We were all but sitting on the white car’s bumper bar, and the next bend was coming up fast. I braced my feet against the front wall and clutched the seat even tighter.
“An enforcer for who? One of your council buddies? Is that why you’re protecting him?”
He smiled, a dangerous baring of teeth that gleamed white in the darkness. “You think I’m protecting him? I’m about to run him off the road.”
It all happened so quickly. The white car took the bend, tyres squealing. The back slid out again and the tyres left the bitumen, spewing out great clouds of dust and pebbles. The car spun, the driver fighting for control, then slammed into a tree.
The noise was immense. Steele pulled up further down the road, and I was out of the car before it had even come to a complete stop, running back toward the wreck in the dark. Smoke poured from under the bonnet and glass lay shattered all over the road, sparkling in the moon’s faint light. The car itself was wrapped around the tree, the front passenger side completely obliterated. The remaining headlight lit the branches above, tilted up at a crazy angle. A hole gaped where the windscreen had been.
Mason had been thrown clear—apparently, he hadn’t got the memo about wearing his seatbelt. As I approached, he rose to his feet, shaking his head groggily, and staggered into the darkness beneath the trees. A fireball chased him, setting the night ablaze.
I had no time to waste on him. I ran to the car. “Steele! Leave him!”
Steele turned at my call, letting the fire that blazed from his palms die down.
“Help me get this door open!” I tugged at the back door of the wreck, but it was bent out of shape and wouldn’t budge.
He strode over and laid his hands on the edges of the door, gently nudging me out of the way with his hip. Under his hands the metal glowed molten and he dug his fingers into and through the door, melting and shaping it. His muscles strained as he planted his feet and heaved. I forgot my dislike of him, and my suspicion that he was somehow working with Anders, and pressed close, willing him to hurry. A ticking sound came from somewhere under the crumpled bonnet, and the engine smelled of hot oil.
The door popped off and he hurled it aside. On the back seat lay a woman in dirty running gear, a woman I knew well but hadn’t seen in many months.
Sylvie.
10
She looked to be no more than sleeping. No wonder our link had gone dead—it only worked when she was in her animal form. Her chest rose and fell in even breaths, but when I shook her she didn’t wake.
“Syl!” I shook her harder. “Wake up!”
“She’s probably drugged,” Steele said.
He sounded so casual, as if this was an everyday occurrence. Drugged? Why would this Mason guy kidnap Syl, force her into human form—because it was highly unlikely Syl would have shifted of her own volition—and then drug her? Where was he taking her?
Out here, alone in the dark with Jake Steele, with the only sounds that ominous ticking from under the wrecked car’s bonnet and the faint crackle of flame in the bushes at the side of the road, I suddenly felt horribly exposed. Yet I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. The way he’d said She’s probably drugged, as if it didn’t matter either way, made me want to punch him in the throat.
“This is your fault!”
“Mine?” He leaned into the wrecked car and eased Syl out, gentle despite his apparent lack of concern. “How do you figure that?”
“She was taken from your house, by a guy you pretended not to know but obviously do.” I was ninety-nine per cent sure that was how it had happened, anyway. “And you were pretty quick to hide him away from Alberto and everyone else.”
“Alberto would have drained him dry. Just because I saved the guy’s arse doesn’t make him my best buddy. And it certainly doesn’t make me responsible for his kidnapping attempts. Do you think I would have chased after him to get her back if he was working for me?”
Sylvie’s head lolled against his shoulder, her dark hair loose around her face. It was longer than last time I’d seen it. A small gash on her cheek was closing already, thanks to her shifter powers of regeneration. Hopefully there were no internal injuries, but her body should be able to deal with those, too. If it couldn’t, there’d be nothing any doctor could do for her anyway. Shifter healing powers were so good that shifters could recover from almost anything; if they didn’t, the injury wasn’t survivable by any means.
“Why did you, then? One minute you’re trying to barbecue me, the next you’re playing white knight? I’m not buying it.”
