The Final Formula (27 page)

The tension built, and I moved closer to sliding over that edge when he stopped. Before I could voice my disappointment, he slid back up my body and covered my mouth with his. His tongue wasn’t the only thing he thrust inside me. I cried out against his lips, more in surprise than pain. Although that little twinge did knock the edge off the delicious tension he’d been building.

He froze. “You okay?”

Hyperaware of his presence, I could only nod.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

I frowned. What did he want me to say? “Ow?”

“Addie.”

And then it hit me. “I was a virgin?” No way.

The annoyance faded from his features. “You didn’t know.”

“How would I? I didn’t even know my name.”

He brushed a hand over my forehead, pushing back my hair. “When I find out who did this to you, I’ll kill him.”

I smiled, touched by his concern. “Can we discuss that later?”

Amusement twinkled in his flame-colored eyes. “Very well.” He slid forward and I gasped. “Addie?”

“Wow.” I found my voice. “It did fit.” Oops. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

He chuckled and pushed up a little to gaze down our joined bodies. “It seems you were made for me.”

“How pretentious, Your Grace.” I looped my arms around his shoulders as his eyes returned to mine. “Perhaps
you
were made for
me
.”

He laughed and then he started to move. I decided the argument could wait. Right now, I was far too preoccupied to form a coherent sentence. Within moments, I couldn’t even form a coherent thought. He’d brought me back to where I’d been, then pushed me beyond. I almost wanted to pull away from the intensity of it all. Almost.

I watched him watch me, noting the way the gold shimmered outward from his pupils, obscuring more and more of the orange. His eyes were golden by the time I finally let go, then he followed. My breath caught as the air around us ignited. He squeezed his eyes closed and the muscles in his jaw tensed as he gritted his teeth.

The flames died and Rowan pressed his face to my throat. He didn’t exactly collapse, but I was certainly aware of his greater weight pressing me into the sheets. His rapid breathing filled the silence.

Concerned, I rubbed his back, aware of how warm his skin was. “You okay there, Hot Stuff?”

A pause, and he pushed himself up on his elbows. The orange had receded to the thin band around his pupils. “You test my control, alchemist.”

“Yeah, blame me.”

He smiled. Goodness, he was gorgeous, rumpled hair and all. I reached up and touched his cheek. He turned his head and kissed my palm, closing his eyes.

I released a breath. “I think I’m falling for you, too,” I whispered.

He opened his eyes and met mine for a heartbeat before he leaned down and kissed me. I felt the heat as the air ignited around us again.

Chapter
28

K
nocking woke me, and I
pried open my eyes to watch Rowan slide from the bed. He grumbled something I didn’t catch and headed for the door without a stitch of clothing. Damn, that was nice.

To my surprise, he pulled the door open with no concern for his nudity. I pulled the sheet to my chin, though the bed wasn’t visible from the doorway. I could hear the low rumble of Donovan’s voice, but I didn’t catch the words. Had Rowan known it was his brother Element? I certainly hoped so.

“Already?” Rowan answered. “Tell him I’ll be down shortly.”

Still clutching the sheet, I sat up to better see the clock—9:24 a.m. Whoa. The door closed, and I made the mistake of watching Rowan return to me. Mmm, even better.

He climbed onto the bed and pulled me close. “Good morning.” A long leisurely kiss followed.

“More like mid-morning,” I said when I could. “What did Donovan want?”

“Gerald’s here. He’s working on that file now.” His hands were sliding over my bare skin, pushing the sheet away. His mouth found my shoulder and slid downward.

“Um. Didn’t you say you’d be right down?” I gasped when his tongue flicked over my breast.

“I’d rather spend the day inside you.” The words came out muffled.

“Rowan.” I moaned.

“God, I love it when you say my name like that.” He licked the other nipple. “Shower with me?”

“I seriously doubt that’ll save much time.”

He leaned up and grinned, eyes already aglow. “I must confess, that wasn’t why I suggested it.”

By
the time we arrived
in Rowan’s office, Gerald had commandeered his chair and sat hunched over Lawson’s laptop. His sandy-blond hair stuck up in clumps like he’d just rolled out of bed. The glare of the screen reflected off his thick glasses, but I still caught the rapid movement of his eyes as he scanned the screen.

