by Elise Faber
Because she liked it. Her dumbass body was telling her to lean close, to curl up in his lap and soak up the contact like a freaking kitten.
Anger, full and intoxicating and hot as exploding lava, burst free within her.
Yeah — no. That wasn’t going to happen.
She’d been with Seth because she’d been young and stupid. As friends that were close in age, the natural consequence had been for them to become boyfriend and girlfriend.
After the events ten years ago, she’d sworn off men. Until Trevor. Who’d just broken up with her. Over the phone.
Clearly, she had no business dating or — hell — even looking at men.
“For now we need to leave,” Dom said, and his hand was hot against her skin, a physical reminder that she was about to get burned all over again.
“Dominic,” she said, stepping back, slapping away his hand when he reached for her again. “I’m not leaving. You’ll have to tie me up and drag me back to that hell-hole you call a home.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he said and took a step toward her, closing the distance between them again, making it hard for her to think and sending her fury straight into the stratosphere.
“Back off.” She shoved him and pointed to the other side of the counter. “And get out of here. This space is for employees only.”
Dom looked amused, but he turned and hopped over the counter in one smooth, graceful movement.
She’d break her ass if she tried that.
“Better?” He raised a brow. “And we need to leave because Dalshie have been spotted in the area.”
Her gut clenched at that. Her memories of the Dalshie were frightening, still terrifying after all these years.
“They’re after me?”
Dominic shook his head. “No.”
Confusion drew her brows together. “So why would I have to leave?”
“Because it’s dangerous.” His eyes were wide, as though he couldn’t believe she’d asked such a stupid question.
“But they’re not after me,” she said. “That means their presence is just coincidence, and I’m not changing my life for coincidence.”
She could run into the Dalshie anywhere. Could have encountered them in any of the twenty-something places she’d lived over the last ten years. This wasn’t a freaking crisis. This was her life, her reality.
“It’s not safe.”
Her snort was loud, and she turned to the computer, intending to send over the request of extra pillows for Room 309 to housekeeping. “You didn’t seem too worried about my safety when you sent me away.”
“That’s not what happened.”
Stephanie’s hands froze over the keyboard. “Don’t tell me what happened! I was there. I saw it. I lived it.”
It still gave her nightmares.
Cold water. A joking dare to race to the other side of their swimming hole.
The Dalshie appearing out of thin air, grabbing Daphne and Tiffany.
Wondering if they were alive or dead. If they were suffering.
She still had the scars from scalding black magic, still couldn’t look at a pool or a lake or the freaking ocean without remembering that night.
“I’m fine,” she said and forced her fingers to work, to type in the request and hit enter so it was sent to Housekeeping. “Just run home to the rest of the Forgotten and pretend you never caught up with me.” Her eyes rose to meet his, and her stomach twisted at the determination in his gaze. “I’m better off alone.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Her heart iced over. “You should go.”
The determination on Dom’s face was pushed out as sympathy took its place. “Steph—“
“Go!” she snapped. “Just leave me the hell alone, okay?”
Dom put his hands up and stepped back from the desk. “I’ll go,” he said and turned for the elevators.
“What are you doing?”
He held up a plastic key card over his shoulder but didn’t rotate to face her. “I’m in 429. Promise I won’t ask for extra pillows.”
Stephanie watched in mute horror as Dominic stepped onto the elevator, and the doors shut behind him.
Her shock reverted to anger. Why couldn’t he just leave?
An unwelcome notion wove its way through her body — tingling heat on her cheeks, her shoulders from his touch — into her treacherous heart — a heavy ache — then finally into her mind. It was longing. A desire for him to stay, for her to return home.
Which couldn’t happen.
Ever.
Her home had been destroyed a decade ago. And longing? Really? Her body wanted the man who’d devastated her soul more quickly and easily than a wildfire through a dry forest?
Steph shoved the awful yearning aside and held onto the outrage. Anger was so much easier to bear than loneliness.
She gathered it to her, held it to her heart like so much armor until finally her lips curved up into a smirk, and her fingers flew across the keyboard.
Steph might not be able to do anything to make Dominic leave, but she sure as hell could make his stay miserable. And the first step in that?
He was getting a 5:00 a.m. wake up call.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dominic sighed when the phone rang at 4:59 the next morning. He was already awake, hadn’t been able to sleep, actually. Not with Stephanie down at the desk by herself.
The sharp trill blared again. “Good morning, Steph,” he said into the receiver.
He had the pleasure of a moment of her silence before she found her words. “You were awake?”
A grin tugged up the corners of his mouth. “Yes ma’am.”
“Bastard,” she muttered.
“You know, while I have you. I’d like to order some breakfast.”
Her sigh rattled across the airwaves. “I’m not the kitchen.”
“I’m sure you can relay my order.”
She didn’t respond for a long moment. Then she sighed again. “Fine. What do you want?”
“Scrambled eggs, pancakes, and bacon. For two,” he said. “And two glasses of orange juice.”
