by C. I. Black
With a jerk, she was back on her feet. She wrenched around and drew her gun in one fluid motion. But Randy was already too close. He smashed his hand against hers, knocking the gun from her fingers. It clattered to the ground and disappeared into the shadows.
Shit.
She seized his hand, twisting his wrist to wrench it behind his back, but he slammed her against the wall with a crushing strength. Her head smashed against the bricks, and air burst from her lungs.
Randy growled and grabbed her neck, his hand so big his fingers dug into her cheeks. Ice bit her skin, painful snaps up her face and around her throat.
She clawed at his fingers, fighting to breathe. Fire burned through her eyes and across her cheeks. Randy’s chill raced down her chest, slowing the adrenaline pounding through her.
She grew heavy, so heavy, and cold. The fire in her face burned hotter.
Ice crackled over Randy’s skin. It shimmered in the hint of moonlight cutting through the darkness. Mist curled around his face from his mouth and nose like demon’s smoke. His eyes flared bright blue, and rage filled them. A monstrous, uncontrollable, desperate rage.
The fire in Morgan’s face seared her eyes. She had to control it. No matter what Randy had done, it wasn’t her job to be his executioner.
She wrenched against his grip, but he was too strong. The ice raced down her legs. Her whole body trembled, numb and weak, and the fire in her eyes only burned hotter. She was going to lose control. She had to focus, breathe, concentrate, but she couldn’t make herself do anything.
“Randy.” She squeezed her eyes shut, but the power bled past her lashes, pouring down her cheeks like fiery tears. “This is your last chance.”
His grip tightened. Power exploded from her eyes. She wrenched her gaze to the side and up, forcing it into the tree branches and skimming the collar of his jacket. His collar broke free. He screamed and pounded her into the bricks.
Lightning shot across her chest and neck, and her arm went limp. More power burst from her eyes.
“Give yourself up,” she gasped.
Control it. Focus. She forced her lids closed again. Power beat at her face, a burning counterpoint to the ice in the rest of her.
“No.” He jerked her forward to slam her back again, but a crack snapped above them. Her power forced her eyes open. She threw her gaze back into the branches. A chunk of stone dropped from above and shattered against the ground.
Randy scrambled back.
Another stone branch snapped free and smashed against the walkway, and another. Randy twisted out of the way, stepping into arm’s reach.
Morgan grabbed his coat with her good hand. He roared and punched at her head. She jerked, but wasn’t fast enough. His knuckles skimmed her cheek. The force twisted her around, slamming her face against the wall.
Pain exploded across her cheek. Her knees buckled, and she grabbed at the rough wall to keep standing, but couldn’t hold on. Fire beat at her face. Cold burned her neck. Footsteps pounded down the walkway.
She dragged her gaze around. She couldn’t let Randy get away. His enormous form leaped over a low wrought-iron gate at the back of the path.
She struggled to her feet. The black gate paled, turned grey, and shattered. She squeezed her eyes shut. Goddamn it. Focus. She couldn’t let Randy get away.
More footsteps pounded down the walkway. From the other direction. Two sets? She wasn’t sure. Power still beat at her face, and her head pounded.
“What the hell?” That sounded like Lachlin.
Another crack, and more stone branches exploded on the walkway.
“Lord and Lady.” Definitely Lachlin.
Strong hands grabbed her arm.
Crack. Boom. Pain bit her shins.
“Shit.” That was Gage.
The hands hauled her up and yanked her forward, spiking pain through her shoulder.
She stumbled, clutched a leather jacket—Gage’s jacket—and fought to keep her eyes closed and her power at bay.
“What the hell happened?” he asked.
“The snake charmer lost it. That’s what happened. Jeez.”
Morgan’s power billowed, burning across her face, straining for her to open her eyes and release it. “Not the time for name calling.”
“Hey,” Gage said. His calloused hands brushed her cheek, cool against the heat in her face. “You can control it. Open your eyes and concentrate.”
No. She couldn’t. If she looked at him now, she’d kill him.
“If you can’t control it, I could always punch you out again,” Lachlin said.
“Not helping,” Gage said, his tone dark. “See if you can sense a frost giant anywhere nearby.”
“He’s at the edge of my radius. You scared the crap out of him, Kitten.”
“Good to know.” She’d scared the crap out of herself, too. She did it every time her powers threatened to burst free.
“Now, deep breath. We’ve worked on this,” Gage said.
Yeah, they had. She had thought she’d at least managed to keep it at bay. She’d done so well when faced with Lachlin’s lecherous twin.
Gage’s hand shifted, drawing a shiver. He was close. His knee pressed against hers; heat from his body caressed her skin, still cold from Randy’s icy touch.
“Deep breath, Morgan.”
“What?”
“I said breathe. Focus.”
Yep, on him, his body, the feel of his hand against her face.
“Control your power.”
Right. Her power.
She dragged in a ragged breath.
“That’s it.”
She sucked in another breath. The heat in her face eased. So, too, did the chill in the rest of her.
“Now open your eyes.”
“You need to move first.”
“You’re not going to turn me to stone. You’ve got more control than that.”
