Forsaken By Shadow

A Novella of the Mirus

Kait Nolan

Forsaken By Shadow

Written and published by Kait Nolan

Kindle Edition

Copyright 2010 Kait Nolan

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Cover Art by Brenna Rae Dunlavy

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The following is a work of fiction. All people, places, and events are purely products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is entirely coincidental.

Kindle Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the help of so many others. I want to thank

Susan, for years of stupendous friendship and outstanding service as crit partner. There is no better editor;

Zoe, for beta reading and her invaluable assistance in this indie publishing endeavor;

Shawna, Cindy, and Deniz, for beta reading;

Brenna, for being cover artist extraordinaire;

Sherri, for her unparallelled assistance in researching Las Vegas; and

My husband, Allen, for letting me ignore him to write.

Glossary of Terms

Council of Races: ruling body of the paranormal races

Drakyn: ancient race of dragon shifters

Firecaster: paranormal race capable of controlling but not producing fire

Fire Elemental: paranormal race born of fire

Hunters: assassins under the command of the Council of Races; typically work alone; not limited to a particular race

Investigation and Enforcement Division (IED): division of the Council of Races responsible for investigation of crimes involving the paranormal races and enforcement of Mirus law

Mirus: general term for the paranormal races

Shadow Walkers: special ops division under the command of the Council of Races; typically work in teams; recruited based on ability rather than race; have the ability to control and travel by shadow

Wylk: race of wolf shifters; no kin to werewolves

Chapter 1

He didn’t open his eyes when he heard the scream. Though his body all but vibrated with the need for action, some inner instinct counseled him to remain still. Listening.

A roll of thunder, then a muffled crash from another room.

Rage pumped through him, hot and bright as a blast furnace. He had to fight. He had to get to . . .  Had to protect . . . her.

A hard thud shook the wall. A whimper, then a deeper grunt.

His ears strained to pick out other sounds, anything to determine how many he needed to fight.

Faint voices through the wall, and then a rhythmic thumping. Not quite like the steady thud of fists on flesh.

Another scream ripped the air, this one more coherent. “Oh, yes! Yes! Vinny! Yes!”

He stilled. Not her.

Then where was she? Where was… He tried to latch on to a name, but the memory skittered away. Rage dimmed fractionally with panic.

Why couldn’t he remember her name?

He tried to call up her face. But like her name, it simply wouldn’t form in his mind, trickling from his thoughts like sand through loose fingers.

A few moments later, he heard a man, presumably Vinny, bellow release. Then everything lapsed back into relative silence.

The sharp scent of whiskey burned his nose, mixing with the pungent odor of stale sweat. The smell permeated the coarse fabric his face was crushed against. His mouth was cotton-dry, coated with a sour film that he tasted with each inhalation.

He tested his limbs, and with motion came pain. Hissing at the sear of agony that shot up from his hands when he flexed them, he stilled again, waiting for the burn to level off enough that he could draw full breath again. He rolled over to a chorus of creaky bed springs and opened his eyes. Lightning flashed beyond the threadbare curtains at the single window. In its brief glare, he saw a low dresser, a desk, and an overturned chair. He counted absently.

One one thousand . . . two one thousand . . . three one thousand . . .

A low grumble of thunder. Another flash. A glimpse of a television mounted on the wall, an empty luggage rack below.

He reached for the bedside lamp, gritting his teeth as he flicked it on. With a sense of dread, he squinted in the light of the single, pitiful bulb to see what the hell was wrong with his hands.

They were wrapped in gauze. Lots of it. With fumbling fingers, he unwound the bandages. Both palms were blistered with ugly burns. Even in the dim light, he could see that the skin was charred, curling, and covered in some kind of salve.

What the fuck?

He rolled to his feet, moving quickly through the room. In the bathroom he flipped on the light, another anemic fluorescent bulb that flickered several times before illuminating the cracked tile and outdated fixtures. The burns looked even worse in here. What the hell had happened to him?

He glanced into the spotted mirror. Blinked. Then he leaned in close.

The face looking back at him was young, early twenties, shadowed by a few days of scruff. Beneath the scruff, an ugly bruise darkened the left side of his jaw. Dark, somewhat matted hair hung to his shoulders.

A new kind of fear slid greasily through his system.

Who am I?

He sucked in air, taking another look around. There were no toiletries save the pitiful bar of soap and tiny, cheap shampoo and lotion beside the gray plastic ice bucket. He went back into the room for the gauze, sinking onto the bed to rewrap his mangled hands.

Panic was a decent analgesic.

He knew nothing. Not his name. Not his birthday. Not where he was or where he was from. Not how he’d gotten here. Every single shred of information related to his identity was an absolute blank. By the time he finished re-bandaging, unanswered questions jostled in his brain like restless cattle. The sheer number of them terrified him.

There have to be answers here somewhere, he thought, getting up to search more thoroughly.

The room had looked better in the dark. Fading wallpaper in a pattern popular in some decade well before he’d been born hung from the walls in peeling strips. The few pieces of furniture were scarred, cheap wood veneer. The TV above the luggage stand had knobs. A nearly empty fifth of Jack Daniel’s lay on its side on the bedside table. A small puddle stained the already splotchy shag carpet below.

He didn’t like whiskey. Didn’t taste whiskey on his tongue. So why was it here?

There were no bags, but he did find a set of car keys and a money clip on the desk. The clip held cash but no driver’s license, no credit cards. No clue to who he was. He dropped the keys and the money into his pockets and stalked to the bedside table.

Beneath a Gideon Bible, he found a phonebook.

“What the fuck am I doing in Nevada?” Baffled, he tossed the phone book back into the drawer and started to scrub both hands over his face, hissing at the pressure on his palms. Okay, Nevada. One of the fifty states. At least I know there are fifty states. That’s something, right? Having an answer to one question helped stem the panic that wanted to rise up and choke him. One down, the rest of my life to go.

Rain slapped him in the face the moment he opened the door. Across a parking lot, he could see a neon sign proclaiming Canyon Inn. Except the “y” kept flickering out. Parked mere feet from the door of room number 13—Great—was a ’69 Dodge Charger in serious need of a paint job. The whole thing was a mottled patchwork of gray primer and an ugly ass shit brown. He wondered if it was his.

He moved down the sidewalk, heedless of the fact he was getting soaked. The night clerk, a pimple-faced blond guy with a length of facial fuzz for a beard, looked up in surprise when he stepped into the office.

“Ca . . . can I help you?”

“I need to know what name room thirteen is registered in.” His voice sounded rusty with disuse.

The kid hesitated. “I’m sorry, I . . . ”

“Look, I’m in room thirteen. I need to know what name is on it.”

Puzzled, the clerk flipped through a ledger. He ran one skinny finger down the page, then shook his head. “There is no name.”

“No name?” He all but growled it, leaning over the counter and into the night clerk’s space.

“N . . . n . . . no. It was paid up front, in cash, for two days. No name.” He sucked in a wheezy breath. “I don’t want no trouble, Mister.”

Another thought wormed its way into consciousness. “A woman. There was a woman. Did you see her with me?”

The kid gave a nervous laugh. “We’re paid not to see.”

He straightened, thinking. “I’m not looking for discretion. I’m looking for answers. Did you see me with a woman?” He enunciated each word of the question as if that would somehow jog the clerk’s memory.

“As far as I know, you were alone. I wasn’t the one who checked you in and there’s been a do not disturb sign on the door. That’s all I know, I swear.”

“So you don’t know who paid for the room?”

Pimple-face shook his head.

“Do you have any idea who I am?”

Another shake of the head. No help there.

“When does the reservation expire?”

“It’s through tomorrow morning.”

“Fine. I’m checking out.” He left the kid sputtering and went back out in the rain.

The keys in his pocket did, in fact, belong to the piece of shit Charger. With a silent prayer, he slid the key into the ignition. The engine caught and roared to life, surprising and pleasing him. While the car rumbled and the rain beat a staccato tattoo on the roof and hood, he flipped open the glove box and rifled through the contents: an ancient owner’s manual, a tire gauge, a switchblade, and a faded printout that was the registration. He leaned over toward the glove box light to get a better look at the name on the form.

“Eric Tobin.” He tried the name out, rolling it off his tongue with a slight southern drawl. It felt neither comfortable nor awkward. It was just a name. If it was his, he didn’t feel it.

He checked the address. Las Vegas. It was as good a place as any to start looking for answers. Resolved, he put the car into gear and headed south toward Sin City.

* * *

Even as he bought a map at a gas station on the edge of town, he knew this was not how normal people would react to this situation. Not that normal people very often found themselves in this situation. He knew the logical step would be to go to the cops or the hospital. Get those burns looked at. Get the wheels in motion to find out who he was and what had happened.

But his gut told him to wait. To check out the address on the car registration. Get some more clues to whether he really was Eric Tobin or if he just, for some reason, had Eric Tobin’s car.

Nothing looked familiar as he drove through the deserted streets. He was far from The Strip, driving into an area that got progressively rougher with each passing block. Graffiti covered the concrete walls of buildings with broken out windows behind bars. Padlocks hung from many doors. This part of town was industrial and failing. Not the sort of place you listed as a residential address.

A few more turns and he found the street listed on the registration. He slowed the car, eyes shifting over building faces, searching for street numbers. On the second pass, he found one and began counting the buildings until he came to the right point in the sequence for the address on the registration. Set between an apparently abandoned warehouse and a plant of some kind, all that remained was a vacant lot with a few piles of rubble. Weeds grew haphazardly from cracks in what was left of the foundation.

He sat, engine idling, for a good fifteen minutes, staring at the empty space and struggling to remember . . . anything. But the effort was fruitless and made his head ache. Eventually he put the car back into gear and wove his way back through the dark streets.

Because he didn’t know what else to do, when he saw a sign for a hospital, he followed. Several blocks later, he swung into the drive of St. Rose Hospital, following the signs for Emergency.

The first set of automatic doors slid open with a quiet whoosh. He passed a set of payphones and some restrooms. Then came the second set of doors. As soon as they slid shut behind him, he felt his chest tighten. The scent of too many bodies combined with the hospital smell made him want to puke. As the walls seemed to press in, he squeezed his eyes shut and fought to level out the sensation he recognized as panic.

Hospital phobia. Okay, that’s something else I didn’t know before.

“Can I help you, sir?”

He opened his eyes and looked at the nurse who spoke from the reception counter. She wore hot pink scrubs and had her sandy hair up in a perky little ponytail. Brown eyes studied him with a mixture of concern and polite inquiry.

He started to say ‘No’. To turn around and walk back out. But where would he go? What would he do? And there were the burns on his hands. So instead he blurted out, “I don’t know who I am.”

Her face didn’t shift into lines of shock. Instead she gestured with one hand to a little clipboard. “Sign in please.”

He blinked at her. “Did you hear what I said? I don’t know who I am.”

“Yes, sir, I heard you.” She wrote something on the pad herself. “Have a seat. We’ll be with you as soon as we can.”

Shoving the frustration down, he moved into the waiting area, a twenty by thirty foot room decorated in a fugly combination of white and orange. The center was dominated by a big ass tropical fish tank with rows of linked chairs spiraling out like arms. There were thirty-three people in the room. He sat where he could see the fish and one of the two wall-mount TVs playing muted reruns of Gilligan’s Island.

I know every character on this stupid show, and I can’t write my own name on a form. What the fuck?

He picked up a stack of magazines and checked out the dates. The most recent he found was an issue of Reader’s Digest from March 2000. Of course who knew how far out of date it was.

Eventually the nurse came back. “Sir, if you’d come with me.”

She hadn’t come out for anybody else, but since he didn’t have a name to call, he guessed that made him a special case. He rose and followed her to an area behind the reception desk. A sign on the wall read triage. Moving past her into one of the two rooms, he sat. She leaned against a counter, pen poised over a chart.

“Have you been drinking?” she asked.

“No.”

“Have you used any other drugs?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t feel high or drunk or impaired. I just don’t know who I am.”

She made some notes. “Okay, what’s the last thing you remember?”

“Waking up six hours ago in a hotel room about two hundred miles north of here.”

“And before that?”

“Nothing.”

The nurse stopped writing and arched one brow. “Nothing?”

Frustration simmered in his blood. “Nothing. Not my name, not where I’m from, not what I do. I remember nothing before six hours ago. It’s like I didn’t exist.” His voice had risen with each word, such that by the end, the other nurse working the reception desk had stuck her head in the room. “Everything okay?” Miss Hot Pink waved her away.

He rubbed his palms on his jeans, hissing when the pain reminded him of his other injuries. He wished his sour stomach would settle.

“What’s going on with your hands here?”

“Burned. I don’t know how. It’s pretty bad.”

“Let’s take a look then.”

He held still as she unwrapped the gauze, bracing himself for her reaction to the mangled flesh. But when the bandages came away, his jaw dropped.

“Pretty serious first degree burns, maybe second degree in places, but nothing you won’t recover from,” pronounced the nurse. “Though you’ll probably scar.”

He stared at his palms. “I don’t understand.” The skin was no longer charred and curling. It was a smooth expanse of angry red blisters. I’m going crazy, he thought. Burns that severe don’t heal in six hours.

“Burns of any degree are painful, so people often think they’re worse than they are. We’ll get you some Silvadene and fresh bandages while we wait for the doctor.”

The nurse efficiently bandaged his hands back up and sent him out into the waiting room. He thought about walking out again. But how else would he get answers?

Eventually he was called back to an exam room. A doctor came in, his white coat waving like a flag as he walked. Unlike the seemingly unflappable nurse, this guy looked harried and tired, like he was at the end of his shift.

“Amnesia, huh?” said the doctor, looking at the chart.

Not knowing what else to do, he nodded.

The doctor shone a light in his eyes and ordered blood tests and a CT scan. He was formally admitted to the hospital. Sometime after the scan and while still waiting for the results of the blood tests, the cops showed up to interview him. He was thankful he wasn’t still in the damned hospital gown.

Neither officer seemed particularly inclined to believe him. He guessed in Vegas they saw all kinds of weird shit and people who wanted to forget who they really were. That was supposed to be the point of Vegas, wasn’t it? They asked questions. He repeated himself a lot. They got annoyed when he gave them no answers. Eventually they took his fingerprints—and weren’t they fucking lucky that those hadn’t been burned away?—and left.

He slept fitfully, off and on, exhaustion tugging him under despite the rock hard exam bed. Hours later, after the tox screen came back negative and the CT scan had verified that there was nothing physically abnormal with his brain, another woman showed up with two cups of lousy coffee in her hands. She was older, with streaks of silver shooting through her dark brown hair. A well-used leather briefcase hung over one shoulder of her black pantsuit, which hung wilted on her slightly plump frame.

“I’m Alice Graham,” she said, handing him one Styrofoam cup. “I’m with the Clark County Department of Social Services. Have you eaten?”

The irritated grumble of his stomach answered that.

“C’mon, we’ll hit the cafeteria.”

Not until they sat at a table in the mostly empty cafeteria with plates of questionable spaghetti did she pull a file out of the briefcase by her chair. She slid the plain manila folder across the table.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“According to your fingerprints, you.”

He stared down at the folder, suddenly uncertain whether he really wanted to know who he was. What if he was a criminal with a record longer than his arm? What if he was in massive debt? What if he was some deadbeat dad who’d run out on paying child support and alimony?

When he looked up at Alice again, she was gazing at him with sympathy. It occurred to him that if he was in real trouble, they’d have sent the cops back instead of a social worker. So he opened the folder.

The page on top read MISSING. The boy pictured looked out of a sober, unsmiling face. A shaggy mop of brown hair fell over blue eyes. Beneath the picture he read Cade Shepherd, Age: 8, Disappeared: August 9, 1985. He waited for the zing of recognition, the trickle of a memory. Anything that would connect him to this boy. But he felt nothing.

He looked back up at Alice.

“You’ve been missing for fifteen years, Cade.”

The name didn’t feel any more familiar as it tripped off of her tongue.

When he didn’t make any move to page further through the folder, Alice continued. “You’re from Tennessee originally. Memphis.”

That explained the accent.

“You disappeared from a hospital there right after your mother passed away.”

His mother had died in a hospital. He should feel something at that, but he didn’t. That would explain why he hated hospitals.

Cade roused himself to speak. “How did she die?”

Alice paused as if gauging whether to tell him. “She was admitted with the kind of severe trauma consistent with being beaten.”

“By my father?”

“Are you remembering?”

“Guessing.”

“Records indicate he was probably abusive. There was a child services record on you. It’s all in the file.”

“Where is he now?”

“He died eight years ago. Lung cancer.”

There was a distant, grim satisfaction in that. “Any family?”“he asked.

“No siblings. We’re still looking to see if there’s any extended family, but it doesn’t look like it. There’s an attorney in New Orleans, where your father relocated. His number is in the file too. I spoke with him briefly this afternoon. There’s a small inheritance, maybe enough to help you get back on your feet. Assuming you need help getting back on your feet. You may remember everything tomorrow or next week.”

“They don’t know what’s wrong with me,” said Cade.

“It’s called a dissociative fugue. It’s a rare, temporary form of amnesia where you’ve blocked out everything about your personal identity. It’s usually brought on by some form of traumatic stress. God only knows where you’ve been the last fifteen years or what you went through. It should clear up in a matter of days or weeks.”

“And if it doesn’t?” he asked.

She tipped her head, studying him. “Some people would give anything for this kind of blank slate. This is your opportunity to turn yourself into whoever you want to be. I’d make the most of it.”

Chapter 2

Stadium seating rose high on either side of the steep concrete steps. Embry paused at a landing, ostensibly to check the row number nearby and swept her gaze over the cavernous space. Almost every seat was filled. Not surprising given that this was the last fight of the evening. In the center of the coliseum, she’d expected to see something like a boxing ring. Similar to what they had in the training areas at headquarters when they weren’t just doing mat work. But here there was an eight-sided platform, surrounded by black chain-link fencing, with some kind of thick padding on the railing. A cage. It reminded her of Mad Max, except that it was only about five feet tall.

Two men enter, one man leaves.

All around her people milled, talking in excited voices, making their way through all the sets of double doors that led into the arena. Everyone was focused on the fight to come.

Embry was focused on one of the fighters. He smiled, bigger than life on the screen of the Jumbotron hanging above.

Someone jostled her and she started moving again, down, down, down the steps, being careful not to stumble in the too high heels—how do other women wear these without breaking an ankle?—all the way to the front row. Right beside the cage so he couldn’t help but see her. He wouldn’t know her. That was the nature of the spell. But he would see her, and he was a man, after all. She’d dressed to appeal in a sexy black dress with an abbreviated hemline and a plunging neckline that accentuated her cleavage. Judging by the looks and leers she gathered from the predominantly male attendees in the seats nearby, she’d hit the mark.

She sat and tried to cross her legs, but that caused the short skirt to ride up into Hey, I’m for sale territory, so she tugged it back down and turned her eyes to the handbill she’d been clutching like a lifeline since she’d walked into the building.

As last season’s winner of The Ultimate Fighter, Cade Shepherd was the favorite for tonight’s fight. He was bulkier now, the picture showing muscular arms crossed over a broad chest, and a face that held none of the boyishness she remembered. He looked, quite simply, like what he’d been trained to be—a warrior. She found it interesting that he’d fallen into life as a fighter even though his memory had been stripped from him.

They called him The Shadow. And isn’t that ironic, thought Embry, tracing a light finger over the barely quirked lip that suggested he thought so too—or would if he remembered what he was.

She shifted her focus to the openings beneath the stands where the fighters would emerge. One to the left, one to the right. There was an excitement in the air, an electricity that crawled along her skin. It was a mixture of the crowd’s thirst for violence and her own sense of urgency, held ruthlessly in check.

There’s not much time.

As if in response to her thought, the announcer began to speak. “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome back to UFC Fight Night! It’s time for the main event! Please welcome our first competitor, weighing in at two hundred and fifteen pounds and six feet, one inch tall, from right here in New Orleans, Louisiana—” He rattled off a list of titles that didn’t mean anything to her. “—Cade ‘The Shadow’ Shepherd!”

Embry was only vaguely aware of the music playing, the crowd roaring. He came in from the left, dressed in a pair of boxing trunks, crossing right in front of her. And suddenly everything inside her went still. Oh God. He really was here, and he really was alive. Whole. She’d known it in an academic sense since Matthias had told her. Trusted it enough to conceive of this plan, the success of which depended on Cade. But it wasn’t the same as seeing him in the flesh mere feet away. Part of her thought it was a trick. A horrible diversion meant to keep her from breaking protocol and going against orders.

Relief and fury tangled inside her, an emotional maelstrom that threatened to burst into something hot and alive and very much out of place in a human crowd. Embry willed him to turn his head, to look at her. But he was utterly focused, controlled, as he’d always been during training. It was a skill she’d struggled to emulate back then. Well, she could remain focused and controlled too. She pulled the emotion tight inside her and locked it deep.

He went into the cage and the world snapped back to life. She missed everything the announcer said about Richard Archer except for the fact that he hailed from Iowa. Whereas Archer bounced on his feet, throwing a few test punches at the air like a boxer, Cade—she still couldn’t get used to the name—stood almost tranquil in his corner. He rolled his massive shoulders and popped his neck, all the while those glacier chip eyes followed his opponent. Both fighters walked to the center of the cage and listened as the referees spoke to them, presumably going over rules and asking for a clean fight. When they finished, the contenders bumped fists briefly and stepped back. The extra people in the cage backed out.

And then with the ding of a bell, the fight began.

The pair circled each other like wary animals. Archer, practically vibrating with adrenaline, made the first move, a lightning fast right cross that Cade evaded by bobbing back and slamming a roundhouse into the other man’s side. And just like that, the study period was over and fists were flying. Archer landed maybe one punch for every three of Cade’s, his face darkening with effort and frustration as Cade continued to dodge and strike. Moving, always moving.

And God could he move. He had always been able to move. That had been part of the attraction. Now he was better. Good. That would be good, Embry thought. She’d need those skills.

Cade landed an open-handed strike against Archer’s sternum. The blow knocked the other man back, but only for a second. He dove toward Cade like a freight train, tackling him around the middle and taking them both to the mat. Cade wrapped his powerful legs around his opponent’s waist and struggled to get him into an arm bar. They rolled, a human pretzel, Archer still trying to get Cade into any kind of solid hold. Then, in a move fluid as water, Cade got the upper hand, reversing their positions until he could strike at Archer’s head.

The bell rang, signaling the end of the round, and the refs separated the fighters.

Archer stumbled to his corner in a way that made Embry certain he had a concussion. Cade accepted a bottle of water from someone on the sidelines and stared into the ring. His expression was fierce and searching, but something in his face made her think it wasn’t totally about the fight. She knew that face, the barely leashed rage underneath. It was how he’d looked the last time she’d seen him. When he’d been trying to protect her.

* * *

The bell rang.

Round Two.

Archer shook his head like a big bull preparing to charge. Cade could see the sequence unfold in his mind. Archer rushing forward, aiming for another grapple. Missing and swinging with a powerful left. But the left would be off, just slightly down from his aim. And that would be his mistake.

It was always like that for him, always had been. Though Cade could remember nothing about his life before waking up in that motel room ten years ago, he had some bone-deep understanding that he had been fighting all his life. He never felt closer to opening up the secrets of his past than when he was in the ring, and striving for that elusive key had become an addiction for him.

Cade raised his fists, keeping them tight and close as Archer rushed him. He stepped to the side, hands opening, ready when the other man swung, placing his arm right into Cade’s hands. Cade swiveled, using Archer’s momentum to bring him up, up, and over in a bruising throw across the mat. Archer landed with an agonized grunt. Cade should have followed, should have moved in for grappling, but he stopped dead in the middle of the cage as he saw the woman in the front row.

He didn’t know her. Didn’t recognize the high cheekbones or the lush, kiss-me-’til-dawn mouth. Couldn’t conjure up a name. But her dark, serious eyes met his through the chain-link, and something inside him just stopped.

Pain exploded in his skull as Archer landed a solid punch to his temple. Cade reeled backward, struggling to pull his focus back to the fight. Archer tackled him, and the cage rattled as they made impact. The arena spun, and he fought for breath against the chokehold Archer had around his throat. The bastard wanted a tap-out.

Fuck that.

Cade closed his eyes, bringing the fight and their positions into his mind, following the sequence of events, watching as they rolled, until he saw the opening he needed. He shifted, pushing with his powerful legs until Archer was beneath him, on his back. Gripping the other man’s arm, he managed to wrench it away from his throat. With a twist and a flip, Cade had him in a solid arm bar.

He hauled back, a hairsbreadth from popping Archer’s shoulder out of socket. Cade had to hand it to him. The bastard lasted a full eighteen seconds before his other hand tapped the mat three times.

The crowd went wild. Cade and Archer got to their feet, shook hands. Then the ref raised Cade’s arm as the winner, and he got half dragged on parade before the audience. His attention wasn’t on them, wasn’t on the belt he was presented. He was looking for her.

She was no longer in her front row seat. His eyes scanned the aisles, searching for a flash of reddish hair. But he couldn’t see much past the first few rows. The lights on the ring were far too bright. She was probably gone.

Because he had to, Cade went through the motions, giving interviews, discussing the fight with his coach, turning down invites from fans and other fighters to go out and hit Bourbon Street, until finally he made it back to the locker room. He just wanted to clean up and get the hell out to his favorite watering hole where he was a person rather than a star.

You just wanna sulk, Shepherd. Because the woman left before you could say boo to her.

Cade ran the soap over his body, washing off the sweat and blood of the match beneath the scalding spray of the shower.

