Mortal Danger (The Immortal Game) (5 page)

“You didn’t have any trouble?” he asked.

“Not much. I know how to manage my parents.”

Barely.

“Good. This way.” He stepped off the main walk into an alley, just a narrow gap between two brick buildings. At the end, there was a green Dumpster and some cardboard boxes. If it wasn’t a bright, sunny morning, I’d be seriously freaked out and reconsidering my decision. A little voice whispered that none of this was real anyway, so I might as well enjoy the adventure, one of those super vivid dreams that amazed you when you finally awakened.

“Let’s get out of sight.” The heat of his fingers tangling with mine stole my voice.

I clung, hoping Kian took it for fear or anticipation. I’d die if he knew I just liked holding his hand.

He didn’t speak, but once we rounded the Dumpster, he ported us. I expected to land on the campus, but the world came back into focus inside a small, stylish cabin. If
Architectural Digest
ever sponsored a wilderness retreat, I suspect it would look like this. From the view out of the window, it was built on top of a mountain with a river rushing nearby, different from the precipice he’d taken me to first.

“Where are we?” I yanked my hand free and stumbled back a step.

“Relax. I need a quiet place to work on you. As soon as you’re satisfied, we’ll continue to the university.”

“Right.” He couldn’t change my face in a diner, even if it was company-owned. Whatever that meant. “But seriously, where are we?”

He lifted his shoulders in a shrug, sheepish. “My place in Colorado. Perk of the job. I can live wherever I want, even if I’m working in Boston.”

“Don’t you have an office?” I joked.

“I do, but…” He trailed off, regarding me intently.

Secretly I was glad he’d brought me home with him. A cubicle with fluorescent lights would quell my delusions that this could be more than business for him. So this must be standard procedure, and I shouldn’t get my hopes up. I would have loved to poke into the nooks and crannies of the immaculate rooms in hope of uncovering his secrets, but that would be rude, and he had a job to do.

He canted his head toward the couch, pulling on a pair of odd, sleek gloves with textured pads on each fingertip. “Make yourself comfortable. This might take a while.”

Yeah, he had a lot to fix. I hunched my shoulders in misery as I trudged over to the sofa. He sat down right next to me, his expression softening. God, yuck, I didn’t want him feeling sorry for me, even if he did know how I felt.

“Hey, it’s not your fault. And I meant it when I said you have a nice smile. More important, you’re a good person. I’m just going to make the outside line up with what you have going on up here.” He touched my neck, and soothing heat flooded through me.

Immediately, I felt calmer—and suspicious of that shift. “What did you do?”

“I used an electrical impulse to stimulate your hypothalamus, but I can’t make the kind of changes you’re asking for without a little pain. It’ll go smoother if you’re not already vibrating with tension.”

“How much pain are we talking about?” I pushed out a slow breath, bracing. “And why can’t you make it painless? Or knock me out?”

“Normally, a sedative would be administered, but I’m not an anesthesiologist. This procedure is low risk, but administering medication—well, I’m not doing that. You could be allergic, or it might not work on you the way it’s supposed to.”

When he put it that way, I saw his point. This was close enough to plastic surgery without a license for me to get scared. I breathed deep, wondering if I should back up. But it was too late; the hash mark had already formed atop my infinity symbol. In this deal, there were no do-overs or takebacks.

“I can handle it.”

“Let’s focus on what you want. How would you like to look?”

“You can make me resemble someone else?”

“Sure. But it’s best if I optimize you. People tend to assume minor cosmetic procedures over the summer, weight loss, gym membership. They’ll fill in the blanks as long as you don’t have a whole new face.”

“Then I’d love to be the best possible version of me.”

“Okay, let’s start with your eyes. I can change the color or brighten them, as well as correct your vision.”

“And people will think I got contacts or Lasik surgery.”

“Pretty much.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the color, is there?” It wasn’t like I spent any time staring at my own irises.

“No, they’re pretty, like the sun through topaz. You just can’t see them too well with your glasses on.”

Heat washed my cheeks. “You don’t have to say stuff like that.”

