Wrath: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 2 (24 page)

“On the bureau,” I said, pointing to the dresser top.

He retrieved it and tossed it to me. This time I caught it. “Keep it hidden, no matter what.”

I nodded and he left the room.

Hellion was gone for nearly an hour, during which time I tried first to read and later to watch TV. No dice. I couldn’t get involved in anything, my mind constantly wandering down to the parlor below. It was too nerve-wracking to sit and wait, so I put myself together and even toyed with a touch of makeup. I sat on the bed waiting for Hellion to return, turning the gold coin over and over in my hands. It felt like I should be making some ambiguous connection regarding the coin, but it was just out of my mental reach.

Hellion looked haggard when he finally returned to the room. “Mark’s showing them out now. I’ve been named a person of interest in the case and advised not to leave the city.”

I leapt up off the bed and went to him, leaving the coin on the bed. Wrapping my arms around him, I asked, “What do they have against you? Is there anything they’re claiming as evidence?”

“It’s all circumstantial. The worst of it is that I was seen at one crime scene with a woman who looked remarkably like the victim profile.” The irony wasn’t lost on me. I was the target, he was helping protect me, and now the mundanes were interested in him.

“Sounds like a Hollywood made-for-TV movie,” I teased, smoothing his lapels. He looked confused and I just shook my head. “Look, I’d like to ask you to do something for me.”

He nodded.

“I want to have you check the gold coin for anything resembling magic. Don’t you think it’s odd that they came to see you after you received it?”

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, walking to the closet. I heard a series of beeps and then a heavy lock give way. He came out of the closet holding the other gold coin Darius had given him at the circle. “Let me see both of them, love.”

I tossed him the other coin and he set them on the dresser. He took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and began mumbling something over the coins. A wisp of smoke came from each coin, and Hellion lifted his eyes to me. The blackness had spread so his irises were almost half again as large as a normal man’s. It set me back a bit, but I didn’t say anything.

“They’re sister coins,” he said. “They come from the same collection. Whatever has been done to them, I suspect they’re being used as a tracking mechanism, not unlike a LoJack you’d use on a car. This way the killer knows what information is in whose hands.”

“Clever,” I mumbled, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. “Hellion, what if this is the blue weyr’s responsibility? Aiden indicated they had magic available to them.”

Hellion brushed my cheek and I opened my eyes, watching him walk to the closet as he began to take his clothes off. “Sweetheart, I think they had Conor available to them. If that’s the case, he wasn’t capable of this level of magic. It will take me some time to sort out who’s responsible for this, but even if it was Conor, his active spells would have released when he was killed.”

“Ah. I see. We need to get the coins to another location then. Where do you think they would be safe?” I asked.

“I’ll send them with Amaly. I trust her completely to figure out what’s going on and to be discreet about everything.” He emerged from the closet for, hopefully, the last time tonight and was wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants and nothing else. I went to my knees on the bed and followed his movements around the room. His hair had dried and was a multitude of colors, waving past his shoulders in thick locks. He was lightly tanned all over and looked delicious in his pajamas.

“I think we’re going to have to start moving about as Tyr suggested,” he said, unaware I was watching him with such avid interest.

“That’s fine. We can leave in a little while,” I said softly. “Hellion?”

He turned to answer me and froze at the look on my face. “Maddy?”

I slid off the bed and walked toward him, peeling my T-shirt off and shimmying out of my underwear as I went. “Take me back to bed,” I suggested, running my hands up the planes of his stomach.

His muscles clenched and he rolled his shoulders forward. He slipped my arms up around his neck and kissed me slowly, gently, and with great care. “With great pleasure, my Madeleine.”

He was entirely right—it was a great pleasure.

We lay with arms and legs tangled together. He languidly ran a hand up and down my back, and I curled into his body. Small aftershocks of pleasure made me smile against his chest.

“Where would you like to go tonight since we’ve got to move about anyway?” he asked.

“Do you think we could go out to dinner?” I asked. “Like a… Never mind. We can go wherever you want.” I buried my face into his shoulder and enjoyed the warm smell of his skin.

“‘Like a’ what, love?” He turned me so I faced him, and he slid down so we were nose to nose. “Out with it, then.”

