Stolen Fate (8 page)

He stepped back, realizing that he was staring at her like a starving man.
 

“We should go,” he said.

“Aye.” But she didn’t move. The expression on her face changed from confusion to something else, something that had her eyes skipping down his body, then back up to his face.

“Fiona.” As her name tore from his throat, it dawned on him that she’d stepped forward until she stood nearly toe-to-toe with him.
 

He had a feeling that she hadn’t realized she’d done it. It seemed like her thoughts had turned away from the book, and his were helpless but to follow.

When her hand rose to rest against his chest, he reached down to cup the back of her head. He pulled her to him and pressed his lips to hers. Something like a growl rose in his throat when her lips parted beneath his.

She surged against him, wrapping her strong arms about his neck. The feel of her against him, soft and curved, made his cock throb. The streak of desire was so hot it made him growl low in his throat, then clench his fist in her hair to hold her still for his mouth.
 

Her tongue met his and all he could think about was lifting her up so that she sat on the half-wall and he could get at the zipper to her jeans. He wanted inside her. Now.
 

So badly that it scared him.

It felt like he was losing control of his body, the long-denied lusts that had ridden him rising to the fore until they stamped out his conscious thought and possibly her will as well.

That scared him. He tore away from her, mourning the lost taste of her lips but too afraid of where his body might be going without his mind.

She blinked up at him, shiny lips parted and breath coming fast. “Ian, um… I…”

“We should go.”
 

She nodded, seeming to come back to her senses. “Okay. You’re right. Of course.”

Ian spun from her and headed back to the metal door that led back into the museum. He had no idea how he was going to keep his hands off her now.

Fiona and Ian dodged pedestrians back to their rented flat. The two of them were like water that was just about to burst into a boil. There was no stopping it.

It was surreal to be this close to the book, yet be distracted by a thief who’d stolen the artifacts she’d dedicated her life to finding and protecting.

She couldn’t help it; her mind was on the man at her side.
 

“Ian MacKenzie, is that ye?”

Fiona turned around to look at the man they’d just passed. Tall and slender, he was wearing ratty clothes and looking at Ian with recognition gleaming in his buggy eyes. If he recognized Ian, he was a Mythean, not human. He had to be, to still be alive and look so young.

She tensed.
 

“Tommy MacFee.” Ian’s voice was reserved as he shifted to stand partially in front of Fiona.
 

She elbowed him and moved to his side. She could protect herself.

“Who’s that ye got there? Lovely bird, she is.” His accent was far thicker than hers or Ian’s.

Fiona scowled at him.

“You always were an arse, Tommy,” Ian said.

“Aye, ye’d know now, would ye no’?” Tommy reached into the pocket of his scrubby jeans and fished out a cigarette and a lighter.

“Goodbye, Tommy.” Ian nodded and took her arm.

“Oy, wait.” He blew out a puff of smoke. “We’re running a con tomorrow night. Could use a hand like yours. Interested?”
 

“Nay.”

“What, too fancy now, are ye? All yer money and yer women and yer standards. Too good for what ye came from? Ye were the best of us, lad. No’ a moral in sight and always brought in the biggest haul.”

“It’s been over a hundred and fifty years, Tommy. I’m gone from that life.”

“Ach, ye know I doona see time like that. Come on then, gotta pretty pay day in it fer ye if ye join us. Just an evening’s work.”

“Nay, Tommy. Goodbye.” Ian pulled on her arm until she turned and followed him. He looked back over his shoulder. “Be careful. Stay out of sight of the university.”

She glanced back to see Tommy shrug, then amble off down the street.

“Who was that?”

“Old mate. A walker I grew up with.”

A walker. She craned her neck around to see if she could catch sight of him again, but he’d disappeared. So that’s what he’d meant about not seeing time, and why he’d asked Ian to join him in a con after so many years apart. Walkers could travel back and forth through time. But if they weren’t careful—and it didn’t look like Tommy was the careful sort—it scrambled their brains until they couldn’t quite tell when things had happened. In Tommy’s mind, he might have been with Ian yesterday.

“What did you mean, stay out of sight of the university?”

Ian shrugged. “Doona want to see Tommy anymore, but doona want him to end up in prison either.”

“You were close?”

“No one was close in our crowd.”

“Then why hang out together?”

“No choice. Canna survive on your own on the streets when you’re a Mythean orphan.”

They reached the wide blue door to the building that housed their rented flat. He pushed it open and waited for her to precede him inside. They climbed the darkened stairwell in silence, but she couldn’t get her mind off the thought of Ian as a child, trying to survive on the streets of Edinburgh.

It was dim in the flat, the sun close to setting and no longer shining through the little windows. It was still midafternoon, but the sun set early this time of year. She flipped the lights on and tried to stow her curiosity about Ian. What they had between them—what little it was—couldn’t just be sexual attraction if she was worried about his childhood. She liked him. And that was bad. He had to go back to prison when this was all over. There was no other choice.
 

So she had to stop worrying about him.

But she couldn’t help herself from following him over to the window and looking out. Her palms positively itched to wrap around his waist from behind. Crazy thought.
 

