Department 57: Bloody Crystal (15 page)

She swallowed and looked up at his eyes. Fathomlessly dark and friendly, but she knew better than that now. He didn’t try to enter her mind or hurt her, she still felt off balance, unnerved by all the things that had happened recently.

“Come and sit down.” He took her to a chair next to where Kai had settled, and helped her into it, his old-fashioned courtesy a touch intimidating, although she was sure he didn’t mean it that way. He moved away to retake his seat and swiftly introduced the other Talents present. Esti and Kai she knew, but to her awed astonishment, she met the shape-shifting dragon called Domenici Serafino; another Sorcerer, this one a Canadian man called Fabrice Germain, as pale and cold as Esti, but since he was over here on business and might be of help, he was invited to attend the meeting; and Bryn Murchison, another merman. Bryn’s build was more obviously muscular than Kai’s athletic form, but Cerys had already decided to take every surprise as it arrived.

They were all attractive in their own way, but none of them was Rhodri.

This was where she learned how to get him back, how to help him, and right now that was all that mattered.

“Yesterday’s incident exhausted Esti,” Will said, “but we need to move as quickly as possible, so I’ve invited Fabrice to sit in.”

“Yesterday’s incident killed a good friend of mine,” Cerys responded waspishly.

“It did, and we’re sorry for it. We’ll do our best to make whoever did that pay. Esti took a reading while she was there, and she sensed the strong presence of Talents, including the one we’re hunting. I’m presuming Rhodri isn’t talking, and they want you. Or they might want you anyway. Your cover is blown, Cerys. While you might be able to go back to your previous life, it’s going to be harder.”

She heard his words with a dull sense of inevitability. They’d killed Dave to get to her. “They wanted him to give them my address?”

“They probably wanted him to help them trap you. They want you as well as Rhodri.”

“How did they know?”

“They broke into your apartment when they took Rhodri, didn’t they?” Grady tapped his fingers on the table. “They’d have sensed you then. And sensed easy prey. Well, they are about to learn differently.” He gave an impatient wave. “If it’s all right by you, we’d like Fabrice to help you focus. You’ve bonded with Rhodri. That means you’re closer than any of us, and there’s a chance you can tell us where to look. You can contact him at a much deeper level than we can, even the most powerful Sorcerer.”

Cerys felt the power almost humming through the room, so she didn’t need Will Grady to tell her that she was in the presence of scarily powerful beings.

“Then we’ll plan a way to get him back. We know Wilkinson has him, and we know he sells Talents for cash, but he has a personal grudge against Rhodri, as he does the rest of us. We will find him, and this time we won’t stop until we have him.” It seemed more important to them than keeping Rhodri alive.

“How do we know he’s not dead?” the dragon asked.

Before she could censor herself, Cerys replied, “He’s not dead.”

Silence. They stared at her, and Fabrice’s mouth quirked up at the corners. “So, little one, you know this. You are linked. Do you think you’d know if they killed him?”

“Yes.” Her voice sounded very small now. She cleared her throat. “I’d know.”

“Do you object to me examining you sometime? I will withdraw, if that’s what you wish. Esti will recover in a day or two.”

He was handsome, cold, but he seemed marginally more human than Esti. She wasn’t ungrateful for the risk Esti had taken, but she found an edge between them, something she couldn’t put a finger on. “I don’t mind. The same doctor-patient thing is in place, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. I will never disclose anything I learn—if it isn’t directly relevant—without your permission. Anyway, this time I won’t examine you. I’ll help you channel that link you have with Tryfanwy.” In his lightly French-accented voice, Rhodri’s name sounded incredibly sexy. He raised a brow, and too late she recalled he was a Sorcerer. She’d grown much better at hiding her thoughts, but to this man it was probably nothing. She didn’t mind him knowing as much as she minded Esti knowing, though she wasn’t sure why.

Grady took control again. “When we know, we’ll formulate a plan. Meantime, Cerys, we’re not unmindful of the help you’re giving us. If you give us permission, we’ll have your belongings from the flat put into storage and kept safe for you. I’ve booked a room for you at the Savoy. If it doesn’t suit you, do let us know. You’ll have agents on each side of you and one in the corridor outside. You’ll be perfectly safe.” He glanced around the table. “I’d stake their careers on it.”

