by Jayne Castle
She heard someone scream softly in the shadows. Belatedly she realized that she was the screamer.
Davis gripped her buttocks and pushed himself into her in one smooth, relentless move. He thrust twice, three times and then he went quartz-hard all over. She opened her eyes to look down at him and saw his mouth open in a grimace that could have been either great pain or unbelievable pleasure.
He roared.
There was no other word for it. It was the cry of an exultant male claiming his mate.
She had time to thank her lucky amber that none of her relatives were in the room next door before she collapsed along the length of him.
A LONG TIME LATER HE ROUSED HIMSELF, ROLLED AWAY from her, and flopped back onto the pillows. There was enough emerald-tinted light coming through the sliding glass door to show her that he was smiling with masculine satisfaction.
“You always do that?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Scream.”
She blushed furiously. Well, at least with all the shadows he couldn’t see her turning bright pink.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled.
He levered himself up on one elbow and looked down at her. “Why don’t you know?”
“I’ve never done that before.”
“Screamed?”
“Had an orgasm.”
He was clearly taken back. “Are you sure?”
“It isn’t the kind of thing you make a mistake about, is it?”
“No, it’s not.”
“Trust me, I’ve never felt anything that delicious before in my life. I’d have remembered.”
“Sorry you had to wait this long, but I have to tell you I’m very glad I was around when it finally happened.”
“Me, too.” She wound her arms around his neck. “You think maybe we could try it again? Make sure it wasn’t a one-time thing?”
“My pleasure.”
He bent his head and covered her mouth with his own. Energy flared once more in the shadowed room.
A LONG TIME LATER, SHE AWOKE WITH A START, AWARE that she was being carried in a man’s arms. Fear lanced through her, bringing with it memories of the terrible night that Benson Landry had carried her into the hotel room, pretending to the staff that she was intoxicated.
“No.” Instinctively she started to struggle.
The arms that cradled her tightened, imprisoning her against a hard male chest.
“Take it easy,” Davis said gently. “You’re okay. You’re just dreaming.”
The reassuring sound of his voice and the familiar pulse of his psi waves drove out the brief panic. She opened her eyes and looked up at him.
“What are you doing?” she asked, still disoriented.
“Taking you back to your bed.”
That didn’t sound promising.
“Why?” she asked, bewildered now.
“I like to sleep alone,” he said quietly. He put her down onto her bed and straightened. “Don’t take it personally.”
She was mortified. He might be perfect for her, but in spite of what they had just shared, the feeling was not reciprocated. It was not as if he had not warned her that he was not interested in long-term relationships, she reminded herself. And it was not as if there were rules against one-night stands for very good reasons. Still, kicking her out of his bed before the night was over seemed a little extreme.
She felt humiliated. She was also furious.
“Got news for you,” she said. “I am taking it personally.”
She pulled the covers up to her chin, rolled onto her side, and turned away from him.
He did not leave immediately. She could feel him standing there, looking down at her. She held her breath, wondering if he would change his mind.
“Good night,” he said very quietly.
He went back into his own room. She lay awake for a long time, looking out the window at the glowing green spires and towers of the Dead City. Araminta hopped up onto the bed, cuddled close, and made soft little sounds.
He’s Mr. Almost Perfect, Celinda reminded herself, not Mr. Perfect. Get used to it.
She finally went to sleep.
Chapter 17
BENSON LANDRY’S PHONE REZZED LOUDLY. HE HAD JUST disengaged from the luscious, energetic, extremely inventive blonde, and he was enjoying the pleasant ennui of the aftermath. He was in no mood to take the call. But there weren’t many people who had his private number. When someone used it, there was always a reason.
He rolled away from the blonde, sat up on the edge of the bed, and reached for the phone.
“Landry,” he said. “This had better be important.”
“If you will give me five minutes of your valuable time, I think you will find what I have to say very interesting, Mr. Landry.”
The voice was cultured, resonant, authoritative. It was also unfamiliar. That was enough to rez a slew of alarm bells.
“Who is this?” he asked sharply.
“My name is Dr. Titus G. Kennington. I believe you and I have an acquaintance in common. A woman named Celinda Ingram.”
His insides went cold. He reached back and gave the blonde a hard shove.
She got the message. It wasn’t the first time he had sent her away immediately after he had finished with her. Expressionless, she got out of bed, picked up her things, and went into the bathroom to dress.
“What about Celinda Ingram?” he said into the phone, suppressing the urgency that had suddenly consumed him. He had thought that problem had been settled four months ago.
“We’ll get to her in a moment. First, let us discuss our partnership.”
“Why in green hell should I take you on as a partner?”
“Because I am prepared to give you something you want very badly in exchange.”
“That would be?”
“I can ensure first that you become the new boss of the Frequency Guild. I am also prepared to go further. I will help you achieve your other goals: a bride from a wealthy, high-ranking, non-Guild family and a shot at a senate seat.”
