by Rose O'Brien
She pointed out the building across from his high rise. It was about twelve stories, brick, with a flat roof.
“You think he could have made it that far?” Alex asked, incredulous.
“Without breaking a sweat,” she answered.
“Do vampires sweat?” he asked.
Only Alex would wonder about that at a time like this.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” she said. “And I’ve never thought to ask. As to how they found you, they have resources, hackers, informants. I should have anticipated this and put up some firewalls around you.”
She had never dreamed that the creatures they were hunting would pay any attention to Alex. He wasn’t a direct threat to them. It was her they should be worrying about. But she had more security than most, her home was untraceable, and no one with two brain cells to rub together would come after a mage commander on her home turf. Even if by some miracle a hit was successful, the Corps would come down on those responsible like avenging angels.
The non-sapiens that chose to do wrong never went on the offensive with Corps personnel. It was an unspoken rule, a code among the thieves and cutthroats. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill Council agents that moved against them on their own turf, but to target a member of a Corps strike team personally was unheard of.
“Someone is getting desperate,” she said. “Or they saw you as a weak spot to get to me.”
She glanced back at the sheet-covered corpse in the hallway.
“Fortunately, they vastly underestimated your skills,” she said.
These were far from professionals. Street muscle most likely. No one she recognized. They’d run the ID on the dead guy and figure out where the leak was.
“In the meantime, I think you should get out of town,” she said.
He scowled.
“Absolutely not,” he said, crossing his arms.
“I need to know you’re safe, Alex.”
He moved to her, running his hand down the back of her arm and she had to fight to keep from trembling beneath that touch.
“I can handle myself,” he said gently, glancing meaningfully in the direction of the corpse.
“You’ve proven that. Just do this for me, please.”
“Why?”
She sighed with exasperation and broke the contact with him. She couldn’t tell him the real reason. She couldn’t tell him that she was falling for him. Heck, she wouldn’t even admit that to herself.
“When you agreed to join the team, I promised to protect you—”
“You never promised me that,” he said.
“I promised myself that.”
Silence stretched between them for several moments as they both looked anywhere but at each other. Finally, their gazes caught. She let him see the guilt, the fear, and the edge of panic at the thought of losing him in her eyes.
“I don’t run from a fight,” he said, his voice as firm as stone. “And I’m not leaving you.”
Something in her chest squeezed at his words.
“Well, then, pack a bag because you’re moving in with me.”
Chapter 13
Alex froze. Of all the things he’d thought she’d say, he hadn’t expected Alayna to suggest he move in with her.
“I can stay at HQ,” he told her.
“I’d feel better if you were close by.”
He opened his mouth to argue and then shut it. There was a note in her voice that was just short of a plea.
“I’ll pack a bag,” he said, finally, a smile tugging at his mouth. “Roomie.”
She smiled and he felt that twisting feeling in his gut again. What was he thinking? He already had trouble getting thoughts of her out of his head, her scent out of his nose. Staying with her was going to be torture. Sweet, delicious torture.
He threw clothes, a toothbrush, deodorant and a spare pair of boots into an old leather travel bag that once belonged to his father. He grabbed the silver St. George’s medal his mother had given him when he joined the army from his nightstand. He threw in his Kindle and added his phone charger. He was packed in less than two minutes.
Alayna looked surprised when he joined her in the living room so soon.
“I travel light,” he told her.
“Good to know,” she said. “Because we don’t know how far we may end up going.”
He carried the bag to the door and set it down beside his equipment bag. He made sure his weapons were all in order, and then he nodded to the body.
“What are we going to do about him?”
“We’re taking him to the roof,” she said, wrapping the sheet tightly around the body. She levered the body into a sitting position and hoisted the two hundred pound dead vampire over her shoulder like it was a sack of potatoes.
“Get the door and make sure the hallway is clear,” she said, her voice carrying the slightest hint of strain.
Alex knew that she was strong, but he hadn’t realized she was that strong.
As they walked out onto the roof 37 stories up, the skies were still dark and the stars were still out. Under different circumstances, it would have been a beautiful morning.
Alayna walked to the middle of the roof and flipped the body from her shoulder to the concrete.
Kneeling beside the body, she held her hands out over the form beneath the sheet, sensing the edges, finding the currents. The necessary words formulated themselves in her mind and she let them flow from her, channeling the element of fire.
Fire was, by far, the most difficult element for her to control. Her voice crackled like flames, rising and falling in pitch and tone, like a campfire. A controlled burn, like this one, was one of the most difficult elemental exercises she knew.
She concentrated the heat in the vampire’s abdomen and let it slowly spread outward. She increased it where necessary and moved some heat away from areas that were burning quicker. Slowly, the body began to turn to ember and ash, falling apart like a log in a fire.
Just as the sheet caught fire, the form collapsed to nothing but gray ash. With more whispered words, a wind flowed over the roof and carried the ashes away, a swirling mist in the lightening morning. The whole process had taken maybe five minutes.