“For two?”
Dom liked the note of hostility in her tone. “Yup. For two and… sweetheart?”
“What?” she snapped. “What else could you possibly want?”
“Bring it up yourself.”
He hung up the phone to the sound of her sputtering, knowing it was a snowball’s chance that she’d bring the meal up herself, but wanting to get her alone and confined anyway.
The barbed armor she wore made him sad. Dom knew she’d been hurt by that night ten years ago, but he’d honestly thought she’d wanted to leave. So he’d given her some money and wished her well.
It wasn’t as if he’d thrown her to the wolves. Not like she seemed to think. In fact, he’d read every letter she’d sent to her sister.
Which was the only reason he knew she was in NOLA now.
He clicked on the TV and stared at the parade of early morning news stories that flashed across the screen, watching the blur of faces and videos without really absorbing the stories.
There was a sudden flare of noise from the television, and Dom’s eyes flew up.
“And in sad news, another unexplained murder has occurred just off Bourbon Street. The young female was discovered this morning by a group of college students heading home after a late night out…”
The voice continued, but Dominic’s gaze had locked on the accompanying video. It showed police surrounding the crime scene, a CSI tech draping a sheet over the body. But that wasn’t what caught his stare.
No. There was a flash of blond, the slim but curvy build. And an arm.
An arm with blue flame tattoos.
His gut squeezed tight, and he was instantly bathed in a cold sweat. If he hadn’t just talked to Steph, he would have thought the girl was her.
The Forgotten had markings resembling fire, striking colored patterns that could be mistaken for flame tattoos, which began i
n their palms and extended up to their shoulders.
The markings were just one byproduct of experiments the Dalshie — in conjunction with Hitler — had conducted during WWII.
The Forgotten had been born in those cruel trials, the result of which had transformed them from normal humans into a sort of mutant, magical half-breed.
They’d undergone gene therapy. Hundreds of injections. Multiple forced consumptions of compounds with horrific side effects.
Most of those humans had died.
Those who’d survived had become the Forgotten.
The Dalshie had activated their ability to do magic — just not as well as the as the other two power-wielding races.
But they did get the distinctive flame-like patterns.
It made them different than the Dalshie and Rengalla. Unique, even.
Dom snorted. He sounded like a parent trying to make their misfit kid feel better.
Truth was, the Forgotten didn’t possess the writhing black marks of the Dalshie or multi-faceted elemental abilities of the Rengalla. They were stuck in between, another example of the strange and terrible place they’d found themselves after the experiments had torn them from their human lives.
Those markings had appeared spontaneously on the Forgotten who’d undergone the treatments in the concentration camp of Ravensbrück, but now developed at puberty for those born into their number.
They were distinct. They were impossible to completely hide.
And Steph’s markings looked almost identical to that of the deceased girl’s.
“Shit,” he muttered and thrust a hand through his hair. This should at least do away with Steph’s ridiculous coincidence excuse.
But until that point he hadn’t possessed any evidence that the Dalshie were after her, and if it wasn’t a coincidence, if the Dalshie had targeted that girl specifically because they thought she was Steph… then things were about to get a lot more dangerous.
CHAPTER FIVE
Stephanie stood outside Room 429 calling herself an idiot in every language she knew.
Which was three.
But she didn’t really think French counted in this case because adding a bad accent to the word didn’t really make her feel like she was speaking the language.
“Suck it up,” she muttered, clutching the tray of food in both hands. “You wanted to see who the number two was in his room, and now you’re here.”
There was absolutely no reason for her to be jealous. She had no ties to Dominic, not since she’d left the Forgotten.
But the truth was, she had wanted to know. So she’d come, juggling a tray of pancakes, bacon, and eggs that smelled delicious.
Her stomach growled. It was the end of her shift, and she was starving. Not to mention that breakfast had always been her favorite type of food.
Probably Dom’s way of torturing her.
The elevator dinged behind her, and she hurried to shift the tray to her shoulder so she could knock. The last thing she needed was for someone to discover her in the hall muttering to herself and looking like a complete…
“Idiot,” she murmured with a roll of her eyes.
Her knock was loud, probably too much so given the time of day, but she put every bit of irritation and frustration into the pounding of her knuckles against that thick piece of wood.
There was no answer. The elevator doors closed with a whoosh, and footsteps sounded in the opposite direction.
“Oh, the bastard,” she whispered and knocked even harder, until it sounded as though the door might break loose from its hinges.
Nothing.
“Forget it,” she said and bent to place the tray on the ground.
The door to Dominic’s room flew open.
Her eyes shot up and — Lord have mercy — her mouth went dry.
“Steph?” he asked, not seeming embarrassed at all that he was standing there practically naked.
Black boxer briefs hugged his thighs… and other things. Stephanie’s pulse sped, her fingers twitched with the urge to touch, to trace the six squares across his abdomen, the black markings that scaled his arms.
