Kiss of the Phantom (Forsyth Phantoms)

by Julie Leto

  “Rest assured, it is nearby, should I require it,” he replied. “I may not know you well, Ms. Hunter, but you don’t strike me as a stupid woman. I’m quite certain you will not attempt to double-cross me.”

  He gave one of his bodyguards a quick glance. The bulky man produced a heavy velvet bag, which Farrow opened. When he poured the contents into his palm, Marian chest clenched. The Mayan coins.

  “May I?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Pryce replied, holding his hand closer.

  Mariah flipped the coins over, examining them, though she knew instantly that they were the real deal. The weight of them, the shape and color, had been imprinted in her brain.

  She drew her hand back. “Don’t you want to keep a few of these until you’re sure the stone is authentic?”

  His smile broadcast complete confidence. “You’ve hardly had time to create a copy. And even if you did, I’ve never laid eyes on the stone. How would I know a copy if you gave me one?”

  Mariah narrowed her eyes, reading Pryce as best she could. The sharpness of his gaze, the twitch in his jaw despite his relaxed demeanor—all pointed to his knowing something she didn’t. That made her nervous. This whole situation made her nervous.

  Farrow eyed Rafe dismissively. “Bodyguard?”

  She smiled. “Something like that. Okay, I’m satisfied these are my coins.”

  With a nod, Farrow’s companion shook the coins back into the velvet bag, and then held it possessively, his arms crossed over a massive chest.

  “Good. Now let me see the stone,” Pryce requested, with entirely more politeness than Mariah trusted. He was too calm. Too confident. She was dealing with someone she was certain aimed to double-cross her. Her heart beat like an aboriginal skin drum.

  Rafe produced the stone with a bit of a flourish that made it seem as though he’d made it appear out of nowhere.

  Pryce wanted magic? They’d give him magic.

  “Bullet catcher or illusionist?” Farrow asked, eyebrow arched.

  “Man’s got to have quick hands in this line of work,” Rafe replied.

  Pryce’s grin oiled. “And here I thought most ladies liked it better slow.”

  Mariah kept her expression neutral. “Sometimes we just want to get things over with.”

  He chuckled and held out his hand. “May I?” She shrugged. “Go ahead. It’s just a rock.”

  Rafe rolled the stone into Pryce’s palm.

  He examined it thoroughly. The stone was identical to the one she’d found in Valoren, right down to the hawk etching and the fire opal center. But it had no magic—or at least, no magic that Rafe didn’t control.

  “Now, Ms. Hunter,” Pryce said with a patronizing lilt, “you and I both know that this is not just a rock. It’s a piece of history. Magical history. And if I do this...”

  His words faded away as he grasped the stone tightly and concentrated, staring at the fake fire opal Rafe had magically conjured as if willing something to happen.

  Mariah glanced at Rafe.

  “What are you doing?” she asked Pryce.

  He looked up at her, sneering. “Testing it. It’s the only way to know if this is the genuine article.”

  “The genuine article of what? It’s just a rock. It doesn’t do anything,” she insisted.

  His scowl did not lessen. “We shall see, won’t we?”

  “Return it,” Rafe said, clutching Pryce’s shoulder.

  Pryce’s bodyguard pulled Rafe off his boss. They tussled, and the coins fell to the ground with a clank. Pryce continued to clutch the stone, staring so intently, Mariah suspected his eyes might pop out of his head. Just when she saw Rafe go entirely white, an unseen force grabbed her from behind and knocked her clear across the rooftop.

  23

  As if the sun had suddenly risen, all energy drained from Rafe’s body. Mariah skidded across the roof’s stony surface, her arms and legs flailing until she slammed against the short wall and fell, unconscious, to the gravel. He glared at Farrow Pryce, not because the monster had used the stone’s magic to hurt Mariah, but because Pryce had forced Rafe to do it for him.

  The minute Rafe’s hand had made contact with Pryce’s shoulder, Rafe had felt what the blackguard wanted. The fury and hatred focused at Mariah had been so strong, Rafe had instantly keyed into his intentions. To make the fake marker appear genuine, Rafe had had to turn Pryce’s vile desire into reality.

