Mercy Strange

by Alisa Woods

  “Oh, my God,” another woman to his left said. She looked startled but said nothing more.

  Swift exchanged quick glances with Nia and Mercy. “What the hell is—”

  Then it hit him.

  Like the blast of a concert turned full-volume, sudden and fierce, and he nearly buckled under it. His hands went reflexively to his ears, but this music couldn’t be blocked by any physical barrier. It was a tsunami of emotion—the raw, cacophonous sound of a room full of shocked and injured and angry people.

  “Swift!” It was Mercy, her hands gentle on him again, keeping him upright in the seat. “What is it?”

  The sudden shock of the return of his Talent passed, and he straightened, looking first at her in wonder, and then at Eliphas up front. The entire room was in an audible uproar—the physical kind and the emotional one. The monk had lowered his hands and was now smiling broadly at the startled crowd.

  “I am the Resurrectionist.” Eliphas’s words were soft, barely spoken, barely heard over the noise of the room, but they ricocheted through Swift’s body, jerking him upright out of his seat.

  “What the fuck.” But his exclamation and alarm went unheeded. Unheard.

  Eliphas simply pressed his hands together and took a brief bow before a crowd still figuring out their Talents had been restored, then he quietly turned and left by the side door through which he originally came.

  “Stop him,” Swift croaked, his voice breaking.

  Nia looked at him like he was crazy. “The monk? Why…” But she was distracted by the restless and exuberant crowd. One by one, word was passing that their Talents had been restored. Some more obvious than others.

  “What did he say?” Mercy asked, looking between Swift and the slowly closing door Eliphas had just left through.

  Swift gave her an incredulous look—her emotions sang strongly of concern, but only the gentle kind, for him, not the panic he would expect. Was he the only one who heard those words? “He said...” Swift swallowed. “That he was The Resurrectionist.”

  Mercy’s eyes went wide. “Are you sure?”

  “Your Talent. Do you have it?” he demanded, a little too harshly.

  “I…” She hesitated, frowning. “It’s a little difficult to test—”

  “Do it on me.”

  “Swift, I’m not—”

  “Mercy! We both need to know.”

  She scowled. “Well, I have more than one kind of magick, you know.” Then she frowned deeper and reached a hand to his cheek. A trickle of sensation flowed from it like ice had found a port into his veins and was now seeping into his body, cool and enlivening—magick.

  Her eyes went wide. She was a med-magick researcher, so it made perfect sense. She must have some mastery of the healing arts. Her magick started to dissolve the aches and pains in his body—even the burn on his hand was assuaged—but it was the look of realization on her face, and her sweet emotional soundscape trilling with concern, a flash of fear, and a heavy dose of wonderment that made his heart quicken.

  “Eliphas turned it back on,” Swift said, breathless.

  “Just now?” She looked back to the front, her healing touch slipping from his face. Then she turned back to him. “If he can deactivate the switch…”

  “Then he can activate it, too.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Nia asked, finally swinging her attention back to them.

  Mercy just shook her head. “But… how?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s no way…” Swift stalled out. Could what Eliphas said be true? That he believed it and that made it true? Was that in any real way different from harnessing magick? “He has to have some kind of mental magick—some med-magick art—that could…”

  Mercy’s expression zoomed into high skepticism. “Flip genetic expression? Of hundreds of people?”

  Swift just shrugged. This was far outside his field of expertise. “All I know is that I’ve got a Talent back that I thought for sure I’d lost. And Eliphas just put on a hell of a demonstration.”

  Mercy’s expression fell blank. “Shit.”

  Even Nia was suddenly sharply concerned. “So, this guy just hijacked this whole party?”

  “Maybe,” Swift said. “Or maybe he planned it from the start.” He shook his head—it was still ringing—and lurched toward the door. “I’ve got to tell SAIC Burrows about this—” But he got only two steps before it felt like the carpet was tilting under him.

  Nia braced him. “Okay, you’re not doing anything except going straight to a healer.”