She clenched them and stood next to him, peering out at the near-darkened street below. Though night fell early in December, they’d have to wait until the street quieted down to break in. It had started to rain, a pathetic sort of drizzle that made the yellow lamps glow eerily and the road gleam darkly. A few people rushed out of the rain. But what about the people that had nowhere to go?

That would have been him as a child, in a time that was far harsher than this.

“Will you tell me about it?” she asked.

“About what?”

“What it was like to be alone out there back then. With Tommy and the others.”

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s a long time past, lassie. Let’s no’ worry about it.”

But she did. She worried about him. She wanted to know if it was as bad as she was imagining it.

“I never knew my mother. And I haven’t seen my father in fifteen years,” she said.

He looked down at her, brows drawn. The dim streetlight cast a yellow glow on the side of his face. “You’re telling me this so that I’ll share, too?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe I just want to share it. What you decide to say after is up to you.”

His hand tightened on the windowsill.

“You know that he lost his mind because he’s a
Failte.
He’s a shell now. Just a body. I doona visit him anymore because I canna take it.” Her throat burned. That would be her one day. Soon, if she didn’t recover the book. She said no more. It felt like the words were boulders stuck in her throat.
 

“Thank you for telling me.” His hand still gripped the windowsill, knuckles white. She wanted to touch him, so badly. Instead, she reached out to trace her finger over the grain of the windowsill.
 

Minutes passed.

His hand shifted and landed over hers, squeezing lightly.

He turned around and leaned against the wall, staring into the small living room. He didn’t look like he was seeing anything, though.
 

“There’s no’ much to tell, really. I grew up in Edinburgh in the early nineteenth century. Among the mortals.”

“How?” she asked. “How’d you end up there? You’re a Mythean.”

“I was brought up by an old mortal woman until I was five. I knew she wasn’t my mother, but I’ve no idea how I ended up with her. We were hungry and cold almost all the time, but she was kind. For the most part. When she died, her son sold me to the workhouse. A glassworks. It was like a fucking nightmare I’d never wake up from, but I had it no worse than any other child had it in the workhouses. Half of Britain ran on the backs of children in those days.”

He sighed and turned around, looked down at the street, his gaze lost in the past. “When I was about thirteen, I figured out that I wasn’t human. At will, I could become invisible. It was my Sylph side coming out. I escaped the glassworks using that ability.”

Of course. He was a half-breed. They didn’t come into their powers until puberty, unlike full breeds, who developed them more gradually from the time they were infants.

“Then what?” she asked.

“I met Tommy. Fell in with his crowd of thieves, and have been doing it ever since. I left Tommy and his like behind years ago and struck out on my own. More profitable.”

“You could do legitimate work,” she said.

“What kind? I’m a former Mythean criminal. At least, I hope to be, if I can get out of prison.” He fingered the collar at his neck and she wanted to yank the thing off him. There was no way he’d be getting out and it made her sick.

“Anyway,” he said. “I enjoy the hunt. The chase. It’s who I am.”

Fiona's phone shrilled and jerked her attention away.
 

She looked down at the number. Fear clogged her throat, and it felt like the floor dropped away from her.

Her boss. Again.

The phone continued to shriek into the now-silent flat. Fiona knew her face was white, her eyes probably wide as hell.
 

Ian turned and walked to the couch, no doubt trying to give her a bit of privacy in the tiny flat. But she couldn’t seem to pick up the phone. Her hand clenched around the little piece of plastic until the ringing finally stopped

A voicemail popped up and her stomach pitched. A second call from the boss who never called her. She was just a researcher and receptionist now. A desk jockey. There was only one reason he’d call her.

She took a shuddering breath and pressed the voicemail button, then lifted the phone to her ear.
 

‘“Fiona, this is Darrence. Lea has informed me that you’re searching for the book. You’ll cease this ridiculous hunt immediately and return to the university at once. Retrieving the book is beyond your capabilities, as you’ve proven. The university will be sending in the best of the best tomorrow. Don’t screw this up for them by charging in there and fucking this up. You’ll be a disgrace to your family, as your father was. I want to see you in my office tomorrow morning, or we’re sending guardians after you.”

She dropped the phone into her lap. She’d known this would happen, she just hadn’t thought it would be so soon.
 

Ian turned to her, concern darkening his expression. “Are you okay?”
 

“Fine. Gotta go.” She raced to the bathroom. She swung the door shut behind her and leaned over the sink, her hands biting into the rim until her knuckles were as white as the porcelain.

She dragged frantic breaths into her lungs, struggling to calm her breathing and her pounding heart.
My job.
Everything she’d worked for. It had been a mess these last ten years, ever since she’d failed to find the book, but it was all she had. All she worked for. All she really wanted.
 

It was her life, as it had been her father’s before her. Becoming a
Failte
had ruined it for her, but still, she needed this job. It was what she’d been fighting for, just as much as she’d been fighting to find the book to save herself from her father’s fate.

Now they would try to take it from her?

Knocking sounded at the door.

“Just a minute.” Fiona was horrified to hear the tears in her voice. She glanced up at the mirror and saw them streaking down her face.

Oh shite. She scrubbed at her face, but it only made her look redder and wilder.