Fireborne, p.19
Fireborne, page 19
part #1 of Raven Cursed Series
Look at that, he’s just giving out smiles like candy on Halloween.
Running his fingers through his hair, Maddox kept looking at me and only stopped when the witch returned, her face folded into a painful-looking frown that would wipe the smile off anyone’s face. Her dagger gaze bored into me as she approached. We definitely weren’t going to have an amiable relationship. The D’Siren, along with a piece of paper, was shoved into my chest.
“If you want to do business in the future, don’t break my wards and just show up. It’s rude. Learn some manners and call first,” she said.
These weren’t dragons being dragons—they were thieves, plain and simple. I’m sure some of the items were tied to their dragon need to hoard treasures, but there was more to them.
Backing away, the D’Siren secured close to me in case they changed their minds, I gave them a half wave. “Thanks, Maddox, Zack, and . . .”
“Lexi. You can call me Lexi.”
Maddox and Zack might be their real names, but Lexi sure wasn’t hers.
“Are you playing a game on your phone!”
Pulling his eyes from the screen, Cory gave me a once-over. “What else am I supposed to do while I wait for you to be ejected from a lair by means of dragon flight? Although, as I didn’t have to work any magic to keep you from plummeting to your death, dare I say you actually charmed them into compliance?”
I showed him the D’Siren. “No. The witch hates my guts. One of the dragons doesn’t hate me, but I’m sure he’s okay with never seeing me again, and the other might have a crush.”
Cory grinned. “Did you have to kick someone’s ass? Let me guess, the one whose ass you had to kick is the shifter with the crush.”
“He liked my offerings.”
With a naughty grin, he said, “Yeah, he did.”
Playfully, I hammered into the curve of his bicep. “I had to put the claw on him but didn’t have to engage it. I ended up giving it to him. That won him over. If anyone had wanted to drop me from several hundred feet, it was him.”
“And all it took was a threat and a gift and he’s crushing on you.” He shook his head and made a derisive snort. “Shifters are going to be shifters.”
CHAPTER 21
I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice when Benton’s voice came over the speaker asking if I was expected. No, I wasn’t. It was an impulse visit. Victoria wasn’t available, or so I assumed since she hadn’t answered my call or returned the message I left. Visiting Mephisto was just the next thing to do.
“Ms. Jensen,” purred Mephisto from the speaker. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I know. I should have called. Do you have a moment to talk?”
“For you, of course. What would you like to talk about?”
“Not like this. I need to see you.”
His deep laugh resounded with a level of amusement I didn’t understand. “If you need me, then who am I to deny you of that?” The gate opened and my eyes fluttered from the effort of keeping them from rolling.
Instead of Benton meeting me at the door, Mephisto stood there, dressed in his signature black, the surrounding trees casting a shadow over his striking features. He watched me intently as I got out of the car. In silence, I followed as he ushered me to his office past Benton, who was seated in his leather chair, sipping on coffee, a paperback in his hand. He raised his cup in greeting as I passed.
Mephisto closed the door behind me once we were in his office and moved to his desk, where he rested against it with his arms crossed over his chest. His expression was blank as his gaze immediately went to the palladium cuff around my wrist.
“Is that the reason you needed to see me?” he asked.
“Yes. What are you? I’ve borrowed magic from many sources and you’re the only person who reacted that way.”
“Which way is that?”
Was he messing with me?
“Nothing happened to you,” I spat out. “Remember, you were there.”
“You didn’t see anything happen, but I assure you something did. I just don’t respond to your magic as others do.”
“What happens to you?”
“I won’t be nearly as strong. Your magic requires a sacrifice. You’re just used to it being a life. If you are able to help me, then the payment I make will be far greater than any monetary compensation.”
He slowly moved toward me, his magic stronger than it had ever been, an alluring embrace that I felt over every part of me.
“Stop doing that,” I demanded.
“Doing what?”
“Whatever you’re doing with your magic. Making it more intense.”
