The hall was empty. Caro unlocked her door and walked in with a sigh of relief, then stopped as Tom began to push against her.
“Can you stay here in the hall?” she asked.
“No.”
She didn’t want him nosing around her things. “It would be better….” His suspicious glare caused her to trail off.
“Stay here,” Tom growled, and shoved roughly past her. In less than a minute, he’d done a thorough search of her apartment while she stared at her bookshelf and wondered which books to bring. Tom had given her a few shopping bags to use, saying suitcases would draw too much attention.
“Clear,” he announced, coming down the hall. “Get your things. Four minutes.”
Caro systematically ransacked the apartment, Tom close behind. Ignore the kitchen. Her knives were shit and it wasn’t like plates from IKEA were irreplaceable. From the bedroom she took underwear, her favorite jeans, a few shirts and sweaters. Three books that always comforted her came from the living room. Then she paused. A scrapbook of her clippings sat low on the shelf, almost hidden behind a box of recipes. Perhaps. She reached for it as a strange smell permeated the apartment. Not gas. Something sweet and cloying. Tom came to attention as she stood and sniffed the air, clippings forgotten.
“Do you smell that?” she asked. “Almost like baking, but medicinal.”
Tom sniffed, then his eyes widened. “Cover your mouth and nose with your shirt and breathe shallow,” he barked, yanking up his own sweater. “Team two, team two. We’ve got mineria here. Repeat, mineria attack. We’re coming out; get ready to cover.”
Mineria? What? Before she could ask, Tom grabbed Caro and hustled her out of the door, bags still clutched in her hands. One look at Tom’s face made her pray the heavier body could handle the speed they were going need to take the stairs, because she knew it was going to be fast. He kicked open the stair door and checked it before motioning her through.
“Oh!” Caro yelped as a sharp pain hit her in the back. She’d been shot. Terror struck through her as Maria’s instinctive fear of bullets kicked in. Her nephew had been shot in the leg by cops during a routine check before Caro moved in.
“They got me.” She stumbled and nearly fell against the wall as her legs gave out.
Tom glanced back and his face froze. “Man down, man down.” The words came through a hazy veil as Caro’s world turned upside down. Reaching back to the pain, she felt something sticking out of her back and pulled it out. Not a bullet, but what? Tom snatched it from her fingers and snorted. “Sedative dart. You’re going to be fine, but I need you to…”
Too late. She fell to the ground, her head smacking solidly on the concrete.
* * * *
Tom stood at rigid attention in the medical bay. The security chief’s face was carved stone. Eric stormed in. “Where is she?”
Still in Maria’s masque, Caro lay on the medical gurney, covered with a white sheet. Eric ignored Tom and took Caro’s hand. It was cold. The remains of a small goose egg on her forehead disappeared as he watched. Good. Her healing was going well, a sign that she wasn’t seriously injured.
“Report.” His gaze shot to Tom, who stared back at him.
“I warned you that Caro Yeats was not to be trusted.”
Eric didn’t believe it but he knew the evidence didn’t look good. “Tell me what happened.”
Tom gave a quick summary of what happened after they left the apartment, adding, “I sent Amit back. He found the empty mineria capsule on a motion alarm in the bedroom. I missed it because it was embedded in a painting.”
“How did they get in?”
“Amit double-checked the doors and balcony. All were secure and none showed signs of being forced.” His tone added, Obviously, since she let them in.
Eric smoothed back the rough, graying hair on Caro’s forehead. “It was meant for her,” he insisted. “She’s not safe now. They’ve targeted her.”
“The capsule was unusual, so we checked it out. It was on a dual sensor that targets motion from multiple simultaneous sources and isn’t limited to simple straight-up movement.”
“Mineria works only on masquerada,” Eric said. “So it wouldn’t trigger when she was alone?”
The security chief looked grim. “It was meant for you, while you were with her. She tried to stop me from coming into the apartment with her. She knew what was there.”
