My Darkest Passion (23 page)

She grabbed his near shoulder, a solid mass of muscle. “Maddy said to get you out of here. We are going to do that. Give me your phone.” He did and she tossed it in the trash bin on their way out. “That thing isn’t safe.”

Infante was registering hot now. Not baseline, but hot and ready to smoke someone into oblivion, with that someone being her and Harsh Marit. Over her goddamned dead body.

“So fierce, warlord,” he murmured.

“Move.”

“I can handle them,” Harsh said.

She gave him a look, and it was like staring down a wolf. “I don’t doubt that for a second.”

“Good.”

“Let’s go.” She grabbed a handful of his coat and walked him toward the side street. Her eyes immediately adjusted to the dark. While they headed for her car, she told him about the call from Maddy. He took the news about Leonidas with his typical impenetrable calm. Leonidas, as he explained, was a mage sworn to Nikodemus. She wasn’t sure if she was glad he was taking this seriously or scared to death by it.

Her car wasn’t far now; only twenty feet away. But Infante and his magehelds came out the same back exit of the restaurant, and she hadn’t thought she might need to park out of sight. She’d just wanted to be close. Her heart kicked up. This was going down. She knew exactly how to kill Infante.

“No lethal force against the magehelds unless you have no choice,” Harsh said. “If there’s a confrontation, go for Infante. Always go after the mage or witch.”

“Okay.” She kept her hand on Harsh’s back and headed them toward her junker of a car. They ended up jogging, because Infante was closing in on them, and she did not like being unable to pinpoint where his three magehelds were.

“Soon,” Harsh murmured. He’d done this before. Been under attack. Maybe it was Harsh’s calm spreading to her, but she had never in her life been readier for a fight. She could taste her need to kill Infante.

Three steps from her car, Infante was close enough that a ripple of cold filled her head and set off a banging vibration in her chest. He wasn’t kidding around, the asshole. She looked over her shoulder, and picked out the two smaller magehelds about twenty yards down the street. Where the hell was the big dark-skinned one? The one who looked dangerous?

“Harsh Marit?” one of the magehelds called out. His tone taunted, and it was all she could do not to laugh. Harsh would eat that one for lunch. Both of them moved closer.

Her magic bubbled up, hot and close to out of control. Within her calm, she became hyper-aware. Details came at her and she absorbed them in one glance, one breath. The location of the two magehelds, where Harsh was, and where everyone was in relation to Infante.

The two magehelds stopped five yards off, taking care to stay in the shadowed part of the sidewalk, out of sight of any human with their poor night vision. Harsh touched her shoulder and whispered, “Behind us.”

She looked, and there was the third mageheld. No time to think about how he’d known that when she hadn’t. Power was one thing. Experience something else.

Bring it on.

Harsh adjusted his suit coat before he raised his voice and called out, “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Yes,” the nearest mageheld said. “You can kill the mage for us. Problem solved.”

Gloves off. She kept her magic hot and on tap and wrapped up just like Kynan had taught her to do. No need to broadcast herself to Infante. From everything Kynan had told her, the magehelds couldn’t assess her abilities or rank any more than she could assess theirs. Not as long as they were enslaved to Infante.

The magehelds were close enough now that she could see their eyes change color, evidence they were drawing power. Fine. She was ready for this. So, so, ready.

The third mageheld moved closer. His clothes were less ragged than the other two. He looked…friendly, but she understood the smile was intended to deceive. “Miss,” that one said. “You need to step away from him.” He spoke with an accent she couldn’t place. “He isn’t safe for someone like you. Pretty young human.”

Harsh lifted his hands. ”Now, let’s not—”

Infante emerged from between two parked cars, hands lifted, palms out. God, she wanted to kill him. She wanted to do all manner of horrible things to him. The mage smiled, smarmy and condescending. “Addison O’Henry. Where you been all this time?”

Pressure built in her head and chest, a familiar sensation that brought on panic in full force. She hadn’t felt something like that since Bejar. The dark-skinned mageheld was trying an indwell, attempting to take over her will.

