Tame the Storm: 2 (Cinder Mated) (2 page)

A shriek rent the air.

Astrid jerked in shocked pain and covered her ears, planting her nose into the muck.

“Oh gross.” She spat out mud and huddled under her bush. Her heart pounded, nearly blotting out the cacophony assaulting her. “This is going to ruin these new pants.”

The angry wail rattled the forest. Teeth clamping down on her tongue, she curled into herself and pressed as hard as she could over her ears.

She’d never heard that deafening peal before, but it had to be the banshee.

Astrid vibrated with the force of the sound waves. Tears dropped down the tip of her nose and she screamed—her distress lost in the agony of being alone, hidden, while a para-talent shrieked rage with enough force to tear Astrid apart.

It stopped.

Astrid took gulps of musty air. Her mouth tasted of salt and dirt. Carefully, she unclenched her body and forced her eyes open. Her hiding spot appeared the same. Shaking, she remained as small as possible. Anytime now, someone would come and get her out of here.

This was the plan. She shouldn’t be scared. Everything was okay and this was the path to stop the CTF from ripping away innocents’ powers. She gulped and curled tighter around herself.

Pounding steps cut through the ringing in her ears. Black moved along the path between trees. Neil, face red and contorted, dropped to the ground.

“Stay here. Keep to the plan.” He panted, wiped a hand over his brow and was gone.

They arrived at the campsite Daisy and Sean had infiltrated before sending out a call for help. Griffin told himself not to panic. Sean sprawled on the ground unconscious, and Daisy, no matter how he tried to calm her, was on the verge of letting loose her banshee wail.

Nothing made sense. After the scene in the basement, CTF had left the couple space to work both the case and their new partnership, but then they’d gotten an emergency call. He and older brother Ray rushed up to the Appalachians with a rescue team. Since arriving, all he’d been able to figure out is Daisy wanted to kill Vince Nelson.

And rogue para-talents had gathered together into some sort of faction.

Griffin frowned. Vince had betrayed CTF and they’d yet to figure out what he was up to. “What the hell are you doing here, Vince?”

CTF’s chief strategist opened his eyes and groaned.

Daisy’s attention snapped to the man as if she were a hawk sighting a mouse. Vince was no mouse, but Daisy…Daisy could tear down this entire mountain.

“You have to stop. Listen to me.” Griffin put a hand on her. “Just give me a sec. What the hell is going on? Why are my friends passed out all over the damn campground?”

She flung him off with such wrath, he landed on his ass.

“Leave, Grif. You don’t want to be here for this.” She snarled. The air practically hummed with menace. “Run.”

“Ray, get the shielding.” Griffin scrambled to his feet and brushed the leaves off his ass.

Then it all blurred.

Daisy threatened Vince. The older man panicked. Daisy opened her mouth and started her wail. Griffin’s heart pounded, his ears burned, but he’d been the only Cinder able to disperse some of her powers for short amounts of time. It’d made him her glorified babysitter. Never had he been so grateful for that job.

Ray, his scowl fierce with pain, brought over the specially made cloth and Griffin grabbed a side. Ray gasped but managed, “Take it easy, Daisy.”

She wouldn’t back down. Not once the rage held her in its grip. Not with Sean passed out on the ground, unable to reach her telepathically.

Taking over as Ray doubled over, Griffin unceremoniously dumped the bag—similar to canvas—over Daisy’s head as she started to wail.

Instantly, the sound muffled and his ears stopped feeling as if they’d bleed.

Ray tackled Daisy to the ground. She struggled before she sagged. Mumbling to her—though she might not hear it through the sound-dampening cloth—Ray rocked her as if she were a child. Griffin rummaged through the pack he’d dropped, pulled out a tranquilizer and grimaced as he administered it to Daisy.

Once she quieted, Griffin looked into his brother’s worried frown. “Why was she trying to kill Vince?”

“I think we have to believe the tip that brought us out here. Vince put together and led this group of rogues.”

Griffin didn’t want to believe it, but the facts spoke for themselves. Kneeling, he gathered his niece into his arms and stood with her slack body. Other CTF members had loaded the injured into the vehicles. As gently as possible, he secured Daisy into the back of the van and closed the door. The window of the vehicle was cool against his forehead. “I hated sedating Daisy. We’ve never treated her like that before. She trusts us.”

Ray squeezed his shoulder. Griffin stood straight, taking a rare moment to rely on his brother’s strength.

