“Don’t you dare,” Jake murmured at the same time Michel said, “This ought to be fun.”
Before anyone could say anything else—or barf—the door swung open and a petite, dark-skinned woman stood before us, her black curls a halo of beauty around her head. “Jake! Boys! Dez! Please come in.”
I cringed as she pulled me in for a hug, waiting for the blaring headache that didn’t come. My shoulders relaxed inch by inch as she patted my back and her power sank into me. Disappeared. Sank. Disappeared. I pulled back and stared at her in astonishment. “What’s going on?”
“Your power’s grown!” she said, sounding as proud as my mama when I first started walking. “Come in, come in. I have tea, coffee, hard liquor, soft liquor, everything in between liquor. Take your shoes off, leave your grumps at the door, and let’s have some palaver.” She curled an arm into mine and dragged me away from the door, leaving the ‘boys’ behind. “You and me, we have some catching up to do.”
Chapter Five
‘Catching up to do?’ The words thundered through my head as she made drinks, flirted with the shifters, and did everything but tell me how the hell she thought we had catching up. I met her once. Once. My father had a contract that got him onto the Golden Goddess worksite, tooling leather for the sumptuous chairs in the lobby. He brought me along when I was eleven because I helped him work. He always got headaches when magicals were around and my power dampened the background noise, letting him concentrate enough so he could do his job. Spelling leather was a tedious business. Making it pretty on top of it took genius and my dad was one with a swivel knife and skiver and his particular brand of magic, which wasn’t magic at all ... not that he told that to the magicals who hired him on.
I’d gotten a headache when she made a surprise visit to the work site so long ago—a split-my-eyeballs-and-wish-I-was-dead ache actually—and she’d given me something that knocked me right out when she realized she was the source of my pain. I woke up at home under the crocheted afghan my granny made and that was that.
“Dez,” Alexa said warmly once we were all settled with our beverages of choice. “How’s your father?”
“Doing all right,” I said warily.
“Is he?”
I eyed her, wondering how much she knew. We didn’t worship her—my father an atheist despite the literal goddess who had hired him—and so I wasn’t sure if she Knew anything about us with a capital K. “He’s struggling,” I said finally. “With addiction.”
She nodded sympathetically. “And you? How does Persimma treat you?”
“She’s a fey.”
Another nod. “They aren’t known for their kindness or charity, are they?”
“No, they are not.” I paused, thinking of Persimma’s raw fingertips. “She wasn’t terrible, not compared to her family.” They were a cutthroat bunch and I was glad to be an only child. “She tried protecting me.” My eyes flicked to Jake’s and away. Alexa took note, a small smile playing on her lips.
“Why am I here?”
“To hide you. I owed Jake a favor and he cashed it in tonight to save you.”
I wanted to squirm in my chair at that. I hated the thought of him squandering a favor from a goddess on me. And if he thought he was going to impress me with his generosity ... okay, I was secretly pleased by it, but still, he shouldn’t have. “Well, thank you for helping.”
“What was going on?”
“They ripped her claws off,” I said, my stomach roiling at the memory.
Jake studied me, probably wondering if I needed a hug or something, and then said, “They were trying for Dez. It was a power move.”
“Why?” Simon asked. He was perched on the arm of what was probably a thousand-dollar couch. I wondered what kind of shifter he was. Jake oozed wolf like most wolf shifters did. None of the three men felt like wolves at all. I could have been wrong. After all, it was weird that they would be working with Jake. Shifters usually stuck to their own.
“I don’t know,” I said, though he was looking at Jake, not me. “Because I’m a null? Because they couldn’t get to any of the others and they needed me for something?”
“Your power is growing, Dez. That’s something that doesn’t happen to nulls.”
“‘Doesn’t happen to nulls’ ... I am a null.”
She smiled at me in that particular way people do when they know more than you do and feel bad that you’re in the dark. Not bad enough to fill you in, of course ...
“I’m a null,” I repeated, then looked at Jake for confirmation. He shrugged.
