He strolled in and closed the door behind him.
“That’s a pretty dress.”
“I’ll scream.”
“Please do, it will save me the trip.”
The windowpane iced the tips of my fingers.
“So,” he said, tapping the knife in the palm of his hand, “why the fuck didn’t you go downstairs like a good Mage?”
“I don’t like doing what I’m told.”
His black eyes lashed me with his disgust. I hadn’t succumbed to his magic and he couldn’t figure out why.
“I’ll drop this knife in your chest and find out,” he said, twirling it in his fingers. “Your friends are busy checking surveillance footage from what I can hear.” He tapped the heavy blade against his lower teeth. “Head or chest? Head or chest,” he contemplated.
“You could always stick it up your ass until you decide.”
“Going somewhere?”
The window slid up and a gust of wind blew in with the drapery. Christian swung in the room and dropped his heavy shoes to the floor.
“Jaysus. I thought you’d never open the window,” he grumbled as he approached the Vampire.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
Christian turned to me and shrugged. “Making myself useful?”
“Why didn’t you just break the window?”
“I didn’t want to get billed for the glass. Novis would do it, too. Shall we continue this conversation later?”
A fight erupted between the Vampires faster than I could track, and I witnessed the raw power that made them feared. Christian threw the other Vamp against the wall and pieces of it broke away. I looked in horror at the handle of the dagger protruding from Christian’s side, but he continued to fight.
The door swung open and hit the wall. Novis and Justus absorbed the scene before they darted past the Vampires to dismantle the bed.
The Vampire threw Christian across the room and demolished a table. They fell to the floor on my left, hammering each other with raging fists.
The Vampire twisted the knife and Christian grimaced.
A small piece of wood that broke apart from the table sat at my feet and I held it high. With a hard thrust, I drove it into the intruder’s neck.
“Remind me never to piss you off,” Christian muttered as he tossed the body off him. He pulled the knife out of his side and cleaned the blade on the Vampire’s shirt. “Do me a favor, Justus, and don’t ever lock that woman in a basement.”
“How did he get in?” Justus wiped the sweat off his brow.
While Christian patted down the Vampire and spoke with Justus, I drifted into the hall and stood at the entrance to the bathroom. When the light flipped on, there was nothing out of the ordinary to see.
“Is this where you found him?” Novis asked.
“Yeah. And you can bet he wasn’t using the facilities.”
“None of the windows are broken and the alarms are still intact. I wonder how he managed to get inside,” he pondered.
I gently pushed the cold, rectangle handle on the toilet. A whirlpool of water drained to the bottom and swirled the air—revitalizing the floral bouquet of rose perfume.
“Cheri.”
Chapter 26
Justus hauled the Vampire down to the basement with Christian
. My Ghuardian was not a man to mess around with, so I knew the interrogation wasn’t going to be pretty.
Novis looked incredibly embarrassed. “Simon, please escort them home. Ladies, I apologize for the unflattering turn of events.” He eased into a high chair in the lounge, watching the guests leave as Talia chewed off Simon’s head in another language.
“Cheri, sit,” Novis said in a hard voice.
Apprehensively, she complied, tucking in her white dress.
“I’m offering you one opportunity to clear your conscience, young Mage. Confess how the Vampire got in the house and I will be lenient with your punishment.”
I cringed when Novis’s face hardened with anger. Adam had crossed the line of respect by speaking in a derogatory manner to his Creator in front of others. I slipped on occasion with Justus, but maybe he was more forgiving about it because he was a Ghuardian and not my maker. Adam could hardly meet his gaze; but then, Adam hardly looked anyone in the eye anymore.
Novis turned his blue eyes back to Cheri. “I will only ask you once more.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied in a monotone voice.
Novis leaned back in his chair with smooth satisfaction on his face. “Now that I know you will openly lie to me, I will have no trouble removing you from my home. Effective this evening, you will be without the protection of an elder. This is your own doing and quite regretful as you could have chosen to come clean and live an honorable life.”
“Novis, think of what you’re doing,” Adam urged. “Give her a chance to speak. Your questions are vague and she may not know what you’re—”
“She knows,” I interrupted. Adam’s brown eyes burned me like fire and I winced.
The front door swung open and Logan filled the doorway. He took in a breath, attempting to uncover all the complicated layers of mixed emotions in the room. His jacket was gone and the white shirt was torn. In five easy strides, he crossed the room and was at my side.
“Are you hurt?”
“I found a Vampire hiding upstairs who tried to put a spell on me. He was armed with a stunner and they took him downstairs to torture him for a while.”
Words I never thought I’d hear myself saying.
Logan growled inaudibly—the vibration rippled across my back when he pressed himself close.
“Cheri, what I’d really like to know is
how
did you get him inside?” Novis was blindsided by his extreme security measures being no match for one slip of a woman.
“Call Christian up here to ask her,” I suggested.
Her eyes widened at the threat.
On cue, the basement door swung open. “We may need to borrow your fire pit later, Novis,” Christian said in a jovial tone. “Someone help Justus get some answers from the fang while I work my magic on the damsel in distress.”