I’m dealing with a real nutcase, Benson thought. But since this particular whack job had gotten close enough to obtain his private number, he had to pay attention. The only thing he could do was keep the guy talking as long as possible so that he could get enough information to find him.
“Sounds promising,” he said. “Out of curiosity, how are you going to go about fulfilling your end of the bargain?”
The blonde emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed. She went to the door without a word and let herself out into the hall. Benson ignored her. His security staff would escort her off the estate.
“You will soon see,” Kennington said. “Now, then, as a member of the Frequency Guild Council, I assume you’ve heard the rumors about a certain alien relic that went missing from the Cadence Guild security vault?”
This was getting more interesting by the second. Maybe the guy wasn’t a total whack job after all.
“There’s talk going around that an artifact was stolen,” he said carefully. “Wyatt is keeping the whole thing quiet, but they say he’s looking hard. He wants it back.”
“He wants to recover it because it is extremely unusual,” Kennington said. “It’s made of a type of amber that no one has come across before. But not even Wyatt knows about the relic’s unique properties.”
“What properties?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, so I suggest a demonstration, instead.”
“If you think I’m going to waste my time—”
“I assure you, Mr. Landry, once you have seen what the ruby amber device can do, you will be extremely eager to form a partnership with me.”
“How are you going to demonstrate the damn thing if it’s missing?”
“I’ll let you in on a little secret, sir, something that no one else knows. There are two ruby amber artifacts in existence. I’ve got the other one.”
“In that case, why do you want a second one?”
“It is simply too powerful and too valuable to be left in the hands of people who have no idea what it can do.”
“Why make a deal with me?” Benson asked.
“I think, given the course of recent events, that your odds of recovering the second relic are much better than mine,” Kennington said.
“Why?”
“A variety of reasons. First, the person who knows the location of the other relic is currently in Frequency City. That is your town. As a Guild Councilman you can operate freely without inviting unwanted scrutiny. And last, but certainly not least, you have an intimate acquaintance with Celinda Ingram.”
The old rage welled up out of the dark pit inside Benson.
“How does that bitch come into this?”
“I do not believe that she currently has the relic in her possession, because if that were true, the Cadence Guild would have forced her to return it. But it appears that she knows where it is.”
Should have killed her when I had the chance. Four months ago he had realized that Celinda had somehow sensed the deep well of darkness that was the source of his power; sensed it and feared it. For years he had been able to conceal the churning black pit from the rest of the world, but when she had refused to take him on as a client, he had known that she was aware of his secret. There was no other explanation for her actions. He was a member of the Guild Council, after all, the most powerful ghost hunter in town. No one turned him down.
But getting rid of her permanently four months ago would have been too risky, he reminded himself. The murder of the most exclusive matchmaker in Frequency would have launched a high-profile investigation. The police would have demanded Guild cooperation, and that old fool Harold Taylor would not have protected him.
“Let’s say I agree to recover the second relic for you,” he said. “Why would I give it to you? If it has some valuable properties, as you claim, I’d want to keep it for myself.”
“You are, of course, free to do so,” Kennington said in that same smooth, annoyingly urbane tone. “But it won’t do you any good. Even assuming you understood its unique properties, you would not be able to rez it.”
“Why not?”
“It requires a special type of psi talent: my kind. But in exchange for the recovery of the artifact, I will agree to employ the device on your behalf.”
“You really think you can use it to make sure I become the next boss of the Frequency Guild?”
“And everything else you want, Mr. Landry.” Kennington was practically purring. “Everything else. I trust that you will think of this arrangement as a mutually beneficial one. In your position as a man of increasing power and influence, you can help me in many ways. I, in turn, will use the device to take you as high as you wish to go. Do we have an agreement?”
“First I’ll need to see what the relic can do.”
“Of course. I suggest we perform the demonstration immediately. You may choose the venue. There is just one stipulation.”
“What’s that?”
“Like ghost light, the power of the relic is quite weak unless it is accessed underground or close to a source of alien psi.”
“My office is in the Old Quarter,” he said. He was getting jacked up. His instincts told him he was onto something important. “It sits directly over a hole-in-the wall.”
“That should do it. Also, for purposes of this demonstration, we will need an experimental subject.”
“Who?”
“It doesn’t matter to me. One of your men, perhaps, or a member of your household staff.”
“Hang on.” Benson rezzed the bedside security intercom.
The guard at the gate answered immediately.
“Yes, Mr. Landry?”
“Has the woman left yet?”
“Miss Stowe? She’s here now. One of the men is getting ready to drive her home.”
“Bring her back to the house. I’m not quite finished with her after all.”
Chapter 18
“GOT NEWS FOR YOU, I AM TAKING IT PERSONALLY.” Davis gazed up at the ceiling. He was screwed. It had been too much to hope that she wouldn’t wake up when he carried her into the other room, too much to hope that she might not have a problem with the fact that he wanted to sleep alone.
He didn’t want to sleep alone. He wanted to spend the rest of the night with her curled tightly against him. He wanted to wake up in the morning and find her in his arms.
