Burn, witch, burn.
Burn the whole damn lab to the ground.
Punish her. Then destroy her with fire. Got to be sure.
Get those two out of here. Then destroy everything. Can’t take any chances.
Got to be sure.
She came awake gasping for air, pulse pounding. Her nightgown was stuck to her back with perspiration. She was suffocating under the quilt. She had to breathe.
She sat up suddenly, shoved the covers aside, scrambled out of bed and leaped to her feet. For a couple of minutes she just stood there, trembling, trying to regain control.
She had known there would be nightmares. There always were when she came in contact with the sick psychic energy left by the freaks. She was used to living with the voices in her dreams for a few nights afterward.
But tonight there had been another voice interwoven with that of the freak, a dark voice from the Night of Fire and Tears. Get those two out of here. Then destroy everything.
She sank down on the side of the bed and looked at the clock. One-fifteen. She had stayed up until midnight, reading the file and learning just how notorious the Tallentyre name was within the highest circles of the Arcane Society. As far as the Master and the Council were concerned, she was the daughter of a man who had tried to create psychic vampires.
Screw them.
She did not hear the footsteps in the hall. The quiet knock on the door, when it came, made her jump. Edgy energy flickered through her. Briefly she considered pretending she had not heard the soft sound. But she knew him well enough after only a few hours to realize that he would not go away.
She went to the closet and took out the dark blue silk travel robe she had packed. She put it on and tied the sash around her waist. On the way to the door she ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back behind her ears.
She checked the peephole first. Zack stood in the hall. He was wearing the black leather jacket again but this time he had on only a black T-shirt underneath. The shadow of what would become his morning beard darkened his face. One hand was flattened against the doorjamb, just outside her narrow range of vision.
The sight of him had a very strange effect on her senses. All the unpleasant, nervy tension that had accompanied the nightmare seemed to convert into another kind of energy. Adrenaline made her shiver. Anticipation twisted inside her. She was aware of her pulse again but this time it was skittering with excitement.
She opened the door. The first thing she noticed was that Zack was barefoot. For some reason the sight of him standing there without any shoes on struck her as incredibly erotic. He had very nice, very strong feet. She had never noticed a man’s feet before.
With an effort she raised her gaze to his face.
“Hi,” she said, unable to think of anything more intelligent.
Zack regarded her with a knowing expression.
“How bad is it?” he asked, keeping his voice pitched to a low level that would not carry to the room across the hall.
No explanations were needed with him, she thought. A deep sense of longing swept through her. He understood as no one else ever could now that Vella was gone.
“Bad,” she said. “But I’ve been through worse. The girl was alive, after all.”
“Sure. But it’s still bad because you know what he intended to do. What he did in the past.”
“There is that,” she allowed. He didn’t know everything, she thought. He didn’t know that tonight there had been another voice in her dreams. “Why are you here?”
“Figured that, between reading the file and the bad dreams, you probably weren’t getting much sleep. I did some consulting work, myself, earlier today. A two-thousand-year-old dagger that had been used in human sacrifice.”
“Yuck.”
“Tell me about it.” His mouth kicked up a little and his eyes darkened with intimate mystery. “Think maybe we could both use a little distraction?”
She was suddenly a bit breathless again. Her pulse leaped. Energy crackled silently in the atmosphere.
Out of nowhere, common sense reared its boring head.
He knew she was attracted to him, knew she was vulnerable tonight. He planned to use the sexual energy that flared between them to manipulate her. If he thought she was that easy, he could damn well think again.
“What kind of distraction did you have in mind?” she asked, putting as much ice as possible into the question.
He took his hand off the doorjamb and showed her the deck of cards he was holding. “How about a little blackjack?”
Braced for a blatant seduction line, she was thrown off stride for a couple of seconds. She pulled herself together with an act of sheer willpower.
“You’re suggesting we play cards?” she asked, bewildered.
“Thought it would take your mind off other things.”
“I was going to turn on the television,” she said weakly.
“In my experience, that doesn’t work well. Too passive. You need something that makes you concentrate a little but not too much because you’re too edgy to do that.”
She pushed her initial suspicions aside. He wasn’t here for sex. He knew what she was going through tonight. What’s more, he was going through something very similar.
“You’ve been here and done this a few times yourself, haven’t you?” she asked.
“The dreams go with the territory for sensitives like you and me. When I’m on my own I usually pour myself a couple of glasses of scotch and play some solitaire.”
“I know an herbalist back in Oriana. He mixes up a special herbal tisane that I use. But I didn’t bring any with me.” She glanced hesitantly at the deck of cards in his hand. “I sometimes play solitaire, too.”
He didn’t say anything just stood there, waiting.
“Okay,” she said, feeling more reckless than she ever had in her entire life. “Let’s play some blackjack.”
He moved into the room. She closed the door. Abruptly they were enveloped in darkness. The sense of intimacy was almost overpowering.
