A Taste of Ice (34 page)

Cat had killed someone. She’d picked up a knife and deliberately
shoved it into Michael’s body. The thick resistance, the tangible horror, all that blood…Maybe he wasn’t completely dead, but she’d felt that one life leave. She’d never be able to wash that feeling away.

Cat clung to Xavier, not wanting to let him go. Ever. They were fused together, each grappling for a better, tighter embrace, never able to find it.

“Lea said you traded yourself for me,” she whispered, realizing she was crying.

He took her arms and gently pried her off. One of his big hands swept over her forehead and around her hair. “I’d do it again,” he said.

And that’s when she fell in love.

Xavier glanced down at Michael. “I should’ve known. I should’ve known he wouldn’t have let you go, but I had to take that chance.” He wiped her tears and cursed, looking down at his own bloody hands. “Did he touch you?”

“No,” she lied, because it didn’t matter now how Michael had groped her over her clothes. How he’d cryptically told her how worthy she was now. How she’d turned out to be so much better than he’d ever imagined. Special, like him. How his father would love her and therefore love him because of the woman he’d brought home. Creepy, all of it.

Xavier kissed her. Hard and fleeting. But she tasted all of him in that moment and it fueled her. It momentarily steered her thoughts away from the dark, terrible memories of Michael’s
life and death. Xavier knew; he somehow knew her mind was tripping away from her and he wasn’t going to allow it.

“You ready?” he asked, then opened the door. Music poured in. Xavier waved her behind him and they crept toward the stairs. They left bloody footprints on the carpet, but she couldn’t worry about the evidence. This was a one-way street. No going back for either of them.

For such a big man, Xavier was remarkably silent. But then, he’d spent years avoiding attention. At the top of the stairs, he stopped. Jase appeared, hurrying from the opposite wing and cradling an unconscious woman in his arms.

“Who’s that?” Cat asked, even though her senses had already named the woman’s race.

“Shelby,” Xavier replied. “She’s Ofarian.”

There was more to the story—Xavier’s eyes said as much, and Jase had hinted at it earlier—but now was not the time. They were moving forward now, not backward.

“I’m going to put her in the basement with Robert,” Jase murmured when he reached them. “That’s where she was supposed to go anyway. Wait until I’m gone to make your move.”

They waited. And waited. At last the music cut off.

“Oh, thank the stars they’re done,” came Lea’s muffled voice. “Took him long enough.”

“I’m heading out,” Jase told Lea. “Picking up Michael’s double in town.”

Cat could feel Lea bristling from one floor up. “I didn’t know he’d
split
tonight.”

“Well, that’s what he said.”

From the top of the stairs, they watched Jase go out the front door. Listened to the gentle purr of a car starting in the drive. Then the car peeling out. The house was pitched into heavy silence. Xavier took Cat’s hand and squeezed.

Where was Lea? She could be anywhere. Cat had a terrible vision of Michael’s blood seeping through the floor and dripping into the kitchen, giving them away. Sean would
split
, she and Xavier would be surrounded, and they’d lose.

“I could get you out of here,” Xavier whispered.

“How? Where?”

“Away from here. Safe.”

The idea actually offended her. “Send me off into the cold
while you stay here and face God knows what? I’m part of this world now. You’re here because of me. The others need to go free. Lea needs to be stopped.”

He kissed her again, smothering her mouth with his. When he pulled away they were both breathless. He paused, bowed his head, and closed his eyes.

“Shit. No glamour left.” Strain pulled down the edges of his mouth. He looked really tired. “Was hoping to make us look like Sean or Michael, but I don’t have anything left.”

Cat took his chin and looked right into his eyes. “So she sees us coming. She doesn’t have any water magic. All it’s going to take is force.”

A heavy emotion crossed his face, something like pride. “Ready?”

The whole world had contracted to this house, to whatever it was they were about to do. Saying no wasn’t an option.

Step by slow, soundless step, they edged downstairs. A clock ticked somewhere. Cat pointed down a hallway leading to the back of the house, from where the faint Secondary signatures wafted. When Lea caught wind of Cat and Xavier’s signatures, an alarm would go up. They’d have to move fast.

Xavier tugged Cat into the kitchen and great room. The pull of several signatures burned strong in her senses.
Sean
, she mouthed, pointing to a door between two bookcases.
And the two Ofarians.