“A date,” I whispered, feeling somehow like I was both trivializing this intimate moment with talk of dinner and dates and disrespecting the dead girls by worrying about my stomach when there was work to do.

He kissed my forehead and stroked a hand down my side. “I think that sounds like a right fine idea. We need to be seen together outside the immediate area, so we’ll pop to the other side of London and go out to a nice meal and then spend the night…where? Where would you like to stay?” A look of pure delight overtook him and he said, “No, never mind. I’ve got it figured out, though it directly breaks the orders of the guarda. We’ll spend the night at a place special to me. Now go get your nicest clothes, and we’ll be off to Amaly’s place, then to dinner and later our night together.”

He looked so thrilled with his little planned surprise that I couldn’t help but respond to his enthusiasm. “Give me thirty minutes and I’m all yours.” Shocked at my casual statement, I turned away quickly, scampering out of bed before he could say anything. I heard him sigh as I shut the bathroom door behind me.

I emerged thirty minutes later in the only nice dress I’d brought with me—an above-the-knee little black silk wrap and black knee-high boots with a three-inch heel. I’d reapplied my makeup, and I felt beautiful when Hellion looked at me and said, “Screw going out, Maddy. Let’s stay right here.”

I did a little pirouette for him. “I take it you approve.”

“More than approve, love. I feel like a starving man who’s been given the keys to the kitchen. Lucky, lucky, lucky me.” He had changed to a black suit with a garnet-colored silk shirt. We’d look like a normal couple out for a night on the town if no one recognized Hellion or caught a glimpse of his black eyes. I guess the “if” was still part of the rub with me, just as it had always been with Bahlin. I hadn’t fully integrated into this world of “other” and I wasn’t sure if I ever would…or if I even wanted to.

Hellion moved toward me and held out an arm. “Let’s go out so we can come back in,” he said suggestively, sliding his free hand down my back and grasping my ass as he pulled me in close.

“Don’t mess up my lipstick,” I murmured, caught up in the passion in his eyes.

“I won’t,” he said softly, bending me backward and dipping his lips into my cleavage while he held me at an impossible angle. I shivered as he nuzzled my breasts. Hellion stood me back up and let me rearrange my clothes.

Hellion and I dematerialized and came back into being in a small but well-decorated living room with definite feminine touches here and there. The furniture was smaller and, while it was all solid and gender-neutral beige fabric, there were chintz pillows decorating the ends, stained glass lamps on the sofa table, and a beautiful oriental rug on the floor. The art on the walls was modern but held undeniably feminine attributes, as well.

“Amaly?” Hellion called out, turning to look around the room, never letting go of my hand.

“Hellion,” purred a voice from behind me. I released Hellion’s hand and turned to face a stunning blonde woman as she entered the room through a side door. Her timing was too impeccable to have been anything other than planned. She was wearing a caftan that did nothing to hide the shape of her curvaceous body or the fact she wasn’t wearing anything
but
the semi-transparent robe, the blues and greens and browns complementing her peaches-and-cream skin tone and light blue eyes. She held out a hand to me and I took it, feeling the now-familiar invasive push of power race up my arm. “You must be Madeleine, the infamous Niteclif,” she said, openly raking me with her eyes and giving me the once over as only another woman can do, taking in my short hair, high heels and everything in between.

“I am, though I strongly prefer to go by Maddy. And you’re Amaly?” I shook her hand firmly and refused to let her energy intimidate me when we touched.

“I am. Hellion, welcome. I’ve not seen you since the fight at Tarrek’s,” she said, laying a proprietary hand on his arm. I suddenly wanted to scratch her eyes out and lay her bloodied head out for the crows to pick over.
Yikes.

Hellion slid his arm around me, effectively dislodging Amaly’s hand. “Amaly, this is the Niteclif. I trust Mark relayed to you what we need?” he asked, all business.

“He did. I’ll be setting protective wards around my flat to prevent anyone tracing me. You’ll need to leave me a few hairs when you go so I may allow you to come and go as you please. I’m going to get to work on this immediately. I’ll also need a few drops of the Niteclif’s blood on the off chance the coins are tracers for her and her alone.” Amaly spoke in crisp, disgruntled tones, not at all pleased to have been displaced from Hellion’s side so easily, and by the man himself. He and I were going to have to talk about her.