She switched on the lamp that stood on the table near the window. In the warm glow the bed—just another piece of furniture earlier in the day—now loomed very large. She was uncomfortably aware of the tangled sheets and rumpled pillows.
Inviting him into her room had probably been a very big mistake but she could not bring herself to ask him to leave.
Zack walked casually across the room. He didn’t appear to notice the bed but she couldn’t seem to get her mind off it.
She seized the bedspread and yanked it up over the pillows. The maneuver did nothing to reduce the aura of sexual intimacy that pervaded the small space.
Zack flipped on the gas fire. Instead of sitting down at the table, he lowered himself to the carpet in front of the hearth and sat cross-legged. He shuffled the cards.
“Let’s make this interesting,” he said.
She held her breath. “How?”
“We’ll play for real money.” He removed his wallet out of his back pocket and took out some bills. “My stake is twenty bucks.”
So much for wondering if he was going to suggest a game of strip poker.
She went to the table, opened her purse and took out her wallet. She counted out twenty dollars in ones and fives. With the money clutched in her hand she turned back to him.
It dawned on her that, attired in her nightgown with only the knee-length robe for modesty, she could not assume a similar cross-legged position. After a few seconds of close thought, she sank down onto the carpet and folded her legs, mermaid-style, to one side. In that position the robe covered her in what she hoped was a decorous fashion.
Zack dealt the first cards, one each, facedown.
She peeked at her hole card. It was the queen of hearts.
Zack dealt the next two cards, one each, faceup. The jack of diamonds for her. His up card was a three.
“Hold,” she said. She shoved a one-dollar bill under the cards.
Zack sh
rugged and dealt himself a third card. They both looked at the red ten. He flipped over his hole card. Another ten.
“Busted,” he said
She smiled. “I’ve always been pretty good with cards.”
He looked amused. “Yeah, I can see that.”
He scooped up the cards and shuffled again.
She watched his hands, fascinated by the easy competence of the way he moved.
“Don’t you ever take that jacket off?” she asked.
Good grief, where had that come from? If he removed the jacket he would be down to just his T-shirt and pants.
He paused in mid-shuffle and gave her a considering look. After a moment he seemed to make up his mind about something. He put down the cards and peeled off the black leather jacket.
She stared, transfixed, at the gun in his shoulder holster.
“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “I see.”
He picked up the cards and went back to dealing.
Twenty minutes later she had won his twenty-dollar stake and another forty to boot. She realized she hadn’t been troubled by the freak’s voice since Zack had arrived at her door.
“You’re right,” she said, delighted. “This is working. All I can think about is winning all of your money.”
“You’re doing a pretty good job of that.”
She laughed. “You noticed, did you?”
“Good thing I put my room on my credit card.” He gave her a slow, dangerously knowing smile. “But in my own defense, I can tell you that my mind is not on blackjack tonight.”
The unmistakable heat in the words caught her completely off guard. He was watching her with a searing, undisguised sexual intensity that seemed to have come out of nowhere. A moment before he had been playing a friendly game of cards. Now he looked as if he wanted to strip her naked and take her right there on the carpet. No man had ever looked at her with that kind of heat.
Her initial suspicions had been correct. Zack had been very aware of the chemistry between them. He had been biding his time, letting her invite him into her space, putting her at ease. The blackjack game was a form of seduction. He’d used it to drive out the voice of the freak, leaving her open and vulnerable.
That knowledge ought to make her very wary, she told herself. And it did, it surely did. But it also increased the level of excitement shimmering through her.
“This is probably not a good idea,” she whispered.
His smile got a little more dangerous. Invisible energy pulsed in the air around them.
“Thought you were a gambler,” he said softly.
Not when it comes to this kind of thing, she tried to say. But for some reason she could not get the words out of her mouth. Her heart was beating very quickly now. Things inside her were threatening to melt.
Slowly, deliberately, he removed her glasses, reached up and put them on the table. Then he unfastened his holstered gun and set it aside.
He leaned toward her, giving her plenty of opportunity to avoid him. She did not even try to retreat. He caught hold of her and hauled her gently across the short space that separated them, scattering the cards.
Instead of informing him that she was not into one-night stands, she put her arms around his neck.
His mouth came down on hers, heavy, demanding a response. Her body gave it to him. The smoldering fire that had been burning inside her since she opened the door to him roared into a full-blown conflagration. She had never experienced anything like it, had never realized she was capable of such a raging response.
But what really made the blood run hot in her veins was the knowledge that Zack wanted her just as badly as she wanted him. Not like Bradley, she thought, elated. Zack wasn’t afraid of the voices. A glorious sense of triumph arced through her.
She pressed herself closer, kissing Zack with all the pent-up energy of a woman who has never before been able to abandon herself completely to her own sensual nature. She was vaguely aware of his hands on the sash of her robe. The garment vanished.
With a husky groan, Zack rolled onto his side, taking her with him. He reached up with one hand and dragged the spare blanket off the chest at the foot of the bed. He spread it out on the carpet with a quick snapping motion, as though he were throwing out a fishing net.