“Be careful what you read there,” I said. “Some of it is a little risqué.”

Gerald sprang from the chair, almost overturning it in the process. I couldn’t decide if I’d startled him, or if I’d caught him partaking of Lawson’s literary talents. The flush on his cheeks suggested the latter.

“Your Grace,” he said, catching sight of Rowan. He glanced at me and frowned, but if he still considered me a threat to Rowan, he kept those comments to himself.

“Any luck?” Rowan asked, a hint of amusement in his tone.

“It was a simple encryption.” Gerald returned to the laptop and hit a few keys. “I also printed a copy.” He gestured at the tiny printer on Rowan’s desk.

While Rowan joined him at the laptop, I picked up the printed copy. After the security measures, I expected something more substantial than two single-spaced pages. Hoping it wasn’t more erotica, I cautiously started reading.

Today I was murdered.

I woke in a crypt, my back pressed against cold stone while I strained to see in the darkness. Flickering light drew my attention, and I turned my head to watch a cloaked man walk into the room. He placed his candle on a table loaded with strange glassware and lab equipment.

“Rise,” he commanded.

I didn’t want to obey him, but I couldn’t resist. In an instant, I was on my feet.

He turned to face me and closed the distance between us. I couldn’t see his features in the shadow of his hood, but when he caught my face in one fleshless hand, I was glad.

“Oh God,” I whispered, dropping into one of the chairs before Rowan’s desk.

“What is it?” Rowan asked.

“Read the file,” I muttered, my eyes falling to the next paragraph. “Just read the file.”

“You are dead, Robert Allen Lawson. I have bound your soul to your corpse. If you wish to return to the land of the living, you will complete the task I give you. You will bring me the Elixir of Life.”

“We were wrong,” Rowan said. “The lich is behind it.” He leaned over the laptop, a hand braced to either side. His eyes continued to move over the screen.

I stared at the last line. The Elixir of Life. The Final Formula. That made no sense. All the lich wanted was my blood. I continued reading. Lawson went on to describe the days and weeks that followed. How he tried to fulfill his new master’s orders, while his body began to decay. He no longer ate or slept. He began to lose sensation in his extremities. His tale ended with his discovery of a new bullet and his plans to visit the manufacturer’s gun shop, in hopes of meeting the alchemist.

A thump made me look up, and I noticed that Gerald had backed against the wall behind Rowan’s desk. He stared, wide-eyed toward the door and I turned to look. James stood in the doorway, a frown on his face and his narrowed eyes on Gerald.

When I turned back to check Gerald’s reaction, he was gone. He’d teleported from the room.

Rowan sighed.

“I didn’t do anything,” James said.

Ignoring the exchange, I got to my feet and walked over to James. “You won’t believe this.” I waved the pages I held. “Lawson was a lich.”

“What?” James’s attention shifted to me.

I passed him the printout. “He was made one—against his will. I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”

“I see souls. Liches have them.”

“Soul or not, he was still dead,” Rowan said, straightening. “Lawson would have been susceptible to necromantic control.”

“Ian, the lich king. Why didn’t he demand I give him the Formula?”

“That is odd,” James said.

I rubbed a hand over my face. What was I missing? The lich had me, and all he’d asked for was my blood. He must have known that I didn’t have the formula—which meant he knew who did.

I dropped my hand. “Emil.” I rose to my feet. “He’ll go after Emil.” Who lay helpless in the hospital.

“Lawson’s dead,” James pointed out.

“But there were other men.” I thought about how interested they’d been in the outcome of Lawson’s actions. “Oh God. Were they liches, too?” I turned to Rowan. “What about those men at the gun shop?” Or the Alchemica.

“We’ll go to the hospital now.” Rowan started for the door. “Let me grab some flashlights.”

“Flashlights?” James asked.

“We’re going back to the crypt?” I asked.

“The two of you can watch over your Grand Master while I take care of this lich.” He walked out the door without waiting for any input.

“I want to come with you,” I called after him. James could stay with Emil and keep him safe while we confronted the lich.

Rowan didn’t answer.