Harsh touched her again, and the contact steadied her. She couldn’t feel the mageheld’s power until it slid over her, and that made it hard to know how to combat what he was attempting. Her psychic link with Harsh flashed on, and she drew on the combined pool of their resources.

The big mageheld made eye contact with her. “Come with us. You’ll be safe.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

The mageheld shrugged. “We can help you. Giuseppe Infante can help you.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“You don’t have to be this way.” Infante shook his head. “Think about it. You could be normal again. How long’s it been for you? Coming up on two years, and you’re still fucked up. I can fix that. With my help you could have everything the way it used to be before one of those monsters got his filthy hands on you. I tried to save you before. Only you misunderstood, and now look where you are.”

Now she was plain pissed off. She dropped her blocks and with her magic screaming in her, said, “You lying sack of shit. If you or your magehelds try anything, I’ll fry your brains.”

Harsh shifted closer to her. “Please control yourself.”

“Why the hell should I? He’s messing with me, and nobody gets to do that to me. Not anymore. Ever.” More than anything, she wanted to kill that goddamned mage, but it was against Harsh’s fucking rules. This close, she couldn’t fail.

“Hey. I came here to help you out, offer you what you need. You stay like this, contaminated the way you are, and you’re a danger to yourself and everyone around you.”

“Gee. I wonder whose fault that is?”

The air around Infante took on a glow. Harsh grunted, and she whirled in time to see him drop to his knees. In her peripheral vision, the big mageheld was grim-faced, but it was the orange gleam of his eyes that sent a chill down her spine. Her skin rippled and all the hair on the back of her neck lifted: that was Infante.

She didn’t wait to find out what he intended to do with all that power. She sent out a psychic bump that she built to boulder size by the time it hit him. She was allowed to protect herself. No rules got broken if she was defending herself or Harsh. There was a hiss and then a kaleidoscope of sparks arced around the mage.

Nothing happened, then more sparks lit the air and Infante flipped backward. He landed on his stomach, on the street, sliding backward. He screamed, pure rage.

The two smaller magehelds rushed toward him, and that was why Harsh had told her to go for the mage. The first duty of a mageheld was to protect their mage. She pushed her magic at them, too, and both demons hit the ground and didn’t move. The big mageheld stood frozen, held there by something Harsh had done. His body strained in the direction of Infante, but the stasis around him held fast.

Addison reached for Harsh. He was already on his feet. She brought him back into a psychic connection with her, and he came alive in her head. God, what a rush. She was aware there was a part of him that was blank to her. Blocked off. No time now to worry about that. Infante pushed to his hands and knees, head hanging down. Not one of the magehelds moved. Infante puked.

The man responsible for destroying her life, that murdering piece of shit, was helpless. There wasn’t going to be a better time than this. She strode into the street and crouched at his side. She grabbed a handful of his hair. He’d wacked his chin on the pavement and blood dripped onto the ground. She could taste what it would be like to kill him; she could feel the exhilaration. Harsh was looped in with her, but he remained quiet. No protest from him. But, no encouragement, either.

Infante’s mouth worked. “Bitch.”

“You get one warning. One. So listen up. I’m going to let you live because I am better than you. In return, you can go tell all your mage buddies that you picked the wrong woman to fuck with. You leave me and Harsh Marit alone. He is under my protection. You come after him again, and it’s the same as coming after me. If there’s a next time, I will kill you.”

Infante bared his teeth at her. His magic boiled up, and she wanted to drink it all in. Better than drugs. “Rot in hell. Hotblood-fucking whore.”

Harsh shouted but his alarm quivered along their link a hair faster than his verbal warning. She pushed Infante away. While she’d been indulging her need to feel superior, the big mageheld had broken free of the stasis. He didn’t go after her though—he went for Harsh.

She took in the minutia of what was happening: their surroundings, temperature, the location of every inanimate object around them, the heat of her body, the link between her and Harsh and their reaction to Infante and his magic. She locked in on the dark-skinned mageheld and hardened the air around him. He froze mid-step, arm stretched, eyes still neon orange. She did the same to Infante and the two downed magehelds, just to be goddamned sure nobody was moving she didn’t want to move.

