“Where are Ahmad and Giselle?” Antoine asked.
Margo winced at his annoyed tone. “Giselle is in the west wing, hunting for mice to serve Ahmad and his men. I think Ahmad got tired of waiting. He kept checking his watch. Finally he just stood up and left. That was about ten minutes ago. I think he went upstairs to his room.”
Antoine let out an annoyed breath. “I explained that it would be a few minutes, and he said he would wait. Margo, could you please go ask him to come down?”
It was obvious Antoine was growing angry, but it certainly wasn’t Margo’s fault. If anything, it was her own fault for keeping Antoine in the room to talk. She touched his arm, feeling the muscles under the cloth tense. “Why don’t we just go upstairs to talk to him? I don’t think where we meet is a big deal. Is it?”
He sighed and Tahira noticed that Margo smiled the tiniest bit. “No, I suppose it doesn’t matter. But Ahmad can be quite difficult. It’s generally best not to bow to his wishes too often. Still, time is of the essence, so you’re probably right. Come and let us defang the snake in his den.”
When they reached the top of the stairs, Antoine turned left. At the end of the hall, two men stood on either side of a closed door. As she and Antoine approached the door, the guards closed ranks, intentionally blocking their path. Both men reeked of the dusty, pungent smell of snakes. But these were not harmless rat snakes like Larry. They were vipers of some variety—hostile and deadly.
“The councilman is not taking visitors. You will leave now.” The tall, thin man with olive skin sneered as he said the words.
Antoine’s eyelids narrowed dangerously, but his words were civil, almost polite. “Ahmad and I have business to discuss that has already been arranged. Please step aside.” He moved forward, expecting them to move apart. They didn’t.
The shorter, stockier man with the slicked-back hair put out a hand and pushed Antoine back. “No one will enter until our esteemed master, leader of the snakes, instructs otherwise.”
Antoine frowned for a moment and clenched his hands into fists. But then one corner of his mouth turned up. “Are you quite certain that you would challenge the leader of the cats for this small thing? I would think you’d accumulated enough air time already this month.”
Tahira didn’t know what he meant, but was certain it was a threat. A flicker of something flowed through the eyes of the men, and the sharp ammonia scent of panic filled the air in a burst. But it was short-lived. Apparently they decided that he couldn’t live up to his words. The three men stared at each other, Antoine with a smile, and the two guards with growing defiance.
He placed an arm around Tahira’s shoulders and pulled her backward a bit. “You might wish to stand back, mon chat du feu.”
She backed up a pace and could only stare open-mouthed as the events unfolded almost too quickly to follow. She felt a flare of heat first, like walking too close to a bonfire. Then a buzzing filled her ears. Without warning, the guards leapt into the air, slammed through the door like a battering ram and flew upward until they disappeared from sight.
Antoine stalked into the room like a warrior king, past the door hanging from only one hinge and amid a clatter of loose change that rained down from above.
He turned when she didn’t immediately follow and held out his hand. “Shall we?”
She raised her brows and ducked her head as she went through the door, narrowly missing getting hit by a ring of keys. She stared up in amazement at the two guards, plastered motionless against the ceiling, glaring daggers down at them. Never in her life had she ever heard about any shifter having this sort of ability, and she realized that she was shaking just a bit.
A voice that was calm and filled with disdain echoed from the other side of the room. “Feeling a bit petulant today, are we?”
Tahira’s eyes followed the words, and she was surprised to see a youngish man seated on the couch near the far wall. He was sipping coffee from a china cup and had a shisha tobacco pipe bubbling nearby. The combination of scents was heady and covered any emotion scent the man might have. She knew many men in the village who smoked the water pipe that contained a concoction of loose tobacco leaves, apple molasses, and milk.
Antoine kept his body between her and the other man, but she could see his face. He wasn’t Turkish. His facial structure was wrong. It was narrower, more Egyptian. He was darkly handsome with large, expressive eyes, black hair that was combed back from his face, and a slim, narrow neck rising from a slender but muscled body. The eyes were narrowed in anger. As they stepped closer, his scent rose over the bubbling concoctions on the table. He was also a snake, but he smelled like a toxic cloud—a noxious rolling scent that reminded her of creosote plants in the desert. She knew without a doubt that he was far more deadly than the guards, and she had to fight her instinct to either attack him on sight or run for the door.
