Embrace the Night

10

Merek kept them hopping from one plane to another for three days straight, bouncing from one coast to the other, sleeping in airport hotels, only to drag them out of bed to do it al over again. The pace he set for them was grueling, but he had to make sure Gregor wasn’t behind them. Or any of Smith’s other operatives.

Merek wanted to be as sure as he could that they could drop off the map again, so he pushed them al to the breaking point. Neither Chloe nor Alex said a word of complaint, but their expressions took on a perpetual look of bleak exhaustion. When Merek glanced in the mirror, he saw the haggard strain on his own face.

Even Ophelia went where she was told, which was a first. They’d had to abandon the cat carrier the day they left Seattle because she just wasn’t having it. He’d even put some hexes on the thing to try to keep her temporarily contained, but Mil ie was right—the cat was a little Houdini. The spel s he’d used had worked at locking down hardened Magickal criminals, but not Chloe’s familiar.

Traveling with an animal on an airplane would have been a dead giveaway, but the cat had sniffed at him and gone transparent as soon as he’d voiced the thought. Not even a ripple in the air around her showed where she passed. The damn familiar was better at invisibility spel s than he was. He couldn’t even sense her with his magic, nor could Alex sniff her out. How she got through or around airport security and stayed clear of the thousands of feet ready to step on her, he never knew. He didn’t want to know how she managed without a litter box.

He kept a sharp eye on Alex to make sure the boy didn’t try to give them the slip during their travels, but he spent most of their flights unconscious. Part of his exhaustion might be the lingering effects of the silver penetrating his system. Merek suspected Ophelia literal y sat on the kid to make sure he stayed where she wanted him, but couldn’t be certain.

Chloe staggered a little as they left the airport in Phoenix and the wave of desert heat slapped them in the faces. Both Merek and Alex reached out hands to steady her, and she managed a ghost of a smile for them.

“Where to next?”

“Not far. An apartment building across town.” He steered her toward the shuttle to the rental car lot, Alex fal ing into step behind them.

“You mean, we’re staying here for longer than a layover? We can sleep in a bed for eight whole hours?”

The look she gave him was so hopeful he had to grin. That her hazel eyes were bloodshot and bleary made him want to pul her into his arms, but he nudged her along and kept an eye out for anything or anyone out of place.

They made it to the rental office and drove to the apartment without incident. Chloe made him stop at a pizza parlor for takeout on the way, and he could hear Alex’s stomach growling from the backseat.

Merek made them wait while he checked the place out, searched the furnished apartment for anything off, swept it with his magic to see if there were lingering vibrations from another Magickal. Nothing. When he loosed the reins on his precognition, the past of the building swept to him with stunning clarity. He saw them breaking ground on the site before it went up, and time swept forward until long after they’d left the place.

The space of days they would be there was a gaping maw in his visions, but the time directly after showed no evidence of violence. No blood spatter, no bul et holes riddling the wal s. Nothing.

He motioned Alex and Chloe forward, watched them trundle in, dump the pizza off in the kitchen, and separate into bedrooms to drop their stuff. Chloe paused to turn on every lamp and hit every light switch along the way. He’d seen them do the same thing many times before, and the normalcy of it felt good. He was swinging the door shut when Ophelia’s yowl made him pause. He didn’t bother looking around for her, just waited for her skinny body to begin stropping his ankles while she dropped her invisibility spel .

Snapping the door shut, he secured the lock and set warding spel s on the apartment. Then he stooped down to pick the familiar up and carry her into the kitchen to wait for Alex and Chloe.

They’d be under five minutes unloading everything, and he knew Chloe was currently managing to hog every inch of counter space in the bathroom. A smile twitched across his lips before it faded, and his gut twisted as something besides the need to outpace Gregor seeped into his consciousness. He was starting to like them too much, know them too wel . The problem with forced proximity was it also forced intimacy. He hadn’t let anyone this close for this long since . . . since his family. Since his wife. He sighed and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. Fuck.

No, the problem wasn’t that he was stuck with them now that he’d agreed to keep them safe. The problem was he liked it. He liked them, liked knowing their routines. He liked being around Alex, who hated not having his gadgets, but had managed to find books on nanotechnology in airport stores.

Merek sensed a basic similarity between himself and the kid. They were both too watchful, too serious, too alone. And that was where Chloe came in, a mouthy, acerbic counterbalance to them both. Despite al her own baggage, she managed to remain optimistic that obstacles could be overcome. She was smart, brave, and when the chips were down, she fought. She survived. He admired that in anyone, let alone someone with a traumatized childhood. He just liked her.

Under other circumstances, he might have been able to convince himself it was just her body, just the chemistry they generated between the sheets, but the stolen moments they snatched for sex were buried under the time they spent just being together. He liked watching her tease Alex into laughing, liked flopping down in front of a television in whatever random hotel they happened to be in to watch some cheesy program, only to spend most of the time cracking up because not one of them could keep their sarcastic comments to themselves.

