INVISIBLE POWER BOOK TWO: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) (5 page)

CHAPTER 11

I marched up to the very modern and very imposing glass building near the Neuilly Bridge, and stopped. Shaking Mandy and Jaylene had been easier than I’d expected. A quick detour to a public toilet to change out of my dowdy disguise, leaving my cell phone so it couldn’t be tracked, and a simple cloaking spell. Yes, using the spell for personal gain was going to bite me, since all magic use came at a price. But today I was willing to pay it to get some answers and confronting Bran with my two shadow guards was not the way to pull info out of him.

Besides, I’d already earned so many black marks today between using powerful dark magic and killing preternaturals, I figured how much worse could the backlash get
? And if my team asked me what happened to my phone I could say I’d lost it leaning over one of the many bridges crisscrossing Paris.

So here I was, ignoring the clouds whisking across the sun, leaving me wishing I’d brought along something warmer than my black hoodie, even as I shook myself  to focus on the task at hand.

Leave it to Bran to house his Paris offices in not only the tallest building in the city, but one that, because of its alignment with the Louvre and
l”Arc de Triomphe
, thumbed its nose at the older, stubbier landmarks around it.

The three wings created a whirling, spinning wheel effect, reflecting the mid-morning light in all directions. It was enough to make me dizzy.

But if that’s where Bran was, that’s where I had to go.

As I shouldered past dark-suited men and women who looked down their noses at my jeans and sweatshirt garb, I wondered how they survived in this cold stone and steel city. The only trees around were lined up soldier-straight along the boulevards or regimented in contained parks. You couldn’t even hear bird song over the surging traffic everywhere. The only wildlife were pigeons, and even they seemed to blend into the grays, whites and pale stone colors everywhere.

As I swung through the revolving door into a marble and glass foyer I admitted a wobbly smile. I was mentally bitching at the city when my real target was Bran. He belonged here and I didn’t. It was as simple as that.

Taking me away from my Mud Lake, Idaho roots was one thing. But facing a man as powerful and arrogant as Bran in a place that suited him to a T, only threw up our differences more, made my stomach knot and my hands grow clammy.

Sure he’d said I was a stronger a witch than I believed was, but that had been at a time we were still on speaking terms. Before I’d managed to get his cousin killed. Besides, strong witches could control their abilities. My gifts were hit or miss and that wasn’t good.

“Crap,” I mumbled under my breath, wondering how the hell I found the CEO of Bran Inc. in a place this large with only enough French phrases to order breakfast and find a bathroom. And I had trouble with that.

Looking around I spied a half-moon desk with several young, snooty looking types behind it, acting busy and important, but at least they answed the questions of people who approached them. Either that or telling everyone to go to hell with tight smiles.

But I’d been born a Noziak, which meant being willing to face danger head on instead of crawling away, no matter how much the latter sounded like a great idea. What could a few suits do to me?

Using hand gestures that made me look like a windmill run amok I spoke to the first woman who was free behind the desk. “
Ou is Senor …”
Damn that wasn’t right. “Bran.” I made a tall height gesture with my hands. “You know? Big mucky muck. Clothes?” This time I used both hands to indicate an hourglass figure, which caught the attention and earned humma-humma smiles from the nearest males on both sides of the desk.

Get real.

I could feel my face heating. “Bran?” I raised my voice, feeling like every stereotype of a stupid tourist who used volume over language skills.
“Monseigneur Bran. Dove?”
  That was the French word for
where,
wasn’t it?

Behind the desk the woman’s nose pinched tighter, her smile so thin-lipped she was going to cut herself.

Hell, if I couldn’t even find him how was I going to ream him a good one? Extra for putting me through this exercise in patience. Not my strong suit.

Blowing out a puff of air, I glanced around before trying a different approach. “Does anyone here speak English?” I asked, throwing up my arms.

“Of course,” came the snippy reply from the woman whose look said so much more, and none of it flattering.

Bite me.

I was tempted to reach across the counter and curl my hands along the woman’s precise navy-colored suit lapels and shake her a good one. Probably not the best move for American-French relations. So uncurling my fingers one at a time and pasting on a smile that said WTF loud and clear in several languages I asked, “Then how do I find him?”

“Fiftieth floor,” came the snippy response.

Of course. Not the penthouse but damn near. Why hadn’t I thought of that. A quick look around had me pausing again, turning back to the woman, already ignoring me like her life depended on it.

