“Until I get your place redone.” He tossed in the deal sealer. “No rent until you’re back in your apartment.” He spread his arms wide, and in his peripheral vision, he saw dust drift from her apartment into the air. Some of it floated contrary to the breeze and headed for her. Rasmus wasn’t joking about Paisley. “Come on. Otherwise you’re sleeping on a couch in someone else’s place. Here, you get your own room and your own bathroom, full use of the kitchen, and no rent. How can you pass up a deal like that?”
“I suppose I can’t.”
He handed back her phone, and she dropped it into her purse. “All right, then. Roomie.”
“For now.”
“Hang on and I’ll get your groceries.” He did just that. As he came down the stairs with her bags in his arms, he watched her. Too bad the benefits weren’t going to include sex. His tenant was seriously, wickedly hot.
Five minutes later, they were standing in his kitchen, him with his arms full of her grocery bags and her with her mouth open. “Oh,” she said, all soft and whispery. Her Southern accent got thick. Really thick. “I have surely died and gone to heaven.”
He pretended she meant that for him, which led to some other images that stirred him more than was appropriate. “Is that so?”
“That’s a Viking range.” She walked forward, one hand extended. She caressed his stove. “A double oven?”
He walked to the counter and put down the bags.
“You have everything.”
“I run a full-service facility here.” He’d brought lots of women here, but this was the first time one was more turned on by his kitchen than by him.
She walked under the copper-bottomed pots and pans he never touched, staring up at them like she was getting a vision of bliss. He wondered if she looked like that when she came. He started mentally undressing her. Her top went first, and in his imagination, she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“There’s a bunch of other stuff in there.” He pointed to one of the lower cabinets.
She went down on her knees and opened the door, taking out all sorts of pans, crooning, swear to God, to each one as she took it out. “I didn’t know you cooked, Iskander.”
“I don’t.”
She stood and he lost his prime view of her ass. He backed away. Human women were his thing these days, but it would be stupid to sleep with this one. Really stupid, for some reason he was having trouble remembering. She headed for the grocery bags and started unloading them. She opened the refrigerator and stood there staring in. “I guess it’s been a while since you’ve been shopping.”
His fridge contained two bottles of soda and a week-old box of pizza. He reached past her and grabbed the bottles. “Something to drink?”
“No, thank you. I don’t drink Coke.”
“Now, that is just plain insulting.” He kept his tone light. “This here is root beer.”
She waved a hand at him. “Where I come from, everything’s ‘Coke’ until you need to be specific. Coke’s bad for you. Nothing but empty calories.”
“Whatever.” He lifted one of the bottles. Do not look at her tits. “You sure you don’t want one? I have two.”
“Thanks, but no.”
He concentrated on her eyes. Her big, pretty, hazel eyes.
“Do you have flour?”
“What’s that?” He took a long drink of his root beer and managed, just, to hold back a belch.
“You bake with it.” She opened a few cabinets. They were all empty except for the ones with dishes in them. The groceries that were still good got divided between the fridge and the empty cabinets. When she was done, she leaned against the counter and crossed her arms underneath what had to be the most perfect, gorgeous breasts in creation. His favorite part of the female anatomy. He kept his eyes on her face. He deserved some kind of medal for that. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” He wiped dust off his chest because it let him sneak a look at her rack.
“Why does someone with no food in his house have a kitchen like this?”
“I bought this place as a fixer-upper. I had to tell the contractors what I wanted to do with the kitchen. I don’t know shit about kitchens, so I took them to see Harsh’s and told them to give me one like that.”
She blinked a couple of times. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
“A good kitchen adds resale value to the house. It was a great investment.” He brushed more dust off his shoulders. “So. What kind of cake you making?”
“None right now.” She sighed. She sounded tired, and given it was almost seven in the morning, she probably was. “There’s a few more things I need.”
