“Uh-oh,” Rafe said.
As soon as they reached her front door, Tiro opened it. His brows gnarled as he looked at the dowsing rod and pain sped over his face.
“Tell me how I can help you mend this,” Rafe said, offering him the rod.
Tiro lifted his gaze to Rafe. “You fought with it?”
“Shadleeches.”
A quiver passed through Tiro. “You won?”
“All three died.”
Tiro nodded, glanced at Amber’s fingers. “You saved Amber?”
A corner of Rafe’s mouth lifted. “I helped.”
“Then you used the stick well.” The brownie’s chest expanded with a breath. “There is enough magic here in the Circle, and enough materials here and at number two to repair the divining rod.” He huffed out a sigh. “I’ll have it back to you in a couple of hours.” Tiro whisked it from Rafe and was gone.
Amber went into the kitchen and washed her hands. The water stung a bit more, but seemed to help her hands. Rafe helped her put antiseptic cream on her fingers.
“You were great,” he said.
“So were you, though I think we should have run in the first place.”
He grunted.
She shouldn’t have expected him to agree.
“The rod might come in handy if it warns of evil.”
“Yeah.” Then he proceeded to stretch his entire body. She admired how he moved.
He caught her watching and he smiled and her heart thumped hard.
He shook his head. “Whole situation is incredible.”
“Yes,” she said. “But you aren’t in this alone.”
“Thank God.”
He picked up her hands and looked at them, lifted each to his mouth and brushed a kiss on the back. “We aren’t in this alone.”
“No.”
“Good.”
Several hours later Amber had taken care of business, including contacting three new clients that she thought wouldn’t take her too long to work, but keep her referrals going. She’d meet with one of the couples here in the consulting room when Rafe went to his fencing lesson.
She’d set up the files on her laptop when the alarm they’d set for Rafe rang. She walked to the entryway to see Rafe in loose jeans and sweatshirt with a workout bag standing by the front door. He was smiling.
No need to tell her that he was itching to get out of the house.
“Be careful,” she couldn’t help saying. “Things can go wrong with even play swords.”
His expression turned sober and he nodded, raised a palm as if taking a vow. “I’ll be careful.”
“And be careful driving.” She couldn’t stop the warnings from spurting from her. “That’s the worse.”
He nodded. “Very careful driving.”
She sighed. “At least the place is close and it isn’t rush hour.”
“I’ll go by the backstreets. It’s only six miles.”
“Famous last words.”
“You going somewhere, too?” He stared at her dress.
“Meeting a client.” She added gently, “Rafe, you don’t live in Denver, and Conrad isn’t here. I don’t know when he’ll return from Eastern Europe. I need a referral flow.”
He scowled. “We’re paying you plenty—”
“Yes, you are. But both your and Conrad’s cases are going to be very challenging, and take me a long time back in the past. I want to balance that with something easier.” She smiled. “What, did you always go from one huge competition to another?”
His mouth twitched. “Yeah, yeah. Okay, I get it.” He opened one side of his black leather jacket and his smile broadened.
“What’s that?” Amber asked. It was a little stick in his inner pocket.
“Tiro made it for me.” He pulled out something that looked like a cocktail stirrer but was metal. “A miniature dowsing rod. I can figure out whether humans or human-Lightfolk mixes or Lightfolk are near. Still needs to be this shape, though. As I get better, I might be able to use something symbolic, like a pin and tack.” Rafe pointed it at her. “Still frothy.”
“So you’ll be able to judge your coach at the Lyceum.”
Rafe nodded. “Him, too. He squeezed me in between another private lesson and a class. I’ll be able to practice with this little rod on everyone.” He tucked the thing back into his pocket. “It might even work on a dark minion or two.”
“You’re sure?”
