by J. Kenner
“Is it him?” Deena asked, her voice a low, worried whisper. The dog snuffled a bit—testing the air for the scent of belt?—and then yawned.
“I can’t tell,” Zoe said. “I can’t see its eyes. But it sure isn’t acting like Mordi was earlier. And this dog’s tiny.”
The dog sniffed around the tires, then squatted and peed right next to Deena’s whitewalls.
Deena and Zoe looked at each other. “Not Mordi,” they said in unison.
Totally uninterested, the poodle trotted up the sidewalk toward Taylor as Lane peeled away from the curb in Francis Capra. The tiny dog sniffed around his ankles before turning up its nose and trotting across the street to disappear behind a building.
“Friend of yours?” Taylor called.
Zoe shrugged. “Never seen it before.” At least it seemed to really be a dog. She hoped. She should have taken off her glasses. Still, it had certainly acted like a dog . . . and no matter what, it wasn’t Mordi.
She shrugged, turning back to Deena. “Maybe it smelled Mordi on you.”
“Who knows. Apparently I’m no longer all the rage in the doggie world, though. That poodle couldn’t have been less interested.”
And then she saw him—the green-eyed black Lab sitting next to a fire hydrant on the far side of the street.
“I think we spoke too soon,” she said, nodding across the street.
“Uh-oh,” said Deena. “Mordi?”
“Yup.” She grabbed Deena’s arm, ready to push her aside should the Mordi-dog attack. “Be careful.”
The Mordi-dog yawned, then—tail wagging—headed off down the street in the direction the poodle had taken.
How totally bizarre.
“Where’d he go?” Deena asked.
Zoe shrugged. “I don’t have a clue. Maybe you should stay here.”
Deena put a hand on her hip. “I don’t think so. You just don’t want to be alone with Taylor.”
“But all these dogs—”
“Weren’t in the least bit interested.”
“Deen—”
“No. I’ll call you when I get home.”
Zoe sighed, defeated. “Fine.”
Deena slid into her car. “And you need to call me tomorrow with a full report. Okay?”
Before Zoe could agree, Deena cranked the engine and pulled out.
Zoe just stood there a moment, trying to steel her emotions.
Time to go break the news to Taylor.
Time to go tell the man she loved that he didn’t love her at all.
From the roof across the street, Mordi watched the detective and Zoe head up the stairs to her apartment. He’d sent one of his father’s shape-changers on his little errand, and she’d come back empty-handed—no sign of the stone with Zoe, the detective, or that Deena person. Bad news, but at least he had his information. Maybe those disgusting Henchmen were useful after all.
He drummed his fingers on the slate, irritated, then realized what he was doing and slapped his hand down hard.
Damn. She’d obviously passed the stone off. And that left only one from the usual suspects—the brunette who’d had the stone in the first place. She was the only one Lola hadn’t sniffed.
Funny how fate worked.
He’d almost retrieved the stone from her before, but Zoe had interfered. This time he wouldn’t fail.
20
They were on the couch, and he was holding her hand, rubbing the pad of his thumb over her skin, sending shivers right down to her toes.
“I’m sorry about blurting it out like that,” he said. “I was planning on candlelight and wine. I hope I didn’t embarrass you.”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that.” Sweet Hera. How on earth did you tell a man he didn’t really love you? She had no idea. And it wasn’t even a conversation she wanted to be having.
“You’re on spring break, right?”
She nodded, and when he kissed her fingertips, she blinked back tears.
“What would you say to a trip? Maybe a drive down to San Diego? Or up to the wine country?” His gaze locked with hers. “I feel like I’ve known you forever. I want reality to catch up with the way I feel.”
“Taylor, I. . .” Turning away, she pulled her hand free and settled it in her lap. Why did it have to be so hard?
“Zoe?” The unspoken question hung between them: What’s wrong?