They were in danger; they were on the run.... At this point, they could al be wanted fugitives, and he wouldn’t know. Nothing about it should have been comfortable. He was ready to fal over from exhaustion and strain, but he couldn’t think of anywhere in the world he’d rather be than right here, or any other people he’d rather be with.

“This pizza is going to be cold before we eat it if you two don’t get a move on.” He shook his head to clear his wayward thoughts, and jumped when Ophelia dug her claws into his leg. He detached her from his flesh with a grunt, and petted her until she sighed and purred.

“Coming!” Chloe cal ed, and the way her voice echoed told him he was right and she was spreading her things out in the bathroom. His lips tugged in a reluctant grin.

Alex dragged in from his room, propping himself against the counter across from Merek. Cocking his head, he listened for something Merek couldn’t hear. His eyes squinted into an almost-smile. “We could just eat without her.”

At that second, Chloe appeared in her doorway. “Thanks a lot, brat.”

Alex just snorted a little laugh, grabbed the stack of paper plates from the pizza place, and divvied them up. Ophelia gave an imperious mew, and Alex obediently went to retrieve a can of food from Chloe’s suitcase. No doubt about it, the cat had them wel trained.

A giggle drew Merek’s attention to Chloe, who was shaking her head at her familiar. Her gaze met his, and they both grinned, then chuckled, then laughed until they were holding their sides. Alex came back, popped the top off the can, and set it in front of the cat. “What’d I miss?”

Chloe waved a hand helplessly in the air, and Merek had to grab it to keep her upright. “N-Nothing. It’s not even real y that funny.”

A fresh spate of laughter rol ed out of him, and he grabbed a napkin to wipe his eyes. “No, it’s just tension relief, and the fact that the cat has us at her beck and cal .”

The strangest look entered Alex’s eyes as his gaze went from the familiar, back to the bedroom door, and then down to stare at his hand as if it belonged to someone else. “Man, if the pack could see me now, a wolf playing fetch for a cat.”

And that just set them al off again.

“Oh, gods.” Chloe leaned weakly against Merek’s side, and he let himself enjoy the feel of her. “Okay, real y. We need to eat and get some sleep. We are way too giddy.”

“Even cold pizza and lukewarm lettuce sounds good to me right now.” Alex flipped open the first of four cardboard boxes, and handed Chloe the plastic container with the salad she’d insisted they get.

She forked a portion of greens onto everyone’s plate while the wolf served up gooey slices of combination pizza. Merek’s stomach rumbled like he hadn’t eaten in a month, but this was the first meal they’d had without tension humming through their muscles in days. They didn’t even bother sitting at the table, they just fel on their food like ravenous animals, and not even Chloe bothered to try to spark up a conversation.

When they’d cleaned their plates, and both Merek and Alex had gone back for thirds, the kid sighed with deep satisfaction.

“Exactly,” Merek said.

Chloe snorted and heaved herself away from his side. “Al right, let’s tidy up and hit the sack.”

Any other day, that would have been the most exciting thing she could say to him, but the exhaustion weighed down on his very bones now that his hunger had been satiated. Pushing to his feet, he grabbed the empty pizza and salad containers, while Chloe stuck the leftover slices in the fridge and Alex gathered the dirty plates and Ophelia’s empty can of cat food. Then he went rummaging through the cabinets with Chloe to try to find a garbage bag. The apartment was furnished, but besides that, supplies were limited.

A deep sigh echoed from the cabinet Chloe had her head in. “Looks like cold pizza for breakfast, and then we need a grocery store.”

Alex hummed an agreement. “Yeah, less fast food would be nice for a while. I’m getting sick of it.”

Eyebrows arching, Merek blinked at the wolf for a moment. “That’s got to be the first time in history a teenage boy has said that. You’re a mutant, kid.”

“Gee, thanks.” Alex actual y grinned at him.

Ignoring them both, Chloe continued rifling through the contents of the kitchen until she found what she was looking for. “Thank the gods there’s coffee here. Instant coffee, so it’l taste like tar mixed with drain cleaner, but it’l be caffeinated, so I don’t care.”

“What a trooper.” Alex gave her a one-armed hug, and she ruffled his hair, making Merek smile. Nice kid.

He hoped the boy grew up to be a better man than his father. Narrowing his eyes, he focused on Alex. And saw nothing. He bit back a curse, his muscles going rigid. It wasn’t the static-fuzzed picture he usual y saw when he looked at the wolf, but a huge blankness.

What the hel did that mean?

Only that the kid would be important to him. He sighed. The kid was already important to him. So was Chloe.

As always, frustration clawed at him that his gift denied him the ability to protect those who mattered the most to him. The future was his to shape and command unless it real y counted. Powerful and powerless at the same time. He fucking hated it. It was his job, his duty, to protect people using every weapon at his disposal. Bitterly ironic that what usual y made him so valuable in just these situations was completely beyond his recal or control. He shoved a hand through his hair and turned away, moving to double-check the doors and windows as wel as his magical shields.

Plastic rustled while Alex and Chloe stuffed the garbage in a bag, and then there was a long pause during which he could sense Alex speaking telepathical y to Chloe. Then his voice fil ed Merek’s mind. I’m headed for bed. Need anything before I go?