“Sweetheart, I’m not trying to sell you anything.” His tone was weary, tinged with annoyance. “The guy was interfering with a council investigation. Now get back in the car.”
“Why should I?” Council investigation. I didn’t like the sound of that. Come to think of it, I wasn’t too keen on the sweetheart either.
“So I can dump your friend in your lap and drive you both back to town. Or were you planning on carrying her back there yourself? Because I’m not. For a cat, she weighs a lot.”
Somewhat mollified, I got in, and he settled Syl on my lap. “What are you investigating? It can’t have anything to do with Syl, whatever it is.”
He waved a casual hand at the small brush fires flickering at the margins of the bush lining the road, and they all went out as if doused by a shower of cold water. I drew a deep breath, reminded of just whom I was talking to, and what he was capable of.
He looked across at me as he started the car. “Can’t it? You seem to know a lot for a girl who works in a second-hand bookshop. Maybe you can assist me.”
I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he drove. He had a face straight off the cover of a romance novel: strong jaw, straight nose, and those piercing eyes that looked right through you without giving away what he was thinking. In other circumstances, sitting in an expensive sports car with a man like that would be a dream come true.
I tightened my arms around my unconscious friend. In these circumstances, it was more like a nightmare. He kept sidestepping the issue of his connection to Mason, and now he was implying Syl was the subject of a council investigation? Syl, of all people?
“Syl doesn’t do anything except sit on a cushion in the bookshop all day. Last time I checked, that wasn’t a crime.”
“Well, that’s a relief. The mayor seems convinced there’s a gang of cat shifters on a rampage through town—and now I discover a cat shifter who’s hiding the fact she’s a shifter. You can see how that looks suspicious.”
His tone was all sweetness. I jostled Syl’s head into a more comfortable position against my shoulder and glared at him.
“A gang of cat shifters?”
“Yes, apparently several of them ransacked his house last week. He was most insistent that they should be brought to justice. As Master of the South-East, that job falls to me.”
My heart sank. Syl had been right; I should never have stolen Johnson’s damn altarpiece.
Steele’s sarcastic tone told me what he thought of Johnson’s claims, but he had come to investigate, hadn’t he? And he’d obviously mentioned the altarpiece to Anders. I wished I’d had time to read that email. Had Anders guessed that the thief might be someone he was looking for? The mention of cats had probably tipped him off. If he’d sent this Mason guy out looking, it was time to pack our bags.
“As Master of the South-East, I would have thought you’d be too busy to investigate every petty little break-and-enter. I guess we can all sleep safe in our beds now, knowing that you’re here to protect us.”
He threw me an amused glance, but said nothing. Cramming Syl onto my lap for the ride back to town in the little sports car was neither comfortable nor safe, but at least it was over quickly. I unlocked the street door to my apartment block then stood aside for Steele to carry her up the stairs. It was after two in the morning and I should have been exhausted, but my body still buzzed with adrenaline.
The dim bulb on the landing cast soft shadows as
I unlocked the door to my apartment, conscious of the shaper behind me. The landing was small and I could feel the heat he radiated. Any minute now that banked fire could burst into flame. I didn’t trust him one bit not to direct those flames at me. The link between him, Erik Anders, and the mysterious Mr Mason loomed like a giant, foreboding question mark in my mind. If he hadn’t been carrying Syl, I could happily have shoved him down the stairs.
As it was I let him in and showed him to Syl’s room. My tiny apartment looked ridiculous, like a little dolls’ house, after the luxurious expanses of his home. There was barely room to walk between the lounge and the kitchen bench to get to the short hallway that led to the bedrooms and bathroom. The day’s dishes were still on the sink where I’d left them to drain, and the lounge room looked, as usual, like an explosion in a library, with books and magazines scattered on every flat surface. The rip in the arm of the old leather couch was normally covered by a throw, but at the moment that was puddled on the carpet under an open magazine.
