No Love for the Wicked (25 page)

“Baby, we are rolling in the intel.”

Chang didn’t bother sitting. He’d downed three coffees and was in high-energy report mode. “I got it all—names, dates, places. Of course, it was easy since I’d already done all the groundwork. Man, Magnus’s system was the bomb! If I hadn’t gotten as far as I did before we went in—oooh, it would have been a close one. But I recognized the file right off. I got in, I got out, got it clean, and got it good.”

I watched him bounce around the room from my seat on one of the giant ottomans. Theo was on the sofa behind me again, this time with Jon and Heather. His leg brushed against me every time he shifted, sending little waves of warmth through my body.

“Chang!” Jon shouted, sitting forward. “We get it. You did awesome. Way to go. Now, the data.”

“Right.” Chang scurried across the great room to where Thirteen sat in his usual big chair by the fireplace.

“From what Cordele and I got through last night, we have the brothers’ first meeting with Russian Federal Assembly member Spielrien and Deputy Prime Minister Fedorov back in October.”

“I thought only Senator Kelch met with Spielrien,” Charles said.

Chang shrugged. “The meeting’s listed on Magnus’s calendar.”

“Where’s Cordele?” Marie interjected. “And why are there nonmission agents here?” She sneered toward Luce and Tony over on the far love seat. Ah yes, the Marie we all knew and loved.

“Cordele had a call from an informant and will join us when she can,” Thirteen explained. “And your fellow Network agents are here because I asked them to come. Chang, continue, please.”

Marie sat back in a huff. I smiled into my glass. I loved it when Thirteen put her in her place.

Chang cleared his throat. “Right. So anyway, the next meeting was with Belarusian foreign secretary Alton Preshenko. This was a week after the Russian meetings. There were three consecutive meetings with Preshenko over the next ten days. Then they headed to Ukraine, where they met with Deputy Andriy Boyko. Now, I don’t know much about this Preshenko guy, but Boyko is old-school—like he was around way back when all of this was Russia.”

“Oh yes,” Thirteen said wryly. “Obviously Mr. Boyko is an ancient.”

“I know, right?” Chang was so clueless. “So the bros had four meetings with Boyko, then moved on to Bohlren. Here’s where it gets weird. In Bohlren they met with two fellas: Councilman Okhotnikov and somebody named A. Fahran.” He looked at me. “If I got your research data right, Okhot—whatever—is one of the four council members who run the little island city and deal with whatever country is in charge of them at the time.”

“Five councilmen,” I said smoothly. Thank God for supernatural recall. “The city is run by the two port overseers who handle
the limited export business the city manages. Then there’s the mainland liaison, the head of tourism, and the city deputy.”

“Yeah, from what I got from Magnus’s notes, Okhot-ness is most likely the mainland liaison or the deputy guy. But there’s nothing on Fahran.”

Everyone in the room had been scribbling furiously, taking down every word Chang had said. I frowned into my whiskey. I’d have to do research again; I just knew it.

Shane started in on some questions about meeting agendas, and Theo leaned forward in his seat behind me. Resting his forearms on his knees, his fingers brushed back and forth in my hair. Warmth tingled inside me.

Mental fury hit me out of nowhere.
What the hell?
Someone was suddenly totally pissed off. I looked to Shane out of habit. He’d barely acknowledged me since our elevator disaster last night, and right now he was busy focusing on Chang and Thirteen. Marie wasn’t shooting mental darts at me either. She was taking notes and thinking through a timeline for how Thirteen might move forward. Then who in the world…

I met Luce’s gaze. Her glare was lethal and aimed right for me. She breathed hard through her nostrils, her teeth grinding together. I got in her head instantly and froze. I should have known.

She had been one of the hundreds.

Pink hues tinted the room as a new kind of anger spiked inside me. I saw her jealousy, her lust. I bared my teeth. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that Theo’s past meant nothing. He was with me completely now. But I didn’t care. How dare she want what was mine? Theo’s hand tightened on my shoulder. I hissed as the dimly lit room grew brighter. Pressure at my back stopped me from rising out of my seat. I felt the warmth of our joined power, pushing against that bloody place of mine just straining to lash
out. The pink receded quickly, but the room remained bright—as if our joined power was feeling just as possessive as I was. My hiss turned to a growl. Luce scrambled to her feet.
Coming for what’s mine, Luce? I’d like to see you try.

Strong arms held me. The pressure at my back grew. Deep murmurs at my ear turned my gasps to steady breathing. My focus never left Luce’s face. “
Mine
,” I growled.

Voices around me spoke quickly. Someone pulled Luce from the room. The moment she was gone, my vision returned to normal. I blinked the room back into focus. I wasn’t on the ottoman anymore but on the sofa, sitting on Theo’s lap. His arms were tight around me. In my ear I could hear him whisper, “Just breathe, Mag. She’s gone. Just breathe with me.”

Everyone in the room was on their feet, staring down at me. Their shock, their fear, it filled the room.

“Magnolia?” Heather knelt in front of me, her eyes full of concern. She placed a hand on my knee, and instant calm washed over me. My muscles nearly fell slack.

“You’re getting stronger,” I said softly. She blushed and pulled her hand away.

“Are you OK?” she asked. “Did Lucinda do something or think something that we should know about?”

Theo loosened his grip on my waist. It certainly would have been less embarrassing if Luce had been plotting against the team, maybe seeking some payback for Colin’s frustrations. That would have been a much easier explanation than my jealous rage.

“No, she didn’t do anything. I just…saw something in her thoughts that I didn’t like. It was, you know, personal.”