  “But I’ve got to—”

  “I’ll pass the word along.” Nia nodded to Mercy, who was suddenly at his side again, her hand laced in his. “Get him fixed up. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Mercy nodded, and already, she was trickling that healing magick through his hand. The floor righted itself as Nia hustled off, stepping around the fallen bodies near the door. Mercy urged him forward to where the medics were bent over the people beyond help. Her magick was soothing the aches, keeping him steady.

  “Damn, that feels good,” he whispered.

  She gave him a small smile. “Careful you don’t get hooked on my dopamine dosing.”

  “I can think of worse things.”

  She smiled more, and he heard it all. The whisper of attraction. The whoosh of relief. A tiny note of pride. But far and away, the loudest song came from affection—a light harmony of excitement and passion and… love. He’d heard it before, in the soundscapes of others, directed at their spouses or children or parents. But never for him.

  Never directed at him.

  Never shining in a woman’s eyes lit just for him.

  Mercy Strange was trickling magick into his hand and shuffling his body toward the professional healers, but this song she was singing was the greatest magick he’d felt in his life.

  And it healed a heart he’d hardly known was broken.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The healers said Swift only needed rest, but she wasn’t so sure.

  Mercy kept a hand on him the whole way home—home being her apartment, not his, because she’d insisted that she needed to watch over him for a few hours, and besides, her place was closer to the conference/hotel they’d stumbled away from. She’d hailed a cab, holding hands with him in the back seat, trickling in healing magick during the short ride. Then in the lobby of her apartment building, she’d kept their hands laced together and even gently held his with both of hers. During the ride up the elevator, he’d started giving her looks—the kind that heated the skin of her cheeks and the space between her legs.

  And of course he could read that, which just made it worse.

  She pulled back on the steady dosing of dopamine—her magick was stimulating his own sources of the neurotransmitter, but the “chemical of reward” was a tricky one. She didn’t need him high, just healing.

  The elevator dinged. “Sorry,” she said, as she pulled him out into the foyer. “That was probably too much.”

  “Or nowhere near enough.” His gaze raked across her bare shoulders.

  Oh, no. “The medics said you needed rest.” She stopped the dopamine completely and switched to inducing serotonin. The “happiness” chemical should make him a little more compliant—but it wasn’t strictly emotion-mancing like Swift could do, so she didn’t feel bad about it. And besides, he knew what she was doing. “I have every intention of making sure you sleep. So, don’t think I’m dragging you to my bedroom for any other purpose.”

  “Then we should probably stop here.” He locked onto her hand and pulled her to him, then pivoted them both up against the wall—the one covered with black, faux feathers. They tickled her bare shoulders. “Because I have lots of intentions for you, Mercy Strange, and none of them involve sleep any time soon.” He pinned their clasped hands to the wall to her right, and his other hand was buried in feathers to her left. He leaned in close, but not quite kissing, just staring at her lips like he wanted to devour them. The man h
ad been insanely hot from the moment he walked into her office over a week ago, but the looks he was sending her now were scorching her straight through to her soul.

  “I mean it, Swift.” Through their entwined hands, she could feel the damage left behind by Violet’s attack—localized in his palm, but also a generalized shock through his whole system. Her neurochemical dosing wasn’t doing much but easing the pain—he needed time and rest for proper healing.

  “So do I,” he breathed. He lifted his gaze from her lips to her eyes. “I intend to make you feel things, Mercy Strange. And not with my Talent.”

  Holy fuck. His words were like liquid sex poured out and coating her body, dripping down, down, down… His eyelids fell half shut. He was feeling that—her visceral response to his words—which just ramped up the intensity in her more, like an insane feedback loop escalating so quickly she could barely breathe.

  He leaned in, avoiding her lips only to brush his against her cheek and whisper, “Every woman makes a certain sound.” He nuzzled her then slid in closer with his body, trailing his lips along her jaw to her ear. “It’s unique. Like her taste. Her smell.” He nibbled on her neck, and she nearly convulsed against him. “I’m the only one who can hear it,” he whispered in her ear, “and only when she comes so hard and so thoroughly that she’s lost all sense of herself and everything else in the world.” He pulled back, his gaze so hot she thought she might combust. “I want to hear you make some noise.”