There was a long silence. “I understand what you’re thinking,” Eric said, “but you have to trust me on this. Iverson is a threat to Caro. They are not working together.” He couldn’t betray her trust by telling her story.
“Sire, I must respectfully disagree.” This time when Tom looked at Caro, it was with active dislike. “She must be neutralized.”
Caro stirred on the gurney, then settled when Eric kissed her hand. “No,” he said.
Tom’s lips thinned. “Eric, I—”
“I said no. She is under my personal protection. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sire.” Tom saluted smartly but Eric was under no illusions that his security chief would relax his vigilance. He didn’t mind. The extra attention would keep Caro safe and there was no way Tom would ignore a direct command not to harm her. They’d work through all this shit when Iverson was out of the picture. Until then, he had no proof but his gut that Caro was on his side.
She had to be. He remembered the scars and a small twinge of doubt assailed him. She’d said it was Iverson—had it been?
Jesus, stop. Why would she lie? If she wanted to hurt him, she’d already had plenty of chances. It wasn’t as if their meeting at JDPR had been premeditated. Caro didn’t have any ulterior motives.
“We don’t have much time until the raids on Iverson,” Eric said. “Maybe we should move up that timeline.”
Stephan came into the medical bay, his forehead creased. “Is Caro okay?”
“She’s fine,” Eric assured him. “Healing.”
Stephan and Tom exchanged looks but Eric decided not to comment. “Tom, any more details on her background?”
“The report is ready.”
“Good. What did it say?”
Before Tom could answer, Caro’s eyes fluttered and she raised her hand to her head. “Wow. I feel weird.”
Eric was at her side before he eyes were fully open. “Caro?”
“Eric. That smell.” Her eyes widened in alarm. “Where I am? What’s happening?”
“It’s okay,” he soothed her. “You’re at the house. You were hit by a sedative dart and you might feel a bit groggy for an hour or two.”
She struggled to sit up. “I’m still Maria.”
“We keep our masques until we consciously shift back.” Eric smoothed her hair off her forehead, grateful she was awake and lucid. “Self-defense mechanism so we don’t shift accidently in front of statics if we’re incapacitated.”
“I want to turn back.” Her voice was strong, but he could see that she was frightened that she would be imprisoned in Maria’s masque forever.
“Of course,” he said, in a cold sweat. Even the thought of watching Caro masque back made him nervous. This was bad. Extremely bad. He tried to ignore it. “Do you remember how—”
She was Caro before he finished the sentence. Stephan gave a low whistle. “That was fast,” he congratulated her.
“I thought it would be harder.” She looked down at her arms and peered at her chest. “Do I look like me?”
Maria’s flowered shirt fell off her shoulders, revealing her lush breasts. Tom and Stephan each spun away to look anywhere else while Eric grabbed a blanket and threw it over her shoulders, tucking it around tightly, to keep her warm.
Right. He glared at Tom and Stephan, who were still, obviously, not looking at Caro.
“Pass me that water, please,” Caro said and Eric passed it to her, but not before se
eing Tom’s disapproval at how close he was to her. His security chief was wary and ready to intervene the moment he thought Eric was at risk.
She drank it down, then ran her fingers through her hair and over her face as though to confirm she was back to herself. Satisfied, she looked at Eric. “What happened back there?”
Tom explained again, his nose to the ceiling and she nodded. Eric looked between the two of them. The tension was so thick that he could almost see it. What else had happened on that trip? He’d ask them later, once Caro was better. And separately. This was more than the result of Tom’s usual suspicion.
“Explain what that gas is,” Caro said. “Mineria, you called it.”
“It’s basically ether for masquerada.” Eric gave her more water. “It knocks us unconscious. We discovered it about six hundred years ago and it’s difficult to find and extremely expensive to try and make.”
“Iverson might have a lab,” Stephan mused.
Tom nodded. “I’m issuing masks to the patrols.”