Heather’s eyes went to Theo. I ran my hands over my face. God, could we just once have a meeting without my fucked-up emotions ruining everything?

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disrupt the meeting, Thirteen. I’m sorry.”

“At least we didn’t all come in our pants this time,” Shane murmured. I shot him a glare.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Thirteen asked gently.

I glanced over my shoulder to Theo. He released me enough to let me scoot off his lap. I didn’t want to talk to Thirteen with him wrapped around me.

“It had nothing to do with the mission or anything else. It was just stupid. Her thoughts took me by surprise, and I overreacted a little. I’m sorry.”

“Overreacted a little?” Tony asked from the doorway. He’d taken Luce outside but had peeked back in to see what was happening. “Damn, girl, remind me to keep a pocketful of downers whenever we’re in the same room. Properly prescribed downers, of course.” He grinned at Thirteen.

Thirteen sat on the sofa beside me. He took my hand, and his massive palms dwarfed my small fingers.
I worry so much for you.
His thoughts floated through my head. I smiled up at him, but it was a shaky thing.

His next words carried around the room. “You have your assignments. Tony, if you will bring in the documents your team procured from Dr. Everett, you may all be dismissed to your work. I will contact you for the next follow-up meeting.”

He glanced at Theo, who rose to join Jon and Shane in the kitchen. I didn’t miss how his eyes turned cold when he looked Theo’s way. I touched Thirteen’s arm. “Don’t. It’s not his fault.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “We will have to disagree on that.”

Tony brought a thin file folder to Thirteen. “Thank you. I know how much you enjoyed your research assignment, Magnolia,” Thirteen said with a raised brow. “But we have to dig a bit
deeper now. This is the information Colin’s team gathered from Dr. Everett. I’d like you to scan through the information for any connections with Chang’s data.”

I took the file and laid it on the ottoman. It was a cop-out assignment, and we both knew it. Father and Uncle Max building a weapon’s facility in Eastern Europe wouldn’t have anything to do with a South African art smuggler. But at least I wouldn’t have to stare at screen after screen of random data.

“I’ll go through it. And Thirteen, I really am sorry.”

He smiled now—my smile. “You are growing, Magnolia. Don’t ever apologize for that.” Then he leaned over and kissed my forehead. Unwilling tears burned at the back of my eyes. His unconditional love for me never seemed to waver.

He got to his feet. “I will be in touch.” Then he strolled from the room to meet the others waiting outside.

I listened as the cars drove from the gravel drive to the county road. It was snowing again, and a couple of the smaller cars spun a little on the ice. God, poor Luce. I’d have to call or text her—texting would probably be easier—and apologize. That’s what Heather was thinking I should do when she left.

I rubbed my hands over my face, then jerked my head up. Theo leaned against the wall to the kitchen. Our connection felt so natural now; I hadn’t even noticed it hadn’t faded as he left.

He cocked a brow at me. “You thought I’d leave with the others?”

“Well, yeah.”

He shook his head and came over to the sofa. “That’s not how the whole boyfriend thing works.”

“I thought we agreed you were too old to be a boyfriend.”

He didn’t smile like I thought he would. Instead, he sat beside me and clasped his hands between his knees. “You know she didn’t mean anything. None of them did.”

“I know. Somewhere inside me, I know that. It’s just…I can’t be sure I won’t lash out at her again the next time she thinks of you like that.”

“Sure you can. You know what to expect now.”

“What about that whole not being responsible for our instincts and reactions? I can’t help that it pisses me off that you were with her.”

He ran a hand over my hair. “You can’t help when you instinctually feel something, but you can recognize the feeling inside you before it boils over. You can temper your power in reaction. It’s what I do every time that asshole Shane starts undressing you in his mind. You don’t see me ripping out his throat every other minute, do you?”

“I don’t know. That moment in the elevator was a little touch and go for a few minutes.”

His eyes turned dark. “He’s lucky he walked away that night.”

I considered him for a moment. “This possessive streak inside me, it isn’t part of the evil stuff in me. It’s part of the normal, human stuff.”

“There is nothing evil inside you.”

I waved that off. “Semantics of being one of the damned.”

It was a revelation. I was so sure that every negative reaction I had was specific to my supernatural side that it had never occurred to me my reactions might be normal. OK, maybe the blood-colored haze and beastly transformations weren’t everyone’s regular, but the feelings were just like everyone else’s.
Look at me, all normal!

He must have sensed the change in me because he smiled and shook his head. “You will never be normal, Mag, and you shouldn’t want to be.”

We’d have to disagree on that one for now. I leaned over and planted a quick kiss on his cheek. “I think I like this not-a-boyfriend thing.”

His eyes grew dark again. “Yeah, there are all kinds of benefits to a not-a-boyfriend.”

The energy between us simmered. Things low in my tummy started to heat. “You mean other than making me feel better when I freak out?”

He leaned into me, brushed our noses. “There are all kinds of ways to make you feel better.” Then he lay me down on the sofa and spent the rest of the day showing me just how much better I could feel.

My laptop beeped from the table in the kitchen. I slid on my jeans and grabbed a piece of the pizza we’d had delivered a couple of hours ago. It was cold, but I sure as hell wasn’t complaining.

“You’ve been getting a lot of e-mails,” Theo commented as he followed me into the kitchen. His jeans were unbuttoned and he pulled on his tight T-shirt as he walked. I looked him up and down and couldn’t help but lick my lips. “Hopefully people are finding info on those meetings Chang found.” He glanced at me and paused. “Seriously? Babe, I’m not a machine.”