“No, thanks. Sleep wel .”

A chuckle rippled through his thoughts. No worries on that one.

Merek glanced back at Chloe, seeing only the woman and nothing of her future or past. He didn’t even have to try to harness his abilities with her. His muscles wound tighter as he faced her. “You should go, too.”

“Not just yet.” She leaned back against the counter, folded her arms, and met his eyes with her sharp hazel ones. “Why do you do that?”

“What?”

“Every now and then you stare at me, tense up, and get this awful look in your eyes.” Her eyebrows lifted.

“Are you seeing something bad in my future? If so, I’d like to know. I can take it.”

“No. I stil can’t see your future.” His hands flexed at his sides. “I just realized I can’t see Alex’s either.”

She nodded, but her gaze didn’t waver. “Could you ever?”

“Yeah, although . . . it was fuzzy. Like a television screen on the blink. Sometimes the picture was clear; sometimes there was nothing but static.” He forked his fingers through his hair, hating the truth. There was a lot of shit he could handle, but this was one thing he’d never be able to accept. “It’s like that with my partner Selina, too, but not with Alex anymore.”

“So now you can’t see him either.” She shifted, settling more comfortably against the countertop.

“No,” he growled. “Not at al . It’s just blank.”

“Why?” He could almost see the scientist’s wheels spinning, running experimental scenarios in her head.

The woman had to test everything. Him, his control, herself, her abilities, the world around her. “You’re this amazing clairvoyant, even Luca sounded in awe of your skil s, so why are some people blank and some not? What makes your sight go on the fritz like that?”

“It’s complicated.” He swal owed and let his chin drop to his chest. “The last person I couldn’t see anything with was my wife. Before her, my best friend growing up. Before him, my parents.”

“So, people who are important to you in some way.” Her eyes narrowed, her head tilting as she considered. “Or people who become important.”

“Yeah. The one and only vision I ever had of my wife was the first time I touched her. I shook her hand to introduce myself and got this flash of our wedding, where it would be, how she would look, how I would feel.

Just this one single moment that burned into my brain.” One he’d done everything in his power to make come true. Good thing she’d been a scattered artist with no desire to ever plan anything, because most women he’d ever heard of would have balked at his control ing every aspect of their wedding. He’d just known he had to have that moment, that vision, that feeling.

Now, it felt like a different person had been married to her, loved her. He wasn’t that man anymore, young and with just enough cocky idealism left to think he could save the world. He suppressed a snort. He didn’t even want to be that man anymore. Turning away from Chloe, he stared blindly at an ugly watercolor print hanging on the wal .

“Something bad happened to her, didn’t it?” Her voice was soft, undemanding. He didn’t have to answer her if he didn’t want to. He sensed she wouldn’t press the issue. So, why would he tel her anything? He hadn’t spoken to anyone about this since . . . ever. Maybe it was the exhaustion that made him answer, maybe it was some heretofore unrevealed need to connect, maybe it was just Chloe and what she did to him.

“Yeah. Something bad.” Him. He had happened to his wife. If he’d walked away that first day, if he’d never shaken her hand, she might be alive and wel today. The thought was a punch to the stomach, even to this day. “It’s worse than that.”

“Worse than something bad happening?”

“I can’t—I can’t even remember her face anymore.” Guilt dragged vicious claws down his flesh. She’d died because she was his wife, and a decade later he couldn’t even recal what she had looked like. Ten years was nothing in a Magickal’s five centuries-long life. If they survived to a natural death. His wife hadn’t gotten that chance.

“What?” Chloe’s arms looped around his waist, and her body warmed his back as she rested her cheek between his shoulder blades.

He swal owed. “My wife. I can’t remember her face. If I focus on most people, I can see every detail of their lives, from the day they were born to the day they’l die. Al the possibilities. I can see them as clearly as if I were standing there with them.” He closed his eyes. “It’s not like that with the people who’l have the biggest impact on my life. And her face has faded from my mind until I have to concentrate to remember it.

Even then, it’s blurry, like one of those grainy old photographs.”

Her lips brushed over his back. “I’m sorry.”

Just that. He could feel her sympathy radiating from her, seeping into his skin, but she didn’t coddle or fuss, didn’t demand to know more, didn’t ask questions. She just held him the way he’d never let anyone hold him since his family died. Not for comfort or solace or need. He kept the world at arm’s length, and he liked it that way.

He’d had sex since his wife’s death; he’d even had a relationship or two, but he’d always ended things before it got too deep. He’d always been able to foresee that it wouldn’t go too deep. A humorless smile curved his lips that the one woman who appealed to him most was the only one who tried to run when things got intense. Not that she could push him away even if she wanted to in their current situation, but she didn’t demand more than he was wil ing to give.

