Authors: Christine Warren
“But there was no reason for you to pay attention to me,” she continued. “I didn’t follow you from place to place, just occasionally popped up where you were, noted the time, and left. I wasn’t stupid enough to think you wouldn’t have noticed if I had been tailing you.”
“All right, I’ll set that aside. For the moment.” He eyed her pointedly. “I still want to know who hired you and what they want.”
“I can’t tell you what they want.” She must have seen his mouth open to protest, because she quickly cut him off. “I’m just the messenger. I don’t know the text of the message, and I imagine that if they had wanted me to know about it, they wouldn’t have given it to me in a sealed envelope. You’ll have to read it yourself, and if that’s not good enough, I guess you’ll just have to go and ask them what they want.”
He snarled. “And just who are they?”
She drew a deep breath, blew it out, and glared at him. “The Witches’ Council.”
The Witches’ Council?
Rafe frowned and pulled back another inch. He’d never even heard of a council of witches. Oh, he knew there were witches in the world, and that obviously meant that some of them lived in Manhattan, but he hadn’t known they were organized. Of course, as far as he knew, the last diplomatic contact between a witch and the Others in New York had happened in 1627, at the end of a long and protracted dispute over territory and visibility to the humans. Given that fact, Rafe being in the dark about the current magic users’ situation wasn’t that surprising. Of course, with the distraction presented by the very attractive and very sweet-smelling Tess, he thought that just remembering the whole 1627 thing was pretty damned impressive.
He looked down at said distraction and flexed his hands around her wrists, not so much squeezing as kneading the captive limbs. “So you’re a witch who was hired by a Witches’ Council to follow me and confront me in a dark alley, but you don’t know what they want with me?”
“Like I said, they didn’t see fit to share any of the details.”
Rafe gave in to temptation long enough to lean in close and taste her skin again. Her fear was fading, making her sweeter, and her irritation increasing, making her hotter. Damn, he could make a meal of her. If his curiosity would leave him in peace.
“Would you care to hazard a guess?”
“What, are we playing twenty questions now?”
He had to stifle the urge to grin at her expression. Somehow the narrowed eyes, twisted lips, and crinkled nose looked less than threatening on her. The curls—dark gold limned in silver in the faint light—and those big blue eyes just spoiled the effect. He schooled his expression into a feral mask and scraped his teeth delicately along her jawline.
“Not yet,” he purred, “but we could. I could ask you what you taste like, what you look like spread out on silk sheets, how much it would take to make you beg me to touch you…” He lapped at the sensitive skin beneath her chin. “Do you want to play that game with me, sweet Tess?”
He heard the desire as well as the defiance in her snort. “What part of this conversation has been about what I want?”
He chuckled. “Why don’t you tell me what you want, sweet Tess.” He paused to inhale deeply, catching the ripeness of her scent. “Or better still, I can tell you what you want…”
She shivered in his arms, and the telltale motion made him smile. His little witch was just as affected by him as he was by her. That offered some interesting possibilities.
“I have another idea,” she said, and her voice sounded strained. “How about I just give you the bloody message, you let me go, and we both pretend this never happened?”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Tess. I think we have much too much to talk about for that to happen. No, I think you should come with me.”
He pulled her wrists down in front of her and tugged her away from the wall and toward the street beyond the alley. He managed to move her about seven feet before the surprise wore off and she dug in her heels.
“Wait. Where are we going?”
“To the building I just left. A friend of mine lives there. He’d be happy to provide us with someplace to discuss this message of yours where it’s a bit more comfortable. And better lit.”
She tugged at her hands and refused to budge. “You’re going to take me to Vircolac?”
“So now you know about the club as well?”
“I was waiting for you outside it a few minutes ago, wasn’t I?”
“It’s not supposed to be common knowledge.”
“It isn’t. That’s why I’m surprised you’d think of taking me there. I thought humans were barred from ever setting foot inside.”
He smiled as he remembered Missy Winters’s opinion of that particular decree. “The rules have been … relaxed a bit recently.”
“I don’t care. I’m not taking any more chances tonight. If you want to keep talking to me, you can keep talking to me in the alley. I’m perfectly comfortable here.”