  “What have you done?” Rafe shouted, pretending surprise.

  Pryce nodded to his bodyguards to return to the helicopter, the coins abandoned.

  “I’ve mastered the magic,” Pryce claimed. “I’ve found what every grand apprentice before me has sought. I control Rogan’s magic now. I know the secret. If she ever awakes, do thank her for me.”

  “You bastard!” Rafe cursed, fully intending to wrap his hands around Pryce’s throat, but he brandished the stone, his eyes flashing. Despite Rafe’s instinct to tear Pryce limb from limb, he forced himself to stick to the plan.

  Rafe made a show of trying to reach Mariah, staggered, then focused the magic on himself. An instant later, he was arching over the edge of the rooftop. He cushioned his landing on the concrete below, but created a scene of blood and gore all around him.

  The darkness welling within him was nearly unbearable, but he concentrated on the memories of his last night with Mariah—of loving her, tasting her, moving within her in a rhythm that was as natural as the dance between the sun and the moon in the sky. His palms warmed, recalling the feel of her hands in his as they soared to sexual climax. He clutched that memory like a lifeline until he heard Pryce’s helicopter lift off from the roof and soar away.

  He returned to the roof beside Mariah. She was just coming to.

  “Oh,” she groaned, grasping at him uncertainly in her attempt to pull herself up. “What happened?”

  “Pryce tried to kill you. Mariah, I am so—”

  Though weak and pained, Mariah grabbed his face and kissed him soundly. His attempts to be gentle were met with her bold tongue and a desperate squeeze of his cheeks.

  “Don’t say it,” she ordered, breathless. “You did what you had to do. We’re both okay. Is he gone?”

  Rafe caught sight of red taillights in the sky. Despite Mariah’s kiss, he concentrated a blast of wind at the flying machine, which tottered uncertainly in the air.

  “Leave it,” she said, tugging at his shoulders. “You don’t want him coming back, do you?”

  “He won’t return if he is dead.”

  “You’re not a murderer. Pryce thinks he has the real stone. He thinks he knows how to use it. And he believes I’m dead, or at least seriously injured. He’s wrong. You put a lot of power in that punch of yours, but you cushioned me, too. Just like you did in Chiapas.”

  “I could not bear to hurt you. Not when I—” He cut himself off, knowing that despite all they’d shared, admitting the strength of his emotions for her was not yet prudent. “Not when I care deeply for you.”

  She smiled, then kissed him again, slowly and languorously. She broke away, he noticed, when the helicopter could no longer be heard.

  “He will determine that the stone is fake,” Rafe reminded her as he stood, then helped her up beside him.

  “Yes, but by the time he does, we’ll have reunited with your brothers, who understand this magic better than we do. Now, where are my coins?”

  They found them scattered on the ground near the door, abandoned, as Mariah suspected they would be, likely left for Hector Velez to retrieve, along with Mariah’s bruised and battered body. Well, Velez would at least get half of what he expected. She returned the coins to the velvet bag and hid with Rafe behind an air-conditioning unit until, an hour later, two men arrived on the roof. Quickly, they retrieved the coins and then looked for Mariah. Rafe’s magic ensured that she was not found, and, after making a quick phone call to their boss, Velez’s men left.

  “Do you think they’ll keep after you?” Rafe asked.
<
br />   “They have what they want. Getting me as a punching bag would only have been icing on the cake. Let’s bail out. My name is bog water in the treasure-hunting game now anyway.”

  Rafe arched a brow. He was becoming quite accustomed to the vernacular of the twenty-first century, but some expressions still eluded him.

  “In other words,” she said, grabbing his hand, “let’s get out of here.”

  With that, he could not agree more.

  ***

  They rendezvoused with Ben and Cat at an airstrip not far from the hotel. Ben had had a helicopter ready to go, prepared to follow if Farrow Pryce had decided to take Mariah with him as some form of collateral or as an extra prize. Luckily, the wannabe magician had decided she was totally expendable. While Mariah ached from her flight across the roof, her primary pain came from Rafe’s expression whenever she grunted or hissed from residual soreness.