Great.
I tried again, pushing confidence into my words. “I’m a null. Maybe my talent or lack thereof doesn’t operate the same as other nulls, but there’s nothing about me that’s different from Haley or Ralph or Maggie. Her radiation has grown too.” It had. She’d once been like me, only able to affect magic that she touched. Now, she could short circuit basic mag-tech if she concentrated. Hard.
Really hard.
Damn it.”
“It isn’t just the radiation. It’s the strength of your null powers.”
“Lack of powers,” I corrected automatically. I was a holdover from the world before the meteor crash, the world without magic. I didn’t have power, I just got rid of it. “This doesn’t make any sense. Are you sure it’s not something Persimma was involved in? Maybe she spread rumors about me? She liked to brag, liked to one-up her siblings. Maybe she wanted to make them jealous.” I realized I was talking about her in the past tense, but an old fey like Persimma wouldn’t die no matter what her siblings did to her. They could rip her to pieces, burn her, make things a living hell, though. “Shit.” I did not want to feel sorry for the damned woman, but I did.
“What’s wrong?”
I shook my head and asked, “So what am I if I’m not a null?”
“I don’t know.” Alexa didn’t seem displeased by her lack of knowledge. Weren’t goddesses supposed to be all-knowing?
She smiled as if she could hear my thoughts, and answered as if she could, too. “There are limits to all power. Even the ancient fey have weaknesses. And no one, not even goddesses, knows everything. I don’t know what you are. And perhaps you’re right. Perhaps you’re just a null whose radiation has grown exponentially for some inexplicable reason, but I don’t think that’s the case and neither did Persimma.”
“You know Persimma?”
“She comes here sometimes to drink with me.”
Weird.
“Anyway, you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you need.”
“Why?”
She frowned, looking amused. “Why?”
“Yeah. I mean, my dad did some work for you long ago. I don’t understand why you feel obligated to help me, Jake’s favor notwithstanding.”
Alexa smiled down at the drink in her hand as she swirled it around. “Your father is a very special man, Dez.” She drank the liquid down and rose. “I’ve put you in Suite C across the hall. Anything you need, our concierge or room service specialists can help you with. Good night.”
I wanted to ask her what she meant about my father, to know why she said she looked forward to connecting with me, to know why she didn’t think I was a null at all, but she was clearly done with our conversation. She disappeared and we rose, the guys finishing their drinks before we crossed the hall.
I’d never seen anything quite so sumptuous or large. Certainly, none of the hotel rooms I’d ever stayed in looked like this. There was a main room and three doors that, when opened, revealed bedrooms with large, king-sized beds and bathrooms all their own. “Holy shit.” Persimma had given me an apartment above the bar and it was large, but nowhere near as big as this and definitely not as posh. It had only been to protect her, of course, though now I wondered if it hadn’t been about protecting me, too. Even without her power, Persimma was dangerous. If I’d lived halfway across the city, any one of her siblings could have grabbed me even with the bodyguards.
The guys pr
owled around the place, checking entry and exit points, scoping the view, doing everything I’d seen Persimma’s guards do whenever I went someplace besides the bar. I sat on the couch and stared out at the view of the city, my head swimming with everything that had happened.
“You okay?” Jake asked. He sat on the coffee table, the glass creaking under his weight.
“Yeah but that table isn’t going to be.”
He rolled his eyes and moved to the couch beside me. Heck. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Now he was too close for comfort. Close enough to smell his cologne and that particular wolfy musk that was Jake. Close enough to see the specks of red in his brown eyes and the curls of red in his dark beard.
Close enough to touch.
Silence fell over us. Simon, Giles, and Michel faded into one of the rooms to give us privacy, I supposed. I didn’t want privacy. I didn’t want to have a heartfelt conversation with my ex. I didn’t want to remember how his kisses felt or the way he shuddered under my fingers when I stroked his—
“Dez?”