The tray rattled, and she struggled to not drop it as desire raced through her. It was hot, potent, and nearly more powerful than her anger of the night before.
With one hand, Dom caught her precarious load, and with the other, snagged her wrist. He tugged her into the room, letting the door shut behind them. Then he set the tray on the desk and turned to her.
“What is it?” he asked, his black eyes concerned, his fingers scalding against her skin. “What’s the matter? Dalshie?”
It was too much. He was too much.
Pulling her hand free, she stepped back and struggled for distance, to reinforce the walls around her heart that kept her safe.
But it was Dom, and he’d never given her the easy way out. Not in the past and certainly not now.
He closed the space between them, put his hands on her shoulders, and held her tightly in place. The spicy scent of him flooded her senses, seeped its way into the very essence of her being.
It was freaking catnip, and she wanted to roll around in it. No, not it. In the wide expanse of muscles and tanned skin that were less than six inches from her face.
She wanted to lick. To touch. To suck.
Holy hell.
With a surge of strength brought on by a pure animal instinct to survive, Steph tore free.
“Back off,” she snapped when he followed her. “You’re too close.” And too many other things. But she managed to keep those thoughts locked up in her mind.
Dom stopped, a few feet of distance between them, and raised one brow.
“Sign this,” she said, fumbling in her pocket for the receipt before shoving it at him.
He took the paper and pen she held out, signed, then set them on the desk. “That’s done. So now why don’t you tell me what’s got you so upset?”
“Upset?” She took a step toward the door. “I’m not upset.”
There that brow went again, calling her on her bullshit.
“Look. I’m done with my shift. I’m tired and want to go home.” She didn’t bother to watch Dom, to see if he bought the lie. Instead, she turned and tried the door… only to find it wouldn’t open.
“Steph,” Dom said.
She sucked in a breath. His voice was close to her ear, a warm puff of heat that raised goosebumps on her nape.
“It’s okay.” Fingers traced along the skin of her neck, rested on her shoulders, and softly massaged the aching muscles there.
Her forehead plunked against the door, and a sigh escaped because it felt too damned good, as though the burdens she’d been carrying for so long could be shed just like that, with a simple touch of his skin to hers.
“Come have breakfast with me,” he murmured and stepped back.
“Wh-what?” She whirled. “What about your number two?”
“You’re my number two.”
CHAPTER SIX
Stepping away from Stephanie was just about the hardest thing Dominic had ever done. Much harder than letting her go the first time. That had been tough, but he’d convinced himself it was for her good.
This was different, and a heavy blanket of guilt coated him.
She seemed upset precisely because he’d told her to go.
Why had he encouraged that course? Why had he thought it better that a girl who was barely nineteen strike out on her own?
He might attempt to justify it — he’d given her money, helped her find an apartment, and enroll in school. Part of him had even thought she might be safer outside their ranks.
But now those reasons seemed a lot like excuses.
How could he have done it?
Just because he’d been reeling from the Dalshie attack, from their kidnapping of two young Forgotten girls, wasn’t good enough.
He hadn’t been good enough.
Steph released a shuddering breath and turned from the door to face him. “No number two?”
she asked again.
“Nope.” He shook his head and lifted the lid on the first plate of food. “Have breakfast with me, Steph. Please?”
He needed to tell her about the news story, needed to get her the hell out of there.
But they were safe for the moment, and a cooperative Stephanie would be a lot easier to transport than a hogtied one.
He would fill her with breakfast, rebuild some of their former camaraderie, and then he’d broach the subject again.
When she didn’t move, he bent as though to lick the entire plate of pancakes. “Alright, these are mine then.”
Before his tongue got within six inches of the pancakes, her hand whipped under his nose and snatched them away. She took a couple and put them on the plate of eggs and bacon then shoved a measly amount of the two back onto his plate.
“You don’t share,” she said. “I don’t share. And for God’s sake, will you put some freaking clothes on?”
Dom grinned and ran a hand down his bare chest. He’d forgotten he wasn’t wearing anything besides underwear in the blur of the news story and Steph’s arrival. That she’d noticed… well, it made him feel good.
“Like what you see?” he asked. Her gaze on his chest was hot, palpable, and he wanted to preen a little.
Peacock. He was seriously considering peacocking.
Which, given his current lack of clothing, was going to be difficult.
With a snort at his own idiocy, Dom crossed to his backpack then pulled out a t-shirt and tugged it over his head.
“Better?” he asked.
“Sort of,” she muttered around a mouthful of food.
He chuckled as he pulled over a chair and sat next to her at the desk. His first bite of pancake was heaven, so was his second, and his third.
Then he remembered why he was there, how Steph was in danger, and his appetite faded.
“If I give you the rest of mine, will you promise to listen?”
She halted mid-bite. “You don’t want yours?” The question was slightly muffled as she spoke around the food in her mouth, and Dom was struck by how young she looked at the moment, her walls temporarily down, her legs crossed beneath her.