It wasn’t like people usually stuck around after a fight unless they knew him. That was just proof that she hadn’t actually known him from Before. And wasn’t that a damn shame? Because for that fleeting moment in the ring, he’d thought he felt a connection.

No matter how much he enjoyed the life he’d built for himself, the man he’d made himself, that had been one of his secret hopes in all the years he’d been doing this—that someone would see him at a fight or on TV and say I know you. That they’d come forward and erase the gaps. Because time sure as hell hadn’t. Some of the holes from his early childhood he’d managed to fill in. None of it was pretty. But he hadn’t actually, honest-to-God remembered a goddamned thing from before that night he woke up in Nevada.

He shut off the water. Shoving his dripping hair back from his face, Cade reached for the towel he’d hung outside the shower. As his hand closed over terry cloth, a voice said, “I think you dropped this.”

He ripped back the curtain so fast, it tore off half the rings.

She stood there, one hip cocked, as if she had every right to be in the private locker room. Her dark eyes raked over him in frank appraisal and obviously liked what they saw. Cade jerked the towel from her hand and slung it around his waist before stepping forward into her personal space, a conscious intimidation. “Who the hell are you?”

Her lips curved in a flirtatious smile. “A fan.” She dragged one finger through the moisture still beading on his chest, then licked the droplet off.

A blast of heat blew through him. He rode the sensation, and the hands at his sides curled into fists to keep from grabbing her. “What do you want?”

She tipped her head to the side. “I thought I’d invite the winner out for a drink. To celebrate.”

Though the smile never wavered, something in her eyes told him this was more than some gutsy woman trying to score a date with the man of the hour. There was potency, a seriousness that belied her flirtatious tone.

He narrowed his eyes. “Do you know me?” He wondered if she heard the urgency beneath his words?

She blinked, surprise flickering in her eyes. They weren’t purely brown as he’d originally thought. A band of amber circled her iris, almost like a sunburst. “Of course,” she said, tossing her auburn hair. “You’re Cade Shepherd.”

“No, I . . .  Never mind.” He turned away from her, walking over to the locker where he’d left his things. It was too much to hope that this woman actually knew him. Anything he thought he’d read in her eyes was just wishful thinking.

She watched him without a word as he finished toweling off and dressing. In the mirror he caught a flash of uncertainty on her face.

Rethinking your little game, princess?

By the time he finished packing up his gear, she had her confidence back.

“So how ’bout it, handsome? Let me help you celebrate your win.”

Cade was on the verge of blowing her off. Just leaving her here and going on about his business. Then he looked at her again and was caught, as he had been in the ring. What was it about this woman? If he walked away from her now, he’d probably never get another shot to find out.

He let his lips curve in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

Chapter 3

Le Loup Garou. The sign glowed neon bright above the shuttered windows.

Embry wondered if it was designed to appeal to curious tourists who came to the Crescent City in search of myth and legend, then decided it probably wasn’t. They weren’t in the French Quarter and nowhere near Bourbon Street. This was a neighborhood place, tucked between a darkened law office and a building with space for lease.

Cade pulled open the paneled door. Blues, rich and soulful, spilled out to color the night. “After you,” he gestured.

Moving in a way that she hoped resembled a slow, deliberate, Watch Me walk, Embry moved past him, feeling his eyes on her as she stepped through the tiny vestibule and into the light and sounds of the bar. She blinked a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust. The walls were exposed brick, dominated by a mirror behind a long, polished bar. Black and white photographs in cypress wood frames drew the eye here and there. On the wall opposite the bar, a jumbo flat screen TV played a recap of what she recognized as another fight that had been on tonight’s ticket.

“Hey! Hail the conquerin’ hero!”

Embry shifted her gaze to the bartender who held some bottle aloft by the neck in salute to Cade, who’d stepped up beside her.

With a grin and a flourish, Cade made a mocking bow to the tune of applause from most of the patrons present. “Another title won! Y’all know what that means?” He pointed his finger toward the audience.

“Hot wings!” came the resounding chorus.

“On me!”

Embry felt her lips quirk as he placed a hand on the small of her back to navigate her toward the bar. “Isn’t a round of drinks more traditional?”

“Yeah but Mick’s place makes the best damned hot wings in the city, and I’m always starving after a fight.”

“I already put da order in to Jeanette,” said the bartender, sliding a mug the length of the bar to a waiting hand.

“How’s business tonight, my man?” asked Cade bumping fists with the other man.

“Always good on fight night.” Mick’s eyes moved over to Embry. “And who’s dis lovely lady?”

“Mick, Embry. Embry, Micajah Guidry, owner of this fine establishment.”

When the bartender offered his hand, Embry took it, surprised when he raised it to his lips in a gallant kiss. “Either da prizes have gotten way better dis season, or your taste has improved considerable.”

“Pay no attention to him, Embry. I assure you—”

She didn’t hear whatever comeback Cade made. Her amusement faded as she saw Mick’s nostrils flare, inhaling her scent. For a moment his eyes glowed, flicking to hers in appraisal.

Son of a bitch, she thought, fighting to control her own flare of alarm. The bastard certainly had a sense of humor. Only a wolf-shifter would think naming a bar Le Loup Garou and hiding in plain sight was funny.

“Hey now, hands off my date, Cajun,” said Cade, tugging her hand away and tucking a possessive arm around her.

“No offense, but you playin’ wit’ fire wit’ dis one.”

“I swear, I’m a puppy dog,” protested Cade.

But Embry knew perfectly well what Mick had meant. He knew what she was.

Satisfied that his warning had been received, the Wylk’s attention shifted to Cade. “Your usual?”

Cade nodded.

“How about you, cher? Wine? G and T? Amaretto sour?”

“Martini. Dirty.” Because her legs felt a little shaky, Embry slid onto a barstool.

Her mind buzzed with calculation. Was the mission compromised? Would she be reported? Surely not. This wolf had no idea what she was about, what she wanted Cade for. As far as he knew, she was just his date, nothing more. It wasn’t like she had a badge tattooed on her forehead that proclaimed her IED.

Mick passed Cade a beer and set the martini in front of her before folding his arms and leaning conversationally on the bar. “So where he pick you up, cher? You not from around here.”

“I was at the fight,” she replied, taking a careful sip and humming in approval.

“Front row,” said Cade cheerfully.

“She was what you was lookin’ at when Archer clocked you one?”

Cade rubbed at the knot on his head. “It was a moment.”

“You lucky he didn’t knock you da fuck out, da way you was all moony-eyed.”

“Hey, first, I object to the term moony-eyed. Second, I tied Archer’s ass up in a bow during that second round. Forgive the coon ass, Embry. He thinks being my best friend obliges him to give me shit about women.”

Best friend. Great. She took another sip of the martini. “So how did you two meet? You’re not from New Orleans either, are you, Cade? I mean, your accent doesn’t match.”

There was the briefest moment of hesitation before he answered, “Memphis actually. Been in New Orleans for about ten years now. My first place wasn’t too far from here, and I came in one night after work. There were a couple of defensive linemen from Tulane who took offense when Mick cut ’em off.”

“Cade helped take out da trash,” said Mick picking up the narrative. “Not dat I couldn’a handled ’em myself.”

“Of course you could,” said Cade. “But whatever, I helped.”

“He has a beautiful left cross, him,” said Mick affecting wiping away a tear.

“True dat,” agreed Cade with a grin. “We bonded over a bottle of tequila after closing time. Been tight ever since.”

A door at the far end of the bar swung open and a trio of waitresses sashayed out carrying trays loaded up with baskets of hot wings. One of them, a buxom blonde in a babydoll T-shirt at least one size too small, flounced over and placed two baskets on the bar in front of them. She offered Cade a toothy grin, “Who’s the flavor of the week, Cade?”

Embry diverted the flare of temper to the glass in her hand and totally ruined her martini.

A petite woman with salt and pepper hair slipped between the waitress and the bar to set down a basket of fries. “Watch yo’ mouth. Just ’cause he don’t wanna warm yo’ bed, don’t mean he can’t look elsewhere. You got tables.”

With a huff, the blond sashayed away.

Satisfaction warred with embarrassment, and Embry fought to keep both off her face as the woman swung in her direction. The dark, sharp eyes studied her with interest for several moments before she turned to Cade, taking his face between her red-nail tipped fingers and planting a smacking kiss on his mouth. “Congrats on your win, cher.”

Smiling sheepishly, Cade enfolded the woman in a massive bear hug. “Thanks Jeanette.” He shifted her around until they were both facing Embry. “This is Embry Hollister. Embry, this is my New Orleans Maman, Jeanette Benoit.”

Best friend and his current mother figure. What is this, Embry wondered, a meet the family kind of date? It wasn’t at all what she’d had in mind. She’d never be able to slip him the antidote beneath their watchful eyes.

Embry forced her lips to curve and held her hand out to Jeanette. “Nice to meet you.”

The other woman took her hand, her eyes glazing over a moment, her smile frozen in place. Then Jeannette blinked, releasing her hand. “You are different.”

Though her senses jangled with alarm, she forced her voice to be light. “He’s not usually into red-heads?”

Jeanette made a non-committal noise, then patted Cade’s shoulder and headed back to the kitchen.

Cade missed the exchange, as he was busy replying to the assorted wave of thank yous being tossed out from the rest of the de facto fan club who were likewise digging into their wings. He didn’t notice her sudden tension. Mick noticed. From the other end of the bar, he lifted a brow and looked back at the kitchen.

Embry’s mind raced, analyzing the exchange in an attempt to catalogue the threat. Witch? One with the power of Sight? She’d made no subtle warning or challenge as Mick had, so maybe this Jeannette wasn’t an immediate threat.

Embry shifted to study the crowd, as much from habit as to settle herself again. Among the patrons she counted a vampire, two other Wylk, and a male witch who was illegally working a charm on the woman he was with. Embry could have busted him, but she wasn’t on duty, and she sure as hell wasn’t about to blow her shot at this mission.

“You okay?” asked Cade. “Wings not your thing? I’m sorry, I should’ve asked. Would you like something else?”

Embry dialed the smile back up and focused on him. “No, I’m fine. Just a little overwhelmed. I’ve been in a lot of crowds tonight.”

“Not into big presses of people, huh?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither,” he admitted.

“Really? But the crowds love you.”

“They love whoever the winner of the minute is. Tomorrow that may not be me.”

“Then what?” she asked. “What will you do when you can’t fight anymore?”

“Damned if I know.” He made short work of the rest of his wings. “What about you? What do you do?”

She slanted a glance down the bar to where Mick was chatting with a couple of other patrons. He didn’t move, didn’t glance her way, but Embry knew he was listening. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Cade’s lips curved in a killer smile she felt straight down to her gut. “A woman of mystery. Okay, I can respect that. So you won’t tell me what you do, tell me something else about yourself.”

Time to get the show on the road, she thought placing a hand on his forearm and leaning in close. “I secretly hate high heels,” she whispered. “But you can’t tell anyone. They’ll take away my woman card.”

His eyes raked over her in appreciation. “Sugar, nobody could ever take your woman card away.”

She leaned back, crossing her legs so the hemline rode high, drawing his eyes again. “Yeah, well, it has its uses.”

“Like making guys drool?”

“Well, we sure don’t do it for us.”

He threw back his head and laughed. God, how she’d missed that sound.

“Well on behalf of my side of the species, thank God for it.” He raised his glass.

She tapped her martini glass against the lip with a cheerful clink, then drained the last of her spoiled drink.

“Want another?” he asked, starting to signal for Mick.

Embry shook her head and bent toward him. “Let’s get out of here,” she whispered, letting her lips brush against the lobe of his ear.

His big body tensed in a shiver before he tipped his eyes back to hers. “Yes ma’am.”

* * *

Men are pigs, thought Embry, struggling to keep the flirty smile from turning into a scowl as the elevator climbed slowly to the ninth floor. Cade stood beside her, thumbs hooked in the front pockets of his jeans.

He didn’t have to agree so damned fast to this proposal.

Never mind that this was the role she was playing, that this was exactly where she wanted him.

He probably has women throwing themselves at him all the time, she thought with disgust. The sexy, successful fighter. Probably gets all the tail he could want. Neanderthal. Flavor of the week, my ass.

She felt a growl vibrate in the back of her throat.

“Did you say something?” he asked.

“Just clearing my throat,” she said, pasting the smile back on as she met his eyes. There isn’t enough air in here.

The doors slid open with a soft ding and he offered her his arm. Embry thought it was a foolishly gallant gesture given what he thought they were going to do, but she slid her hand in the crook of his elbow anyway and led him down the hall.

At the door to her room, she fumbled through her purse for the room key. She couldn’t help herself. “I guess you do this all the time, huh?” Jealous idiot, she told herself.

He smiled a trifle sheepishly. “Meet insanely attractive, audacious women with a killer sense of humor? No, not so much.”

Clearly your tastes more often run to brainless bimbos. But she smiled anyway and slid the keycard into the door.

She paused just inside the doorway, doing a quick sweep of the room with her senses. But the spells she’d put in place when she left hadn’t been disturbed. She loosed a little breath of relief.

Cade’s hands settled lightly on her shoulders and began to knead. “You seem a bit tense.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d touched her tonight. He was a casually affectionate sort of guy. But they’d been in public before, surrounded by people she had to constantly scan and assess. With no other threat to distract her, Embry was fully aware of the strength in his hands, the feel of his fingers on her bare shoulders. Heat radiated off him in the too cold air, a solid reminder that he was very much alive. He leaned in, as if to catch a too quiet response, and his breath trailed over her skin. Lust and need tangled in her belly.

As she wracked her brain for a glib reply, he circled around in front of her. “Hey, I don’t expect anything. You get uncomfortable or want me to go, you just say the word. No harm, no foul.”

“Always the gentleman,” she murmured. “Someone raised you right.”

Something flickered in his eyes before he smiled and took both her hands in his. “C’mon.”

He started tugging her further into the room. Her heart stumbled and so did her feet as her gaze strayed to the sprawling king-sized bed. But he bypassed it, nudging her instead onto the sofa. Then he sat on the floor.

“What are you doing?”

Cade lifted her foot and did a reverse Cinderella, slipping the stiletto heel off and setting it aside. “I can see how these would be uncomfortable, but they totally accomplish their mission.”

“And what’s that?” Embry asked as he began to slowly flex her foot.

“They draw attention to your truly superb legs.” He dug his thumbs into the ball and dragged them to the arch.

Embry made an involuntary groan of pleasure and let her head drop back against the sofa. “That’s it. This is your fallback career when you can’t fight anymore. Women would line up for miles for a foot massage like this.”

Chuckling, Cade continued to knead, loosening the knots and strain in her abused feet.

He’s not seducing me, Embry told herself. I’m just letting him think he is. But she couldn’t resist imagining those magic hands elsewhere on her body. Then she couldn’t stop the memory of them from flashing to life in her mind. She wanted him. She had always wanted him. But she’d be damned if she was going to let history repeat itself. This was a mission, nothing more. It couldn’t be anything more.

Because she was desperate to touch him, Embry curled her fingers into the cushions and called herself a liar.

“Hey, where did your head go just now?”

She opened her eyes to look down at him as he shifted over to the other foot. God he was beautiful. And completely out of bounds.

“You look sad.”

I found out that the man I love is still alive, and it doesn’t matter because however things turn out, I can’t be with him. Yeah, that makes me pretty fucking heartbroken.

Giving into the urge, she leaned forward and captured his face lightly in her hands. It was a pleasure to run her fingers over the planes of it. His cheeks were sharper, leaner now, without the boyish softness she remembered. There was an assortment of small scars that she didn’t recognize. She traced each of them softly, wondering if they’d all come from the cage.

His lips quirked. “I’m not too pretty after all these years of fighting.”

“Nothing has looked more wonderful to me in the last ten years,” she said.

His eyes widened, and Embry realized her mistake. Muttering a curse, she laid her lips over his.

She meant to distract him. To keep her own head and kiss him until she could think of an explanation that wouldn’t blow this. But beneath the faint taste of hops from his earlier beer, she tasted home, and she wanted to drown in it. All the years of longing, of wanting, of grieving swamped her, and she dragged him closer, her hands diving into his hair.

His arms came around her, one hand fisting in her curls as he dragged her head back and plundered her mouth with the same ragged desperation she felt.

It was foolish, dangerous, and she didn’t care. After so many years of nothing, just this once she was going to take something for herself.

He jerked her to her feet, and they circled in a fevered dance toward the bed, straining to touch and taste. And beneath his hands, she felt herself ignite.

Alarmed, Embry stumbled back. She struggled to slow the breath that threatened to whistle out of her lungs like a steam engine. She stepped back from him. “I think I need a drink.” Stupid. Idiot. Get it together.

The ice bucket was where she’d left it on the coffee table hours earlier, albeit with a puddle of condensation around it. She scooped what remained of the ice into the waiting glasses and added a generous three fingers of scotch to one. Her hand trembled. She hadn’t counted on this, hadn’t planned on all the old feelings swirling up and taking over. She needed to be focused. She was here on a mission. This was about her father, not about reviving feelings for a ghost.

The first sip burned its way down to her stomach, clearing her mind, clarifying her purpose. Slipping the tiny vial from her dress, she carefully tipped the contents into the second glass on the pretext of adding more ice, then topped it off with single malt. She offered it to Cade. “Join me?”

His breath still came harder than normal as he crossed and took the glass, and Embry hoped he didn’t see the very real spark that flew up when his finger brushed hers. Get a grip, woman or you’re going to burn the hotel down.

Rather than taking a sip of the drink in his hand, Cade swirled the glass until the ice rattled. He didn’t look amused anymore. “You said ten years.”

“Did I?” The nerves doing a river dance in her stomach trembled in her voice. Drink the damned scotch.

“You know me, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question. The words came out more as an accusation that slapped her from across the room.

No more lies on this one. Keeping her gaze steady on his, she swallowed. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he demanded. The fingers gripping his glass went white.

“You didn’t remember me.”

“I don’t remember anything. Who are you?”

“I told you. I’m Embry Hollister—” she began.

“No. Who are you to me? Or who were you?”

Drink the scotch. Drink the scotch. The words repeated like a mantra in her head. She took another sip of her own, hoping he’d follow the example. “We were…involved. I wanted to see if you’d remember anything from spending time with me.” Okay, partial truth.

The ice cubes clinked in his glass as he began to pace restlessly. “I saw you. During the fight. And I felt. . .  I don’t know what I felt. But something. When I asked you in the locker room if you knew me, you blew it off.” He stopped pacing to face her. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for someone who knew me from before?”

“I imagine as long as I’ve been looking over my shoulder hoping to find you.” Embry was out of scotch.

“So we were involved? Important to each other?” he asked.

“Very,” she said softly.

“Do you know what happened to me? Why I can’t remember?”

“Some of it,” she admitted.

He tipped the glass back and drained it. “Tell me everything,” he said, slapping the glass down with a thunk.

Embry stared at it in relief. “I don’t have to. You’re about to remember.”

A vein popped out at his temple and his eyes went wide. One hand flew to his throat as he began to wheeze, the other reached out to her as he stumbled forward. “What . . .  have . . .  you . . .  done?”

“Set you free,” she said softly.

He crashed onto the coffee table. The wood splintered, the tray and the ice bucket flying.

Even knowing that the antidote wouldn’t kill him, panic pulsed through her at the sight of his purpling face. His limbs flailed, his body bowing as the potion worked its way through every cell, eradicating the memory block imposed there all those years ago.

At last, he was still, his color returning to normal. With considerable effort, she hoisted his dead weight and repositioned him on the bed. Then she poured herself another scotch and settled in to wait.

Chapter 4

Sweat slicked his skin. He lifted his arm in an automatic block and felt the zing of impact up to his shoulder. A grin stretched his lips as he backed up, circling her on the sparring mat. “You’re getting better, Ember.”

“I still haven’t taken you down,” she panted, her sunburst eyes glowing with battle light and with the power she managed to keep just banked.

“Keep dreaming, baby,” he laughed.

“I’m going to beat you, Gage Dempsey,” she declared, punctuating each word with an attempted strike.

When she snuck in a blow to his kidney, Gage stopped laughing and corrected his stance.

He lived for these sparring matches with Embry. He lived for any of the stolen time they managed to spend together, even if she just came to the dojo because she wanted to learn the ways of the Shadow Walkers and her father wouldn’t teach her. He didn’t know how Adan would react to the fact that he was teaching Embry to fight. Or the fact that his protégé was in love with his daughter. And Gage couldn’t afford to anger his mentor. Not when he owed Adan everything. So other than this, Embry was off limits.

A blast of dry heat knocked him back two steps.

“Hey now, you’re losing your cool. Keep the fireworks under wraps, padewan.”

“I will burn your ass, Obi-wan.”

Gage ducked as a roundhouse whispered by his head, countering with a low spin kick that caught and buckled her knee. From the mat, Embry scissored her legs around his and brought him down to her level. She swarmed over him like a monkey, struggling for any kind of hold, but he just rolled and twisted in her ever frustrated grasp. Which was amusing until the friction of her lithe little body rubbing against his caused another problem.

He pinned her with his body, pressing both her arms to the mat. Her long legs were wrapped around his hips like a vice, and Gage could feel his erection straining against his gi pants toward her heat. His breath shuddered out as he struggled for some kind of control. This was Adan’s daughter. She was practically his sister.

Gage tried to back up, but Embry’s legs only tightened. He felt himself twitch against her, and his face flamed in mortification. “Uncle,” he muttered, voice rough. “You win. Let me up.”

Embry tipped her hips experimentally against his, and he strangled on his own breath. His head dipped as he struggled not to react. She moved again.

“Don’t,” he barked. “We’re not going to play this game, Embry.”

“Gage.” At her soft voice, he looked up and met her eyes. The gold ring that circled her pupil was pulsing. “Let go of my hands.”

He released her, planting his own hands on the mat and pushing up to keep them from touching her anywhere else. He tried to find somewhere else to look. Straight down put him on eye level with her breasts, and his mouth watered at the thought of suckling one puckered peak. Straight ahead gave him a full on view of them in the mirror, and his all too active imagination decided to treat him to what those tangled limbs would look like if they were both naked. Christ.

Her hands, soft and insistent, framed his face and forced him to look at her. And it wasn’t a girl beneath him. Wasn’t anyone he could convince himself to think of as a sibling. She was a woman, fully aroused, fully aware. Her extraordinary sunburst eyes stayed focused on him as she rose up and captured his mouth.

His arms and shoulders trembled. He was not so weak a fighter that he couldn’t extricate himself. He should throw her off, end this madness.

But the taste of her seeped into his veins and fired his blood. She would burn him up from the inside out, leaving nothing but cinders. Yet he couldn’t pull away.

She shoved at him until he rolled, reversing their positions. Rising over him like some kind of fire goddess, she pulled the tight t-shirt over her head, growling a little in frustration as it caught in the long tangle of auburn. The sports bra she wore zipped in the front. The zipper was already partially down, and her breasts strained against the cotton. He ached to fill his hands with them. Because he didn’t trust himself, he clutched her thighs and held still.

She bent over him again, her hands sprinting over his chest. Everywhere she touched, he burned, a delicious edge one step away from pain that left him wanting more. If this was lunacy, he reveled in it.

“Gage,” she murmured, her lips barely brushing his.

“Mmm?”

“Touch me.”

Embry sat up, her eyes fixed on his in challenge, and slowly unzipped her sports bra. Her breasts spilled out as she shrugged the thing off. “Touch me,” she ordered again, lifting both his hands and placing them over her breasts. A hum of pleasure escaped her, and he was lost.

He reared up to take her mouth as he shifted his hands to cradle her breasts. They were full and heavy in his palms, the nipples budding taut and hard beneath the stroke of his thumbs. In his lap she began to move to the rhythm of his stroking. On a gasp he broke the kiss and stilled her. “You’ll need to stop that unless you want this over before it’s started.”

“I need you,” she whispered, and the plea brought him one step closer to madness.

Gage dropped his forehead to hers. “I have to know, Ember. Have you ever . . . ”

“No. I wanted it to be you. I always wanted it to be you.”

Her first. God, he’d never imagined she would want him.

Gage stroked the hair back from her temple. “Embry, I . . . ”

“Let her go.” The voice echoed through the dojo and froze his blood, drying up the words he’d been about to speak

Instead of obeying, Gage pulled Embry closer to shield her from the intruders as he watched them step out of the shadows. There were three of them, each clad in the dark gray or black that was the standard issue for Shadow Walkers. He didn’t know them, but he knew their kind. After all, he’d been trained to be one of them. As Adan wasn’t among them, Gage could only assume the powers that be had finally found out about him and the vigilante missions Adan had trained him for.

“What do you want?” he asked, carefully easing up, keeping Embry’s body pressed close to his as he shifted to put himself between the intruders and her, both as a means of protection and to preserve some measure of her modesty.

“I said, let her go.”

“Matthias, don’t. He didn’t—” Embry started.

“Shut your mouth, child. You weren’t supposed to be here.”

Gage’s mind whirled. So they were coming after me. They don’t want her. I can keep her safe if I can just get her out of here. “Will you be taking me to the Council?” he asked. He moved over a couple of steps, retrieving Embry’s t-shirt and passing it back to her.

“And expose Adan’s little side project? I don’t think so. We’re simply here to take care of the problem before it gets any further out of hand.” This came from the Walker to Matthias’ left. He was lean with the ropy muscles and long-fingered hands of a wraith.

“Take care of the problem,” said Gage. “Meaning me.” Behind him, he felt Embry stiffen. Before she could speak, he clamped his hand down tight on hers in warning. He knew every inch of this dojo, could visualize it under any condition. Right now he opened his mind, searching for the shadows. There was a sliver, behind him. Not much, but it might be just enough for him to dematerialize them both out of here. Without knowing him, they wouldn’t be able to follow. Not fast enough. He could get Embry away, keep her safe.

