Shelby peered into the bedroom. “Who were you talking to?” She had short, curly brown hair and a round face, the skin under her eyes heavily smudged.
“I don’t want to do this,” he told her outright.
Though her own reluctance was painted plainly across her face, she still said, “We have to.” She charged across the room, right for him. He panicked, backed up. His shoulders struck the wall near the bathroom and then she was touching him, her foreign hands grabbing for the snap on his jeans.
“Jesus! Stop!” He shoved her off and spun away, blood hammering in his veins. The trained desire sunk its talons in nice and deep, enough to hurt. He could feel the erection starting, growing, no matter how hard he mentally stamped it down. This woman had touched him, the Burned Man watched from the corner, and Xavier had no control over his own body.
Cat, I’m so sorry
.
He thrust out his arms to Shelby, his eyes closed, quick breaths hissing from his nose. The need made him tremble.
When he opened his eyes, she’d moved closer to him. Gone was the reluctance, replaced by determination. “We
have
to,” she told him again, stronger this time, “because if I don’t, Lea will give the Campos family my brother. She and Michael took over my debt and saved the only person in my family I care about. I’m not about to have them take it all back. I already screwed up my life once. I’m not doing it again.”
In the doorway, Jase hung his head.
Xavier scrubbed his face. Another innocent person at stake. Destroy a life…or make one.
“You’d have a baby?” he asked, incredulous. “For
him
?”
Shelby slowly shook her head. “Don’t care. I have a lot to make up for.”
Part of him understood. What one person would do to make up for past mistakes wasn’t for him to decide. But her solution and his were very different, and satisfying Michael wasn’t on his list.
Think think
. He scanned the bedroom—the dresser, the corners, the TV. Was there a camera in here, too, so Michael could watch them? He couldn’t find any; but then, would Michael really need cameras if he had Jase to enforce his orders?
Xavier threw a long look at the blank TV. Cat’s image still lingered, maybe not in wires and light, but certainly in his mind. Even though his body was reacting in the way he’d been conditioned, she’d changed him. Ruined him, even. Because mentally he’d never be able to sleep with any woman ever again if that woman wasn’t her.
That was it.
Shelby was inside his space again. Eyeing him with very little desire and a whole lot of desperation. She’d trapped him between the bed and the wall. The Burned Man’s vulgar words layered with the bass of the music still coming from below.
“All right. I’ll do it,” he said. Shelby eased back, exhaling in what he could only take as gratitude. Xavier looked to Jase. “But I need help, man.”
Jase pushed off the doorframe where he’d been leaning. “With what?”
Xavier looked to the TV again, and Jase’s gaze followed. “I’ll do it—no protests, no questions—if Shelby looks like Cat.”
Jase swiveled his head back to Xavier. “And how do you propose that?” But by the clench of his jaw, he knew exactly how.
Xavier lifted his cuffed arm, the end of his sleeve tugging back to reveal the sickly green neutralizer light. Jase was already shaking his head. “No. No way.”
“I don’t care who I look like. Just do it,” Shelby said, taking another step closer.
“See?” Xavier said. “Shelby is up for it; you won’t get any fight from her. She’s probably dosed with
nelicoda
anyway.
And you and I both know that if you’re commanding air, I’m not going anywhere.”
Jase just stared. Xavier had to touch Shelby’s shoulder to get her to move aside. She offered no resistance, but he felt the stirrings of a wind cage swirl around his feet.
“Look,” Xavier said to Jase, lowering his voice. “You’re not playing lackey to Michael and Lea out of the goodness of your heart. Like Shelby, I bet you’ve been forced to do this because of someone you love. Well, guess what”—he thumped a fist to his chest—“so am I.”
Jase swallowed. Pain and regret flickered behind his light blue eyes.
“It’s just glamour,” Xavier went on. “I’ll weave it, give Michael what he wants.
Everyone
gets what they want. The people we’re all protecting stay safe. Michael told you to make this happen. I’m telling you, if you take off the neutralizer and let me use the illusion, it’ll happen.”
For someone who could control wind and create powerful forces of movement, Jase stood very, very still. Xavier thought for sure Jase would refuse, but then the air elemental reached into his back pocket and pulled out the cuff key.
Xavier almost collapsed to the floor, he exhaled so hard.
“We both know,” Jase murmured as he slipped the key into the neutralizer lock, “that if I’m commanding air, you’re not going anywhere.”