“I know what humans and humans with magic or curses feel like. I know what half humans and half Lightfolk feel like, and brownies.” He patted the outside of his jacket over the pocket. “The stick likes them, there’s an attraction.” He slid a sly grin toward her and raised his brows. “Especially to froth.” Then his face sobered. “But there should be a repulsion to the Dark, like when the dowsing rod reacted to the dead shadleeches. Warning, maybe.”
“Good.”
He smiled wryly. “I hope so.” His glance went to the front door. “Can’t stay in the neighborhood forever.”
She looked at the door, too. The claw marks of the puppies no longer showed. The jamb and door itself had been refurbished by Tiro. Before she had time to consider the fact, Rafe set an arm around her waist and pulled her to him.
Her gaze went to his face and his intent blue eyes.
“I wouldn’t have survived without you,” he said. His lips lowered and his tongue nibbled at her bottom lip and she let him in, tasted him. The apple tang was stronger—his magic? Then she quit thinking as her body arched against his, found him ready for sex, and her own core dampened and she emitted a soft and needy moan. Too much. She slid from his grasp and took a couple of steps.
She was panting. Actually panting after a man. No, after a kiss from a dangerously seductive man.
His eyes were gleaming bright with want. “Yeah, I better get going. Sure want some physical release.” He winked and she wondered how many of the coaches were female and whether his was. He turned the knob, then frowned.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He yanked and a whoosh of air pushed in.
“Darn, the wind has come up.”
“Yeah,” he growled. “Nothing I hate more than wind unless I’m sailing. Later.”
The door slammed behind him.
Two hours later, Amber was getting increasingly restless and unable to concentrate on her work when Rafe called.
“Uh, Amber, can you come and pick me up? And maybe bring a friend?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said.
She strove to feel whether that was the truth or not and couldn’t tell.
“A friend?” she asked.
“A chocolate-loving friend.”
She hesitated, wondering how much this would cost her with the brownies. The expense didn’t matter. “Sure, you’re at the Denver Fencing Lyceum?”
“Yeah. The Jag’s squashed.”
Her breath simply stopped. “Squashed.”
“Big branch hit it. I ducked. I’m fine, a couple of scrapes.”
“Oh.” She inhaled slowly. “No shadleeches?”
“Not this time.” His voice was even as he said, “Mark, my coach, says that rotten tree has been waiting to come down for years. Tough luck for the rental company, though. Think I’ll get a Hummer next.”
A Hummer would tempt him into the mountains for sure. Amber bit her lip. “I’ll be right there.”
She called Hartha and Pred and explained the situation. “Rafe thinks that one of you being in the car might help keep him safe. We’ll stop at a store and get whatever kind of chocolate you want.”
“Hate human vehicles!” Hartha and Pred said in unison.
Amber stiffened her spine. “All right. I asked. Thank you anyway.”
The brownies looked at each other and Pred whimpered. “I will meet you there. Show me on a map where it is. I read human maps.”
“Fine. And you’ll ride back with us? It’s only six miles.”
&
nbsp; He hissed but nodded. “Want solid dark chocolate bars. Big.” He crossed his arms.
“Done,” Amber said. Pred trailed her into the downstairs study and looked at the map on the laptop. He hissed again, ears rolling tight against his head, and disappeared with an audible pop that she thought was disapproval for the whole enterprise.
All three of them made it back with no incident. Pred had refused to talk no matter how hard Amber and Rafe tried, and just huddled on the floor behind Rafe’s seat. As soon as they parked, he snatched his chocolate and ran to Jenni’s house and straight through the steps up to her porch.
Rafe looked fine. He leaned against the kitchen counter as Amber made dinner and enthused for an hour about the fencing class. He’d signed up for daily personal lessons and classes with others. He also had found a dojo to practice his rusty hand-to-hand skills.
“Okay,” Amber said, knowing she’d miss having him around the house. “Your idea about using Pred as a bodyguard was right. Nothing happened.”
Rafe frowned. “A bodyguard would be good, but I don’t think a human, even an extraordinarily trained human, would work.”
“But we know somewhere we might be able to hire others.”
