Gina had never considered forecasting a creative exercise, but evidently it shared elements of an art. Science and art. The mages were constantly testing each other’s conclusions—and hers.
She’d long ago kicked off her high heels. Now she curled her legs under her in the ergonomic chair. It didn’t help her posture, but then, nothing would. She was tired. Dinner had been pizza, hours past. “Nothing,” she echoed everyone else’s response to Zhou’s demand.
The fifth member of the Group of 5 was remarkably hidden.
The guardians had moved fast, utilizing portals to travel swiftly to the other four group members’ various locations, and securing them simultaneously. The four hadn’t had time to warn the fifth of their apprehension, but it seemed that they also couldn’t share anything useful as to the fifth group member’s identity. And they would have if they could have.
Zhou and Kora’s teams were working together to interrogate the four suspects. None of the suspects had magic themselves, so they were unable to prevent truth spells extracting everything they knew from them.
The information was both revealing and impenetrable.
It revealed the Group of 5’s ambition and lack of conscience. They could detail plans to destabilize critical ventures around the world and capitalize on the failure of those projects to make obscene profits themselves.
But the four seemed to have little understanding of how each of their individual targets fitted together. Their fifth member—whom they only knew by a title, Believer—had pointed out targets to them, or approved or disapproved targets they suggested, but as to Believer’s identity…
“Someone has to know who the bastard is,” Zhou howled.
The whole room was silenced.
Gina rolled her neck. Too many hours at the computer, too much tension.
Strong hands curved over her shoulders and pressed thumbs deep along the spinal column at her neck. She groaned at how good it felt, and didn’t question that unseeing, guided only by touch and the faintest trace of scent, she knew it was Lewis who kneaded her knotted muscles.
“Midnight. Time to go home while Zhou calls in the second shift,” Lewis said.
“We haven’t found the fifth group member,” Gina mumbled.
“So I heard. Zhou, there is one person who knows Believer’s identity.”
Gina stopped fishing for her shoes with her toes and looked at Lewis. “Who?”
“Believer, him- or herself,” Zhou answered. “I have people dowsing, I have genealogists looking for patterns within families whose magic has faded, I have my people trying everything. This person is not a ghost. Somewhere, they exist.”
“And they know we’re hunting them,” Lewis said. “I want you to be alert for distractions. This person sacrificed the other four members of the group without a thought. In fact, they were probably recruited to act as a skin that could be shed while this snake wriggles away.”
“Ugh.” Gina got her shoes on and stood. Judging by the neck rub, Lewis was still pretending she was his girlfriend. She was tired, cold and disheartened and only too content to use the excuse to lean into his strength.
He put an arm around her and said a general, “Goodnight.”
A chorus of farewells followed them from the Zone.
“Zhou’s Zone. It’s a bit of a giggle,” Gina whispered as they waited for the elevator.
“You’re tired.”
“Tired to the point of inanity,” she agreed.
He held her more firmly.
What could be done for the earthquake survivors of Izmir was being done. The Collegium had a recognized rescue crew they sent out in emergencies like these. Medical and disaster training gave them a reason mundanes could accept for their presence on site. Once there, the mages would discreetly use their magic to stabilize buildings, search for survivors and heal.
In this instance, the rescue crew was bolstered with guardians and they’d be alert for any further action by the one remaining Group of 5 member at large.
“Why does he or she call themselves Believer?” Gina asked as the elevator carried her and Lewis down to the foyer. She didn’t expect an answer and she didn’t get one.
The night was warm and smoggy, the city restless despite the late hour.
“I can walk you to the portal if you want to go home,” Lewis offered.
She shook her head. She hadn’t considered sleeping arrangements, but she couldn’t leave the Collegium before Believer was identified. “Do you mind if I sleep on your sofa?”
“We’ll manage something better than that.”
Her hormones gave a little skip, but there was no sensual promise in his expression. Gina went back to watching the street. “Is Kora still assigning guardian bodyguards to you.”