I blinked. “I need pajamas.” My cheeks felt hot; I hoped I wasn’t blushing, damn it. “Kinda left without my things.”
“Right. Uh. Well, I’m sure we can get you something.”
“Without revealing I’m here?”
“Just another rich bitch in a penthouse suite,” Michel said from the next room.
Fuck. Shifters and their damned amazing hearing. “Thanks.”
“Medium still?” Jake’s eyes dropped to my breasts then away.
“Yep.”
“I’ll call. For all of us. Anything you guys need?”
“You didn’t bring anything with you?”
“It’s all at our hotel. Because Jake went rogue,” Giles said cheerfully, also from the other room.
“Why don’t you just come back in here?” It wasn’t like we had privacy anyway or that we needed it, I reminded myself.
Shifters. Gah.
Jake pinched his nose. “Guys, I didn’t ask you to come.”
The three shifters poured back into the room. “It’s our job to keep you safe,” Simon said. “You know what the pack would do to us if we let you get hurt?”
“Or die?”
Jake rolled his eyes. “They’d find another head honcho, and all would be well.”
Simon snorted.
“Why not just use alpha, boss?”
“Because it’s fucking stupid,” Jake barked, then he sighed. “Let’s get the shit we need and hit the hay. It’s been a long one.” He gave me a long, assessing look, one I recognized. It held a question and a request.
I looked away. Not because I didn’t want what he did ... but because I did.
Chapter Six
Have you ever felt a baby’s bottom? The silk that now wrapped me from shoulders to ankles was as soft and silky as a baby’s butt and I wondered what the price tag was on the PJs. It felt kinda like a sacrilege to call them PJs, like I should call them pajamas with a slight British accent whilst drinking a martini with my pinkie in the air.
Or something.
It didn’t help that the jammies the guys were wearing were also silky and thin. Thin enough I could see what was going on underneath.
It’s been four years, the sex-starved part of my brain reminded me.
And what do you want me to do about it? Jump them all?
It was a bad conversation to have. Ridiculous too. It wouldn’t lead to anything good.
Well, that part of my brain said, it would lead to you getting laid, and I stood abruptly, certain I was going insane.
All four guys looked at me, making me feel awkward. “I, uh, think I’m going to bed now. So. Yeah. Night.” I left before they could say anything beyond goodnight, and I leaned against the bedroom with a silent groan. Way to be a weirdo, Dez.
I crawled into bed, between sheets with a thread count of the gods—like, literally—and stared up at the ceiling. Why the hell was I here? What happened to Persimma? What in the hell were they planning, those ancient fey bastards? I itched to talk with some of my fellow nulls to see if they’d heard anything about the coup at the Ragwort but knew if I called them, I’d just be opening up a can of worms they would have to try to contain.
My phone. Where was it? Had I left it behind? I must have. I hadn’t remembered to grab it in the mad rush out of the bar and it was probably for the best. Someone would have used it to track me.
Being inside the dark room was maddening. When I got home from work, I always took my supper to the tiny balcony that looked out over the rooftops and I would bathe in the moonlight. My eyes went to the window, the curtains pushed wide open to let in the light of the city and the stars overhead. Too high to have a balcony in this room. It was the only downside as far as I could see.
A big one.
I crawled out of bed, took off the PJs, then stood in my full, naked glory at the window. The moon, the first thing my gaze always sought when I went outside, sat swollen and gorgeous on the horizon. She was orange, with dark purple clouds lazily drifting in front. I sucked in a deep breath and let all the tension of the day out. Shifter moon, she was called at her fullest, though I didn’t know why they got the honor of the name when she was there for everyone to enjoy.
Typical shifters, being arrogant enough to name the full moon after themselves. Though perhaps they weren’t to blame. People did love coming up with nicknames for everything, didn’t they? Whatever her name, she always made me feel better and so I made time for her every night.