“Whoa,” Alex said.
She turned and saw...something in his eyes. Was it fear? Amazement? Both? It was hard to tell, but that look put her on edge. Was he about to push her away like every other male she’d ever been interested in?
He extended a hand to help her up. As she stood, her head spun and she stumbled, landing heavily in his arms.
“Sorry,” she said, a little embarrassed. “Fire weaving takes a lot out of me.”
She looked up and met his eyes. His arms were tight around her and she was pressed against his chest. His face was hard and his eyes were now unreadable. She had a sudden powerful urge to caress his face. Would he let her? If she kissed him, would his lips taste as wonderful as they had that night in the alley?
Her heart leapt at the idea.
He broke their eye contact as he placed her left arm over his shoulders and hooked his right arm around her waist. She leaned on him until they reached the elevator, where she stepped away from him and leaned on the wall.
“That was...” he said into the silence. “Terrifying.”
Alayna felt a momentary pang at that word. She’d known it would happen eventually. It always did. Anytime anyone got close, they pulled away. Her power, her curse, they doomed anything more than friendship. She’d entertained fleeting, secret thoughts that maybe Alex was different, but you couldn’t be attracted to someone that terrified you. Anger snapped within her.
“Should we have called the Coroner to the come and pick up the body? How about the police?”
“Excuse the hell out of me. You just cremated someone in front of me. Forgive me if I’m a little creeped out right now.”
“Does my power scare you, Alex?”
She wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say, but part of her wanted him to see past what she was
and see who she was.
He let a long breath out before answering, his gaze assessing. A dark intelligence was running calculations in his eyes.
“Sometimes,” he said finally. “Mostly, I’m in awe of what you can do. I just keep wondering why you think you need me around.”
She met his eyes, silently begging him to understand, to see. He was this fascinating new thing that had come storming into her life, a life that had started to go a little gray around the edges.
“You’re good in a fight,” she said.
He left his place on the opposite elevator wall and took a step toward her.
“You have people that can shape shift and throw fire. You don’t need me.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “Ever since that night in the alley something has been screaming at me to keep you close. I don’t know why or how yet, but you fit into this somehow. I’ve survived this long by listening to my instincts, and I’m not about to stop now.”
He smiled.
“You sure it’s your instincts that are telling you to keep me close?”
Turning a surprised look on him, she saw those dark eyes were teasing, but his mouth was set in a hard line. She longed to run her tongue over those lips.
The elevator dinged and saved either of them from having to say anything more.
As she stepped away from the wall, her head spun again. When it stopped spinning, she realized she was in Alex’s arms, one behind her back, the other beneath her knees.
“I’m OK, put me down.”
“I’ll have to politely decline, Commander. You need water, food and rest in that order. That’s my professional medic’s opinion,” he said, his back military straight, his demeanor all business. As he stepped off the elevator on his floor, he asked, “Can you do that thing you did with the fire to living people?”
“I could,” she replied. “But they’d have to hold really still, and it requires more energy and concentration than it would be worth. If I want to kill someone, there’s lots easier ways to do it.”
He shot her a look.
“That came out wrong.”
Alex was somehow able to unlock his door and open it without putting her down. He kicked it closed and gently set her on the couch. Overbalanced, he almost followed her down, but caught himself with a forearm on the back of the sofa.
He stayed like that for a second and brushed his hand over her forehead.
“You’re cold,” he said, pulling his hand away. He fetched a blanket from an armchair and spread it over her. She tried to sit up, but he pushed her back down again with a firm but gentle hand on her shoulder.
“I’m not to be fussed over, Agent,” she said firmly, a slight snap in her voice. “I don’t need to be coddled.”
He shot her a look that said, “stay put” and headed for the kitchen.
“Weaving fire usually messes up my internal temperature for a little while. Mostly though, I need water,” she said. “And sugar, carbs, anything with calories. I’m freaking starved.”
He popped a bowl of instant oatmeal in the microwave and smothered it in honey and a mound of dried apricots.
She levered herself up to sit cross-legged on the couch, the blanket tucked around her legs. The effort didn’t seem to cost her as much as when she first stood up on the roof. Perhaps she was regaining her strength.
She wolfed down the oatmeal in under a minute. He pulled out several bags of frozen fruit from his freezer and dumped them in the blender, adding protein powder, almond milk and more honey.
She gulped it down.
“That’s it,” he said. “You cleaned me out. I don’t keep a lot of food here during the best of times, and let’s face it, I’ve barely been here since I went to work for you.”
She nodded and started to get to her feet. When he moved to help her, she waved him off.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Really.”
She walked slowly to the counter where he was rinsing the dishes.
“Thank you, Alex,” she said.
Something in her voice made him look up and meet her eyes.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
“I’m not used to anyone trying to...take care of me,” she said hesitantly.