But he didn’t dare take that risk.
It was a long time before he fell asleep. When he did, he dreamed.
He held the child tightly in his arms. The kidnappers were not far behind. They were still invisible in the maze of catacombs, but it wouldn’t be long now before they closed in. They were homing in on the frequency of the amber he wore in his watch.
He had just ditched the watch in a nearby tunnel. He had backup amber set at a different frequency, but he could not risk using it yet. It would not take the men who were following them long to pick up the second signal and realize that he had switched amber.
There was only one chance left.
“Close your eyes and don’t move, Mary Beth. I promise you that if we both stay absolutely still for the next few minutes, the bad men won’t even see us.”
“Okay,” Mary Beth whispered.
She clung to him, one arm wrapped around his neck, and regarded him with the solemn trust that only a six-year-old child could give. It was a miracle that she had any confidence in him at all after what she’d been through. She had never met him before in her life. But forty-five minutes ago he had rescued her from the kidnappers, and she had believed him when he told her that he had come to take her home.
The sounds of the approaching men were closer now. They were using a sled. There was no way a man carrying a six-year-old kid could outrun one.
Not much longer, he thought. Maybe thirty seconds. He had to get the timing right, or he and Mary Beth would never make it out of this chamber.
Mary Beth closed her eyes and pressed her face against his chest, a child trying to hide from the monsters under the bed.
The sled was very close now. He could hear the sound of the simple amber-drive motor. Only the most primitive kinds of engines worked underground.
“He’s close,” one of the men said, excited. “We’ve got him. Can’t be more than a hundred feet away.”
“Move it,” another man said. “If he gets out of here with the girl, we’re all dead.”
“Stay very, very still, Mary Beth,” he whispered. She froze in his arms.
He pulled silver light. A lot of it.
The sled hummed loudly. It rolled out of one of the ten vaulted entrances of the underground chamber. And then the driver brought the damn thing to a halt, right in the middle of the room.
“Check the frequency,” the driver snapped.
He held his breath and his focus, counting the seconds.
One minute.
The second man on the sled studied the amber-rez locator. “Straight ahead.”
Two minutes.
“You sure?” the driver demanded, looking at the nine other doorways.
“Positive. I’m telling you, I’ve got a solid reading.”
“I don’t like this,” the third man said uneasily. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
Three minutes. The men continued to argue. Mary Beth did not stir, although he could feel her little body shivering with fear.
Four minutes.
“All right, let’s go,” the driver said, making the executive decision.
The bastard finally rezzed the sled’s engine. The little vehicle shot across the chamber. It made straight for the vaulted doorway, zeroing in on the frequency of the amber watch that lay on the quartz floor just inside.
The sled passed within a yard of where he stood with Mary Beth pressed tightly against his chest.
Five minutes. An eternity.
“Ghost-shit,” the driver howled. “That’s his damned watch. He tricked us.”
But it was too late. The driver couldn’t stop the sled in time. It plowed straight through the faint shadows cloaking the vaulted entrance of the tunnel, triggering the alien illusion trap.
The men screamed when they were plunged into the trap’s psychically generated alien nightmares, but not for long. No human could stay conscious for more than a few seconds under those conditions. Mary Beth jerked at the sounds.
He stopped working silver light. He was breathing hard and already starting to shake. He didn’t need to test his amber to know that he had melted it. Luckily he now had a fresh supply.
“It’s okay, Mary Beth,” he said. “The bad men can’t hurt you now.”
She raised her head and looked at him with big, amazed eyes. “They went right past us, but they didn’t even see us.”
“No,” he said. “They didn’t.”
He had to move quickly. The clock was ticking. He had maybe fifteen minutes at most to get back to the rendezvous point and turn Mary Beth over to the team. At least they now had the sled. With the illusion trap triggered, it was safe to go through the doorway to get it.
“It was like we were invisible,” Mary Beth whispered, watching him kick the three unconscious men off the sled.
“Yeah.” He checked the slab’s amber-rez locator. It was functioning. “Like we were invisible.”
He made the rendezvous point. The last thing he remembered was the face of the hunter who took the girl out of his arms. Then the cold chills swept over him, and everything faded to black.
FIVE DAYS LATER HE AWOKE TO DISCOVER THAT HE was trapped in a living hell named the Glenfield Institute, dimly aware of what was going on around him but utterly unable to communicate. He could smell the coffee the doctors drank and hear their grim diagnosis.
“Psi coma. He may never come out of it. Even if he does surface, he’s going to be a total burnout case. He’ll spend the rest of his life in a parapsych ward.”
Chapter 19
TITUS KENNINGTON LOOKED AROUND BENSON LANDRY’S office with amused disdain. Talk about clinging to the past, he thought. Unlike the Cadence Guild headquarters, which under Mercer Wyatt’s command had been moved into a gleaming downtown office tower, the Frequency Guild was still located in its original compound in the Old Quarter of the city.