He made no comment as he carried Syl through. Her room was super neat by comparison to the rest of the apartment—no clothes on the floor or personal belongings scattered about. The bed was always made because Syl slept on top of it. He laid her gently on top of the quilt.
“What now?” I asked as we both looked at her unconscious form. “Are you arresting her?”
He cast me an impatient look. “I have more pressing concerns right now than the Mayor’s dramas. I’ll talk to you both tomorrow.”
That was it? No accusations of shifter gang rampages? No more questions about my failed break-in at his house? He was just going to leave?
“I’ll look forward to it,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow at my sarcastic tone. “So will I.”
The way he let his eyes roam over my body as he spoke brought a flush of heat to my cheeks. That was probably his revenge for my abortive seduction attempt earlier. I marched to the front door and pointedly held it open, trying to ignore the fact that my shirt still gaped open from when I’d unbuttoned it. He laughed as he stepped onto the landing.
I shut the door behind him, a little more forcefully than necessary. It seemed as though all his anger and suspicion at me had been diverted to Mason instead. He’d made some connection that I couldn’t see.
Steele was a puzzle, but not one I was interested in solving. He was altogether too powerful, and had the wrong kind of connections.
I peeked in on Syl, but she hadn’t moved, so I jumped into the shower. It had been a long night.
As I turned my face up to the hot water, an unexpected lump formed in my throat. We’d only been here a few months, but I didn’t want to leave. Yet how could we stay? If Anders didn’t know where we were already, he would as soon as he heard from Mason. Syl and I needed to be far away before he turned up.
Through the noise of the shower I thought I heard something else. Was Syl awake? I shut off the water and stepped out, reaching for my towel. Someone was knocking on the door.
Who the hell would be knocking on my door at nearly three o’clock in the morning? I hesitated. It was probably Steele. He’d decided to arrest me after all. But I wasn’t going to greet him wringing wet and wrapped in a towel. Not after our earlier interlude.
I marched into the lounge room. “Who’s there?”
“Lexi, it’s me, Holly.”
Immediately my thoughts leapt to the baby, and I flung the door open. “Are you all right? Is the baby coming?”
She stepped inside and smiled, not a very cheerful smile. “No, I’m fine. Still got a couple of weeks to wait. You’re dripping all over the carpet. Did I get you out of the shower? Sorry.”
“That’s okay. What’s wrong?”
She shrugged. “You tell me. Jake Steele came banging on our door a few minutes ago. Demanded that Joe go with him to look for some guy. Said he needed a tracker.”
“Oh.” So he’d decided to hunt down Mason. That was interesting. I wished I knew what Steele was really doing in town. He hadn’t sounded as though he took the Mayor’s claims too seriously, yet here he was.
I waved her to the couch. “Have a seat. I’ll just go and put some clothes on.”
Someone yawned and I froze halfway across the room. Holly looked at me enquiringly.
“Have you got someone here?” I could see her putting two and two together as she flushed. Clearly my standing here naked in a towel looked different now. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was just worried about where he was taking Joe.”
“It’s okay.” I held out a hand to stop her as she turned to the door. Joe and Holly were my best friends in this place. Perhaps in all the world, now, except for Syl. I was going to have to get mighty creative to explain why Steele had turned up on their doorstep at this time of night. He’d obviously implicated me in some way already or she wouldn’t be here. It might just be easier to tell her the truth. After all, this might be the last time I would ever see her.
A pang of sorrow pierced me at that thought. I’d never get to see the baby either. “Come in. It’s just Syl.”
She raised an eyebrow. That hadn’t sounded like a cat’s yawn. But she followed me to the door of Syl’s bedroom.
Curled up in the middle of the quilt, her tail tucked around her nose, lay a small black cat.
“You found her, then? Joe said she’d gone missing.”
I stared as Syl showed her pink tongue in another yawn.
*Anyone would think you’d never seen a cat before,* she said. *Shut your mouth before you catch a fly.*
*What the hell, Syl? You were human a second ago. Human, and unconscious. Are you all right?*
*Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t fix.* She put her head back down and shut her eyes.