“You think you’re a troll, because the people at school made you feel that way, but you have good raw material. You’ll be a knockout when we’re finished—and without as much structural redesign as you think.”

“Then just do it.”

He arched a brow. “You don’t want to direct me?”

My shoulders squared, and I sucked in a sharp breath, trying to steady my nerves. Though I half suspected I was dreaming, it was terrifying to consider how much power I was giving him. “You’re the expert. Just go for the best version of me. I trust you.”

Sweetness and surprise flashed in his face. “People don’t, usually. I’m just a means to an end.”

“The genie in the bottle?”

He touched my cheek so lightly, as if it were eggshell porcelain. “Something like that.”

“Let’s get going,” I said, dropping my eyes.

“One final question … What’s your ideal body type?”

I’d never thought about it, mostly because I preferred to believe it didn’t matter what I looked like, at least it wouldn’t with people who cared about me. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder, right? So all my life, I had been holding out for the day somebody thought I was fine the way I was, but now I was sacrificing that potential for the sake of my plan. My stomach twisted with nerves.

“Slim hourglass, I guess. I always envied girls who look gorgeous in anything.”

With great tenderness, he set gloved hands on my face. The heat quickly built to unbearable levels, and soon I was choking back my screams. As he’d hinted, it was like surgery without anesthetic. Tears streamed from my eyes as he stroked shaping fingers down my cheekbones, along my jaws, over my lips and brow. When his thumbs smoothed across my lids, my vision winked out and I followed.

Much later, I awoke … and my clothes didn’t fit. My muscles burned with a low-grade heat, as if I had been training for a marathon. I lifted a slender, toned arm and marveled at it. Which was when I noticed I didn’t have on my glasses. And the world was crystal clear.

“Kian?”

I heard his footsteps on the stairs before I saw him. “How’re you feeling?”

“Not bad, considering. Is there a bathroom where I can—”

“Over here.” He bounded with an odd, nervous energy that I couldn’t interpret, until I realized he was
nervous
. He wanted me to approve of his work. “I left some things for you on the top of the hamper.”

Keeping my pants up required one hand pinching the waist. I minced toward the bathroom and shut the door with a quiet terror that I was crazy. Or dreaming.
You’re not. You were chosen.
With glowing exultation, I turned to the mirror to meet the new me.

My mouth dropped open.

I
did not
know the girl in the mirror. I mean, she had a few things in common with the person I had been, but it was like someone had removed most of my imperfections in Photoshop. With shaking fingers, I touched my cheekbones. So many minute changes and refinements. The best plastic surgeons couldn’t have done what Kian had with his fingertips. From my small, straight nose to my slightly fuller mouth to the piquant point of my chin, I was the best possible version of myself.

He hadn’t stopped at my face. Delicate color flared as I stared, imagining him shaping my body like modeling clay. He’d had no choice but to go all the way to third base to do the job right, and it figured I hadn’t been awake.
It’s just work for him,
I told myself.
Get over it.
My hair was still long, but the mousy brown had gone. Instead, it held a coppery tinge with streaks of gold and red, giving it a gorgeous luster. I shook my head experimentally and it bounced away from my throat in what seemed like a flirty move. Not that I
had
any moves.

I needed some.

Kian knocked on the bathroom door, sounding anxious. “You okay? If you don’t like how you look, I can tweak. It’ll hurt, of course, but—”

“Relax,” I said. “You give good makeover.”

“Thanks.”

“Let me get dressed, okay?”

“Sure.” His steps moved away.

I went to the neat pile of clothes on top of the tan wicker hamper. When I found underwear and bras at the bottom, I almost died of embarrassment. They were the cute kind I’d never worn. I chose a pair of white, pink, and black–striped boyshorts along with the matching bra, then shimmied into my new undies. I had no idea how I would face Kian, knowing he’d bought me underwear, but what the hell, he was so totally my Svengali, that maybe it didn’t matter. We were beyond all that. I heard him moving around, pacing it sounded like.

Wow, he’s really tense.

