by Joy Nash
He clicked the game window closed. His screen saver was a wide expanse of open sea. “Yeah,” he said, sounding slightly embarrassed. “Computers are a hobby of mine.”
She eyed his guitar. “And music?”
“I play around some.” Swiveling his stool around, he looked up at her. “Why do you ask?”
She was struck again by how young he was. Sixteen, barely. There was a zit on his chin. What was he doing here? A possible explanation occurred to her, one that would certainly explain the odd surge of power she’d felt from him back in London.
“Are you…Kalen’s son?”
He blinked, clearly taken aback. “Gods, no.” He sounded wistful, as if he wished he were. “Kalen doesn’t have any offspring.”
“Then who are you? What’re you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me you knew Kalen when I showed you my sketch back in London?”
He held up his hand in mock alarm. “One at a time, love. To answer your questions…nobody, nothing, and because I didn’t feel like it.”
“You’re not nobody. That was quite a trick you did with the monitor.”
He shrugged, fiddling with the mouse. “So I have a bit of magic. You do too, love.”
“Nothing like yours.”
He glanced up at her. “That’s not entirely true, now, is it? You’re a water witch.”
“Are you?”
He hesitated. “Of a sort.” He regarded her thoughtfully. “You came a long way, looking for Kalen. You know what he is, I’m guessing.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not his usual type. I’m surprised he even let you in here.”
“He didn’t let me in. He brought me here.”
“Even better. But I’m sure he didn’t send you down here on your own.” He gave her a cheeky grin. “Especially not dressed like that. He doesn’t allow anyone in his office.”
“You’re here.”
“Oh, me. Well, love, I hardly count, now, do I? Kalen needs someone to distract him, else he’d end up cramming every damn painting and statue in the world into this godsforsaken castle. The man’s bloody obsessed.”
“Have you known him a long time?”
“Long enough.” He placed his hands on his thighs and stood. “So now, tell me, my beautiful little witch, why are you here? Other than for the obvious, I mean.”
Christine huffed. “Why does everyone assume I came here for that?”
“Ah, but you did get some, didn’t you?”
She scowled.
He laughed and held up a hand. “Say no more, love. You don’t have to explain. Kalen has a way with women.” He paused. “Though I must say, it’s been quite some time since he’s brought one home.”
“He brought Leanna here.”
Mac’s green gaze sharpened. “You know about her?”
“Do you?”
“More than I want to, believe me. I’ve been trying for years to put Kalen off her, but does the almighty Immortal take my advice? No, he does not.”
“I guess when you’re three thousand years old, you don’t tend to listen to teenagers.”
Mac huffed. “As if you’re the wizened elder. How old, love?”
“Twenty-six. And you’re what, sixteen? Seventeen?” She was being generous.
He snorted. “Old enough to know my way around.”
“And you’re Kalen’s what…friend?”
“Now, that’s an interesting question. I suppose you might say I’m as close to a friend as Kalen’s got.”
She sighed. “That’s a sad thought.”
“What? You don’t think I’m worthy?” He sounded put out.
“No! I didn’t mean it that way.” She ran her fingers along the edge of the table. “It’s just that he seems so…”
“Alone,” Mac supplied.
“Yes.”
“You’re right. He is.” He peered at Christine as if seeing her for the first time. “You know, you’re really very sweet. I can’t fathom it. Kalen hates ‘sweet.’ Why didn’t he send you off when the sun rose?” He waggled his brows. “Were you that good?”
“You’re a little jerk, you know that?” But it was impossible to work up any real anger. Mac was cute, in a zitty, gangly, adolescent sort of way. She hesitated. “The reason I’m still here is that he’s protecting me. I managed to piss off Leanna during one of her tours.”
Mac whistled under his breath. “What did you do?”
She told him, and he threw back his head and laughed. “Let me get this straight. You, a human, attacked Leanna in front of a pack of tourists? Put a bind on her?”
“I didn’t stop to think—”
He rubbed the sparse stubble on his chin. “Damn me, that’s sweet. Wish I’d been there.”