  “But I… you need to…” Fuck, she could barely breathe.

  “I need you.” Then he covered her mouth with his, giving her no chance to respond… except her body did all the responding for her. Her mouth opened, her tongue met his, her hand slipped inside his jacket to the hard muscles under his shirt, grabbing and pulling him closer. But he was already pressing her into the wall, his free hand sliding to the back of her neck, pulling her deeper into the kiss. Everything in her was alive for this kiss. She’d had sex with plenty of men—men who got her less excited even in the full throes of climax than this man did with all of his clothes on and a few erotic words. She’d had sex, but she’d never made love. The thought made her shudder, her body literally unable to hold all the anticipation. What would it be like to share herself so completely? To lose herself in Swift’s love-making, just as he promised?

  He broke the kiss. “You like that,” he whispered, then used his thumb to lift her chin and feast on her neck. “And this, too.” That he knew her every feeling, every shuddering pleasure, was shorting out her brain. She never thought she’d have any man in a relationship like this—a real one, where he knew everything she was, where she held nothing back—much less someone like Swift who knew her more intimately than anyone else ever could.

  She let her head fall back against the wall as he nipped around her obsidian choker. He released her hand pinned to the wall to cup her breast through her dress—her short dress with the lace stockings underneath that she couldn’t wait to have gone. She grabbed at his leather jacket—a plain one, but heavy—and wrenched it back from his shoulders, begging him to take it off with her insistent tugs. His mouth was still firmly attached to her, now working toward her breast, but he complied, quickly reaching back to shuck off the jacket, letting it fall to the floor behind him.

  Only then did she see the burns. His black shirt underneath was short-sleeved, and angry, red streaks ran up from his hand, the one which had held his gun. The gun Violet melted. His palm was less ravaged, but only because Mercy had been healing it nearly non-stop from the conference center. All those burns… and all because Mercy told him he had to go after Violet—

  Swift lifted his head and scowled at her. “Guilt? Why?” Before she could respond, he stepped back. “Is it… is there someone else?”

  “What?” She was still breathless against the wall. He’d leaped five steps ahead through a dozen assumptions. “Swift, what the hell—”

  “The IT guy.” His shoulders dropped. “He’s in love with you, too.”

  Too? “Oh, for fuck’s sake… Swift!”

  He looked so wounded, she couldn’t even be angry. She just shoved off the wall and captured his cheeks in both hands, holding his gaze with hers. “I’m feeling a fuck-load of guilt about wanting to bang you when you’re wounded. And because…”

  He waited, hope alive in his eyes.

  “Because you nearly died on the floor in front of me, and it’s my fault.”

  He frowned and pulled back slightly. “How was that your fault?”

  “I told you to go after Violet.”

  “I should have done that sooner—”

  She dropped her hands from his face and balled up her fists. “No, I should have done it sooner. I should have whispered her into oblivion before she could…” She stalled out—it wasn’t just Swift. It was all the others who actually died…

  “But it wasn’t even her in the end.” He looked almost comically baffled. “Wait… you’re feeling guilty because Violet attacked me? That doesn’t make—”

  “Because you almost died.” Tears were stinging the back of her eyes. “Did you mean it?”

  His face screwed up. He was completely lost. “Did I mean what?”

  “That Quill… that my IT guy…” Suddenly, it was hard to say out loud. She’d been thinking it ever since the conference center, throughout the cab ride, to her apartment, and with every kiss and touch and heated breath. Because what if she’d fallen so hard for him she could scarcely breathe… and he hadn’t. “You said Quill loved me… too.” Did she hear that wrong? Did he not mean what she thought?

  He blinked, and his expression fell blank.

  Oh, no. No, no, no… she’d made a terrible mistake. She stepped back, but there was nowhere to go—the wall was right there. Before she could turn away and flee, he planted his hands on either side of her again, caging her with his body and the intense expression on his face.