I faced my reflection. From the graceful curve of my shoulders to the flat, toned stomach, the mirror showed me a body I didn’t recognize and the change was startling, frightening even. Normal weight loss would’ve given me a chance to get used to being lighter by increments, but I had to get accustomed to this all at once. It would take me a while to assimilate my new shape. By societal standards, I definitely qualified as pretty, but it felt like I was looking at a stranger, one whose body I had snatched. Deliberately I turned away. There were a couple of pairs of jeans, one plain, the other spangled with rips and faded spots. Though I’d never worn anything so stylish, I pulled them out of the pile and checked the size.

“Right.” I huffed out a skeptical sigh.

Still, my old pants didn’t fit, so why not try? I eased them up over my hips, thighs, and then buttoned them. They fit skinny, but they fit.
No way.
Euphoria sparkled through me, a low-grade fizz in my veins as I rummaged through the tops. I chose a black baby-doll T-shirt with white Japanese characters and a pink dot in the middle of the design. This time I didn’t check the size before I pulled it on. Shifting, I assessed myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door.

Incredible.

Taking a deep breath, I popped the door open before I could lose my nerve. Kian stopped, arrested in his progress across the front room. His gaze swept me from head to toe, and then he offered an approving nod.

“Obviously I think you look amazing or I would’ve kept working. But it’s more important what
you
think.”

“Perfect. I wouldn’t have been able to say,
This is what I want,
but you knew.”

“I’m good at seeing the potential,” he said quietly. “You have any pain?”

“A little. Nothing dramatic.”

“There may be a little blood, nothing to worry about. It’s a result of the internal shifting I had to do.”

I froze. “
Blood?
Like … where?”

“I had some when I brushed my teeth afterward, sometimes. And … in the bathroom. You know.”

The toilet? Oh my God.
My parents would rush me to the hospital. “You swear it’s not indicative of hemorrhaging or something?”

“No, it’s definitely not. It’s just a reaction to the procedure. It’ll ease back as your body adapts to the transformation.”

“Okay. You haven’t lied to me so far, though ‘some pain’ was a massive understatement. It felt like my whole face was on fire.”

“Worth it, though, right?”

I smoothed my hands down my sides and thrilled at the way his green gaze followed the movement. “Definitely.”

“I’m glad you passed out. It’s pretty awful for people with a higher pain tolerance. They scream the whole time.”

“Which is why you bring them out here to the middle of nowhere.”

To my surprise, Kian shook his head. “I never bring clients here, Edie. There’s a soundproof room at headquarters set aside for this kind of thing.”

“But …
I’m
here.”

He ducked his head. The copper strands in his hair shone against the black, giving him a burnished look in the morning light. His thick tangle of lashes hid his devastating green eyes, but it was easier for me to ignore his beauty, knowing he’d broken the rules for me. I could look at him and see him. From certain angles, I could almost imagine what he’d looked like before someone set burning fingertips to his face and cut away the flaws. That mental image made him seem much more human, less the divine being who’d plucked me off the bridge. I preferred seeing him as a person, not a god.

His silence wasn’t an answer. “Kian. If this isn’t protocol,
why
am I here?”

“I was afraid the people at headquarters would freak you out.” By the way his eyes shifted away from mine, that wasn’t the whole truth.

“Bullshit.”

This time, he met my stare head-on. “I wanted more time with you.”

“Is that allowed?”

“Not really.” He ran an agitated hand through his hair. “Just forget it, okay? And before you ask, no, I didn’t do anything weird to your unconscious body.”

“I wasn’t going to ask that.” I’d be sore in different places if he had, and while my muscles burned, there was no pain down below.

“So let’s get going.”

“Wait.” I moved toward him and put a hand on his arm. “Do you mean you
like
me? In a normal way. Nothing to do with deals or bargains or favors?”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. There are rules.”

“The answer matters to
me
.”

“For all the good it does either of us, yes, I do. I did before.” Bitterness colored his voice, his expression, and I didn’t understand why. He’d wished for the
same thing
. Why did he seem to mind changing me for the better?

“Nobody liked me before,” I said. “So thank you.”