Xavier listened to his own words, thrown back at him. The cuff fell off. “Take that thing out in the hall,” he told Jase, and the other guy tossed it far away.
“I want to see you do it,” Jase said.
So Xavier turned Shelby into Cat. He didn’t even have to think about it. Cat’s wavy, sun-kissed hair, the tanned skin coated in delicious freckles, the glimmering smile…her image came to him instantly, and suddenly she was there in front of him. Only it wasn’t her, because there would never be another man in the bedroom when he wanted her as much as he did just then.
“Let’s get this over with,” Cat said, and the illusion—in Xavier’s mind—winked out. That was Shelby’s voice, not his Cat’s.
Xavier slowly pulled the tails of his shirt out of his jeans. He reached for the buttons. If he looked too anxious or nervous, Jase might see through him. “You going to watch?”
For a brief, terrifying moment, Xavier thought Jase would say yes. That he’d sit over there in the corner with the Burned Man and snicker. But Jase cleared his throat, ducked his head, and left.
Thirty minutes later, Shelby rapped lightly on the bedroom door.
“Yeah?” said Jase out in the hall.
“We’re done,” she said.
The lock clicked. The door swung slowly open. Jase took a long look at the woman standing just inside the bedroom, her short, curly hair a bit messier. Clothes on but rumpled, her shoes dangling from her fingers.
Shelby wouldn’t meet Jase’s eyes. He peered over her head at the bed, where Xavier lay naked, half covered by a sheet. His mouth hung open in sleep, one long arm thrown up high on the pillow.
“You okay?” Jase asked her softly, making careful assessment of her face and body. His concern surprised her.
“I’m fine,” she snapped, because she’d done what she had to do. “Can I go?”
He nodded. “Find Lea downstairs. I’d walk you down but I can’t leave him.” He jutted a thumb at sleeping Xavier.
She waved the hand that wasn’t carrying the shoes. “Basement jail cell, here I come.”
Shelby left Jase standing in the hall and walked down the corridor, being careful not to run. Careful not to panic.
Because Shelby wasn’t really Shelby, and the Xavier asleep on the bed wasn’t really Xavier.
Xavier wore Shelby’s image like a coat. For this to go down the way he wanted, he was banking on Jase not touching who he thought was Xavier lying in that bed. If he did, the glamour would vanish.
Ryan, the Fresh Powder bartender and part-time fighting instructor, had taught Xavier how to apply just enough pressure to someone’s throat to make them pass out, but Xavier had never actually done it for real. Shelby had been his practice and trial, all in one.
The moment Jase had left the bedroom, Shelby had lunged for him. The glamour dissolved. She realized Xavier’s duplicity too late. His hands had gone around her neck and she’d clawed at him. He’d pushed her to the bed and hoped that the creaking sounds of the mattress and her struggling grunts sounded somewhat sexual. The whole time he’d whispered apologies and promises that he’d get her away from Michael, and tried not to let guilt stay his hand.
When she’d fallen unconscious, he’d woven another glamour spell over her, making her into him. He’d stood beside the bed for a moment, staring down at himself. It had been a really long time since he’d paid any attention to his appearance, and he prayed he’d gotten it right.
Then he’d wrapped himself in Shelby’s body and voice, and knocked for Jase’s attention.
Now Xavier rounded the corner, exiting the east wing of the house. The music downstairs drowned out his footsteps. Where were Lea and Sean? According to Jase, Robert was probably locked in the basement. And Cat was with Michael in one of these bedrooms on the upper floor.
He’d need a weapon. Glamour and fists weren’t enough, not in this house of freaks. He slinked down the stairs, careful to keep his feet on the center, carpeted parts. The dining room was at the bottom of the stairs, the table still piled with dirty dishes from his half-assed dinner. Perfect. Xavier padded for the table, found what he was looking for, and climbed the stairs again, two at a time. The big steakhouse knife felt cool and comfortable in his palm.
Back in the upstairs hall, he jogged to the west wing.
There. A crack of pale light in an open doorway halfway down on the left side. The sound of muffled voices—one male, one female—shifted his adrenaline and rage into high gear. He wasn’t even fully aware of his body’s movements. The demanding pulse of his blood and the need for vengeance and freedom flogged him into action.
