by Kim Knox
The thought of my release rode on the edge of my thoughts. So close—so close—the taste of it filled me, a hot pulse of vivid energy, a maelstrom that promised to overtake me and push me into becoming...something else.
The image of it burned just beyond my focus, a thing caught in endless power, ancient and vast.
And under it, the wraith surged, whipping my skin with desire and heat, and the insane throb of my flesh couldn’t be denied.
“Yes, accept it.” Blake growled against my skin, his fierce grip, the erratic pounding of his hips driving the flames higher and hotter. “Bind it to you.”
His teeth sank into my shoulder, the sudden, unexpected blast of lust rioting through my body. My limbs shook and my heart hammered. There—as Blake held me and fucked me—the glory of my release swept over me in a wild rush. I cried out, arching back into him, eager for his mouth, to kiss him, stroke my tongue against his, sealing more than the creature in my flesh.
But Blake came with a low snarl, his mouth on my shoulder. He let out a slow breath, his hands losing their harsh grip on my hips. The slow, warm caress of his palms over my belly licked new fire under my skin. He brushed the underside of my breasts, teasing my nipples with callused thumbs until the wraith, now languid, offered a sensuous tease of flame that played with the fading echo of my orgasm.
“I could keep you,” he murmured. “Spend hours exploring every inch of your body. Lick you. Bite you. Savour the taste of your skin.”
The taciturn Blake had become almost lyrical in his need, and a warm sigh washed over my damp skin. Damn it, the idea was too addictive. To find myself at Blake’s mercy? Fire curled around my navel and sank lower to tease my mons.
The curve of Blake’s smile pressed into my shoulder. “But we have our duty, Leona.”
His hands left my body, and cold air forced a shiver to run through me. He eased back. The wraith wasn’t the only one regretting it.
I opened my eyes, rubbed a hand over the tightness of my forehead and met Blake’s dark gaze. Wetting dry lips, I pulled in a deep breath. “What kind of magic is this?” He stroked his fingers down the length of my spine, and the delicious spin of heat almost distracted me. “Blake?”
“The fire wraith is sealed within you.” He straightened his jacket, his expression once more closed and cold. “That duty is completed.”
“Duty? Duty?”
I tugged my jeans on, yanking them over my hips. The first flecks of anger stained my thoughts. Stress from everything that had happened—that kept on happening—stretched my nerves. “What about savouring me?” I pulled on my bra and found my sweater. “Duty to what? What is this magic, Blake?” His mouth opened, and I could practically hear his denial forming. I jabbed a finger into his chest. “And don’t say it’s otherwise.”
“Events have to unfold in order. It’s the way it’s always been.”
“How it’s always been—” Through the open bathroom door, I half-caught an image on the screen in my front room as it flashed away to a journalist and a gaunt blonde woman sitting in a newsroom. It killed all questions, all thought of Blake. “Sound on.”
“The Council deputy, Clair Musgrove, has just released these stills.”
The fast flow of images slowed, and focus sharpened. My heart lodged in my throat. I grabbed the doorjamb to stop my drop to the floor.
It was me. An image of me running across the swing bridge filled the screen, Blake in front of me. In swift bursts, the view contracted until it showed my blood-smeared face and matted hair. The expression fixed on my face was wild, anger and fear twisting me.
“This woman, fleeing the scene, has been identified as Leona Munro, a senior gallery worker. If you have any information as to the whereabouts of this woman, please press Contact.”
The familiar bright red circle flashed onto the screen. The circle the non-tech public used to contact the authorities about criminals. Fear twisted my insides. Is that what they thought I was? A criminal?
“Members of the public are advised not to approach Leona Munro, nor her companion, who has yet to be identified.”
The focus swung to Blake’s grim face.
“Sources close to the Council believe it is possible that he is from North Bank.”
I stared and found I couldn’t say anything. I was fleeing the scene with a magician. I was not to be approached. A slam to the head couldn’t have hit me harder. All hope of a normal life had ended. I was a scapegoat. They were blaming the destruction of the Merrow Dock complex on me.
Chapter Six
I surged forward. Pressing Contact would sort this mess out.
“No!” Blake grabbed my arm, the tight grip twisting my shoulder as I struggled.
“Let go of me!” I wrenched my shoulder and ignored the twist of pain. “They’re blaming me. I have to contact them and tell them the truth.”
“And they’re going to believe that you have nothing to do with magicians?” His grip eased, and his fingers lightly stroked over my arm. The surge of fire rose again, chasing under my skin to writhe over my shoulder blade and clavicle. The heat dissipated the pain. “With that playing through your body.”
“Bastard. You knew.”
“That they had pictures? No.”
Attempting to practice magic on my side of the river was illegal. Splinters of ability could stretch into the South Bank, and the authorities clamped down on them. Hard. Damn it, I looked guilty, and though I’d had nothing to do with it, I felt guilty. “But you thought it.”
“It was a possible interpretation.”
I pushed my fingers through the tangles of my wet hair. My mind was in riot, and I couldn’t think. The only solid thought was: What the hell am I going to do now?