“What?”
She inhaled to the bottom of her lungs. “I think we should call or visit Eight Corp.”
“It’s an energy company,” Rafe said.
“Magical energy. And it’s a software company, Melding Myths. Who knows what else it is? Or who and what might be there? They might have someone who’s interested in doing bodyguard duty for you. They are certainly aware of you.”
“We’ll pay them a surprise visit tomorrow,” Rafe said. “Better lay in a big supply of chocolate.”
Chapter 17
THE NEXT MORNING they drove through downtown Denver. Eight Corp’s building didn’t have an underground parking area—the dwarves and the brownies had other uses for that space?—so Rafe circled until he found a lot. He came around the vehicle and opened the door for her, held out his hand.
She took it and left her fingers in his, and they walked hand in hand. She liked that, the small zips of attraction between them. Nothing wrong with appreciating a man who appreciated her.
The concrete still held the chill of the winter and they hurried up the stairs to the street and out into the sunshine, where they strolled. Rafe didn’t seem in any more of a hurry to check out Eight Corp than she.
Here, in the sheltered warmth of the tall buildings, the trees had large buds. Soon she and Rafe reached the Sixteenth Street Mall, with no vehicle traffic other than the free shuttle. “Not my quiet neighborhood,” she said, then frowned. “Something’s different down here.”
Rafe grunted, his head came up like a hunter’s. Even after only one session and a class with the fencers, he was less casual about people. He’d already picked up prowling like a predator instead of gliding in an easy sort of way like an athlete. Amber was sorry to see that change in him, but thought it was more of a natural talent being revealed than learned behavior. His bloodline had been designed to kill the Dark, after all.
“There’s magic here, a lot of it,” he said.
Amber stopped and he did, too. She lifted her head. That’s what she’d been sensing, but she hadn’t figured it out. Rafe had. He was learning rapidly in other areas, too. And he had more magic than she. Envy twinged within her and was dismissed. This was not a competition, this was a joint project.
To save him.
Tensing, she scanned the street. There were a couple of homeless people who looked weird, but, on the whole, everyone appeared normal. No one threatening.
“And the magic seems a little familiar.” Rafe’s mouth flattened. “Like the game.”
“Jenni Weavers’s magic,” Amber said.
His shoulders relaxed. “Maybe that’s it.”
“She’s not pure Lightfolk, she’s human like us.”
He squinted up at the sky between the buildings. “Definitely magic here. And, I think, it’s circulating, like a pump.”
“Hartha said something about a meld between magic and human energy sources.”
Rafe shook his head. “Too deep for me, but whatever they’re doing, it’s working.”
Now that he’d pointed it out, she could feel magic sinking into her as if tiny motes slipped into her pores. Would everyone feel that, even people with no trace of magic?
She was more curious than before about Eight Corp. Would whoever was there help them?
Rafe began walking and she kept up. The skyscraper that Eight Corp was in had a dry fountain, still too early to set it going, even if there was no drought this year.
She and Rafe touched door handles together. Magic smacked a spark on her palm like static electricity. Rafe grunted. They pulled the doors open. To the left was a state-of-the-art security console. Would they even make it to Eight Corp? Maybe they should have called ahead.
And been refused on the phone.
“Security,” she whispered.
“Now if you were an elf would you worry about security?” he murmured back.
Rafe dropped her hand and walked with more of a businessman’s stride. He wore expensive slacks and a jacket, the same outfit she’d first seen him in. She wore a tailored suit she’d bought last year.
The security guard was a heavy older man. “IDs, please,” he asked gruffly, not holding out his hand for them.
Rafe passed his driver’s license over and the guard swiped the magnetic stripe across a panel. Rafe got his back and Amber handed the man hers.
“We’re here for Eight Corp,” Rafe said easily, looking at the banks of elevators.
“You have an appointment?”
“No,” Rafe said.
“You can go on up to the thirty-second floor, but I have to call the receptionist.”