Talents or not, that threat had bite.

* * *

When he’d said “room,” he meant “suite,” she found out an hour later. Two bedrooms—Fabrice in one, her in the other, with, as Will had promised, agents on either side. Her only order was to stay away from the windows.

She found Fabrice amazingly attractive, but with a frozen center. She wanted to ask him, but before she did, he volunteered the information.

“I know what you’re thinking,
ma petite
. You know little about Talents, yes?”

She nodded.

“Sorcerers are kept away from everyone else for the first part of their lives. Unlike other Talents, they have their full range of gifts from birth. It hurts. We’re born with incredible psi gifts but no way of protecting ourselves against the world. So we’re isolated until we can be taught to build our own barriers. Without them, we’d go mad.” He shrugged, the shoulders of his immaculate dove gray suit moving over what she suspected were powerful muscles. “After that, we choose or not to remain virgins. The virgins are the most powerful. Sexual energy is channeled into the psi instead. We can’t come. Can’t orgasm. Or rather we can, but we mustn’t if we wish to retain our power. Once we make that choice, there’s no turning back.”

Fascinated, she asked, “What happens if you lose your cherry?”

He laughed. “I love that expression. It depends. There’s a scale, it seems. If it’s done involuntarily, if we’re raped, then we lose everything. If it’s done carelessly, then a little may remain. If we do it from pure love, then there’s a chance we can retain a lot, or at least, regain it after some study and concentration. But there is a risk all could be lost, however our cherries are lost.” He gave another shrug. “So you’re perfectly safe with me, and Rhodri will know that. Also I can help protect you.”

“I see.” She smiled brightly and headed for the bar set in one corner of the vast living room. “Would you like tea?”

“
Oui, merci.”

She found Fabrice a charming companion, and now completely unthreatening. Not that she’d have succumbed to him, just that he might have tried. She understood without being told that it would be positively cruel to try to seduce him and wondered how many women saw him as a challenge. She’d bet he could turn them away and still make them think it was their decision.

The Department even provided blood for her that night. One of the men—a shape-shifter, he informed her—offered his wrist for her to feed from. He did it matter-of-factly, just before he went off duty. She fed daintily but with relief and thanked him with a shot of endorphins that wasn’t quite enough to make him lose it.

She thought Fabrice would want to get to work the next day, but after a leisurely breakfast, he surprised her suggesting they go out. “I thought I was to stay in?”

“You have nothing to wear.”

She flushed, woman enough to have hoped he wouldn’t notice she’d rinsed out her underwear in her bathroom and made do with yesterday’s jeans and T-shirt. “I can cope.”

“You can’t. Every woman needs more than one change of clothes.”

“We left in rather a hurry.”

“I know. I arranged a car for us. We can go to Harvey Nichols, and your clothes are on the company’s dollar.”

“We can’t go shopping!”

He grinned and pushed away from the table. “Yes, we can. We’re going with protection, though I can probably take care of you on my own. I don’t have superhuman strength, like some of the goons coming with us today, but I can detect the presence of another Talent faster than almost anyone I know. I have prevailed upon Will Grady to allow this. It is the least the Department can do for you.”

By “some of the goons,” he meant four, including the dragon she’d met yesterday, Domenici Serafino. He was tall, powerful, and should have been scary. Even though he was there to look after her, he still intimidated her.

They got into a limo that Fabrice informed her was bulletproof. She squeaked. “You think they’d shoot us?”

“Probably not. But we’re posing as a wealthy industrialist and his wife. That explains the bodyguards, you see.” Domenici got in with them. Three others followed in another vehicle. Cerys began to feel underdressed and overly conspicuous.

“Maybe we shouldn’t go out.”

“Nonsense. We have clearance. We also have an appointment with the best personal dresser in London. She doesn’t work for the store. She’s an independent.”

“What?” She gaped at him. “You want me to go to balls or something? Wouldn’t jeans do just as well?”

“You might as well sit back and enjoy it. It’s all arranged.”

She growled at him, but she should have saved her breath for all the notice he took.