That’s the basement
, he mouthed back, and frowned. Jase had told them Sean was likely in the garage, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

The door next to the fireplace must have been the entrance to the garage, because from behind it came a loud
bang
and a low reverberation. Fire elemental. Cat memorized the feel of that new signature.

Something on the mantel caught her eye.
Ocean #2.
The one Michael had bought from her the day they met. The one he said he’d never sell, the object that had started this all. He’d brought it with him here, which told her so much about how he’d viewed her: his, to carry around and look at or take down whenever he pleased.

She turned her back on it. Another Secondary signature tugged at her, coming from the hallway branching off the
kitchen. The hall was long and dim, and at the far end she could see where it opened up into a game room, the corner of a pool table and a blinking dartboard in view. From within that hall came the faint blue light of someone working on a computer. The tiny
tap tap taps
on the keyboard filtered into the kitchen.

“Xavier?” Lea called, warily. “Is Shelby with you?”

Xavier charged across the kitchen and dove into the dark hall, a predator zoned in on his prey, Cat on his heels. “It’s me and Cat. Surprise.”

The keyboard clacking stopped. “Oh, no…”

Lea scrambled up from the wheeled office chair. It shot backward and slammed into a set of cabinets. The quiet house exploded with noise.

Lea took off down the hall, her high-heeled shoes making harsh sounds on the hardwood floor. Xavier pounded after her, whirling the office chair out of his path. Cat chased them both.

When the hardwood met the game room carpet, Xavier tackled Lea from behind. Halfway to the ground, he spun. Arms around Lea’s waist, he flipped so he landed on his back, Lea flopping on top of him. Then, lightning quick, he rolled again so Lea’s face was crushed to the carpet. Xavier clamped her arms behind her back. She started to kick with her high heels and Xavier sat back on her legs, just like he’d done with Michael upstairs. Lea groaned and thrashed, not giving up.

Xavier looked around frantically. “That lamp,” he told Cat, indicating a standing lamp in the corner. “Bring it over here.”

Cat ran to the fluted wood lamp that stood as tall as she, and ripped the cord from the wall. She rolled the base over to Xavier and he snatched off the shade, laying the lamp post lengthwise over Lea’s back. He started to wind the long cord around her wrists.

Lea wrenched her mouth away from the carpet and screamed. “Sean! Do it, Sean! Now!”

Xavier froze, his eyes lifting to Cat’s. Sean was in the basement with the other Ofarians.

“Oh, God,” Cat begged. “Go, Xavier. Please help them. I’ve got her.”

She saw the deliberation in his eyes, the awful split-second decision. Try to save the lives of two Ofarians and go up against Sean, or keep control over the mastermind.

“
Please
, Xavier. You’re not alone in this. I have Lea and you can get to them.”

His mouth twisted as he shoved the end of the cord into her hands. Cat jumped on top of a struggling Lea as Xavier sprinted back down the corridor. He ran through the kitchen, threw open the door to the basement and bounded down the steps.

Lea was smaller than Cat, but she had some fight. She bucked, popping Cat off her. She almost managed to roll onto her back, but the square lamp base prevented her from making it all the way and she had no leverage with her tied hands.

A male roar Cat recognized as Xavier’s rumbled up from the basement. Another man shouted in surprised response. And then another, sounding exactly alike.

Oh, no. Sean had
split
.

Lea yanked desperately at her cord restraints. Cat kicked out. Her bare feet struck Lea’s stomach and the bound woman went motionless for a moment as the pain rolled in. Cat rose, standing over her.

The fighting escalated below. Loud, terrible crashes. Male grunts and curses. How much energy did Xavier have left? He’d had none to work an illusion upstairs, and he’d already fought two Michaels. She’d sent him into that—to save two people who belonged to a race he hadn’t forgiven—and she couldn’t live with herself if he didn’t make it out.

The moment of wonder proved stupid. Lea’s arms were still tied to the lamp, but her legs were free. With a screech, Lea threw out a leg. Cat caught a stiletto heel across the stomach, the sharp, stinging pain feeling like it scraped all the way back to her spine. Cat snapped backward, stumbling into one of the chairs surrounding a chessboard table. She righted herself, whipped around, and dove.

