“Know your criminal.”
“It’s always helped me.” He tugged her into his lap. Gardiff and his machinations could wait a few hours. “We’ll get his minions to spill their guts.” In fact, if it would buy him Abia’s full attention, he’d see to it immediately. “For now—”
“You said minions,” she said, slapping her hand against his chest as he was leaning in for a kiss.
“Did I?”
Smiling, she curled her arms around his neck. Her breathing quickened. “I liked it.”
“I live to please you.”
She drew her tongue across his bottom lip as she climbed into his lap, straddling his hips. “You forgot Your Grace.”
He closed his eyes as her heat met his erection. “I thought you didn’t like that title.”
“I don’t. But if the right person said it at the right time...”
He gripped her hips to still her. If she moved another inch, he’d never say what he had to. “Abia, I—”
She jumped away from him, then just as abruptly leaned down and kissed him hard on the mouth. “You’re a genius.”
Nick struggled to focus. “I am?”
“Gardiff’s at the site of the old crystal lantern plant.”
“He’s...” Nick shook his head to clear it. He, in fact, felt like banging his head against a wall. “How’d you get that?”
“You. Know your criminal. Gardiff wants to dominate and make sure he’s never a victim again. He wants things the way they were, when all mystics were dependent on sorcerers for light. The plant was converted to apartments after it was shut down. He’s there.”
While Nick could see the steps she’d taken to get to her conclusion, he had a more urgent concern on his mind, and he couldn’t hold back his surprise as she darted away. “You’re going now?”
Already in the doorway, she turned. “You can come. It was your idea, after all.”
She called her wand to her hand. She’d dropped it next to the sofa, where she’d been on the verge of making love to him.
Did they have time warps in New Mystic City?
“I need to call Evan and the rest of the team,” she said cheerfully.
He grabbed her hand, tugging her toward him, struggling to change gears. “Don’t you think we need a strategy first?”
“Why?”
“So we don’t get ambushed.” Again, he added silently. With his training, he was reasonably confident he could protect the IPSF team, but he couldn’t anticipate everything, and he couldn’t bear to see Abia hurt.
“Gardiff won’t anticipate this move,” Abia argued. “We’re finally a step ahead of him. I’ll call Evan and the rest of the team.”
Nick kept a hold on her hand. “Song’s hurt.”
Her green eyes flashed with annoyance. “Are you questioning my decision?”
Nick struggled between love and reason. Reason won. Or maybe it was love. He was still new to the experience. “I’m saying everybody needs time to recover, and I need to talk to you about something important.”
“What’s more important than capturing Gardiff and returning the scepter to its rightful place?”
“Us.”
She looked baffled. “Us?”
“I love you.” He fought a wince at his abruptness. Not exactly romance with a touch of devotion.
Disbelief dominated her expression. “How is that possible?”
Maybe he hadn’t expected her to return his declaration, or fall into his arms and kiss him passionately, but he hadn’t considered outright rejection. And he hadn’t anticipated the misery he’d feel as a result.
His timing wasn’t ideal, but he could hardly call his words back, and he didn’t want to go into another battle without her understanding how deeply his protection of her went.
“I hear it happens every day,” he said, flippant as a defense.
“Not to me.”
Not to him either. This time had been different. Had he been crazy to think she felt the same bond he did when they were together? Had he imagined their intimacy was more than physical?
“We live in two different worlds,” she added.
“I’ve been straddling both of them pretty well lately,” he shot back, his pain becoming anger. As often as I’ve been straddling you, his ego added heatedly, though he somehow found the strength not to say the pathetic accusation aloud. “You feel nothing for me?”
“I—” She stopped, her vivid green gaze skipping away from his. For once, her notorious self-possession seemed to have flown. “You’re wonderful, but I...I never imagined we’d be together for very long.”
“Why? Is there some law against mystics and caporals getting involved? Hell, we’ve already smashed that one to pieces.”
“You’re not a caporal,” she corrected. “But no.”
“Then the duchess thing. You’re not allowed to be with anybody who isn’t royal?”
She lifted her chin. “I’m allowed to do whatever I want.”
“So why?”
“I don’t believe in love.”
Nick flinched against the crushing pain in his chest, more oppressive than any spell he’d ever absorbed. “That’s honest.”
“What else can I be?” She moved away from him, and his constricted breathing grew worse.
She doesn’t want me. And, though his timing couldn’t have been worse, he doubted delivering his news over a candlelight dinner would have changed her response.
“Romantic love is temporary,” she said, her voice firm, almost cold. “You feel lust for me. I’m sure you care about me on some level, but it won’t last.”
“It will,” he managed to whisper.
“How do you know?”
He floundered for a rational argument. Laughable, frankly, in the mystic world. Nothing here was logical. “I just do.”
Abia stared at him as if he was crazy. Which, of course, he was. About her.
“My parents played love as if it was a sport,” she said, her expression resolved. “They flirted, seduced, and flitted from one bedmate to another. Their lack of fidelity was legendary and a constant source of palace gossip. I was eleven when my mother explained that marriage was for heirs and society balls. Pleasure could be had anywhere.”
