by D. D. Chance
As if reading my mind, Liam yanked me around the corner, then pivoted back, his hands going out. As it had in the library, fire erupted from his palms, and he sprayed the room beyond in three quick bursts. Instantly, the smell of roasting bugs flowed toward us, and Liam collapsed back against me, his hands practically smoking.
“Are you hurt?” I asked, and the lack of his response, mocking or otherwise, was all the answer I needed. Nothing else buzzed from the basement storage room, so I stowed my knives, then guided Liam down the hallway by the elbow until we reached the stairs. He half fell, half sat on the closest stair, resting his elbows on his knees. His palms were raw and blistered the color of charcoal.
“Um, I don’t remember that from last time,” I said. “What happened?”
“Nothing really,” he managed with a tight smile. “I’ve never tried to use that particular trick twice in one day, is all. It stings a little.”
“A little,” I echoed. “Exactly how often do you do this to yourself? Push yourself until you bleed, or break something, or dislocate a joint, or burn your skin black?”
He shrugged, but didn’t meet my gaze. “I don’t really look at it that way—”
“How often?” I asked again.
Another shrug, and Liam dipped his head, the grown-up echo of the little boy who’d been shoved into basements, injected with arcane devices, tested and rejected, forgotten, belittled, tortured, and demeaned. “As often as it takes,” he finally admitted, and my own throat closed up as I forced myself to swallow the sob that wanted to break free, even as his mouth creased into an achingly weary smile. “Trust me, I’m not usually the one to break first.”
“I’m sure,” I whispered. Swallowing hard, I reached for his backpack. “I can get in this okay, right, to get you some salve or something? You don’t have your stuff password protected or anything weird like that?”
He shook his head, looking relieved to focus on anything but himself. There was no doubt this was yet another defense mechanism, one that had made him into the deceptively careless, smart-assed, shrewdly observant and yet brutally wounded warrior slumped in front of me. “You should be good. You’ll want the inside pocket to the right, zipped shut. A tube of goo, not a vial. Probably close to the top, within easy reach. Just reach inside with intention. It’s thought-responsive.”
“Roger that,” I said. Stuffing down everything else I wanted to say in favor of healing his hands more quickly, I unzipped the pocket of the pack and found an assortment of small tubes and vials. No sooner had I tucked my hand inside, than I felt one of the tubes nudge my fingers. That explained how he was able to access his toys so quickly, I thought. This was one high-tech bag.
Pulling out the tube of salve, I cracked the seal and squeezed the thick, cloudy liquid over his outstretched palms, watching as the goo dropped onto his skin and instantly liquefied, spreading fast and deep into the blistered cracks. Liam groaned.
“I don’t want to say that feels better than sex, but…”
I laughed. “I get the picture.” I sat beside him, peering down at the charred remains of bugs that littered the floor outside the doorway to the basement room. I didn’t want to bother Liam while he was healing, but I couldn’t stop the dread gnawing at my stomach.
“What the hell was that? Our illusionist again?”
“I don’t think so,” he sighed, surprising me. “There’s the fact that the bites from these creatures genuinely hurt, and we legit seemed to startle them out of a slumber, as opposed to then swarming in with a focused attack. They looked like a variant of musk bees, sort of like rats with wings.”
“Charming,” I drawled.
“But most of the time, relatively harmless, although no one ever would want to stumble onto a swarm of them like we just did. They aren’t aggressive, except when startled. And then, they usually seek to neutralize the threat. Enough of those bites would have rendered us unconscious, but after that…” He paused, tilting his head. “You know, I’m not sure if they’d try to eat us or not.”
“Kind of an important detail, just saying.”
“Either way, it’s not the illusionist’s work,” he insisted. “Remember, that baby-making spider machine approached us. It showed up on our doorstep, not the other way around. That’s the difference.”
“Right.” I glanced down at Liam’s hands, but they still appeared as black and angry as they had a few seconds ago. “How long does it take that stuff to work?”
