Getting Wilde (8 page)

“Or I could go tell Mercault he has a snitch and let him sniff it out.” I tilted my head, considering my options, while Armaeus gave a disgusted snort.
 

If magic was a two-sided coin, Jean-Claude Mercault was on the dark side of the toss, one of the grittier adherents of the practices of the occult, rumored to specialize in unique drug concoctions that assisted with demonic possession. He wasn’t yet involved with the trafficking of psychics, so he did have
some
standards, but still. He was one nasty customer. Which begged the question: “You mind telling me what this ‘leverage’ is that Mercault thought he had in getting the seal of Ceres? What’s so special about that thing, anyway?”
 

Armaeus’s mask of cool civility had slipped back into place. “In addition to the amount you intended to extort from Mercault, I will provide you with another fifty thousand euros. Payable to you—or directly to Father Jerome, as you wish.”
 

I thinned my lips, suddenly catching on. I was good at what I did, and I was used to being paid well. But fifty thousand dollars for a few hours’ work was not my standard day rate. It wasn’t even my night rate. “What’s the catch?”
 

Armaeus lifted a haughty brow. “There is no catch, Miss Wilde. If you take the job and return the reliquary to me within the next twenty-four hours, you will be paid handsomely. It is generous compensation for work quickly rendered, and, if I am not mistaken, timely payment is of the essence to you. I can have the money transferred to your account immediately upon delivery.” His smile turned a shade more predatory. “In addition, I have information on two of the young psychics you are seeking.”
 

A cold prickle iced my nerves, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “What information? And which two?”
 

Armaeus waved a lazy hand. “There is reason to believe two teenaged females of exceptional abilities have recently been transported to Las Vegas. Sisters, if my information is correct, from the Greek city of Kavala, who have been purchased as testing subjects for—”
 

“Sisters!” I straightened, my mind instantly ping-ponging back to my discussion with Father Jerome about the two girls who’d been taken weeks ago. “From Kavala. Where are they now, specifically? Who has them?” The rest of his words registered, and I frowned. “If they’re in Vegas, why haven’t you done anything about it?”
 

“The council’s role is not to dictate
how
magic is used.” Armaeus shrugged. “Merely that it remains in balance. Where there is light, there must also be dark.”
 

Anger flared within me. Not this again. “
That’s
what you call balance? Those girls were
abducted
, Armaeus. If they’ve been in Las Vegas for any length of time, they could already be dead. Or worse. You
know
that.”  
 

“Then it would appear you have urgent business in the city after all, Miss Wilde. And, additionally, the need for the funds and transportation I can provide you.” The Magician’s gaze flicked to mine, and I read nothing but calculation in them. “I will give you the young women’s
location and assist your efforts to extract them, once you’ve delivered my reliquary intact. And I will pay you well to help with their relocation. Do we have an agreement?”
 

I bit my tongue, pretending to consider the matter. Armaeus was certainly playing to all my weaknesses: greed, speed, and need. In the final analysis, I figured he’d get the better end of the deal, but still: my end was looking pretty good.
 

And, of course, the money wasn’t the most important part of this transaction anymore. If the Kavala twins
were
in Vegas, they wouldn’t last long. The practitioners of dark magic were not known for their restraint. The fact that the girls had been alive upon delivery to the city meant they weren’t just being harvested for some low-level ritual, at least, but that was cold comfort. They’d be used as tools somehow. Vessels or conduits, their psychic gifts strained beyond endurance, their minds and bodies eventually broken in the process. If I wanted to get to Vegas fast enough to make a difference, I had to accept the Magician’s offer.
 

“Fine,” I said, nodding to him. I held out my hand. “Now give me back my Tyet.”
 

Armaeus tossed the silver amulet to me. I caught it easily, feeling its cold reassurance in my hand. He hadn’t switched it out for another piece. The necklace was definitely mine, and it felt the same as it ever did. I slipped it over my neck.
 

“All right,” I said. “What else do I need to know about this little job of yours?”
 

The Magician’s expression grew a bit darker, right along with the ambient lighting. I glanced around as the lamps dimmed in the room, and my fingers twitched, my heart rate picking up.
 

“Knock it out, Armaeus. What else do I need to know?”
 

“You know everything you need to about the assignment in Rome.” Had Armaeus gotten closer? He
felt
closer. “But since you’ve replaced the Tyet, I confess there is something
I
have a
burning need to know. Namely, whether or not that amulet can truly perform the task for which you purchased it.”
 

“It’s doing fine.” I stepped back, knowing I needed to put distance between myself and Armaeus. It was warm in the sitting room now—too warm. Too close. The Tyet amulet lay against my chest like an oasis of ice, but around it, my skin was fairly blazing. “Did you do something to it?” I crossed to the wet bar and picked up a bottle of single malt scotch. Splashing some of it into a glass, I didn’t miss the fact that my hands were shaking.
 

Armaeus didn’t either.
 

I didn’t hear him move, but a breath later, he was at my back, his arms reaching around me. He took the bottle from my right hand and steadied my left on the glass, encasing me in a cage of sensual heat. His mouth grazed my neck as he leaned forward to pour the scotch, the scent of fire and cinnamon drifting around me, heightening every one of my senses. “Miss Wilde,” he murmured. “What precisely
were
you told the amulet could do?”
 

He let go, and I held the glass in both palms, willing it to stay steady as I raised it to my lips. Unfortunately, as the scorch of alcohol hit my tongue, Armaeus’s hands lifted up to rest on either side of my waist, pressing beneath my open jacket to the thin material of my shirt, his heat searing through the fabric. “Because it does not appear to stop me from doing this—” He slid his hands up the sides of my torso until his fingers drifted along the curve of my breasts. “Or this,” he breathed, bending his head down to draw his lips along my ear, the movement instantly reducing my brain cells to a quivering pulp.
 