He turned back to her and raised an eyebrow. “But I am not,” he purred. “And unless you intend to make me more comfortable—which, I feel I should warn you, would involve taking off all your clothes and lying down beneath me for three or four hours—I suggest you come with me to the club.”
She leaped for the opposite sidewalk with such speed, she almost ended up dragging him along behind her.
In the darkness, Rafe laughed and wondered how long it would take him to change her mind about the appeal of that particular manner of getting comfortable.
Three
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Tess Menzies. I found her lying in wait for me outside the club.”
“Outside
my
club? And security didn’t see her?”
“They must not have.” Rafe shrugged, handed Tess a mug of steaming coffee, and turned away from her as if she didn’t exist. She glared at his back. “Maybe they want to be a little more careful in the future.”
“Maybe they want to look for new jobs.”
The man who growled that threat was none other than Graham Winters himself, the werewolf owner of Vircolac and supposedly one of Rafe De Santos’s closest friends. Tess watched the byplay between the two men over the rim of her coffee cup.
“In their defense,” Rafe conceded, “it’s not like she is just some random human. She is a witch, and apparently one who has been spying on me for several days without me noticing, so we cannot exactly call her easy to spot.”
“A witch? What the hell does a witch want with one of us?”
“Damned if I know. She said she had some sort of message to deliver to me. From the Witches’ Council.”
“They have a council?”
“So she says.”
Graham growled something Tess didn’t catch, and Rafe laughed.
Scowling, Tess set aside her coffee cup and crossed her arms over her chest. “You know, she also has ears, a mouth, and a fully functional brain. You might want to try talking to me, instead of talking about me as if I weren’t even in the room.”
Rafe turned to her and raised an eyebrow. “You did not seem so willing to talk to me when we were outside a few minutes ago.”
“You had me pinned to the wall like Torquemada with PMS. I was supposed to want to tell you my life story?”
Graham quickly covered a burst of laughter behind a deep cough. Tess and Rafe both turned to glare at him.
“Sorry,” the wolf grinned, unrepentant. “Say, what do you think about checking out this note and seeing what all the fuss is about? I mean, it is almost four in the morning, so I’m guessing that whatever it is this Witches’ Council wanted to talk to you about, Rafe, it’s got to be fairly important, right?”
Rafe growled something that sounded remarkably similar to what Graham had growled about his security people a few minutes ago and stalked back to Tess’s chair. He held out his hand. “Give me the message.”
She didn’t know how it happened, but all of a sudden she found herself looking from his hand to his face and back again while the devil prodded her tongue to make it do evil things. “Say please.”
Graham practically choked to death, but Rafe just closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and said, “Please,” through tightly clenched teeth.
Tess pursed her lips, reached into the pocket of her black denim jacket, and pulled out a slightly crinkled white envelope. She handed it to him with a haughty sniff.
“Thank you,” he bit out.
“You’re welcome.”
Tess watched as he ripped the envelope open and pulled out a single sheet of white paper with her grandfather’s seal at the top and the familiar, regimented handwriting marching across the page. She wasn’t close enough to read the text, and when Rafe turned away, beginning to pace as he read, she couldn’t see the letter at all. But that didn’t matter. She already knew what it said.
Not because she’d read the actual text of the letter; she hadn’t been lying—about that, at least—but because she had eavesdropped on her grandfather when he and some fellow council members had composed it. Still, she kept quiet while Rafe read.
“They want to meet with the Council,” he finally said, raising his head and handing the letter to Graham. “With me, they say. I am not sure if my name is simply there because I am current head of the Council, or because they have some need to speak with me in particular. Damn Dmitri, anyway.”
Graham grinned and shook his head. “Now, now. It’s not Misha’s fault he has better things to do these days than occupy that Council seat.”
“That does not mean I cannot blame him. It makes me feel good to blame him.”
Tess watched their conversation with a small frown. She didn’t quite know what they were talking about, and she hated feeling left in the dark. “Who are Dmitri and Misha?”
