Fallen Star (15 page)

“Can you really not move or are you
indulging me?” She let the miniature tornado dissipate as she
waited for his answer.

His lips curved into a guilty smile. “A
human wouldn’t be able to force their way through the barrier.”

She tensed. His tone had stopped just short
of condescension. Even so, she refused to be coddled. “You’re not
human and neither are the Shadow Assassins. What am I doing
wrong?”

“You’re not doing anything wrong. You’ve
made remarkable progress in so short a time.”

“But,” she prompted. Superficial praise was
always followed by a but.

“Pausing to picture what you’re trying to
accomplish is slowing you down. Air needs to flow freely. You’re
still trying to control it. The harder you try to wrestle it into
submission, the less effective you’ll become. Air must be guided
along a helpful path, not forced to do our will. Do you understand
the distinction?”

“I understand what you’re saying.” She
sighed. She’d thought she was doing so well, yet he seemed
disappointed. “I’m not sure my mind works that way.”

“That’s part of the problem. This can’t come
from your mind. It has to be instinctive. You have to
feel
it.”

Her emotions generally ran so close to the
surface that she struggled to remain focused. She’d spent years
controlling her emotional impulses and only “emoting” enough to
sell a routine. “But how can I concentrate on the outcome if I
allow myself to become emotional?”

“Concentration isn’t your problem. In this
case, your laser focus is holding you back. You need to relax and
let it flow naturally.”

Another sigh escaped as she rubbed her
eyelids with her fingertips. “That seems backward from how I’ve
always done things.”

“Are you questioning my judgment?” His voice
snapped with autocratic intensity.

Her eyes opened and she lowered her hand.
All emotion vanished from his face and his posture tensed. What had
him so wound up? “I’m not questioning anything. I’m expressing an
opinion.”

“You don’t know enough about this to have an
opinion.” He sneered and raised his chin. “Humans are so
frustrating.”

Her jaw dropped and indignation shoved
through her shock. “Are you serious? I’ve worked my ass of for the
past three days—”

“Three days.” He scoffed then took a
menacing step toward her. “I’ve spent more years in training than
you’ve been alive. You aren’t qualified to question anything I say.
Now get back to work!”

“Screw you!” She punctuated the curse with a
blast of Air strong enough to slam him against the wall.

“Yes!” He laughed. “Do it again.”

Before her temper cooled, she harnessed the
power and shot it at him like a fire hose. He spread his arms for
balance and fought through the blast, so she poured more energy
into the stream and gradually immobilized him.

Odintar finally teleported to her side, a
pleased smile softening his expression. “Do you understand now?
Elemental magic feels very similar to emotion. All the logic in the
word won’t help you use it.”

“Are we really accomplishing anything? All
you had to do was flash out of the way. Won’t Nazerel be able to do
the same thing?”

He pushed his hand through his hair and his
gaze turned smoky. They weren’t touching, but they stood close,
easily within reach of each other. “The best move isn’t always
offensive. If you can immobilize him, even for a moment, it will
give you time to flash to safety.”

“Are you saying I can teleport?”

“Those empowered by Air can move
effortlessly through space. The most powerful can even manipulate
time. Once your training is complete, you’ll easily outdistance
me.”

“And how long will that take? Have you
really spent more years in training than I’ve been alive?”

“I was at the Conservatory for twenty-five
years and spent another three decades learning from the guild
masters on Bilarri. You can’t expect this to happen overnight.”

“I’m not.” She grinned. “It’s been three
whole days.”

He chuckled “And you’re doing incredibly
well.”

“For a human?” She sounded playful, but even
knowing why he’d turned into a world-class dick, didn’t keep his
comments from stinging. “If you spent almost sixty years in
training, you have to be pushing one hundred. How long do
Bilarrians live?”

“I’m one hundred forty-eight, if you must
know. And it depends on the Bilarrian. Certain abilities can
drastically increase a Bilarrian’s lifespan.”

“How long will I live?”

“That’s a great question for the guild
master.”

She sighed and stepped back. “Does that mean
you’re taking me to Bilarri? I’m not sure I’m ready for
interdimensional travel.”

