Tempting Danger (24 page)

But there was another scent. “You have a cat.”

Her lips quirked. “He’s outside. You have a problem with cats?”

“They often have a problem with me.” He moved farther into the room, touching a leaf, the drapes, looking at the single print on the wall, a black-and-white shot of the ocean. Her living area was small, scrupulously neat, and almost bare, except for . . . “You prefer plants to furniture?”

“I like to garden. Lacking a yard, I do it in pots.” She crossed her arms, locking him away from her body. “You didn’t come here to inspect my apartment, I hope.”

They were such pretty arms, round and firm, the skin smooth. He wanted to lick his way up one arm and down the other. To give his hands something else to do, he ran one through his hair, shaking out some of the dampness. “No, but I was curious about your space. It smells good.”

“Ah—thanks. Look, I’m glad you’re out of jail, but I don’t want company right now. If you came to thank me, let’s consider it said.”

“Gratitude is a flimsy word when I owe you more than I can repay. Why did they take your badge?”

She flinched. “It’s temporary. And how do you know about it, anyway?”

“The FBI agents you spoke to. They released me from the metal hole where I’d been placed.”

“I suppose they talked to the captain.” She shrugged, but the movement was jerky. “It’s none of your business.”

“Isn’t it?” Without thinking he took a step toward her, then forced himself to stop. He was already too close, his heart beating too fast. This was a damnably intimate space. “Were you suspended for going to the FBI?”

“Technically, no. Can’t punish a cop for following the rules. Though I broke them, too . . . but it was the unwritten ones I violated.”

“Then why?”

She grinned mirthlessly. “For having an affair with you.”

That sucked the air right out of him. “Your captain is prescient?”

“Confident, aren’t you? No, he’s pissed.” She started to pace, but the small room didn’t give her much space for it. She reached the wall, turned, started back. “I’d been told to leave it out, you see. But that was wrong. Maybe I didn’t have evidence, but I
knew
it was sorcery that killed her. The captain didn’t want to believe me, and you were so handy. As long as he could believe you’d done it, he didn’t have to look for a dirty cop in his department. In the end, I forced him to.”

She passed within arm’s reach of him on her circuit of the room. He didn’t reach. Instead, he lowered himself to the floor and sat, to discourage himself from grabbing her. “How?”

“I went to Internal Affairs.” She reached the other wall, turned. “You wouldn’t know what that means.”

“They’re the cops who watch the other cops.”

“Roughly, yes. But you don’t go to them. You don’t rat on your supervisor or your brother cops, because no one will trust you if you do. I can’t explain it. That’s just how it is.”

“I think I understand. Internal Affairs are cops, but they aren’t part of your clan of cops.”

“What?” She stopped, gave a nervous laugh, and resumed her circuit of the room. “This is not like lupus clans.”

“It seems very similar. The captain is your Rho. You knew he was wrong, but your rules don’t allow you to challenge him directly. Instead you had to go out of the clan for a champion—which the rules allow, even encourage, but of course this behavior troubles you and your cop clan.” He shook his head. “A strange system.”

“I must be losing it,” she muttered. “That made sense.”

“In a true clan, you’d be punished through the Challenge itself. Your rules make it seem as if you can go out of the clan without paying a price, but that feels wrong. So the other cops find a punishment for you, even if it means lying. You and I aren’t lovers yet.”

“Yet. Yet. Would you stop talking that way?” She dragged a hand over her hair, caught her fingers in the band holding the ponytail, and jerked the bit of cloth out, throwing it on the floor.

“Who told the lie about you?”

“Mech fed the captain a bunch of bullshit. Randall knew it was bullshit—I think he did, anyway. But then there I was, telling him he had to release you. I did that after ratting to the FBI and to Internal Affairs. I needed to be punished, all right.” She slowed. “It should be temporary. They can’t prove something that isn’t true.”

She couldn’t believe that. He’d just been put in a cell because they’d been able to “prove” an untruth. But she wanted to believe it, needed to. She didn’t want to lose her clan—that’s what it amounted to. “
Querida.
You make me ache.”

Her glance hit him and skittered away, like a stone skipped over water. “I didn’t do it for you. You should know that. I did it because I have to live with myself, and it was wrong to cover things up. Even temporarily.” Her feet took her into motion again. “I wanted to handle the investigation myself. I tried to persuade myself I could, but in the end I decided that would be risking too much. More than I had a right to risk.”

She reminded him of himself earlier, pacing out his cell, unable to stop. What walls put her in motion this way? “What would that have risked?”

“You, for one. You were in a cage. I know what those cells are like—tiny. Probably smelled bad to you, too. You might not have been able to stand that for long enough for me to fix things.”

“
Merde!
Did Karonski tell everyone?”

“What?”

“Never mind. You said you didn’t do it for me.”

“You were one consideration.” She passed him again, achingly close. “The biggest one, though, was that they might succeed in taking me out. If I was the only one who knew for certain Therese’s murder was sorcery, I was a big liability for them. If they killed me and no one else knew—”

He shot to his feet. “I didn’t even think of that. I was so busy being crazy in that cell—”

“Why should you have? Took me awhile to see it, too. I’m not used to thinking of other cops as dangerous to me. I didn’t want to see that, but once I did, I knew I had to make sure I wasn’t the only one looking at things from that angle. Telling the FBI was good, but it wasn’t enough. They could have been part of it, part of the conspiracy. I didn’t know.”

He dragged a shaky hand over his face. “Not Karonski.”

She was startled. “You know him?”

“It’s been awhile, but yes. I’d swear he’s honest. Irritating as hell sometimes, but honest.”

“What did he tell you, then?” She faced him, still for the moment.

