Super Trouble
Authors: Vivi Andrews
Super
Trouble
by Vivi Andrews
Copyright © 2014
Vivi Andrews
All
rights reserved. Without limiting the rights reserved under copyright above, no
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written
permission of the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents
are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
To keep her out of trouble, he'll have to
hold on tight.
Kim Carruthers is done being the damsel in
distress, waiting for some superhero to save her. Now that she finally has
super powers of her own, the bad guys had better watch out. It's payback time.
Provided she can get past the sexy super determined to stop her quest for
vengeance.
Unfortunately, the hero on her tail is none
other than Frost Nightwing, the man even supers fear and the ex-lover whose icy
touch always set her on fire. Tall, dark and deadly Frost is the one love she
could never forget and the last person she wants to face… especially now that
he's playing for keeps.
Chapter
One: The One That Got Away
Chapter
Two: Professional Hostage
Chapter
Three: The Couple That Teleports Together
Chapter
Four: Looking for Clues at the Scene of the Crime
Chapter
Five: Advanced Negotiations
Chapter
Six: Ex-Boyfriend Confab
Chapter
Seven: The Villain America Loves to Hate
Chapter
Eight: Bringing a Gun to a Super Fight
Chapter
Nine: The Iceman Cometh
Chapter
Eleven: A Rock Hard Alibi
Chapter
Twelve: Trouble to the Rescue
Chapter
Thirteen: Demolition For Beginners
Chapter
Fourteen: Nothing But Trouble
Additional
Works by Vivi Andrews
For Leigh & June.
Chapter
One: The One That Got Away
The
full moon hung suspended over the city like a prop in a romantic movie and the
sky was so clear hundreds of stars were visible even in the heart of downtown. The
air was crisp and cool without the icy chill of the storm that had passed
through over the last few days, leaving every surface covered in sparkling
white snow. It was the perfect night for strolling hand in hand with a lover,
ice skating in the park, or taking a carriage ride through the snowy streets
before the car tires turned that pristine white to muddy brown.
And
the perfect night for stalking a would-be felon across the rooftops of Capital
City.
Frost
moved from shadow to shadow, easily keeping his target in sight, though he
hardly needed to. He was a hunter. He could taste the slight, constant burn of
her power at the back of his throat—that odd, tangy mélange of citrus and ozone
that marked a telekinetic.
If
she’d been wary, he would have hung back, trusting his inborn super hunting
senses to track her, but his prey wasn’t making any effort to conceal herself,
careless with the confidence that she was alone on these rooftops and no one
looking up from below would be able to see her black-clad form against the
night sky.
Frost
shook his head at the arrogance as she leapt from one building to the next, her
dark hood falling back and platinum blonde hair streaming behind her like a
banner, catching the moonlight. She floated through the air like a dream,
seeming to hang suspended, mocking gravity for a moment before her feet touched
down nimbly on the next rooftop.
Gorgeous.
And
idiotic.
She
was so new. So high on the thrill of her heady newfound powers she hadn’t yet
realized they didn’t necessarily make her indestructible. Or invisible.
Damn,
he’d missed her. Even her foolish recklessness. Always pushing, barging right
in when a sane woman would call the cops and run—
Frost
forcibly evicted the thought from his head. He wouldn’t let himself think of
her name, remember her scent. She wasn’t
his
. Not anymore. The blonde. The
target. That was all she was to him tonight.
He
didn’t usually track the new ones. His job had less to do with the shiny
excitement of fledgling powers and more to do with what happened after that
power had gotten twisted and corrupted into violence and vengeance. By the time
he was called, the words
dead or alive
were usually involved.
This
woman hadn’t tipped over into the dark side. Yet. But Captain Justice was
convinced she was right on the verge of crossing that line.
Frost
didn’t owe many favors. A man who hunted down supers when they went rogue
couldn’t afford to be indebted to anyone, but he owed Captain Justice. If this
would clear the books, he gladly would step in and stop the pretty little telekinetic
from going bad.
She
did certainly seem to be heading in that direction at the moment, as fast as
her feet would carry her.
Frost
moved silently, one shadow among many, the stealth more habit than necessity
since the blonde never even glanced over her shoulder. Her focus was riveted on
the street below and the man she, in turn, was stalking.
Frost
knew exactly who she was trailing, had fantasized about killing the bastard
himself more than once, but that didn’t matter tonight. All that mattered was
the fact that she was stalking the asshole for personal vengeance—and that was
the line a superhero could never cross.
She stopped,
crouching at the edge of a rooftop overlooking an alleyway, her black-gloved
fingers curling over the rain gutters, blonde curls falling forward over her
shoulders. Anyone looking up would spot her in a heartbeat.
Amateur.
Frost,
in contrast, moved against the night like he was born to it—his dark skin, dark
clothes, and dark thoughts all suited to these midnight hunts. Most of the snow
up here had melted away under the heat of the exhaust vents, leaving the
rooftop a paradise of darkness, made more complete as the heavy moon rolled
behind a nearby skyscraper.