His dark chuckle filled the room and lingered. “Erin, you really need to make up your mind. Do you want to see if the cuff works or not?” He slipped it off my wrist and put it on his, tightening it enough that it was secure. He was definitely familiar with them. Braces needed full contact; I learned that the hard way in the field. Without full contact, it’s just an ineffective piece of jewelry.
The intensity of his magic remained. Closing my eyes briefly, I let it wash over me. A carnal promise that I wanted to explore. I snapped my eyes open. Taking several steps back, I removed myself from the temptation. Or rather I attempted to. The magic-drenched room was impossible to ignore, and so was Mephisto. My thoughts were a wave of thoughts and plans to divest him of his magic. Take it and make it mine. Inhaling and exhaling a ragged breath, I blurted, “I need water.” It was rude, but it would have been ruder to make a play for his magic, again.
Rushing out of the room, I sped through the hall and to his kitchen. Before I could get to the fridge, the cook turned from whatever he was preparing for dinner, at the sound of my arrival. Wide-eyed concern slipped from his face after a few moments, and he forced what I assumed was an attempt at a warm smile.
“May I get you something?”
“Water. Please.”
He nodded and retrieved a bottle of water. “Would you like anything in it? Mint, cucumber, berries, lemon?”
“No, just plain water. In the bottle is fine.”
At least his look was subtle. How dare I want something as prosaic as plain water out of a bottle. How uncouth.
Leaving the water on the island, my gaze went to the window that drew Mephisto’s attention during breakfast. I pressed against the island, closed my eyes, and tried a quick meditation. Slow breaths, clear my head, imagine myself on the beach. The comforting feeling of the warm sand nestled between my toes, sun bathing my skin in warmth, lulling sounds of ocean waves and a gentle breeze. It usually worked. Within minutes, I should’ve found myself in a better space, but instead, my calm was overtaken by the stifling feeling of coveted magic. Then cool plastic pressed against my arm. I opened my eyes to find Mephisto inches from me, offering me the bottle of water.
“You needed water,” he reminded me. I nodded and took it. Increasing the distance between us, I went to the bay window and looked at the breathtaking view. I pressed my forehead against the window. The cool glass was better than a compress. I sighed into it, feeling the strum of magic washing over me.
Mephisto’s cautious, curious eyes watched me. Without taking his eyes off me, he said, “Jasper, I’ll be on my own for dinner. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I can finish it,” Jasper replied.
“No, I can take care of it.”
I could hear Jasper moving quickly, clearing things away, then he left without a word, leaving me and Mephisto alone.
I gulped another mouthful of water, working hard to tamp down my desire to take his magic, to feel it once again. His eyes darkened, a reminder of what happened when I attempted to take his magic before.
“Do your parents find it as difficult?”
Did I want to have this conversation with him? Give him insight into my life? Would it give him an advantage?
I shook my head. “My mother’s half death mage and she doesn’t seem to have a problem. My dad is human.”
“Raven Cursed,” he corrected, with the same type of haughty offense a person might correct someone using the wrong fork during a formal dinner. “It’s tragic that they consider what you are a curse. The ability to make magic your own and manipulate it to perform to your desires seems far from a curse.”
“Raven Cursed,” I amended. “My mother doesn’t use magic. She said it’s better if she never does. The urges don’t get exacerbated. My dad is human, so he doesn’t have any problems.”
I made a face, recalling my childhood and seeing how easy it was for my mother. It was as if she couldn’t care less about the magic. The pity in her eyes as I struggled with taming my desires and ignoring the urges that flared in me when I was around Madison, her mother, and her father. The look on her face during the incident, when Madison called in every favor, pulled rank where she could, and accumulated debts and favors she’d never be able to repay. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had a strong case for me to be put in the Stygian.
“Your mother’s half?” Mephisto asked, his brow furrowing. He looked past me. “And your father is human,” he added as an afterthought. The frown deepened, and when he noticed I was looking at him, he relaxed it. “Oh,” he said in a tight voice.