“No.” A beat. “But chances are someone is watching us.”
His apartment was as sterile and dull as always. He put his hands on her waist.
She had an instant to wonder if he intended seduction at such a time, and if she was awake enough to appreciate the experience, and then, they were inside her home on Cape Cod.
“I’ll collect you at six thirty in the morning.”
She lowered her hands, raised to rest on his shoulders. “Okay. Um, thanks?”
“I thought you’d sleep easier here.”
“Yes. Yes, I will.”
He vanished.
“Oh damn.” She looked around her beautiful, empty kitchen. She’d wanted to sleep with Lewis.
The steps up to her room were steep and dispiriting. Idiot, idiot, idiot. She’d only gone and fallen in love with the president of the Collegium and the man most likely to leave this galaxy.
“Sorry to wake you. Not the best news, but I thought you ought to know. Better than being ambushed.”
“Thanks, Gilda.” Lewis clicked off his phone. He stared at the shadowed ceiling above his bed.
Five o’clock. A bad hour for bad news. Then again, no hour would make this news acceptable.
Gilda Ursu was proving a switched-on chief of demonology. On current showing, she was racing Zhou for the speed and effectiveness of her intelligence gathering. Apparently the first whispers of this rumor had zoomed out from a late night bar here in New York.
Unfortunately, Gilda hadn’t been able to pin down who had said what, and the bar’s security camera had suffered a suspiciously well-timed lapse in recording. But someone had been in New York and they had started a rumor against Lewis. A rumor repeated in Seattle and London, and those were just the places where Gilda’s demonologist connections caught it.
All rumors and only since the Collegium guardians had brought in the four members of the Group of 5 for questioning.
The fifth member of the group had acted fast. But more than that…they had known about the power Lewis had exhibited. Yes, rumor would have run fast through the Collegium. That was why Lewis had accepted the need for the board meeting. But what did that mean? Was the fifth group member also a member of the Collegium?
Lewis flung himself out of bed.
Perhaps the unknown person was merely closely connected to someone at the Collegium?
Lewis had asked that the chief demonologist share with Zhou’s people her information.
“It’s a direct accusation against you,” she’d warned.
“Obviously.”
She hadn’t sounded as if she took offence at his brusqueness. “None of my team believes it, and any one of us will go on record in support of you.”
It wouldn’t be enough.
Lewis dressed quickly. Danger coursed around him. No time to deal with the emotional impact of the rumor Gilda had reported: that he could be so mistrusted. He left his phone on the table by his bed. He’d be back for it, but unlike Gilda, he didn’t trust it for communicating or the chance that it might betray his physical whereabouts.
He translocated from his New York apartment to Gina’s Cape Cod home. The kitchen was gray in the predawn light. With clarity of sight, he detected the wards that
protected it. If Gina hadn’t declared him welcome in her home, those wards would have shredded him as he translocated. She was safe, here—from the obvious threats.
The Collegium would involve her in this latest rumor.
He climbed the staircase, debating how to wake her. It felt wrong to walk unannounced through her home. He reached the hallway and passed the guest room he’d used. “Gina,” he tried to pitch his voice to wake but not startle her. “Gina.”
No sound from her room, although the door stood open.
Too creepy to walk in while she slept.
He knocked loudly on the open door. “Gina!”
“What?” She sat up and looked around wildly.
“It’s me.”
“Lewis.” She collapsed back against the pillows, only to sit up instantly. “I overslept?” She clicked on the bedside light and stared at the alarm clock. “What’s wrong?”
He took that as permission to enter and walked over to the window. Looking out, he heard the rustle of her getting out of bed. “Gilda Ursu, the chief demonologist, woke me with a rumor she heard. Thanks to your role as my pretend girlfriend, the rumor will affect you. Apparently the new powers I exhibited yesterday are due to a deal I’ve done with a demon.”