“Why go out there when the moon is new?” Persimma had asked me once, having seen me sitting there in the wee hours of the morning. She knew I liked to moonbathe. It was why she’d hired contractors to shore up my little balcony, though when I asked her about it, she’d told me she didn’t want to be liable for my inevitable plunge to the sidewalk when the old structure gave way under my considerable weight.
The bitch.
“Because she’s still there even if we can’t see her,” I had told her. “Because I hear her calling even when she’s hidden in the shadows of the earth. Sometimes, I hear her clearer when everything is dark.”
Persimma had rolled her eyes but left me alone to bask.
I contemplated the moon now, her glow. Thought about Jake showing up tonight of all nights. Persimma’s torn and bloody fingertips. Considered how I’d been living for years now. Wondered what exactly I had to lose by staying in my room all by myself ... as opposed to walking into the main room and calling him to me.
Them?
My body shivered under the weight of that thought. It was wild and ridiculous, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. If I went out there, they would come. I knew it the way I knew the moon would have called them had I not been here gobbling up the magic that allowed them to shift, that sometimes forced them. The moon held magic of her own, magic we had only begun to comprehend. The fey weren’t interested in her mysteries except as far as the answers might give them a way to control the shifters. The shifters were interested in how she worked so they could control themselves.
Why did we need to know how she worked? Wasn’t it enough that she was there, that her pull made the tides dance to her whims? That her influence sometimes set love stories in motion?
People claimed she caused chaos and sowed insanity, but those people had their heads up their asses.
And I needed to make a decision.
Did I step out there and take what I knew Jake would give? Or spend the night awake and worried about what came next, about my stupid ass of a boss who had inexplicably helped save my life?
It wasn’t even a decision, but still I hesitated, looking out at the moon slowing rising in the sky, the illusion of her size vanishing as she did, although her magnificence didn’t. At least not in my eyes. Never in my eyes.
And then there was a knock at the door.
I looked over my shoulder at the slim piece of wood behind which I knew Jake stood and then back to the glowing orb in the sk
y. All right then.
Chapter Seven
Heart thundering in my chest, I turned my back on the window and the moon and made my way to the door. Turned the knob.
Jake’s eyes widened. Dipped. Frantically moved back to my face. “What—” was all he got out before I stepped close, whisper close, and said, “Can I kiss you?”
His nostrils flared and then he was wrapping his arms around my naked torso, his body so hot with his shifter metabolism. That was something my null powers didn’t dim, that metabolism. He couldn’t shift around me, but he retained his essence; all creatures that weren’t humans changed by magic could. Vampires were only humans mutated by magic. Take that away and they were mere corpses. Shifters like Jake, however, had been born who they were.
The touch of his lips reminded me of all those summer days I’d spent lost in his arms. We had once been crazy for each other. The heady love of youth. The ceaseless, unstopping love that felt like drowning in sunshine. What had happened to us? To that? The thing we’d been sure we’d never lose.
It didn’t feel lost now, beating like a wild thing between us. He lifted me with ease and my legs curled around his waist, his heavy belt buckle pressed against me in just the right way. “Leave the door open,” I said.
His pupils dilated. Then he smiled, that wolfish grin I’d known and loved once upon a time.
He walked me to the bed and followed me down to its plus surface, his scent so warm and familiar, filling me with memories of him replete and sweaty after an afternoon of frenzied lovemaking. I’d fucked guys after Jake, but I hadn’t made love to anyone. Not since. His hands were rougher than they’d been at 18. He was heavier too, though I’d always liked that about him. Wolves were heavy. They needed the extra mass to shift, though sometimes they pulled that from the objects around them when they went into battle. There was nothing more terrifying than seeing wolves ready themselves to fight. They grew twice, sometimes three times as big as normal and they weren’t always pretty when they did.
The rough pads of his fingers chased chills up my sides, his knee now pressed up against me, between my legs. He’d pinned me to the bed because he remembered how much I liked it, how much it thrilled me to be there at his mercy. I’d always trusted Jake ... until that last summer day in August when ...
Bound to Change: A Limited Edition Spring Shifter Romance Collection Page 45