by Jenn Stark
“Thanks, Joe,” Brody said. He glared at me. “This isn’t over.”
“I know,” I said simply. That seemed to throw him for a moment, then he turned and stalked out of the room. Nikki and I watched him leave before she glanced at me.
“You good?” she asked. “Because you gave him a lot more to chew on than I would’ve.”
“He’s not the enemy,” I sighed. “And if we’re going to be working out of Soo’s residence here, we definitely need to manage that.” Once again I heard the implied threat in my voice, though I hadn’t intended it. There was still too much I needed to learn about how to manage as the head of the House of Swords. I had power—unprecedented power—but I wasn’t Soo. More importantly, I didn’t want to be her.
Which begged the question, who was I really? Who had I become?
Not something I could answer tonight. “I’ll check in with you later,” I said wearily.
“I’ll drive you back to the house,” Nikki said, but I shook my head.
“No. I’m staying at the Palazzo tonight. It’s a short cab ride, and if I know Ma-Singh, he’s already stationed guards on my floor. I have no doubt he’s LoJacked my phone too. You guys will know where I am. Meanwhile, you stay here and interview the shooter with Brody. I don’t want him to see me, but I do need to know what he says, unfiltered. If the guy truly was told to kill me, there’s really only one option on how that order got pumped into his sleepy-time CD.”
“Tesla,” Nikki said. “He whammied the guy’s dreams. Which means he followed you back to Vegas from your little astral travel gig.”
“Followed me and decided to get rid of me—maybe.”
Nikki cocked a glance at me. “Dude shot you full of holes, dollface. I think it’s safe to say that Tesla is not a fan.”
“Or, he was trying to push me. Make me see what my capabilities were. Armaeus hadn’t told me I could survive flying bullets. At that point, Armaeus hadn’t told me a lot of things. Maybe it was to Tesla’s benefit to have me thinking in a particular way, that I was invincible. He had to know we were going to come after him.”
She frowned. “He hasn’t said anything to you since?”
“Nope. Even if he did reach out to me, I wouldn’t trust him. He’s playing a long game here, and I don’t know all the angles yet.” I rubbed my hand over my eyes. “I need some time to think. To reconnect. I’ll be out to the house tomorrow, and we can run it all through again. Start figuring out where to go next to track down these damned technoceuticals. There’s a link I’m missing, I know there is.” I blew out a breath. “I think it’s the kids, but even that thought makes me sick.”
“The kids?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re going to need to start with them again. Any one of Father Jerome’s rescues who have the same DNA alteration those babies do. One of them…maybe…can give us something to go on, some way to track the drugs back to the original supplier. As long as we don’t put the child in danger, anyway.” I winced, trying to figure out how that would be possible. “It’s a start.”
Nikki nodded. “Get some sleep, dollface,” she said, patting my shoulder. “You look like you’ve been gnawed on and spit out.”
I snorted. “Thanks.”
Nikki watched me all the way to the elevator, but to her credit, she didn’t pick up the phone to dial Ma-Singh until at least after the metal doors had snicked shut. I didn’t mind her worrying about me. It was nice, actually, and I pulled my phone out and rubbed the sleek surface of it as I exited the hospital and headed down the street. It didn’t take me long to wave down a taxi. I relaxed in the back of the vehicle while the driver wove his way back through the city toward the neon-bright lights of the Strip.
When we turned onto the boulevard, however, I found my gaze pulled up—and up still farther, craning my neck as we passed beneath an enormous spire jutting into the sky, its top crackling with electricity.
“That’s something, ain’t it?” chuckled the driver as I peered upward. “Stratosphere has always been one of my favorite casinos, never mind all the fancier digs up the Strip. You want to tap into the real beating heart of Vegas, you gotta check it out.”
“I think you’re right,” I said, turning to look at the venerable old casino through the rearview mirror. As we got some distance away from it, I could see the new Council residence more clearly—the bright-white neon lights running all the way up to the top of the Stratosphere, then another thousand feet above it and more, its crackling glory lighting up the Vegas night sky. Tesla’s residence was now over the Stratosphere, I thought. That new tower had to be the Hanged Man’s doing.