“You don’t like her?”
“No one really likes—” The sound of Manannán’s “Midsummer Bells” cut off his words. Mac pulled his cell from its clip, checked the display, scowled, and put it back.
“Aren’t you going to answer that?”
“No. Let the bloody woman find someone else to bother for once. Now, as I was saying—no one likes Leanna unless they’re in bed with her. You pissed her off? You’re lucky you’re not dead.”
“Kalen saved me.”
“And now he’s keeping you here.”
“Yes. For protection.”
Mac gave her a quizzical look. “He might have just jumped you across the pond.”
“What?”
“Taken you home to the States with that pop-in, pop-out thing he does. Leanna’s not pure Sidhe—her power is limited. It fades the farther she gets from Celtic lands. She holds her own in Europe, but the New World?” He shook his head. “Her magic’s dead there. Kalen could pop you out of her range in a heartbeat.”
Christine felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. “Why, that arrogant…bastard! He never told me!”
Mac laughed. “Must like you pretty well then.”
Christine harrumphed. Mac remained silent. The last strains of Manannán seeped from the speakers, fading gracefully into nothingness. The electric hum of the computers seemed to amplify in the new silence. Mac frowned and reached for his mouse. A few clicks and another track started up.
“You know,” Christine said suddenly, “I don’t think I’ve heard this one. It is Manannán, isn’t it?”
He shot her a glance. “That’s right. You said you were a fan, didn’t you?”
“Rabid. The man’s pure genius.”
“He’s passable good.”
“Are you kidding? He’s a god among men!”
“Not sure I’d go that far,” Mac muttered. Reaching again for the mouse, he brought up another window.
Christine recognized the program. “Music Creator?”
“You know it? I thought you didn’t own a computer.”
“I don’t. But my boyfriend…” She shook her head. “My ex-boyfriend was a musician. A composer. He used that program. Do you play—oh. Of course you do. You have a guitar.”
“I fool around a bit.”
“Do you compose?”
“A little.”
“And Kalen lets you use his computers.”
“His computers?” Mac snorted. “That pole-up-his-ass throwback barely knows what a computer is. All these are mine, even that sexy machine on his desk. I let him use them. Good thing, too, or he’d be running his gallery business by courier pigeon.”
She laughed. “He is a bit stuck in the past, isn’t he?”
Mac shot her a sardonic look. “Bloody mired in it. I can’t blast him out. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“So the electricity in here…”
“I put it in. Furnace, air-conditioning, and modern plumbing as well.” He nodded to the sliding doors on the adjoining wall. “Just open those and you’ll find a real bathroom, with shower and Jacuzzi, and a small but fully stocked kitchen. Refrigerator, microwave, coffeemaker, and all the junk food you can eat.”
Christine stared at the door. “Are ther
e potato chips in there?”
“Crisps, you mean? Sure. There’s a bag or two of Walker’s, I think.”
She was already there, shoving the door open and plunging into the kitchenette beyond.
“Try the cupboard on the left.” He sounded bemused.
She found the package—salt and vinegar even!—and tore it open. The chips were like heaven on her tongue. “Goddess, I needed that.”
“Not into Pearl’s cooking, I take it?”
“No, it’s fine. It’s just…I crave salt, and Pearl doesn’t seem to keep any around.”
He chuckled, turning back to the computer. “That’s the sea magic in you.” He moved the cursor over the screen, bringing up a playlist. He checked a selection and clicked. “Here, love. Tell me what you think of this.”
Manannán again. Another piece she hadn’t heard. “Where are you getting this stuff? That has to be so new it’s still unreleased.”
“You know Manannán’s work that well?”
“I have everything he ever wrote. I’d love to see him in concert, but he never tours.” She closed her eyes, letting the deep pulse of the melody wash over her. “He’s got such powerful water magic.”
“You know, most people don’t realize that.”
She opened one eye and looked at him. “Seems obvious enough to me.”