The next thing she knew she was on her back on the blanket, looking up at Zack. He levered himself into a sitting position. She watched, utterly enthralled, as he pulled the black T-shirt over his head and tossed it aside.
Firelight gleamed on his sleek shoulders. Filled with a profound sense of wonder and discovery, she reached out and touched the sinewy curve of his upper arm. He caught her hand in his and dropped a warm, damp kiss into her palm, making her fingers curl in reaction. Something curled deep inside her, too, something that ratcheted up the delicious tension several more degrees.
She circled his wrist with her fingers and tugged him down on top of her, needing to feel the weight and strength of him.
His low, soft laugh was intoxicating, empowering.
“I do like a woman who knows what she wants,” he said against her throat.
He slid one leg between her thighs and kissed her deeply. All her senses were ignited now, normal and paranormal. Impulsively she clung to him, savoring the erotic feel of his muscled back beneath her hands. Deliberately she dug her nails into his warm skin.
“Sweet hell.” He bit her ear very gently. “Got any idea what that’s doing to me?”
In a heartbeat she discovered a new, sexy, sultry side to her nature, a side she had never even dreamed existed.
“Tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me exactly what it does to you.”
“Makes me hot.” His voice had thickened noticeably in the past few minutes.
“Hot is good.” She drew her thumb down his strong spine. “What else?”
“Hard.” He nipped lightly at one nipple and let her feel his fierce erection pressing against the inside of her thigh. “Very, very hard.”
“Hard works, too.” She lifted her hips against his. “Go on.”
He raised his head and framed her face between his bent arms.
“You know, I’m not feeling real verbal at the moment,” he said. “I’m more into show than tell.”
She smiled slowly and gripped his shoulders. “Then, by all means, show me.”
“With pleasure.”
He reached down. She heard the scrape of belt leather and then the rasp of his zipper. He sat up again, just long enough to get rid of his pants and briefs. He took another few seconds to remove a small packet from the pocket of his pants, extract the condom inside and sheath himself in it.
He settled down beside her, pulling her close. When he moved his hand between her legs she lost her own ability to communicate verbally. Within minutes she was clutching at him, trying to wrap herself around him, trying to get him inside her before the exciting tension dissipated.
“Hurry.” She sounded desperate, even to her own ears. “Please. Hurry.”
“Not so fast.” He leaned over her, kissing her throat again, his hand still doing magical, tormenting things between her legs. “We’ve got all night.”
This was a fine time for him to be regaining his verbal skills. She seized him by the shoulders and tried to shake him to get his full attention. It was like trying to shake a massive boulder.
“You don’t understand,” she got out through clenched teeth. “I think I’m going to come.”
“Oh, yeah.” His eyes gleamed in the firelight. “I know you are.”
“You don’t get it,” she gasped. “I’ve never been able to do that with anyone before. Don’t mess this up, Jones, or I’ll never forgive you.”
“You’re in charge, babe.” He moved on top of her. “This time.”
The implied threat only heightened her anticipation.
“So close,” she gasped. “So close.”
At last he was easing himself into her, stretching her, and somehow still using his hand.
“All you have to do is hang on tight,” he whispered. “Real, real tight.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and tightened herself around his rigid length.
“That’s it,” he said. “Squeeze me like you’re never going to let me go.”
He began to move slowly in and out of her. She was vibrantly aware of the psychic energy flaring between them. It was like being caught up in the eerie, shifting aura of the northern lights. They were creating their very own aurora borealis right here in room number six of the Shelbyville B and B.
And then she was there, catching one of the glorious, pulsating waves of night light, riding it across a starry sky. She couldn’t breathe but it didn’t matter. She wanted to laugh, wanted to cry, wanted to sing. But all she could do was allow herself to be flung away into the darkness.
She was vaguely aware that she was pulling Zack with her. The muscles of his back were marble hard beneath her hands.
She heard his long, drawn-out growl of triumphant release. For a timeless moment he pulsed deep inside her.
When it was over he collapsed along the length of her, crushing her into the blanket.
He dragged himself reluctantly out of the luxurious state of relaxation that had overtaken him following the climax to end all climaxes and opened his eyes. Raine was lying on her side, facing him, one arm tucked under her head. In the fire-lit shadows her eyes were deeper and more mysterious than ever. She was watching him as if he were some new, intriguing creature, one she had never before encountered. He figured he was probably watching her with a similar expression.
“Damn,” he said, stretching his arms high overhead, “if I hadn’t believed in the existence of the paranormal before tonight, I’d sure as hell be a believer after that experience.”
She blinked, startled, and then she laughed, a light, sparkling laugh that made him want to hug her close. He did just that.
She was still smiling a short time later when he picked her up and carried her to the bed.
Thirteen
She came awake to the insistent ringing of the room phone. Without opening her eyes she reached out and groped for the receiver.