Allistair had always been a failure at this. He wasn’t supposed to be human, but he had an insidious need to slide into them, to feel them. If Zachary had his way, this would be Allistair’s last foray, last assignment, last chance. And so far, it seemed that Allistair would fail this one too, as he had so many others before. Even in this short mortal timeframe, he was already too entangled in Katharine. Zachary was grateful to her for being completely oblivious to the creature who presented himself as her assistant.
But Allistair was another story. The world would be a better place without him in it. He was a disgrace even to his own kind. And Zachary would be glad to help rid the realms of this interloper.
Even now he was standing in Zachary’s way, having risen to his feet and concocted an excuse to look over Katharine’s shoulder. Effectively, he placed his mostly mortal body between Katharine and Zachary, blocking Zachary’s view of her. He could no longer read her feelings through the shield that Allistair provided merely by being what he was.
Zachary growled his frustration as he watched Katharine all but disappear behind the curling tendrils of thought and feeling that Allistair finally allowed himself to wrap around her. The second loss, which bothered Zachary more, was that he was unable to exert any pressure on Katharine with Allistair in the way. He needed to nudge her, to help her get uncoiled from Allistair. But that was an impossibility right now.
He turned away. He would make sure he saw her tonight and then he would undo the damage Allistair was doing now.
Zachary slipped away to wait.
• • •
Katharine tried to concentrate on the data retrieval program that Allistair needed help with. She didn’t know why he needed the help; he’d been going along just fine, seeming to never forget anything she told him. Then, suddenly, he popped up from his desk, complaining of problems with the advanced functions of the graph generator.
She could have sworn he’d already produced a chart for her using this program. She was certain she’d shown it to him. But she went through the steps again, patient as a lamb. He was her trainee, so she trained. His performance reflected on her, so she would show him whatever he needed. She was more than aware of his head directly over her right shoulder. Her entire body was reacting to the scent of him–or maybe just the nearness of him.
Heat radiated from his skin. The smell of him called to her, inviting her to lean her head back and test the texture of his crisp shirt. His voice, engaged in the simple task of asking questions, was a siren’s song. He could break into “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” at any time and she would likely just sigh and ask him to sing it again.
Katharine forced her mind back to the task. With effort, she kept her own voice calm and modulated. She pieced together logical strings of words. She walked him through the program and tried not to notice his hand planted on the surface of her desk right beside where her own hand operated the mouse. He didn’t notice that he hadn’t left enough room for her to move it sideways–she had to pick the damn thing up and make short jerky movements to sweep to the right. But Allistair didn’t move his hand.
Not that any of these problems shut down her want.
Katharine told herself it was because of Zachary. He’d turned her on and now she was … well, on.
The problem was, she was on for Allistair. She breathed in his scent, shivered at the heat and sound of his voice at her ear. And nothing else mattered at that moment. Her brain was clouded with this man, right here, right now. She wasn’t lost in a high school fantasy about what would happen after school when she would meet up with her boyfriend. She wanted him now. Her glance slipped sideways without her permission and caught the movement of his mouth.
There was something deep and drowning about him. Something like the pull of quicksand or a vortex that drew the imagination, until you were stuck and there was nothing more you could do.
Her heart beat faster and she wondered if he could pick up on her rising body heat from where he stood. She glanced at his mouth again–it was likely he could sense all her thoughts, he was so close. Katharine considered squirming, but didn’t think she could pull it off. It was too ingrained in her to never show discomfort. She could fake contentment, she could verbally turn unease back on the offender with an underhanded jab, but her mother had drilled into her to never let anyone see that she was anything less than at ease. For a brief moment Katharine almost laughed. Her mother should have played the world poker tour. Her greatest bluff would have been walking away without the other players realizing how crass she thought the whole thing was.
But Katharine was having an increasingly difficult time bluffing Allistair. He leaned and pointed, bringing his body in closer to hers again and again. He asked questions that bordered on repetitive, then immediately jumped to advanced issues that showed he’d already mastered some of the basics. He did it all while forming a cocoon around her that was slowly driving her insane.
She consciously regulated her breathing. She fought the rising heat in her face that was due both to her awareness of him and to her embarrassment that surely he was aware of her feelings. Resisting the urge to shake her head and see if physical movement could dislodge the sensations, Katharine missed most of his next question.
“–about the strip function?”
She did shake her head. Unfortunately, the missing moments weren’t there at all. “What?”
She turned to him without leaning back, almost brushing his cheek with her nose in the process. There was a whiff of something, something eons old and distant as a sunset. She couldn’t cover the gasp. Something about this man was getting under her breeding, and it was damned uncomfortable. There was no denying she didn’t like it, even though she seemed to very much like him. And there was no denying she didn’t seem to be able to fight it.
He didn’t repeat the question.