Fatigue threatened to overwhelm me, and I sagged back against the seat. “Mind if we drop the windows?”
The driver shrugged. “Suit yourself. I usually do when it’s nice out like this.”
He hit a button on his door, and all four windows dropped with a whir. I watched the garish façade of Circus Circus slip by. As we moved up the Strip, snarled in traffic, a street cleaner pushed his bin up the sidewalk, shuffling along, hunch shouldered. It would take no more than the barest flick of my hand for me to toss my phone in the man’s bin, but I didn’t. It wasn’t fair to Ma-Singh or the guards to wonder and worry about where I disappeared to. They had a job to do.
So did I.
But for the moment, I didn’t want to think about jobs or duties or responsibilities. For the moment, I didn’t want to carry the weight of a House on my shoulders, or work out how the hell I would track down the manufacturers of a drug that could literally change the world.
For tonight, I wanted to return to anonymity. To quiet. To a soft bed and too many pillows, and the knowledge that even the crazed cacophony of my world could be turned off, for just a little while.
A few minutes later, I exited the cab. I paid the driver enough to make him happier than he ever expected to be for a midweek night, and felt better about the world for it. The familiar sound of the casino’s whirring, crashing machines greeted me as I entered the lobby, nodding at the concierge, shouldering past the tight clusters of the eternally hopeful, wondering if tonight would be their night. That was the magic of Vegas, I thought. That eternal, sometimes desperate optimism, that anything could happen—so why not tonight?
The elevator closed around me with comforting reassurance, and I let myself unwind another notch. I wanted this night off. I deserved it. And I was going to enjoy every last second of it, wringing from it all the pleasure and perfection I could before the sun rose on my obligations once more.
Finally, the elevator stopped. The doors whisked open, the light from the bay spilling out across the carpeted floor.
At first there was nothing but silence. Then a voice floated across the space, startled and curious.
“Miss Wilde?” Armaeus asked.
Chapter Thirty-One
I stalked into the room with a certainty that faltered with each passing step. Something in my face must have tipped Armaeus off, however, because he rose by my third stride, was coming around his desk by the fifth. By the time I reached the conversational area where I’d sat so many times to receive new assignments, debrief, argue, he’d positioned himself directly in front of me, his expression confused, almost wary, but his eyes smoking in their shadowed depths.
At the last minute, he held out his arms, and I didn’t stop. I walked into his embrace as if I was coming home—home, when nothing was home to me anymore, nothing and no one safe because of who and what I was.
Armaeus folded his arms around me and held me tight, and I laid my head on his chest, sensing the quickening of his energy, the responding billow of heat flowing up within me. Every one of my Connected senses pricked, quivering, wanting this absolution, the flood of power that poised even now, waiting to crash forth from the Magician’s endless source of magic and wash over me, tide upon tide.
But even that wasn’t exactly that I craved. Not here, not now.
“Miss Wilde,” Armaeus murmured, and I lifted my face
away from his chest with an effort and forced myself to look at him. His mouth was achingly close to mine, his entire body alive with heat and the hissing, sensual rush of energy. But to his credit, he didn’t push, didn’t ask. He merely gazed at me with his fierce black-gold eyes, waiting for me to speak.
Tell him, I urged myself. Just say it.
Instead, I pulled back. I whipped away from the Magician, stepping a few feet to the ornately embroidered couch. I withdrew my phone from my pocket, held it up. “Can I be tracked here?” I asked without turning around. “By anyone?”
Armaeus’s voice was soft. “No. The signal goes dead until you return to the street.”
“Good,” I said, tossing the phone. Then I wrenched my hoodie over my head, and dropped it to the couch as well. The room seemed unusually cold against my bare arms, and I shivered, clenching and unclenching my hands into fists.
Across the room, the fireplace flickered to life. I grimaced.
“Miss Wilde,” Armaeus said again.