“Armaeus,” I said warningly. Or at least I’d intended it as a warning. The soft sigh that came out of me sounded distressingly like an invitation, even to my ears.
 

“I think I like this amulet of yours,” the Magician said, the words vibrating against my neck. “I wonder if it will let me do
…
this
.” 
 

Armaeus’s body surrounded me suddenly, his hands reaching forward to take the full weight of my breasts in his palms. His whispered words were so quiet that only my subconscious heard them, and instantly the scene shifted in a slight but critically important way.
 

Namely, we were still in the sitting room, still standing in front of the large chest with its glittering crystal decanters, and Armaeus was still pressed up against me, his mouth at my neck, his fingers playing over my shivering skin.
 

Only now we were naked.
 

I glanced down, horrified and fascinated at once to see Armaeus’s bronzed fingers flat against the swell of my breasts, with nothing but the glinting silver Tyet remaining to adorn my skin. In some distant part of my brain, I knew all this was an illusion…
 

But it was a very
effective
illusion.
 

The Magician’s breath was hot, urgent, and his lips trailed in its wake, scorching a line of kisses over my completely bare shoulder.
 
 

“Armaeus.” The word was half-entreaty, half-order, and his chuckle sent vibrations chasing down my arms.
 

“It seems I the answer is yes,” he murmured.  He tightened his fingers into my soft skin, and they trembled against me. That more than anything else, the idea that Armaeus was somehow
affected
by touching me, somehow as frantic as I was every time our bodies connected, skin against skin, made my knees buckle slightly, the fraying edge of my control tearing further.
 

I closed my eyes against the sheer sensual assault. I couldn’t let myself give in to the swirl of doubts and need, the
want
that bubbled up inside me. My world worked because I stayed separate. Nobody got hurt, nobody died. I’d fallen in love once before, stopped paying attention as much as I should have, and that had ended with explosions and death. I was never going back to that girl, lost and alone, walking away from everything she’d ever known. I just—couldn’t.
 

I sagged forward to brace myself on his chest, muttering words I couldn’t fully process, not caring that my display of weakness suddenly turned Armaeus’s chuckle into a hard, dark laugh. Tugging me away from the bar, he didn’t stop until my back was up against the nearest wall. He pulled my hands high, flat against the cold surface, then leaned down close to me, his golden eyes searching mine with an intensity that called to something deep inside me. An intensity that beckoned to me so forcefully, it was almost a physical pain. It demanded what I couldn’t—wouldn’t give.
 

Not yet. Not now.  
 

“Armaeus—” I said again, but my words ended on a gasp as he pressed his body against mine, setting my blood on fire. The muscled planes of his legs braced themselves against my thighs with an achingly familiar intensity, as if we were born to this act. I tried to twist away from the contact, my actions feeble as need swamped me again and again, but Armaeus held me tight.
 

“I can feel your heat, Sara,” he murmured, and his words once again didn’t so much as brush against my ears as resonate inside my mind.
 

“We can’t
do
this, Armaeus,” I moaned. He’d been
there
, dammit. The first time we’d tried to make love. He’d been lying right next to me when I’d blacked out in the middle of, arguably, should have been the most incredible sexual experience of this lifetime or any other. And then my brain had deleted everything about that evening so forcefully from my memories that I could
still
almost hear that door slamming shut, warning me to
stay away
.  
 

Armaeus didn’t seem to care about any of that, not easing the insane torment his body was wreaking on me even slightly. Instead, he leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine, the movement so needed, so perfect that I couldn’t fight the whimper.
 

“We can do this,” he murmured. “We are doing this.” And the fire grew higher within me as he kissed me, hard and sure. Somewhere in the dim recesses of my brain, I realized that his hands were moving down my body, ripping something open as if he was undressing me, before he pressed my arms high above my head again. Though I’d already
felt
naked under the influence of his illusion, this was something different, something more. Now I really
was
exposed.
 

“Armaeus!” I flared back toward reality with a burst of cognition, partially breaking free of the spell he’d wrapped around me. Which was good, because that was about all that was wrapped around me anymore, my pants and boots now tossed to the side, my jacket gone, nothing but the my tank and amulet on my body. And my hands were—
 

“Hey!” I yanked my hands forward, but they remained high above me—cuffed to the wall in some sort of apparatus I sure as hell hadn’t seen before. “What in the—”
 

“Stop thinking, Sara,” Armaeus said. He stretched his body along the length of mine again, his fingers entwined in mine, his heavy arms flush against my forearms, my shoulders. He flattened himself against me, lifting me up with the force of his hips and chest, until I hung suspended against the wall, my breasts to his chest, my legs falling naturally around his hips. My
eyes almost crossed at the intimate contact, but he held steady, staring into my face, his own expression racked with torment and wonder and—
 

With a guttural growl, he stepped back from me, and oxygen rushed back into my lungs as I fell forward, my collapse stopped harshly by the clamps on my wrists. In front of me, Armaeus had dropped to his knees, and I realized my entire body was trembling violently as he grasped my hips, his lips drifting against my thigh. Panic shot through me with violent strength—both panic that he would keep going and panic that he would stop. My heart was pounding so loudly in my ears that it almost unhinged my brain from the explosions of sensation at my thighs, my belly, while Armaeus held me hard, his lips plundering my body as if he sought to brand me with his mouth, to claim me for all time.