Seduced by Two (4 page)

What the hell could a guy like this want with Nica? What could she be wrapped up in?

The man smiled a toothy grin as Jensen moved in front of Nica, stepping next to Tanner to form a wall in front of her.

“Oh look,” he mocked. “Aren’t the
eteri
cute? Do they think they can protect you?”

Eteri
? What the hell were
eteri
? Some foreign slang?

“I don’t know who you are or who you’re working for,” Nica said, “but I will not help you.”

“Now, I don’t think you want to make such a hasty decision. It took us a long time to track one of you down. My employer will make it worth your while. It’ll be easier if you just come with me.”

Tanner had had enough. “There’s no way she’s going anywhere with you so you can turn around and leave before this gets ugly.”

The guy didn’t even look at him or Jensen. He kept his attention squarely on Nica. Jensen tensed and Tanner knew he was getting ready to jump the guy. Tanner wouldn’t be far behind.

Then Jensen jerked as if something had hit him and Nica shouted, “No!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tanner saw Jensen fall, clutching his chest as if he’d been shot. Tanner shot forward, aiming to tackle the guy in front of him. The thug pointed his empty hand toward Jensen, as if he held a gun. Tanner hadn’t seen a shot or smelled gunpowder. All he knew was that his brother was down and this guy was responsible.

“Tanner, no!”

Nica’s voice rang loud in the silence, a command in her tone he didn’t heed.

He didn’t get far before he was tossed backward.

He stumbled back into Jensen and Nica, who’d gone to her knees next to Jensen and gathered him into her arms. Tanner didn’t have time to check on either of them because the guy still stood there. Not moving in for the kill. Just standing there staring at them.

No, not them. He was fixated only on Nica.

“This is just a warning, Niccola. You have until Monday. Next time you will come willingly. Or there will be more casualties.”

Then the guy turned and walked away.

Tanner struggled to get to his feet but the guy must have hit him harder than he’d thought and he fell back on his ass on the pavement. His ears rang and his lungs felt as if someone had dropped a concrete block on them.

“Jensen, can you hear me? Jensen!”

The increasing panic in Nica’s voice finally broke through Tanner’s confusion and he turned to find Jensen out cold in Nica’s arms.

Tanner scrambled to his knees, reaching to touch his brother’s pale face. He didn’t see any blood but… “Shit! Is he shot? Nica, what the hell just happened—”

“We need to get him inside.” She stared straight up into his eyes, hers wide but not terrified. “You need to carry him inside and let me work on him. I can help him. You have to trust me.”

Trust her to do what? Tanner struggled to his feet but could barely stand, the throbbing in his head made him dizzy. “Gotta get Jensen to the hospital.” He reached for his cell phone to call 9-1-1 but it wasn’t in his pocket.

“They won’t be able to help him there.” Nica’s voice held a thread of strength, of command that made him want to listen to her. “You need to help me get him inside.”

Yeah, okay. They needed to get inside. Tanner shut his mouth and reached for Jensen. His brother was shorter but carried more muscle weight than Tanner.

With his head still fuzzy and his knees weak, Tanner wasn’t sure he could make it all the way into the house without dropping Jensen, but between him and Nica, they got Jensen off the ground. They wrapped his arms around their shoulders and dragged his dead weight back into the house, laying Jensen out on the floor of the living room.

“Tanner, I need you to bring me a bowl of cold water, tap is fine. I’ll need towels too. Go.”

He went but not before he watched Nica tear open Jensen’s shirt and lay her hands on his brother’s unbroken skin. He saw no blood, no sign of a blow of any kind.

What the hell had that thug done? Tanner shook his head, trying to remember.

“Tanner.” Nica didn’t even bother to turn around. “Please, I need those things.”

He went, got a bowl, filled it with ice then water. From the pantry, he grabbed the beach towels they stored there. Why the hell did they keep the beach towels in the pantry? What—

Shaking his head, he cleared his wandering thoughts and headed back to the living room.

Christ, if anything happened to Jensen—

“Holy fuck, what the hell?”

Tanner froze at the sight of Nica kneeling next to his brother, her hands flat on Jensen’s chest. And glowing.