The problem was she didn’t have to demand it, did she? He’d already given up his entire life for her, given everything for her. Cold clutched at his bel y, twisting inside him, but he couldn’t deny the thought. He was always honest with himself about who he was and what he wanted. He made no excuses to himself or anyone else about what he was. Most of the time, he was a cynical bastard, the product of his life and circumstances. But with Chloe, he dared to hope . . . for far too many things, most of which he didn’t even want to acknowledge.

“What was her name?” Chloe linked her fingers together on his chest, dragging his attention back to a story he didn’t want to tel .

“Laura.” He sighed. Everything tangled up inside him. The past, the present, the future. Things that he saw so clearly for other people, but not with himself.

Her fingers moved in reassuring circles on his chest. “That’s a nice name.”

“She was a nice girl.” True, and not even close to the whole picture of who she’d been.

“Can you tel me what happened to her?”

He didn’t want to. Gods, but he didn’t. Not when the ugliness of it was etched into his mind, the memories that he couldn’t forget. But since Chloe had had the guts to tel him her worst nightmare, he couldn’t deny her the same. “She died.”

Chloe just waited, her arms secure around his waist. It was easier not looking her in the eyes, not having to see the expression on her face when he told her the truth. “We lived in Chicago—I grew up there. I was a new detective assigned to their MTF Violent Crimes Unit. It was one of my first cases.” One he hadn’t had the experience to handle, though he hadn’t realized it at the time. He cleared his throat, pushed out the words that would revolt the average person. “A real bitch, too. A serial kil er was targeting Magickal women, sexual y assaulting them with wands, and then stabbing them to death with knives from their own kitchens.”

“Wands?” She stirred against his back, her arms tightening.

He could hear the surprise in her voice. Only little kids first learning magic used wands as a focusing tool.

An adult Magickal would never need one, and wouldn’t want to be that indiscreet anyway. “Yeah. Wands.”

“That’s sick.”

“Yeah.” But he’d seen worse since then, much worse. At the time, it had horrified him, added another cal us to his already scarred soul. “We arrested a guy who met the profile, had no alibis, and knew way too much about the crime scenes to be uninvolved.”

“And the wands?” Her fingers bal ed in his T-shirt, but she didn’t recoil. He had a feeling the stubborn witch was going to stand there for as long as he wanted to keep talking, no matter how bad it got.

A brief smile touched his lips, and he covered her smal , warm hands with his. “He was on a kind of antidepressant that caused impotence. Al the pieces fit. We thought we had our guy.”

“You didn’t.” The words came out a whisper, and a tiny shiver went through her.

“No.” He snorted. In retrospect, he should have seen it, should have understood the case would get personal when he couldn’t get a clear precog read on anything. “Instead, we just pissed the real kil er off by giving credit to someone else.”

She didn’t ask how this related to his wife, but he could feel her going rigid behind him, knew she’d already guessed what had happened to Laura. Bile burned the back of his throat, threatening to choke him.

Cold spread through him, freezing around his heart. Gods, he didn’t know if he could say it. Didn’t know if he could force out the words he’d never said to anyone. So he told her about his wife, instead of what had ended her life. That much, at least, he could manage.

“Laura, she was a Fae artist, you know? She had that stereotypical flakiness. Hel , she owned it, played it up. Frustrated the hel out of me, sometimes, but that was just her.” A sigh eased out of him. They’d been so young, so damn sure of themselves. “She forgot to set the warding spel s on the house. Wasn’t the first time.” And he’d given her hel about it every time, but Laura was Laura was Laura. She’d apologized, promised to remember, and then a week or two would go by and he’d come home to an unprotected house.

He was silent so long, lost in his own thoughts, that he jerked when Chloe spoke. “Who did it if it wasn’t the guy you arrested?”

“His twin sister. That was how he’d known about the crime scenes. She told him.”

“A woman did that? To other women?” Her palms flattened against his stomach, and he could feel the deep breath she dragged into her lungs. He heard the trained medical professional in her voice next. “That’s a fairly rare psychopathic trait to find in women.”

He nodded even though he doubted she could see it. “They were both abused as kids by their father.

Seriously abused. Sexual y. With wands, among other things.”

“Oh, gods.” Horrified woman washed the doctor away, and she wedged herself even closer to his back.

“I came home and . . . found Laura like that.” His bel y heaved as the memories he’d have given anything to burn from his mind assaulted him in vivid, gruesome succession. The wand had stil been inside her, a knife from a set her parents had given them for a wedding present protruding from her chest, her eyes blank, and her face waxen. He’d slipped in the ocean of blood around her, fal en in it before he’d reached her side. His mind had known she was gone, but he’d stil radioed for an ambulance, praying someone could undo what had been done, that somehow the awful metal ic stench of blood would be gone and she’d be there, smiling at him and tel ing him she’d burned dinner so it was Chinese takeout again. “We’d only been married five months, and it was over. I lost her.”

“And you blamed yourself.” The soft sob was almost his undoing, and he jerked away, every muscle in his body shaking. She came around him anyway, took his face in her hands. Like him, she wouldn’t let him run away. She blinked back tears and searched his face. “You stil do. Blame yourself. Your clairvoyance. For not seeing what was coming, for not saving her.”