“Sure.” She wished she had the confidence in herself that Gage did. Heat flickered around her eyes, and she pulled it back.
“Morgan.” His voice softened. “You’ve got this.”
“Have you found my sunglasses?”
“Open your eyes, Morgan.”
“Or at least brought a backup pair?”
“Morgan.”
Right. Okay. She could do this. She’d done it before. Really. Just focus. She cracked open one eye. Her power licked across her cheeks. She ground her teeth and concentrated. Gage’s legs were within her field of vision. Nothing turned to stone.
She inched her gaze up to meet Gage’s eyes. Dark, bottomless depths. Their vortex pulled at something within her, teased her, called her like a siren’s song. She could drown in those eyes. She was drowning. They promised strength and sensuality and things that made her skin heat just thinking about them. She wanted—
Lachlin cleared his throat and shifted.
He could sense emotions.
Boy, the day just couldn’t get any more embarrassing. “Let’s get back to the house and regroup.”
“Yeah,” Lachlin said. “That’s what we’ll call it.”
CHAPTER 7
Morgan waited until Hannah left, then threw back the covers on her bed and got up. Gage had called ahead, and when they’d returned to the house, Hannah—the pixie with the healing hands—had been waiting for her. The woman had tsked, ushered Morgan back to her room, and gone to work. She’d healed most of the frost burn and knitted Morgan’s collarbone back together. Forty minutes and two painkillers later, and with strict instructions to stay in bed, Hannah had declared her work done.
Which was all fine and good for the pixie, but Morgan’s work wasn’t done, and she wasn’t about to stop her job for a little bed rest. Besides, if she wasn’t on the case, that meant Kate was on her own, trying to catch a frost giant with super-human strength and a freezing touch, and without the use of magical healing.
Morgan headed into her walkthrough closet to her bathroom. The woman staring back at her from the mirror looked exha
usted. She was working out far too much, the gorgon in her unable to sit still for long periods of time, and her features were gaunt. Her mother would worry. She hadn’t called her mother—adopted mother—in months. She probably was worrying about more things than how thin Morgan might be, like if her daughter had dropped off the face of the planet or not. Although maybe not. Kate had visited her mom, and their mothers talked.
And really, her human mother wasn’t at the top of Morgan’s immediate priorities right that minute; it was the curse she’d inherited from her bio-mom and all the mysteries involved.
Morgan focused on her eyes in the mirror. This time she’d face down the monster who stared back, peeping out through her gun-metal grey irises. Fire licked around her cheeks, promising darkness, power, and destruction.
The monster flickered in her grey depths, and her power billowed. Dark. Dangerous. Evil. It poured down her neck and surged around her heart.
She jerked back, yanking her gaze from the mirror. Her elbow hit the glass on the counter, and it shattered on the floor.
Just great. She squatted and searched for the pieces, part in necessity and part to avoid seeing the monster in the mirror again.
A tremor slid over her. She was a monster. An honest-to-goodness monster. She’d turned people to stone. Killed them.
She picked up a shard of glass. Another tremor shook her, and her hand twitched. The glass dug deep into her finger.
Damn it.
She pulled out the shard. Blood rushed over her finger, and five quick drops splashed to the tiles.
Wonderful. Injury to insult. She’d jinxed everything just after the chase with Randy by thinking her day couldn’t get worse. Of course it could. Lachlin could show up and press her about her attraction to him, or Gage, or both.
She grabbed a towel from the rack and squeezed it against her finger. With the other end, she reached to wipe the blood off the floor, but the little pool quivered, the drops sliding into each other and thinning out… into a shape?
The blood spread further, forming thin lines. A flower appeared, and then a circle surrounded it.
She’d seen that before. On the key?
She rushed back into her room, grabbed her keys from the dresser, and turned back to the bathroom. The mirror had fogged up, except she hadn’t been running water. Numbers formed, materializing as she watched, then letters. 753 Moore Ave, 72.
The keys flared hot. She jerked back, dropping them. They clattered to the floor, drawing her attention for a second. No more than two. When she glanced back up, the mirror was normal. The fog and the address were gone.
Someone knocked on the door, and Morgan jumped, her heart racing. She spun to face the intruder as musk and mint wrapped around her senses. Gage. It was just Gage.
“You’re supposed to be in bed.”
A small thrill shivered across her. “We both know I’m not going to listen to that.”
His gaze dipped to her neck where Randy’s touch had ice-burned her.
She pulled the collar of her shirt up. “Tell me you got something from the Devil Riders.”
“Did you at least take the aspirin?”
“I’m not stupid.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“You would have chased after Randy, too. Now what did you learn from the Devil Riders?”
“Not much. They’re being tightlipped about Stroud. We’re going to have to try another approach since I’m not willing to completely piss off a member the ruling family of the House of Death.”
“And you’re sure they’re the connection? That this is Kin related?”
“Randal is Kin. So, yes.” He crossed his arms, and the muscle in his jaw twitched. “And you shouldn’t have gone after him alone. You could have been killed.”
“And I could have killed Randy. If I had fewer morals, I would have.”
“That doesn’t make your decision any less foolish.” Darkness and power crackled around him.