He
took a position among the darkest shadows, less than ten feet away from the woman,
though she didn’t so much as twitch a finger in his direction. An oblivious
idiot as well as a careless one. Wonderful.
She
hadn’t done anything worthy of his intervention yet, but Justice seemed
convinced she would. Tonight.
Impatience
clawed at him. Frost wasn’t in the habit of stalking and intercepting supers
before they sinned, but Justice wanted him to catch this angel before she fell
from grace.
She
sure as hell looked like an angel. That hadn’t changed in the last few years. The
pale curls, the high, sculpted cheekbones and delicate contours of her face. The
perfect bow of her lips. He studied her profile from his position in the
shadows, wondering if she was, objectively speaking, the most beautiful
creature he’d ever laid eyes on. Probably.
Subjectively,
there was no question. She’d always made his heart beat irrationally fast.
But
he would still take her out if it came to that.
Part
of him hoped it wouldn’t. That he’d be able to sway her from her path. Step in
at the exact right moment and save her from herself, be her hero this time. The
instinct to protect her was strong, but the rest of him was resigned to
whatever he had to do. He was cold, merciless Frost. No amount of hope changed
that. He’d learned that lesson years ago.
She
shifted at the lip of the building, lifting her fingers to her mouth to blow on
them through the gloves. Frost was impervious to the cold—empowered by it,
actually, drawing the chill into his body in invigorating waves to be stored
for later use like a battery taking a charge— but she had to be freezing. The
temperature had dropped since the sun set and it couldn’t be more than twenty
up here in the wind.
So
what the hell was she waiting for?
Impatient,
Frost sent an icy chill slithering down her jacket. Maybe he could spook her. Send
her running home before she did something they would both regret.
When
she merely tugged her jacket tighter around her shoulders against the chill,
Frost grimaced with frustration. He didn’t have all damn night.
He
could talk to her now…
Justice
wanted him to scare some sense into her—which would be more effective if he
caught her in the act of something dastardly, but maybe catching her on the
cusp of dastardly was good enough. She
had
stalked that man halfway
across the city. He could work with that.
And,
damn, he just wanted to talk to her, hear his name on her lips, see the look in
her eyes when she saw it was him. Would it be anger? Fear? Joy? It had been so
long.
Frost
shifted from the shadows to reveal himself, a suitably intimidating entrance
line already rising to his lips, when she straightened to her full height—inches
taller than he’d expected thanks to the spike heeled boots—
And
stepped off the edge of the building.
He
hissed out a curse, lunging for her, but he was already too late.
She
landed feather-light in the alley below, of course—any telekinetic with an
ounce of talent could control a fall from only three stories up—but she was so
new his pulse had spiked into the red zone until he saw her safely landed. Too
far away for him to draw her talent into himself and use it as his own. He’d always
been particularly shitty with the finer points of borrowed telekinetic
manipulation anyway.
He could
freeze her power from here—lock it down completely so she was incapable of
doing whatever she was planning in the empty alley below—but that left her
helpless if whoever she was confronting was truly dangerous.
Hold
on. The
empty
alley?
Frost
frowned, scanning the area for the man she’d been tracking. Nada. She’d
positioned herself a few feet in front of the back door to the building across
the way. Lying in wait for her target, no doubt.
Wasting
no more time, he unclipped the lightweight cable device—courtesy of his
sister’s Research and Development department—from his belt, fired the brace pin
into a handy chimney, and followed the blonde over the edge of the building,
the cable spooling out with a near-silent hiss as he descended. He hit the brakes
ten feet off the ground, decelerating to a soundless touchdown on the
snow-covered ground directly behind the angel.
His
landing must not have been as silent as he thought; she whipped around so fast
her curls flew out in an arc, crystal blue eyes widening with horrified
recognition as they locked on him. “
Frost
.” Her whisper hung in the air
between them and for a second the ice that he’d layered around his heart seemed
to crack and melt.
Kim
Carruthers. Intrepid reporter. Ex-girlfriend to Captain Justice. Perennial
damsel in distress. Newly minted telekinetic. Angel on the verge of a fall. And
trouble, from her head to her pointy-toed heels.
The
one that got away.
“Hello,
Kim.”
He
supposed he should have expected her to take a swing at him.
Chapter
Two: Professional Hostage
Kim’s
pulse slammed into overdrive and her hand shot out before her rarely used
survival instincts caught up enough to suggest maybe it wasn’t the wisest thing
in the world to punch the superheroes’ version of the bogeyman. She probably
would have overruled her survival instincts anyway. She’d been fantasizing
about hitting him for far too long.
Frost
Nightwing. So tall, so dark, and oh so dangerous, but it was the eyes that made
him beyond sexy. They were the only pale thing about him, shards of glacial ice
leaping out of his face in dizzying contrast to the rich darkness of his complexion.
The man had always made her knees wobble—of course, that was when he wasn’t
swooping in and screwing up her plans.
Oldest
son of the most powerful superhero couple in the world. Rogue superhero hunter.
And total asshat commitment-phobe ex-love-of-her-life who’d
disappeared
like a freaking coward the morning after she’d told him she loved him for the
first time.