“You do a great job with our niece, but sometimes even you can’t keep a lid on her turbulence. She’s in good hands now. We need to see if there are other para-talents in hiding out here.” Ray patted Griffin and joined the team gathered behind them. “Spread out, let’s find any stragglers, see if anyone needs help.”

Ray’s fiery para-talent made it nearly impossible for him to sit still when there was work to be done. Griffin didn’t have that problem. He took a moment to re-assess and get his bearings.

The van with Daisy and Sean left, carrying them to safety. Those two had done their jobs and stopped an amassing of rogues that could’ve led to disaster.

Griffin didn’t know why they’d gathered. Vince Nelson—the traitor—had a lot of explaining to do once he regained consciousness.

In the meantime, Griffin had to dispense with the cloudy mood slowing his steps and get to work. They had to find out what happened here and find out fast, but they’d cover more ground if they searched different areas.

The camp was a standard layout. Small rental cottages set in the woods with fire pits and tent-pitching areas. There’d been at least twenty-four rogues amassed here. They’d caught the leader—how could Vince have betrayed them? Now the hard deductive investigating started. Rogues didn’t band together. Why had these?

Ray and a few others threw open the doors of the houses and disappeared inside.

Pivoting away from the others, his boots dug into the ground, scattering the rocks lining the path. CTF mages were his friends, his coworkers and his family, but a frisson along his skin made him itchy, too jumpy to be near them. He’d gone from slow and brooding to nervous anticipation in moments.

A tingling along his spine shoved all other thought aside. Something was out there and he had to find it.

Taking a deep breath, he blew out forcefully, creating a wind that rustled through the pine trees surrounding the camp. His storm talent unfurled and rode along his skin as if ready to follow the trail of static that lured him forward.

His cock hardened and his mouth watered. The tingling of power drew him, coaxed him, and made him horny as hell. Again. It was an identical tension to the one in his dream. Except this time, it was real.

A path led from the camp into the surrounding forest. Every step made his dick ache more.

Adjusting the stiffness in his jeans, he knelt near a log on the edge of a large mass of rhododendron bushes. Their sent clogged his nose and he shook his head. He hadn’t realized how far he’d gone, but here he was, down the trail so far from the camp he barely heard the other CTF members investigating the scene, with a woody trying to force itself to burst his zipper.

A few leaves rustled. All else remained still, unmoving. It must have been nothing. A mouse, maybe.

Before he could stand, a twig broke and the limbs of the bush waved with more force than a small rodent could make.

He cleared his throat and kept his tone gentle, non-threatening. “Come on out. We won’t hurt you.”

A low, shaking whisper caressed his ear. “I don’t want to hurt
you
.”

“You won’t.” He smiled. His talent was strong, mage-level. He worked out. Trained. Nobody could take him down on the exercise mat. This woman, meek as she sounded, could not hurt him.

But maybe she had a point.

His dick hardened further at the sound of her voice. All the blood rushed to his groin. His thinking ability slowly pooled there and his control threatened to vortex. He scowled. Instinct shouted to give her plenty of space, but he couldn’t leave.

“Is anyone else out there?” The trembling had left her voice.

“It’s just me. It’s safe.” He didn’t need to look. The fog he’d sent out, in a subconscious reaction to being in an unfamiliar setting, settled on nothing but the forest. No man or woman around.

“CTF, right?”

Curious, that she’d know that. How much had Vince told his group of rogues?

“Yes. Cinder Task Force. The good guys. I’m Griffin.”

“Step back. I’ll come out.”

It shouldn’t have been so hard to get to back away, but the more she spoke, the more his body ached to go to her. Help her. Touch her. And he hadn’t even seen her. His mind didn’t trust his response, but his body ramped up as if it was gonna get a good fuck instead of helping a stranded woman in the wilderness. She’d think he was some sort of perv if he didn’t get that telltale bulge to go away. He blew out a breath and rolled his shoulders.

Two trembling hands with short, dirty fingernails came through the brush and held back branches. A woman crawled out on all fours. He nearly choked on the visual of what he could do to a woman on all fours. His mind had completely fallen into the gutter and all from some shift in the air that still tingled over his skin. Fisting his hands, he ground his teeth to keep from grabbing her hips.

The remnant of the dream, of fucking a woman on her hands and knees swept over him—but he willed himself to behave. His para-talent partner, if she was real, was a blonde. This woman wasn’t.