“They’re the same person. A friend of ours.” Rafe dismissed the question casually and turned to face her, crossing his arms over his chest. “But I think it is still my turn to ask the questions, Tess. Tell me why this council wants to talk to me.”
She shrugged, growing wary again. “I don’t know. They didn’t explain anything to me. They just asked me to deliver the message.”
“Yes, and that is what puzzles me at the moment. Why you? If Graham or I were going to deliver a message to someone we did not know and did not trust, but whom we believed might pose a threat to our basic safety, I doubt either of us would choose someone like you to deliver it.”
She scowled. “Why not? Because I’m not some sort of trained spy who would have been able to follow you all the way to the pearly gates without being spotted?”
Rafe shook his head, his lips quirking. “No, because you are small, soft, female, and much too appealing and vulnerable to have been sent to wait outside in the streets of Manhattan alone at three in the morning.”
She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t even midnight when I started, and for gods’ sakes, I’m a witch. It’s not like I’m the world’s easiest prey for muggers.”
“I didn’t seem to have any trouble with you.”
“You weren’t trying to mug me.”
“I should sincerely hope not.”
The last comment came from the door of the large study where the three of them had been talking, announcing the arrival of a petite blond woman with big brown eyes and a pretty, gentle face. She wore a long, man’s flannel robe with the sleeves rolled up to expose her hands and the hem dragging the floor. Tess thought she saw bunny-shaped slippers peeking out from underneath the plaid fabric as the woman stepped into the room.
She looked from Tess to Rafe to Graham and back to Tess, then smiled a sweet smile that perfectly suited her face and all but radiated kindness. “I’m Missy Winters. I didn’t know we had visitors, or I might have stopped to get dressed before seeing what had become of my suspiciously disappearing husband.”
Graham crossed the room, a scowl on his face and a blanket he’d grabbed off the back of the comfortable-looking leather sofa in his hands. “You should have gotten dressed anyway.” He flicked the blanket open and wrapped it around his wife. “Rafe, close your eyes.”
Tess watched while Missy rolled her eyes at her husband and playfully pushed him away. The woman settled next to Tess on the matching leather love seat and offered her the blanket instead.
“Ignore my husband,” Missy said. “He’s a man, and a Lupine, and the pack Alpha, which means he’s slightly insane. I, on the other hand, am female, and human, and therefore very happy to meet you and find out what brings you here at this time of night.”
Bemused, Tess found herself smiling back at the werewolf’s endearing wife. “Actually, I’m here because of Rafe. I had a message to deliver to him, but instead of taking it and letting me go, he decided to kidnap me and ask me ridiculous questions that I already told him I can’t answer.”
Missy grinned. “Now, that sounds like something either one of them would probably think was a really good idea. That’s why we women have to function as the voices of reason in the world. So, have you already delivered your message?”
Tess nodded, her smile broadening.
“And he’s received it, read it, and comprehended it as well as the male mind will allow?”
Tess nodded again.
“Well, then, I’d say your work here is done.” Missy shot the men a pointed glance. “Would you like me to call you a cab? Or you’re welcome to spend the night. We’ve got loads of room, and I’d love to get to know you better tomorrow when we’re both more awake.”
Tess grinned. “A cab would be great. I’ve got to go to the other end of the city, so I’d really appreciate the lift.”
Rafe growled and crossed the room in four long strides until he stood directly in front of the couch and glared down at her. “I am not done with you yet. You will leave when I say you can leave.”
Missy rolled her eyes and stood. “Oh, enough with the King of the Jungle routine, Rafael. It’s late and there’s no reason to keep the poor girl awake all night while you try to decipher the mysterious code of plain English I’m assuming her message was written in. Let her go. If you have more questions, you can always ask her tomorrow.”
He shook his head. “No. This is not your business, Missy. This is a matter for the Council to discuss.”
Missy shook her head right back. “The last time I checked, Mr. Lay-Down-the-Law, the Council had thirteen members, not two. So if it’s a Council matter, you obviously can’t make any decisions about it until you speak to the entire Council. And since that meeting supposedly ended at two, you’re not going to be doing that tonight. I’m sure the rest of the Council is already home in bed by now.”