A hint of power billowed within her in response. It was low, in her chest, not around her eyes as it should have been. She held whatever it was tightly within her and stood her ground. She would not let him intimidate her. “I agree I could have handled the situation better. But I’m a marshal, and I had eyes on our fugitive. What did you expect me to do?”
“I expect—” More power danced around him, snapping at her skin, dimming the light in the hall.
Her power rippled in her chest, strange and dark, a match to his. She could play the power game just as well as he could. He wanted a stare-down, she’d give him one.
Fire raced over her eyes and across her cheeks, sudden and ferocious, as if the thought of a stare-down had ignited it.
She jerked her attention to the wall beside his head. Damn it. She couldn’t even glare at him without losing control. She bit back a growl. When the hell was her life going to be normal? Or at the very least manageable?
“Morgan—”
“I don’t want to hear it. I’ve got control.” God, she could just scream. More fire burned across her face.
His power billowed in response. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes. I. Do.” She sucked back her power, leaving her face cold, and met his gaze. “It won’t control me. I won’t let it.”
“No.” His expression softened, and his power vanished, taking the air with it for a heartbeat. “We won’t let it. Come on.”
She pulled on her boots and followed him down the hall. He snagged a vase of fresh-cut flowers from a side table, and they took the stairs down to the basement and the practice room. The bare concrete room had a heavy steel door; Gage said it, along with the rest of the room, was enspelled with protections against every kind of magic. She’d already spent a number of sessions down there, trying to focus her powers, or, at the very least, learning how to keep them at bay while not thinking about how close Gage stood to her.
“I’m not sure I’m up for a session.” Right now being locked in any room with Gage was a bad idea. She barely had the will to hold her powers back. She couldn’t do that and ignore her attraction to him at the same time.
“You turned half a tree to stone, and you let a fugitive get away when you could have partially petrified him. You need to get control.” He set the vase on the floor. His power billowed around him.
Desire flooded her chest, sizzling through her. God. it was just like when she’d been charmed by Lachlin’s brother, Eoin. Except Eoin hadn’t used his charm on her in almost a week… all right, half a week. But just the thought of how his charm had felt, how she’d desperately wanted satisfaction, flooded her with more need.
Gage pulled a daisy from the vase and dropped it beside her. “Focus.”
“I really don’t think this is a good idea.” Fire licked at her eyes. She was going to lose control of everything. Her powers, her desires, her mind.
“I don’t care. You’re supposed to have this under control. You could have killed someone tonight.”
“You don’t need to remind me.”
He grabbed her arm and spun her to face the daisy. With a jerk, he pulled her back, tight against his chest, his hands squeezing her biceps.
Heat seeped across her back, over her shoulders, and up her neck. Power built low in her gut. Not the fire of her gaze, but something else, something stronger, darker.
“Focus,” he growled in her ear.
Shivers raced over her. How the hell could she focus with him so close?
She twisted in his grip. He held tight. Fire burned her cheeks. Desire roared through the rest of her. She had to get away, put distance between them before she did something completely stupid. But God, she wanted to do something stupid.
“Focus.”
She slammed her heel onto his foot. His grip weakened, and she wrenched free, shoving him back. Fire roared across her face, and she threw her gaze to the wall beside his head.
Her power snapped across the concrete, showering Gage with sparks. His magic exploded around them, whirling in a consu
ming vortex.
The strange power in her gut billowed in response, eager to burst free, prove to him who was stronger, who was in charge, who was the one giving commands. Yes. Just let it out. Show him the full force of who and what she was. Let him see and tremble.
His eyes narrowed, dark depths swirling with magic and strength. Eyes she could drown in. Eyes reflecting back a monster. Herself.
Ice snuffed the fire within her, and she yanked her power back. She was going to hurt him. She wanted to hurt him, just to prove he was wrong.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “We need to stop.”
“Morgan—” His hand brushed her shoulder.
She jerked away. “Don’t touch me.” She couldn’t figure out when everything had turned so wrong. Somehow he’d ignited every aggressive, wanting nerve within her. Somehow… just thinking about him turned her on.
“You can’t ignore your powers,” he said, his tone soft.
“Tonight I can.” And tomorrow, if needs be. Surely she could do that until she figured out how to ignore her attraction to Gage. But that was just fooling herself. She slid down the wall and sat on the floor. “I just wish…”
He blew out a noisy breath. “Three of the most dangerous words in the world.”
She glanced up at him. “Tell me I can do this.” Prove, somehow, that she could trust him.
He sat beside her and ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. “You can do this. You’re Chava’s daughter.”
“I wish I’d known her.” Things would be so much easier if her bio-mom was here. Or hell, if any other gorgon was around. But she was the last of her kind. There wasn’t anyone who completely understood what she was going through.
“You’re a lot alike.”
“Same snake hair.”
He rolled his eyes at her. “Same hair. I keep telling you, there are no snakes.”
“So you say.”
“So I say.” He bumped his shoulder against her. “You’re persistent like her, too, and determined and passionate.” He pulled his gaze away before she could read his expression. Had she seen attraction there?