“No! No one could believe that.”
He could just see the line of the horizon and the lights of a boat chugging out in the predawn quiet. “The last president of the Collegium was demon haunted. It makes this a plausible rumor.”
“If people don’t know you.”
Had he come here hoping for the support she gave so generously? Some of the cold, appalled shock melted. “How many people know me? Me, not the president or the commander of the guardians? I burned out my magic and now I have power. This is a clever distraction by the fifth group member. They’ll have time to hide or act while I defend myself and others disobey me, uncertain of my right to preside over the Collegium.”
“It’s clever,” she said slowly. “But not if you can clear your name fast. What would do that?”
“I’m not outing Morag.”
She smiled and hugged his arm. “Morag might agree to go public, but I was thinking of something a little less disturbing to the magical community.”
“Less disturbing than a dragon. That leaves a lot of leeway.”
“We may need it. Fay Olwen banished the last demon. People would take her word for it if she declared you free of demonic taint.”
He stared at Gina.
She’d braided her hair before sleeping, but wisps had escaped and framed her oval face. Her eyes and lips were soft with sleep, even as indignant energy hummed around her.
“Fay.” He considered the idea, before laughing. “Those who’d like to use the rumor to discredit me will hate me bringing Fay back. In breaking her oath-ties to the Collegium, she showed the emptiness of their control over magic users. Gina, your idea is genius.”
“So kiss me.”
Gina couldn’t believe those words had escaped her, but then the change in Lewis from icy hurt and distance to genuine amusement resonated through to her bones. He’d been hurt and he’d come to her. To warn her of what was happening, or had he come to her as a friend?
She’d helped him. That felt good. That felt great.
He tasted of mint toothpaste and his arms around her were hard with relief.
A slippery satin robe over a thin chemise soon fell away. It slid down her shoulders to her arms, revealing her upper breasts.
Lewis broke the kiss to pull back a fraction. He stared at her breasts, at the excited points of her nipples pushing up the satin. He cupped one breast, rubbing the nipple with his thumb.
“Yesss.” The word had less meaning than the sound of her satisfied yet aching sigh.
Lewis tugged at her chemise. Her breasts were full, making the fit snug. The neckline of the chemise pulled down, popping her nipples free, then supporting their flaunting eagerness with a tight pressure beneath.
He groaned, backed up to the window seat and sat down, pulling her over him so that her nipples were tantalizingly available to his mouth.
The warm, wet wash of his tongue brought her to the edge. She was so ready. Her hips jerked, pelvis tilting, instinctively seeking ultimate completion. Another lick, another impotent thrust. She moaned. Her hands were on his shoulders, steadying her before her wobbly knees collapsed.
He sucked at her nipples, driving her crazy as his hands, large and strong, squeezed her butt, slid down her thighs and returned.
“I won’t come, not just from…my breasts are…Lewis!”
He proved her wrong. Her orgasm wasn’t the most shattering, but it was exquisite, and he watched her through it. The dawn light showed color burning over his cheekbones and the passion-stern, exciting line of his mouth.
She dove at his mouth as her orgasm eased, kissing and teasing until he set her down on the window seat and stood himself. That put an interesting bulge at her eye level. She shuddered and stretched in sensual anticipation.
He swore and stepped back. “We don’t have time, not now. But if you could see yourself. You’re an erotic painting, part shadow, all woman. Your breasts.” His hands shaped empty air. “Your body. I’d lose hours loving you.”
She shivered at the dark promise and longing in his low voice. “Please.”
“Not now.” His voice was raw. “I can’t afford to be distracted and you…you’re more distraction than anything the Group of 5 devised.”
The oblique reminder of why he was in her bedroom cleared some of her passionate haze. “The accusation against you. You need to contact Fay Olwen. Do you want me to find her phone number?” Online, Gina could find most things—which made the fifth group member’s hidden identity all the more frustrating.