The whole, horrible idea made Nick sick to his stomach. Who’d poison a child’s mind and heart that way?
“Instead of tramping around, I focused on advancing my spell casting. But the boy I’d been betrothed to by my parents didn’t like that I was stronger than he was and rejected me for somebody else.” Abia lifted her chin. “Love isn’t real. And caring too much makes you vulnerable to others hurting you.”
At once, Nick’s anger drained away. Abia’s strength made her abhor weakness. But the fact that she’d shared her pain meant she trusted him on some level. Wasn’t that a beginning, something to build their passion on?
Wrapping his arms around her, he kissed the pulse point beneath her ear, which beat fast and strong. He’d find a way to overcome her past. He’d show her the pure side of love.
He’d been embraced by his family and watched his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins live devotion day-by-day. Arguments and problems were sometimes coupled with anger and frustration, but not destruction or defeat. Couples made sacrifices for each other. They worked through conflicts. They embraced laughter. They knew the security of love.
Abia hadn’t experienced anything close. She’d clearly seen way too much selfishness.
She brushed her fingers across his cheek before stepping back. “I’ve got to finish the mission.”
Duty over regular life. He understood that sacrifice as few could. And though he wanted to say more, to sway her to believe in them, he knew nothing would happen in an instant.
She’d watched betrayal over and over, then been burned herself. The wall she’d built around her heart had many layers. Nick vowed in that moment he’d find a way over, under around or through them. And he could start by demonstrating loyalty was a
cornerstone of love.
He reached for her hand. “Take me with you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The housing complex built on the ruins of the old crystal power plant was on the south side of town. Abia and her team arrived there within an hour of her putting together Nick’s criminal insight and her instincts about Gardiff.
With the same group—her, Nick, Evan, Sven and Song, who’d been treated effectively by one of the palace Healers—they crept around the three high-rise buildings, using Tracking spells to search out their target.
Abia didn’t doubt her impulse to go after the sorcerer now. She and her team had depleted his number of followers. They had to strike before he had a chance to recoup his losses.
But her conversation with Nick lay heavily on her mind.
She’d never known anyone like him—and she wasn’t even counting his Crossover abilities. Their shared sensual need seemed to flame higher by the hour. But she felt way more than sexual attraction toward him. She enjoyed talking to him, sharing his company, simply listening to him breathe on the pillow beside her.
But love?
Love was a fairytale. Marriages were arranged, heirs produced, affairs conducted discretely on the side. (Except, of course, for her parents, who’d seemed to delight in creating a scene with every flirtation.) Even merchants in the village married their daughters to other merchants’ sons, creating alliances, and sometimes dynasties in the case of the precious jewel trade. Even the Queen herself ran through lovers like flashy new gowns and shoes.
And while she’d been hurt by her own engagement falling apart at first, she’d become grateful over the years. She liked being free, answering to no one, keeping others at a distance.
She and Nick worked together; they had no logical reason for further alignment.
But as she watched him walk in front of her, she wanted to plaster herself to his skin, feel the wave of desire rise, then sink into him and absorb his need more than she wanted to take another step. Yet she didn’t see how she could overcome a lifetime of putting herself and her career first. Or how she could reconcile her past observations of relationships with the unique one she shared with Nick.
Was that stubbornness or self-preservation?
“I sense something behind the building,” Nick said, glancing back at her.
She managed a nod as they turned the corner. Finishing Gardiff had to take priority. With the threat to her world contained, she could allow herself to figure out where she and Nick stood, where they might go.
How romantic.
She shook off her intruding conscience. Sacrifices were part of her job. Hadn’t Song suppressed his pain and insisted on coming with them? How could she expect less of herself? She wasn’t a palace debutante. She had obligations—to her team, the citizens of NMC and her Queen.
Romance would have to wait.
At the back door, Nick paused, glancing up. “He’s here.”
Abia opened her mouth to ask if he was sure, but closed it again quickly. I trust him, she realized in a rush. She believed in his experience, his power, his care for her world. But professional belief was one thing. Could she set aside a lifetime of cynicism about love and care for him the way he deserved?
“Behind building three,” Abia whispered into the tip of her wand.
An instant later, Evan, Sven and Song appeared beside her and Nick.
“Seventh floor,” Nick said. “Apartment on the far right side.”
Wands at the ready, the team nodded. They were as one. They were ready to end this. Abia linked arms with Nick, and they Traveled to the seventh floor landing.
“More than one, Commander,” Song said in a low voice.
Nick furrowed his brow. “Maybe that’s why the trail was so easy to follow. I get a single concentration of energy. But Song is more experienced than I am.”
“How many, Song?” Abia asked.
“Four, maybe five.”
Abia hoped she hadn’t been too impulsive with this operation. “Gardiff’s numbers are higher than we thought.” Didn’t the weak always surround themselves with those more powerful if they could find a way?
Abia didn’t bother with a knock on the door. She simply blasted it away.