“That you had called him because your captain wouldn’t. That you knew the Martin woman had been killed by sorcery, not a lupus. He didn’t say how you knew that. When I asked, he said I should ask you.”

“Well.” She chewed on her lip. “I guess he knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

“You don’t want me to know?”

“I don’t want him deciding who should know. But you . . .” She looked unhappy, but shrugged. “Why not? The captain’s planning to out me anyway, so it won’t be a secret much longer. I knew she’d been killed by sorcery because I touched the magic the killer left behind. I’m a sensitive.”

SEVENTEEN

HE
had the funniest look on his face. Lily frowned and rubbed her arms. She felt weird herself—cold and hot at the same time. Jittery as hell. Aroused . . . well, that wasn’t strange. Rule’s presence flooded her tiny living room. He seemed to be pressing himself on her, though he wasn’t moving.

She had to get away from him. That thought, barely formed but imperative, started her moving again. “What is it? You aren’t spooked about sensitives, surely.”

“No . . .” He looked distant, shocked.

“Sometimes it helps in my work, knowing who is of the Blood or Gifted. Like your friend Max—that was a surprise. I’ve never met a gnome. But I didn’t mention what he was in my report. I don’t out people.”

He shook his head the way a dog shakes itself dry, seeming to return from some interior space. “No, of course not. This explains . . . much.”

Explains what? Had she given herself away somehow?
It doesn’t matter,
she told herself, impatient. Her secret would soon be no secret at all. Randall planned to put it in his report. He claimed he had to in order to explain why he’d put her in charge of the investigation.

She reached the wall, turned. Maybe he did. It would be easy to think of him as wrong about everything now, when they stood on opposite sides of such a chasm. But that would be a mistake.

Did the captain really believe Mech’s accusations? Or had he seized on them as a means to punish her for going out of the clan?

God. She was thinking like Rule, as if she and the captain were lupi. Had to stop that. She’d really get herself confused that way.

She needed to figure out what Randall believed. If he’d gone after her from vindictiveness, he’d proceed differently than if he truly believed she’d stepped outside the lines herself. He was her opponent now. She hated that, but he was bringing charges against her. She’d have to defend against those charges.

Lily paused, glanced at Rule—and away—and back. She couldn’t seem to look straight at him for more than a second. She couldn’t stop looking, either. “Your presence here tonight will not make it easier for me to refute Mech’s accusations.”

“I’m sorry.” There was a haunted look about his eyes. “I can’t put it off any longer,
nadia.
You have to know.”

“Know?” Her heartbeat spiked. She didn’t know why. Her mouth went dry, and she felt oddly aware of her fingers, her throat, her skin—the sort of supercharged awareness she’d had sometimes when danger turned the world crisp.

Without even noticing, she stopped moving. “Know what?”

“You and I are chosen for each other.”

There wasn’t enough air. She tried to laugh anyway. “What’s that? Some sort of lupus pickup line?”

“It means we are mates, chosen for each other by the Lady. Bonded for life. There is no breaking this bond short of death.”

“That’s crazy. That’s just crazy.” She had to move. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. “You can’t expect me to believe that.”

“It’s easily proved. If I reached for you right now, put my hand on you, you would be mine. In spite of all you have to lose, you wouldn’t be able to refuse me. Your need is too great.”

“That—that—” She managed to tear her eyes away and was able to move again. To pace. “You’ve gone beyond arrogance to ugly.”

“You can’t settle. Something’s eating you from the inside. I can smell your arousal each time you walk past me.”

She went pale, then flushed. “Then breathe through your mouth, dammit. That’s just—it’s intrusive. You have no business—”

“I can’t help it. No more than you can. To be chosen is to have many choices taken away. They say that other choices arrive, some sweet, some terrible. It’s a rare thing, to be chosen.” He was bitter, not seductive. “You don’t want to believe, but you must.”

“I
don’t
believe. I don’t worship your Lady, and I don’t think you’re in love with me.”

“That’s as well. The primary bond is between our bodies, not our minds and hearts. Though I like you very much, Lily,” he said with a smile as sad as it was breathtaking. “I admire and respect you as well. We have much to build on.”

She couldn’t say those things back to him. Not because they were untrue. Because she didn’t dare. “I don’t think God hands out a sexual
geas
. That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it? Not a romantic bond, but some sort of divine
geas
.”

“Tell me to leave.”

Her feet faltered.

“If I’m wrong, if you are free to choose, tell me to go.”

She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move.

“Two days ago, you had a dizzy spell you didn’t understand.”

Her head was whirling
now
.

“It passed within moments, fortunately. Because I realized what was happening and moved closer to you. There are limits to how far we can be separated. I’d surpassed those limits, and we both suffered.”

Her heart beat frantically. “I’m bespelled,” she whispered.

“Can a sensitive be bespelled?”

She shook her head. “But I must be.”

“You aren’t thinking straight right now,” he said gently, stepping closer, “but that isn’t your fault. I’ve the advantage of having had time to absorb the change in my condition. You haven’t. You feel you’re spinning wildly, coming apart while standing still. It will eat you alive, Lily. It’s eating me alive. We have to touch.” And he did.

His hands were large, smooth for a man’s—did he heal any calluses before they formed? He fanned his fingers out along along the sides of her face. She felt each finger clearly. She didn’t move. Her mind was washed white of thought, of possibilities, of anything other than the rightness of his touch.

He moved closer, bringing his head down as if he would kiss her. He didn’t. Instead, his breath washed over her mouth. “Breath to breath,” he whispered. “Sweet, so sweet to breathe you in.”

The air itself had turned rich. Breathing was heady, intoxicating. Her skin was alive and her body ached. But one thing remained missing. “Why can’t I feel you? When we touch, why don’t I touch your magic?”