He choked on a breath, but met her eyes and told the truth. “Yes.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Her fingers stroked over his jaw, and he wanted to lean closer, wanted to rip himself away from the tenderness that was so absent from his life.

Words, the ugly, vicious truth, wrenched from his gut. “She died because of my case, because she was my wife, because I couldn’t see to save her. ”

“You can’t save everyone, Merek.” A wealth of sympathy, of understanding, fil ed her eyes. The knowledge of a woman who could have saved her mother if she’d possessed the skil s she did now. “When it’s time for someone to go, it’s time.”

“No. No, that’s not always true.” He couldn’t al ow himself so easy an excuse. Hadn’t he wanted to? Hadn’t he tried? But he’d been through this in his mind so many times, and then had forced himself to bury it deep inside and move on before he drove himself mad. “There are a lot of possibilities for when people’s lives are over. That’s what I see most of the time when I look into the future. The past is solid; the present is always in flux while people are making decisions, but the future is al possibilities. Roads people can take, choices people can make. If I had known what was coming, if I had made different choices, maybe it would have been a later possibility for their deaths.”

Her inky brows lifted. “Their deaths?”

A harsh chortle crackled from his chest. “Al those people I couldn’t see? My parents, my best friend, my wife? They’re dead. A murder, a car accident, a mugging gone wrong. All of them died. Horribly, unnecessarily.”

And he’d never let anyone that close ever again. Until now, until he’d had no choice. Until the alternative had been worse than letting someone in.

“You’re never going to know that for sure. You can’t torture yourself for being human. You’re not a god, no matter how powerful your abilities are.” She slid her arms around him and pressed her nose to his chest, squeezed him tight. “You’re not Superman, remember?”

He laughed, hot moisture stinging the backs of his eyes. He rubbed his hand over them until he knew he wouldn’t embarrass the hel out of himself. “Yeah. I know.”

Sliding out of his arms, she took his hand and tugged him into the bedroom. He fol owed without protest, too drained to deal with anything else. Some of the weight on his chest had shifted, the ice cracking, just from tel ing her the truth. He pul ed in a deep breath, stood placid while she undressed them both and urged him into bed.

She settled against him, hooked her leg over his thigh, and sighed. “You know, you had that same look on your face the night I met you.”

He grunted, pul ed her closer. “What look?”

“That stony-faced, the-world-fucking-sucks-ass look.” She kissed his chest. “The one you got when you watched Alex and me tonight. Same expression.”

The night he’d met her came back with perfect clarity. When he thought about it, he usual y focused on how it ended, not how it began. He blinked the grit from his eyes. “That about sums up that day, yeah.”

“Why?” She leaned up a little, propped her chin on his chest to meet his gaze.

Trailing his fingers over her silky hip, he let himself be distracted for just a moment, let himself savor the feel of her. Then he dragged in a breath, smel ed her sweetness. “You know how I said Selina’s fate fuzzes in and out for me? Sometimes I see it and sometimes I don’t?”

More understanding and empathy than he could ever deserve shone in her eyes, though she looked as tired as he felt. “What did you see about her? How bad was it?”

“I saw her death.” His shoulder jerked in a shrug. Seeing death was just a part of his reality, as a clairvoyant and as a cop. It was tougher with people he knew, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

“It’s going to be bloody and ugly and just as gruesome as—”

Laura’s. He didn’t say it out loud, but Chloe knew what he meant. It was a relief that someone knew; just the tel ing, the sharing had helped ease some of the oppressive weight of failure and guilt inside him.

He cleared his throat. “It’l happen soon, within the next year.” He’d seen it that day, and had gone to a bar to rinse the bitterness of it away. Instead, Chloe had walked in before he’d finished his first beer.

“Did you tel her?” The bottom of her foot brushed up and down his calf.

Shaking his head, he gave a rueful smile. If Chloe knew more about his partner, she’d know the elf was always three steps ahead of everyone, even without extraordinary precognitive abilities. “I didn’t need to.

She knows.”

“She does?” Chloe blinked.

“Some Magickals can sense it when the end is near.” He brushed her hair away from her face, rubbing a shiny, blue-black lock between his fingers before tucking it behind her ear. “Selina is old, almost at the end of her natural life anyway.”

Her chin dug into his chest when she shook her head. “The death you’re talking about isn’t the natural end of life.”

“No.” He let his breath ease out slowly. “No, it’s not.”

She drew patterns on his chest with the tip of her finger, and even as exhausted as he was, he felt his body stir. He almost groaned. There was no way he was doing anything about it right now. Later, definitely.

She smiled at him as if she knew what he was thinking. “So, you’re there and I walk in and you can’t see my fate and you like your women like that?”

He snorted and arched his eyebrows in disbelief. “After my wife? You think I wouldn’t run like my ass was on fire from a woman whose future I couldn’t see?”

Her nose wrinkled. “Yeah, good point.”

