Breaking away would have been one thing, but waylaying Daisy and Sean made Vince the worst kind of rogue—out of control of his extreme powers. Control was everything. A mage couldn’t lose it or the consequences were dire.
“My partner…I guess he’s not really my partner.” She let out a breath and her shoulders hunched but she kept moving. “He liked what Vince had to say. You know, about banding together, to make us all stronger, to show the non-talents how powerful we are.”
“Vince was going to out us? Para-talents? And when you say partner, do you mean a husband, boyfriend, talent-partners?” Damn, he shouldn’t have asked that. Jealousy curled in his gut.
The fog around them turned brittle, thickening on the ground. He rolled his shoulders and the cloud dispersed around their feet.
“You do that?” She nodded toward the disappearing fog, but Griffin didn’t answer.
“You came here with them. Were you along on those plans, to expose our people?”
She shook her head and pushed her hair out of her face. Stopping, she turned to him. “I came with him. He was my partner—well, not yet, but we were planning it. But I wasn’t comfortable. Vince seemed to get more and more agitated. By the time I realized Neil wasn’t the same man anymore, they’d decided to take that woman, the aural mage. I hid.”
“That aural mage is my adopted niece, Daisy.”
“Your niece?” Astrid’s eyebrows went up before they slanted down. “I’m sorry if she got hurt. I hope not.”
“She’ll be okay.” At least she better. “I know of your family, in a political sense, but I don’t remember the particulars. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“No. It’s just me.” She glanced away.
“That may be a blessing.” The lines of her shoulders hitched up again and he guessed family might not be a topic she wanted to discuss. Had being here been a problem for her mother? From what he remembered, her mother was an uptight sort.
“Maybe,” she murmured.
“Ray can make me wish I were an only child. There was this one time I thought I’d lost the keys to my truck.” He grinned and glanced to her. She watched his mouth. That kept him talking. “Couldn’t go out on a landscaping job that day. I’d been working hard on that site for weeks. Turned my room upside down looking for them. And somehow the spares had disappeared too. I couldn’t imagine it. Turns out big brother had decided I wouldn’t remember my own birthday and thought I’d been working too hard. He stole my keys. Missed the last day before a big storm hit and I lost a few new plantings.”
“You’re a weather mage.” She cocked her head. “You could’ve held the storm back.”
“I don’t interfere with the normal weather. Just like you don’t syphon without reason, right?” Control over your talent was imperative. Using it for personal gain was giving in to weakness.
“I don’t syphon at all.”
“You’ve never used your powers?” A kernel of protectiveness joined the low-level buzz of lust he’d been ignoring. This woman was going to be trouble.
“Never needed to.”
“That’s a refreshing attitude. I feel too many para-talents overuse theirs.” He shrugged. “It cost me a few plants, but Ray threw me a nice party. I guess he has his uses after all. But no, I don’t use my talents just to stop a regular storm. How about you? Never once tempted to use yours?”
“No. I went to a quiet college and learned design. I make clothes. Not a profession where I run into many para-talents much less feel endangered enough to use my syphon abilities.”
“Design clothes?” He didn’t know what that would entail, but she had some creativeness in her, he bet.
“That’s what I do.”
A small bubble of quiet surrounded them and he felt comfortable with it. No need to fill it. She was like him, understanding the need to use powers carefully. They walked a few steps in that companionable way before the world around them interrupted.
“Hello, there,” Ray called from ahead.
As much as Griffin now wanted to ask more, ask more about her family, find out why she tensed, and definitely about her not-quite-partner, he didn’t. It’d been a pleasant few moments, but she wasn’t his partner. He’d wait for that woman. Until then, he was fine on his own. And a syphon, couldn’t get more off-limits than that.
Having sex with her would suck him dry and not in the enjoyable way.
Griffin waved toward Ray.
“That’s Ray, the key-hider. He’ll debrief you and find you a place to stay until we work this all out. CTF will take care of you. Find you somewhere safe.”