It had happened. His brown eyes were staring at her, seeing far too much, certainly without her permission. Moving her mouth, but unable to form words, Katharine began to pull back. But Allistair followed, leaning in closer. “Katharine.”
His breath played the word as a whisper across her mouth.
OhGodOhGodOhGod
Inside, her belly clenched as his mouth moved closer, his eyes searching her for something she couldn’t identify and didn’t want to give. At the same time she was desperately afraid that she would be found wanting.
The world melted away beyond the borders of her vision, her sole focus on his mouth as it moved to form more words. “Close your eyes.”
Even knowing she was about to be kissed, she obeyed.
Moist heat from his breath touched her cheeks as his face neared hers. Her mouth lifted, just a fraction, waiting for his touch. But she jerked, imperceptibly, as his finger touched under her eye, lighting there for a moment and then lifting away.
Blinking rapidly, she slammed back to reality. This time she knew her face was flooded with red heat. And there was nothing she could do about it. She’d been so certain he was going to kiss her, and he’d …
“You had an eyelash.” He held his finger just under the edge of her vision, forcing her to look down. But there it was. A tiny dark slash against the brown of his skin. Allistair even smiled, an infectious, engaging grin that once again altered her reality. “You get a wish.”
He placed the tiny hair before her mouth and she took him at his word, wishing this would all go away. She blew softly, trying for something appropriate to the social setting of blowing on the finger of a work subordinate. But what was appropriate about it? She’d thought he was going to kiss her.
The eyelash didn’t budge.
His grin widened. “You need a different wish or a stronger blow.”
Katharine could only nod. She needed a workable wish. So she altered it: she wished she could find the thief and look competent to her father. This time she blew just a little harder, and thankfully the damned thing disappeared.
“Good work.” He uttered the words as though he
were the one training her and not vice versa, then gave a distracted look around the room and thanked her. Apparently she had suddenly answered every question he had. Or maybe his sole purpose had been to get her into that compromising position, make her think that he would kiss her, then …
Okay. That clearly wasn’t it. Katharine berated herself for even having that thought. There was no way anyone would orchestrate that. No adult would get her worked up and then pull away just to prove that he could. No, that one had been all in her head. Instead, she found it took a surprising amount of effort to turn her thoughts back to Zachary and her work.
Needing to leave the office after that, she went in search of the payroll thief. The afternoon was spent talking to everyone in the division–ostensibly for an employee directory. She asked them questions about whether they wanted something like that, what should be included in it, and how it should be accessed. Most of the employees were open and forthright about their information. Even Mary Wayne had no issues with the entire working body of Light & Geryon knowing where she lived.
Katharine had seen her father’s report. Mary had recently moved to a house twice the size of the one she had just left, one that cost more than what a person in her position in payroll should be able to afford. But there had been nothing obviously false in the woman’s eyes at any time during the interview. Nothing that said she was embezzling company funds.
Katharine’s gut tightened. The thief was stealing her funds. This would be her company one day. But Mary had looked straight at her and hadn’t batted the proverbial eyelash. If she was the thief, then she was far better–far colder–than any of them had given her credit for. If that were the case, this was no opportunistic swiping of spare funds but a calculated gambit by a pro. By the time the day ended, and, more importantly, by the time Allistair had left her office and headed home, Katharine was exhausted. The other employees were gone. She had stayed as late as she could, not wanting to run into her assistant again and feel the needs slam into her as they had before. She had wandered the payroll division, checking out desk surfaces for stray paperwork and opening computer files that might lead her little investigation anywhere. All of that was legal, but she didn’t dare open drawers or search anything the company didn’t have a specific clause about sharing until she had a better plan and another investigator backing her up.
Still, it was fruitless. She hadn’t really expected to find a computer icon labeled “How I stole the money” on Mary Wayne’s monitor anyway.
With heavy heart and heavy eyelids Katharine made her way home and tumbled into bed. She hadn’t been sleeping well these past few nights. She’d had only the deep, heavy slumber of the dead or a light and restless tossing, if anything at all. No wonder her body needed to catch up.
• • •
The alarm bounced sound off the walls the next morning, just as light was beginning to seep over the mountains in the east and filter around to her side of the building. Katharine stumbled out of bed.
In the mirror, she took stock while she brushed her teeth. Her hair was a mess–she hadn’t brushed it the night before. Her face bore the wrinkles of the bedspread she’d bunched beneath her cheek in her sleep. She looked undead. But it was nothing a shower couldn’t fix.
Against her will, her brain wondered what had happened last night while she’d been asleep. Bare feet padded into the living room, and eyes that were awake too fast scanned every inch of carpet for soot. Finding none, she moved on to the furniture and curtains. Nothing seemed touched or altered.
Good. Another clean night.