Her hands actually glowed, a pale greenish yellow that pulsed as it bathed Jensen’s chest in light.

“Put the water and towels next to me and step back but don’t go anywhere,” she said. “I may need your help.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m drawing out the spell.”

He did as she said, trying to think through the ache in his head. Did she just say spell?

“Did you call—”

“Tanner.” Her quiet but forceful tone shut him up immediately. “I need to concentrate. Please.”

She needed to concentrate. On drawing out the spell.

Christ, this was not happening.

Jensen was not lying on the floor, looking like he was dying. And Nica was not hunched over him, her hands glowing—freaking glowing—like something out of a sci-fi film.

He had to be dreaming.

That was the only explanation for the fact that he stood there and watched a woman he’d only known for a few hours move her glowing hands over his possibly dying brother.

Nica didn’t make a sound as she concentrated, eyes closed, mouth moving in a silent rhythm. As if she were praying.

Tanner didn’t have much religion. He believed in being a good person, doing the right thing and having fun without hurting anyone.

He didn’t believe in faith healers. He didn’t believe in magic.

But he couldn’t dismiss what he was seeing with his own eyes. So that meant he had to be dreaming.

Nica gasped at that moment, her hands trembling and her body convulsing with a shudder.

“Gods damn it. That bastard.”

He barely heard Nica mutter under breath but he knew she wasn’t pleased.

“Tanner, come sit behind me. I need you.”

Yeah, sure. Why not? This dream couldn’t get any freakier.

He sat.

“Now, I know this is going to sound really strange…” She paused as she drew her hands away from Jensen and turned so she could look at him. “I need you to kiss me. I need energy to counteract the spell and sexual energy is the best way to do that.”

She stared hard into his eyes, hers intense with concentration. She had beautiful eyes, a beautiful mouth. She had such a serene presence that the heat the three of them had generated in bed had been a surprise. A great one.

“I know you’re worried about Jensen but I can help him,” she continued. “I just need you to help me.”

“Sure.”

So he cupped her cheeks in his hands and kissed her. That’s what you did in a dream. You went with it.

And kissing Nica was the best dream ever. Her soft lips felt like silk against his, her warm breath enticing him to fall a little deeper into her. He remembered how her mouth had felt wrapped around his cock, how she’d cried out around him when she’d come.

Now she melted against him, opened her mouth and kissed him back.

And he felt…something. Like a breeze from an open window blew over his skin. But they’d turned on the central air last week and all the windows in the house were closed.

It’s a dream, only a dream.

A dream that felt way too real.

He snapped back, his eyes opening wide as that breeze lifted the hair on his arms. Static electricity.

Nica must have felt it too because she drew in a deep breath, her eyes still closed. As if she were basking in the feeling.

“Nica, what—”

She pressed her mouth to his again in a short, sharp kiss before she turned back to Jensen and replaced her hands on his brother’s chest.

“Put your arms around me, Tanner. Hold me.”

Sliding his arms around her waist, his hands splayed across her abdomen. She leaned into him without taking her hands away from Jensen. He felt every breath shudder through her body. And felt a warm energy that seemed to surround her like a haze.

What the hell…

Her hands began to glow again.

Jesus Christ, this was no dream.

His lungs caught on an indrawn breath then began to work on overload. “Nica, what the fuck is going on?”

She didn’t answer right away, her concentration completely focused on his brother. As he watched over her shoulder, fear for his brother’s life and sheer wonder at what Nica was doing combining to make him lightheaded.

The glow pulsed, as if in time with her heartbeat. He couldn’t look away.

She began to chant again, this time audibly. He didn’t recognize the language. Not French, which he’d taken in high school. Not Spanish, which some of their employees spoke.

Nica gasped, her expression pinching with pain, but her hands remained steady over Jensen. The glow changed color, flaring almost white before becoming so bright it hurt Tanner’s eyes.

Then, like the flash of an explosion, the glow intensified so much, he had to close his eyes. Nica fell back against him as if someone had pushed her and he instinctively held her tighter.

When he opened his eyes, he looked first at Jensen.