“Not you?” She tucked hair behind her ear and slowly lifted her gaze to his. Brown eyes halted him, rooted him to the spot and made him want to bend her over right there to take her until he shot his load and yeah, she’d sucked him dry.
He took a large gulp of air.
“No. Not me.” She was a syphon—so hands off for him it’d be funny if it weren’t so dangerous. It’d be best to get far away and fast.
She gave him a flash of a frown before she wiped her face free of expression.
Either she wanted to stay with him as much as he wanted to stay with her—which was pure insanity. Or, she was hiding something.
Astrid’s fingers tingled. The nearly undeniable urge to touch the weather mage thickened in her chest, pounded in her blood and rang in her ears. She either needed to lay hands on him or get away. Far away. But her legs were leaden.
For so many days, she’d been stuck in this camp. No wonder her body frizzled with energy. It couldn’t really be anything to do with this CTF mage. Not a Cinder, of all people. For months she’d acknowledged they were vigilantes that endangered the tenuous society of para-talents. How could one conversation with Griffin Cinder make her want to forget it all? It couldn’t. She just needed a good night’s sleep and food served at a dinner table, not picked at beside a campfire.
She ignored the other man who moved toward them and focused on the one inches from her still-tingling flesh. Dry throat protesting, she swallowed hard.
“Do you need some water, sugar?” Griffin. His name and picture had been in the file she’d studied, but in person, he vibrated with life and a charisma that made it practically impossible not to watch him and to soak him in. Giving off a vibe of stability, Griffin was muscular and broad with thick arms. She wanted to wrap her body around him in the worst way and climb him like a tree.
And the way he said
sugar
. All gruff and tender at the same time. It made her melt. It made her pussy pulse in a way that distracted her with thoughts of filling it. It seemed familiar, personal, calling to her heart in a way that was almost nostalgic, which made no sense.
That scared the hell out of her. She shouldn’t be lusting after the man she intended on bringing down. Maybe Griffin was messing with her head somehow. This wasn’t like her. She didn’t lust. Ever.
“Yes, please,” she croaked. Now he asked, as if he’d read her mind, she needed water. The thirst was overwhelming.
“Ray. This is Astrid, a syphon.”
She wrenched her attention from Griffin to the newcomer. Ray’s eyebrows rose to his hairline then he jerked a hand out, shoved Griffin to the side and barked at his brother. “Get the hell away from her.”
“Sure, Bro. Fetching the water, now.” Griffin shoved past Ray and kept walking.
Astrid stared at Griffin’s backside. Perfect. The jeans he wore cupped the most perfect ass.
“You stay far away from him.” Ray spoke low but the threat was obvious. Yes. The Cinders were dangerous.
“I will.” Homesickness washed over her. Neil needed to tell her what she should do. Things weren’t going as planned. She was supposed to feed them the lies, do what she had to and leave. Not lust after a storm mage. Clearing her throat of the forest musty taste, she managed, “Griffin said to tell you all about Vince.”
“That’s a start.”
Griffin strolled back toward them with a relaxed, confident stride. Mist rolled along the ground in front of his boots. Tendrils licked along her arms. She shivered.
“You’re cold. Let’s take this to the SUV.” Ray grabbed her arm and none too gently guided her toward a line of vehicles down the path from the campgrounds. He’d dared touch her, but she didn’t dare test pulling power from him. With many para-talents, she’d have to decide to exert her powers to drain them. She didn’t know how she’d react to all of them, so it was best to stay clear. Many weaker talents, and definitely all humans, she’d pull energy from—no matter how hard she tried to control her powers. Her mother had warned her of this all her life. Best not to be in contact with anyone beyond a casual touch.
Ray gave Griffin a wide berth, but she felt the weather mage’s presence as if he stroked down her belly to her clit. Air clogged in her chest. She leaned toward Griffin. Ray tightened his grip to an unbreakable but not painful hold and jerked her to attention. “If you try to draw from me—”
“I wouldn’t.” She shrugged but couldn’t dislodge him. Grinding her teeth, she willed herself to relax. Her intent was to stop this kind of high-handedness, but everything she’d heard and all she’d been told, he wouldn’t outright hurt her physically. And the only person who could harm her talents was their CTF syphon—who was nowhere about. Astrid relaxed her shoulders.