Focused on the magic that thrummed off him, his questioning seemed mundane, irrelevant. Narrowing the distance between us, I closed my eyes, leaned in. Was it because I knew what it felt like? Was it the strength of it and the things I could do with it that made being around him impossible? Was I drawn to slipping effortlessly into the Veil, seeing fascinating new worlds previously unavailable to me?
He lowered his head so that our eyes met. His long, strong fingers lazily traced the angle of my jaw, traveling until they came to my lips. Tracing my bottom lip with his thumb, he inched closer and waited for me to respond. I closed my eyes, relaxing, and leaned into his kiss. The attraction to him apparent, the need undeniable, the lust unable to be contained. I kissed him hard, my fingers laced at the nape of his neck. My kiss was so hungry and uncontrolled, he panted at the voraciousness of it.
He cupped my butt and lifted me, my legs entwined around his waist, only releasing me when he’d set me on the island. Urgent fingers worked the buttons of his shirt until they were almost undone. When the last ones seemed to take too long, I forcibly jerked at his shirt, pulling the buttons from it. Cufflinks hit the floor, followed by his shirt. Reluctantly, I pulled away to let him slip off my shirt. Being so far away from him seemed wrong, unnatural. Roughly I tugged him back to me, my legs wrapped around him, to keep him close. He shivered when my fingernails grazed the muscles of his back and traveled along the indentations of his abs. My hands moved over him in long sweeps, exploring the defined sinew of his body often hidden by his suits.
He kissed me again, hard and fervent, before pulling back to allow his gaze to rove slowly over me: my lips, my shoulders, the swell of my breasts. He dragged his eyes over the exposed skin and to his position between my legs. His lips covered mine again, raw and hungry, before easing away to look at me again. Desire and curiosity competed in his eyes. I knew the question he wanted to know; it had vaguely crossed my mind. Was this real? Or was the desire, the want, and the need born from my yearning to have his magic?
I knew it and he saw it. When I relaxed my legs from around him, he stepped back, and in a graceful sweeping move, he grabbed his shirt, cufflinks, and buttons from the floor. In stilted silence we both dressed. He was the most disheveled I’d ever seen him: hair mussed, shirt wrinkled with gaps where the buttons had been torn off. His eyes never left mine as I put on my shirt.
Dressed, he moved his finger slowly and thoughtfully over his lips. I scooted off the island and grabbed the forgotten water and took a drink, pushing away the urge to douse myself with it to cool off.
Mephisto’s eyes moved from me to the island. The very spot where we were moments from having sex. “I’m confident that won’t be the last time. Perhaps you’ll finally give in to it and not mistake what you feel as magical desire with what it really is—simply desire.”
Moving away from the island to the center of the large kitchen, I shook my head slightly.
“Nothing’s wrong with a little confidence, no matter how misdirected.”
His light taunting chuckle filled the room. With a great amount of effort, I pulled my attention away from his tongue, which was moistening his bottom lip, and busied myself with looking out of the window, getting drawn in by what fascinated him about his backyard. Aside from the beautiful arboreta and vegetation, he had a menagerie of animals. Deer, and rabbits that kept darting between the trees, making their presence known and jetting back into the thicket. The same with two plump squirrels that moved slower than any I’d ever seen. And then there was an animal I wasn’t familiar with. White stripes marking its legs merged into dark-brown fur.
“Okapi,” Mephisto offered from behind me. “A gift from a friend.”
“My friends give me gift cards and laptop bags, not exotic animals,” I joked, trying to ease the tension. His gaze resting on me was a reminder of what had just happened, and the closeness of him was a reminder of the fragility of my willpower. And a glaring indictment that I wanted my willpower to snap.
“We should see if you can remove things from the Veil,” he suggested in a low, rough voice, running his fingers through his hair and mussing it more than I had. “That’s the next step.”