Mac clicked off that track and started another. “How does this strike you?”
She listened to a few bars. It was similar to the first two, a techno backbeat combined with the drum of a rainstorm, but…in place of the usual electric guitar there was a series of acoustical riffs. She frowned. “Are you sure that’s Manannán?”
“I’m sure, love.”
“But he doesn’t play acoustic. Only electric.”
“It’s something new he’s trying.” He gazed at her with an intent expression. “Do you like it?”
She let the melody drift over her. It was different, yes, but just as compelling as all Manannán’s music. “Very much.”
The tension went out of his shoulders. “Brilliant.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Green Seas Studios. It was…um…just lying around.”
Green Seas was Manannán’s recording studio. Mac must work there, if he’d come away with a treasure like this. The melody soared, dipped, rose again. A rare harsh note rang, then faded. The minor key shifted to a soulful, soothing major—C-sharp, she thought. Christine body started to sway.
Mac held out his hand. “Dance with me, love?”
Christine smiled at his earnest expression. “Sure. Why not?”
Kalen’s meeting with Fiona had been brisk and productive. His Edinburgh gallery manager—unlike some of his employees on the continent—was the epitome of efficiency. Kalen’s last-minute addition to the upcoming show was no problem at all. Now there was only the matter of collecting the pieces.…
Christine’s apartment in Rome was easy enough to locate. She’d mentioned the church it was near; all it took to locate her flat was a hundred Euros in the palm of a newsstand attendant. The building was decrepit. Christine’s apartment was on the top floor, up five flights of dingy staircase. He swore. How could she live in such a place? The neighborhood was lousy with zombies and other diseased creatures. She was lucky she wasn’t dead.
She’d set wards on her door, of course. The protections were strong enough, he allowed grudgingly, for most magical threats. They were nothing to Kalen, however. He dismantled them with a word and a touch and opened the door.
The apartment was a single room with a lone window that looked out not onto the street, but onto a narrow airshaft, which, being near the roof, at least let in a decent amount of light. Furniture was minimal but functional—a narrow bed, a decrepit table and chair, a shaky easel and stool. But it wasn’t these elements that had Kalen’s jaw dropping.
The place was a wild riot of color. If there was a square inch of the place that had escaped Christine’s brush, he couldn’t see it. Blues and purples streamed up the walls, across the ceiling. Greens and gold pooled in bright puddles under his feet. The forms were liquid, sinuous, sensual. The walls were painted with horizontal strokes, gently wavering, giving the impression of an endless sea. His chest tightened. Christine had poured her very soul onto these walls. Did she never hold back? Did she never protect herself?
He moved to her easel. Her artist’s materials lay in startling disarray on the floor all around. Nearby, clothing lay draped across her unmade bed. A tall bookshelf—painted in the same wild style as the walls—held a cluttered collection of books. Leaning against it was the item he sought—an oversized accordion portfolio. Retrieving it, he untied the ribbon and lifted the flap.
As chaotic as the rest of Christine apartment was, her portfolio was not. He felt the care with which she’d inserted each stiff sheet into its pocket and affixed labels to each tab. He pulled the watercolors out, one by one, and looked at them.
Abstractions all—the type of art Kalen generally hated. Christine’s work, though, was somehow…different. Kalen had spent the last fifty years dealing in modern art. Despite the disdain he’d professed, he knew real talent when he saw it. And Christine did have it—in abundance. Her work was nothing short of magical. She poured her whole soul and being into her art. Her style was flowing, sensuous, yearning. It tightened his gut and caused his heart to ache.
He gazed at a work labeled, simply, Hope. Hope was vibrant gold and pink, gently rounded. The longer Kalen looked at it, the less abstract it seemed, the lines resolving into a human infant’s face.
Extraordinary. He set the sheet on Christine’s rumpled pillow. The next scene was Peace, a gentle series of strokes that melted into the face of an old man. Joy was next, a child playing on a sandy beach. Peace, Hope, Joy… where was Love? He thumbed through the labels, but didn’t find it.