  She’d reassured him that he’d had no choice but make Pryce’s magic look real, but his frown remained. She strongly suspected his feelings for her ran deeper than mere caring, and for that, she felt exponentially worse.

  Ben flew them to Dallas, where they traded up to a private jet that delivered them to Florida. They arrived at the Chandler property in St. Augustine sometime after sunrise, so Mariah carried Rogan’s marker inside a courier bag Cat had given her, wholly aware that while Rafe had disappeared from sight, his self-recriminations and regrets had not.

  From the expressions of the people in the lobby, she guessed she looked scary, with her bloodshot eyes and dirty clothes. She longed for a bath and a couple of hours’ sleep before she had to confront her inability to make the man who’d saved her yet again solid and whole.

  “He’s not here,” Cat said shortly after talking to the front desk, and just as Mariah’s foot was about to cross the threshold into the elevator.

  Ben grabbed Mariah’s elbow and pulled her out before the sliding doors shut.

  “Who’s not here?” she asked, annoyed.

  “Paschal. We’d asked the hotel staff to keep an eye on him and Gemma after they arrived,” Cat admitted, then exchanged a worried look with Ben. “They left before dawn.”

  “They’d only just arrived,” Ben said. “Where did they go?”

  Cat’s mouth thinned. “They wanted a ride down to the pier.”

  “The island? Damn.”

  “Why damn?” Mariah asked, completely confused. She couldn’t imagine why Paschal Rousseau or Paxton Forsyth or whatever his name was would leave this luxurious, completed hotel for a reportedly sparse, unfinished one on an island off the coast, especially when he knew that his long-lost youngest brother was on his way. Rafe had risked life and limb, both his and hers, to attend this reunion, unhampered by her drama with the coins or Farrow Pryce. The least his brother could have done after searching for sixty years was to exercise some patience.

  “There are things on that island that Gemma Von Roan doesn’t need to be near,” Ben said, tugging Mariah toward the exit.

  She pulled out of his grasp. “Hang on,” she insisted. “I’m dead on my feet, Ben. Swear to God, I don’t want to do anything to mess up this Forsyth family blowout, but I’ve got to get some sleep.”

  The closer Rafe got to reuniting with his family without her being able to free him entirely, the closer she got to throwing up. She needed a soak. She owed Rafe some serious soul searching, at the very least. And for that, she needed to be alone.

  “I have to make sure he’s okay,” Ben insisted.

  She placed a hand on his shoulder and then did the same to Cat. “You guys go on. I swear, I’ll join you as soon as Rafe is, you know, solid.”

  Ben looked at Cat with reluctance, but Cat nodded and took him by the hand. “We’ll call you if anything isn’t right. Stay safe.”

  Mariah patted the bag and pressed the elevator button. “I can’t seem to do anything but, since Rafe came into my life.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Ben and Cat left, and a minute later the elevator dinged and Mariah practically threw herself inside. Though Rafe could usually speak to her even while in the phantom state, he’d remained quiet since sunrise. He’d gone through as much as she had in the past twenty-four hours. He deserved a good nap before meeting his brothers, too.

  She noticed the opulence of the suite long enough to decide that Alexa Chandler had exquisite taste. She could only imagine what the woman was going to do with a castle. For Mariah’s part, though, all she required of a room right now was an unlimited supply of hot water.

  She headed straight into the bathroom, turned on the faucets, then stripped out of her clothes, brushed out her hair and used the complimentary toothbrush to scrub away the last of the gritty taste in her mouth before she eased her aching muscles into the steaming water and turned on the jets.

  So much had happened since she’d succumbed to her whim to fly to Germany and try to beat Ben out of some unknown treasure. For the first time in ten years, that particular chip had completely dissolved off her shoulder. Ben wasn’t such a bad guy. He just wasn’t for her. He had a family he cared about—a father he was willing to sacrifice everything for, including a chance for a real relationship with a great woman.

  Catalina Reyes struck Mariah as patient, but Mariah couldn’t see her waiting forever for Ben to make a permanent commitment. Funny how she could sympathize when she’d never in her life made as much as a pinkie promise to anyone except herself.