“It’s OK. I used to see it every day in the Army. COs don’t like to accept help, even from the medics. They don’t want to appear weak. A part of my training was how to talk them into letting me do my job. If they weren’t a hundred percent, the team wasn’t a hundred percent.”
He put the dishes away.
“But Dumeril must do this for you all the time,” he said.
“Not really. Dumeril isn’t the type to fuss. If I’m bleeding, he just grabs whatever part is dripping blood and heals it without asking me. If I push myself too far during training or a mission, he wouldn’t notice until I pass out. Then, he’ll slap me awake, shove an energy bar in my hand and glare at me until I eat it.”
“You still hungry?” Alex asked.
“I’m good to drive home,” she said.
They rode the elevator down together and put his bags in his truck. She went out to the sidewalk where she’d parked her bike, started it up, and met him at the entrance to his underground garage. He followed her west across the city, the first pink rays of dawn lighting the sky.
***
Alex followed the souped-up black motorcycle as Alayna drove through the city. She was gorgeous, her yoga pants clinging in all the right places as she leaned her body across the sleek black monster of a bike. Her blonde hair flowed in waves from under her black helmet and danced in the wind as she drove.
Not for the first time, he wondered what it would be like to touch that hair, run his hands through it, wrap it in his fist as he kissed her hard.
Before long, they were winding into the canyons west of downtown. The bike’s engine revved as she took a series of steep winding turns faster than she probably should have. The houses in this area were large modern masterpieces that sat on huge treed lots.
Alayna signaled and pulled the bike into a driveway that wound up and to the right. Her home looked like a log cabin had made love to a Victorian mansion. It was two stories, but smaller than many of the homes in the area. There were screened porches that wrapped around both levels.
The outside was covered in cedar plank siding and the trim was a dark forest green. The lot was so heavily treed that he couldn’t see the house fully until he was right next to it.
He followed Alayna around back to a large garage where she parked the bike next to her Mustang. He pulled his truck in next to it.
He whistled appreciatively.
“Nice place.”
“Thanks,” she replied, as the garage door slid closed. “I needed a place without a lot of neighbors and that didn’t get a lot of traffic that could screw with my wards,” she said.
She explained that she owned several acres on either side, what amounted to most of the ridge. The house was at the top of the ridge, with the land sloping sharply beyond her back garden into a heavily wooded ravine.
Her entire property was covered with magical protection wards. The ones around the property could be triggered by any being with a malevolent intent. There were even more wards on the house.
As they were about to step inside, she stopped him at the door. She hung a small clay pendant in the shape of a spiral on a black cord around his neck.
“I don’t think you’ll set my wards off, but just in case, this will let you through any of them without any trouble.”
He held the charm in the palm of his hand as he examined it. He hated jewelry, but strangely, he liked this. He tucked it inside his shirt and he liked the way it felt next to his skin.
“Thanks,” he said.
Her home was all dark woods, rich fabrics and granite surfaces. The furniture tended to antique. She pointed out a large kitchen that looked like it didn’t get much use and a living room that looked untouched.
She pointed out a bedroom on the firs
t floor, obviously a guest room.
“This is yours,” she said. “Bathroom’s through there.”
He tossed his bags on the bed. The room was done in shades of blue, the walls a lighter color, the comforter on the bed a deep navy. The furniture was all dark woods, like the rest of the house.
He unpacked quickly and found Alayna in the kitchen. She was in the process of drizzling chocolate syrup on several scoops of ice cream.
She licked syrup off the palm of her hand and the breath caught in his throat. When she slid her index finger between her lips and sucked it with a little kissing noise, he almost passed out.
“Want some?”
He shook his head, keeping the counter between them.
“One of the few perks of the job,” she said, nodding toward the ice cream bowl. “Weaving magick burns a hell of a lot of calories.”
She lifted the bowl in one hand and spooned a bite between those perfect lips. Her shoes were off and as she padded around her home in her bare feet he realized that she was relaxed for the first time since he’d met her.
And she was absolutely gorgeous.
He longed to pull her against his body, let her feel exactly what she was doing to him. Her lips would taste like chocolate and her tongue would be cold when it brushed his. His hands would slide into her hair, and she would let out a breathy little moan. Then he’d—
“Alex?”
“Huh?”
She laughed.
“I said, would you like a tour of the rest of the place?”
He nodded and followed her up the stairs.
The upstairs featured the same floor to ceiling windows as the rest of the house. Most of the second floor was taken up with a huge empty expanse of smooth hardwood floor. There was a weapons rack in the corner and a stand with a speed bag. There was a heavy punching bag hanging from a chain bolted to the angled ceiling.
“This is a beautiful dojo,” he told her.
She licked ice cream off her spoon.
“There’s more,” she said excitedly.
She touched a switch on the wall and the windows slid open on three sides, opening on to the wrap around porch. The view was amazing, and the air flowing in was crisp and clean.