Pounding edged my skull. Stress had my body wracked...but then a pulsating whine joined the pounding. Just like the rail pads. Oh…oh fuck. The whine wasn’t in my head. It was the familiar vibration of a police vehicle.
I cursed, and adrenaline spiked through my body. “They have my name. It’s not that much of a jump to find out where I live.” I stared at my shelves, crammed from floor to ceiling with magical lore. Not illegal to own...but now they just added their weight to my supposed guilt. “Time to face the police.”
“Or not.” Blake strode to the long window. He held back the blind and stared up, probably at the police vehicle landing on the block roof. “Too late for you to pack now.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you, Blake.” I sat on the couch and watched my hands knot. I’d run from the magicians, but I would not run from police. “I’d rather chance them than you.”
He muttered, thick and guttural, in a language I didn’t understand, but I knew he cursed me. The ripple of anger was unmistakable. “I’m giving you a choice—”
“Oh yes, you’re all about choice.” I made my hands hang loose between my thighs. “And I choose to stay here and wait for them to find me.”
“You have a small library of books. A wraith settling in. And me.” He paused, and the rush of anger slid from his voice as he said, “Do you know what they do to people on the South Bank who ally themselves with magicians?”
I’d read too much. Of course I knew. “If found guilty, they throw you into the river and make you swim to the North Bank.” I stared at the screen that had swung back to the scarred images of the waterfront. “They haven’t proven a case of magic in decades—”
“How many survive the crossing, Leona?”
“It’s been forty years since a judge passed that sentence.”
“How many?”
I released a slow breath. I needed to bunch my hands into fists again. He was right. For this crime, they would throw anyone they could find into the wild currents of the river.
No one survived the river. No one.
My gut twisted. I didn’t run. Running felt...wrong. It always had.
The whine of engines died, and the silence filled me. In the quiet seconds, I made the only choice I could. “Where could we go
?”
“Leave that up to me. Get your coat.” He paused and stared. His eyes narrowed. “And a hat and a scarf if you’ve got them.”
I found my boots and looked up at him, before jamming them on my feet. “That’s hardly going to disguise me.”
“You’ll blend in.”
“Can’t you”—I waggled my fingers—“whip up a spell or something?”
Blake glared at me, pulled my long black coat from the door hook, and held it up. “I am not a magician.”
“Of course not.” I shrugged the coat over my shoulders and fastened it with quick fingers. “You just follow me through empty air. Plant...something inside of me.” I pushed that from my mind, terrified that the thought of it would send the wraith writhing through my body again. He gave me my hat and scarf from the coat stand. “Nope, nothing odd about you.” I twisted my damp hair up into a knot and pulled the woollen hat over my ears. “And what about you?”
“Me?”
He took over wrapping my scarf so that it muffled my face. It was too intimate. The wraith flickered points of heat over my lips, eager for me to find Blake’s mouth with my own. No. I would not be controlled by whatever the hell it was. I stood back from him, needing the distance to stay calm and contained. “You were on the news too.”
“There’s nothing distinctive about my face.”
I stared at his hard, brutally handsome face. Did the man not own a mirror? “Don’t get out much?”
For a brief moment, doubt creased his forehead and there was a look of confusion in his eyes. In a blink, it was gone. “Ready?”
I took a final look around my small flat, with its piles of books and battered furniture striped with morning sunlight. The tiny place had been my home for nine years. I had no idea when I’d see it again. Deliberately, I turned back to the door. “Ready,” I said.
The door closed silently behind us, and I locked it. Not that that would stop the police. I winced. They would trash the place.
“Stairs.”
Blake broke into my thoughts. He gripped my upper arm and urged me into a fast walk. I was really doing this, running from the police. My heart thumped hard, and I willed myself to be calm. Panicking wouldn’t help anyone.
He opened the door and the stairwell beyond was empty and quiet. “So far, so good.”
He was probably being sarcastic, but I wasn’t concentrating on subtleties. Suddenly, from a law-abiding citizen, I’d turned into a fugitive, on the run with a man I really didn’t know—
“Leona?”
I caught my foot on the stair, almost tripping, but Blake’s grip tightened on my arm, keeping me upright. “What?”
“Stay with me. Stay focused.” I jerked a nod. “Yes.”
“To do that, you can’t let your mind wander.”
“Right.”
The drum of our boots echoed over the tile-lined stairwell, chasing up the narrow twists of marble-edged steps. Shit, it was too loud. The police weren’t stupid. They’d station themselves at all exits from the building. They’d be waiting for us.
“In here.” Blake pulled me through another set of doors and onto a landing that was an exact replica of my own, three floors up. “Time for a slightly different exit.”
“Where...?”
Blake strode to the end of the corridor. He stopped before the window that looked down onto the square at the back of my building. We were on the third floor. In the winter winds, the thick, bare branches of a tree scratched back and forth against the glass.
“That glass doesn’t break. In the event of fire...” My automatic words fell away.
Blake had pressed his hands to the window. A rush of heat burned through the air, finding echoes in the wraith swiftly surging across my chest.
One instant the glass was there. The next, cold winds whipped my face as my scarf slipped under my chin. The glass had vanished.
“How…how did you do that?”