Xavier charged for the door. Of course Michael wouldn’t have locked it. Of course he was confident that Xavier would remain contained. And of course Michael hadn’t kept his end of the bargain. Again.
The asshole covered Cat’s body from behind. He’d untied her ankles and brought her to stand. Her chest pressed against the post carved like a tree, and Michael had his arms around her, picking at the rope knots at her wrists. His face was buried in the crook of her neck, his lips making words Xavier couldn’t hear over the furious thud in his ears.
Xavier shut the door behind him. At the sound, Michael looked up. Did a double take. He released Cat and stepped away, combing fingers through his hair. “Shelby? What are you doing here?”
Xavier charged across the huge bedroom, shedding the glamour along the way.
Michael’s squinty, confused eyes bulged in surprise. Xavier launched himself through the air, knife drawn back, coming down down down toward Michael’s shoulder. Michael’s image blurred in a shudder of light, a shifting of atoms. Crazy how fast it happened, how quickly he split apart. Cat was calling out warnings, but it was too late.
The two Michaels stepped away from each other. Xavier, his momentum carrying him forward, sailed through the middle, past the bed, and crashed into the bedside table. He tumbled to his side, his head and shoulder striking the wall. His only thought was to keep the knife away from his body so he wouldn’t fall on the blade, but that left the weapon exposed.
One Michael kicked the knife out of his hand, and it flew back toward the posts. The second Michael kicked Xavier, a hard-soled shoe to the ribs. Pain exploded in his torso; Cat’s pleading voice filled his ears. Both Michaels fell on him, two full-fledged attacks—fists and knees and feet—with Xavier literally backed into a corner. He had to get out. He had to get
up
.
Michael was no fighter—smaller and older and weaker than Xavier—but there were two of him, they were relentless, and Xavier was on the floor. He finally managed a leg strike of his own. He lifted his knee, got a decent angle, and plowed his
foot into One Michael’s gut. One Michael stumbled back and Xavier got a half-second look at Cat. She was pulling at the loosened ropes with her teeth, almost free, her eyes wide with hysteria.
One Michael was picking himself up off the carpet, coming back for another attack. Xavier found his feet, pushed to standing, and threw successive punches into Two Michael’s kidneys and then his ear. Digging deep into the power of his thighs, he propelled himself forward, tackling Two Michael. The force sent them both flying into the bed. Xavier locked his legs around Two Michael and rolled, tumbling them over the far side. As they hit the floor, Xavier glimpsed Cat peeling away from the post, the ropes falling away. Xavier flipped Two Michael on his back, braced his knees on either side of his hips, and just pummeled away.
“Xavier, he’s coming!” shouted Cat.
Over his shoulder, Xavier saw One Michael had recovered from the kick and was rushing around the bed.
One Michael threw a brilliant punch to the side of Xavier’s head, which sent a shock of sickening, swimming lights across his vision. Xavier sagged then immediately drew himself up. There was no way he was going down from a sucker punch from
Michael
.
Two Michael was weakening under Xavier’s fists. Blood poured from his nose and several cuts around his face, and he had no leverage with his legs, since Xavier still had them clamped between his. Two Michael’s arms had turned into useless spaghetti tools of defense, things that Xavier could easily get past.
One Michael jumped on Xavier’s back and threw an arm around Xavier’s windpipe. Tightening, crushing. Xavier reached back with one long arm, grabbed One Michael’s hair and pulled hard. The other arm pressed Two Michael into the floor. Xavier threw back an elbow, landing in One Michael’s gut with an
oof
, but his attacker held on. Xavier chucked his head back, knocking skull to nose. Still, Michael held on. Black spots swam at his periphery, but Xavier had to try one more thing. He rocked forward, intending to throw One Michael off balance, maybe to the side. Such little strength left in
his muscles, though, and so few pockets of air left for him to grasp.
This
was
how he would go down. He knew that now. From a stranglehold. At least he’d beaten the shit out of Two Michael. At least one was down for the count. At least he’d tried to get Cat free.
Then One Michael gave a strangled, wet cry and went limp across Xavier’s back. A gush of hot liquid spread over his shoulders. The arms around Xavier’s neck slackened and he clawed for breath. Energy surged back into him and he heaved himself to his feet, throwing One Michael off him. There was no resistance. One Michael slid off Xavier’s back, falling to the carpet in a tangle of limp limbs and blood.