She pushed Harsh in the direction of her car, and he did something to the door locks before she had the keys in her hand. He yanked open the passenger door while she jumped into the driver’s seat. She was burning inside, on fire, and it felt fantastic, as if she was home. Like she’d been asleep all this time and now she was awake and alive for the first time since Bejar grabbed her off the street.

She slammed the car into gear and got them the hell out of the neighborhood. She was still running hot when she got to the nearest first freeway ramp. She spared a glance at Harsh. “What the hell is going on?”

He gave her a one-word answer. “War.”

25

T
here was no way for a person Harsh’s size to get comfortable in a car this small. The seat springs dug into his ass, and every bump in the road jarred his body. Addison’s car also had a terrifying lack of acceleration, as he discovered when she merged onto the freeway at fifty miles an hour when everyone else this time of night was doing seventy-five. In the slow lane. Ten car lengths later, the engine still labored.

“Maddy said I should get you back to San Fran. We need to book a flight on your plastic so they follow the trail.” She raised her voice to be heard over the engine noise. She wasn’t bothering to block. Neither was he, beyond what was normal for him. He couldn’t decide which was more distracting, the rattle of the car, his reaction to her, or the heat that zinged along their dual psychic awareness. Desire for her, for what she was, spread through him like a fever. Hot.

He’d been sworn to Nikodemus for so long he wasn’t used to his unmuted reaction to another demon’s warlord status. It was…interesting. Unwanted. Unwelcome. Disturbing, too, because she was also human. And female. And not human. From the start, Kynan had been spot-on in his assessment of her rank. He hadn’t agreed, at the time, that she would take control of her power the way she had. Back there with Infante, she’d proved him emphatically wrong about that.

Addison gripped the steering wheel with both hands, in control. “Cancel your current return flight or book a new one, doesn’t matter. You won’t be on it.”

“You threw away my phone.”

She hitched up on the seat to dig her phone out of her pocket. “Go for it.”

“How?”

“It’s got internet. Push that middle button.”

“I don’t know how to use a phone this shitty. The fucking dinosaurs used a phone like this.”

“Maybe it’s not your precious over-priced collection of silicon and glass, but it works. You’re smart enough to figure it out. I believe in you.”

When he was done, he kept her phone. “Why are we heading toward the airport if I’m not going to be on my flight?”

“It can’t be a good idea for you to go back to your hotel. They’ll be waiting for you there.”

“True.”

“Shit.” She glanced at him. “Is there anything there you can’t afford to lose?”

“Nothing I can’t replace.”

“Good. I don’t think we should risk going to my place either.” She hit the gas and somehow they managed to chug past a minivan. “I need to call my mom and tell her I’m going out of town for a while.” She held out her hand for the phone, but before he handed it over, he opened her contacts and found the one labeled
mom
. Kynan’s number was there, too. He pressed call for her mother and gave her the phone when it rang.

Her conversation was short, affectionate, and to the point. She held out the phone when she was done. “We need supplies for a road trip. We’re going to use your plastic to buy stuff near the airport so it looks like you intend to be on that flight.”

“Agreed.”

Pure warlord, the look she sent him. “I left all my cash at the restaurant or I’d pitch in. Boy, I hope money isn’t going to be a problem. I hate not being able to eat.”

“Money should not be a problem.”

“Look up the closest ATM for your bank. We need cash. I don’t think you should be buying stuff for me on your plastic. That’s going to look weird if anyone is paying attention.”

“There are ways around that.”

“Kynan said you guys have a hacker on staff.”

“Yes.”

“Pretend he’s looking for us. Now tell me, how paranoid should we be?”

He sighed, because she was right. “Very.”

Likely she didn’t realize how much her current psychic state reflected her status. He suspected she’d always been this way to some degree, long before Bejar took her. A quick thinker and problem-solver. The best of them were. Warlords were a self-directed lot. In his experience, some had better judgment than others and some were better leaders, but they all had that tick the magic recognized and that drew others to them. The more powerful warlords had the sense to surround themselves with sworn demons who supplemented their weaknesses and enhanced their strengths. They also tended to be smarter than most. From what he was seeing, Addison fit the pattern.