Liam flexed his hands and winced. “I’m still working out the formula,” he admitted. “The numbing agent works like a champ, but from the looks of things, the healing side doesn’t seem to be taking quite so quickly. Of the two, I’m happy enough to be numb right now.”
“Agreed.” I peered at his hands, frowning. “So, how did you become all Captain Flamethrower, anyway? Did you embed little chutes in your skin, and they, what, drew on your inner magic to make fire? Or how do you recharge them?”
He glanced up at me, offering me a cocky grin. “Well, I should tell you that a magician never reveals his secrets…but yeah. I’ve found a way to synthesize whatever magic that my tuners pull together into a highly combustible liquid, which ignites when I direct it out of my skin. Hurts like hell, so not a perfect setup, but it works.”
“No pain, no flame, I guess,” I muttered. “Is there anything I can do to help it heal faster?”
“Ah…” He blinked at me as our gazes met, and he looked surprised and more than a little taken aback.
“What is it?” I asked quickly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. It’s just…I think it’s the first time someone has offered to help me.”
His response was so unexpected that I gaped at him, my heart lurching sideways again. Here was this guy, this MacGyver of the collective, that everybody knew could handle himself, as long as he had his trusty pack, or, failing the pack itself, his quick wits and resourceful attitude would save the day. But even though I’d only known Liam a short while, I knew he spoke the truth. People didn’t help Liam; he helped them. Ever and always.
“You’re a victim of your own success,” I offered softly, not knowing what else to say. “No one ever thinks you need help, I bet.”
“True enough. I try pretty hard to keep it that way,” he admitted, then fixed me with a warm gaze. “You didn’t hesitate, though. You’re always looking to help other people too.”
“Well, you know. Monster hunter,” I murmured, but he watched me with his soft hazel eyes as I sat back on my heels to look at his ruined hands more closely. I felt uncertain, even awkward beneath his frank gaze, the energy rolling off him intimate and intense…but vulnerable too, the two of us caught in this moment outside of time, where no one else could judge us, no one else could see.
My cheeks flushed as I lifted his hands gently, feeling the zing of energy spark from his ruined skin. “That must be kind of strange,” I said, glancing up at him only to have him look quickly away. “Not having the use of your hands. Especially you.”
“Yeah, it is.” He flexed his fingers and winced a little. “It will take probably twenty minutes for the healing mechanism to start. I never realized how much of a liability that would be, or I would’ve kept tinkering with it to get that time down.”
“Twenty minutes?” I frowned. “Do you think it’s safe for us to be out here in the open like this, or should we try to find some place to hunker down?”
Liam blew out a breath. “Good question,” he said, turning back to me and nodding to his pack. “Hit the side pocket. Let’s see what the meter reader says.”
Obligingly, I open his pack again, following his directions to access the reader. It was a small key-fob-size device, and I pulled it out and showed it to him.
“Button on the back,” he directed, and I depressed the small button, turning the fob back over to see it register a compass-like image. The pointing arrow spun around and around, eventually settling on Liam. The register number that popped u
p was 95.
I blinked. “Whoa. Is that out of a hundred?”
“Ignore that. It does that all the time, an initial false reading,” he said dismissively. “My subcutaneous bionic-man circuits throw it off. But what that does tell me is that there’s nothing else stronger than me in the area. Which is good except it’s not registering you either, which could mean we’re screwed.”
He sounded unreasonably tired, and I squinted at him. “You know, why don’t we go ahead and get out of sight anyway,” I said. “Or at least get to someplace where we can mount a defense if need be.”
He didn’t object, and I helped him to his feet again, the two of us automatically moving up the stairs. I suspected Liam had spent more than enough time in basements for any one person, and I was a big fan of heading to a floor that at least held the possibility of a window or a door to the outside.
We ended up emerging into a surprisingly clean, barren hallway, the stark walls and dust-covered hardwood floor echoing with long-ago wealth, the walls doubtlessly once hung with gilded frames, the floor gleaming. I could almost see how beautiful it must have been, and I bit my lip.