“If you do, I’ll sense it. And you’ll get a burn you’ll never stop feeling.” Ray glowered at her.
“You don’t mince words.”
“Not when it comes to the safety of my brother.” He scowled even more. “All the other rogues either ran or didn’t have more than a tinker’s power. Why did you stay?”
“I hid. I was scared.” It wasn’t a lie. Not at all, but it left out the truth.
“You need to tell us what you’re doing here.” Ray frowned at her and kept pulling her along. “But not here. Back at the truck where I’ve got backup.”
He practically dragged her the entire way. But she was fully in this mess and understood the visceral fear the talented had for a syphon. She could drain away their power either for a short time or forever.
The temptation to pull from Ray snuck up on her. A syphon forced the flow of atmospheric energy into the ground. With a fire mage, that could mean tunnels of fire beneath the ground, swells, outbursts. Flareups could spell disaster for either or both of them. So she pushed away the urge and practically ran to keep up.
She was the perfect example of why CTF wasn’t needed. Her powers were completely in her control, as all para-talents could do without the harmful interference of this group.
“You can’t drag her around like that,” Griffin insisted. His voice was low, gravelly, with an edge that made her attention zero in on him, as if when he spoke, she’d always pay attention to him, strain to listen, and linger to hear more.
“Why not?” Ray didn’t slow down, and she didn’t have a response ready. All she could do is try to keep her nerves from fraying.
“Because she’s Astrid Collins. Her family will want to come get her.”
“From Virginia? You’re Helen’s daughter?” Ray threw a brooding look over his shoulder as he stopped amid a cluster of vehicles that hadn’t been here earlier.
“Yes,” she murmured.
“We should take her back to the mansion, get her cleaned up and call her family.” Griffin’s calmness seemed to take soothe balm over of the urgency of his brother as the older Cinder nodded.
“I’d like to call my mother.” She didn’t have to fake the waver in that request. “And I need my things, at the camp site.”
“Which one is yours?”
“The blue tent with yellow accents. My backpack is all I need.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the camp. Griffin stood behind her, staring at her ass, and her breath caught. She blinked amid a loud and sudden rushing of her heartbeat pounding loudly in her head. It was too confusing to understand.
While she stood there, muddled, Ray asked a CTF member to gather her things and urged her forward again until they reached the vehicles.
Ray opened the door of a large black SUV and she didn’t hesitate to climb in. She was here to cause them harm, but everything she knew about them—and she knew quite a bit from her investigation—showed men who were a police force for their own community. Vigilantes, they took it upon themselves to rob para-talents of their powers. They had to be stopped.
But they claimed they held themselves to high ethical standards. She’d be safe with the Cinders. For now.
The back door of the SUV opened, the vehicle dipped and the scent of rain filled the cabin. She peered behind her from the corner of her eye. Griffin settled into the back seat, secured his seatbelt and crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, woman. Buckle up. Ray drives like an old lady, which is fine when no one else is on the road, but you take your life in your own hands.”
Hands shaking, she did as he said. Her hair fell into her face again. She almost didn’t recognize it, as she’d dyed her blonde as a disguise for this trip. The brown had looked good until now. It had to be a bird’s nest up there and it tangled when she pushed it behind her ear.
They rode in silence as she stared at her boots, ruined from the gook in the forest. They’d been a precious purchase and now she regretted wearing them out here.
For several moments, she kept her mind blank, but then her purpose couldn’t be ignored longer. She needed to find a way to get under their skins, get their secrets. And then put an end to their overstepping power. It was why she was here. But now it didn’t seem so straightforward. It’d been an easy plan on the surface but her entire body clenched tight, resistant. They’d take one look at her and know she was lying through her teeth if she couldn’t relax.