Blake, his face grim and set, said nothing. He guided me to the frame’s edge, but his dark skin had greyed at the effort of calling on his magic. And it was magic. His denials meant nothing. He let out a slow breath. “I’ll climb out first. You follow.”
“Into the tree?” I stared at him, and my palms began to sweat. “Climb into the tree?”
“Who said you weren’t quick to catch on?” With that, he disappeared over the metal edge of the sill.
I stepped back on instinct. We were three floors up. Blake, though tall, climbed with a catlike ease; still the branches bent and creaked under his weight. My extra weight? We were dead. His hand jabbed at me, indicating for me to follow him out.
The distant pounding of heavy-duty boots made up my mind for me.
A tree, or the police and the ferocious current of the river? Easy choice. Or not, as I swung one leg and then the other over the metal sill to stand on the thin lip.
The very solid ground surged up at me in a dizzying rush. I swallowed down the sudden wash of fear. Blake had made it look simple. I, on the other hand, had never climbed a tree in my life.
“The river or this,” I muttered, grabbing at the nearest branch that seemed to be able to bear my weight. “At least I know I can swim.”
“That’s it.”
Blake’s voice rose soft above the rush of the wind. I supposed he meant to calm me. It wasn’t working. Not a magician? Yeah, right. I would’ve told him exactly what I thought of that lie if I wasn’t clinging to twigs for dear life.
“Now, lean your body. I can steady you.”
I followed his instructions. The branch groaned, twigs digging into my face, twisting my coat back from my body. The ground loomed towards me, filling my vision, and fear-thick heat rushed though every muscle. I crushed my eyes shut against the terrifying view.
“This is a fucking stupid idea.”
Blake grabbed my waist, half hauling me onto the thicker branches. I bit down on a shriek, my boots slipping and sliding on narrow branches.
My heart leapt into my throat, but Blake pulled me close and kept me steady. I hated that the solid strength of his arms made me feel safe...and loathed the empty fear hollowing my stomach when his arm slid away.
“Follow my lead.”
The manic beat of my heart slowed, but only to a pace reflecting my fury. He’d turned my life upside down. I was in a tree. I let the anger flow over me. It was the easier emotion to have right then. Any other I didn’t want to think about. So I thumped his chest. Hard. “I could have fallen!”
“No. Now do as I do.”
What the hell was I thinking trusting this man? A sound punctured my anger, and I glanced back to the window. Nothing there. I let out a slow breath and flexed my hands around the gnarled branch, desperate to keep my balance. Maybe I risked my life with him because I had no alternative. So much for choice—
“You. Stop!”
“Shit.”
The word burst out of me. Where had he come from? One minute the window had stood empty, the next an armoured police officer stood there, his hand hovering over the canon strapped to his thigh.
Oh fuck.
Chapter Seven
“Move!” Blake’s harsh voice cut through my haze, and I scrambled and slid down the branches, dropping farther, until my arms and legs gripped the trunk of the tree.
“I said halt!”
Seconds pounded out with the drum of my heart.
With each one, I expected the searing flash-burn of a stun gun to blast me out of the tree. Nothing. I risked a glance upward...and what I saw caught my rapid breaths. Without realising it, my feet hit the soft earth, and I staggered back onto the pavement.
The window shone in the morning sunlight. It glinted over the man’s badge, over his helmet, face, hand, and gun as the returned glass moulded with intimate precision to his body. The officer stood frozen, his features a perfect mask, no surprise, no fear showing on his gleaming skin.
“Is...is he dead?”
Blake glanced up, took my hand, and started a f
ast pace through the rows of trees. I stumbled after him. “Maybe,” he said.
“You don’t know?”
He shrugged. “The nanotech inside the glass reacts to heat. He’s also inside the glass, generating heat. It may melt. Whatever happens, it’s giving us the time to get away.”
I strained back, ignoring Blake’s harsh tug on my hand, and caught the profile of the officer’s body edged in golden sunlight. Had he just moved? My gut cramped. This was so wrong. “I can’t believe you.”
“He was going to shoot. That gun was on full charge. He’d have taken out half the tree.”
“So you did that?”
“No.”
He turned down one of the alleys leading away from the sweep of the silver tube line humming far above us. The road stood empty, the supporting struts of the track clamped to brick and steel. I winced at the heavy press of static against my skull.
Fuck, I stayed in the open for a reason. He had no tech in his body. Surely the heavy pulse of the tube pained him as much as it did me.
But nothing seemed to break his stride nor the grim turn to his features. Blake was a breed apart.
I forced my pained thoughts back to my question. It helped to take my mind off the stabbing pins in my brain. “How could that not be you?”
Blake didn’t look back, and his strong, steady pace continued. “I only temporarily removed the glass. Him? That was just luck.”
I swallowed bile and tried not to think about the man trapped in the window of my tower block. “What the hell is going on here, Blake?”
“You’re a candidate.” He slowed as we neared the end of the alley. Stopping, he rearranged my arm through his, closing my fingers over the cold material of his sleeve. The warmth of his touch pricked my skin, and the wraith curled around my forearm, eager for more of his touch. “To be successful, you must face certain tests.” His profile turned to stone. “And not others.”