“So, this illusionist thing. Tell me about that. Was that something that the Hallowells taught here as well?”
“Honestly? I have no idea,” Liam said. “I knew about this school because of my parents’ history lessons, but nobody had much to say about it. The exceptional young women were either quietly married off or never existed to begin with, and the whole thing was a front. But a front for what, I don’t know. Our families weren’t tight, mainly because the Hallowells were at a higher rung on the social ladder. Most families were.”
“Yeah?” I asked, though I recalled Tyler making a similar comment about the Grahams. “I thought you guys were super magical.”
“Oh we are,” Liam said. “But the meritocracy of the first families goes only so far. If we’d been part of the original group that had come to Boston, we doubtless would be pretty high in the pecking order, but we came a little too late. And you better believe we’ve spent the last hundred and fifty years trying to make up for it. But it’s not all bad. The upside is that we work harder and appreciate our successes more. We’ve had some pretty powerful magicians in our family, and I can’t help but think we wouldn’t have if we’d had a few more things handed to us. Just the nature of the beast, I guess.”
“Fair enough…” We tried the first door that we came to, and it was unlocked. It opened on to a standard-size classroom with swiveling stools lined up next to dusty hardwood tables, as if the students might return at any moment to take their positions. I helped Liam to the closest table, and he sighed with genuine relief as he slid onto the stool, swiveling to rest his weight on his elbows.
“It hurts more than it should,” he muttered, and I grimaced.
“Is there anything else I can do?”
His sigh was tight and a little pained. “Nah, I just need to distract myself and suck it up.”
The comment was innocent enough, but it was all that was needed to spark the dormant dancing butterflies I’d been trying to shush ever since we’d left the meeting with Symmes. Wordlessly, I swiveled Liam’s knees around until he faced me again, and then stepped forward, positioning myself between his knees.
“Whoa there,” he said, his eyes going wide. I lifted a brow.
“I thought you wanted to be distracted?”
Before he could object, I leaned forward and brushed my lips over his.
19
The connection between us was electric, literally. Sparks jumped, and I forced myself not to lurch back, even as I savored the prickly heat.
“That’s different,” I murmured, and Liam huffed, his breath coming more quickly.
“I’m totally going to need to study that more,” he agreed.
I kissed him again, more firmly this time, and sighed as the flow of warmth raced along my skin, heat flushing my cheeks. I lifted my hands to either side of his face, hesitating only slightly before laying my fingers on his skin. This time, there was no electrical charge, more a tingling, and I pulled back to see Liam’s hazel eyes alight with interest.
“Any idea why we’re doing the whole electro-twins thing?” I asked, and he shook his head.
“It doesn’t hurt, though, does it?” He searched my face as if half expecting to find scorch marks. “It doesn’t hurt me, though there’s a bit of a bite at first. It’s more surprising, I guess.”
“Hmmm…” I kissed him again, more firmly this time, and touched the tip of my tongue against his lips. They parted easily at my gentle pressure, and when our tongues met, the electrical jolt was enough that we both lurched back.
“Hey!” Liam burst out with a startled laugh, though his smile was wide. “No pain, but—wow. Let’s try that one again.”
“Yeah?” I breathed out, but I couldn’t deny that I wanted to give it another go as well. “It didn’t hurt, but it—I mean, did I burn you?”
“I don’t…” Liam stuck his tongue out, his eyes practically crossing as he tried to see its tip and failed miserably. I started giggling, but could at least assure him on one count.
“Your tongue isn’t even a little bit red. What about mine?”
