult to kill. You tried twice with my sister.”
Mentioning Autumn was a mistake. Lin’s face hardened to stone, and all warmth left his eyes. If she’d thought his expression cold before, it was nothing compared to the arctic quality of his countenance now. Her spine tingled from the dangerous currents in the air.
“She stole from me.”
In for a penny, in for a pound. Winnie scrunched up her nose and squinted. “Stole from you? Really, Zhu? May I call you Zhu? I feel like we should be on a first name basis.” She didn’t wait for his answer. “Don’t you think that’s stretching it to say she stole from you? I mean, the Chintamani Stone belongs to no one person. And you can have it back when we are done with it. I’ll personally see to it if you let me go.”
“Come. We’ve delayed long enough,” he said and jerked her to her feet.
Time for a new tactic.
“Please don’t do this.” Winnie placed a hand over his heart. “You don’t need to. I’ll help you in any way I can. There’s no love lost between me and my uncle.”
He ran a hand along her scalp as if to caress her. When his fingers tightened in the strands at the base of her neck and jerked her head back near to breaking, she realized her mistake.
“Don’t play the whore with me, Winter Rose. I would give you to these men without reservation.”
“I wasn’t,” she replied, careful to keep her tone neutral and alarm from her voice. She suspected he would respect her level-headedness over trembling fear. “I was only trying to get you to see reason. My apologies for offending you, sir.”
His gaze dropped to her lips and lingered.
To hide her revulsion, she dropped her gaze to the floor.
“Come,” he repeated gruffly.
With a rough shove, he propelled her toward the front door.
The air moved, and the smell of the salty sea air drifted to her.
She heard a whine and the first body drop. Three more men went down in rapid succession.
A hard, wiry arm wrapped around her throat. Winnie was spun around and placed in front of Lin. A human shield.
“You are not who I was expecting, Mr. Xuereb.”
“But you aren’t surprised to see me, Lin. I wonder why that is?”
“My spies told me you were here. I knew you’d return home eventually.” A gun appeared in his left hand, aimed directly at Winnie’s temple. “As for finding you co-mingling with the Thornes, that is an added bonus.”
Winnie’s eyes sought backup behind Rafe. He was still outnumbered three to one. Or three to two if she was counted, but honestly, she was useless other than as a pawn for Lin to use against Rafe.
“I wouldn’t kill her. You’ll have every Thorne, Gillespie, Fennell, and Carlyle on your ass. She’s connected.”
Winnie didn’t have time to express her surprise that Rafe knew her family tree. Lin shoved her in Rafe’s direction and fired. She waited for the pain, but when none came, she rounded on Lin.
&
nbsp; Time had frozen, a bullet hung in the air inches from the nine millimeter Lin had fired. Moving quickly, she tackled Rafe to the ground and snatched his gun from where it landed. She whipped around just as time corrected itself and snapped back into place. A single round was all she managed before hell broke loose. Her shot hit Lin’s guard in the right shoulder.
The slider behind her shattered, and a container clanked across the tile.
Lin met her eyes across the distance, sketched a half-bow, and rushed out the hallway door with his minions fast on his heels.
The container never released its toxic nerve gas, or tear gas, or whatever the hell it was supposed to hold, and Winnie lowered the arm she’d flung over her nose and mouth.
She started to shake. Now that she was coming down from the adrenaline rush, her knees felt too weak to support her. She sank onto the edge of the bed.
Gentle hands reached for her and removed the gun from her hand. Rafe smoothed back her hair and took stock. “Qalbi, are you hurt?”
“No,” she finally answered.
A tall, rugged man entered the opening between the balcony and her bedroom. He ran a cursory glance over her and nodded.
Winnie was certain her eyes had to be deceiving her. Disbelief clouded her brain. The thick, dark-brown beard that covered the bottom half of his face was new, but he looked remarkably like he had the last time she’d seen him: vital and powerful. It was easy to see why her Aunt GiGi had loved him.
“Uncle Ryker?”
“She’s unhurt,” he said into the Bluetooth device in his right ear. “The suite is clear.”
Rafe helped her to her feet.
Winnie breezed past him and halted in front of GiGi’s husband, who had been in the wind for the better part of fifteen years or more. “Thank you.”
He opened his arms.
Winnie flew into his embrace as if she were still a child and he could soothe all her hurts. Tears burned behind her lids and slid down her cheeks. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him until this exact moment.
“None of us knew what had happened to you,” she choked out. “Aunt GiGi—”