“I have her card.” Lewis extracted a card from his wallet. “You said you had burn phones? I left my phone in New York so no one could track my translocation to here.”
“Burn phone. Of course.” He carried another woman’s card in his wallet? Gina readjusted her chemise and reached for her robe.
He beat her to the spill of satin on the floor and held the robe for her. “I need to call Fay in the next couple of minutes or she’ll call me. She visited the Collegium a fortnight ago with her own problems and left the bespelled card for me. She understands what it is to be isolated within the Collegium.”
Gina turned in his arms, leaving her robe untied, and kissed him briefly on the mouth. “You’re not alone. I’ll get that phone.”
He followed her to her office and accepted one of the five burn phones she had in a cupboard. His call to Fay connected instantly.
As tempted as she was to stay and listen, Gina made herself leave. She needed to dress, and she needed to show that she wasn’t jealous of Fay, a mage accorded a rare note of respect when Lewis spoke of her.
Gina would never be as powerful as Fay. “And I’m all right with that.”
She showered swiftly, applied minimal make-up and dressed in chambray shirt, jeans and boots to match Lewis’s practical attire. She tied her hair in a high, jaunty ponytail. If you don’t feel perky, fake it.
“Fay will meet me at the Collegium at seven a.m.,” Lewis said as Gina tracked him to the kitchen. “Thanks for the phone.”
“Keep it.” She wondered if they were going to discuss that kiss, her orgasm, or just stare at each other across the kitchen table. “Coffee?”
“We could get that in New York if you’re ready to go?”
Go? Oh, translocation.
He walked slowly around the table. A smile sparked in his eyes. To translocate them, he had to hold her. He put his hands at her waist. She put hers at his shoulders. He kissed her, and when she surfaced, they were in his New York apartment.
“I want to make love to you, Gina. Soon.”
She could taste him on her lips, feel the warm strength of him under her hands. “Real soon.”
“Yes.” A promise sealed with a kiss. Then he was all business, checking th
e time and organizing their schedule. “There’s a bakery a block out of the way of the direct route to the Collegium. We have time to pick up coffee and muffins.”
Gina wasn’t surprised to arrive at the steps of the Collegium one minute before seven o’clock. Lewis had everything scheduled. The coffee had been worth the detour, mellow yet strong, and he carried a box piled high with muffins. He’d even finished his coffee a hundred meters back, leaving his right hand free to shake hands in greeting.
Fay Olwen met them on the steps, moving out of a crowd of people disgorged from the subway. Beside her stalked a man Lewis’s height, but leaner. And more dangerous-looking. “Steve Jekyll, my fiancé,” Fay introduced him to Gina.
“Good to meet you.” Light brown eyes assessed her unsmilingly.
“Shall we?” Lewis gestured to the Collegium’s entrance.
Gina threw her coffee cup in a trash can and started up the steps. The other three moved with a daunting level of alertness and power. Some people had questioned a mage of Fay’s ability falling for a were, but having seen Steve, Gina didn’t. As a were he mightn’t have magic, but anyone who thought that made him less of a threat was an idiot. Fay had chosen a partner who matched her guardian-trained level of menace.
Unlike the mismatch of Gina and Lewis.
As the four of them walked up the steps and into the foyer of the Collegium, Gina was well aware that she was by far the least lethal of the four.
But that doesn’t mean I’m a pushover. Her house witchery magic stirred, agitated, and she had to coil it in before it whipped through the foyer, pushing out the stale air and old magics in a first stage spring clean.
Although, it would be kind of appropriate. What was the current Collegium restructure but an attempt to clean house?
At the desk, the receptionist was just settling into her shift. She was puttering around, sipping a mug of coffee. She choked at the sight of the four of them and hurriedly put down the mug. “Ugh. Good morning, President Bennett.” Her gaze skittered over them. “Ms. Olwen.”
Dragon Knight (The Collegium Book 3) Page 14