He replaced Christine’s work in the portfolio. It was a short jump to Edinburgh, where he entrusted the paintings into Fiona’s capable hands. Back at the castle, he materialized in the center of the west courtyard, hoping he’d find Christine in his studio. He’d enjoy making love to her amid canvases and pots of paint. He’d been away half the day and his hunger for her was already urgent. He wanted her beneath him again, wanted to lose himself in the welcoming cradle of her thighs. Needed to feel her magic flow into his soul, to emerge when his brush next touched canvas.
He cast out his senses. He caught the pulse of her life essence, cool and fluid, undulating like the sea. He started toward it, then paused, frowning. Christine wasn’t in his studio—her essence vibrated in the stone below his feet. She must have found the old dungeons, where he kept his office. And she wasn’t alone. He sensed another essence entwined with hers.
Damn it all to Hades. Mac was with her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kalen jumped to the dungeon level, materializing in the dank passageway near his office. He stood for several seconds staring at the light spilling from the open door. The music pouring from the room was loud enough to rupture a human eardrum.
He stepped forward. Stopped on the threshold. Peered inside.
Mac and Christine were dancing. Dancing? It looked more like sex with clothes on. Kalen stood in the doorway, temporarily robbed of his capacity for speech. Damn Mac. He’d make a move on anything human and female—he was obsessed with the species. But Christine? He hadn’t thought her so easily swayed.
The two were facing each other, their bodies mere millimeters apart, moving in a sinuous, synchronized rhythm. Their combined magic flowed in an aura of emerald and blue. Mac looked young and human in his green shirt and baggy jeans; Christine looked incredibly sensual, despite her outlandish costume of white shirt and overlarge breeches. Mac’s hands were on Christine’s hips, guiding them in a thrusting movement that had Kalen contemplating murder, as if that were possible. Christine’s head tipped back. She gazed into Mac’s eyes, and laughed with pure delight.
She’d never laughed that way with Kalen.
Anger exploded in his skull; sparks of irrational, jealous rage ignited every nerve. Mac and Christine danced on, blissfully unaware of the explosion waiting to happen just a few yards away. Mac’s hands glided around Christine’s hip to the small of her back. He pressed her groin to his. Christine stretched her arms overhead, her body undulating to the liquid beat of the music.
Mac was playing Manannán, of course. What the hell else?
Damn Mac to Hades. He and Christine were good together. But then, Kalen might have guessed that they would be. They shared a talent for water magic. Even their bodies were similar, lean and rippling. But Mac’s hands on Christine—that was intolerable.
Kalen’s anger expanded, twisted…
Detonated. He surged into the room, white energy shooting from his fingers, taking out the ceiling speakers with a popping noise like gunfire. He sent a final, satisfying bolt whizzing past the back of Mac’s head. It exploded on the wall directly above his computer.
Christine screamed as Mac shoved her to the floor and spun. His green eyes widened as they locked with Kalen’s. For a second, all he did was stare.
Then he began to laugh. “Shit, Kalen. Can’t you just say hello like a normal bloke?”
“There’s nothing funny here, Mac. Get your hands off her.”
“Feeling a mite possessive, are we?” Mac pulled Christine to her feet, wrapping one arm around her shoulder. His green eyes danced.
Christine’s terrified expression caused Kalen a pang of remorse. He might have handled that better, but by the gods, Mac knew how to push his buttons.
“Take your hands off her.”
Mac grinned and slid his palm down Christine’s back.
Kalen raised a hand, took aim. “I’m warning you…”
Mac laughed. “You wouldn’t—”
A white flash cut his words short. The bolt hit Mac’s left shoulder, sending him spinning away from Christine. Stumbling, he grabbed for the computer desk, missed, and went sprawling on the floor with a crash.
Kalen grinned. Damn, that felt good.
His smile abruptly vanished as Christine rushed to Mac’s side, dropping on her knees with a cry. Mac, who’d already been pushing to his feet, gave a theatrical moan and collapsed back to the floor.