“Not sure I’ll ever get all this leaf gunk out of my hair.” Even her grousing was attractive.

Straggly brown hair fell into her face. She scrambled to her feet and didn’t fully straighten. Her shoulders hunched, but she came up to his chin, taller than an average woman. Probably five-ten. Despite the forest debris clinging to her, she didn’t seem to have been here long. Her clean scent filled his nose with each breath.

“You’re with the camp.” He still spoke low enough not to frighten her and hoped she wouldn’t sense the lust coursing through him, making his words deep, nearly garbled. His reaction was a first. Nobody had ever thrown him off this way. It was if his storm wanted her, but that didn’t make sense. She wasn’t his para-talent partner.

Talent-partners were opposite in powers. They joined together and, if they matched evenly, lived longer. They could be platonic partners, which was admittedly rare, or lovers. But if the powers weren’t aligned, the weaker talent would be drained until he or she died. Joining wasn’t something to take lightly. Earlier, his storm seemed to have shown him his mate would be a tall, willowy blonde. Not this woman with brown hair.

“Don’t come any closer.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

He glared down at his boots, unaware he’d moved nearer to her—again, but he had. If he reached out, he could touch the fair skin that had smudges of mud along her arms and high on her cheekbone on one side. His legs refused to listen to his internal command to back off a step.

“Do you need a medic? Food? Whatever you need, we can help. Just come with me.” He gestured toward the rest of the team and left his hand hanging in the air, waiting for her to grasp his fingers. When she didn’t, he dropped his empty palm to his side.

“You can’t touch me. I’m a syphon. I’ll take all that nice electrical storm you’re producing all around you like a halo and I’ll dump it into the ground.”

“A syphon.” Despite his still-hard cock and the urges to do more than touch, he finally took a large step back. Then another. His fingers twitched. His eager body wasn’t listening but his brain knew the truth. This gorgeous woman was strictly hands off. If her hair color hadn’t told him, her talent did. This was not his woman.

“That’s a rare talent, sugar. Only met two others like you.” One was part of CTF. The other, he’d dealt with once. Once was more than enough.

“It didn’t go well, did it?” The corner of her mouth lifted in a quirk but the sadness in her eyes didn’t match the smile.

“Might say that.” He’d shot the bastard between the eyes. They had a strict policy of never harming rogues. The purpose of the CTF was to protect everyone, even the ones who broke human laws and threatened exposing the existence of para-talents. But some rogues could not be redeemed. When Samuel Thomas clapped his hands around Griffin’s throat, fully intending to drain him dry, Griffin had barely enough strength to shove him off and end that maniac’s life with a clean shot.

The mental scars left behind weren’t so clean.

When a syphon touched a weather mage, the syphon could incapacitate the powers in the other in mere moment. Death came fast. Most other mages stood a fighting chance. The drain was slower and gave any other power-type a chance to fight back.

The reminder did wonders to help alleviate his hard-on.

“You aren’t a danger to anyone back there.” He glanced up and down the lean body he had an irrational need to cover with his own. “I’m the only weather talent. Let them help you. You look tired and hungry. Cold.”

His gaze tracked down to the front of her shirt. Her nipples stood out prominently even through the bra outlined under her shirt. Gorgeous. But not for him. She shifted her crossed arms and covered the tight peaks. The slight smile dropped from her face. “Look that bad, huh?”

“No.” A long exhalation left his torso feeling hot and empty.

“I’ve been trapped up here all night. I’m more than ready to leave. You’re right. I’m starved.”

“Come on, then. Blankets and coffee down at the camp.” At least he hoped so. He’d called Susan, the CTF syphon mage, when they’d secured the area and asked her to bring provisions for any rogues they found, and well, he needed the coffee. It promised to be a long day. Two syphons here at this camp today. The odds of that were astronomical.

“I’m Astrid Collins. My family has long been a partner of yours.”

The trail dipped a bit in the path ahead. Griffin reached toward the small of her back then snatched back. He frowned at the ground and shoved his hands in his pockets. No touching.

No touching, no touching, no touching.

Wait
. She was a Collins.

“The Collins family out of Virginia? What are you doing out here? With Nelson?” The betrayal finally struck deep. Vince Nelson had been a trusted mage at CTF, with a talent for strategy that boggled the mind. His powers came with an innate ability to process math, puzzles and stats.