“Do you have any idea how many rules Adan violated with you? Bringing a human into our world?” The demand came from the Walker on the left. His dark face was barely differentiated from the shadows in which he stood. The outlines of his broad body were still blurred.

“I know he gave me my life.” Gage edged backward, trying to push Embry into a corner.

“A mistake we intend to rectify before it destroys him,” said the wraith.

“No!” The heat behind him was instant, scorching.

Gage turned toward her, shouting, “Embry, no!” But the fireballs were already flying from her hands toward the two flanking Walkers. They phased out even as Matthias dove forward and caught Gage around the waist.

Matthias was the bigger man, but Gage was younger, faster. He twisted and threw the Walker into a wall, already scrambling toward Embry.

She was a living flame, more than ever the child of her fire elemental mother. Heat and light pulsed off her in waves, expanding, beating in a terrifying rhythm as the nimbus grew and grew.

If she went nova, she’d kill them all.

Gage dove into the light, feeling no burn, no pain, just desperation to save her. If he could drag her out of the light and into the shadows, he could get her away to safety. Drawing on the darkness, he reached out for her. “You have to shut it off!”

“No, you don’t underst—”

His hands closed around her arms. For a heartbeat everything stilled. Then, agony ripped through him, an insatiable inferno of pain as everything she was projecting shot into his body and ripped him apart.

* * *

Embry shoved the barely there dress and ankle-breaking pumps into the bag. Good riddance, she thought, far more at ease in the jeans and knit top she now wore. A quick pass through the rest of the room showed that she’d gathered up everything. Her single duffel bag was packed and ready to go.

She wiped the room down for prints. Not that the IED used such primitive methods. If they came looking, they would find the characteristic traces of her magic in the room from when she’d nearly lost control with Gage. That spark would be as damning as a signature to those who knew how to read the scene, and there was no way to wipe that. And there really wasn’t anything she could do about the broken coffee table other than clean up the mess and let the hotel charge her credit card. So it was best that they get moving as soon as possible. Except she couldn’t lug Gage as a deadweight all the way to the car, not without arousing undue attention and suspicion.

Two long, restless hours had passed since he’d taken the antidote. How long is this going to take? The potionmonger from whom she’d obtained the antidote hadn’t said. If Matthias hadn’t recommended him as a source, Embry might be worried she’d given Gage some kind of poison. She moved back to sit on the edge of the bed.

He looks like he’s fighting a war, she thought, watching his face. What was he remembering?

Picking up one of his hands, she was startled at the sight of his palms. They held none of the usual lines but were, instead, covered in smooth, white scar tissue. Burns.

Embry closed her eyes and could still feel the desperate terror of that night. She’d been trying to save him the only way she knew how—by banishing the shadows with light. The dojo and Gage’s quarters were housed in a building with no windows or doors. If she eliminated all shadows, wrapping him in light, they couldn’t touch him, couldn’t take him into the shadows and away forever.

But he’d seen the aurora and mistaken it.

You have to turn it off!

The moment he’d grabbed her, something had changed. The nimbus of light she’d woven condensed and shot into him, slamming him back into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster. Then he’d slid limply to the ground and lay still. So still.

Matthias had walked over, checked his pulse, and shaken his head.

Matthias had lied. He’d let her live for ten years with the corrosive guilt that she’d killed the man she loved, until it suited his purposes to tell her otherwise. The bastard.

With one hand, she reached out, tracing her fingers over the contorted muscles in Gage’s face, as if she could ease the strain. “I’m so sorry.”

“Embry!” The scream burst from his mouth, and her heart jumped into her throat.

She leaned forward, intending to comfort, but he shot up, tackling her backwards.

Her breath whooshed out as they landed hard on the floor, his hands tight around her throat. Power swelled inside her, but she held it in check long enough to see his eyes clear, his face shift from rage to horror. He released her and scrambled back. One hand clutched at his head as he stared first at her, then looked wildly around the room, struggling to get to his feet, to raise his fists.

Embry sat up, clearing her throat. “It’s okay. We’re safe.”

He stumbled a few paces, looking as punch drunk as Archer had, and fell to his knees.

Embry scrambled to him before he could rise again, grabbing at his forearms, “Gage look at me. Look at me.” When he did, she could see the panicked fury in his eyes. She reached out to touch his cheek. “We’re alone. There’s no one here to hurt us. We’re safe. We’re safe.”

“Ember?” His eyes searched her face, and she wondered what he saw.

“I’m here.”

Her breath whooshed out again as he crushed her to him, almost cracking her ribs with shaking arms as one hand cradled her head. The combination of strength and gentleness all but undid her. It took every shred of self control to hold her body stiff in his embrace when she wanted to stroke and soothe—anything to ease his transition.

At length he stopped shaking. His frantic pulse slowed, and he loosened his grip, seeming to become aware that she was not returning his embrace.

“Embry, what the hell is going on?”

His eyes seemed clearer, more firmly grounded in the now than when he’d first awakened. “I’ll explain everything on the way.”

“On the way to where?”

“I need your help. Can you walk?”

“Probably. Why do I feel like I just went ten rounds with Chuck Liddell with both hands tied behind my back?”

“It’s a side effect of the antidote,” she said, heaving him to his feet.

“Antidote to what?”

“The Lethe potion.”

Gage slumped unsteadily against her. “The what?”

“Lethe. Like the river in Greek mythology. To make you forget.”

“Forget . . . I don’t . . . ” He shook his head.

“It’ll be clear in a while. But we have to move. We won’t be safe here for long.” She snagged the duffel and led him out the door.

They were alone in the elevator, so she asked, “What do you remember?”

He frowned, his eyes seeming to glaze over a bit as he tried to think. “They hurt you,” he growled. “They hurt you, and I couldn’t stop them.” His voice was ragged, and the self-condemnation on his face raked at her heart.

“They didn’t hurt me,” she told him. It wasn’t the sort of lie she minded telling. Not under the circumstances. “You, on the other hand, were another story.” The doors slid open to the lobby. “C’mon. I need to check out, and we have to get going.”

He moved more steadily as they crossed to the counter. To the average observer, he probably just appeared hung over or tired. Embry plastered a bright smile on her face and tucked one arm more firmly around his waist as they approached the desk clerk. “We need to check out.”

“Room please.”

“Nine seventeen.”

The receptionist’s fingers flew over her keyboard. “Will that be charged to the card we have on file?”

“Yes. And um, we needed to let you know we had a little . . . uh . . . issue with the coffee table.” The smile threatened to crack her face, but Embry cuddled up to Gage and hoped they looked honeymoonish or something. “Just charge me for the replacement of that too. Whatever is necessary.”

The woman’s eyes flicked to where Gage had dropped his head and was nuzzling Embry’s neck. Only the fact that she was supporting the bulk of his body weight let Embry know that it was a cover up.

The clerk’s eyebrows rose. “Very well. Please sign here.”

Embry signed the bill.

“Please come again.”

The black Dodge Charger was gleaming with a coat of droplets from the flash summer shower that had blown through an hour or so before. Using the keys she’d liberated from his jeans pocket, Embry opened the passenger door and more or less dumped Gage into it. When he opened his mouth she said, “You’re in no condition to drive,” and shut the door.

She started to circle around to the trunk, but a flash of movement caught her attention just before she was slammed against the back end of the car.

“I knew you was trouble, you,” snarled Mick, eyes glinting a dangerous gold. “What did you do to him?”

Embry drew on the heat of temper, focusing it where the Wylk’s hands dug into her arms. “That’s none of your goddamned business.”

“Mick?” Gage shoved the car door open. “What the fuck? Let her go!”

“Stay in the car. I’ll handle this. Let me go, Guidry.” She cranked up the heat until he pulled his hands away with a hiss.

Gage, naturally, didn’t stay in the car. “Mick, what the hell are you doing here? Did you follow us?”

The irate shifter glanced toward him and Gage’s jaw dropped. “Holy shit, you’re Wylk.” He sagged against the car for support.

Mick’s eyes widened before narrowing and swinging back to her. “What kinda game you playin’, ’tite fille?”

“One you have no place in. Why did you follow us?”

“I know what you are, and I gots to ask myself what some firecaster wants with mon ami, why she smells like anxiety and aggression instead of arousal when she drag him outta my bar. So I follow.”

“Mick, it’s not what you think,” started Gage, trying to steady himself with one hand on the door and the other on the roof of the car.

“Really? Cause it sure the fuck look like she been tellin’ you all kind of things she not supposed to. Not to mention you look like you either drunk off yo’ ass or been beat to shit.”

“She didn’t tell me anything. She filled in the blank.”

“She what?” Mick demanded.

Fuck. Embry scrubbed both hands over her face in frustration. “He was under a Lethe spell. I removed it. End of story as far as you’re concerned. Gage, get in the car, we have to go.”

“Who da fuck is Gage?”

“That was my name before.”

“Enough with the explanations. We don’t have time for this,” insisted Embry. She opened the trunk and tossed the duffel in.

“Who’s after you?” asked Mick.

“No one yet, but they’re going to be if we stand around here lolly gagging. Go away Guidry and forget you ever saw us.”

The Wylk stepped forward. “If you think I’m just gonna let you take him—”

“She’s not taking me anywhere. I’m going willingly. I’ll be fine, Mick. Just let it be.”

“This ain’t over,” he said, but he backed off.

Gage collapsed back in the car. Embry climbed into the driver’s seat and jammed the key in the ignition. The engine cranked with a roar. “Okay, can you tell me how to get to your house?”

“My house?”

“You need to pack a bag.”

“For what?” he demanded.

“An extraction mission,” she said, pulling out into the empty street and leaving Mick standing in the shadow of a streetlight. “We have to go rescue my father.”

Chapter 5

He insisted on driving. It was his car, he said. And he drove the speed limit. As if they had all the time in the world or were taking a fucking road trip. When she complained, he said it was best if they remained under the radar of both the human and Mirus variety. So Embry sat in her seat and seethed until somewhere south of Dallas, when he pulled into a roadside diner for breakfast. She remained silent, picking at her eggs and toast while he plowed through a tall stack, a western omelet, hash browns, and half a pot of coffee.

“Okay, you’ve had eight hours to sulk that we’re not doing this your way right now. You done yet?” he asked.

“I’m not sulking. I’m pissed. It’s not the same thing.”

“Semantics. Eat, you’ll need your strength.”

She narrowed her eyes and nibbled at a slice of bacon.

“Ooo, sarcasm by body language. That’s a step toward getting over yourself and getting to work.”

“Stuff it, Dempsey.” Embry scowled into her coffee. Christ, I’ve regressed to being a teenager. Irritated—with herself, with him—she put the coffee down and stabbed a fork into the eggs. “The intel came from the senior member of Dad’s team. They were on a clean-up mission trying to eliminate some traces of a—” Her eyes flicked around to check the distance of the waitress. “—an illegal hunting spree. Werewolves. Idiots. Right in the military’s back yard. The mission was get in, destroy their evidence, get out. Dad was lead, as usual. There were two others. Senior officer and a rookie. They got split up. Mission accomplished. But when they reconvened, the rookie didn’t make the check in. Dad went after him and got caught. The rookie was killed.”

“Can I top that off for you, hon?”

Embry looked up at the forty-something waitress, who didn’t wait for a reply before filling the tiny cup to the brim, thus totally ruining the concentration of sugar. Embry wondered if the woman would have noticed if she’d covered the cup with the saucer.

“Thanks,” said Gage, flashing a charming smile as his own coffee was topped off.

Simpering, the waitress sauntered off.

“Okay, so the senior officer made it out, reported back.” Gage blew on the fresh coffee. “Then what happened?”

“The Council sent a small recon team of other Walkers to find out what happened to him. They tracked him to a little known military base in Montana. The entire facility is lined in iron.”

“Iron?” Gage’s dark brows drew together. “I can see how that would limit spellcasting, prevent teleportation, keep the shamans from being able to get the layout via astral projection. But it shouldn’t limit Adan. Why can’t he just Walk out?”

“Because they apparently light every inch of the facility, twenty-four hours a day. No shadows, no Walking. Someone knows more than they should. Or suspects anyway. But the same thing that prevents Dad from getting out kept the recon team from getting in. Without being able to gather any more intel, the Council deemed the risk was too great to send an extraction team. They ruled it would be less threat to the Races to leave him in the military’s custody to be tested or executed. Better they think him some kind of genetic aberration than one of many.” Embry tore into the last slice of bacon.

“You didn’t take that well, I bet.”

The Council certainly hadn’t appreciated the massive scorch mark left on the ceiling of the meeting chamber by her reaction. “I took a leave of absence.”

“And decided to come find me.”

“No, actually.” Because you were dead. “I was going off on my own. Matthias intercepted me.”

At the sound of the name, Gage’s face darkened and a muscle twitched in his jaw. “He was there. That night.”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“What happened after they took me out?”

Part of me died. “They took you away.” Embry’s throat felt thick as her mind conjured up the image of his limp body being hauled away by the wraith for disposal. The dojo had burned out to a shell before she stopped screaming.

She waited until the strain eased and continued. “I had to be . . . contained while they did. Eventually they took me home.” Where she’d been heavily sedated. “They waited around for Dad to get back from his mission. I wasn’t supposed to be there when they confronted him.”

“Always had a rebellious streak,” he murmured.

Embry rubbed at the tension in her temple. Rebellion had been the last thing on her mind that night. She’d stuck around hoping her father was going to make it right, make the nightmare go away. “They tried to be reasonable. Throwing cold, hard logic at him. If the Council found out about you, about the fact that he’d not only rescued you, but that he’d trained you, taught you to Walk—he’d have been executed. And you would have been tested. Poked and prodded . . . and probably eventually dissected. Because people like you aren’t supposed to be able to do what you do.” She saw from the look on his face that he knew that by people like him, she meant human.

“Nothing they said swayed him. I’ve never seen him so angry. It’s probably a good thing he doesn’t have my specific . . . abilities. I don’t think there would have been anything left of the team, let alone the house. But what did they expect? For all intents and purposes, you were his son. You were what I couldn’t be.”

“Ember, your father adores you. He’s always adored you. He never wanted the life of a Walker for you.”

“He wasn’t keen on me going into the IED either.”

Gage held up his hand. “Wait, wait. You went into the Investigation and Enforcement Division. The fucking paranormal FBI? You?” He shook his head. “You hate rules.”

“Yeah, that hasn’t changed. But my being IED is neither here nor there. By then it was done and you were gone. Nothing was the same after. He wasn’t the same after. They thought that getting rid of you would teach him a lesson, curb his habits. If anything, Dad got more reckless. He was censured a few times, but nothing permanent. He’s too valuable to the Council to take off active duty. Or he was.”

She fell silent again, idly swirling her finger in the cup to reheat the coffee that had gone cold.

“Did you ever look for me?”

Embry looked up at him. Gage’s face settled into the carefully blank lines usually reserved for interrogation, but it wasn’t hard to guess what was going through his mind.

Distant, professional, she reminded herself. Stick to the plan. “No.”

The stone facade cracked just a little as a muscle began to twitch in his jaw. “I woke up looking for you.”

Startled, Embry caused the coffee to boil over the rim and jerked her finger out. “What?”

“I didn’t know it was you. I couldn’t remember. Not your name or your face. That was gone, just like everything else. But the potion or spell or whatever the fuck it was just erased memory. All the feelings were still there. I just didn’t have the right context for them.”

Embry couldn’t fathom what that would be like. “Where were you?” she asked softly.

“Nevada. In a shitty motel north of Vegas. I’ve got no fucking clue why they left me there of all places.”

He’d have been bruised and battered, she remembered. And burned. “What did you do?”

“Drove to Vegas. Matthias was decent enough to leave me with my Charger.”

Embry looked out the window at the pristine muscle car. “I didn’t think his taste was that good.”

“Oh it was a piece of shit before I restored it. But it was the only thing I had when I woke up, so I’m kinda sentimental about it. Anyway, I got in touch with the authorities, who were happy to slap a big ‘Solved’ on my missing person’s case. The social worker assigned to me kept assuring me that my memory would come back. Came up with all kinds of theories as to why it didn’t. Nothing was near the truth.”

It wouldn’t be.

He hadn’t mentioned it, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “What about your burns?”

“Funny thing about that actually. Matthias must’ve done something to make them heal faster. When I woke up in the motel, I had seriously charred hands. By the time I made it to the hospital, they were down to blisters.”

“I’m so sorry, Gage.”

“I don’t want your apology, Embry. It isn’t your fault. You’re not the one who did this to me. No matter what else happens, you’re the one who dragged me out of the Purgatory of not knowing. No matter what I may have to leave behind of my life in New Orleans, it’s worth knowing. Who I am. Where I come from. You don’t know how important that is until you don’t have it. So thank you for that.”

But it was my fault. The certainty of it settled in her belly, transmuting what little breakfast she’d managed into lead. He certainly wouldn’t be thanking her for anything if he knew. But that was on the list of things she would continue to lie about. She wouldn’t risk her father’s life by telling him the truth.

* * *

“You are a Shadow Walker, Gage. Whatever it is that makes some people able to tame the shadows, it’s in you, just like it’s in Dad. Traveling through shadow used to be second nature to you. If you knew the layout or had a person in mind as an anchor, you could travel virtually anywhere. You could see in the dark, you could move without sound. Dad trained you so that you could—”

“I know all that! I have all my memories, all the fucking facts. I remember doing it. I just can’t . . .  I guess I just can’t remember how I did it. Or something.” He tunneled his fingers through his hair. We should have gotten separate rooms.

Embry’s eyes bored into him from where she lay sprawled on one of the beds. He could feel her gaze on him, like twin points of heat on his chest. Her scrutiny—and her lecture—was really fucking with his concentration.

Not that he’d been able to do much on that front since she’d walked into the locker room and back into his life. He was too busy trying not to keel over from the constantly unfurling memories bombarding his brain. Not to mention the effort it was taking to remind himself that what had happened—or not happened—between him and Embry had been over a decade before. Everything about that fabricated date had just been about getting him in place to take the antidote.

She didn’t even look for me. Not until I was of use to her. The thought rattled around his head, banishing whatever vestiges of focus he’d managed to drum up.

Had he misinterpreted everything that had gone on that last night? Had it been some kind of game to her? Or maybe the disastrous confrontation with the other Shadow Walkers had scared her away from any kind of involvement. If the consequences for him had been a total eradication of his memory, the consequences for her for coming after him would probably have been pretty steep. Hell, it wasn’t as if the Council had likely changed much in the last ten years. The consequences would still be brutal if they were caught.

So, better figure this shit out and not get caught.

“Have you fallen asleep standing up?”

Gage didn’t bother opening his eyes. “I can’t do this with you watching me.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, it’s not like you’re taking a piss. Just dematerialize already.” Impatience simmered in Embry’s voice.

He swallowed the irritation, reminding himself that she was anxious about her father and not thinking clearly. Still, it was a stretch to keep his tone even. “I get that, but having you staring at me is just adding more pressure to an already stressful thing. I haven’t done this in ten years.”

“Well what do you want me to do? Go hide in the bathroom or something?”

“Why don’t you run to the vending machine, get a couple of drinks to go with the Chinese when it gets here.”

“And leave you by yourself. What happens if you manage to Walk, and then can’t get back because you have no anchor?”

When he opened his eyes, her arms were crossed and her face was etched with an I’m making a reasonable argument, aren’t you going to listen to me expression.

“I seriously doubt I’m going to manage that in the five minutes it will take you to go to the Coke machine, but it might let me clear my head and get centered.”

She swung her legs off the bed with an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. But if you disappear and can’t find your way back here, I’m going to be beyond pissed.” She shoved one of the keycards into her pocket and snagged her purse.

Gage waited until the door swung shut before releasing a long, shuddering breath. He wouldn’t have long, and he needed to focus.

He turned off the bedside lamp, throwing half the room into shadow. Stepping into the deepest part of it, he shut his eyes again and focused on his breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In. Out.

Like riding a bike, he told himself.

An unfamiliar buzzing started in his head and spread throughout his torso. Was this what dematerializing felt like? He couldn’t remember. Maybe he was just hyperventilating.

Okay, I’ll just try something simple. From one side of the room to the other.

He visualized the pool of dark on the other side of the bureau, willing himself into it. His pulse beat slow and thick in his chest, and instinct demanded that he match his breath to the rhythm. In his mind, he pulled the tendrils of shadow around him like a cloak, wrapping himself from head to foot.

That’s it. That’s it. Now show me the pathway.

The darkness extended, a bridge at the edge of the light. He had only to walk across it . . .

Someone pounded on the door, shattering his concentration.

“Goddamn it Embry, I thought you took your key.” He stepped out of the shadow and toward the door, feeling suddenly exposed in the light as he yanked it open. The additional curses died on his tongue as he took in the punk-haired Asian kid holding the plastic bag of their food.

“Delivery?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Gage, shoving a hand through his hair and trying to readjust his brain.

“Eighteen thirty seven,” the kid announced.

Gage dug in his wallet for a twenty and a few ones.

“Hey!”

Gage looked up at the excitement in the kid’s voice.

“You’re Cade Shepherd!”

He blinked at the kid. It wasn’t the first time he’d been recognized in public, probably wouldn’t be the last. But that life already felt so very far away as to belong to someone else. Still, he tried to muster up a smile. “Yeah.”

“Oh my God, dude, I just watched you take down Archer on TV last night! That was freaking awesome! And that whole season of Ultimate Fighter, I was totally pulling for you.”

Amusement made his lips curve. He could never get used to the idea of having fans. “Thanks.”

Embry came down the breezeway, a couple of cans in her hand.

“Can I have your autograph?” the kid asked.

Embry’s brows winged up.

“Got a pen?”

The kid produced one from some pocket of his oversized gangster jeans, and Gage signed his other name to the back of their dinner receipt. He handed it over.

“This is so freaking cool! Thanks!”

“No problem.”

Embry was propelled into motion again as he took the food and thanked the delivery guy. She slid in behind him and shut the door. “That happen often?”

He studied her face, noting humor rather than concern. “Not too often. Depends on where I am. It’s more likely at a gym than just random public. Mixed martial arts fighting is popular, and while there are a lot of fighters, it’s a fairly small community.” He paused, the tactical disadvantage occurring to him. “I’m not sure whether it’ll be a problem or not on this mission. Maybe it’s time you told me what your plan is for getting inside the facility.”

She moved over and began removing containers from the bag. “I don’t know yet.”

Gage blinked. “You don’t know yet,” he repeated.

“We’ll know more after we perform our own reconnaissance.” She flipped open a Styrofoam container of beef lo mien and adroitly lifted noodles to her mouth with chopsticks.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“We knew this wouldn’t be easy.”

“Hard doesn’t scare me. But this kind of mission should be well planned or it’s suicide. We walk in that place via our own two feet or other means, it may very well lead to our own capture.”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take.” She ate more noodles. “I assume you didn’t have any luck.”

“You assume right. My head is all over the place right now. I’ll try again later.”

Her eyes flared gold for just a moment before returning to normal. “My father is counting on you, Gage. So am I.”

“I know it. I won’t let you down, Embry.”

Much later, after night had long since fallen and the sounds of other hotel patrons had faded, after Embry had finally drifted off into an uneasy sleep, Gage climbed out of bed and tried again in the full dark. But no matter how hard he tried, the shadows refused to bend to his will. He was still trying when the sun began to rise, causing his quarry to flee.

Exhausted, he fell into bed and admitted defeat.

Chapter 6

I made a mistake.

The suspicion stole through her body like a virus. Embry flexed her clammy hands on the steering wheel and glanced over at the passenger seat where Gage was sleeping, head tipped against the window. He looked terrible in the dying sun, the shadows under his eyes and the mottled bruising from the fight adding years to his face.

Embry knew he’d been up all night. She’d awakened twice to see him still standing in the dark, meditating. Not that it had done more than exhaust him. He’d been sleeping off and on all the way across Kansas and Colorado.

He couldn’t Walk.

Embry hadn’t expected that it would take this long. She’d gone into this expecting that giving him the antidote would be like lifting a curtain and all his memories would simply be there, as if they’d never been gone. She’d been naïve and foolish and selfish for thinking only of how he could help her. And now she was dragging him into a danger that he might not survive unless he could remember his skills as a Walker. They all might die if his memories didn’t fully return.

And what kind of life had she condemned him to if they did survive? Giving him back memories of the Mirus world eradicated any hope he had of going back to the life he’d built for himself.

It had never occurred to her that he would have built a nice life without her. She found herself unreasonably pissed off that he’d managed it so well.

He would be hunted. And it would be her fault. Again.

What have I done?

Gage jerked in his seat, bolting upright with fists curled at the ready.

“Bad dreams?” she asked quietly.

He relaxed his hands and scrubbed them over his face. “Where are we?”

“Middle of Wyoming somewhere. I forget the last town we passed. Wasn’t much to it other than a gas station and a post office.”

He settled back in his seat and lapsed into the relative silence of the road. It was one of those highways where something in the road made the tires go tha-dunk . . . tha-dunk. There was about 6 seconds from one tha-dunk to another. She figured that meant, what, 600 tha-dunks per hour?

She was at 438. Tha-dunk, 439.

“What did they threaten you with?” asked Gage.

Startled, Embry looked over at him, but she couldn’t read his face behind the mirrored sunglasses he’d fished out of the glove box. “What did who threaten me with?”

“The Council. Or the other Walkers. What did they threaten you and Adan with to keep you from coming after me? I figure it must have been pretty damn bad to keep you away this long.”