It was hard to equate the man with the scent. His appearance was of a well-to-do Arab businessman, looking at ease and comfortable in slacks and an open-necked white shirt.
Antoine’s voice was likewise calm and at ease. He spread his legs slightly and crossed his arms over his chest, keeping Tahira behind him. “We have an appointment, Ahmad.”
The man carefully placed his cup on the saucer and then leaned back into the cushions. He regarded them with an eerie calm. “No, we had an appointment forty-seven minutes ago. You are fully aware that I wait no more than fifteen minutes for anyone.”
Standing still while the power bleeding off both of the men boiled over her was the hardest thing Tahira had ever had to do.
Antoine didn’t budge. “You said you would wait. Time was not mentioned.”
While the words on both sides were polite, there was an underlying tension that made her skin crawl. They stared silently for long moments. Finally, Ahmad picked up his cup. “I take it this is the girl you spoke of? Come closer, child—into the light.”
Tahira felt herself straighten and let out a low growl. “I am not a child.” She took several steps around Antoine to where she was only a few feet from the coffee table. He might be a millennium old, and could probably wipe the floor with her, but that wasn’t the point.
Ahmad had raised the cup to his lips to drink and glanced at her over the rim. His eyes widened, and a shock of scent rose into the air. He sat up too quickly, causing coffee to splatter in his lap. With a vicious oath, he grabbed a small stack of paper napkins from the table and wiped the liquid from his pants. Tahira didn’t need animal hearing to note the amused chuckle from Antoine.
After a few seconds, Ahmad collected himself and looked from Tahira to Antoine with mingled surprise and annoyance. His gaze finally settled on Tahira. “It seems I’ve underestimated your skills at deception, Antoine. I was under the impression that the Hayalet was a mere schoolgirl.”
He stepped slowly around the table and circled her once. She stood very still, even though the magic that emanated from him was a hot, biting wave of power. It seared along her bare skin painfully and should have been able to set her gown ablaze. He was doing it intentionally, but he was not going to get the best of her this early on. Her breath was coming in small gasps just from his proximity when he stopped in front of her.
She steadied herself against the onslaught and looked into his eyes. “My name is Tahira Kuric—Ms. Kuric to you—and I am proud to be of the Hayalet Kabile.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “I see. May I say, Ms. Kuric, that you are most definitely not a schoolgirl. No, you are very much a woman,” Faster than she could react, he picked up her hand and pressed his lips to it.
If his presence was painful, his touch nearly stole a scream from her throat. His power flowed into her, burning in her veins like lava. She couldn’t move her hand, as though she’d grabbed a live wire. She felt her heart beating faster and her skin heat to burning. She would have dropped to her knees if Antoine hadn’t stepped forward just then and forcibly removed her hand from Ahmad’s.
“That’s enough, Ahmad.” Antoine’s voice was a rumble from deep in his chest. He pulled her backward with a hand on each arm, tight against his chest. “She is our guest, not prey to toy with.”
Ahmad studied Antoine for a long moment, then smiled broadly. “Oh, I wasn’t considering her prey, Antoine. Very much the opposite. But… perhaps another time.”
He backed up a few paces and dipped his head, while Antoine led Tahira to a chair. She nearly collapsed into it and struggled to control the feeling that her skin was trying to crawl off her body.
“However,” he said as he stepped around the table once more, “I did confirm what I wished to. I fed power into her, and she received it and remained alive. What I just did would have killed an ordinary were-animal. She is quite alive, albeit a bit… singed around the edges. Congratulations. You have indeed discovered one of the first power wells to exist in a thousand years or more.” He sat down on the couch one cushion from where he had spilled his coffee and poured another cup from an ornate pot. He waved his hand airily as an invitation to join him. But at the moment, hot fluid didn’t really interest her.
She shook her head, causing him to nod. “Wine then, perhaps?”
The wine had previously helped her calm down, but she was annoyed with him. “That would be fine. And in the future, please let me know when you’re going to try to cook me from the inside out. I didn’t enjoy it.” She narrowed her eyes. “If you try that again, I’ll be forced to hurt you.”