I paced while I waited, trying to think of some excuse to tag along to the crypt. What formulas did I have that’d prove useful? The truth serum? Would my formulas even work on a corpse? James had let me experiment on him in the past, but that wasn’t an accurate comparison. He might refer to himself as dead, but his body still lived. He had to eat and sleep. He bled—sometimes. Depending on how long Ian had been dead, he might be little more than a well-preserved sack of bones.

“Guess there are worse ways to be dead,” James said, finishing Lawson’s tale. He returned the printout to Rowan’s desk.

“It doesn’t sound pleasant.” How had Lawson ended up that way? Had he stumbled upon Ian’s tomb while working for the PIA? “I wonder how difficult it is to make a lich.”

“From what I’ve read, it can take a day or more.”

I glanced over at my buddy. “You’ve read up on lich making?”

He leaned against the front of Rowan’s desk, his hands braced to either side of his hips. “I thought it in my best interest to learn something about necromancy, but I couldn’t find much.” He shrugged. “I did discover that a lot of the old necros were alchemists.”

The faintest stirring of déjà vu tingled across my senses. “Tell me more.”

Something in my tone made him glance over. “What is it?”

“That sounds…familiar. What else?” I moved closer, not wanting to miss a word.

“The old necros used alchemy to bolster their ability, though I’m not sure how. It seemed to deal with blood alchemy quite a bit. I tried to learn more, but didn’t get far since modern academies won’t teach blood alchemy.”

The déjà vu hit again. A little harder this time. It kept coming back to blood alchemy.

James gripped my shoulders. “Addie?”

I stood still, not wanting to move for fear the sensation would slip away. “Go on.”

“That’s about it, except,” he hesitated, “my ancestor was supposed to have given a necromancer his blood. I have no way to prove it, but I think that necro used blood alchemy to create the first grim.”

The déjà vu hit full force.

I sat in a darkened room, the light of a computer monitor the only illumination. Pudgy fingers typed on the keyboard, and I realized they were my own. The monitor flickered, a status bar slowly filling as a new screen loaded. When it finished, a genealogy record appeared. My eyes traced the line down to the final entry. Forrest Huntsman. A name I’d giggled at the first time I heard it. James’s father.

One plump finger rose and tapped the screen over his name. “Found you,” I heard myself say.

“Addie?” James’s green eyes swam into focus, only inches from my own.

I gasped and jerked back.

“Hey, you with me?” he asked.

I realized that I sat in one of Rowan’s guest chairs. I ran my palms over the smooth leather arms, trying to ground myself in this time and place. James knelt in front of me, his brow wrinkled in concern.

“Here.” Rowan stopped beside my chair, and I jumped at his sudden appearance. When did he get back? He pressed a tissue into my hand. “Your nose is bleeding.”

I dabbed the tissue to my nose and it came away bloodstained.

“The stronger surges of déjà vu give her nose bleeds,” James told Rowan.

“I’m sure he can’t relate,” I muttered, remembering how Rowan’s nose had bled the night before. I wiped my nose again, glad to see that the bleeding had almost stopped.

“Did you remember something?” James asked.

I didn’t know what the memory meant, but I didn’t want to tell him. “Bits and pieces. Nothing coherent.” I rose to my feet. “Are we ready?”

“Yes.” Rowan picked up the copy of Lawson’s tale from the crypt and headed for the door. James and I fell in behind him.

I suddenly remembered a comment George had made the other night at the clinic. Something about James receiving a call from the Alchemica.

“Why were you in Cincinnati the night the Alchemica blew?” I asked James. I knew he’d been on some errand for the gun shop, but I’d never asked for particulars.

“George wanted to get into the magic bullet business. And since I dabbled in alchemy…”

“Why the Alchemica?”

“George got a flier. He told me to set up an appointment.”

My stomach dropped. I knew I’d sent the flier.

“Why do you want to know?” he asked. “Something in the memory?”

“Just thinking about your research in necromancy and interest in alchemy,” I glanced up at him. “You
were
trying to find a cure.”

“There is no cure for death.” He met my eyes a moment before he looked away, but in that moment, I caught a glimmer of hope.

“And yet everyone is after the Final Formula,” Rowan said, waiting for us at the door. “The Elixir of Life.”

“The title’s misleading,” I stopped beside him. “Maybe I should join you and set the lich straight.”

Rowan just smiled and led us from the room.