Pul ing her up until she was draped across his chest, he kissed her soft mouth. “You were irresistible. The last thing I wanted was to look at someone and see the end of them, know exactly how numbered their days were. Even if they were going to live as long as Selina, I didn’t want to see it.” He shifted her until she straddled his hips, slipping his erection into her hot sheath, wanting that connection. Her sigh was al pleasure, and she shut her eyes and relaxed bonelessly against him. His palms cupped her hips, and his tension unwound as wel . “With you, sweetheart? I couldn’t see anything. Not so much as a flash like I had with Laura. Nothing. I didn’t even have to hold back my precognition. It got the night off for some R & R. So did I.”

Her smile was smug, but her eyes remained closed. “Glad I could help take your mind off things.”

Listening to her breathing even out, he knew the exact moment she slipped over into sleep. He could feel blissful unconsciousness coming to claim him as wel , and he fought it off just long enough to check the magical shields on the apartment.

Chloe made a little sound in her sleep, and burrowed into him. He held her tight, needing her near more than he’d ever needed anything in his life. Shutting his eyes, he sighed. Even his last thought wasn’t enough to keep exhaustion from dragging him under.

Losing her now just might kil him.

Hot moisture coated Merek’s cock when his eyes flared open the next morning. Chloe’s tongue worked along the underside of his dick as she sucked him hard. A harsh groan broke the silence in the room, and he laced his fingers in her silky hair, holding her in place. He barely remembered to throw a spel up to muffle the sounds in their room before he cried out. He felt the head of his dick hit the back of her throat.

“Gods. Yes. Chloe. Please. I . . .” The words were broken, barely coherent fragments of thought, his control spinning away as he arched off the mattress, needing to fuck that talented mouth.

She chuckled, and the vibrations against his shaft damn near made him come. His fingers clenched in her hair, and he gritted his teeth to hold off orgasm as long as possible. This was too good to end so soon.

He shuddered as she licked and tasted him, swirling her hot, wet tongue around the head of his cock. A hoarse sound of pleasure wrenched up from his chest. His body bowed in a tight arc, his hips jerking upward without any direction from his mind.

Gods, if she used any kind of magic on him—

The thought had no more than drifted to the front of his consciousness when he felt a slow sizzle slide down his flesh as she sucked him deep. He jackknifed on the mattress, caught her shoulders and had her on her back before she could do more than moan a protest.

“I was having fun.”

“So was I,” he growled. “A little too much fun.”

He forced her thighs wide with his, and fil ed her with one quick jab. She gasped, arching underneath him.

Her legs wound around his hips, and her hands rose to clutch at his shoulders. “Hurry, Merek.”

Restraint had slipped through his fingers, and he didn’t need any urging. He couldn’t have slowed down if he’d had a gun pressed to his temple. He needed her, craved her. Now. Right now.

After the gut-wrenching emotions of the night before, the mindless ecstasy she offered him now was more than he could resist. She wanted it, he wanted it, and he wanted it with her. Only with her.

Her slim thighs wrapped tight around his waist. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes. Just like that. So good . . . right there.

Oh, please. Merek!”

“Ah, gods.” It was too much, listening to her litany of pleasure. His hips bucked, driving his cock into her sweet heat with brutal force. She was right there with him, dragging her nails down his back, sobbing for him to move faster, harder, deeper. And he gave her what they both needed. The feel of her sleek sheath gripping his cock was so damn good.

The bedsprings squeaked beneath them, and the headboard thudded against the wal . Slapping skin, harsh cries, low moans, gasping sobs. A carnal symphony of lust.

Al of it turned him on even more. Everything about her did.

Seduction spel s flowed back and forth between them, shoving them higher. His heart pounded in his ears, drowning out every other sound. There was only her, only this. Her mouth opened in a silent scream when he sent a pulse of his own lust dancing over her flesh. Golden light burnished her skin, made her a fiery goddess in his arms as an unholy gleam lit her eyes. She spread her fingers wide on his chest, and white-hot lightning arced from her to him, sizzling his nerves until he was on the edge of orgasm.

“Fuck, yes. Baby, that’s just—” He didn’t bother trying to gather enough wits to finish the sentence.

Instead, he thrust deep, ground his hips against her clit. He knew now exactly which angle would make her— “Merek!” Her hands seized his biceps in a frantic grip as she twisted beneath him. “Faster. Please. Yes.

Merek. Please. Fuck me harder.”

He couldn’t stop a smug smile. There was no ecstasy as potent as a woman begging for more. When she gave him the same smug smile and deliberately fisted her pussy on his dick, he knew he wouldn’t last much longer. He didn’t even want to. “Now. Right now.”

“Yes!” She arched underneath him, and heated spel s from her gripped his cock each time he plunged into her slick channel. Desperation made his movements harsh, frantic. So close. He reached between them and thumbed her clit, tweaking it with a spel that made her gasp and explode in his arms.

Her pleasure hit him in a wave that dragged him under, and he let it, welcomed it.

When he came, the rush was more intense than anything he’d ever known. It burned him from the inside out, ripping at his very soul. For once, he didn’t fight, didn’t resist, didn’t try to hold on to any kind of control.