They arrived at Harvey Nichols. In her dreams, Cerys had always thought this would be one of the most thrilling experiences she’d ever go through, but she’d never imagined it would be so exhausting. She couldn’t browse the racks. Instead they brought stuff to her. Beautiful gossamer underwear, including thongs that felt like cheese wire once she tried them on but looked wonderful, and bras that didn’t actually do the job of supporting very well. But they were very pretty. Tight skirts that showed off her rump—which the superior dresser told her was beautifully shaped—tight tops that plunged or rose up to her neck, silk stockings, high-heeled shoes that the dresser insisted were good for her figure. And a beautician and hairdresser came up, but she refused to let the hairdresser do more than give her a trim, and after the beautician had left, she wiped off a lot of the makeup, leaving her with the eye makeup that she liked.

The woman she saw in the mirror looked like a stunning model. Or a new, improved Cerys. She wasn’t sure, but she loved the clothes. Had she bought too many? She’d fought off all but one formal long gown, but that one she hadn’t been able to resist. In a deep blue, it skimmed her body like a lover.

Two hours later, Fabrice returned to the changing rooms. He’d been outside the suite they’d taken her to for most of the time, reading newspapers, watching the news on his tablet, at least ostensibly, although she suspected he was watching the store’s cameras. Thinking like a spy, she thought wryly. He glanced at her, then did a double take. “
Ma cherie,
” he murmured, lifting her hand to his lips. If she hadn’t known his secret, she could have sworn he was madly in love with her. Without taking his attention from her, he handed a black credit card to a passing assistant.

Cerys had brought some cash with her, the fifty pounds she’d shoved in her pocket that fateful day she’d left her flat for work. She still had it, carefully transferring it from her jeans’ pocket to the huge designer bag the personal shopper had bestowed on her. She loved the bag. Soft leather and beautifully worked, with room enough for a laptop inside if she wanted it. She didn’t doubt that if small bags were the fashion, she’d be fighting to get a lipstick into the shopper’s choice.

But she wasn’t finished. After a quick word with the superior shopper who had turned out to be not so superior after all, she got an address and decided to shock her minders a bit.

“I want to go somewhere else,” she said, setting up a ripple of consternation among Fabrice and the guards. When she said where she wanted to go, surprise replaced consternation. “I need some other things,” she said. “Please.”

He’d turned to leave, but he turned back at the last word. “Can’t you order them here?”

She glanced back. “I could, but I know exactly what I want, and I won’t be long.” It would also reconnect her with reality, something she badly needed. She tapped a foot, making him look down at her shoes. “I mean it’s lovely and all, but I can’t live my life on four-inch heels.”

He gave a reluctant grin. “Maybe not. Okay, I’ll talk to the men.”

And he did, the result being that a few minutes later, they were speeding toward Oxford Street. Or at least moving, because speeding in certain areas of London would have required wings. Which, she reminded herself, more than one person accompanying her actually possessed in his alternate form.

A chain store, a bargain discount store. She heard Fabrice’s sharp gasp. “You’re coming in, whether you like it or not.”

At this time of day, it was less busy, more a scrum than a full-out riot. She found one of the wheeled sacks they gave people and dragged it around the place. In half an hour, she was done. At the end of her time, she had two pairs of comfortable shoes, socks, bras, and knickers in plain cotton like she was used to wearing, jeans, and T-shirts, as well as three of the big, roomy nightshirts she liked. A comfortable wardrobe to supplement the gorgeous one. She’d tried on jeans at Harvey Nicks, but she couldn’t countenance paying that much, and besides, she knew the jeans from this place fitted her to perfection. She badly wanted something to remind her of what she’d left behind, something familiar, and this was the best she could do. She added a jacket for good measure, and Fabrice paid with the credit card since she’d gone over.

She decided she liked being with him. Her poor bodyguards had trailed after them, and she’d forever remember the sight of them walking through the lingerie department, gingerly easing past the racks of knickers and bras. So would Fabrice, if the look she exchanged with him was anything to go by.

Back in the car, Domenici gave a sigh of relief. “I should never have allowed that,” he confessed. “But you have a difficult time ahead. However it works out, you’ll have a lot to face.”

“I want to learn,” she said. “Rhodri already began to teach me, but I want to learn more. It will make the time pass faster. It’s the only thing that will help me now.” She smiled at Fabrice. “Thank you for the clothes.”