“We both have this crap all over us.” He kept brushing at the dust. “Why don’t we take a shower and then you give me a list, and I’ll see about getting what you need.” When he looked up, she was staring at him, her mouth open. “Showers,” he said, realizing the problem right away from her stricken look. “Separate showers. Unless…” He was all for doing whatever he could to get lucky. “Do you want to share?”
CHAPTER 6
About the same time. Broadway and Baker,
San Francisco
Harsh watched Emily dit Menart walk into his office and sit on his red leather couch. The Baker Street house belonged to him, but in the time he’d been traveling for Nikodemus, the house had become a communal stop for several of Nikodemus’s sworn fiends, including Emily. He didn’t mind. There was plenty of room, and if he needed to get away, he had a smaller place not far away, as well as a farmhouse in Sonoma County. Nikodemus, aware that Harsh’s place had become a halfway house for several of the strongest fiends loyal to him, had paid off the mortgage and transferred enough into an account for Harsh to pay the property taxes and his expenses.
Emily dit Menart was so beautiful he couldn’t help but stare. That kind of perfection was rare in any human. She was tall, nearly six feet, and statuesque. Probably more so than usual since she was breast-feeding. Other than eyes that betrayed her exhaustion, she didn’t look like a woman who’d just had a baby. If anything, she was a little too thin. The physician in him wondered if he ought to explain to her that she needed extra calories until she weaned her son.
Even Maddy, who was sitting behind Harsh’s desk, stared at her.
Emily’s blue eyes were made all the more striking by her inky black hair. She wore dark jeans, a pair of canvas slip-on shoes, and a cotton nursing top, and she looked glamorous in them for reasons he didn’t understand but could not dispute.
She hadn’t been a model, though there must have been offers. What she’d done instead was get a PhD in molecular biology. She’d been doing a postdoc at UC Berkeley before she got caught up with her late husband, the mage Christophe dit Menart. All that beauty and brains notwithstanding, she had more to deal with than motherhood. Christophe had wiped her past from her mind and substituted a false one. She had no memory of her education. Or anything else about her real life.
Harsh didn’t envy Emily her present situation.
“Dr. Marit,” she said. Her voice was as sexy as the rest of her. She crossed one long, slender leg over the other.
“Mrs. dit Menart.”
She was a witch, quite a powerful one, but with almost no training. Magekind who didn’t get training typically ended up insane or dead, so that made Emily unusual to say the least. According to Maddy, who made a point of studying these things, Emily had been spared either of those outcomes because her father, a mage who had burned out his powers, had managed to teach her enough to keep her alive and sane.
“Ms. Winters,” she said with a nod in Maddy’s direction. “Nice to see you again.”
Harsh took a moment to reflect on the fact that he was in a meeting with not one but two highly intelligent women. Emily was breathtaking, but Maddy Winters was no slouch in the looks department, either. After all the months he’d been traveling for Nikodemus, it was about time his life had a benefit or two.
The demonkind were exquisite
ly sensitive to the magekind, and that aspect of his magic naturally responded to the two women. He was, however, equally aware that witches of their power were dangerous to him. Perhaps especially so to someone with his rare condition. Never trust a mage. Or a witch. Who knew that better than he did? And here he sat with two witches.
Maddy cleared her throat. “Thank you for meeting with us, Mrs. dit Menart.”
“Please.” She glanced at Harsh and then at Maddy. “Call me…” For a moment she looked lost, and Harsh had the absurd desire to find a way to make everything better for her. That, of course, was not his right. “Emily, I suppose.”
Christophe’s alteration of her memories had included giving her a new first name—Erin. Then he’d taken away her last name when he married her. She’d been told her real name was Emily, but she had no recollection of that. No wonder she was having a hard time adjusting.
“Dr. Marit, do please sit down.” She leaned over and patted the other end of the couch.
Instead of sitting on the couch, he offered the women water from the mini-fridge. Both nodded, and he poured the water into squat tumblers of sapphire glass. Only then did he sit, in the red leather wingback that, angled as it was, let him see Maddy behind the desk and Emily on the couch.