His body jerked, come jetting from him as her pussy contracted around his cock. She sobbed his name, and he worked her as long as possible, shoving his dick deep, wringing them both out.

“Chloe,” he groaned. He sank down on her with the vague wish that he could stay inside her forever, that the pleasure he found with her would never end. He shuddered, buried his face in crook of her neck, and licked the salty sweetness of her flesh.

She sighed and shivered, trailing her fingertips in long, slow sweeps over his back. “Good morning, by the way.”

Laughter burst out of his throat, and he wrapped his arms around her, rol ing until she sprawled on top of him. The swift movement had her squealing and clutching at him, but the giggle that burst from her when she braced herself over him and flipped her hair out of her face so he could see the sparkle in her eyes made a tenderness he’d rarely experienced in his life squeeze his chest.

“Chloe, I—”

He’d never know what he might have said, because she swooped down and caught his mouth with her lush lips. It was slow and soft, her unique flavor on his tongue, her scent in his nose, her silken skin rubbing over his body. They were both breathing hard when she lifted her head, and she shot him a wicked grin.

“Gods, I love the taste of you.”

“Ah, sweetheart. You’re good for me.” He sat up and cradled her close, kissing her forehead.

Some of the light dimmed in her eyes, and her smile slipped a bit. She glanced away. “Yeah, I’m so good for you I’m going to get you shot one of these days.”

“Hey, now.” Frowning, he crooked a finger under her chin and forced her to look at him. “Where did that come from? What happened to you being the hopeful one?”

Shaking her head, she pressed her lips together. “I don’t know. I’m just . . . worried.” A faint smile creased her cheeks. “I’m always worried. About you and Alex . . . and me, of course.”

He sighed, brushing her hair out of her eyes and away from her face. He wished he could spare her this, but he knew he couldn’t, so he gave her honesty instead. “I’m not going to tel you not to worry, Chloe. I’l do my best to make sure that’s al you have to deal with, but you already know my best may not be good enough.”

The words burned as they came out, and he wished like hel he didn’t have to say them, but he wouldn’t lie to her, not ever. Not even to spare himself. Especial y not then. He dropped his forehead to hers and pushed away the self-loathing he felt for having failed to protect them. Like he’d failed others before them.

He’d done everything he could.

“No, I—” She shook her head, kissed him. “I trust you to help us. You have to know that. I trust you the way I could never trust anyone else, and it scares me even to tel you that, but it’s true.” Her fingers flexed against his shoulders, and she shrugged helplessly. “I just... I don’t know what you get out of this. You could die—”

A laugh huffed out. “Honey, that’s just the job. That’s what I do.”

“Yeah, I know you deal with it every day, but why leave your job for this? ” She waved her hand around to encompass the room, the apartment, their whole situation. “Are Alex and I just the job? Is it because you couldn’t see my future? I mean . . . I’ve wondered this from the beginning, but was too scared to ask in case you regained your sanity. After what happened in Oregon, I can’t not ask. It’s not just a vague maybe. It’s a very real possibility. You could end up dead because of us. Why would you do that?”

He stroked his fingers up and down her spine, working his answer over in his mind. Some of it was obvious; some of it he didn’t know the answers to himself. He hadn’t when he started; he stil didn’t. He doubted that would satisfy his curious little scientist. Smiling, he kissed the tip of her nose. “Some of it is the job, I’l admit. I don’t like to see innocent people get caught in the crossfire, and I do what I can to stop it.

Also, I’d love to do anything I could to help nail Smith’s ass to the wal . If chasing you trips him up and makes him do something stupid or draws him out in the open for Caval i to catch, then that’s fine by me.”

“I never pictured myself as terrorist bait.” She winced and shifted to try to get off his lap. “I’m glad you can —”

“I’m not done yet.” He held her in place, tightening his arms around her. “It’s not just the job. It’s not just because I can’t see your future. That’s more likely to make me turn around and walk away.” That wasn’t strictly true, because before he’d met her, the number of people he couldn’t see the future for could be counted on one hand, with fingers left over. He just couldn’t imagine approaching such a person without al the caution reserved for live explosives. “I care about you and Alex. Not just because of the job, but because of you. Both of you. And admitting that scares the hel out of me. The inability to see with you means you’l be important to me, but it doesn’t let me know how or why. Or for how long.” He shrugged. “I made my own choices, and I’m here wil ingly. I would die for you.”

“I know. I saw you risk your life to go get Alex.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t want you to die for me. Us.”

Her dark lashes swept up, and her gaze met his. She cupped his face between her palms. “I care about you, too. You can say it was your choice, but I would feel responsible forever if anything happened to you.”

Catching her hand in his, he turned his head and kissed the center of her palm. “I know exactly what you mean, sweetheart.”

She sighed. “I’m getting that memo. It just . . . sucks, you know?”

“No arguments here.” He dropped a quick kiss on her ful lips, then went back for another, slower, longer kiss. His cock stirred, and he groaned before he forced himself to pul away. He hated to worry her more, but he had to let her in on his agenda for the day. “I’m going to need to leave Alex and you alone for a few hours while I take care of something.”