I blew out a breath, turned. The Magician straightened at whatever he saw in my eyes, his expression instantly shading to one of deeper concern, though he made no move toward me. Instead he watched, but there was no denying his focus. His entire body was practically thrumming with intensity. Not merely sexual interest either, though that was certainly there. No. There was something deeper in Armaeus’s eyes as he watched me, something dangerous.
But I wasn’t the one in danger, I realized now.
“Miss Wilde, how may I serve?” the Magician murmured as I walked toward him, positioning myself not two inches away. Still he didn’t touch me, though his gaze remained fixed on me, probing, searching, scraping up against my mental barriers. “Whatever you need, want, I’ll give you,” he said. “Ask, and it’s yours.”
“I want you.”
At that, Armaeus went perfectly still, his gaze diamond sharp.
“You’re injured,” he snapped. “How?”
I almost barked a laugh, my tension hitting the breaking point. “No.” I shook my head. “I don’t need to be healed. Not…like that. I just want—”
I gave up trying to explain myself and lifted myself on my toes, brushing his lips with mine. I curled my hand around the nape of his neck, anchoring myself against him. The Magician kissed me back, tentatively at first, then more deeply, his mouth covering mine in firm, urgent response.
Yes, this, I thought, and I pulled him more desperately to me, willing the surge of magic to overtake me. Instead, if anything, the ache inside grew deeper, more yawning, and it was Armaeus who stepped back first.
“What?” I nearly cried out. “What’s wrong?”
“Your mind,” he murmured, studying me closely. “It’s still arrayed against me, blocking my touch even though you no longer fear me.” He smiled ruefully, separating our bodies again. His head tilted. “You fear yourself.”
“Oh, great.” I gave up the battle with my brain in disgust, grabbing the hem of my tank top. “Maybe you can help me with that.”
To my surprise, Armaeus stopped my hand.
“Please,” he said. “Let me.”
Slowly, with almost reverential care, he pulled the tank top upward, the thin material snaking over my head in a whoosh. Armaeus paused, his finger going to the strap of my bra, his mouth quirking into a slight frown as his brow furrowed. “You’ve been shot,” he said, glancing to me. “How did I not know this?”
“What?” The question threw me, and Armaeus edged back, too far, too far! Surveying my body with less intimate and more professional interest once more.
“Seriously?” I protested. “You’re doing this now?”
“How did I not know…” The tone of his voice wasn’t clinical, the way it usually was when he was studying me like a bug, but I still wasn’t having any of it.
“Look,” I gritted out. “We need to stay focused here.” I kicked off my boots, then popped the catch of my bra and threw the offending garment to the side. Ignoring Armaeus’s startled objection, I grabbed the waistband of my jeans. Working the zipper and button quickly, I slicked the pants off my legs, straightening only when I’d freed my feet.
Armaeus hadn’t moved, his gaze still startled, still unreasonably concerned. But I was done with his worry. There was no shame in wanting him, dammit. Needing him. There was nothing to stop us. When he was immortal and I was not, there was danger. When we were both mortal, there’d been opportunity—but no pressure, no urgency.
Now that we were both immortal, however, there was nothing but urgency. I straightened a moment later and, before he could say anything else, launched myself into his embrace.
He caught me easily, turning as my arms snaked around his neck, his hands sliding up my back. His body was hard and sure, his interest clear, and I didn’t give him the chance to make an intellectual exercise out of this anymore.
“Sara,” he gasped and the sound of my name on his lips—my real name, not Miss Wilde—did what all the magic in the world couldn't do. It touched my heart. Cradled it. Cradled me.
This. Oh, please. This.
The Magician breathed another word, and we were no longer in his office, no longer standing amid chairs and tables and his desk, but at the edge of his enormous bed, all the uncurtained windows in the chamber filled with the impossible view of the city, its beautiful garish lights, its unending hum. Armaeus sighed, the sound seeming wrenched from him, and in another moment, he lifted me in his arms, carrying me easily. He moved to the side of his bed, his face rapt as he laid me down.