Logan moved straight through the room like a match racing along sandpaper on the verge of igniting. The basement door slammed behind him and I shuddered.
Christian lifted a footstool and swung it around in front of Cheri. He took a seat and didn’t seem to take notice that Adam was sharpening his light in vain as his fingers flexed.
“Let Christian question her,” I said. Adam was reaching to take her hand and he glared at me. In that moment, he knew that I was the one leading the witch-hunt. “I’m not doing this to hurt you, Adam. But you need to see that she’s lying to you and to everyone.”
Her entire story was a ruse. During captivity, Nero broke her will to resist. Cheri was weak in spirit, so he left her behind for a reason. After the raid, Nero got in touch and offered her a substantial amount of money to work as a spy. She helped plan the explosion by exposing the security weaknesses and left the house just in time to avoid any danger. The attack was a statement of protest against the Mageri. When Nero found out that Novis had taken us in, it pissed him off and he sent in a Vampire assassin.
Adam struggled with hearing the truth. Especially the part where she kept a guard distracted with a handjob while the Vampire slipped through the security checkpoint.
One soon-to-be-fired guard
.
The Vampire had already been hiding upstairs before anyone arrived. She warned the Vampire to remain quiet in the bathroom because Christian was invited. No one would have suspected that an assassin was in the house. So she created a diversion.
Circuit breakers? That’s exactly what Cheri was. She placed her finger over a socket and reversed the electricity flow until it puffed out like a flame. That was a rare gift. She also confessed to meeting up with a couple of Nero’s contacts in the previous weeks to relay information. Cheri mentioned Adam getting into a fight and jeopardizing her relationship with Nero. Adam gave a barely perceptible nod as if he understood something. Novis looked concerned, but after a few more questions, Adam was cleared of any involvement.
That bitch lied to me.
When Christian broke eye contact, she sprang to her feet and Adam caught her hand.
Cheri’s lips peeled back into a snarl and she jerked her arm away. “Let go of me, you
freak
!”
Adam’s neck turned a deep shade of blush. When his square jaw slackened and he angled away—I lost it.
Cheri moved gracefully in my direction and I slapped her so hard that the sting radiated up my wrist. She cupped her face in shock and flashed out the door. Novis made a call to the guards to detain her and it seemed that once again, incarceration would be in her future.
Adam’s energy shifted and it scraped against my skin like an abrasive wire brush.
“Adam, wait. I didn’t do this on purpose.”
The same man who once held a warm tenderness in his eyes when he looked at me now held nothing but resentment. I had taken something away from him—hope that a good woman could love him for who he was.
“We’re
done
,” he said, cutting the air with his hand.
That short sentence demolished me. Adam left me torn in a million pieces by my own guilt. I may have had reservations about Cheri, but it was great to see him lavish his affections on another woman. From his perspective, I was out to sabotage his happiness. He stormed out of the room in one direction and I went the other.
“I hope you aren’t crying; there’s nothing duller than a woman who snivels all the time.”
“Were you socialized as a child?”
Christian leaned against the tree, looking as relaxed as a cat in the midday sun. “You suspected her before tonight?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Something she said rubbed me the wrong way.”
He smirked. “Rub a cat the wrong way and the claws come out.”
“Can I be alone?”
“Now that hurts my feelings.”
The air between us stilled and an owl hooted in the distance. Christian peeled away a plastic wrapper from a butterscotch candy and tucked it inside his cheek. He wadded the wrapper into a tight ball and stuffed it in his pocket.
“Why didn’t you eat dinner?”
“Not hungry,” he replied.
“Are they spiked?” I learned firsthand that Sensors could spike candy with samples of emotions.
His black eyes studied me. “Remember I told you about the whole toilet experience we care to do without?”
“That’s a topic I could do without.”
“Suffice it to say our dinner the other night was lovely, but I won’t be eating pork chops again any time soon.”
I groaned in disgust.
“Novis wants us to meet with someone.” Christian spoke as if he plucked it from the news headlines.
“Why do you say that?”
He tapped his finger to his ear. “I can hear them arguing, but I’ve only half been listening.”
“So if I clap my hands really loud, that would hurt?”
“Afraid not. Amplified sounds are muted down; it’s an internal self-defense mechanism. Feel free to give me a standing ovation, although most women do it after and not before.”
“How did you get up to that window?” I looked up at the house and when I turned back to Christian, he was gone.
“Shadow walking, lass,” he yelled from above. Christian stood on the lower branch and in the blink of an eye, he moved like liquid around the tree.
“What the hell?”
“As long as there is a shadow devoid of light, we can move through it for short distances. We are creatures of the night only because we have an advantage in the dark, but like your power, it has limitations and not everyone seems to have mastered it. I heard the Vampire blabbing on with you in the room. Good thing you were on the dark side of the house. He should have kept quiet; now my shirt is ruined.”
“Don’t do me any favors next time.”
“Might I say that your social skills have been greatly exaggerated?”
“Not as exaggerated as your skills.”
***
“This is a stupid idea,” I complained.