Potential lies tumbled through her mind. She was IED. No one but the Council knew the laws better than she did. It would be easy to spin a tale of threatened punishments to ease his mind. But it was the truth that fell from her lips. “They didn’t have to threaten us.”

In her periphery, she saw him glance at her.

“Did you think I’d be better off in my own world?”

Was he trying to give her some kind of out? Some way of proving that they’d had his best interests at heart? That they hadn’t just abandoned him, without family, without memory, in a world that didn’t give a damn about him?

“We thought you were dead.”

Gage tugged the sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and peered over them. “Come again?”

With a sigh, Embry squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before focusing back on the road. “When the Walkers came to the dojo that night, they intended to kill you. The plan was to cut you out of our lives, our world, in the only possible permanent way.”

“Yet here I am. Why? If they wanted me dead, I’d be dead. Walkers are nothing if not good with the follow through.”

They didn’t have to follow through. That’s what I was for. Despite the fact that he sat whole and breathing in the seat beside her, she’d lived too long with the guilt of killing him to stop the immediate flash of his body, bloody, burned, and broken on the floor of the dojo. She blinked the image and the immediate prick of tears away.

“Embry?”

She took a bracing breath and decided to leave out her own role in what had happened that night. “Matthias had what you might call an attack of conscience. You know what their missions are like. Always follow the Council’s orders. Over the years he had quite a bit of innocent blood on his hands. You didn’t do anything to justify execution—not really. My father is the one who brought you into our world, raised you to be a Walker. It was he who broke the laws. You only did what you were told. Matthias had a contact—a witch he knew from way back who dealt in old magics. He got the Lethe potion from her and gave it to you. Taking away your memory was the only way he could avoid taking away your life.”

“Well bully for him,” said Gage drily. “So I take it he didn’t share that fact with you or Adan?”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t until the news came about my father’s capture and the Council handed down their decree that they wouldn’t be mounting an extraction mission that he broke his silence. And I think he only did then because he knew I would go no matter what.”

“And he knew it was a suicide mission,” he finished.

Tha-dunk. Tha-dunk. Tha-dunk. Tha-dunk.

“I wish I’d never gotten you involved,” said Embry.

“Now hold on a damn minute. I know I haven’t been successful Walking yet, but I’m not exactly a liability.” The first hint of temper crackled in his voice.

“That’s not what I meant.” She took a breath. “I didn’t think of you when I made this decision. I haven’t done a helluva lot of thinking at all since my father was captured. When Matthias presented you as an option for help, I jumped at it. Apart from the gift of you being alive, I knew no one else would cover my back better. But I didn’t give a single thought to the consequences for you. I took your life away, Gage. And there’s nothing I can do to reverse that. I dragged you back into my world for purely selfish reasons, without any regard to whether you wanted it or not. There’s a really strong possibility that you’ll get hurt or killed. I’ve been through that loss before. So yeah, I wish I’d never gotten you involved.”

Tha-dunk. Tha-dunk.

“So you’d rather I’d have stayed safe and ignorant?”

“Something like that.”

“Fuck that, Embry. Give me some damned credit. Yeah, I’ve built a life for myself. One I even happen to like a lot about. But it’s hollow. Whatever friends or connections I made, they never erased the sense that I had family somewhere out there. People who loved me, who missed me, who cared if I lived or died. You and Adan are my family. I would do anything for either of you. If you think I’d rather have stayed blank the rest of my life while both of you died, when I could’ve done something to help, you’re sadly mistaken.”

Tha-dunk.

“I’m sorry my worrying offends you, Gage, but it doesn’t change the circumstances. I don’t want to lose you both.”

“Pull into this rest stop,” he snapped.

She took the exit, following the drive to the squat sandstone building that served as the restroom. There were no other cars. Without a word, Gage shoved open the door and climbed out of the car. Embry assumed they would finish the argument when he got back from relieving himself, but he stalked beyond the building.

She got out herself. “Where are you going?”

“I’m taking a fucking walk,” he called back from the dark.

* * *

The Crystal Grotto my ass, Gage thought as he wheeled the Charger into a space beside a mud-spattered dually. No images of elegant merfolk and jewels to go with a name like that. It was just another dark and dingy roadhouse, pretty much like the others they’d stopped at the last two days. The half-assed pile of cinderblock squatted by a gravel parking lot about a half a mile from the one-street town of Rossum, Montana. Thirty miles from Fort Hurley, it was the first place that looked like it might offer up something resembling dinner. Not that he was sure Embry would eat. To say that their reconnaissance at the base hadn’t gone well was like saying pneumonia was just a sniffle.

She said nothing as they both stepped out of the car and headed inside. The smoky haze stung his eyes and made it amply clear that nobody had been by to actually enforce the state-wide smoking ban. Twangy country was punctuated by the crack of pool balls. Gage paused just inside the doorway to scan the interior, taking in the half-filled row of booths along one wall, the scattering of abused looking tables and chairs in the center, and the pair of crude signs indicating the restrooms—Poles and Holes. Classy.

Seated at a table that gave him clear view of the bar, as well as the entrance, he grabbed a menu. Embry’s eyes wandered over the crowd, scanning and assessing as he had, then turning back when she determined none of them were a threat. Her gaze flicked to the approaching waitress, then dropped to the menu she clearly wasn’t reading. Since she seemed disinclined to decide, Gage ordered beer and cheeseburgers for them both. “Oh, and ranch dressing on the side for her.”

“You remember that?” Embry asked. But he detected no warmth or pleasure in her voice at the fact.

“It was floating around in there somewhere.”

The waitress left and silence descended at the table. Embry dropped her eyes and wouldn’t look at him again. She was focused entirely inward, using considerable effort to keep the emotions that fueled her fire banked and under control. Considering that this mission was fucked six ways from Sunday, he couldn’t really expect anything else.

When the waitress came back with their beers, Embry took a long pull before setting the bottle on the table with a thump. “This is hopeless.” Her words fell between them like stones as she stared at her beer.

Gage wanted to contradict her, to say something that would wipe that dejected, grieving look off her face. But he’d been with her on the ridge overlooking the compound. The place was fucking impregnable. A veritable Cheyenne Mountain, complete with single road access and mandatory ID badge and fingerprint scanner for entry. Easily two dozen highly armed soldiers stood watch at regular intervals along the two-story, electrified, chain-link fence surrounding the facility. There was no back door. No accessible ventilation shaft or utility tunnels. They had no schematics. And without him being able to Walk, no way to acquire additional intel of any kind.

He’d failed again last night. Though Embry had said nothing, it was the white elephant that had ridden with them across the better part of two states. Her lack of faith pissed him off, but at this point, maybe she was right. He wasn’t any closer to Walking now than he was two days ago. Not that he was about to be the one to suggest they abandon Adan.

“There has to be another way,” he said. “Maybe we can somehow infiltrate their ranks.”

She lifted her gaze to his then dropped it again. “That’s a long term op with a slim margin for success. We don’t know if he has that long.”

The regret in her eyes sliced him deep. He was letting her down in the worst possible way. Curling his hand around hers, Gage said, “He’s not dead yet, Ember. We’re going to find a way in, and we’re going to get him out.” He infused his voice with a conviction he wasn’t absolutely certain he felt. He needed to find some faith and fast.

Before Embry could make any kind of response, the door banged open, grabbing their attention. Five men spilled inside. Though they were dressed in civilian clothes, Gage knew instinctively that they were military. It was in the way they carried themselves and in the barely there buzz cuts.

A sudden movement in one of the booths drew Gage’s attention. A youngish Native American guy sat stiffly in his seat. A worn, shearling-lined denim jacket draped awkwardly across his lap, sliding as his knee bounced. His hands shook a little as he shoveled the last of his fries and sandwich in his mouth. He left a few bills on the table, and slid out of the booth, one hand going swiftly to the knife on his belt then away again, as the newcomers finished jamming two tables together. One of the meatheads stepped backward right into the kid as he walked by.

“Hey, watch where you’re going, Tonto.”

For a moment anger flared in the kid’s face. But he was gawky and lean, not yet grown into the promise of his frame. He seemed to think better of reacting and dropped his gaze, mumbling something as he tried to move on past.

The soldier grabbed him by the arm and hauled him back around. “What was that, Walks With Tiny Dick? I know you didn’t just disrespect me, boy.”

Seeing the situation heading south, Gage was already on his feet and moving by the time the kid opened his mouth to make a reply. Whatever he said was drowned out by the instant smack of fist on flesh and the crash of the kid’s body falling into another table.

Gage stepped in as the next fist went flying and smacked right into his hand. He felt the sting of it up to his shoulder as he closed his fingers around the other man’s hand and twisted. Meathead’s face went red with outrage, shock, and pain as he struggled not to go to his knees and failed. “You’re gonna want to stop that right about now,” said Gage equably. But in his mind he could already see the guy surging up from the floor, plowing into his gut in a tackle. At the first sign of movement, he stepped to the side. Meathead stumbled awkwardly and crashed into another table.

“You son of a bitch!”

As Gage went through the motions, he was vaguely aware of the Native American kid slipping out. Good. No need for him to get caught up in this shit. After a couple of minutes, he tired of the dance, of trying not to truly engage, and nailed the meathead with a left cross that knocked him on his ass, where he stayed. “Seriously, you really don’t want to do this, man. You’re outclassed as a fighter here.”

One of the other soldiers stepped in. “And what exactly is the Ultimate Fighter doing in a shithole bar in Montana?”

Gage flicked his gaze to the man who’d spoken. “Tryin’ to have dinner without having to intervene in somebody else’s stupid.”

Meathead scrambled to his feet again, fists clenched.

“Stand down, Stegman. You’re done here.”

“Fuck that, Sarge. This asshole made a fool outta me.”

The sergeant slapped a hand against Stegman’s chest. “Simmer down, Private. I think we can find a way to satisfy everybody here.” He turned his eyes to Gage and studied him with interest.

“And how’s that exactly?” asked Gage.

“An exhibition match. You against one of ours. May the best fighter win. You game?”

An exhibition match? I could take these guys in my sleep.

“Where?”

“Fort Hurley. Our guys could use some entertainment.”

A way in. Halle-fucking-luia.

“When?”

“Tomorrow. 19:00 hours. Be a good dinner break.”

“We’ll be there,” said Gage.

“We?” The sergeant’s gaze swung toward Embry, who had stood back from the fight wearing an expression that looked like amusement to anyone who didn’t know her.

“I’m his manager,” she said easily. “He doesn’t fight without me being present.”

After a few humming beats, the sergeant nodded. “Fine. We’ll wait for you at the gate.”

Chapter 7

“The sensible thing to do is use this opportunity as recon only.”

Embry had to reach deep to keep a hold on her temper as she stalked past him into the ratty motel room. “Fuck sensible, Gage. We may never get another shot at this. We’ll be inside. The most logical thing to do is for me to slip away while you have them all occupied during the fight, release Dad, and get the hell out.”

“And how exactly do you think that’s gonna work?” he demanded, locking the door behind them. “You have no idea where he’s being held in that facility, no idea how big the place really is. If he couldn’t Walk out by now anyway, he’s not going to be able to do it once you release him from wherever they’re keeping him. And no way in hell are those soldiers going to just let the two of you out the front door. And that’s assuming he’s in any shape to be mobile. You don’t know what condition he’s in.”

“So I take out the power grid, create shadow, boom, we’re out. Unless he’s unconscious, he can do that.”

“Right. And you’re just going to happen to be able to figure out how to manage all that without getting caught by one of the hundreds of troops floating around in there. Because no way will all of them be at the fight.”

“Then I’ll wing it,” she gritted out.

Gage shook his head. “This is why you would never have made a good Walker. You can’t separate your heart from your head, and it makes you reckless. And it’s why your father is in this mess to begin with—because he’s exactly the same way.”

She whirled on him, flames of temper rippling down her arms. “You son of a bitch. Don’t you dare tell me about my father. You owe him everything. If he hadn’t had a heart, you’d have likely been beaten to death by your own father.”

Gage nodded, eyes serious. “I know it. I’m where it started. I’m where he started to lose his edge. He took risks with me that no Walker should ever take because he loved me and that’s what ultimately led the other Shadow Walkers straight to me.”

“Don’t be stupid. He would never have endangered you that way. He was careful. Always.”

“It’s just a fact, Ember. He slipped up somehow. Or I did. I knew it was only a matter of time—”

“It was me,” she burst out.

He stopped talking and stared at her.

“It was me they followed. I’m the one who was careless, who skipped some precautions. Because, yes, I was reckless, and at the time the only thing in the world that mattered to me was seeing you again.”

Emotion flashed over his face, too fast for her to read. “Ember—”

“Shut up, I’m not finished. I’ve had ten years to regret those mistakes, to become someone who dots every ‘i’ and crosses every ‘t’. I follow the rules, and I’m well goddamned trained at what I do. So if you think I’m going to go off half-cocked and risk losing my father the way I lost you, then you don’t know me at all.”

The fire along her arms winked out as misery swamped her. She turned away from him. Could this be any more of a disaster? She’d recruited him specifically because she’d thought he’d follow her lead, do what she said. What needed to be done. When had he become so careful and conservative? Never mind that he’d raised good points. Careful and conservative was the reason the Council wouldn’t send an extraction team.

Hands settled on her shoulders. “I’m not trying to shoot you down here, Embry. But if we’re going to do this, we have to be careful about it. I know you don’t want to lose Adan. Neither do I. But I don’t want to screw something up and risk losing you. Not now. Not again.”

She knew her jaw was clenched and defiant, though she didn’t turn to look at him. “I won’t screw this up.”

“Then you agree to be sensible about this?” he asked. “You promise you won’t try to do anything on your own?”

“I promise I won’t do anything stupid.” It wasn’t quite the same thing, but Gage seemed satisfied with her response. She turned to face him, and his hands fell away. “We can’t really plan much for this. As you said, we won’t know enough until we get in tomorrow.”

“Then in the meantime, you need to decompress. You’ll be more effective if you’re calm and cool when we go in there.”

Embry gave a harsh laugh. “I haven’t slept well. I’ve hardly been able to breathe since they took my dad. Exactly how do you propose I decompress?”

Something hot sprang into his eyes, and Embry felt her skin flush with an entirely different heat.

“We could talk,” he said.

“Talk?” she asked faintly. Nothing at all in his expression suggested talking.

“About the last time we saw each other. Before things went to shit. You changed things between us.”

Touch me. The echo of her words swept through her, snapping desire to life. She had wanted him so much. She still wanted him.

“I did.”

He hesitated, not moving any closer. “If things had gone differently. If we hadn’t been interrupted, would you have changed your mind about that?”

Never. “Would you?”

One corner of his mouth tipped in amusement. She wanted to press her lips just there.

“I spent every day from the time you were sixteen trying to convince myself that you were my sister.”

Embry blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Because of your father. He treated me like a son, and I didn’t think he’d much appreciate the thoughts I was having about his daughter.”

She wondered if those thoughts had run parallel to hers and whether he’d lain awake nights aching for her. “I never thought of you as a brother.”

The other corner of his lips twitched into a full smile. “It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know that back then since that was essentially the lynchpin of my self-discipline.”

Her mind conjured up the memory of Gage braced over her, straining desperately to control himself as she shamelessly kept him pinned with her legs. She had no idea why she’d chosen that night to test him, except that she was so tired of waiting, of wrestling with all the feelings he stirred up in her and not knowing whether he felt the same. She didn’t know what she would have done if he’d rejected her. Run in mortification, most likely. And then he’d have been alone when they came for him.

She closed her eyes and shuddered, just slightly. With an effort, she pushed the thought away, fixing a smile on her lips and aiming for light and a little flirty. “I had a terrible crush on you.”

His face went serious. “I was in love with you.”

Could he hear her heart thumping? she wondered. It beat like jungle drums in her ears as she stared at him. Still, her voice was steady, even a little amused when she spoke. “Were you?”

Gage shook his head. “Well that’s not entirely accurate. I’m still in love with you, Embry.”

She couldn’t breathe for the fist that squeezed her heart. No, no, don’t do this to me now. Not when we have no future. Swallowing did nothing to quench the desert of her throat.

Before she could think of a reply, he continued. “Things might not go as we hope tomorrow. And if something goes wrong, I needed you to know that.”

She should back away. Get another room. Anything to escape how the expression of fierce, protective adoration on his face made her feel.

Instead, she stepped into him, rising to her toes and threading her fingers in his hair before capturing his mouth and taking.

* * *

It was different than the kiss they’d shared in her hotel room in New Orleans. He’d been Cade then. Attractive, attracted, but not hers. And she’d been trying to distract him.

But this, this was Gage. His mouth was hot and hungry on hers, with an edgy demand that hadn’t been present a decade before. He’d been unflaggingly careful then. Cautious and considerate of her inexperience.

Even now, he pulled on depths of patience she simply didn’t have. When he tried to gentle the kiss, to slow things down, she nipped and goaded, eroding his control, wanting him desperate and unthinking. For this one night, she needed to give in to the fire.

He staggered a little as she hitched herself up, wrapping her legs around his waist. Then he righted himself, hands gripping her hips and shifting her until she pressed firmly against the bulge of his erection. Purring approval, she took her lips on a sprinting journey over his face, tasting each corner of that gorgeous mouth, feeling the scrape of stubble.

Fire hummed just beneath her skin, rising, straining toward his touch. No more distance. Impatient, she stripped off her shirt, one of those sleeveless tanks with a built in bra. His eyes went dark. Desperate to feel his flesh against her, Embry went after his t-shirt. Backing her into a wall for leverage, he tugged it off. Then he leaned away and looked his fill.

Embry knew her skin was flushed, both with desire and flame. She all but vibrated with it.

“You’re so damned beautiful,” he muttered.

The wall pressed cool against her fevered back. The longer he stared, drinking her in, the more her brain threatened to engage, reminding her of what the Council would do to him and to her if they found out what she’d done. Give me tonight. It would be enough. It would have to be. “Touch me,” she whispered.

He needed no second invitation.

Capturing her mouth, he circled them across the room, hands stroking, igniting. He turned so that he took the brunt of the impact as they tumbled onto the bed. But just like in a sparring match, he was fluid, loose, swarming over her body, stripping the remaining layers, maddeningly elusive when she would have taken control. Her pulse beat thick and fast in her throat, surging yet again when he pressed his lips just there as he covered her with the glorious weight of his body.

Impatient and unbearably aroused, she bowed up, rolling until she rose over him. She used her hands and mouth to taste and take, until she memorized every line of his body and gorged herself on his flavor. His lips burned a trail of brands down her throat, between her breasts. Skin grew slick with sweat. Frantic, they rolled again, until they were joined heat to heat, bodies moving to the pulsing rhythm of the flame that grew inside her. Faster, higher, hotter, until the fire spun out of control, bursting free of her skin to engulf them both.

Passion banked, skin cooled. Logic returned with a brutal swiftness that left her cold.

What have I done?

She’d promised herself she wouldn’t go here. They had no future beyond this mission. She knew that. Gage didn’t, and this was just going to feed into his expectations that they would pursue this. Assuming they both survived. He was in love with her, for God’s sake.

Why did you have to tell me? I might have resisted if not for that.

She curled into his warmth, knowing that after tonight, she’d never feel it again.

Gage made a small groan.

Embry cracked a cautious eye and took in their surroundings.

There were no scorch marks on the furniture, no lingering flames on the bedclothes to douse. She hadn’t actually set the room on fire. Just the two of them. His heart thudded slow and reassuring beneath her hand, and with it she felt the pulse of something else, hot and bright. As if some of her fire were lodged just there inside him.

Well wasn’t that interesting?

Gage ran his hand in a lazy stroke down her back. “You’re tensing up again.”

“I’m worried about tomorrow.” It wasn’t a lie.

“If that wasn’t wiped out of your mind for at least another ten minutes, we didn’t do something right.” He rolled, half pinning her with his body as he traced nipping kisses down the column of her throat. “Give me a few minutes, and I can do better. Though it seems like it might be sensible to have a fire extinguisher handy the next time we make love, just in case.”

Because he expected playful, Embry assumed an expression of mock offense and shoved him to his back. “Are you impugning my control, Dempsey?”

He grinned. “Well now, I was always really good at making you lose it.”

Frowning, Embry lifted his hands, rubbing her thumb over the smooth white scars. “I would never burn you on purpose.”

He tugged her down to his chest and kissed her softly. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He studied one hand thoughtfully. “I figure I did it to myself. Ran right at you while you were going nova.”

“I wasn’t going nova. I was trying to protect you.”

“How?”

Embry thought back, wondering how to describe what had been sheer instinct at the time. “I was trying to wrap you in light. They couldn’t have taken you if they couldn’t get you to shadow. It’s the same principle the military is using to keep my father captive.”

His face turned distant, and she knew he was remembering. “So . . . when I touched you it messed something up.”

“I don’t know exactly what happened. It . . . changed the focus somehow. And what I was trying to wrap around you was redirected at you instead, and I thought…” She trailed off, settling her head against his chest and taking comfort in the steady tha-thump, tha-thump.

“You thought what?”

“I thought I’d killed you,” she whispered.

“You what?”

Embry swallowed. “When you touched me there was an explosion. It threw you across the dojo, into the wall. You just . . . lay there. And then Matthias said . . . ”

“What did Matthias say?” Gage’s voice was soft, but beneath her, his body was rigid.

“He said that I’d completed their mission for them.”

His rage was its own kind of heat. “That son of a bitch let you go all these years thinking—”

“Yes.”

“I’ll kill him.” The words were short, sharp, as if they were bones snapping in his hands.

Embry propped herself up and stroked the hard lines of his face. “It won’t change anything.”

“He deserves to pay for what he did to you,” he growled.

“Maybe so. But I’ve thought about this a lot the last week. Matthias is senior. If he said you were dead, his men had no reason to question it. It’s probably the only way he was able to get away with wiping your memory and dumping you in Vegas. If that’s the price I had to pay for you to live, so be it. I’d pay it again in a heartbeat.”

Some of the tension leeched out of his face. “You deserve some happily ever after to make up for all this shit.”

And you deserve honesty that I just can’t give you, she thought. Lowering her lips to his, she murmured, “We have right now. Tonight. I suggest we make the most of it.”

Chapter 8

Sergeant Mackey was waiting on the other side of the soaring fence when they pulled up. At his order, the gate swung open, and Gage drove through. Mackey leaned over as he rolled down the driver’s side window of the Charger.

“Hope you brought your chops. The men are looking forward to watching our guy wipe the floor with your ass, but I hope you’ll be able to last a few rounds, at least.”

“I’m ready,” said Gage. The message was clear: I want a good fight, so don’t drop our guy in the first round. Gage almost smiled. The guy was giving him permission to draw this thing out. He nodded, feeling understanding pass between them. “I’ll try to hold out,” he said dryly.

With a smirk and a quick double tap on the car door, the sergeant waved them on.

“Cocky bastard,” Gage muttered. As the gates closed behind them, he said a fleeting prayer that they would make it out alive, preferably with his car intact and Adan in tow.

They entered the big, concrete tunnel leading into the mountain. It looked like any other tunnel, lit at regular intervals by fluorescent bulbs. Except that instead of open air, this tunnel let out into a cavernous underground parking lot that was lit brighter than an NFL field. Guards were posted every fifty yards. Embry raised an eyebrow at the sight of them. “You could take any of these meatheads in your sleep. But for the sake of the recon, you think you can drag it out a while?”

“Baby, I can take this fight anywhere it needs to go. I’ll give you as long as I can. But you be careful. If you get caught—”

“If I get caught, I’ll just say I got lost on the way back from the bathroom.”

Her flip response put him on edge. “Embry. . . ”

“I’ll be careful, Gage.”

“I don’t like this,” he ground out as he whipped the car into a space at the far end of a row of Humvees. “I can’t back you up from the ring.”

“You won’t have to back me up. You just have to distract them. I’ll find out the lay of the land. In and out. Just like we talked about.” She looked perfectly reasonable and calm. So why did he feel like cats were clawing their way up his bare back?

He shut off the engine and reached across to cradle her face. “Ember, I love you. Don’t do anything risky.”

She leaned forward and laid her lips over his. The thrill of it, the heat of it shot through him, juicing him well beyond the adrenaline that preceded a fight. Beneath his fingers, he could feel the flame just under her skin. Vital, addictive. Alive.

He exhaled unsteadily as she pulled back. “When we get out of this, we’ve got some serious catching up to do,” he said.

Someone knocked on the window. Gage shifted back to see a BDU clad soldier with an MP-5 slung over his shoulder. He gestured for them to get out of the car. “Showtime,” Gage muttered. There was no time to issue further cautions or rehash their sketchy plan. Fixing an arrogant smile in place, he opened the door. “Evenin’, Private.”

Face expressionless, the guard escorted them to a bank of elevators, where Mackey was waiting for them with three other soldiers. The sergeant leaned forward for a retinal scan. Once the system had verified his identity, the doors slid open. He motioned for them to enter.

“Fancy toys y’all got here,” observed Gage. “You tryin’ to keep folks in or out?”

Mackey gave him a cool look. “Our security is none of your concern, civilian.”

Inside, Gage noted discrete cameras mounted in all four corners of the brightly lit car. The private punched a button for SL-23 and the elevator began a long, whisper-quiet descent. Though she lounged beside him with a bored expression on her face, Gage could feel the tension in Embry as they went deeper and deeper into the mountain. He noted the surreptitious glances the accompanying soldiers shot at her, and he wondered if there were any women at this base.

“So who am I facing off with?” Gage asked Mackey. “I sure hope you’ll give me a better challenger than Stegman. You did say you wanted an entertaining fight.”

The sergeant’s smile was thin and cold. “Oh we have something a bit more special in mind.”