More awake, but now happier about it, Katharine climbed into the shower and cranked the heat up. She lingered as long as she could if she was still going to stand a chance to make it to the office on time, then at last took a deep breath and steeled herself to turn off the water. Stepping out into the shivering cold of the steamed bathroom, she reached for her towel and wrapped it around herself.
Only when she stepped up to the sink and grabbed the hand towel from its ring to wipe the mirror did she see it. There in the steam was a single word.
Cav$$.
CHAPTER 4
Katharine was mad.
Who would write cave on her mirror? It was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard of. She wanted to be frightened. In fact, she figured she should be. But after all the creatures that kept appearing and disappearing and the beast with the claws the other night, well, the word cave on her mirror was hardly anything to scare her into a tailspin.
Who knew what it could be? Maybe it was some other language. But anyone who would go to the trouble to break in just to leave her a message would know that she’d only learned French in high school, and then not very well. Someone writing on her mirror in a foreign language? That made even less sense than the word cave. And she was more mad that someone had done it than that they had written a really stupid message. It just pissed her off.
Focusing on the questions the appearance of the word generated, Katharine tried to organize her thoughts. It had been written on the mirror, when? During her shower? That was unlikely. Probably it had happened while she was asleep. A finger dragged across the mirror would leave oils, ensuring that the word would appear while she was washing up–but no one would have to be here to do it.
And just like that, there went all her hard-won control. She had believed her night had been uninterrupted or, maybe more accurately, unvisited. Yet here was proof that she was wrong. Again.
She peered at the writing. Large but precise, there was nothing to distinguish it one way or another. Katharine had done this as a kid–written I see you on her nanny’s mirror. Boy, had that not gone over well. But that meant she knew how the trick was pulled off. Probably every sixth grader did. Still she frowned; this was perfect. Too perfect. It wasn’t in lipstick or some identifiable substance. There was no way to match the handwriting. There weren’t even marks at the end of the line where the writer lifted their hand away.
She would bet her annual salary that the cops wouldn’t be able to lift a fingerprint from it.
For a moment her blood ran cold as she wondered if the creature from the other night had written this. Not that it could have written anything with those long talons. Not that cave made any sense for any beast or man to put there, but …
Taking an involuntary step backward, Katharine bumped into something hard. Her scream froze in her throat and as she turned she fought desperately to keep her eyes open–to see what was behind her now.
Then she felt stupid. Really stupid. She’d bumped into the wall. Her own wall that had been there for the three years she had owned the unit. With that realization, she stomped off, her wet hair trailing down her back. She jerked clothing from her closet, not stopping to think about what was on her agenda for the day or what kind of image she needed to project. Mostly she didn’t need to project “mad rage,” and that was all she concentrated on.
But she couldn’t put the suit on with her hair wet. So she stomped back into the bathroom and took her hairdryer to the offending word and cleared the entire mirror before turning the air gun on herself.
Later, Katharine figured she must have yanked out half her hair the way she had tugged at the snarls and hit it full blast with the dryer. As it was, she was lucky she was merely presentable. She was just on time, which was late for her. And she had to stop and take a moment to look down at her shoes and make sure that they matched each other and her outfit. She’d been late before, but being unsure which shoes she had on was definitely a new experience.
Allistair stood up to greet her as she came through the doorway to what she was now beginning to think of as their office. He smiled and the force of it knocked her back on her thankfully matching heels. That was enough to make her want to turn around, go home, and call in sick. For a brief moment she wondered if it was possible to call in sick after everyone had already seen her walk in. Could she say, “Ooops–didn’t mean to show up, that was a mistake”? Instead she found a smil
e to answer him with, one she hoped didn’t convey the heat that kept rushing to her face–her whole body, in fact–whenever he was in close proximity.
She had barely draped her jacket over the back of her chair when he came into her personal space. She wondered if he inhaled the scent of her when he breathed in this close, the way she did him. Then she wondered if the anger and fright from this morning had knocked her brain out of whack. Taking a deep breath to center her thoughts, she smelled him again. Damnit. That was not the way to calm herself. He smelled of the elements, rain and fire, wind and water. Something primal and necessary. But what was truly necessary was to listen to what he was saying and pay some actual attention for once.
He placed a short stack of files on the desk in front of her. “These are finished, but we need further research. I’ve done all I can do with the Light & Geryon databanks. I thought I might hit the library and see if I can pull up some archives or some connection between WeldLink and its parent company.”
“Who is the parent company?” Katharine wanted to smile, but her mouth didn’t want to work. It seemed her brain couldn’t do much more than sort through her actions and make sure that she was making sense while her thoughts ran everywhere but where they should be. She had formulated a fine question; all the words worked together. She was sure, even though she was still too close to this man who made her head swim.
Allistair shrugged. “That’s just it, I can’t find it anywhere. So I figured I’d check the library as a last-ditch effort.”
This time she did manage a smile. “I’ll get it.” It was just the excuse she needed. “What does WeldLink manufacture?”
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