To his chagrin, he wished he’d worn a suit instead of jeans, a T-shirt, and his battered leather work boots. Behind his desk, Maddy was smirking. Yes, she must think it quite amusing to see him losing his cool over Emily dit Menart. Every inch of the woman represented white privilege, from her pale skin and blue eyes, to her childhood in the rich East Bay enclave of Piedmont, to her education, whether she remembered any of it or not. She’d probably never dated a man who looked like him.
“Thank you, Dr. Marit.”
“Call me Harsh.”
Emily nodded, looking like some kind of fairy-tale princess. In his peripheral vision, he saw Maddy pick up a pencil. He returned his attention to Emily but heard the soft tap of a pencil on a folder.
“I know Emily’s my real name,” she said. “But I don’t remember it. It’s foreign to me.” She rubbed her arms. “Cold as ice.” Her voice was calm and at odds with the emotions he was getting from her, even though he was blocking contact with both of the women. “Distant.” She lifted a hand, and light reflected from the diamond in her wedding ring. “Vaguely repugnant. Which I supposed Christophe intended.”
Maddy put down her pencil and folded her hands on top of the desk. “That’s one of the effects of the magic he used to remove and alter your memories.”
“So I’m told.”
Harsh said, “I know it doesn’t feel right to you yet, but I’m sure Maddy will confirm it’s best if you use your real name.”
“I know.” Something akin to panic flickered in Emily’s eyes, and he went back to feeling sorry for her. “I am trying. I’ve remembered a few more things since the baby was born. Little things. Mostly about my parents and Gray.”
Gray was Emily’s sister, now an assassin bound to Durian, who was, in turn, bound to Nikodemus, the same demon warlord Harsh served. As did Maddy. She picked up the pencil. The tap, tap, tap of the eraser on the folders in front of her started back up.
Emily sipped her water, then placed the tumbler on the glass coffee table in front of her. “I’m sure you two weren’t expecting to talk about my personal issues.”
“I’ll let Harsh start,” Maddy said. “He’s been working with Nikodemus and can tell us both about the politics involved.” She gave Emily a quick grin. “Luckily, that’s not my area of expertise. I’m here to tell you about your legal situation and answer any questions you might have about that.”
“Thank you,” Emily said.
“If you stay here,” Harsh said, “and you are welcome to do so, you need to make a decision about an oath of fealty.”
Among the kin, swearing fealty to a warlord was customary. The kin aligned themselves with warlords in return for his, or in rare cases, her, protection. The warlord drew power and standing from his sworn fiends. While Nikodemus permitted unaligned kin in his territory and even worked with them on occasion, the magekind were another matter. If they worked for him or got involved with his sworn fiends, he required an oath of fealty from them. No exceptions.
Emily licked her lips. “My understanding is that the oath would be required. Is that not correct?”
“In your case, an oath would be required if you elect to stay in Nikodemus’s territory, yes.” Christ, she was beautiful. “But you don’t have to swear yourself to Nikodemus.”
Emily’s eyebrows lifted, but it was Maddy who said, “What?”
He shifted so he had a better view of Maddy, but he addressed Emily. “Nikodemus has authorized me to tell you that he would find it acceptable if you swore yourself to Durian or to Kynan Aijan.”
Maddy’s pencil stopped tapping. Kynan Aijan was one of Nikodemus’s sworn fiends, a warlord himself, sure, but one with issues. Huge issues. Not to mention some kind of history with Maddy that no one ever talked about.
Harsh cleared his throat. He wasn’t sure how much Emily knew about the kin’s practice of swearing fealty to a warlord. “He felt that since your sister is sworn to Durian, you might find that a more comfortable choice. However, Nikodemus is aware of your relationship with Kynan. If you swear fealty to Kynan, that would be acceptable to him, too.”
“How soon do I need to decide?”