As wood shattered, she leapt away from the opening to avoid the inevitable wand-fire that followed. Before she could give the order to hold, Nick stepped in the opening, and the resulting barrage of spells brought him to his knees.
Damn the man for being a hero.
As the others rushed inside, Abia laid her hand against his back, feeling his gasps for air. “Push away the energy.”
“I know what I’m doing,” he gasped. “Go. I’m fine.”
If any of the others had been hurt, but functioning, she wouldn’t have hesitated. But Nick wasn’t like anyone else. His role was unique, not only to her, but to them all. His talents had to be protected.
One of the hardest things she ever did was remain still in front of him, counting the beats of her own heart as he struggled to recover. A spell caught her in her shoulder, but she barely flinched.
How often had her uncle told her that inaction often required more strength than action?
“Go,” Nick repeated, with more force this time. “Song’s not a hundred-percent.”
The reluctance she felt at leaving his side surprised her. The others should have her support. Shouts, crashing glass and blasts of light reverberated around them, and visions of her team’s defeat swam before her eyes. But she had no idea how much more Nick could tolerate. And why the hell hadn’t she thought to ask Malburn that vital question?
She’d been selfish for a long time, but she wasn’t leaving her lover’s side until she was sure he’d recovered. “When you can stand on your own I’ll go.”
He instantly surged to his feet. And swayed.
Abia grabbed his arm to steady him. “Nope. Not yet.”
“They need you,” Nick said.
But I need you.
Unsure how to express her feelings, or even what they were, she looked to him for guidance.
His gray eyes were bright with focus and pain, but when his gaze found hers, his expression softened. He stroked her cheek. “I’m better. Thanks. Go lead your team.”
With a jerky nod and a lump in her throat she didn’t understand, she dove into the fray. From the swarm of spells, the apartment had filled with dark clouds, so her first casting was one that made the window fly open and suck the smoke from the room.
Vision cleared, both sides renewed their efforts. Abia noticed an odd addition to the otherwise generic apartment—a throne-like chair sitting on a gold-covered platform in the corner.
Great Merlin, what kind of power were these guys after?
The addition of Abia’s firepower gave her team the edge they needed, though their enemies’ desperation didn’t make the battle easy. Nick jumped in at opportune moments, sparing Song and Evan particularly harsh blows.
Gardiff was nowhere to be found.
Every time Abia sent a spell zinging toward an opposer, and the spark lit his hooded face, she saw a stranger. There was no way they were letting that little worm escape. Was he even in the apartment? Was it possible he’d left his team to guard his throne?
Once her team had finally locked the sorcerers in mystic cuffs, Abia still didn’t see Gardiff anywhere. She ordered everyone to spread out and find him, which Evan did, cowering behind the throne chair.
As Evan dragged him to his feet, Abia fought back a laugh.
Relief? Pity? She wasn’t sure. He could have ended everything she loved, yet he was so small, so insignificant in his defeat. The frailty of life was hard to grasp for someone with her strength. Here, though, was proof.
One too many grains of sand could cause the entire castle to fall.
Song attached the cuff, pining Gardiff’s hands behind his back, and the sorcerer’s eyes gleamed with malice. “You’re destroying an entire race!”
She, more than anyone, unde
rstood the impact of her uncle’s invention and its effect on sorcerers. She didn’t point out that the strikes, bordering on extortion, had caused Malburn to work toward a more stable solution in the first place. She didn’t lash out at him, as he had her.
She had more control. Certainly more dignity.
After ordering Evan and the others back to the palace with their prisoners, Abia snagged the gold and pearl necklace dangling from the arm of the throne chair. The last scepter piece, in hand, at last.
~~~
“Great move, Westin. Time apart. What an idiot you are.”
Trying to save face and avoid outright rejection, he’d told Abia they needed time to consider everything they’d been through over the past few weeks. She’d told him she couldn’t be what he wanted, that she didn’t believe in love.
And he’d run.
His dumb-ass move was the reason he was currently pacing the length of his Manhattan apartment. He hadn’t seen or heard from Abia in three days, and he was on the verge of calling Conrad and begging her to take him back, of taking any speck of affection she was willing to offer.
His pride was resisting with every bit of force it contained, while his heart was loudly protesting its emptiness.
Only days before he’d been toasted by the Queen as one of the saviors of the mystic world.
Nick had lifted his glass with the rest of the IPSF team at the victory dinner, though he’d felt no joy. Abia was avoiding him, literally putting the length of the table between them as the praise rained down.
Since then all he knew from the mystic world—via Conrad—was that Malburn had reassembled the scepter and spell casting had returned full-force. There seemed to be no lasting effects from the artifact’s absence.
Nick had no idea where the scepter was now. He only hoped the eccentric wizard had actually hidden it this time.
For Nick’s part, he’d run out of patience with waiting for further updates, for wondering about the fate of Gardiff and the other sorcerers in league with him.
He wanted Abia.
His entire existence had dimmed without her.
Yes, love made you vulnerable, just as she’d said. Part of him understood her resistance to caring so much, the rest of him was fighting to find a back road to her heart.
Tonight and Forever Magical Romances Boxed Set Page 29