The elevator doors slid open to a brightly lit hall. Two additional guards flanked the elevator bank as their group of six exited and turned to the left. Gage chafed at the sensation of being a prisoner as they were escorted through a series of four airlock-type doors. Nearly a dozen turns later, he realized that they were covering the same ground. The bastards were trying to confuse them so they couldn’t find their way out on their own. Gage glanced briefly at Embry, then at a scratched metal girder they’d passed ten minutes ago. She gave a tiny nod.

At length, they finished the detour in front of a pair of double doors. Mackey punched in a keycode—89763 to judge by the tones—and the doors slid open like something on the set of Star Trek. Inside the cavernous room, bleachers had been set up around a raised wooden platform. Mats covered the top, and ropes marked the boundaries. Soldiers were filing in from two other entrances and filling up the seats.

As they made their way toward the ring, Embry made a soft noise of distress, wrapping both arms around her stomach.

“What’s the matter?” he asked quietly, but not so quietly that their escort wouldn’t overhear.

“I’m not feeling so good.”

“I told you those tamales looked sketchy. There’s no telling what was crawling around in the kitchen of that hole in the wall.”

She glared at him. “So not helping.”

The makeshift ring was a little smaller than he was accustomed to and square. Not the perfect setting, but he’d make it work. He shifted his attention to Mackey. “So where’s my opponent?”

“Oh, he’ll be here in a bit. Do you need anything before the fight? Water, whatever?”

The din in the arena was rising as the bleachers filled and more packed in to stand, so Gage shook his head. “Pretty decent crowd,” he shouted. He guestimated three hundred, at least.

“Nobody wanted to miss this,” said Mackey.

Gage bent over to zip the legs of his cargo pants off, leaving him with shorts. When he turned to hand them and his t-shirt to Embry, she was doubled over. He sighed in annoyance. “One of these days, you’re gonna listen to me when I say not to eat something.” He looked at Mackey, “Have y’all got a bathroom she can use?”

With one hand, the sergeant gestured to one of their escorts.

“Try to make it back for the fight,” Gage called.

“I may be a while,” she answered, clutching her stomach as she followed the silent soldier out of the room via another door. Hundreds of pairs of eyes watched her exit.

Gage stuck to his role, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. Mackey was watching him. He slipped off his shoes and socks, tucking the pants legs and t-shirt into them. “You mind if I go on in the ring to warm up and get the lay of the land?”

“Go ahead.”

He climbed through the ropes to check out the space. The fight surface was a series of standard gym mats, velcroed together. Not ideal, but he’d worked out on the same often enough. The ropes were climbing rope, stable, not a lot of give. There were four layers of them, about 9-10” apart. Far more like a boxing ring. He’d done that too. Sweat popped out on his chest and back from the glare of all the lights. Even here, they were taking no chances. Gage wondered if Adan was the only Shadow Walker they had captured or if there was something else the light kept at bay.

With all appearances of ignoring the growing crowd—up to four hundred by now—Gage went through his warm-up routine, stretching, shadow boxing, until he was loose and limber. Embry wasn’t back. He hoped it was because she was still faking sick in the bathroom. He was twitchy, ready for the fight to begin so he could do something on this mission—the only thing he was actually capable of.

He heard the squawk of a radio and straightened. One of the other soldiers said something to Mackey, who had acquired a microphone. The sergeant nodded and flipped on the mike with a screech of feedback that silenced the crowd.

“Welcome to our unofficial Fight Night. As many of you may be aware, we’ve brought in a special treat for you. The Ultimate Fighter, Cade Shepherd.”

Gage raised his arm in response to the cheer of the crowd.

Mackey waited for them to quiet before continuing. “We’ve given some thought to who he would face off with. Several of you volunteered. But after some considerable discussion, it was decided that one of our. . . guests, would make a more appropriate competitor.”

The men began to pound their feet.

The third set of doors opened and a group of seven men came through. Six of them were soldiers, armed to the teeth as they surrounded the seventh who shuffled between them in chains. A bag covered his head.

They’re going to have me fight a prisoner?

Gage didn’t like this. He had no problem beating the shit out of one of these asshole soldiers, but he didn’t want to hurt some poor schlub they were detaining. From the way the man moved, he’d obviously been several rounds already.

They marched him across the room, roughly wrangling him into the ring. The guy swayed as they unshackled him. He rubbed his wrists where the cuffs had abraded the skin, but made no effort to attack any of his captors, only turned drunkenly back in the direction of the door he’d been marched through, head bowed. They whipped off the hood, and the man’s head ducked further, as if trying to hide from the glare of the lights. One of the soldiers stripped off the man’s shirt, revealing a patchwork of bruising covering his ribs and back.

Christ, this guy’s in no shape to fight. What the fuck are they thinking?

Gage felt his heart beat thick in his chest as his opponent took a few stumbling steps, circling the ring, taking in the audience. The big, reddened hands curled into fists as he made it around to Gage and straightened by infinitesimal degrees. His squinted eyes went wide, his face paling until the bruises there stood out like bull’s-eyes.

Keeping his face carefully blank, Gage had only one thought. Oh, fuck.

* * *

Embry made another gagging noise and dumped some more of the food she’d smuggled in into the toilet. She groaned for effect. As far as her guard was aware, she had a massive and violent case of food poisoning. She’d already been in here for fifteen minutes, and she knew he was getting impatient to get back to the fight. Wetting a paper towel at the sink, she blotted her face so as to appear clammy and ill. Then she sank down to her knees and opened the door.

“Private?” she croaked.

He turned, eyes dropping to where she leaned weakly against the doorjamb. “You okay, Ma’am?”

“I’m afraid not. Word to the wise. Next time you’re on leave, avoid Juanita’s Tamale House.”

“Do I need to get a doctor?” he asked, frowning.

“No. It’s just food poisoning. I’ll be fine once it’s all . . . out of my system. You probably don’t wanna wait around for this.”

“I’m to escort you back to the arena.”

Embry dialed up her internal temperature and swayed a little. “Look, I’m gonna be—” She feigned swallowing back vomit. “Be a while. You shouldn’t have to miss the fight because of me. Go watch a round or two and come back for me.”

The private hesitated, looking down the hall at the faint sound of cheers.

Embry dove for the toilet again, dry heaving.

“I’ll come back to check on you in a few minutes,” he said at last.

Not looking at him, Embry waved him away and hunched miserably over the bowl. The door shut quietly behind him.

She kept up the charade for another few minutes, waiting to see if he’d be coming back soon. When he didn’t, she opened the door and peered out into the corridor. Deserted.

Embry’s original plan was to worm her way into the air shaft in the bathroom, but the only access point was a narrow vent in the ceiling that she couldn’t even fit her head through. Her only choice was to attempt the halls and pray to God that everybody was at the fight. She needed to find a computer terminal to try to access the main system and find out where her father was being held. And then she needed schematics to figure out how to get wherever that was. And while you’re at it, why don’t you ask for the cure to cancer and an end to world hunger?

The sound of her careful, soft footsteps seemed to echo off the bunker walls. A litany of curses ran through her brain to the rhythm, and she wished she had Gage at his peak to muffle the noise. But he was otherwise occupied.

She met no one. But rather than ease her anxiety, it only wound her tighter. This recon was on borrowed time. She knew it. Gage knew it. It was only a matter of minutes, half an hour at the most, before someone came looking for her specifically or until somebody who wasn’t interested in fighting stumbled across her.

From somewhere down the hall a door slammed. Heart in her throat, Embry bolted for the nearest door. Locked. Footsteps drew closer as she dove for the next one, silently swearing when she saw the keypad and retina scanner. Fuck. There were two sets of feet, she realized. Frantic, she wedged herself into the profile of a metal girder. She would be hidden if they didn’t look too closely, but if they looked back . . .

Embry didn’t breathe, didn’t blink as the two soldiers moved past her down the hall.

“I can’t believe Mackey’s getting away with this. If the big wigs find out that he brought in a civilian, they’re going to flip.”

“A civilian, hell, have you seen the way Cade Shepherd fights? Twenty bucks says he’s got military experience of some kind.”

Something like that.

“Mackey better hope the general doesn’t get back earlier than planned. He’ll get court martialed for this. And so will everybody else who’s left their post to go to this fight.”

“Don’t get your panties in a wad, Lattimer. You wanna go back?”

“No. I wanna see this as much as anybody else. God knows this post is boring as shit unless you’re on Level 36, and I ain’t got security clearance for that.”

The rest of their conversation faded as they continued down the hall, never looking back.

Embry exhaled softly. Level 36. Security clearance. That sounds like classified paranormal beings to me.

Moving faster now, she found her way to the elevator bank. Of course, it wasn’t that easy. She didn’t have a security badge to activate the damn thing. Her window was closing. She could feel it at the back of her neck like a Hunter in the night. Stalking her.

It was sheer luck that she found the stairwell. By virtue of the fact that there was no key pad or retinal scan or other security measures, Embry was dubious that it would take her anywhere useful, but she needed to get on another level in hopes of finding an unmanned computer terminal. She slipped inside with barely a sound, then stood taking shallow breaths until she was certain no one was in the stairwell with her. Then she headed down. And down. She was thirteen floors up from the mysterious Level 36.

Down. Down. Down. Pausing every few steps to listen for footsteps. Moving again when there were none.

There was no door to Level 36. She went down another level, found the door labeled SL-37, then went back up a flight. It was simply a blank wall. Embry ran her hands over the cinder blocks, searching for some hidden mechanism or any indication of a camouflaged entrance. Her fingers traced only the rough, painted surface of concrete.

She could blow her own access point. Being the daughter of an elemental had its benefits. But that would hardly be subtle, so she retraced her steps back up to Level 35 and tried the door. No additional security measures. No alarms blared as she tugged it open an inch. As with every area she’d seen of the base, this hallway was flooded with light. But she saw no guards stationed.

Her skin prickled. This was too easy. But still, she slipped from the stairwell and made her way down the deserted hall. The fourth door on the right yielded access to a lab. The stainless steel tables were scrubbed clean and gleaming. Assorted equipment lined the walls. Microscopes, refrigerators, a centrifuge. And in the corner, screen dominated by a revolving geometric pattern, was a computer.

With a quick glance back at the door, she tapped a key on the keyboard. The screensaver disappeared, revealing the expected login screen. Now what?

A notebook lay open beside the keyboard. Taking a closer look, Embry could see a series of experiments listed. There were dates, amounts, chemical formulas, and what was probably subject numbers covering the page, but she didn’t understand the shorthand used. She paged through it, looking first in the front and working her way back. And there, taped into the back cover was a list of passwords.

She said a brief prayer of thanks that even government scientists couldn’t remember passwords and typed in the relevant one. A new screen popped up showing some kind of analysis that was 56% complete. She minimized the process and took a quick inventory of the machine and the network. As she’d hoped, this unit was connected to the broader network running through the base. They might pull this off yet. Making one last check of the corridor, she paused to lock the door to the lab and close the blinds on the windows facing the hallway before pulling up a chair and setting to work.

Chapter 9

The auburn of his hair was shot through with silver. His face was narrower, more haggard and lean, the strain of the last decade etched around his eyes and mouth. Beneath the patchwork of livid bruising, his cheeks had gone white, and his mouth opened in silent question. Son?

Gage drew on all his training to keep reaction off his face. He shifted his attention to Mackey. “What the fuck is this? This old guy’s already been beat to shit. He can’t fight.”

“Oh I think you’ll find that he can,” said Mackey. “He’s tougher than he looks.”

Gage looked appraisingly back at his mentor, who’d managed to cover his own surprise. He lifted his hands, cracking his knuckles to hide the quick, jerky message he signed to Adan. Here to rescue you. Fight now. Questions later. At the barely perceptible nod, Gage rolled his shoulders back, popped his neck and danced a little from foot to foot. “Okay then, let’s rumble.” He paused. “But I can’t be held responsible if I break him.”

Adan backed up and began to circle. Gage fell into opposite step, studying his foster father’s movements, assessing his injuries and weaknesses. Despite his appearance, his gait loosened as he moved. He favored his right side in a way that suggested he had a cracked rib, but that was nothing he hadn’t fought through before. They could pull off an exhibition match. But then what? And God help them, what would happen if Embry came back to find her father in the ring?

Conscious that he had to appear to fight as normal, Gage held back, waiting for Adan to make the first move. But his mentor only continued to circle, loosening his muscles. He hadn’t gone up against anyone in the last ten years who fought like he did—careful, analytic, waiting for his opponent to telegraph his intentions. It dialed up his adrenaline another notch. At the sound of the first catcall, Gage struck, his right hook snaking under Adan’s guard to slam into a kidney.

With an ooph, Adan stumbled back two paces before he righted himself. Barely even an attempt to block the blow. His fist snapped out, the breeze of it brushing Gage’s cheek as he bobbed to the side. This was not good. If Adan didn’t kick things up, the fight wouldn’t be believable.

As if hearing the thought, his mentor jabbed a knee up and into his side.

Gage jerked back, following the fight sequence in his mind and deliberately making the wrong move to draw it out. Adan landed more blows, keeping him at a distance with the reach of his kicks. It was like being a trainee again, falling into the traps, and he struggled to hold himself back.

A whistle blew. They separated, going back to their respective corners, though no one offered bottled water or towels to mop off the sweat and blood. He bent to stretch, surreptitiously checking the clock. Embry had been gone for nearly twenty minutes. He didn’t know how much more time he could give her. The sentiment of the crowd was shifting, unsatisfied. They expected to see an ultimate fighter, and he was letting Adan kick his ass like a newb. So when the whistle shrilled again, he changed tactics.

Focusing on the uninjured parts of Adan’s body, Gage moved in and hammered on his mentor, knocking him back on first one shoulder, then the other before dropping him to the mat with a sweep of his leg. Adan was ready for it. Almost as soon as his back hit the ring, he whipped his body up again, using that momentum to snap a punch that made Gage’s jaw sing. The crowd roared in approval.

They circled, trading blows more evenly now, moving so quickly that none of the observers should be able to see how they pulled back at the last second. It was Adan who moved the fight into grappling. Here Gage had to be more careful of the damaged ribs and other injuries. He needed Adan in good enough shape to move, if they had an opportunity for escape. Minutes ticked by. They continued to trade the upper hand, waiting for the end of round whistle. But none came.

As he rolled to the top, working for an arm bar, Gage caught sight of Mackey’s face. The sergeant looked grimly satisfied, arms crossed over his broad chest, his eyes holding a gleam of bloodlust that Gage recognized from people who came to fights only to feed on the violence. Mackey wanted Adan brutalized or dead. He wasn’t going to blow the whistle.

Taking advantage of his distraction, Adan got loose. Gage felt his leg a hairsbreadth away from a leg bar and rolled to mitigate the hold. They couldn’t keep this up forever. He couldn’t actually hurt Adan, and whatever orders he may have been given, Adan wasn’t about to really hurt him. Maybe if one of us feigned unconsciousness . . .

An alarm rang out, shrill and repetitive in a tone that Gage fully expected to be echoed by the metallic thunk of mechanized bunker doors sealing shut. He froze.

Embry.

Above him Adan stilled, blood dripping down from his temple onto Gage’s chest. Abruptly he was snatched back by a couple of soldiers who’d climbed into the ring. Another pair roughly jerked Gage up by his arms.

“What the fuck, man? We weren’t finished,” he complained, eyes searching the room.

The crack of a fist on flesh drew his attention to Mackey. Another soldier reeled back from where he’d been struck, and Gage recognized Embry’s escort to the bathroom. Had he just discovered her missing? Or had they actually found her elsewhere in the base?

“Find her,” growled Mackey at a nearby group.

Well that answers that.

The sergeant gestured and the pair of meatheads trying to cut off circulation in his arms hauled him out of the ring and forced him to his knees before Mackey. “Who are you?” he demanded.

Gage put on his best outraged celebrity face. “I’m Cade Shepherd. What the fuck is this about? Let me go.” He jerked experimentally against the hold on his arms. He could shove to his feet, get loose, but he wouldn’t get far.

“Your little . . . manager has disappeared.”

“So what?” Gage asked, trying to interject boredom in his voice. “She probably just got lost on the way back from the bathroom. This whole fucking place is a maze.” Please, dear God, don’t let them find her. He nodded at her escort. “I thought he was supposed to bring her back.”

As Mackey’s reddened face turned toward him again, the soldier took another step in retreat. “I . . . I was. But she was mighty sick. Throwing up. Said she’d be a while and didn’t want me to miss the fight.” His cheeks reddened as he realized he’d been taken.

“Fucking idiot!” snapped Mackey. “Take them to the detention level. Pattenson, Rictor. Take your teams and make a sweep. Find that woman.”

Gage was hauled to his feet and marched toward the same doors through which Adan had entered. “What the hell, man!? I’m a U.S. citizen! You can’t do this to me! I have rights!”

Nobody paid a bit of attention to him. Their contingent had eight guards. Gage noted that they hadn’t taken the time to put Adan back in his shackles and chains, and clearly they weren’t worried about him personally. He cataloged the route as they marched. Down the corridor, into a large elevator. Down more than ten floors below.

How the hell were they going to get out of this?

* * *

Embry’s heart slammed into triple time as the alarm blared. Fuck. Clearly her absence had been discovered. But she didn’t slow the fingers that flew over the keyboard. She checked the video feed of the security camera just outside the lab. No one yet. She’d made it through the first three firewalls and was beating her head against the fourth.

“C’mon. C’mon,” she chanted.

She was almost there. She’d almost cracked the security around the information on Level 36. It was an awful risk she was taking, banking that this was where her father was being held. But there wasn’t time to search the entire system, certainly not now that the soldiers had been alerted. It was a calculated risk.

Her eyes went to the video feed again. Still nothing.

Just another few minutes . . .

There! She was in.

She accessed a separate video feed for Level 36, and the widescreen monitor was swallowed by a grid of cameras. Each one focused on a different room. No, not rooms, Embry realized. Cells. It was a detention level. Even from the tiny images, she could tell the walls were iron. There were narrow cots in some of the rooms. A metal toilet. And prisoners. So many prisoners. “Oh my God.”

Conscious that she could be found any minute, Embry scanned each cell, searching for a familiar broad shouldered figure. And though she saw many Mirus species represented—Christ, they even had a banshee— her father was not among them.

“Damn it!” Her fisted hands struck the table and rattled a rack of test tubes further down.

She didn’t have any more time. There was no telling how they’d reacted when the alarm was triggered. No telling what they were doing to Gage. Her heart clenched at that, terror for his safety weakening her limbs. She needed to move to get that power grid down.

Resolved, she closed out of the cellblock video feed, intending to upload the virus and get out. Then she saw the folder labeled Project Prometheus. What have we here? She opened the folder and clicked on an icon.

Of course the files were encrypted. That could wait for later. She dragged the lot of them onto a portable hard drive, fidgeting impatiently as they transferred at a snail’s pace. You’d think the government would have something faster than USB 2.0.

She checked the video feed to the hall again and thought about killing the lights. But here, a dark room would be more suspicious than one with every light burning. As the files continued to transfer, she went over the schematics she’d pulled up for the rest of the base. A main power generator was one floor up. If she could take it out, they might have a shot. Assuming none of the bunker doors sealed as a result. Blowing through iron would take more time than they could steal. And there was the tiny matter of not knowing where either Gage or her father were at this moment.

The files finished transferring. She dragged the virus file onto the desktop. Taking one last look at the hall on the monitor—still empty—she snagged the hard drive, stuffing it into one of the pockets of her cargo pants, and double clicked the virus. The entire network would crash in minutes.

She raced into the hall, making for the stairwell. Just as she reached it, the elevator doors slid open. Bolting inside, she heard the shouts behind her as she ran up to Level 32. Footsteps pounded from above and below, a staccato beat punctuated by the panicked thrum of her heart. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Of course nothing here burns. She dove through the door for SL-32, no longer trying to hide, just to make it to the generator. Taking precious seconds, she heated the knob to molten, praying that the lock would fuse. Then she ran.

There were soldiers on this level. She could hear them down the hallway, doing a sweep of the rooms. Closing in.

She wasn’t going to make it out. Not from this far down, this deep in the belly of the beast. The realization of it bled through her. But she had no time to mourn. She had to take out that generator. She had to give her father and Gage a chance.

The door was locked. Every damn thing in this base was locked. Riding on temper and desperation, she blew the lock apart, the door flying back on its hinges, warped and blackened. If they didn’t know exactly where she was before, they did now.

Embry raced through, following the conduit pipes down another hall and to the right. And there they were. Not one generator, but a series of five. The drone of them echoed off the concrete walls of the big room. She wouldn’t be able to hear anybody coming. But there was only one way in, one way out.

Positioning herself halfway between the generators and the hallway, Embry dropped her shields and released the fire. Flames spun out from her hands in each direction, flowing like water exactly where she directed it. With one stream she blocked the entrance. Hopefully it would be too hot for the soldiers to approach, and hot enough to melt any bullets before they got to her. The other stream she let build and swell, stretching to encompass all five generators.

The steel began to creak and groan as it expanded. Faintly, beneath the roar of flame, Embry could hear shouting. They’d found her.

Her limbs began to shake as she cranked up the heat. Pain pulsed through her brain from the effort of controlling both streams at differing levels of intensity. Sweat trickled down her brow, evaporating before it reached her chin.

Something popped. At first, Embry thought her fire wall wasn’t keeping the bullets at bay. Then she realized with a series of successive snaps that the rivets on the generators were flying loose and bouncing off the concrete walls. Steam began to billow. Almost there . . .

With a scream of metal, the first generator blew. She dove to the floor as shrapnel flew through the air. A second and third explosion rocked the base as the next ones exploded. Debris rained down, burning her clothes, slicing her flesh. The wall of flames blocking the hallway was extinguished, but she managed to maintain the line to the generators. There were people in the hall, hesitating to cross the superheated threshold. Unable to re-establish the fire wall, she shot a succession of fire balls to hold them at bay until she could demolish the last two sources of power.

Thinking of Gage and drawing deep on her fire, she threw one last burst toward the remaining generators. With an explosion that left her deaf and half blind, she succeeded. Then everything went dark.

Chapter 10

“Where are you taking me?” Gage demanded.

The question, like all the others he’d tossed out, went unanswered. Christ, he needed intel. Embry was somewhere in this bunker with hundreds of highly armed soldiers seeking her out. She needed backup. She needed an entire goddamned team of functional Shadow Walkers, not a has been and a Walker that had been beaten, tortured and who knew what else. But they were all she had.

She and Adan were all he had.

A radio squawked. “Breach on Level 32! Breach! Get a goddamned fire crew down here!” A volley of gunfire punctuated the transmission.

Fear fisted around his heart.

“Bravo team, we need backup!” Static was interrupted by more gunfire and screaming. “The generator—”

When the elevator lurched to a halt, Gage was ready. Taking advantage of their imbalance, he drove an elbow into one of his captors’ ribs and broke the knee of the other. Amid chaos and shouting, the lights went out. Instinct had him intercepting the nearest man and slamming his head into the wall. Behind him, he heard the sound of fists on flesh, the crunch of bone, and the telltale thud of bodies. Someone slammed the butt of a gun into his shoulder. He spun, driving a knife hand into the pressure point under his opponent’s arm, following with open-handed strikes to his ears. His body had barely hit the floor before Gage was feeling around the roof of the car. “Where the hell is the trap door?” Urgency was a frantic drumbeat in his blood. Embry. Have to get to Embry.

Gage could sense Adan a few feet away, but couldn’t see him in the thick black that should’ve been clear as day. So much for Shadow Walker skills coming back under duress.

“I’d ask how you came back from the dead, but I figure that’s a story that’ll have to wait until we get out of here. Why can’t you see?”

“Lost my mojo. Flying blind here.”

There was a click and a creak as Adan found and opened the top hatch. “You don’t have your Walker skills. How the hell did you think you were going to get out of here?”

“This was supposed to be a recon mission. Embry didn’t think that far ahead.”

Adan’s hand clamped around his arm. “Embry’s here?”

“Who do you think blew up the generator? We’ve got to get to Level 32.”

“Where are the backup teams?” he demanded.

“There are no backup teams. The Council refused to mount a rescue mission. Embry would be here on her own if Matthias hadn’t told her where to find me.” Putting an end to the discussion, Gage boosted himself through the hatch and clambered onto the roof of the elevator car.

Adan followed. “How could he let her do this?”

“With all due respect, there’s no letting Embry do anything, and you know it. What level are we on?”

“Looks like between 35 and 36. We’ll have to climb up and force the doors.”

His eyes were adjusting to the dark. Shapes were beginning to emerge from the deeper black. It was a start. “I’m guessing we didn’t catch a break with a ladder up the shaft?”

“Of course not. You still up to pulling yourself up a cable?”

Moving over to the nearest one, Gage wrapped a hand around the thick steel. “I can still outstrip you. The question is, can you climb with that rib?”

“I’ll do what needs to be done to get to my daughter.”

The faint echo of explosions reached them from above.

“Up, up, and away then.” Bracing his feet against the wall of the elevator shaft, Gage began to haul himself up the cable.

For a few minutes they said nothing, and the only sound was of scrabbling feet and the creak of cables. Gage could hear the strain in Adan’s breathing with each passing foot. The pop of gunfire got louder as they neared Level 32. He shoved back the terror that crawled through him. As long as they were shooting, she was still alive.

“Do you know anything about what we’re about to get into? Have you seen much of the base?” he asked.

“Not enough. I’ve been kept on the detention level along with about two dozen other Mirus,” replied Adan. “If we’re lucky, some of them have gotten loose.”

“Two dozen? So much for the Council hoping that they thought you were an aberration.”