Lea was struggling hard against the lamp, her elbows flapping under the loosened wire. Cat pushed Lea back onto her stomach and sat on her. Hard. She found the trailing end of the cord and brought it down with a
smack
on the backs of Lea’s legs. Lea cried out and tensed up, and it was that moment of stillness that gave Cat what she needed.

Cat wound the cord around Lea’s wrists once, twice. Leaning back, she yanked one of Lea’s ankles, bringing it all the way to her butt. Cat looped the cord around Lea’s ankle and
tied it off, pulling tighter than what was necessary. Lea writhed, finally immobile.

“Water bitch!”

Breathing hard, Cat crouched down near Lea’s head, careful not to get too close. “Who, exactly, is the bitch here?”

It might have been comical, to see this seemingly innocent-looking woman strapped to a floor lamp, except that the awful sounds of a vicious fight in the basement were far from funny. Cat paced, every collision, every groan, making her wince. Should she get down there? Could she help? What were the Ofarians doing? Were they fighting Xavier, too?

She didn’t dare leave Lea. The woman had no magic and yet she’d been capable of so much already.

Lea glared up at her, her makeup smeared all around her eyes, her blond hair in tangles. If hate had had physical power, Cat would have been the one tied to a lamp.

“Is Michael dead?” Lea ground out.

“Part of him. And I’m the one who did it.”

Lea spit out carpet fuzz. “Good.”

It took a moment to process that. “Why partner with Michael if you just wanted him dead?”

Lea snorted. “Do you know how much money he has? Our interests overlapped. I got him what he wanted, and then used his resources to get what
I
wanted.”

“It’s the end for you, too, you know. Whatever you wanted isn’t going to happen now.”

Lea just laughed.

The fighting downstairs was starting to lessen. Cat thought of Gwen’s blessing that invoked the stars. Cat had been brought up worshipping the Christian God, but the stars seemed just as powerful a thing to pray to. So many of them, always visible, full of possibility. So she did that now, praying that the fighting wasn’t dying because Xavier was weak.

She looked down at Lea. “How do I free the fire elemental?”

The laughter died. “You don’t want to do that.”

“Yes,” Cat said. “I do.”

“She’ll burn you to ash. On second thought, keys to the cage’s top hatch are in a bowl by your painting on the mantel. Have at it.”

Cat bent closer and pulled back some of Lea’s hair so she could look right into Lea’s brown eyes, unobstructed. “I’m not the one who took her. I don’t believe she’ll come after me. But I’ll be sure to let her know where I’ve wrapped up a nice bundle of firewood for her in the game room. I’m sure she’d love to face you again.”

The look of satisfaction that passed over Lea’s face made Cat shiver. Lea said nothing, but her nostrils flared as if she’d smelled smoke. Then her eyes shifted down the hall and toward the kitchen. Cat swiveled in that direction, wondering what she saw. There was nothing.

That was it: nothing. The fighting had stopped. A ponderous silence pressed down on her. Both she and Lea stared at the basement door in expectation, their breathing loud and very nearly synchronized.

Leaden footsteps started up the basement stairs. Only one man ascending, but two Secondary signatures. The footsteps moved so slowly, so unevenly. The basement door opened, hinging outward and hiding whoever it was that had claimed victory. If it wasn’t Xavier, Cat didn’t know what she’d do. Run? Try to fight Sean off?

A floating pair of feet poked out from behind the door. Then a pair of legs. Then Xavier, shouldering an unconscious Sean.

Cat let out a sound that was part sob, part laugh.

Xavier’s long legs wobbled. He teetered toward the big couch making a U around the fireplace and dumped Sean onto it.

“Xavier!” Cat called, unable to keep the relief and joy from her voice. “Are you okay? What happened?”

He didn’t answer, just went to a side table, ripped out another lamp cord from the wall, and secured Sean as he had Lea.

Xavier finally looked up, saw Cat, and started for the game room. His steps were uneven and dragging. When he hit the kitchen he stumbled and had to balance himself between the island and the stainless steel refrigerator.

She met him in the middle of the dim hallway, pulled one of his arms around her shoulders, and helped him into the game room. In the light, the sight of him made her gasp. He was already covered in Michael’s blood, but now the buttons on
his shirt were half gone. New bruises and cuts marred his beautiful face. His great shoulders slumped, his eyelids drooped at the corners.