“I had to pull a few strings and call in a
long overdue favor, but a representative of Guild Air is meeting us
at the Bunker tomorrow afternoon.”

Roxie sprayed glass cleaner on top of the
display case and wiped it down with a paper towel.

“I think you got it clean the first time you
did that.” Tess snatched the spray bottle from Roxie’s hand and
scowled. “What’s wrong with you today?”

Before Roxie could summon a believable
excuse, Jett joined Tess on the other side of the counter. Two
against one? That wasn’t fare.

“Today?” he scoffed. “She’s been stumbling
around on autopilot for more like three days.” He fixed his
dramatically lined gaze on Roxie and asked, “Hasn’t there been
enough beefcake in your diet lately?” His brows arched while
playful mockery shimmered in his dark eyes. “You always get mopey
when Nazerel misses an appointment.”

Jett had the source of her distraction
right, but his conclusion was so far wrong it was almost laughable.
Nazerel’s failure to appear for his past two appointments was
responsible for her concern. A secret crush, however, had nothing
to do with her anxiety. Unfortunately, she couldn’t correct Jett’s
misconception. Part of her deal with Sevrin was absolute
discretion. “Nazerel has an amazing body. We’re all in agreement on
that.” The other two supported the claim with enthusiastic nods.
“He’s also an arrogant jerk. There’s only so long you can enjoy
running your hands over a sculpted torso. Eventually, it’s nice to
engage in conversation.”

“I don’t need to talk.” Tess closed her eyes
in apparent rapture. “Just let me get my hands on him!”

Jett laughed and even Roxie smiled. “Sorry.
No substitutions. Their benefactor is sort of twitchy.”

“Benefactor,” Tess muttered. “Why do
full-grown, obviously capable, men need a benefactor? Have you
decided what they are? Stunt men? Professional athletes? Fitness
models?”

“Mercenaries?” All amusement suddenly
vanished from Jett’s expression. He crossed his arms over his
chest, prominently displaying the colorful tattoos covering his
forearms. “I know Sevrin is paying you a fortune to indulge her
crew, but those men are dangerous. You should never be alone with
any of them.”

It was always nice to have a defender, even
though any of Sevrin’s boys could snap Jett like a twig. Besides,
his concern was misplaced. “The only one that really scares me is
Sevrin.”

“The phantom benefactor.” Tess wiggled her
eyebrows in mock drama. “Maybe she’s on the run from a foreign
government or—”

“It’s nothing like that. She’s in private
negotiations with our government for some newfangled technology.
Don’t ask me to be more specific. You know I can’t.”

Jett didn’t look convinced. His overly long
bangs angled across his face, shadowing one of his eyes. “The men
in her entourage don’t look like techies to me.”

“I don’t care what they look like,” Roxie
insisted, “as long as their boss keeps paying the bills.”

The main door opened, postponing the rest of
their conversation. One of Jett’s regulars walked in and Jett
turned to greet his customer. Jett was the sort of man most people
expected to find in a tattoo shop. His asymmetrical hair had been
dyed black to match his moniker and he had eleven piercings, only
half of which were fit for public display. He was friendly,
ridiculously talented, yet temperamental. Typical artist.

Tess, on the other hand, concealed her
talent behind conservative clothing and a nonthreatening smile. She
appealed to casual shoppers, to coeds and housewives who wanted
hearts and teddy bears tattooed on their ankles. Roxie valued them
both and they worked well together because their clienteles were so
different.

And Roxie fell right in the middle of her
two employee/friends. With dark brown hair and ice-blue eyes, she
wasn’t as intimidating as Jett, nor as mainstream as Tess. She
didn’t wear enough makeup to be considered Goth, yet her
formfitting clothes and colorful tattoos drew scornful looks from
soccer moms.

“Jett’s right, you know.” Tess waited until
the customer was out of earshot before she spoke again. “They might
be fun to look at, but there’s something about those men that has
me reaching for the pepper spray.”