  She squeezed two travel-size bottles of lavender-scented bath gel into the water, which was now level with her stomach. The hot water and the soothing perfume of the liquid soap helped her ease back into the curved porcelain. Her mind drifted to Australia, where this whole mess had started.

  If there was ever one thing her mother and father had both given her in spades, it was distance. Even when she’d lived with one or the other, she’d never quite fit in. But she’d always been connected to them, even after she ran away. Suddenly inspired, she leaned across the bubbles floating atop the scalding water and reached for the phone.

  Once the hotel operator answered, she asked, “Can you put a call through to Sydney, Australia, please? The Jasper Museum. Thank you.”

  Mariah’s chest tightened with every ring. She had to steady her hands just to push the buttons for her mother’s extension. It was after seven o’clock at night down under, but as she guessed, her mum was still in her office and answered the call absently.

  “Hey, Mum.”

  “Mariah? Is that you? Darling, what’s wrong?”

  A thick lump formed in her esophagus. “Do I only call you when something’s wrong?”

  “What do you think?” Dinah asked. “Last time you called was to wish me a happy birthday six months ago.”

  “Actually, it was my birthday,” Mariah countered with a nervous laugh. “But since you did all the work, I figured you deserved a bit of credit.”

  The cadence of Mariah’s speech instantly changed, picking up the inflections and rhythms of her homeland.

  “When are you coming home? It’s been too long since we’ve had a proper visit.”

  Mariah nodded, her throat constricting. Had her mother ever said anything so motherly, and yet so unexpected? Did she ask this question as a matter of course, or because she truly wanted to see her only daughter?

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Mariah answered. “Maybe a trip home is just what I need.”

  Her mother hesitated. Mariah’s eyes suddenly stung with humiliation.

  “Are you in trouble again?” Dinah asked. “With the law, I mean?”

  Mariah laughed, though somehow the sound nearly came out like a sob. “Nah,” she replied. “I can’t say I wasn’t in some trouble recently, but I got it all worked out. Well, the law part anyway. Mum, what do you know about Gypsies?”

  It was almost automatic, engaging Dinah on a professional level, where it was safer than digging into the emotions they both protected so fiercely.

  “What Gypsies, sweetheart?”


  “Eighteenth-century. London or thereabouts. Germany, maybe. I heard tell recently of a colony of sorts called Valoren. I was wondering what you knew.”

  She should have made this phone call weeks ago. On the other hand, she might not have stumbled onto Rafe if she had. Angst aside, she did not regret knowing him or making love to him or even battling Farrow Pryce with him. She regretted only being unable to break his Gypsy curse.

  “Hold on,” her mother said, and even though they were half a world away, she could hear her mother’s fingers flying over the keyboard of her computer. She had access to databases that ordinary people simply didn’t have—scholarly collections that the general public wouldn’t much care about. If not for her mother’s work at the museum, Mariah would never have met Ben. Seventeen and angry and anxious to not only spread her wings, but to do so in a way that would scandalize her mother, she’d left without so much as a note.

  And yet, a decade later, the woman still took her calls.

  “I see only one reference here,” Dinah announced. “A scholarly article written by a Paschal Rousseau. Valoren was a secret enclave of banished Gypsies. Pervasive magical mythology. Why? Planning to steal something from there?”

  “Already did,” she answered.

  “You don’t sound happy about it,” her mother observed wryly.

  Mariah allowed a tiny smile. She could have done without falling off a cliff, but otherwise, things hadn’t worked out so badly, had they? Except for Rafe needing what she wasn’t sure she was capable of providing.

  “It’s been a load of trouble, as usual, but it could work out.”

  “It will,” her mother said with a lighthearted laugh. “With you, Mariah, it always does.”

  “How can you say that? I’m a thief, Mum. I don’t even make my living stealing for myself. I do it for other people. I don’t give a damn about what I take or whom it hurts. I just—”

  “Survive, darling. That’s what you do. I’m not going to condone your lifestyle. You and your like are the bane of the existence of curators like me. But I’ve been telling myself all these years that at least you were happy. Living an exciting life, not trapped on some dusty desert ranch in the middle of the Northern Territory, pregnant and penned in...”