“Tomorrow.” I backed away. “I have something to deliver to Victoria today.”
Before he could answer, I was heading for the door. I was curious about whether I could retrieve things from the Veil as well; after all, it was the pathway to me completing my job for him. But satisfying our curiosity had to be delayed. I needed it to be the final step. There wasn’t any way I could borrow his magic and walk away. I just couldn’t. The tendril between my willpower and causing chaos had been pulled so taut, it was moments from breaking. I needed a day or two to replenish my weakening resolve.
The air conditioner’s cold air blasted me in the face, shocking sense into me. It felt wonderful. For five minutes, I remained in my car in Mephisto’s driveway, scrolling through my missed calls and messages. I had five missed calls, all from Victoria, along with a text message and voicemail. Apparently she was excited to get her item. I had a couple of hours before I had to be at her home at the requested time of nine, so I drove around, music blasting and air conditioner blowing, ignoring the goose bumps on my arms and Cory’s “I told you so face” that was sure to be there if I even hinted at what happened between Mephisto and me. The hours before meeting Victoria were going to be spent listing all the reasons I needed to keep a professional relationship with Mephisto. Number one on that list: I had no idea what he was.
CHAPTER 22
I had just jerked the car into park in Victoria’s driveway when the front window of her house exploded, sending shards of glass flying. The front door was dangling from one hinge. From my vantage point, I saw a hole in the wall opposite it. Grabbing my karambit, I shoved my Ruger LCP into the holster on my right leg and checked the knives in my ankle sheath with the same efficiency and practiced manner I’d done many times. This was an “I told you so” moment that Cory would hear about. It might finally stop him mocking me for carrying a cache of weaponry to simple visits. At a disadvantage when up against the magically inclined, I found my toys necessary. It was easy to think they were excessive when you could conjure up a spell, smack someone around with defensive magic, or thrash them with the elements. I didn’t have those options.
Dense magic that blanketed the air met me at the front door. Victoria shot a bolt of magic that I suspected was intended for the man standing a few inches to the right of the door. It smashed hard into my chest, jolting me back several feet and right back out the door. Losing the grip on my karambit, I got a glimpse of it being lifted away but was unable to get a visual of where it landed. I rolled to my feet as soon as I crashed to the ground, pulled out my gun, and raced into the house. The missed target had Victoria affixed to the wall, her arms magically bound to the side. Her teeth were clenched in anger. Untethered rage sharpened the glare she was giving him.
Magic pulsed and the scent of rosemary with hints of tannin inundated the air. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the other smell that lingered behind it. As if it had been aged. Arcane, weathered, and powerful. Reminiscent of an old book. The distinctive smell nearly masked Victoria’s magic, which seemed to have been subdued.
While the missed mark held her against the wall, another man, taller and broader, twisted and contorted his fingers in strange angles, hooks, and shapes. Fluid rhythms caused symbols to weave up Victoria’s arm, where the ripped sleeves of her shirt left skin exposed. Panic overtook her face as she looked at the marks scrawling up her arm.
The missed mark’s attention went to my hand.
“Go away,” he growled.
Not likely.
As the markings continued to cover Victoria’s arms and hands, I ran toward the man performing the spell. The force of my gun’s handle slamming into his hand broke his chain of movement along with a bone—or more. I heard the crack. He stumbled to the side.
A flick of his finger and orange and blue sparks turned the gun into a metal inferno. I dropped it, fast. His uninjured hand lifted, shooting out a wave of magic. It was crude and uncontrolled but no less powerful. Dropping to the ground, I felt the breeze of its wild energy move overhead. Plaster from the demolished wall rained down on my back and head. Damn. I wouldn’t have survived that blast, I thought, surveying the wall’s damage. Another wave of his hand, and my gun moved out of reach.
Readying to grab my knives, I spotted my karambit a few feet away. I dodged the shots of magic pelted in my direction as I went for the karambit. Snatching it up, I charged the man but stopped midway when his eyes slipped past me.