“Did you get who shot me with the dart?” Caro asked. “Why did they have them if that mineria was supposed to knock me out?”
“Negative; and tranqs were probably to get any of our security who interfered.”
“You think it was Iverson.” Her voice wavered and Eric slid an arm around her shoulders.
Now Tom looked at her. “Almost certainly his people, but they weren’t necessarily after you. We think their target was the Hierarch.”
“That I was him?”
“Possibly. It’s a waste of time to speculate on motive, though. Better to focus on what we know.”
“Which is they know I’m a masquerada and I’m with you.”
“Using the information from that particular incident, they definitely know that you are connected with the Hierarch but not necessarily that you are a masquerada,” Tom corrected sharply. “It’s a reasonable assumption, but they wouldn’t be able to confirm that the woman they shot with the dart was you, unless you told them. It could be another member of the Hierarch’s security team.”
“I didn’t tell anyone.” She jerked up from the pillow and glared at him. “I didn’t even know I was going back this morning.”
Eric could see the wheels turning in Caro’s head and knew her conclusion would be the same as his. He wasn’t surprised at her next question.
“You told me that masquerada can sense each other.” She waited for Eric’s confirmation to continue. “Can you recognize specific individuals?”
“Only as we become more familiar with them,” Eric said. “By now I can always recognize Tom and Stephan, and they can always recognize me no matter what masques we’re inhabiting. Strangers, no. They wouldn’t know that the woman they shot with the dart was you if they ran across you in a different form.”
“You use your masque-dar to sense each other. But what’s to stop someone from looking like one of your staff and coming in?”
“We have security checks. There are some things we can’t change, the rhythm of our pulse, for instance. We also use old-fashioned code words.”
“Like a speakeasy?” She laughed, then grimaced and put her hand to her head, then leaned back on the bed. Eric stood nearby, pleased to see that her pallor was fading. He tried to force thoughts of masquing out of his mind. It was like trying not to think about pink elephants.
“I want out of here,” she said abruptly. “I’m not sick.”
Eric nodded, wanting her out of the medical bay as well. “As soon as the medic says you’re good to go.”
“Get her in here, then,” Caro ordered. “I want out.”
Chapter 29
Caro stood in the middle of the room and stretched until she felt every muscle lengthen. Eric’s bed beckoned irresistibly, with clean, crisp white sheets and plump pillows. She eyed it longingly. A nap sounded good right now. A long nap, lying right in the golden light that streamed through the open window. In fact, the only thing holding her back was that she was absolutely ravenous and Eric had ordered some food.
Eric. He watched her from a chair in the corner of the room, tracking her every movement. Beside him were the two bags from her apartment. She ran over. “Tom brought these out!” she exclaimed, opening them up.
“Of course.” He shrugged. “We couldn’t let Iverson get them. We didn’t know what was in them, and what they would tell our enemies.”
“Oh, right.” It was a strategic decision, then, not for her. Her heart fell a bit.
“Tell me about what you chose,” Eric said quietly. “Why were these things important to you?”
Caro sorted through the random bits she’d rescued from her apartment. Why did she? Now that she was here, it was hard to articulate it. “I’m not sure,” she admitted.
A knock on the door interrupted them, and the housekeeper brought in a heavy tray, handling it so easily Caro knew she must be a masquerada as well. Caro looked at her hard, wondering why any woman would choose to look old when she could look young and beautiful.
That was shallow. She flushed, grateful no one could hear her thoughts.
“Thank you, Cynthia,” Eric said. “Caro, come and eat. The medics said you need food.”
The meal was delicious; chicken and pasta, delicately flavored with fresh herbs. “This is amazing.” Caro took another bite. “Cynthia is an incredible cook.”
“She cooked for kings,” Eric said. Then he laughed. “It took quite a bit of wooing for her to come work for me. She thinks I don’t entertain enough. It’s not a challenge for her skills.”