“Fine,” Rafe said. He took Amber’s arm as she put her license back in her bag, and led her over to the elevator. Not businesslike but she enjoyed his touch.
At the elevator bay, when she breathed in, she breathed in magic.
“Nice,” Rafe said.
She waited until the doors closed before she replied, “I wonder what we’ll find.”
“I don’t think it will be a troubleshooter and a troublehacker,” Rafe said.
Amber could feel his anticipation. “I agree,” she said. “They made a point that they and the—” she cleared her throat “—royals were busy elsewhere.”
“With a big battle upcoming,” Rafe said grimly. “This place is probably staffed with underlings, then.”
The elevator door opened and they stepped onto thick carpet.
“It’s not a rug,” Rafe said. “Magic.”
Amber looked down to see moss.
Rafe crossed over to a huge granite desk that was set against a slab of grayish marble. Amber didn’t think the woman who sat behind the desk could reach the floor with her feet.
The small woman, surely a dwarf, stared at them then opened her mouth a little and curled her tongue.
Rafe stiffened. “What?”
Amber said, “I’ve seen the brownies do that. I think she’s testing magic.”
There was a sound like cracking and falling scree, the woman put her hands flat on the desk. “I am not a brownie!”
“Dwarf,” Rafe said matter-of-factly. He bowed.
Amber saw the receptionist’s nameplate. “How do you do, Mrs. Daurfin.”
“Humans!”
Rafe snorted. “Some reception.”
The female dwarf—dwarfem?—hopped over her desk and thunked to the ground, came closer and sniffed loudly. Her eyes widened and she backpedaled to her desk.
“Stupid Cumulustre child and a cursed one.” Her fingers fluttered.
Rafe strolled forward, pulled two green cards from his pocket. “Pavan and Vikos paid me a visit.”
“The guardians. Get away from me.” The woman hurried back behind the barrier of her desk.
Rafe laughed. “I’d like to talk
to someone about that cursed business, for sure.”
“I can’t help you. No one here can. You pollute this space. Go away.”
“Why are you here if you can’t help us?” Amber asked.
“This is the Meld Project. I am here because dwarves are gatekeepers,” the woman muttered.
“Maybe you could tell someone else that we’re here?” Amber suggested.
When Rafe pulled his miniature divining stick from his jacket pocket it began quivering wildly in his fingers. “Plenty of magic here—magical beings, too.”
The thing pointed toward Mrs. Daurfin.
“Pardon me,” Rafe said, then angled his whole body toward the left side of a corridor off the lobby. His brows lowered. “A whole lot of energies I haven’t defined yet. Minor elemental energies, but no brownies.”
“Go. Now, humans. No one here is interested in speaking with humans.” She wrinkled the small blob of her nose. “I don’t like the smell of you.”
“We would like to speak to someone about hiring a bodyguard for Rafe. A minor elemental will do.”
“And there are plenty of them to talk to. We’ll wait,” Rafe said, and slid onto one of the leather couches. His gaze was fixed on the crack of a door that had seemed part of the wall.
Any other receptionist who wanted them gone would be calling security, but apparently the dwarf woman didn’t think to do that.
Amber pulled the largest chocolate candy bar she’d been able to find from her purse and peeled back the corner. The scent of cocoa wasn’t much to her nose, but the dwarf woman’s nostrils flared.
“We’ll pay in chocolate.” Amber put the candy on Mrs. Daurfin’s desk. “This is for you.” She hadn’t ever bribed a person before.
The dwarf had big, round ears set against her head. Amber thought that if she’d been a brownie they’d be tightly rolled.
“I smell chocolate,” boomed a voice. A man with reddish skin, smaller than his deep and resonant voice indicated, appeared in the room. He was shorter than Rafe by several inches and thinner.
“If you will take these two to the street, I will give you half of this!” The dwarfem waved the chocolate bar.
His eyes fired, literally, little flames danced in the pupils. Amber watched, riveted.
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