I obligingly stuck my own tongue out, and he grinned. “Not even close. So…” He tilted his head in thought, his eyes going slightly unfocused. “We’re basically an electrical conduit. But a conduit for what? Has to be our innate magic, yes? It’s not like we’ve got batteries inside us. Why would we be conducting energy that way? And how is it I’m conducting energy at all? I don’t have innate magic. That’s my whole problem. You might, you likely do, but I don’t. So I can see me reacting to you, but you’re feeling this too, and—”
I waited until he was finally forced to take a break in his monologue to breathe, then silenced him completely with a long and searching kiss. This time, the zing of electricity was diminished, even when our tongues tangled. If anything, we seemed to press closer together in search of that spark again, my fingers threading through his hair as Liam spread his arms wide, holding his hands clear as I dropped my hands down his back, reveling in the heat of him. Drawing my hands around his body to the front of him, I palmed the flat planes of his chest and torso, then slid my fingers down to his waist.
By then, I’d started trembling, my breath growing short and halting, my skin flushing for an entirely different reason than our strange electrostatic connection. Biting my lip, I pulled back my head as I dropped my hands lower. I watched their progress while Liam sucked in a sharp breath, his abs going taut beneath his shirt. That made it easy for me to dip my fingers into the waistband of his jeans. I glanced up to see him staring at me, the intensity in his eyes sending an entirely new heat rolling through me.
“Nina,” he murmured throatily, and I smiled at the tremor in his voice, a flicker of confidence building in me. With Tyler, the earth had shaken when we’d kissed. With Zach, we’d stepped out of time, but this…was different. Power licked through me like fire and roared in my blood as I met Liam’s gaze.
“So… I mean, I don’t want to be forward, but…” As I spoke, I flipped the button of his jeans, reveling in Liam’s sharp intake of breath. There was no question that he liked what I was doing, liked it a lot, and that only supercharged my need to do more.
“I suppose there’s no need for me to tell you that you don’t have to do this, right?” Liam asked, his words equal parts stressed and hesitant, though his body fairly quivered beneath my hands.
I snorted, meeting his gaze resolutely. “If I haven’t made this abundantly clear, I totally want to do this. I only feel bad about taking advantage of you when you’re, you know, injured.”
“Well, about that,” he said and he shifted, waving his hands a little to draw my attention. I followed the movement—and blinked with surprise. A tiny flare of sparks zipped along the tips of Liam’s left fingers, and the deep burns in the palm of that hand seemed less violent than the right.
I whipped my gaze back to meet his. “You have got to be kidding me.”
He raised a professorial eyebrow. “I can’t say for sure that what you’re doing is expediting the healing process, but, let me just say that for the record, if that’s what’s happening here, I’m a big fan. Huge.”
I nodded as somberly as I could manage. “Well, I’m inclined to believe your hypothesis is correct. And it would be a travesty of the scientific process if we didn’t continue to explore this line of inquiry down to its natural conclusion.”
As I spoke, I moved my fingers along Liam’s waistband, but he didn’t make any move to stop me. In fact, he didn’t do anything but groan expressively as I urged his hips nearer to me and unzipped his jeans completely. He stood, and it only took another sharp tug to drop his pants past his hipbones and stretch them across his thighs. Fortunately, Liam didn’t go for the skinny jeans look, and it was short work to free him from his boxer briefs.
“Good to see that the rest of your body is onboard with our experiment,” I observed as I widened my own stance, lifting Liam’s shirt higher so I could trace the curves of his abdomen with a trail of kisses.
Whether Liam was no longer capable of response or simply felt the question needed no answer, I didn’t know, but he didn’t say anything until I reached the wispy trail of hair that pointed down to the V between his thighs. I followed the direction that trail led me, until I was dipping low against his surprisingly muscular right thigh, the soft edge of his shaft brushing my cheek.
“I really hate that I can’t use my hands right now to touch you,” Liam said, his words a little choked.
I murmured something supportive in response, but the truth was, I didn’t hate that he couldn’t touch me. I absolutely didn’t hate being so in control. It was a new experience for me, fun and powerful and freeing in a way I’d never felt with a guy. Energy arced up inside me the closer I got to Liam’s shaft, and when I finally drifted my lips over the curve of his head, I couldn’t hide the way my body jerked as the electrical charge zipped through me.