“If you don’t feel the same . . .” he began. “I mean, I hope you do. But I don’t want to pressure you. It’s just—I thought—”
Not even trying to hide her tears, she spun back around to face him. “No, no! Taylor, I love you. I do. Heaven knows, I shouldn’t, but I really do.”
“Then what?”
She took a deep breath. “You don’t love me.”
He laughed, then kissed her on the forehead. “Sweetheart, you’re priceless.”
Whatever reaction she’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. “Taylor, aren’t you listening?”
“I assure you, I do love you.” His grin split his face. “I knew this would have worked better with roses and candlelight.”
Argh! She pounded a fist uselessly into the sofa cushion. “No, no. Listen to me. You don’t love me. You just think you do.”
“Think I do, and know I do.”
“It’s not really love. It’s an illusion.”
“Then maybe we should take that vacation in Las Vegas. Maybe we could even get booked as an act.”
She fell back against the cushions, exasperated. “You’re not even trying to help.”
“Well, no. Not if the goal is to convince me that I don’t love you. I don’t think I’m going to willingly help in that project.”
“You’re impossible,” she said.
“Sorry ’bout that.”
She took a deep breath, trying to steel herself. “You know that belt I was wearing last night?”
“Right. The ugly gold thing.”
“You thought it was ugly?” She waved the question away before he could answer. “Doesn’t matter. It’s experimental. Like the cloak.”
“You can fly when you’re wearing it?”
“It made you fall in love with me.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
She bounced off the couch and started pacing. “Yes. Yes, it did. It works . . .” How? How did it work? She ran her fingers through her hair, then started twisting a strand around her thumb. “Oh! Pheromones. It’s loaded with pheromones.”
“Fruit-fly hormones?”
“No.” Mother of Zeus. The man was being intentionally dense. “Sex hormones. Desire. They’ve been all over the news. The birds and the bees. Attractors. You just got sucked in.”
“Oh.”
“You see?” Maybe he finally understood.
“No.”
Hopping Hades! “Taylor, please.” She ran both hands through her hair. “This is killing me. Please, please don’t tease me. Try to pay attention.”
He stood up, took her hands in his, then kissed the tip of her nose. In her Keds, her toes started to tingle.
“I’m not teasing you. I just don’t buy it.”
“But it’s the truth.”
He shrugged. “Oh, I believe the belt’s weird. I mean, no self-respecting designer would put that ugly a belt out into the fashion world, so something must be up with it.” He stroked her cheek. “I just don’t buy that it has anything at all to do with the way I feel about you.”
“But—”
“I mean, you have lousy taste in clothes, and I still love you.”
“Taylor, the glow’s going to wear off in a few days.”
The corner of his mouth curled up. “I think it’s supposed to after a while. At least a little.”
She sighed. “That’s not what I mean.”
He took her hand, tugging her down to sit on his lap. “Lane’s great, isn’t she?”
Zoe frowned, not at all sure where he was going with this. “Well, yeah.”
“We don’t share a drop o
f blood, yet I love her as if she were my own sister.”
“You were in foster homes together.”
“A lot of homes. She was the only family I ever had.”
She nodded, not sure what she could say, not sure he wanted her to say anything.
“Do you know what our favorite thing to do was?”
“What?”
“Go to the grocery store.”
She frowned, her brow pulling together.
“We liked to sit and watch the families. They’d come in, a husband, a wife, usually a couple of kids. And they’d just do their shopping. Sometimes we’d pick a family and follow them. You could see it in their eyes, you know? How much they cared, I mean. They’d laugh and joke and plan meals, and spoil the kids, and it always made my stomach hurt because I wanted so much to be one of those kids.”
She blinked back tears, silent, as he pulled her closer.
“Now I want to be one of those parents.” He kissed her ear. “I’m not knocking passion, mind you. I wouldn’t even begin to guess what went on when those parents got behind their bedroom doors, but that’s what I want. The kind of love those families in the grocery store had.” He brushed a strand of hair off her face. “And I want it with you, Zoe.”