As Antoine sat down on the opposite chair, he winked at her and smiled just a bit. It made her feel better. Ahmad slid two glasses from the overhead rack and opened a decanter. As he poured the first glass, there was a splash and a clink. He picked up the glass and peered into it, extracting a key ring with a shake of his head. He pushed it to the side and removed a third glass. Apparently he was refusing to acknowledge what Antoine had done to his guards other than the initial comment.
After pouring the wine, he returned and handed them each a glass. Tahira was very careful to touch the part of the stem where his fingers weren’t, which brought a dark smile to his face.
“The problem with power wells,” he continued as though he had never stopped talking, “is that power drained is power lost. It is rumored that if a power well were to totally drain a Sazi—or, more precisely, any shapeshifter—that person would never regain his powers. If the person had a talent or gift, it would be lost.” He sat back down on the couch and took a sip of coffee.
Tahira’s brow furrowed. “So what are you saying? That I’m some sort of energy vampire?” The aching pound in her ears and fire still burning inside from his power made her fear rise and put a shaky edge on her words.
Ahmad leaned back, tapped a manicured fingernail on the rim of his cup, and put his heels on the table. After a moment of thinking, he replied. “I don’t believe that’s the case. From what I’ve gathered in the few references in print. There are books on the subject in Charles’s library if you wish to read them. It’s more that you are a container, a pitcher. You can be filled and then distribute what is inside. But you cannot seek out the power. Hence, a power well. If a water well is empty, it remains empty until the rains fill it.”
Tahira realized she was shaking her head as he spoke. “But that’s not what happened. The two times this has happened, it just… well, happened. Nobody, with the exception of you, has intentionally tried to give me power. I pulled it out of them.”
“What she says is true, Ahmad.” Antoine’s voice was calm, but she realized it was a lie. While his lack of scent was still frustrating, his body language gave him away. He was worried. “Neither time when my power bled into her was planned.”
Ahmad stared at them with amusement. When he spoke his voice was thick and oozing with sarcasm. “I would have thought that even an alpha of your… limited experience should understand the nature of our magic, Antoine.” Tahira saw Antoine’s eyes narrow in anger, but he didn’t reply to the dig.
“Think of our power as a fishing net. We can cast it out and snare things—” he glanced upward briefly with a slightly annoyed sound that made Antoine smile darkly, “—or we can draw it back inside ourselves. But always our power is. The size of the net we are given was determined at birth. A net sized for panfish won’t hold a flounder. A three-day Sazi can throw a net of magic at me, but I will barely feel it. But the magic that you and I naturally exude from our pores is cast without thought. It surrounds us, bleeds from us. It can be painful to other Sazi, and even humans feel it if we are not careful.”
As soon as he said the words, Tahira understood. She had thought she was feeling flushed because of the power Ahmad had fed into her. That was part of it, but she realized that she could feel several distinct lines of magic pressing on her, like water pooling on a sponge before it disappeared inside. One line was from Ahmad himself. His power was unique in the prickling, stinging sensation like black flies biting at her skin. Antoine was likewise bleeding power because of his exertion in holding the guards against the ceiling. While he made it look effortless, it wasn’t. The guards were not taking their imprisonment lightly. They were actively struggling against his power. Their efforts were making her muscles tight and her temples throb. She needed to get away from these people, run outside in the cold or swim downstairs again.
Ahmad stood and walked around the table. When he stopped in front of her, she forced her attention to his face. His eyes were twin bits of coal, glittering and hard. “But our Hayalet tiger is different. Her net is deeper and wider than any of ours. Her net doesn’t have to seek out fish. It merely has to exist, to remain motionless in place. If a fish happens to swim nearby, it will become snared—from the panfish to the marlin and beyond. And like fish, once our magic is netted inside her, we cannot free ourselves easily, and we might lose a fin or two in the process.”
Tahira made a half-snarling noise that reflected her edginess. “Will you please stop referring to me in the third person? I’m right here! I understand the analogy of the net and fish, I think. But every net has a limit. What happens if too many fish are force-fed into me?”