“The Council are fools,” spat Adan. “They’re living in another century. It was only a matter of time before we were discovered. Stop here. The ledge is to your left.”

“I see it. Not well, but I see it.”

Gage worked his way over, testing for handgrips and footholds. Adan did the same until they were each perched on the narrow ledge. They each dug fingers into the edge of the elevator doors, prepared to force them open.

“Do you have any kind of plan?” asked Adan.

“Try not to die. Get Embry out. Other than that, winging it.”

A hand reached out, gripped his shoulder. “Be careful, son.”

“Always.”

His muscles strained as he hauled to the left, struggling to make just enough gap for their fingers to get a better grip. A narrow band of flickering light appeared. There, then gone again. They pulled again. The gap came back and Adan swore as the doors pinched down on his fingers. But it was enough space for Gage to slide his in. With one more concerted effort, they opened the doors onto Level 32 and stepped into hell.

The main power was clearly out, but the faint red glow of emergency lights illuminated the scene well enough. The shadows were broken by flashes of flame from further down the hall. The corridor was clogged with people. Most were armed. A steady stream of wounded were being passed through the chaos. No one seemed to notice them slipping from the elevator shaft.

Gage could make out a fire hose snaking in the direction of the gunfire and noise, and he signed to Adan. Can you Walk to her?

His foster father’s hands moved quickly. I’ll get us as close as I can. He laid a hand on Gage’s shoulder, and Gage felt the dark wrap around him. Sound muffled and slowed. Before them, a series of narrow black paths criss-crossed the scene. Adan pulled him onto the nearest bridge. Gage felt his body clench in protest, and fought to relax, to give himself up to the shadow.

But the shadow did not want him.

Adan’s hand slipped loose, and Gage dropped down in the middle of a scorched hallway, narrower than the main corridor.

“What the fuck?” the soldier nearest him exclaimed. Before he could raise his weapon, Gage knocked him out with a well placed elbow strike. His hands closed around the gun, and he came up swinging with it as others noticed him. He fought like a machine, cold, steady, unstoppable. Moving forward, gaining ground.

He was two and three deep with bodies. Dead or unconscious, he didn’t know. Adan had disappeared. Gage hoped like hell that he’d get to Embry and Walk her out of this God forsaken mess. Her survival was all that mattered.

* * *

Embry launched another fireball at the narrow entrance to the generator room. Someone screamed. They returned fire, and she sank back down behind what remained of one of the big turbines. No human could tolerate the residual heat from the explosion, and even Embry was sweating. Her body shook with fatigue. In this real world test of just how far her powers could go, she felt like she was losing. She’d expended too much on the generators themselves. Instead of being able to simply seal off the entrance to the room with a wall of flame, she was reduced to answering their volleys of bullets with fireballs.

She’d killed men. Burned them. But more kept coming, and the siege went on. And on.

She fired off another round, knocking a soldier who’d dared to cross the threshold back into his comrades.

Surely by now she’d drawn the attention and fire of every unit in the base.

Something moved behind her to the left. She led with flames as she whirled to face the threat.

He caught them, tossing the ball of fire from hand to hand like a football, as he gave a familiar, if bloody, lop-sided grin. “Got a light?”

“Dad!” Relief surged through her, and with it came a welcome surge of hope. She threw herself at him.

He fired off the round and caught her, grunting a little as she squeezed. “Good to see you, Spitfire.”

Embry pulled back, conjuring enough light to survey his injuries. He was covered in soot, sweat, and blood. Scrapes and scratches ran the length of his limbs. One eye was purpled and swollen mostly shut. The rest of his face was mottled with bruising, new and old. He was shirtless, and Embry noted additional splotches of livid purple over his ribs.

“You look like shit.”

“Well, Gage had to make it look convincing.”

“Gage? He fought you?” Before he could respond, her brain kicked into gear. “You. You were his opponent for the exhibition match.”

A spray of bullets whizzed above her head. She and her father answered with a volley that drove the front line back a good ten feet into the hall to escape the heat.

“Where is he?” she asked.

“Somewhere back there. I tried to Walk us both through, but the shadows couldn’t hold him. I dropped him in the middle of the fighting in the hall and came straight to check on you.”

Embry felt her blood run cold as she imagined him, defenseless by Mirus standards, fighting amid the dozens of soldiers with guns and knives and who knew what. Steeling herself, she resumed a defensive stance. “My position is stable. I’m not going anywhere, but they can’t come in either. He needs your help. He doesn’t have any of his abilities.”

“We need backup,” said Adan.

“So tell me something I don’t know. Unless you’ve got a small army hiding out here… Wait. The other prisoners. Would they fight?”

“Most of them probably would,” he said.

“Can you get down to the detention level to release them? I don’t know if anybody got out when I took out the power.”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“I can hold my own,” she insisted. “We’re not gonna get out of here without help. See what you can do to snag Gage and get him out of harm’s way, then go release the cavalry. And pray to God they’ve got something here that can walk through iron walls or teleport.”

He embraced her again. “Be careful.”

“You too.”

In an instant he was gone, swallowed up by the shadows.

Time ticked past, measured by the syncopated rhythm of gunfire and explosions, punctuated by screams. From time to time, she ceased fire to draw the next line of soldiers in, hoping to draw more of them to her, to give Gage a chance.

Please, dear God, let Dad have gotten to him in time.

Her father’s words echoed through her head. The shadows couldn’t hold him. What if her father couldn’t carry Gage away from danger? Why the hell couldn’t the shadows hold him? The only creatures that couldn’t be carried in sustained shadow were of the light. Creatures like her elemental mother. Gage was a Shadow Walker. Or at the very least human.

She flashed back to the night before, lying sated in his arms, feeling the beat of his heart and of her flame inside him.

Oh God.

Rising up, she sent out a stream of flame to heat up the guns the front line men held.

In her mind, she saw the dojo, saw the stream of her power shooting inside him. What have I done?

The guns glowed a vicious red. Palms blistered, the men dropped their weapons just before the rounds inside exploded. The shrapnel drove them back. And for a moment no more soldiers came to take their place.

What the hell? They can’t be falling back.

Embry crept forward to the remains of the next generator to get a better look. A series of unsteady tremors rocked the facility. Almost like . . . footsteps? Men screamed. More soldiers took position in the doorway, but not before she saw two others fly into the wall at the junction down the hall. The men in the doorway looked over their shoulders, and Embry took advantage of their distraction to knock them back.

Something roared, a high, vibrating screech somewhere between a T-rex and a banshee.

No way. Not possible. Surely the human military hadn’t managed to find and imprison one of the Drakyn. The dragon-shifters had gone deep underground during the modern era. There hadn’t been a reported sighting in over a century.

But something big kept coming, and whatever it was, it was drawing fire away from her. The cavalry, such as it was, had apparently arrived. She’d take all the help she could get.

With a spark of hope freshly lit in her chest, Embry stood to let off another volley of fire. And she saw him.

Emerging from around the bend in the hall, Gage fought amid a half dozen armed soldiers. He was bloody, favoring his left side as he systematically disarmed them with fists, feet, elbows. One went down a victim of the butt of his own gun. Two more were distracted by another roar of the Drakyn, but the remaining three converged on him at once.

Embry fired off a quick succession of charges, but not before one of them managed to dislocate Gage’s shoulder. He didn’t make a sound as he went down to his knees. He scissored his legs, dropping his assailant to the ground. Gage swarmed over him, using his one good arm to get the guy in a choke hold. As his face purpled, his hands clawing frantically at Gage’s arm, the others took aim.

“No!” Panicked terror had her stepping out from cover, fire flying from her hands, rippling over the rest of her body as the rage took her.

No one would take him from her again. Not like this.

The fireball hit the three soldiers. When the smoke cleared moments later, nothing remained but the blackened stumps of their legs. But more were coming. The endless stream of soldiers always kept coming.

Gage was on his feet again, already swinging. But he was slowing down. With no opportunity to reseat his shoulder, how much longer could he last? Without his abilities as a Shadow Walker, what chance did he have to escape? She had to fix this. She had to undo the botched attempt at protection she’d made a decade before so the shadows would take him back.

She lifted her hands, focused on the pulse of energy she could feel inside him. It beat like a second heart, calling to her.

She hesitated. What if it didn’t work?

She generated energy. Expelled it. Unlike other firecasters, unlike her father, she didn’t draw from sources outside herself. She was too much elemental for that. But what was inside him originated with her. It was still a part of her, so shouldn’t she be able to control it?

There were no rules, no guidelines, no training for this. She’d never heard of another case like his. What if she did more harm than good? What if I kill him for real this time?

The pain bloomed bright and hot in her chest, a shock to her over-taxed system. And she understood that the time for indecision was over. It was now or never, or neither of them would walk out alive. Body swaying, she lifted her hands and called to the light.

Chapter 11

Embry was nearby. Gage hadn’t seen her yet. He’d been too busy fighting and couldn’t see past the smoke. But the blackened remains of those three soldiers and the fireballs that intermittently flew by him proved that she could see him.

The creature screeched again, whipping its long tail in a brutal arc and slicing through two more men. Gage didn’t know what the hell it was, but it was keeping the influx of soldiers from getting beyond it into the narrow hallway, so he was grateful. A couple of others had joined him. To the left, just beyond the creature, a shrunken woman with dry, desiccated flesh slashed razor sharp nails, leaving gaping furrows in the chest of her nearest attacker. Her eyes flashed crimson and fangs descended as she fell on him, drinking greedily. A dozen feet away from the starving vampire, lightning speared out from the hands of an angular man in bloody clothes. A galvanic fae. Handy. Both of them tore through the crowd, exacting vengeance for whatever tortures they had endured as prisoners here.

Gage drove an elbow into the face of his nearest attacker and the motion jarred his dislocated shoulder. His vision flickered with black for a moment as agony threatened to take him to his knees. He needed enough cover to reseat the joint, not only because of the pain but because his left arm hung useless at his side.

Where the fuck was Adan?

Turning his back to the corner where the hallway turned, Gage surveyed the remaining soldiers. There were fifteen between him and the entrance to another room. He moved forward, intent on taking out the nearest one, when his body burst into flames. The shock and pain were so great, not even the oblivion of unconsciousness could cut through it. Staggering forward, still driving a reverse knife hand into his opponent’s throat to crush his windpipe, he was surprised not to see flames swirling over his skin. The fire was within him.

Embry.

He stumbled to the nearest wall for support, to keep from going down.

Embry, what the hell are you doing?

Something inside him ripped loose, as if an invisible hand had reached in to grab a vital organ and tear it out. Nausea and pain immobilized him. Unable to even breathe, Gage’s head dropped back against the wall. And through the heads of the cluster of shooters at the doorway to the next room, he saw her.

She was on fire. A living, breathing flame in the shape of a woman. Her hands were outstretched toward him, and he could feel the pull from them. His body fought it. He slumped down the wall, doubling over against the knife-sharp spasms, trying to hold on to whatever she was trying to yank out. He lifted his head to look at her. “Embry, don’t—”

Her body bucked. Once. Twice. She staggered a few steps, then stubbornly regained her footing, continuing whatever she was doing. Gage’s brain was locked down in agony and took too long to process what was happening. Then the flames covering her body began to flicker and die. And he saw the blood.

It flowed down from her shoulder and her side, dousing the flames as it ran.

She’d been shot. Twice.

“Embry!” Gage roared her name. Rage burned through the pain, giving strength to muscles gone weak, propelling him to his feet.

He drove his way through the soldiers, his body dealing death blows as his mind focused on only a single, tangible fact. Embry was down, unmoving on the floor of the generator room.

When the bridge of black appeared, he didn’t pause to think or question. He took it, bypassing the remaining fighters, to drop down by her still form.

“Embry! Ember.”

She made no response, and he almost stopped breathing again.

Blood. There was so much blood. He wanted to examine her, but they were totally in the open here. Bullets continued to fly around them. She cried out in pain as he dragged her to cover, and his heart leapt that she was still alive. He looked back at the hallway to see if anyone was following him, but the recovered vampire and the fae had engaged the remaining soldiers. They were safe enough for the moment.

Her eyes opened as he dropped to his knees beside her. Their sunburst was dim, the light waning.

“Ember, hang on.” He sat back, linking his hands around his angled knee and bent his neck back, rotating both shoulders forward. The shoulder didn’t pop back into joint, so he shifted directions, rotating backwards. On the fourth agonizing rotation, it slid back in with a click. Taking no time to immobilize it, he moved back to Embry and ripped open her shirt, hissing a breath at the sight of the ugly wounds. He pressed his hands firmly on both of them to staunch the flow of blood. He tried to sound calm and matter-of-fact. “We’re gonna get you out of here.”

She made a choking noise that he realized was supposed to be a laugh. “Always the optimist. I’m finished, Gage.”

“The fuck you are,” he snapped, pressing down harder on the wounds. “That shoulder is a through and through, and I don’t think this side shot hit anything vital.” But blood continued to trickle steadily through his fingers.

“Gage, get out of here. Save yourself.”

“Get this straight, woman. I’m not going anywhere without you.” Terror whipped fury into his voice.

“Gage, stay away from the light.”

He blinked at her. “That’s my line. You’re the one that’s bleeding.”

“No. You had too much of me inside you.” She paused, her breathing labored. “From . . . before. It’s why you couldn’t Walk. I pulled it out.”

The shadows had taken him back. He’d been able to Walk to get to her. “Then I can Walk to get you out.”

“We both know you can’t carry me all the way out of here before I bleed out. And even you can’t teleport or walk through iron walls.”

The truth of it continued to seep beneath his hands.

“There has to be some way.” Gage looked frantically for help. “Where the hell is your father?”

“I sent him after reinforcements.”

“Reinforcements? Who? The other prisoners?”

“Seemed like the thing to do. We’re kinda outnumbered.”

That explained the unexpected backup. “Understatement of the century.” She was so pale. “Look, can’t you cauterize these wounds? Stop the bleeding?”

“I’m sapped, Gage. And even if I could, the internal bleeding from this second shot would kill me. Get out of here while you can.” She tried to shove him away but didn’t even manage to budge him an inch.

“I’m not leaving you,” he growled.

At the scrape of feet on concrete, Gage whirled to put himself between Embry and the newest threat.

The fae stood well back, his hands lifted in a non-threatening posture. “I’m on your side.”

Gage glanced behind him. The vampire was finishing off the last soldier. Around the corner, out of visual range, he could still hear fighting. But there were no immediate threats. He dropped his fists, crouched back down to put pressure on Embry’s wounds.

The fae took a few steps closer. “I think I can help,” he said.

“How?” demanded Gage. “Last time I checked, electrocution wasn’t on the list of approved medical treatments for gunshot wounds.”

A crackle of energy jumped across four of the fae’s fingers as his lips curved in a grim smile. “I’ve got better control than that. A low level electrical charge can be used, under the right conditions, to stimulate tissue regeneration. In essence, I can try to make her body heal itself.”

The right conditions probably didn’t include the filthy concrete floor of a burned out generator room, surrounded by shrapnel, thought Gage. But, desperate times . . .

He looked down at Embry. Her dimming gaze was focused on the fae. “Well come on, Sparky,” she said. “We’re running out of options here.”

* * *

The fae’s lips twitched as he knelt beside her. “It’s Orrin.” At his signal, Gage eased back, taking his hands and the pressure off the wound in her side.

Embry saw rather than felt when Orrin carefully felt around the injury.

Not good. Not good at all, she thought.

Gage’s face was caught somewhere between fury and shock. He was unraveling. It was in the set of his shoulders, in the shaking of his hands. She tried to reach for him but didn’t get any further than turning over her hand. Shit. She wiggled her fingers. “Gage.”

He started to take her hand, then stopped to wipe the blood—her blood—on his pants before curling strong fingers around hers.

“We have some planning to do,” she told him.

“I know. We have to figure out what our assets are and how we’re going to get to the surface—”

“No, no,” she said. “We’ll figure that out. We have some vacation planning to do.”

He blinked at her, icy blue eyes clearly trying to ascertain when she’d taken that sharp left turn away from reality. “Vacation planning?”

“Yeah.”

Orrin probed within the wound, and a bolt of pain seared through the numbness that had taken over.

Embry hissed, her hand clamping down on Gage’s as she breathed through it. “Yeah, vacation. I’m thinking something not beachy because I have a feeling that this is gonna leave a wicked scar and that’s just not going to rock the sexy bikini look.”

“Baby, I will take you anywhere you want to go when we get out of here.” He placed the slightest emphasis on the “when,” and Embry knew that he knew she was trying to distract him.

“You ready?” asked Orrin.

Embry took a tighter grip on Gage’s hand and nodded.

At first she felt nothing. The web of energy that crackled between Orrin’s hand and her abdomen looked more like the harmless light show of one of those electrostatic globe things that made your hair stand up when you touched and it. Then came the prickle. Needle-sharp and faint, as if her body had gone to sleep and was only now waking up. It felt strange and uncomfortable. She resisted the urge to stretch or flex to try to restore circulation lest she do more damage.

Sweat ran in fine streams down Orrin’s temple, but he was rock steady as he worked. As damaged nerves came back to life, so came the pain, a red hot poker scrambling her guts. Her body arched, trying to curl up and protect her belly.

“Hold her down!” ordered Orrin.

Gage pushed her back, and on the other side came her father, soundless, wordless as he took her free hand. The pair of them held her down by the shoulders as Orrin continued.

This was worse, much worse than getting shot. It was worse than the torture training she’d endured when she joined the IED. Her body screamed and fought the hands that pressed her into the ground. Biting back a cry, Embry bore down on Gage’s and her father’s hands and prayed for it to be over.

Dimly, Embry was aware of the earth trembling. Or maybe that was her. That was definitely her screaming. Some part of her was detached, observing the procedure. Gage was praying, his words a tumbled mix of half-remembered litanies from his Catholic youth. Her father muttered curses in the language of the elementals. Their voices blurred, blended, losing all sense or meaning.

Then it was done.

Orrin sat back, gray and trembling. “It’s not pretty, but I think you’ll live.”

When she tried to sit up, her father and Gage shifted, assisting rather than restraining. She winced as she came vertical. Growing new muscle and tissue and who knew what else was painful business. The new skin was smooth and pink and very tender beneath her exploring fingers. But it was whole. And though what lay beneath ached, it no longer felt mortally damaged. She looked at Orrin. “Thank you.” And if her voice cracked, she blamed it on the screaming.

A small crowd had gathered, Embry realized. Fifteen or so other Mirus were scattered through the remains of the generator room. The remains of their impromptu army of prisoners. No one was fighting.

“Not that I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth, but why aren’t there more soldiers beating down the door?” she asked.

“I collapsed the access to this room. They’ll be digging through rubble for days.” This from a slant-eyed man who might’ve been cast as a Nordic god. The Drakyn she guessed.

“It’s nice to have a reprieve, but now we’re trapped. No food, no supplies. It’s only a matter of time before they capture us all again. And you know they’ll come in with more backup and more firepower now that they know what we’re capable of.” The feline tilt of the woman’s head suggested she was some sort of cat-shifter.

Others added their voices, their concerns and complaints, until the babble echoed off the concrete walls and crashed around Embry’s aching head. A piercing whistle cut through the cacophony and made half those present cover their ears.

“Arguing isn’t going to get us anywhere. Now we’ve got a wide variety of the races represented here. Surely there’s someone among us who has an ability or a skill that will help us to get out of this God forsaken bunker.” Gage surveyed the faces gathered. “Can anyone teleport?”

“I could, if not for the iron shielding,” said Orrin.

“Anybody walk through walls?” No answer. “What about Persuasion? Can anybody control whatever guards we might encounter?”

“I can, but only a few at a time,” said a lanky boy with a torn T-shirt proclaiming The Force is strong with this one. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen, thought Embry.

“C’mon people. Think about your abilities. I know you’ve been tortured and abused and experimented on here. I know they’ve kept you bound by whatever means necessary. But you’re out of your cells and you’re alive. Figure out how we’re going to get out of here,” said Gage.

“I think I can help.” The voice was soft, and it came from the far side of the room, from a petite girl with a fall of dark blonde hair that might have resembled honey if it were clean.

“How?” asked Adan.

“I’m a Seer,” she said.

“How’s a Seer going to help us out of this mess?” asked a female vampire. “We don’t need to have our futures told.”

“Futures aren’t all I see. I also see possibilities, alternatives. They’re always changing.” She stopped, closed her eyes for a long moment. “And one of them includes us going up and out of this ventilation shaft.”

“What ventilation shaft?” asked Embry, getting slowly to her feet.

She gestured to the blank stretch of concrete. “The one behind this wall. We just need someone to make a hole big enough for us to get inside and climb.”

“That would be me,” said the Drakyn. Moving over to the girl, he placed a hand on the wall. “Here?”

She corrected his position by a few inches, then she and everyone else backed away, giving him plenty of room.

His shift wasn’t like the shift of any species Embry had ever observed. Most of them were painful affairs that took anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour, depending on circumstances. No matter what level of magic was involved, it was a very physical change, complete with lots of pops and groans and snaps as the body was forced to do apparently unnatural things to accommodate a new shape. But the Drakyn was fast, his shift an all but instantaneous blur that left the room reeking with a scent of magic that even she could smell.

He must be old, Embry realized. Very old. How in the hell did they capture him?

Looking over his great, scaly shoulder, the Drakyn took aim and thrashed his spiked tail into the wall. It only took one blow. Then he turned his massive body and cleared the debris with his clawed hands until the hole was large enough to hold a man. His shift back was just as fast. “Going up?” he asked.

Chapter 12

The climb took considerable creative maneuvering and some piggybacking to make sure that the weaker and more seriously wounded of the party made it out of the base. But hours after she and Gage had driven through the fortified gates of Fort Hurley, they and all the Mirus who had survived the siege crawled out of the ventilation shaft and into the star-studded night. A few of those who were able immediately teleported or flew away. The Drakyn was one of them. As she watched his dragon form grow smaller and smaller with distance, Embry couldn’t blame them. Who knew how long they’d been trapped here?

Those remaining lay sprawled on the rocky ground, catching their breath, assessing their various injuries. Embry sucked in great lungfuls of the sharp mountain air, clearing the scents of smoke and blood and sweat from her nose. Not an easy feat, since she and everyone else were covered with it.

Gage dropped down beside her. “How’s that shoulder?” He leaned over to examine it. His touch was hesitant, gentle.

“I’ll live.”

He curled his fingers in hers and pressed his forehead to hers. “Yes, by the grace of God and a fae and a lifetime’s worth of luck, you will.”

“We all will, thanks to you,” she said.

“Well actually it was thanks to a lot of people. I’ll tell you something, though.”

Because the twitch of his lip said he wanted her to, she asked, “What?”

“You are banned from mission planning for life.”

She gave a short bark of laughter. “Deal.”

Eyes sobering, he brought his other hand up to cradle her cheek, “I couldn’t take losing you again.”

Embry’s heart twisted as she thought of what she still had to do, even after everything he’d risked. She framed his face and laid her lips over his. His mouth was soft, reverential. Embry wanted to linger, to savor. But they’d had their night. It would have to be enough. She pulled back. “I love you.”

Over Gage’s shoulder, Embry caught sight of her father staring at them. He stood motionless, silent, a look of speculation in his eyes. Despite everything they’d been through, a part of her still felt eighteen and like she’d been caught doing the forbidden.

When Gage started to answer in kind, she cleared her throat and brushed a finger over his lips. “We need to go. We’re not out of danger yet. I guarantee this ventilation shaft lets out somewhere within the perimeter fencing of the base. We need to figure out where we are in relation to the guards they have posted. And you know they have to have doubled the guards to keep us from getting out—unless they’re just stupid and think we’ll stay stuck in that room.”

“I’m not willing to bank on them being stupid,” said Gage, getting to his feet. He tugged her to her feet. “Or that our luck will keep holding. Everybody up. We’ve gotta get moving. There’s only an hour or two until sunrise, and we need the dark.”

Whatever her father thought about she and Gage being involved was pushed aside as they picked a bearing and began herding their group of refugees down the mountain to the west. It was too quiet. Other than the shuffle of feet and the patter of loose stones as they rolled down the slope, there were none of the expected night noises of crickets, cicadas, or nocturnal predators. And there was no sound of soldiers.

Embry didn’t like it.

The perimeter fence, when they reached it, was unmanned. Because he could absorb the shock if it was live, Orrin wrapped his hand around the wire. He shook his head. “It’s dead. We can cut right through.”

“I’m not waiting to cut.” Having freshly fed, the vampire made short work of tearing through the fencing. Then she strode through as if stepping out on 5th Avenue.

The others hurried after her.

Embry hung back, hesitating.

“What’s wrong?” asked Gage, coming back for her.

She shook her head, unable to put her finger on it. “Something’s not right.” Turning, she scanned the mountainside looking for anything amiss.

Gage strode back to the gap in the fence. “Orrin, you take lead. Head west with the others. The nearest town is a good thirty miles from here. But I think there’s an Indian reservation closer than that as the crow flies. You might be able to get a lift there.”

“Aren’t you coming?” asked the fae.

“We’re doing some scouting first. Y’all go ahead. We’ll catch up.”

When he came back, Adan was with him.

“You sense something.” It wasn’t a question, and Embry appreciated that her father wasn’t dismissing her gut feeling.

“This is too easy,” she said. “We took out a lot of men, but not all of them, not by a long shot. Why aren’t they out here patrolling?”

“Let’s check the fence line a ways,” said Gage.

“Okay, we’ll split up—”

“No way in hell. We stay together.” She started to interrupt but Gage plowed on. “Non-negotiable, Ember. None of us goes anywhere alone.” He swung his gaze to Adan. “That includes you.”