She ignored her tears. “There has to be real love there in the beginning. Otherwise there’s nothing warm and wonderful to fade into.”
“Oh, sweetheart, there is real love. A millionfold. I promise you that.”
“Taylor, you can’t possibly love me. It’s just the belt talking. You don’t even know me.”
“Don’t know you? I think I do. You’re a woman who’s fiercely loyal to her friends, and who won’t even rat on her acquaintances. A woman who loves her family and who’s brave and smart, and has a wonderful sense of humor, and can forgive a man his stupid blunders.”
She shivered. “You see all that in me?”
“A man can see a lot when he’s in love.”
Love. Oh, how she longed to believe.
“Zoe.” He put his finger under her chin and tilted her face up until she had no choice but to look at him, blurry though he was through her tear-filled eyes. “I don’t love you because of your keen fashion sense, and I’m not under any spell. I loved you the first moment I saw you in your library. You weren’t wearing the belt then, were you?”
She shook her head.
“And you weren’t wearing it when I was parked outside your apartment, right?”
She nodded. He was throwing all her arguments back, only this time they added up to truth.
“Take a chance on me, Zoe. Take a chance on us.”
She nibbled her lip. Could it be true? Oh, please Hera, let it be true.
“Kiss me,” he said.
“Oh, Taylor.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tight, then wiped her tears away on his shoulder. He tilted her head back and kissed her, hard and deep, and the one thing she knew for certain was that she felt more at home in his arms than she’d ever felt anywhere else on the planet.
“Taylor,” she whispered, “I love you, too.”
He was curled up asleep beside her as she tenderly leaned over to kiss his cheek, not wanting to wake him, but just to touch him. To breathe the musky scent of his skin, to feel the rough caress of his shadow of a beard across her lips. She moved closer, her lips brushing his skin, the sensation both tender and erotic.
Stroking his hair, she pressed her cheek to his. Her Taylor, her—
Ka-pow! Zip, blam, blooey!
Light and sound and terror exploded in her head. She sat upright, jerked away by the force of the image. Immediately she looked for Taylor, expecting him to have jumped up, alert and ready. But still he slept. How could he sleep? That force? That fear? His fear. She’d seen it, burning an angry red behind her eyes. She’d smelled the fear, as pungent as the sickly sweet smell of charred flesh.
She’d tasted terror, and now it hung bitter on her tongue like rust on iron. Was it a sign? A coincidence? A portent?
What was going on?
Never before had she seen an image of the future, but she was certain that was exactly what she’d just experienced—Taylor, afraid and in danger.
Things were happening. And Taylor was right in the middle of it.
Dammit. Not if she could help it.
Steeling her jaw, she eased away from him. She didn’t want to leave the circle of his arms—not now, not ever—but she needed to investigate.
Nothing was going to happen to this man. She intended to make damn sure of that.
Silently she padded to the computer and fired it up, then typed in the password she wasn’t supposed to know.
The council headlines scrolled across the screen as she searched the site map for any information at all on visions. There had to be something, some information, anythi—
Aphrodite’s girdle.
The image floated on the screen, and Zoe gasped. She leaned closer, her nose nearly pressing against the monitor. That belt didn’t look a thing like the one she’d been wearing.
A chill chased up her spine.
Hale had lied to her. He’d lied. He knew what the belt looked like, and he’d intentionally tried to mess up her chances with Taylor.
A whirlwind of anger whipped through her, only to war with relief. She gnawed on her lower lip, wanting to be furious, but, somehow her anger kept getting overwhelmed by a wash of sadness. In the end, she couldn’t keep the man anyway.
She cast a tender glance toward Taylor, her heart swelling as she watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest. No matter how misguided, Hale loved her. He didn’t want to see her hurt. She remembered the stories she’d heard about how Hale’s mother had died, about Tessa leaving, everything he’d warned her about mortal/Protector relationships.
Her brother just didn’t believe in a happy ending with a mortal.