“I’ll just get dressed,” I said to Holly. “Back in a sec.”
When I came back out Holly was still standing in Syl’s doorway, frowning at the sleeping cat.
“Something seems different about her. What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing.” I took Holly’s elbow and tried to turn her back toward the lounge room, but she wouldn’t budge. “Maybe she was in a fight. She seems pretty tired.”
Holly took a step into the room. I could tell Syl was only pretending to be asleep. Holly’s nose twitched, and she sniffed the air suspiciously.
Her eyes widened, and she turned to me in shock. “She’s a shifter!”
*Now the cat’s out of the bag,* Syl grumbled.
I didn’t know what to say. Holly looked gutted.
“All this time! Why didn’t you tell us?” Then a puzzled frown crossed her brow. “And how come we couldn’t tell?”
The cat stared back at her, blinking her green eyes slowly, and then she shimmered into a slender woman who uncurled herself and stood up. “Jeez, it’s cold without fur.”
I gave Holly a gentle push toward the lounge room, and this time she went.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I’ve seen that cat every day since you arrived. I never once suspected. Has she been in cat form the whole time?”
I nodded and her eyes widened.
“But why?”
“Because we came here to get away from someone. Berkley’s Bay is nice and quiet.” At least, it had been. If only that damn Steele hadn’t come to town. “It seemed as far as we could get from Crosston and still be in shaper territory.”
Syl walked back in, dragging one of my sweaters over her head. Holly stared at her unashamedly, shaking her head.
“I still can’t believe … Is your name really Sylvie?”
“Sure. Sylvie Wentworth.” Syl stuck out her hand and shook with the bemused werewolf.
“I thought about christening her Pumpkin or Fluffikins, but she would have made my life hell,” I added dryly.
Syl plonked herself on the couch next to me and put her bare feet in my lap. Cat people weren’t very good at respecting other people’s boundaries. But I was so pleased to see her in human form that I did
n’t care.
“Who are you hiding from? Steele? Why are you running around with him in the middle of the night?”
Syl and I exchanged glances. We could no longer communicate telepathically, but I knew what she was thinking. Should we tell her? I nodded. It wouldn’t make much difference now, and Holly deserved to know the reason why before we disappeared.
“There’s a shaper in Crosston,” Syl said. “Erik Anders. Have you heard of him?”
Holly shook her head. That wasn’t surprising. Crosston was a big place, and there were a lot of shapers there.
“He’s not very strong,” I said. “He’s got a water secondary. But he’s on the council now.”
“And he’s crooked as a dog’s hind leg,” Syl added.
Yes, well, weren’t they all? I wouldn’t trust a shaper as far as I could throw him. They were all too used to having the world ordered to suit themselves, and didn’t take kindly to opposition.
“He wanted us to steal something for him.” I glossed over this part. I didn’t want to explain why I was such an ideal candidate for the job. “We said no, and he didn’t take it very well.”
“He set fire to our whole apartment block,” Syl said bleakly.
Had everyone escaped the fire? We didn’t even know.
Holly drew in a shocked breath. “He did that because you said no?”
I sighed. “He did that so that we wouldn’t tell anyone what he’d asked us to do. He meant for us to die in the fire. But we escaped.”
“And you’ve been hiding from him ever since?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“But why would it be so terrible if you told anyone?”
“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” I smiled weakly, but it didn’t sound funny even to me. “Let’s just say there are powerful people involved, and leave it at that. But I think he’s found us.”
Holly was quick to catch on. “Does this have something to do with what Steele and Joe are doing?”
I nodded. “Yes. Pretty sure.”
Her eyes filled with fear. “Is Joe safe?”
I hurried to reassure her. “I’m sure he’s fine. That lion shifter guy—you know the one from the pub that Alberto attacked? He took Syl. Steele and I went after him, but he got away. Steele’s trying to get Joe to help track him down.”
Stolen Magic (Shadows of the Immortals Book 1) Page 10