Adan nodded in accession.

Working as a unit, they moved north, following the fence line for a good half-mile. Their sweep turned up nothing. Reversing, they backtracked, then headed south. A quarter mile from the hole in the fence, they found the first body. Dressed in fatigues, finger still clutching the trigger of his weapon, the soldier’s neck was cleanly broken. Judging from the tracks in the dirt, he hadn’t even put up a fight. A hundred yards further, they found another. This one was leaning against the fence, arms wrapped around his gun, head nodding as if he were just asleep.

Adan and Gage exchanged a look.

“Someone’s been here,” said Adan. “One of ours.”

Embry felt her heart kick in alarm. She fought to keep her voice level. “Can you read the trace to tell who?” When they traveled by shadow, Shadow Walkers always left a trace of themselves, akin to a fingerprint or signature.

Her father phased out but came back a moment later. “I don’t know him.”

“Then as of this moment, we consider him an enemy,” said Embry.

“Em, any Walker is bound to be on our side,” he said.

“The Council forbade me from coming after you. If they sent a Walker it’s to clean up my mess. That means me.” And Gage. She didn’t say it. Didn’t have to. She could tell by the look on Adan’s face that he understood.

“Let’s get back to the others,” he said.

Focused on stealth, they made their way back to the gap in the fence. Orrin’s group had a good twenty minute lead on them, but they struck out in a general westerly direction. Embry’s anxiety grew with each passing minute as she watched and waited for an attack. Not safe. Not safe. The words repeated in her head like a mantra. She had to figure out how to get Gage away before whoever the Council had sent could track them.

They crested a rise, but the others were nowhere in sight. Her father pulled ahead, scouting.

Gage took her hand, squeezed it. “It’ll be okay.”

She looked at him, her eyes blurring with tears. Oh no it won’t. It won’t, and it’s all my fault. Again. One tear fell, rolling hot and fast down her cheek. Three more followed, and Embry sucked in a breath. Christ, get a grip. Your blubbering isn’t going to fix this. She stopped moving, pulling him to her in a fierce embrace that made her shoulder scream.

“You have to go,” she whispered.

“We all want out of here, but you know we need to see these people to safety—”

“Not them. You. You have to Walk. Get the hell out of here.” Urgency made her voice low and harsh.

Gage frowned. “What the hell are you talking about, Embry?”

“Whoever the Council sent is out here somewhere. They don’t know your signature well enough to trace you. If you go now, they can’t catch you. Go.”

In silence, he studied her face before speaking. “Not without you. I’m not about to leave you behind to take the fall for this. Come with me.”

“I can’t. They’ll find me. My magic makes me easy to trace. I won’t lead them to you. I won’t let them take you again.” She stepped back, forced herself to release him. “You have to go, Gage. Without me. I always knew you’d have to go without me.”

Temper kindled in his eyes as he took a step toward her. “Ember—”

“We’ll just make this easy on you and take you both. Then you don’t have to be apart when you face the Council,” said a voice from the dark.

Embry whirled, trying to send out flares, but nothing happened. Frantic, she tried again.

“Oh I think you’ll find your powers useless just now.” Someone moved to the right, stepping out of shadow and into moonlight. He shook the object in his hand. “They’re quite neutralized. A suppression talisman. Handy things, these. You see we learned from our mistake ten years ago.”

“Lucius,” she growled.

The wraith took a small bow.

Gage shifted to place his body between them.

“How noble. Still defending your little paramour.”

“Can it, Lucius. The assignment is to bring them in, not taunt them to death.” Matthias stepped from another shadow, pushing Adan before him, hands bound.

No, no this wasn’t happening. Embry turned on him. “You son of a bitch! How dare you after everything—”

“That’s quite enough, Embry. You can save it for your hearing,” said Matthias.

And before she could make a reply, she was sucked into the shadow.

* * *

Gage landed on his back in an echoing marble chamber. The impact jarred his shoulder and drove the breath from his lungs. The buzz of voices he’d heard on his arrival abruptly halted, as if an off switch had been flipped. The silence was heavy. Above him the domed ceiling was covered in—were those frescos?—except for a large black mark in the center where the paint was bubbled and peeling. A scorch mark, he realized. Embry.

He rolled to his feet into a fighting stance, eyes searching the room for her. Lucius was right there to strike him between the shoulders, driving him back to his knees.

“Get your hands off me, you traitor,” Embry snarled.

Twenty feet away, Matthias was trying to help her to her feet.

“Traitor. Strong language to use against one of our most faithful Shadow Walkers. Particularly from someone who defied a direct order.” The speaker was a thin man in flowing cobalt robes. A fae, judging by the slight point to his ears and the slant of his very green eyes. He stood at a podium of sorts where he had apparently been addressing the other hundred or so Mirus denizens who filled the stadium seating of the chamber. It was a freaking paranormal Congress with species and creatures he’d never seen or heard of.

“I class you a traitor too, Ephraim. You would have left my father to rot.”

“Embry.” Adan’s voice was soft but firm with rebuke.

“Your father knew the risks of his mission. We made a decision based on the well being of all Mirus peoples. We couldn’t risk the human world at large becoming aware of our existence,” he snapped. “That has always been the prime directive.”

“Then you need to update that directive to line up with reality because they had more than twenty Mirus citizens of various races as their prisoners and lab rats. Their military sure as hell knows we exist.”

A murmur spread through the room. Gage wondered how they could be so shocked, so out of touch with reality. I guess a few centuries in hiding makes you cocky.

“Adan is this true?” asked another Council member.

“It is. They’ve been . . . collecting us for quite some time. Testing, learning our weaknesses, our defenses.”

“How much did they learn?” demanded someone else.

“About me, nothing but that light would keep me bound. About others, I don’t know.”

“And these other prisoners. What happened to them?” asked a filmy creature that seemed not entirely part of the current dimension.

“Some were killed in our fight to escape. Eighteen made it out,” reported Adan.

“Where are they now?” came another voice.

“Free,” said Embry, her lips curved in the barest of satisfied smirks.

“We should round them up, debrief them. Why were these others not brought to our attention?” Ephraim glared at Matthias.

“Our orders were to bring these three in,” he said.

Scowling, the fae turned to Lucius. “Gather a team and find the survivors. We must know how compromised we are.”

The wraith gave a short bow and dematerialized.

“I destroyed their entire computer system,” said Embry. “One of Thorn’s viruses.” She reached into a pocket of her cargo pants. “Their files were encrypted, but I made a copy. I’m not sure how much is left of this hard drive, though.” The blackened square was warped and melted in places. “Thorn might be able to lift something from it.”

“Then the information was contained,” said Ephraim.

“Not necessarily. We have no way of knowing whether the data was backed up solely on the servers there. I just cut one of the heads off the hydra. I didn’t kill the beast. We have to assume there are other files, other compounds. The day is coming when we won’t be able to hide any longer.”

“We will come back to address the issue once the remaining survivors have been debriefed. In the meantime, your actions must be dealt with accordingly. You disobeyed a direct order, defied your commission in the Investigation and Enforcement Division, used your connections illegally to go against that direct order, and you brought a human into Mirus business.”

Ah, thought Gage. Now they get to me. He rose to his feet and stepped forward. “She did what she had to because your people wouldn’t.”

“Silence!” Ephraim’s voice echoed off the distant ceiling.

Gage half expected chunks of plaster to fall or lightning to strike at his feet. But the fae ignored him, turning back to Embry.

“How plead you Agent Hollister?”

She held her head high. “Unapologetically guilty.”

“I see. And the deception didn’t begin with you. This human, from what I am told, has had intimate knowledge of our world and our kind since childhood. He not only knows of our world, but was fostered in it and illegally trained in the ways of the Shadow Walkers.” Eyes blazing with fury, Ephraim turned his attention to Adan. “How answer you Adan, son of Silas?”

Like his daughter, Adan squared his shoulders. “He is my son in all but blood, your grace.”

“You know the penalty for your actions?”

“Death, my lord,” answered Adan readily.

“Yet you deliberately broke tradition, defied the law. Why?” demanded the fae.

Before Adan could respond, Matthias spoke. “The human is a sleeper, my lord.”

A what? thought Gage as another low murmur swept through the crowd.

“I beg your pardon?” Ephraim’s tone was icy.

“A sleeper, my lord. A human with distant Mirus ancestry and abilities that were not expressed until his generation.”

“I know what a sleeper is, Matthias.”

Gage thought the explanation was likely more for his benefit.

“You are suggesting that this man is not entirely human?” continued a Wylk representative nearby. She sniffed the air. “He smells human.”

“So do witches before they come into their magic,” argued Matthais. “The fact of the matter is that Gage Dempsey can control the shadows. No pure human can do that. I am suggesting that Adan saw his potential and opted to take him in and train him, lest he come into his abilities and be unprepared to handle them. He had the best interests of the races at heart, my lords.”

Everybody was staring at Matthias, including Embry, who wasn’t as good as her father at masking shock.

“Do you have any corroborating evidence of this outlandish claim?” asked Ephraim in a tone that suggested he was going to be really pissed if there was any.

Matthias reached into his coat pocket. “Indeed, my lord. I have lineage charts indicating that a maternal relative about eight generations back was of the Llewellyn line.”

Gage sifted through his memories of Mirus history. Llewellyn. A branch of some of the more powerful European witches back in the day. Was Matthias totally pulling this out of his ass or was there something to this?

Judging by the shade of magenta that crept up Ephraim’s face from the collar of his robes, apparently the paperwork looked legit. “I see.”

“Given that Mr. Dempsey is not, in fact, your run of the mill human and does have a place in our world, however unconventional, I propose that the charges against each of the Hollisters be dropped. Which leaves only Agent Hollister’s insubordination. I am recommending, given the new intelligence that her crimes have brought to light, that the penalty for her actions be lowered to a month-long suspension. Additionally, I am recommending the immediate inclusion of Gage Dempsey as an operative on my squad of Shadow Walkers for future actions as pertain to the developing situation regarding the status of the veil. Pending medical treatment of his injuries, of course.”

Gage had to admire the fae’s control. Despite his obvious fury, he managed to contain whatever powers he commanded. It took him almost a full minute before he could speak.

“Your years of service have earned you some latitude in this forum, Matthias, but take care.” Ephraim took a deep, controlled breath. “We shall put it to a Council vote. Regarding the human involvement charges, all who believe the charges should be dropped, say aye.” The majority present spoke, hands raised.

Would you look at that? Gage took in the assembly. Even the paranormals use Robert’s rules of order.

Each charged was raised. Each was voted on. Matthias got his way.

“With respect, your graces, I wish to get my people to medical care. They’ve had a rough night,” he said.

After a few more formalities, they were escorted out of the Council chamber. No one spoke as they limped through the labyrinthine halls, but Gage reached out to stroke a hand down Embry’s back. She was shaking.

Outside the infirmary, Matthias stopped and faced them. “Nothing I can say or do will change the last ten years. I did what I thought was right. I’m still doing what I think is right. Don’t make me regret it.”

Adan nodded once in acknowledgement. Matthias started to go, but Embry’s hand shot out and caught his.

“You didn’t have to give him back to me. Thank you.” Her voice was thick with emotion.

Matthias made his own nod, then turned to Gage. “You think a two week furlough’s long enough to heal up?” He glanced at Embry. “Might be time for a quick vacation.”

Lips twitching, Gage took his hand. “Yes, sir.”

Then Matthias was gone.

“So . . . do you think any of that was actually true?” asked Gage.

“It would explain some things,” said Adan. “I never checked your ancestry once I brought you home. I should have.”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” said Embry. “I’m not going to question a miracle.”

“It does seem like we’ve had more than our fair share tonight. You both took an awful risk coming after me. It was ill-conceived, insane, and you’re lucky we made it out alive. That having been said, thank you for not giving up on me.” He embraced them each in turn. “It’s good to have you back, son.” With a glance at his daughter, Adan twisted the knob on the infirmary door. “I’m just gonna . . . ” Then he slipped inside, leaving them alone in the hall.

Gage turned to her, but she was looking down at the remains of her shirt, tied together across her chest. Blood was still seeping slowly from the wound in her shoulder. “Damn, I’m filthy. I wonder where the nearest shower is.”

“Embry.” He took a step closer.

“I mean surely I should be clean before they stitch me up in there.”

“Embry,” he repeated, lifting a hand to cradle her cheek and force her gaze to his. “You’re rambling.”

She moved in, pressing her face into his shoulder. Her voice was muffled, “I know I am. It’s just. . . ” she drew in a breath but it was shaky, “not real for me yet.”

“What’s not real? That it’s over?”

“This. You. You’re here. Legally. I never even considered that as a possibility. I can never repay him for that.”

“Oh I think it puts you almost even for what he did to you.” Gage intended to even things a little more the next time he got Matthias in the sparring ring.

“But no matter how I feel about it, you weren’t given a choice. You’ve never been given any kind of choice about this world. From the time my father took you in to the Council’s decision just now. We’ve pulled you along all your life saying ‘Here, do this.’ You have a whole other life that you built, and nobody’s ever stopped to ask you if you’re okay with this.”

She tried to step back, but Gage didn’t release her. “You really need me to say it out loud? Okay then. I love you. I’ve always loved you. Even when I didn’t know who you were, couldn’t remember your face, I remembered that I loved you. And I’ve been walking around for a decade with this big, empty hole in my chest.

“I made a good life for myself. I’m not gonna deny that I moved on enough to do that. And I did my best to fill the space with new friends, new memories, and even some really good fights. But nothing could—nothing can, ever take your place in my heart. Matthias and his bullshit machinations just saved my life—again—and gave me a place in yours. And yeah, no matter what strings may be attached, I’m okay with that.”

“Yeah.” Embry sniffed, blinking against the sheen of tears. “Okay, good.”

Gage smiled at her then, mentally shaking his head. God, how he loved this woman. Even when the crisis was over, when it was just the two of them and any normal woman would throw herself into his arms and start wailing like a banshee—and hey, now he actually knew just what that sounded like—Embry still had to have her pride.

Because she was his match, in every way.

“Come on,” he said, slipping an arm around her waist, “I think you could use a few stitches, and then we’ve got two weeks to figure out how to fill. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get my Happily Ever After on.”

Note From The Author

Thank you for joining me on this little adventure in paranormal romance. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Forsaken By Shadow is the first novella in a series about the Mirus world. I decided to use it as a bit of a marketing experiment to see if I could build an audience and some name recognition. If you enjoyed Forsaken By Shadow, I would so appreciate if you would take the time to review it wherever you purchased it.

To keep up with upcoming releases, you can follow my blog at http://kaitnolan.com. I adore email from fans or fellow writers, and I can be reached via email at kaitnolanwriter@gmail.com. I also spend a lot of time on Twitter as kaitnolan.

For a sneak peak at the next Mirus novella, Devil’s Eye, keep reading.

Devil’s Eye

By Kait Nolan

“Hurricane Roy has been upgraded to a category three as it continues to veer off its projected path to Florida and curves toward the Louisiana coastline. Meteorologists are scrambling to explain the sudden change in direction.”

Storm shutters rattled as another clap of thunder announced the coming storm.

Nothing good can come of this, thought Mick as he tore his eyes from the huge high def TV to take in the patrons jammed practically shoulder to shoulder in his bar as they danced to the zydeco band raising the roof.

It wasn’t that New Orleans couldn’t take another beating. She’d survived and come back after Katrina, scarred but stronger. But storms didn’t naturally change tracks like this. Not without . . . outside intervention. The whole thing made Mick twitchy.

He covered his unease by sliding a pint of Bass down the bar, where it slapped into the waiting hand of a customer. The warlock lifted the glass in salute and took a sip. Mick nodded and turned to scan the crowded tables of his bar, noting the mix of Mirus and human patrons as he filled orders on autopilot. The fiddle was hot and fast, and across the room feet tapped, hands clapped, and couples swirled in impromptu dancing. It was a full house, locals mostly, who’d decided to settle in for a last-minute hurricane party in the event the storm bitch slapped New Orleans. There was a betting pool on where Roy would hit and what category it would be when it did. Le Loup Garou was on the high ground and was buttoned down tight, so even if things went bad, everybody inside would be safe. That was exactly the way Mick liked it.

He continued to mix drinks and draw pints, being sure to send a tray of the band’s preferred beers over to their table with one of his waitresses. It was best to keep their vocal chords lubricated. They were earning every penny of their fee with this gig. The last hurricane party he’d hosted had lasted ’til dawn, and the musicians had played long after the power had gone out, keeping the fear and worry at bay with their instruments and voices.

Mick’s attention shifted to a group of frat boys on the far side, and his sense of dread ratcheted up a couple of notches. They weren’t being rowdy, but they looked annoyed. One ham-handed guy reached out and snagged a waitress as she walked by. Charlotte covered her irritation, listened to the complaint: where was the service? She calmly took out her pad and scribbled down their orders. Not until she was on her way back to the bar did she absently rub her wrist. Mick’s eyes narrowed.

Charlotte set her tray down on the bar. “One Jack and Coke, two Bud Selects, a G and T, one Bond-style martini, and a bloody Mary for Table Six.”

Mick listened as she continued to rattle off orders, part of his brain filing and categorizing as he waited for her to finish. “You okay, chère?” His eyes flicked to her wrist.

His waitress rolled her eyes. “Fine. Just a little overactive, underfed testosterone. It’s Liza’s station. Apparently they’ve been waiting a while.”

He flicked his eyes around the other tables in Liza’s section, noting the waiting patrons, and frowned. “Liza isn’t in yet?”

Tracy, one of the other waitresses, sidled up, orders for the kitchen in hand. “No, she’s late. Helluva night to do it, too. We’re jumpin.”

“Either of you hear from her?” he asked. Both women shook their heads. Liza was never late. Could be she got delayed from the storm, but she’d have called.

Mick loaded Charlotte’s tray. “Keep your eyes peeled. Divide her tables among yourselves. I’ll see what I can find out.”

It took a while to process all the orders, but eventually he squeezed into his small office in the back. Blistering fiddle licks chased him as he shut the door, blocking out the bulk of the noise so he could call Liza’s cell phone. It went straight to voicemail. He left a message for her to call on the bar line and hung up.

It didn’t necessarily mean anything was wrong. She might’ve let the thing die, or she hadn’t answered the last call. But he didn’t like it.

As he stepped back into the bar, the band finished a rousing rendition of Hot Tamale Baby. The moment of silence before the audience burst into applause and cheers was interrupted by a sharp crack! up near the front.

Mick’s eyes went to the windows first, thinking one of the storm shutters had come loose to whack against the brick. Then he saw her standing in the doorway, hair whipping around her heart shaped face as the wind and rain poured in at her back.

Trouble.

That’s all Mick could think as he stared at her, mouth going dry. If she’d lifted her hands to send walls of water crashing over his customers, he wouldn’t have been at all surprised. And he wasn’t sure he could move to stop her. For that moment he was absolutely at her mercy.

Then another patron wrestled the outside door shut and she was just a woman.

A wet, slightly bedraggled and incredibly sexy woman, Mick corrected. He called himself a fanciful fool as she combed the dripping hair back from her face with both hands and took another step inside.

She was exactly the kind of trouble he liked between the sheets on long, hot summer nights when hurricanes weren’t threatening the city he loved. Though she was dressed casually in jeans and a leather jacket, she carried herself like she wore a suit, stiff and purposeful. He wanted to peel those wet layers off and make her forget whatever worries had pulled that lush pink mouth into a frown.

It was then he noticed the temper practically steaming the water off her. Mick tore his eyes and his mind away. No time for play tonight. No time for whatever kinda trouble she brought with her. She wasn’t a local and that meant she wasn’t for him. He had a business to run and a waitress to find.

~*~

Sophie hung back near the entryway, feeling almost as buffeted by the music as she had by the storm outside. She was off-balance and unprepared for the bar full of happy, dancing people. Were they crazy? Didn’t they know a hurricane was bearing down on them?

Her eyes flicked up to the big screen TV on the wall, as the band declared they would be back after a short break. The meteorologist announced that Roy had picked up speed and was predicted to make landfall by six AM. . Okay, yeah, they knew, they just weren’t going anywhere. Obviously. Because the logical thing to do in a natural disaster is have a drunken party. With a band. Gods.

She scanned the crowd, looking for a familiar dark head and not seeing it. Not that Liza was easily seen. She was just as vertically challenged as Sophie was, barely topping 5’2”.

There were humans mixed in with the Mirus present. Quite a few, actually. Which meant that Le Loup Garou was not one of the establishments that cloaked its presence from humans. That made the situation an iota better for Liza. It meant she wouldn’t stand out as much. When Mom had called earlier in the day to say that baby sis was working in a Mirus bar, Sophie had imagined the worst and come racing to New Orleans to bail her out of trouble. Again. But clearly this wasn’t the kind of place where young, impressionable human women were on display like gyrating sides of beef. It was just a bar. And chances were Liza was just a waitress.

Not that that was going to keep Sophie from ripping her sister a new one at the earliest opportunity.

“We’re pretty packed, but you could probably squeeze in up at the bar.”

Sophie turned her attention to the waitress, who’d paused, heavy tray balanced expertly on her shoulder. “Thank you,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the music.

Before Sophie could ask about Liza, the woman nodded and sashayed onto the other side of the bar to deliver food. The spicy scent of jambalaya and gumbo lingered in her wake, reminding Sophie that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast in Atlanta, and that was hours ago. Maybe she could at least get a bite of something while she figured out how she was going to drag her sister out of here without making a scene.

When she reached the bar, a skinny guy in a bright Hawaiian shirt flashed her a smile and immediately stood up, drink in hand. He gestured at the stool. “You look like you could use this more than me, sugar.”

Sophie worked up a smile that she hoped didn’t resemble a snarl. “Thanks.”

She braced herself to fend off any flirtation, but the guy only saluted her with his beer and hollered down the bar. “Hey Mick! This one needs a nip to warm her up.”

Glancing down the bar, she saw a flash of tanned, muscled forearm passing a drink to someone before a shoulder leaned in and blocked her view. She slid onto the stool, grimacing as the wet denim of her jeans clung to her thighs. A change of clothes would be awesome but wasn’t in the cards. The rain was coming down so hard now, anything she could pull out of her car would get just as soaked. Besides, she wasn’t planning on staying.

The same brown arm thrust into her line of vision, a dishtowel clutched in his hand. Sophie blinked and followed the arm, past the faded blue chambray shirt, up to the very broad shoulders, and finally settled on his face. He wasn’t handsome. Not by any kind of movie-star standards. He was all sharp angles and flat planes that should have come together to look like some kind of backwoods hit man. But his eyes—golden as the whiskey on the shelf behind him—and the slight curve of a surprisingly sensual mouth softened everything enough to make him appear just this side of civilized.

“It’s not much, but it might help a li’l bit.” His voice flowed over her like spiced honey, warm and sexy. He shook the towel in a take it gesture.

Sophie realized she was staring and closed her mouth, reaching for the towel. “Thanks.” Embarrassed, she dropped her eyes, using the towel to squeeze water from her hair. She had often heard people speak of the animal magnetism of the Wylk, but this was the first time she’d experienced it herself.

She sensed, rather than saw, the wolf-shifter move on down the bar, continuing to tend other customers. Oh brilliant. This is really the perfect time for your libido to wake up and decide to tango. You’re here for Liza.

She plucked a menu out from between the napkin holder and a ketchup bottle and spun around on the stool to survey the bar’s patrons, still trying to find her sister. Instinctively she started categorizing people, pausing on each of the Mirus to identify their race. Felis. Witch. A couple of vampires. Was that a selkie? Damn, he was way far south. They tended to prefer colder climates.

The band had moved on to something more upbeat. Sophie observed, assessed, and paused when she saw a small plastic packet of bright yellow powder and a wad of cash changing hands.

Oh come on. Seriously? You’re going to sell drugs right under the nose of the IED?

Not that they were aware she was part of the Investigation and Enforcement Division since she was in plainclothes and wasn’t flashing her badge. And she wouldn’t unless it became absolutely necessary. Getting recognized as an agent while she extricated Liza from her latest harebrained adventure was the last thing she needed. It’d be just her luck that somebody would report back to headquarters and get her ass canned for her sister’s actions, what with the Council’s whole thou shalt not let humans know we exist edict.

“What else can I get you?”

The bartender was back, and Sophie realized she hadn’t even looked at the menu. She turned back around and studiously pretended she hadn’t been ogling him a minute ago. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Ain’t we all, chère?” His mouth curved into a smile with enough kilowatts to fry an alligator.

Put that away, Cajun, Sophie thought as her blood heated with something other than temper. “One of your staff members, actually. Liza Cunningham?”

The smile didn’t fade, but his eyes chilled. “What you be wantin’ with Liza?” Suspicion snaked around the easy tone, but Sophie couldn’t tell whether it was in the name of saving his own ass or something else.

What are you hiding?

While she debated for a long moment about whether to reveal their family connection, another of the waitresses leaned over. “I tried Liza again from my cell, Mick. Still no answer. Looks like we’ll be doing without her tonight. I need a long neck Michelob . . . ”

Sophie tuned out the order. Her brain was too busy focusing on what the girl had just said. Liza wasn’t here. She wasn’t answering her cell or her house phone. Sophie had tried both, of course, several times since she’d left Atlanta, but she’d assumed Liza was screening her calls and knew perfectly well that her ass was gonna wind up in a sling. But if she wasn’t answering for work and hadn’t called in . . . Well, that wasn’t like her. She might have a wild hair, as their mother was liable to say, but she always met her responsibilities.