  “Please stop,” he begged, and she couldn’t tell for what. “Whatever you’re thinking, please stop it.”

  She swallowed, but she couldn’t help the tremor of fear in her heart. She’d been ready to give everything to him—her body, her heart, her soul—and he didn’t feel the same way. What did he want her to think about that? To feel?

  “Those doubts…” He gently cupped her cheek. “That fear… I want nothing more than to kiss those away. But Mercy…” He grimaced, dropped his hand from her face, but still held her gaze. “I have to tell you something.”

  “Okay.” Her heart literally quailed in her chest.

  He pushed back from the wall, tormented, and ran a hand through his hair. “My handler at PsyOps. Her name is Dalvi. I told her about your Talent. She agreed to call off the police as long as you… as long as I brought you in for an assessment.”

  “Assessment?” Mercy’s heart spasmed again. She was… she was a job to him. Was it possible to die of a broken heart?

  Swift had torment on his face, but somehow, that only made it worse. “She’ll want to recruit you. Into PsyOps. And she’ll want your research as well. The spell for the seeker magick, how to stabilize the drugs, everything.”

  “All my research?” It was like a slap on top of everything else. She was just… an asset. A thing that had value. Great value to the people in the world that wanted bigger and better ways to control people. To harm them. How could she have been so stupid? Swift was PsyOps—all these things were literally his job.

  “She’ll want everything. All of it.” Swift sucked in air like he was having a hard time breathing. “And not just for PsyOps. She’ll turn it over to the military as well. They’ll use it, Mercy. Believe me, they will.”

  She slumped back against the wall and just stared at him, dazed. Something wasn’t right. None of what he was telling her was right, but that wasn’t it. “Why are you saying all this?” Her face felt numb.

  But relief flooded his. “Because I’ll die before I let Dalvi touch you.”

  “What?” She just blinked. What on ea
rth?

  He stepped forward, closer again, but hesitant. “I’m madly in love with you, Mercy Strange. Dalvi will have to go through me to get to you. And I know all her tricks. I know the military, how they work, what they want—”

  “Wait.” She put up her hands to stop him and momentarily squeezed her eyes shut. Her heart was lurching around like crazy. She opened her eyes and gave him an incredulous look. “Go back to that part where you’re in love with me.”

  His expression softened in a way that made her heart stop in its frenzy and just melt. “I know what love is—I’ve heard it singing in other people’s minds—but I’ve never had someone sing it for me.” He edged a little closer. “I was already in love with you. I’m not sure when. Probably that first time you kissed me in that damn alley. I was already willing to do anything for just a few more minutes with you…” He stepped close enough to touch her cheek and gaze into her eyes. “And then I heard it. I heard you feel it. And I…” There was so much emotion on his face, Mercy was afraid he might cry. Her hands went instinctively to his waist just to touch him. He swallowed and said, “If you think I’m letting anything mess that up—letting Dalvi or anyone else hurt you in any way—you’re very, very wrong.”

  Mercy didn’t bother answering with words. She didn’t have any. She just opened her heart and let herself feel every bit of the love she had for this amazing, beautiful man. He gasped as she slid her hands up to his face and reached up on her tiptoes to kiss him. He was still in shock—which she understood because she was drowning in the enormity of it, too. She loved him with everything she had. He would throw everything away to keep her safe. She’d never felt so much in her entire life, and this fumbling kiss they were having was nowhere near sufficient for the love exploding out of her.

  She pulled back and gasped, “I need you. Right fucking now.”

  He groaned and pinned her to the wall again, only this time with just his mouth because his hands were all over her. In her hair. On her breast. Reaching to cup her bottom and hoist her up off her heels, so the rock-hardness of him pressed against her in just the right spot. Only there were too many damn layers of clothes between them. She tugged at his shirt, trying to bunch it in her fingers and pull it up, but she was getting nowhere—he was pressed too tightly against her. Then he pulled back and yanked the damn thing off over his head. He was as gorgeous without clothes as when he filled them out, muscles rippling across his shoulders and chest as he threw the shirt away and devoured her with hungry eyes.