“Entertain?”
“Balls, galas, presentations. I host a certain number but Cynthia loves them. She’ll cook all day and dance all night.”
“Of course.” He is a king, Caro. He’d look good in a tux.
After the meal, Caro glanced at the clock. “I’ll have to call Julien. I said I’d be in later but it’s too late now.”
Eric passed coffee to her. “We emailed and said you had the flu. You’re good for another day.”
“Ah, thanks?” Caro wasn’t sure if she should be touched he had thought of contacting work for her, or pissed off at his high-handedness. She began to tilt toward pissed when he added, “You should lock your phone, but at least it saved us from hacking into it.”
Now she glowered at him.
“You’re angry,” he said.
“You went into my phone and emailed my boss, as me, without my permission. How is that different than pretending to be me? Which you told me was against the rules for masques.”
He frowned as he thought that through. “Right. I should have asked you.”
“Yeah. Yeah, you should have.” She was still peeved, but he honestly seemed oblivious. Maybe this was how things rolled in masquerada land when you were the Hierarch. Another reason to make her stay short-term. She tried to ignore the pain in her heart at the thought. You’ve known the guy for only two weeks. How desperate are you?
“I apologize. I’ll remember that for next time.” He reached down and captured her hand, pressing a soft kiss on her palm.
She put her hand against his face. “Will there be other occasions that you’ll see a need to break into my phone and send Julien a message?”
He laughed. “Perhaps.” He moved his hand up over hers and leaned into her touch. “Just to fuck with him.”
His phone chimed and he swore. “I’m due for a meeting. You need to rest. Into bed.”
“I’m not tired. I got my second wind.” Even as she said the words, Caro could hear the soft bed calling her name.
“Medic’s orders. Go to sleep.” He lifted her off her feet with an ease that made her laugh, then deposited her right in the middle of the huge bed. He grinned lazily at her. “When I get back, I can wake you up. Properly.”
Her skin instantly flushed. “That sounds good.”
> “You’ve got no idea.”
Caro snuggled down into the sheets when he left. Her body was exhausted—sedative darts will do that to a girl—but her mind was blasting around like it was on a roller coaster with no brakes. Not surprising. There was a lot to process.
Like the about-face on masquing. That was a bit of a mess. Her whole life had been spent avoiding masquing. Hating masquerada. Then here she was, learning to shift and spending time with a masquerada.
Be honest. She had loved how it felt to put on that masque. Loved it. She was even craving it now, thinking of all the different people she could be, wanting to push the limits. She could shift into two masques, which meant she must be strong. Could she take on a male masque? It was tempting to try, right now. Guilt filled her. Is that how her mother felt?
After all, she was still Caro underneath it all. She hadn’t understood it could work like that. She thought the masque took you over completely but it didn’t—it gave you another lens through which to see the world, but it was still her, Caro, doing the viewing.
That being said, she was still afraid of what could happen. It was new, and it was exciting, but there was also the chance that she could screw up. Maybe get two heads. Maybe not turn back. Become as self-obsessed as her mother. Hit convergence, like Eric. She needed to be careful.
It was time to be honest about Eric too. She was falling for the masquerada Hierarch. He was the most attractive man she’d ever met and touching him was extraordinarily hot. He was also charming. Caring. Capable. She trusted him. That was the real kicker, she admitted. After many years of mentally hardening herself against masquerada—hell, against everyone—she found herself forced to take back everything she’d thought and reassess her entire outlook. That wasn’t too comfortable.
Conscience began to overtake her. Eric had been nothing but straight with her, but she still hadn’t told him about Lynn Butler. She’d sowed discord between Eric and Tom and even though Tom was a jerk, he was trying to do his job. But talking about her previous life was something she couldn’t bring herself to do. She covered her eyes and groaned. Well, fuck it. People were wired weird and this was her thing. It was her secret. Surely she was allowed one secret.
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