“Jesus, Tanner. What the hell happened?” Jensen sat up, shaking his head, as if shaking off a headache. “Shit. Nica, are you okay?”

Tanner looked down into Nica’s pale face, slack in unconsciousness. Then he looked back at Jensen, who looked perfectly healthy.

“What the hell’s going on?”

Tanner didn’t realize he said the words aloud until Jensen answered him as he rose to his feet and lifted Nica out of his arms.

“I have no idea.” Jensen carried her to the couch and set her down. “What the fuck happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Nica said, her voice faint as she struggled to sit up on the couch. “Everything’s fine.”

“Yeah, well, that’s bullshit,” Tanner said, his tone harsher than he wanted.

When she flinched, causing Jensen to shoot him a look, Tanner tried to tone down his anxiety. But something weird was definitely going on here. Nica was in trouble with a guy who’d laid out Jensen with a… Hell, he still didn’t know how the guy had hit Jensen hard enough to knock him unconscious. And he’d seen Nica’s hands glow. They’d fucking glowed and she’d held them over Jensen’s body until he’d woken.

“Nica, who was that guy and what did he want with you? What did he do to Jensen? What’s with the glowing hands?”

His brother jerked around to look at him like he was nuts but Tanner knew what he’d seen. And when Nica didn’t bother to contradict him, Jensen turned to her.

“What’s he talking about?”

Nica shook her head. “I can’t explain. You won’t understand. And after the next few minutes, you won’t remember.”

Nica struggled up to sit on the couch.

Her head hurt from the force of the binding spell breaking. Her nerve endings tingled with residual energy and her hands burned.

“Could I please have the bowl? I need to soak my hand.” The shock of the cool water would help until she got home and put her mother’s salve on them.

That spell had been nasty and if she hadn’t been as skilled as she was, Jensen would have died. It had bound all of his internal organs and forced them to stop. It would have killed him. Whoever the man was who’d worked it, he had power of his own, though the workings were a little crude. Effective but crude.

So who was he?

She thought about that as Jensen and Tanner continued to fire questions at her.

Questions she couldn’t answer because they would never believe her. And if they did…well, that opened a whole other can of worms.

“Nica, you’re in trouble. Let us help.”

The intensity in Jensen’s voice cut through the clamor in her head and she looked up at him. He held the bowl and she felt the couch dip as Tanner sat beside her, guiding her hands into the water. She breathed a sigh of relief as they cooled.

Yes, she was in trouble but they couldn’t help her.

Both men stared at her with the same level of concern, though Tanner’s was tinged with a whole lot more “What the fuck?”

He’d seen her hands.

She stared straight into his eyes and lied, hating herself as she did it.

“Nothing happened. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

And when she was safe at home, and these men didn’t remember a second of this night, then she could cry her heart out.

Because this was all her fault.

The calls had started a week ago. A female voice she didn’t recognize had called the apartment, asked for her by name. The woman had said she wanted Nica to work for her, wanted her to use her “special gift” for her. She’d promised huge sums of cash.

Nica had at first shrugged it off as an unusual telemarketer. But the woman had called every day. Except today.

She shouldn’t have gone to the bar tonight. She shouldn’t have gone home with these
eteri
.

But, oh Blessed Goddess, they’d had been the best thing to happen in her life in more years than she cared to admit. They’d made her feel wanted for herself and not just her abilities. They’d made her feel sexy—

“Nica.” Tanner’s sharp tone cut through her thoughts. “Who was that man?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen him before.”

She answered truthfully, more because she still needed a few more minutes to recover. She had to perform the spell that would wipe the brothers’ memories of this night but she wasn’t as adept at this as Tira, whose Goddess Gift tied directly into her mental capabilities.

Nica’s Gift drew from her emotions and right now, they were in upheaval. She wasn’t sure she could remember the spell much less perform it correctly. Even though she knew she had to.

She couldn’t leave without wiping their memories. They couldn’t remember what had happened.

As the men continued to fire questions at her, she began the spell that would wipe her from their memories as surely as if they’d never met. Using the water as a conductor, she let the spell sink into the bowl. All her many years of training came to the fore as she charged the water.