But she knew—with all her heart and soul—that Taylor was right for her. Just as Donis had been right for Tessa. Only this time it would work out. Taylor wouldn’t run away. He was brave and noble and good. Surely together they could weather the storm.
Remembering her task, she scrolled down, past the image of the belt and its emerald green centerstone, taking in all the lore surrounding the belt and its gem.
One article caught her eye—about how the stone could harness unspeakable power at a certain location during a certain lunar eclipse. Tonight, and here in Los Angeles at the Griffith Observatory.
She swallowed, her eye moving down the screen. There was a legend, too. The stone would come to a halfling, but beyond that, the signs were hazy. Take one path, and the world continued as it was. Take the other, and the mortal population was enslaved, destined to serve the pleasure of the ruling Protector and his minions.
Zoe swallowed. She’d let it slip through her fingers. The fate of the world, and she’d haphazardly lent it out as jewelry.
She froze, the pieces coming together. Mordi had attacked first when Lane had the stone. Later he’d gone after Deena, who’d had the thing in her pocket all along. The poodle had sniffed around her and Deena and Taylor . . . which just left Lane.
She didn’t have the stone, but Mordichai surely thought she did. After all, it wasn’t a huge stretch to assume Deena had borrowed it, then returned it to Lane.
What in Hades had she done?
Taylor’s hand on her shoulder startled her.
“Hey, birthday girl.”
She whipped around, unable to think, just needing to get to Taylor’s sister right then. “Lane,” she said. “Danger.”
21
Taylor banged his hand on Zoe’s steering wheel and cursed his stupidity. Dammit! Where were his instincts? He should never have let Lane leave by herself. And now, if what Zoe said was true, some badass thieves thought she had that jewel.
Idiot, idiot, idiot!
Ignoring the tow-away zone, he swung Zoe’s tiny Toyota into a free space and bolted out of the car, the stone he’d wrested from the damn f
erret weighing heavily in his pocket.
Zoe got out from the other side and ran after him.
“Wait here,” he said. “I mean it, Zo. I don’t want to have to watch out for both of you.”
“But—”
“Zoe, please.” He kissed her on the cheek, ignoring her look of exasperation, then dashed up the stairs to Lane’s apartment.
The door was ajar. He burst in, then immediately stopped cold.
His employer, Mr. Mordon, presided over the room. “I think you have something I want.”
“Just the opposite. Where’s my sister?”
Mordon smiled. “She’s fine. For now.” He gestured across the room, and Taylor turned, looking into the shadows.
On the far side of the living room, Lane crouched on the floor, backed into a corner by two snarling dogs—a golden collie and ridiculously snarling toy poodle—that were approaching her from both sides. Her eyes were wide, pleading up at him.
“Stay still. Don’t move.” The toy poodle’s jaws seemed enormous—as if they had grown somehow beyond normal proportions—and Taylor was certain the dog had a mean streak a mile wide. Maybe it was rabid, too.
Damn! If he attacked Mordon, the dogs would surely lunge. And even if he went for the dogs, there was no way to get them both in time. One would go for Lane’s throat; he was sure of it. He wished he had his gun, but it was locked in Francis Capra, and Lane had the keys.
“A dilemma, isn’t it,” Mordon said, moving casually toward the sliding glass door. The man was wearing a perfectly tailored suit topped with a cape, as if he were trying to pass himself off as some English gentleman out of a Merchant Ivory film. “Perhaps I could see it, and we can arrange a trade.”
“Just let her go.” As he spoke, Taylor moved slowly, pulling the stone out of his pocket. “Call off the dogs and I’ll toss you the rock.”
Mordon’s eyes narrowed. “No, Mr. Taylor,” he said. The stone moved in Taylor’s hand. “I don’t think so.”
Before Taylor could grab the rock more tightly, it shot across the room to Mordon. He held it up, the green facets perfectly mimicking the color of his eyes. “You’re far too obliging, Mr. Taylor.” He tipped an imaginary hat. “So sorry about that finder’s fee, but I’m sure you understand.”