“What do you want me to do?” She moved
closer to the display case and lowered her voice. Each artist had
their own station in the back, but they were only separated by
pull-around curtains. “They haven’t done anything wrong and we’ve
all benefited from their business. Should I tell them to go
somewhere else because you and Jett don’t trust them?”

“Just be careful and don’t schedule sessions
with them unless someone else is going to be here too.”

“Yes,
Mother
.” Sevrin was the only
one who liked to drop by unannounced, so the promise should be easy
to keep.

“Do you know where they’re from? I’ve never
heard an accent like theirs and their language is even
stranger.”

“Sevrin told me the name of the country, but
it didn’t mean anything to me. I think it’s one of the countries
that formed after the breakup of the Soviet Union.”

“That makes sense. I can picture them
working for the KGB.”

Roxie laughed and shook her head. “Their
grandfathers might have worked for the KGB. All of these guys are
way too young to have had anything to do with the Cold War.”

The front door opened again and Nazerel
walked in followed by a man Roxie had never seen before. Usually
the sight of Nazerel filled Roxie with a combination of trepidation
and appreciation. The artist in her appreciated the savage beauty
of his physical form while the woman in her retreated from the
obvious brutality of his nature. Today, however, all she could
think about was the disorientation and pain she’d endured in order
to spy on a meeting that had never taken place.

Sevrin had made it sound like the mysterious
infuser would painlessly implant their language in Roxie’s mind and
she would magically understand every word they spoke in her
presence. Instead she’d been taken to an upscale hotel room where
she’d been subjected to hours of mind-twisting…she couldn’t even
define the sensations the infuser had triggered. Not so much
physical pain as mental trauma, the infuser stretched and twisted
her thinking in ways that felt unnatural and dangerous. When it was
finally over, Roxie had been able to understand the other language,
but her thoughts had been jumbled and sluggish for days.

“Good afternoon,” Nazerel greeted in
accented English.

Roxie manufactured a smile. “I don’t have
you on my schedule. Did I miss something?”

He looked meaningfully at Tess and she
offered him a nervous smile. “Mico has a four-hour appointment this
afternoon. He’s otherwise occupied, so Flynn will take his
place.”

Sevrin’s boys never asked; they informed.
Roxie acknowledged the statement with a stiff nod then motioned
toward the back of the shop.

Nazerel skirted the display case and headed
for Roxie’s station with Flynn half a step behind. Roxie took a
deep breath and cleared her mind of everything but what was going
on in that moment. She had a new customer. That meant a
consultation, putting him at ease and helping him express what he
wanted. This was something she’d done hundreds of times before.

She moved into the back of the shop and
hooked her foot around the bottom rail of her wheeled stool.
Drawing the stool closer to the dentist-style chair on which Flynn
lounged, she sat. “So, what would you like and where would you like
it?”

Flynn glanced at Nazerel and muttered in
their native language, “I’d like her naked and wet as she straddles
my lap so I can bury my cock deep inside her.”

“She’s off-limits and you know it.” Absolute
finality snapped through Nazerel’s tone.

Flynn shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I can’t
imagine her right here, bouncing up and down.” He positioned his
hands above his lap, fingers curved as if he grasped her hips.

Roxi tensed and heat spread across her face,
yet she tried hard to conceal her anger. She’d suspected they
frequently made rude comments about her. Now she knew for sure. “If
you’re going to tell secrets, I’ll come back.”

“Sit on my face and you can come right now.”
Flynn continued his offensive behavior.

“Flynn speaks no English.” Nazerel’s dark
gaze gleamed and one corner of his mouth lifted into a secretive
smile. “He was explaining what he wanted from you.”

His second statement was certainly true, but
she seriously doubted the first. “Will you please translate so we
can get started. I have another appointment after this.”

“Cancel it.” Nazerel crossed behind Flynn
and stalked toward her. “Serving us is your top priority.”

Her independent heart rebelled against his
words, but technically he was right. She had basically indentured
herself to Sevrin for the foreseeable future.

“She should offer me her mouth while you
pound her from behind.” Laughter made Flynn’s chest rumble. “Or
better yet, I’ll shove it down her throat while you pound
into
her behind.”