“What are tracers exactly?” I asked.

“Remember the LoJack example I gave you earlier?” he asked, looking down at me and stroking his hand up and down my back. The glide of his rough hands over the silk of my dress sounded like a muted zipper being pulled down slowly, over and over.

The fine muscles in my back and shoulders shuddered. My eyes found his, and his hand stopped at my lower back. “I remember.” My voice sounded deeper, concupiscent. Hellion stared at me and his lips turned up in a half smile as if he knew what I was thinking. I looked away, suddenly hyperaware of the heat generated at the base of my spine and the warmth pooling between my legs, legs which felt as supportive as a stiff pudding parked under a truck.

“Then you’ll remember that it’s just a magical way of discussing a tracing system that’s been created for a specific being—in this case, you.” He turned into me and lowered his head, kissing my temple softly. I regretted my early admonishment to spare the lipstick.

A throat was cleared to my immediate right and I jumped, having forgotten entirely about Amaly. “Obviously you two need some private time. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll take my leave and encourage you to do the same.” Intentionally ignoring me, she inclined her head to Hellion as if she were royalty before stalking out of the room in a billow of fabric and attitude that nearly left the air crackling behind her.

“Oops.”

“Don’t mind her,” Hellion muttered, looking thoroughly disgusted, though whether it was at Amaly’s behavior or her interruption of a promising kiss I wasn’t sure. He leaned close and whispered, “She’s been sour since I rejected her advances in 1887.” My eyes were wide enough I could just see their white reflection in Hellion’s reflective black ones as he bent to give me a quick bus. “Amaly?” he called out. “I’m leaving the envelope with my hair on the countertop. I’ll have my driver, Stearns, come back with a blood sample for Maddy. Set your wards when we leave.” Turning back to me, he asked with total casualness, “Ready to go to dinner?”

I braced myself for the disconcerting dematerialization process but he just tucked my hand up under his arm.

“We’ll walk. Black & Bleu is a steakhouse just around the corner. Besides, if we
were
traced here, it will help to be seen leaving. Can you manage four blocks in those heels?” he asked, looking skeptically down at my boots.

I scoffed at the question. “Manage? Hell, for a real steak I can out-walk you in your
best
shoes. It’s part and parcel of being a woman, baby.” I sashayed out of the room, hoping like hell I was headed in the direction of the front door. Nothing ruins a good sashaying exit more than having to turn around and ask for directions.

Chapter Sixteen

Dinner was a lovely candlelight affair amid very chic diners. Modern art adorned the walls, and subdued laughter mixed with the clink of silverware in the smoky, charbroiled air. We sat holding hands, chatting quietly. It felt so much like a real date that I found myself relaxing enough to trace the toe of my boot along his leg and to flirt a little over the first glass of wine.

Hellion was insatiable in his desire to know everything about me, from likes and dislikes to passions and neutralities. He wanted to know about my childhood, and he was most curious about my parents. I found myself discussing them with great affection and fond memories colored only lightly with loss. It was a first for me since their deaths, to talk about them without experiencing debilitating grief, and I was profoundly grateful for that turning point.

I was equally curious about him, and found myself hugely relieved to find that I thoroughly enjoyed Hellion’s personality when we were removed from the stresses and realities of paranormal life. He was charming and highly intelligent, with an appreciation for the finer things life had to offer. When I asked him about his love of finance, he answered simply, “When you grow up in the shadow of gross poverty, wealth becomes your sun.” He’d had nothing as a child—no shoes, little food, rarely a roof over his head. Abandoned by his parents at the age of seven, he’d lived on the streets for two years before he’d been taken in by an old mage seeking an errand boy and, later, an apprentice. Hellion had proven himself a hard worker and quick learner, rapidly amassing levels of power that surpassed his teacher’s and, later, his teacher’s teacher. He’d followed his love of magic across Europe and parts of Asia, learning from every great master he could find, searching out old tomes and spell books, learning anywhere there was someone willing to teach. Arcane or modern for the times, it all interested him. He talked about the changes he’d seen in his long life, and the things he hoped to see in the future.