When Mick finished handing over the latest order of drinks to the waitress, Sophie pulled out her badge. “Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”

Excerpt

Club Blood

By Lauralynn Elliott

Kerry walked into the captain’s office the next morning dreading the meeting with her new partner. She didn’t want a new partner. She wanted Roger back. It was an unrealistic and childish thought, but that’s the way she felt. She sighed and pushed open the door, trying to put a blank expression on her face. She didn’t want to show any emotion to the new guy…she didn’t want to let him into her life at all if the truth was known.

She entered the office slowly and glanced at the man standing in front of the captain’s desk.

“Oh, there you are,” said Captain Bruce. “I want you to meet your new partner, Ethan James. Detective James, this is Detective Kerry Harrison.”

Detective James smiled at her and held out his hand. She reluctantly took it, gave it a quick shake, and let go. She couldn’t believe her bad luck. This guy was a real hottie. He was probably so stuck on himself that he thought every woman wanted him. He had black hair, sapphire blue eyes, and unusually pale skin that was so flawless that it made him look as if he was chiseled from marble. He was wearing a charcoal gray suit that fit him like it was sewn directly onto him, and he carried himself with an air of self assurance that made Kerry dislike him immediately. He made her feel sloppy in her jeans and black silk t-shirt.

“It’s nice to meet you, Detective,” he said to her. “I’m glad we’ll be working together.”

“How do you know you’ll be glad? You don’t even know me. I may be a real….”

“Detective Harrison!” admonished Captain Bruce.

Kerry sighed and managed to look sheepish. “I’m sorry. I was out of line. I just lost my partner and I’m still pretty messed up about it.”

“I understand, Detective. No offense taken.”

“Please, if we’re going to be working together, you probably should call me Kerry.”

“And I’m Ethan.”

Captain Bruce cleared his throat. “Now that the niceties have been taken care of, we need to get down to business. Here’s the file on the case I want you two working on. As you can see, there was a girl found murdered in the home of Gerard Stokes, one of the wealthiest men in this area.”

“You mean the Stokes that owns all those old fancy hotels all over the country?”

“That’s the one. Mr. Stokes says that he was asleep when the murder was committed. He tends to be a night owl so he was sleeping late. When he woke up and went down to the living room, she was there on the floor with her throat cut. So here’s the strange part. There was almost no blood left in her body. It was like when whoever did it cut her throat, they drained all the blood and took it with them. I want you two to go over there and talk to Mr. Stokes. He hasn’t been arrested yet, but it’s probably inevitable. We’re just waiting for the two of you to question him. There in the folder is all the evidence collected at the scene, which isn’t much. I know this is going to be a tough one to start new partners out on, but Kerry is one of my best detectives, and you, Ethan, have been highly praised by your superiors from where you were transferred. I need the best team on this one and I believe you’re the best.

“Thank you, Captain,” said Ethan. “I appreciate your vote of confidence and we’ll do everything we can to solve this case.”

As Kerry and Ethan walked out to the car, she glanced sideways at him and studied him while he wasn’t paying attention. This guy was just too good-looking. He was the kind of guy that was impossible to work with because he would be too busy thinking of himself instead of watching her back. She was sure this partnership was going to be trouble. No good could come of this, and she wasn’t going to try to be friends with him. And she certainly wasn’t going to trust him.

As they approached the car, she noticed he was getting in on the passenger’s side. She raised her eyebrows at him and walked over to the driver’s side and started the engine.

Before she pulled out, she looked over at him and said, “You don’t want to drive? That’s a little unusual for a guy.”

He said, “The way I figure it is that you’re the senior partner. I should defer to your judgment on things and I figured you should be the one to drive, too.”

She looked at him in astonishment. “You’ve got to be kidding me! Men just don’t do that. Not cops.”

“Well, I guess I must be a little different, then. I don’t care if you’re a woman or not, you’ve been in this department longer than I have and that means you’re my superior. I hope I can earn your respect soon so that we can really be partners.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Had she misjudged this guy? She doubted it. He was way too attractive not to be stuck on himself. Maybe he was just trying to throw her off balance so she would trust him. She had to be very careful with this one.

She pulled out into the street and started toward the home of Gerard Stokes. He lived in the rich part of town with all the other cream of society around here. She dreaded even going up there to his big house on the hill. It made her sick to think of all that money.

“So,” she said, “is there anything in that case file we ought to know before we get there?”

“The girl that was found murdered there was Patty Ryan, a local dancer in one of the strip clubs in town. It says here that she is also suspected of prostitution, but no one was ever able to prove that.”

“A local stripper is found dead in a wealthy man’s house and he claims that he has no knowledge of it whatsoever? That sounds really lame. How did the killer get the body in there without his knowledge?”

“Good questions. But it could be possible. There could be a dozen explanations for what happened that doesn’t involve Mr. Stokes. Maybe something will come out in the questioning.”

“It just looks pretty cut and dried to me. Mr. Stokes did it. He is obviously the most likely suspect.”

“Don’t be so quick to jump to that conclusion, Kerry. Sometimes things aren’t always as they seem. Let’s wait until we talk to him before making a rash decision,” he suggested.

She glanced over at him. “I thought you said you were going to defer to my judgment.”

“Well, neither of us has enough information to make a judgment yet.”

Aha. That’s how he was going to do it. Subtle.

They arrived at the Stokes estate and buzzed the intercom at the gate. They indentified themselves to the disembodied voice that came out of the speaker and the gate rolled open for them. They drove slowly onto the property and it looked like the tree lined driveway went on forever. They finally arrived at a cobblestone area where they assumed they were to park. They went up to ring the doorbell, but the door was opened at once by a pale, dark haired girl who gestured for them to come in. She led them into a large sitting room and they both sat down on a sofa across from an attractive man about sixty years old. He looked in very good health for his age, even though his skin, like the girl who had answered the door, was very pale. She looked over at her partner. Didn’t anyone get any sun around here?

“I’m Gerard Stokes,” said the older man as he shook hands with both detectives.

“I’m Detective Kerry Harrison and this is my partner, Detective Ethan James.”

“May I get either of you something to drink?”

“Nothing for me,” said Kerry.

Ethan said, “I don’t care for anything right now either.”

Ethan was looking at Mr. Stokes strangely, as if he might have met him somewhere before. Kerry wondered if they had run in the same circles. Somehow she could picture Ethan, although he was just a cop, hanging around with the wealthy crowd. He just looked the part. He actually could pass as a spoiled rich boy.

“Mr. Stokes, let’s just get right down to the reason we’re here. I’m sure you know that we came to question you about the murder of Patty Ryan. I want you to go over that day, telling us everything that you remember. Why don’t we start with the morning before her murder?”

“I had been out late at a dinner party with some friends. I came home early in the morning, and I immediately checked all the doors, set the alarm, and then I went to bed. I slept until about three o’clock that afternoon. I got up, took a shower, and then I went downstairs. When I walked into the living room, I saw that young girl lying there. I went over and checked for a pulse, just in case I could help her, but she was already cold. I immediately called the police and you know the rest. I didn’t hear anything. I slept from the time I went to bed until I got up in the afternoon.”

“Mr. Stokes, how do you explain the fact that two people, the murderer and the victim, got into your house without setting off your alarm?” Kerry asked. “You mentioned that you set the alarm when you went to bed. Our report shows that the alarm was still set when the police got here and you had to turn it off.”

Gerard Stokes sighed. “I can’t explain it. I don’t know how that happened, but the fact is that it did. Maybe someone disarmed it somehow, and then turned it back on.”

“You do understand how unlikely that sounds.”

“Yes, Detective, I do. But that’s the way it happened. Maybe someone is trying to frame me.”

“Do you have any enemies that might want to do something like that?” asked Ethan.

“Detective James, when you are in the position I am in, many enemies are made. There could be any number of people who might want to frame me. But in this case, someone had to have the expertise to do it.”

They asked Mr. Stokes several more questions, and then they got up to leave.

“We’ll be in touch, Mr. Stokes. I don’t have to tell you how this looks. You may be arrested. I suggest, if that happens, that you cooperate fully and things will be easier for you,” said Kerry.

Gerard Stokes fixed her with a stare that made her feel uncomfortable and odd. Then he nodded his head and gestured for them to precede him out the sitting room door. They were shown out by the dark haired girl and they got into their squad car and drove off.

“Something is off about this,” said Ethan.

“Yeah, something is off. It’s Gerard Stokes.”

“No, Kerry, I think he’s telling the truth.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” she asked incredulously.

“No, I’m serious. I really do think someone is trying to frame him.”

“That just shows how naïve you are. It looks pretty clear to me. He lured the girl to his house, killed her, set the alarm, and then he called us. Case closed.”

“I’m just asking you to keep on open mind.”

Kerry pulled over to the side of the road and turned around to look at Ethan. He averted his eyes, as if he were uncomfortable with her scrutiny.

“You know him, don’t you?” she asked.

“Why would you say that?”

“You keep defending him, and when we were back at his house, you looked as if you knew him from somewhere.”

Ethan sighed. “Okay, I do know him.”

“I knew it! You need to be taken off this case. You could mess up this whole investigation!”

“Kerry, I won’t mess up the investigation. I can be objective about this; I promise.”

“You’re already trying to defend him and trying to prove he didn’t do it,” she accused.

“I don’t think he did. Since I do know him, I should be a better judge as to whether or not he was capable of murder.”

Kerry glared at him. “If you know him and like him, then you’re not going to want to believe he did it. You’re biased.”

“I’m just looking at it from a different angle than you are. We have to look at every possibility.”

“Look, the alarm was on. There was a dead body in the house. He was the only one in the house with the body and the only one with the alarm code. He had to have done it.”

“How do you know someone else didn’t get the alarm code? How do you know someone didn’t plant that girl there to frame him? It could have happened that way.”

Frustrated, Kerry pulled the car back out into traffic and drove on toward the station. She was tired of arguing with him. This partnership wasn’t going very well if they strongly disagreed on the first case they worked together. This just wasn’t going to work. She would ask the captain to partner her with someone else.

After a few minutes, Ethan said, “Kerry, I don’t want to quarrel with you. I’m only asking you to look at all the angles. I’m not asking you to completely throw out your theory. I just want you to consider mine. Will you please try to be a little more open minded about this? If we look at all the evidence and consider everything, and you still think he’s guilty, then we can go back and arrest him later. It doesn’t have to be done right away.”

Kerry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Alright. I’ll consider what you’re saying. I don’t see any way it could happen like you’re saying, but I’ll give it some thought. But you have to think about my theory as well. Okay?”

He smiled at her. “It’s a deal.”

They got back to the station and reported back to Captain Bruce. They talked to him about all of the possibilities, and Kerry reluctantly told him that they were looking into the possibility of another suspect. After they were finished talking to the captain, they went to their desks, which were across from each other, and talked more about the case.

Kerry said, “This thing about all the blood being drained from the victim’s body is very strange. What would be the purpose of something like that?”

Ethan shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they are going to use the blood in some kind of ritual. Does Gerard Stokes strike you as the kind of man who would be involved in some sort of blood rite?”

“I don’t know. I thought he was kind of strange. I don’t know what he could be involved in.”

“He’s a prominent businessman,” said Ethan. “He wouldn’t risk his reputation by being mixed up in something like that. In fact, he wouldn’t get mixed up in a murder, either. Why would he murder a girl, and then turn around and call the police, knowing he would be the prime suspect?”

“Maybe he didn’t know what to do with the body, so he called the police to throw the suspicion in another direction. He probably thought that by calling the police, he was showing that he had nothing to hide.”

“I just don’t buy it. A man that wealthy has plenty of resources. He could have found a way to make that body disappear. And I sure don’t think that he would do something as bizarre as drain the blood from the body, and then call the police. Why would he do that?”

Kerry said, “I don’t know. But until we find out how someone bypassed or turned off that alarm, my money is going to be on Stokes.”

“I disagree. But you know that.”

“There is something really wrong in that house. That girl that opened the door for us. She didn’t really say much. Something was off about her. And Stokes was really weird, too. He just stared at me right before we left and it made me feel strange. It was kind of creepy.”

“Oh, so you think he was trying to put some kind of spell on you?” Ethan teased.

“No, of course not! I don’t believe in that kind of thing. But it did make me feel odd when he looked at me that way.”

“Maybe he was trying to hit on you.”

“Oh, stop being stupid. There is just something wrong at that house.”

“Well, having a murdered girl in the house is pretty wrong.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

Ethan sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”

Kerry said, “I think it’s time to take a break from this. It’s about time to call it a day anyway. I’m ready to get something to eat and go home.”

“Want to catch a bite at the pizza place across the street?”

Kerry looked at him, surprised. She hadn’t expected him to ask her to go to dinner with him the first day they worked together. Usually, partners had to get to know each other pretty well before they started hanging out together. She wasn’t sure how to respond to the invitation.

“Ethan, I’m pretty tired. I was thinking about getting something to go and eating it at home.”

“Okay, I just thought I would ask. I’m going to go over there anyway and get some dinner. They’ve got great pizza.”

Kerry said, “Some of the guys eat over there all the time, and I’ve thought about trying it. But not tonight, okay?”

“That’s fine. We’ll do it another time.”

“Sure,” she said. “Another time.”

When she saw him walk across the street, she regretted turning down his offer. He was trying to be friendly and she should have gone with him. Now she faced a lonely night at home, and she knew she would be thinking about Roger. She almost went over to the pizza place anyway, to tell him she had changed her mind, but pride wouldn’t let her do it. So she went home to an empty house with her take out burger and fries and ate alone.

Excerpt:

Mated

By Zoe Winters

If Jane Tanner's life could be summarized on a bumper sticker, it would say: "Be small. Don't look threatening." An odd life mantra for a 24-year-old woman who was five foot three and one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. But sensing vampires in a world where such beings were a well-kept secret wasn't great for survival.

Jane huddled in her coat and scrunched behind Paul as he led her into the smoke-filled club. There was snow on the ground, but this wasn't about the cold; it was about being invisible. Lately, the goal had been to be invisible from Paul. Over the past six months, he'd become what every vampire before Gregory had been with her. A monster.

To the average human, Paul would appear handsome, nonthreatening. His frame was slight, his height only five foot nine. But in that compact form, he held the strength of an immortal. And although he was still a fledgling by most vampiric standards, he was still about ten times stronger than Jane. A fact he reminded her of often.

While other humans saw a handsome face, hair that glinted gold as if touched by the sun, and perfect creamy skin, Jane could only see his good looks as a passing shadow. Instead, what she saw when she looked at Paul, and every other vampire, was coal-black skin that glistened like a snake, with shimmers of silver where the light hit it, and eyes that glowed like doorways into hell.

His fangs remained hidden inside his gums; when they were out they showed on his human visage as well. Vampires preferred to keep a low profile.

Which was why they hated her.

She could see them without being one of them. She'd begged countless times to be turned, but Gregory wouldn't curse her, and the other vamps wouldn't reward her.

Paul held her wrist in a punishing grip as he dragged her through the bar. The smoke of countless cigarettes was a thick haze that had her eyes watering. It had to be the control of all the preternaturals because Cary Town was the only place she'd been in a long time where you could still smoke in a bar.

The establishment was run down, but it was obvious it had been the spot in its heyday, maybe sixty years ago. Back then there had no doubt been live singers and performers of jazz and blues, instead of the canned music that was being piped out now through a cheap sound system.

Jane scanned the bar quickly, noting her surroundings. Paul seemed unwilling to protect her from others, so she had to stay aware. There were vampires, some demons, a few humans, and a wolf.

Demons were a hard sort to recognize. If they mingled in the human dimension, they looked like humans. But there was something other about them. They often incited that fearful gut instinct most people feel stupid for feeling, then ignore.

Demons also tended to stare quietly and made plenty of eye contact . . . something most humans didn't do with strangers. The humans were easy to pick out because they were just plain clueless. Laughing, talking too loud, drinking too much, completely unaware of the danger surrounding them.

Considering the desire of the preternaturals to remain secret, one would think a lot of humans would mean safety, but with so many vampires present who could easily perform memory wipes, that bet was off.

And finally, the wolf.

Jane was glad Paul was dragging her to the back room because the wolf scared her more than the others. There was no particular defining characteristic that made him obvious to her as a wolf. His eyes didn't glow, and she couldn't see fur, for which she was grateful. She knew him from his picture.

Cole Riley. The alpha of the local wolf pack. The strongest werewolf pack in North America, fifty-three members and living right here in Cary Town. No one could find their den. They seemed to move in and out of the city at will without the need to go through the border patrol, and no one knew exactly how they were doing it. Underground tunnels maybe?

The wolves were a law unto themselves, anarchists except within their own group. So far the other preternaturals couldn't bring them to heel. Which made them dangerous. Anthony said Cole had been the alpha for twenty years. For a wolf to remain in power that long, well, nobody crossed him.

The back room was sectioned off by heavy burgundy drapes. The walls were a rich mahogany wood paneling, accented with posters of pin-up girls from the forties. While time had been kind to the walls, the carpet was threadbare and in desperate need of replacement.

Vampires filled the room, and the alcohol flowed freely. The last thing she wanted was for one of them to get it into their head to get her drunk or shoot her up with something just for kicks. But then she noticed other humans in the room, vampire groupies . . . or pets. They blurred together now. She let out a small sigh of relief that she wasn't the only human amusement.

In the middle of the room sat a large table made of dark gleaming wood. A few vampires in biker jackets sat around it already dealing cards. There were chaise lounges against the walls in the shadows away from the one light that shone over the table center. Several vamps lounged about, a few with humans draped over them in a way that veered toward NC-17.

"Take off your coat and stay awhile," Paul said.

Jane jumped as his voice cut though her mental cataloging.

The other vampires looked up, interest in their eyes. None of them felt much older than Paul. Though that would only be of benefit if she had a useful superpower. All her powers, if they could be called that, were the kind that put her life in constant danger. She could see them; she could feel them; sometimes she got vampiric memories. She didn't want to speculate what that was about. They couldn't get inside her mind or thrall her. Vamps hated that.

Reluctantly, she removed the coat. It was one of those Eskimo-style coats, with the fur-fringed hood that a person could easily get lost in. Though not real fur. Under the coat she wore black leather pants, a black leather halter top that was cut high to show her stomach, and black boots. The cherry on the sundae was hot pink hair and a nose ring.

At first glance, this wasn't a look that matched the be invisible mantra. But you had to know this crowd. Looking around the room, Jane saw the other humans were wearing black too, including black lipstick and eye makeup. A couple of them had light face make-up that made them look dead, and they each had a different rainbow color in their hair. One of the girls had blue hair, another green, and one had short, spiky crimson.

This was exactly what crayons would look like if they were produced by a group of goths.

Jane didn't wear the white make-up; her skin was naturally pale. Living with vampires in the dark and on Vampire Central Time since she was sixteen pretty much guaranteed she'd look like one of them.

One of the vamps looked at her appreciatively with a raised eyebrow. It was ridiculous, but many of them preferred naturally pale women instead of the groupies that wore makeup. They claimed the make-up altered the flavor of the blood, but Jane thought it had more to do with feeding their egos, the thought that some human would willingly give up the sun just to be in their precious presence.

Then again, maybe he was looking at her neck.

She could still feel where Paul's fangs had pierced her throat earlier in the evening. He'd sealed the wound so she wouldn't bleed to death but hadn't healed it fully, preferring to see her wearing his mark. He wouldn't give her a true mark, a claim. He just wanted to piss on his territory a bit.

Paul finally took an empty seat at the table and patted his knee. Jane sat on his lap as he picked up his cards and placed his bet. "Front me some chips, Rayne?"

The vampire sitting across from them snorted. "Where's your money? Thought you had an endless supply?"

Paul slammed his fist on the table. "Anthony's gotten too big for his britches now that he's king. He's cut me off. Says he won't pay any more of my debts and that he better not hear I've been stealing off humans. He's not cleaning that mess either." Paul said it in a snotty sing-song voice.

For about the millionth time, Jane wished she could get into his sleeping chamber to stake him at noon when his sleep would be deepest.

Anthony's fledge or not, Jane couldn't see how he would mind her getting rid of the wanker. All Paul did now was cause trouble, threaten her, and make the new administration look bad.

"So, why don't you earn some money?" It was the eyebrow lifter. The one who'd given her that look. And now she could almost see the cogs turning in his creepy little brain.

Paul let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm not getting a job. I'm a vampire for Christ's sake."

The other vampire at the table hissed on hearing the C-word. Maybe a superstitious one.

The eyebrow-raiser pressed on. "I was thinking you could put your girl there to work. I know I'd give you a few chips for a taste . . . or a ride."

Jane worked hard to keep her face blank. She'd survived it before; she could survive it again. There had been the brief reprieve with Gregory, and while Paul had been a right bastard, he hadn't shared her with anyone. He hadn't gone out of his way to protect her, but he hadn't passed her around either.

Yet.

Paul ran his hand over her arm. If she were any other human, she'd be feeling calm at his touch, maybe even horny. The idea would be sounding good to her right now. She wished she were a regular human so she could hide in the oblivion like they did.

"You know what she is, right? You can feel it?"

The other vampire nodded, "Kindred, but . . . not. She's human, but she feels like vampire."

Paul snorted. "She's an insult, is what she is."

"But she's different. You have a commodity here. Something unique you could sell if you had a better business head on ya."

Jane stared at the cards in Paul's hand, avoiding looking at the vampire with the entrepreneurial ambitions. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't scream. She wouldn't give them anything that would make them want to come back and get more.

"Get up," Paul said.

Jane's head snapped around to him, not really believing this was happening, even though she'd been mentally preparing for the possibility. "What?"

"I said, get your ass up. Now!"

She stood and braced herself against the table as she felt her legs begin to liquefy beneath her.

"I'll front you the chips to start if you let me take her home with me tonight," the vamp said.

By now, the vampires lounging about the room had stopped feeding and fucking to watch, intrigued by the human in the room that wasn't quite what she appeared.

"Okay," Paul said, "She's yours for the night. Jane, go over there."

Humans didn't question. Mainly because they couldn't with a thrall on them. "Paul, no. Don't."

It would have been better for her to go to the other vampire than to piss him off by embarrassing him in front of his friends. Before she could track the movement, Paul had left his seat and backhanded her. His claws sliced her cheek, and she went flying.

She landed on an empty couch that was just soft enough to break her fall. The thought crossed her mind that Paul had the foresight to aim for the couch so she'd be able to do whatever he was going to force her to do later in the night. She remained absolutely still, her eyes on the floor, knowing every glowing eye was on her . . . the girl with the fresh blood flowing down her cheek in a den of monsters.

Jane heard the drapes ripped to the side, followed by a low growl. "Paul!"

She looked up to see Cole standing in the doorway. His eyes flicked momentarily to her then back to his prey, the vampire.

"You got my money?"

Jane chanced a look at Paul. If possible, he was even paler than before.

"No . . . I . . . um . . . not yet. Give me a few weeks. I'll get it."

Jane felt the tears running down her cheeks, mixing with the blood that still flowed freely. She knew how he'd get that money now. The thought of being passed from vamp to vamp again would have been enough to empty the contents of her stomach if she'd eaten recently enough.

Rayne, who'd been silent during the pimp business plans, rose smoothly to his feet and turned toward Cole. "Get out. It's vamps-only in here tonight."

Cole strode forward, put his hand on Rayne's shoulder, and forced him back into his chair as if he were a kitten trying to climb out of a basket. "Sit. Down. My business is with Paul. Don't make it become about you."

The wolf moved past Rayne and stopped in front of Paul, "That's what you said a few weeks ago. I'm going to have to collect something now. You understand that, right? If I just let you walk, it makes me look weak." He wrapped a hand around Paul's throat. "Would you like to be an object lesson?"

Jane should have been jumping up and down to see the vampire, who'd been lording it over her, stink with fear of his own. If she could sense it from him, she knew the vamps could as well. But all she could think about was how badly he would take it out on her later. She was only human, but he'd find ways to make sure she survived whatever it was he was likely planning for her now.

"If you kill me, you'll start a war. You know who my sire is."

Cole rolled his eyes. "Yes, I also know your sire has cut off the money tree to his beloved fledge. Trouble in paradise?"

"It's that fucking human he's with," Paul snarled.

Cole loosened his grip. "Be that as it may, you owe me ten grand, and my patience is up. Think fast. How are you going to make payments?"

Paul's eyes drifted to Jane, and the world stopped. He wasn't going to pass her around to all the vamps to raise money. That would be too much work for Paul. He was going to try to give her outright to the wolf.

She wanted to beg him not to do this to her. The wolves had an even worse rep than the vampires. Judging from Paul's earlier reaction, it would only drive him on, so she remained silent as she watched the transaction.

"How about a trade, call it even?"

Cole looked as if he might be considering it. "A trade? What do you have of any value to me?"

Paul gestured to Jane with a wide sweeping motion that made him look like a game show host. She can be yours if the price is right. "Jane. She's a little banged up, but she fucks like a dream."

Cole turned toward her and she looked away, unable to take his calculated glare. "Well, if you're just 'giving' her away, she must not be worth much to you. Looks to me like you're trying to get off easy."

"I could keep her and make the money if you want to wait a few weeks. I've got vamps here who want a piece of her. Right, boys?"

The other vampires all nodded their agreement, a couple rustling through pockets to produce cash, as if to prove how serious they were about their purchase.

Cole's eyes narrowed. "Is that right? If that's the case, how do I know you won't just gamble away the profits instead of paying me?"

Jane shrank back as the wolf moved toward her. She expected him to jerk her up by the arm or yell at her or say something horrible, but he scooped her up carefully and headed for the door.

"If I can't get money, at least I can close off your earning potential. Have a nice unlife, Paul. And if I see you again, I might kill you whether or not it means a war." Then he nodded to the other vamps in the room. "Gentlemen."