“You’re sure?” he murmured, climbing in after me. There were about a thousand pillows in the bed, and I sank down into the luxurious softness, finally feeling the vise grip I’d held on my feelings, my needs, and my desires for so long slip and ease, the release so needed and yet so painful, it made me shiver.
To cover my sudden vulnerability, I eyed Armaeus as he moved up beside me. In the space of a moment, he was as naked as I was, his muscular, burnished body radiating heat in the cool, shadowy room.
“Looks like you’ve answered your own question,” I said wryly.
“I live to serve.” And then he did reach for me, pushing me over into the bed, levering his body over mine as he stared down with his inscrutable black-gold eyes. “Why?” he asked. “Why now?”
I winced. “Look, don’t make this a thing, okay? I just thought, I mean I just—I mean, so maybe this isn’t a great idea, maybe—”
“Never mind,” Armaeus said, and his face broke into a smile. A beautiful, perfect smile full of light and stars and magic. Then he leaned toward me, and once again his lips met mine.
The moments slipped and ran together in an endless loop, the Magician’s hands skimming my skin, my palms pressed against his chest, sliding over his shoulders, pressing into his back as if I somehow could get yet closer to him, somehow could be made whole. Somehow could see deep into his immortal heart, into the endless trailing matrices of energy and power and perfectly formed cells and gorgeous electrical signatures and know him. Truly know him.
And I could, I realized. I could.
Armaeus didn’t speak as our bodies joined, but he didn’t have to speak. His eyes were open, staring into mine, and as the weight of him finally filled me and my own body responded with a rush of damp heat, I saw more than I ever could have imagined. The man beyond the makeshift body of flesh and blood and bone, the man whose mind had achieved feats of magic and psychic mastery of which he’d shown me only the barest part.
The man who’d lied to me from the earliest days of our relationship, I understood in a blinding flash. Who’d treated me so callously, so coldly, not solely to keep me in my place…but to restrain himself.
He knew it too, the moment when I’d seen so much. He rocked against me, murmuring a language I didn’t know, his black-gold gaze fierce and unrepentant. And in that moment, I didn’t care either. I pulled him to me and gave myself over to the tide of energy that burst up between us, so fiery hot that it left me
shaking. Every cell in my body seemed turned inside out, my own need cresting and ebbing, only to rise again, as Armaeus wove trails of magic around my body, teasing, stimulating, caressing. Giving me time to breathe only to start the process all over again, perfectly attuned to my every shift and shiver.
His own climax shouldn’t even have registered, as caught up in the haze of my own pleasure as I was, and yet I felt it as a tidal shift, my eyes snapping to his as he gasped. His face was taut, his jaw rock-hard, his hands gripping my shoulders as his entire body stiffened—stiffened and then exploded in a million shards of light. Instantly, my vision blanked, and instead of a bed, our bodies, the carpet, the windows, there was only a kaleidoscopic field of energy, swirling and building, a thousand times as potent as Tesla’s electrical storm, but silent and gorgeous and meant for our eyes alone. I cried out, and Armaeus’s voice joined me, and in that moment—finally—the last of my pain fell away, torn asunder from its grip on my soul, my heart. In that moment—finally—I saw what Armaeus hadn’t intended for me to see. Not all of his secrets, certainly. But the ones that mattered most.
It was another long several minutes before Armaeus spoke, the two of us so closely entwined that we formed an endless loop.
“This changes things, Miss Wilde.”
I closed my eyes, my heart thumping awkwardly at the reversion to my more formal appellation. “It doesn’t have to,” I said, my whisper almost a plea.
“It does, I think,” he said. “My strength lies in the physical manifestation of desire. It always has been the source that feeds me. But this—what I feel for you can’t continue. I will have to do everything in my power to stop it, erase it. Destroy it.”
“Because it makes you weak.”
He didn’t answer, and I couldn’t help it, a well of misery opened inside me at my own words. Here, after all this time, I had the answer I hadn’t realized I’d been seeking. Armaeus’s emotion for me wasn’t something I could fully understand. But it was something primal and profound, something important. Something deadly.