A frown drew her eyebrows together and her kiss-swol en mouth downward. She crossed her arms over her bare breasts. “Oh? What do you need to take care of?”

He couldn’t resist it—he brushed his lips over the cleavage she presented. “I need to see someone about resupplying my ammunition cache. I can only carry so much with me at one time, and I blew through some in Oregon.”

She shivered at the reminder, but didn’t shy away from the discussion. “There has to be a sporting goods place that has what you need around here. Arizona’s a red state, right? They have to have guns here.”

His lips twitched. “It’s not that simple, Doc.”

“How come?”

“Think about it. Would a regular, Normal bul et work on, say, a werewolf?”

“No.” She blinked. “Oh.” Blinked again. “Wel , shit.”

He did grin, then. “There are limited places to buy the kind of ammo I need, and we need this to be off the record. We’re trying to fly under the radar, remember?”

“Yeah. I recal ,” she retorted drily. He watched her brows draw together as she thought about it for a second. “You can’t possibly have a separate kind of bul et for each Magickal species. You’d never know what kind of person you’d be shooting at next. What if you were ready for werewolves with silver bul ets and got attacked by elves? Silver wouldn’t be nearly as effective.”

“Head of the class, Dr. Standish.” His cock reacted as she idly stroked his skin while thinking. Since he didn’t have time to indulge himself again before he had to get going, he forced himself to lift her off his lap.

“So . . . what do you use?” She settled against the headboard, tucking the sheet around her. “There’s no known chemical, herb, metal, or al oy that effects every Magickal species.”

Grabbing his duffle off the floor, he tossed it on the bed and pul ed out clothes, his extra revolver, and his last clip of bul ets for his regular weapon. He’d had to drop his other spare in Oregon, but two guns meant he could leave one with Chloe and stil remain armed himself. It was enough. “We use bul ets that are explosive, armor-piercing rounds that have fragments of every metal, al oy, chemical, etcetera, known to ward off Magickal species.”

“Bronze for witches, silver for werewolves, iron for Fae and elves, and . . . what for vampires?” She waved a hand through the air. “They’re only al ergic to daylight—oh, you’re using a sunbeam spel as part of the explosion in the explosive round.”

“Yep.” Ejecting a bul et from the magazine, he handed it to her. For most people, it wouldn’t look any different from a regular bul et, but if Chloe tested the material inside with her magic, she’d sense something entirely different. “There’s not enough to damage a Magickal like a pure round made from the one thing they’re al ergic to would, but it’l slow any Magickal down, regardless of species, and emptying a clip into someone wil do the job.”

Her eyes narrowed as she focused on the bul et, turning it this way and that in her hand. She glanced up at him for a brief moment. “I’m not going to ask if you know that from personal experience.”

“Good, don’t ask.” He snagged the round from her hand, slid it back into the clip, and set the clip on the nightstand next to his weapon. He handed Chloe the revolver.

“Crap. You do know.” She checked the safety on the gun as he had shown her, ignoring the incredulous brow he arched in her direction. “The bul et I pul ed from Alex was pure silver.”

“Yeah, that shot was just for him.” He’d thought of this too, had come to only one conclusion. “I’m guessing they wanted to incapacitate him so he was easier to manage while they took care of us.” It also meant they hadn’t real y cared if they kil ed the boy, as long as they delivered to Smith one of the two people who had the information he wanted.

She swal owed, bal ed her fingers in the sheet, and gave him a smile edged in desperation. “Right. So.

You have to have very specialized ammunition. What are you going to do?”

He shrugged and gathered his pile of clothes. “An old friend of Selina’s in the area wil probably give me whatever he has lying around.”

“So, no one they could connect you to.” She laid the revolver beside her on the bed, drew her knees up, and rested her chin on them. “But stopping in Phoenix wasn’t just a random choice.”

“No, it wasn’t.” He bent to brush a kiss over her cheek, then turned for the bathroom. “But believe me, no one would connect me to this person.”

Laughter tinged her voice. “That good, huh?”

“We met. Once.” He glanced back. “It wasn’t pleasant.”

She took a breath, her face sobering. “How do you know he’l help you?”

“I don’t.” He was pretty sure. Mostly. The vision he had of events before him was hazy, but that he could see anything told him Alex and Chloe weren’t directly involved with what he was going to do. In any case, if he was wrong, he didn’t want them with him. “If everything goes according to plan, I’l pick up groceries on the way back. If I’m not back by nightfal —”

“You’l be back.” Her face set in stubborn lines.

“Chloe.” He made the word a warning, an admonishment.

She averted her face, refusing to look at him. “I know what to do, Merek. I wil if I have to, but I won’t have to. You’l be back.”

Arguing with her wouldn’t help, so he left it at that and got down to business. Chloe had a grocery list ready for him when he got out of the shower, and a solemn nod from Alex was al he got from the wolf before he was out the door with a slice of cold pizza in his hand.

Time to see the most obnoxious Normal the gods had ever cursed the earth with.