“Not immediately. A month, perhaps. Nikodemus is also aware that your son is quite young. He has young ones of his own. In case you’re wondering, should you decide to swear fealty, the protection extended to you extends to your son so long as he is your dependent.”
“What about Ian?”
Ian was the young boy her husband had abducted and who was, at present, still with Emily while they waited, and hoped, for his mother to recover from what Christophe had done to her. “Him too.”
“Tell him I appreciate his patience.” She put her hands on the couch on either side of her legs and leaned forward. “I’ll let you know my decision.”
“Unless you decide to swear fealty to Nikodemus, that won’t be necessary. He’ll know the moment you’re sworn. Otherwise, I’ll be happy to put you in contact with Nikodemus.”
She watched him for a moment. She wasn’t pulling any magic, but there was power in her gaze. “Thank you.”
“I’ll turn things over to Maddy, then.”
Emily looked at the other woman. “Am I going to jail?”
Maddy snapped out of whatever funk she’d been in. “No.”
“Why not? I killed my husband.”
“I’m sure you’re aware,” Maddy said, “that your husband’s death was a complicated matter.”
Emily laughed, and God, what that did to her face. Harsh envied Kynan. “Murder isn’t complicated.”
“Nevertheless,” Maddy said, “he was a mage, and your actions that night saved a lot of lives.”
“I don’t remember my husband as an evil man.” She lifted a hand. “I’ve been told what he had planned for my sister and poor Ian, but that’s not the man I thought I was married to.” Her eyes teared up. Briefly, she put a hand over her mouth, and they waited for her to gather herself. “I’m sorry. Do go on, Maddy.”
Harsh restrained his urge to stroke her shoulder. “With respect to the magekind and warlords, it was not possible to suppress your involvement in his death. It would have been a disaster for all of us if one of the demonkind had been blamed. There would almost certainly have been war.” He met Emily’s gaze. “It was beyond convenient for Nikodemus that you were the one to kill Christophe.”
“If everyone knows, why haven’t I been arrested?”
From the desk, Maddy said, “As far as the civilian world is concerned, Christophe’s death has been ruled a murder that occurred in the course of a home invasion by a person or persons unknown.”
“Not so far from the truth,” Harsh said. As he now knew, Maddy and a few others, including Kynan, had been there the
night Emily killed her husband. Durian, one of Nikodemus’s assassins, had gone there to retrieve Gray, who had been taken mageheld by Christophe in a violation of the peace agreement Nikodemus had forged with the magekind living in his territory. Given the current fragility of relations between the demonkind and the magekind, whatever her personal justification, Emily dit Menart had done Nikodemus a favor by killing Christophe that night.
Maddy filled the awkward silence. “You’re his widow, and you and your son are his only living relatives.”
She didn’t react to that. Harsh left her to her thoughts. Maddy did the same. Eventually, Emily said, “My son might not be Christophe’s.”
“Legally,” Maddy said, “he is. You were his wife. The child is presumed his.” She waved a perfectly manicured hand. “In any event, there’s no one left to dispute paternity. Not that it would matter.”
“Let me be clear,” Emily said in freezing tones. “I have no recollection of having sexual relations with anyone but Christophe during our marriage. But, considering that he intended to have one of his magehelds impregnate my sister, why wouldn’t he have done the same to me? And wiped my memory of it.” Harsh heard the tiniest break in her voice, but her features were serene. “Why should I assume Christophe is my son’s father?”
“If he wasn’t,” Maddy said, “why would he marry you?”
She answered quickly, which was interesting. “He liked beautiful things.”
“Forgive me, Emily,” Harsh said, “but he could have had you without marrying you.”
Maddy glared at him before returning her attention to Emily. “Do you want a paternity test? I can arrange it.”
“I don’t care who his father is.” She spoke with cold certainty. “Not for an instant. He’s my son, and I love him. Whether any of you accept him or not. Whether his father was a mage or a demon or some stranger off the street.”
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