“Excuse me?” The woman didn’t look up.

I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, Miss?”

Nada. The guy next to her cast us both a wary glance then went back to talking to a balding woman in front of him.

Okay, I’d tried to play nice. Now I’d play it the Noziak way. So I leaned forward and lowered my voice to a syrupy sweetness. “Hey bitch?”

That had the French woman’s head snapping up.

“Yes, you,” I continued, leaning even closer. “Where are the elevators?”

The woman waved to the west.

“
Merci.
And have a good day,” I chirped, feeling so much better about bearding a warlock in his den.

CHAPTER 12

By the time I reached the fiftieth floor my optimism was flagging
. Or maybe it was the uncomfortable carnival-ride feeling my stomach got every time I rode an elevator. Mud Lake didn’t have enough buildings in it to need elevators past the third floor and most of them were so old I could run up the stairs and beat them to my destination.

That free-floating feeling got worse as I spoke to Bran’s receptionist who looked like the twin of the woman downstairs.

“
Si non possible
,” the receptionist shrugged and shook her head at the same time, which helped me get the message. Why didn’t Bran have a bilingual receptionist? But who was I to complain, my only other language was sarcasm.

“
Pourquoi
?”  I asked, glad of the one word I had down pat. Why?

The woman rolled off a spat of French that sounded nice but meant nothing to me. So I used the universal shrug and raised hand response I was learning to perfect.

“
Un
meeting. Very, very important.”Why hadn’t I thought about that? Of course Bran would be up to his sexy eyeballs in meetings. But it wasn’t like I could make an appointment with him either. He’d probably like that, but I wouldn’t and he’d no doubt blow me off.

So what now?

I glanced at the closed office door. Stay and wait like a good girl or barge in on this very important meeting?

Flashing a quick he-won’t-blame-you-I-hope smile at the receptionist whose shoulders relaxed, I ambled over to a series of frou-frou chairs around a glass table
. Trailing fingers along the magazines resting there, as if I read these all the time, not. I waited until the receptionist turned away before I marched to the door.

I was going in!

“
Mais, mademoiselle!”
the receptionist squawked. But it was too late, I was already bumping the door closed behind me on the incensed woman.

“It’s not her fault,” I said as I stepped deeper into the room just in case the receptionist decided to ram the door. Then I stopped, looking around at the space that made my dad’s farmhouse look like a shanty in comparison. The floor to ceiling windows along one wall were enough to bling me blind even if they had that special glare-coating stuff on them. Feeling as disjointed as Kelly was after doing her disappearing act, I blinked to get oriented and then wished I hadn’t.

I don’t know what I expected. Maybe a lot of stuffed shirts with double chins sitting around a massive table. Wrong.

There were only two people in the room. One a stunning blond with mile-long legs lounging in a chair on my side of a massive desk, and Bran, glaring from the other side.

I was used to Bran’s thunder frowns. He tended to use them a lot around me, but I wasn’t used to facing women who belonged on magazine covers or in the Miss Universe contest. A new dress model for Bran’s tours? Or someone else?

Refusing to feel the quick stab of jealousy that last thought created, I notched my chin up, steeled my voice and looked only at Bran. “We need to talk.”

Bran opened his mouth as if to say something then thought better of it as he ran one hand through his devil-dark hair and shook his head. “Miss Worthington,” he said, smiling at the sexpot in the chair with a look he used to give me. “May I introduce Miss Alex Noziak.”

“
Bonjour
,” the other woman purred as if I could be appeased by a come-hither French accent.

Okay, maybe Bran’s but that was different
. And in the past.

I inclined my head toward the other woman, not trusting my voice. Not yet at least.

“Miss Worthington and I are in a meeting,” Bran spoke between clenched teeth.

I gave him a stink-eye look. “So I was told.”

“And your discussion couldn’t wait?”

“No.”

I swore he rolled his eyes before turning back to Miss Bonjour. “Would you mind waiting for me in the other office, Miss Worthington? I’m sure this will only take a moment.”

Think again big guy, I wanted to say, but two could play the we’re-all-civilized-people-here game even if we weren’t. He couldn’t be civilized
. He was a warlock for cripe’s sake. He might wear the veneer but that was all. Scratch the surface and his warlock tendencies tended to erupt.

I offered the sex kitten an aren’t-you-sweet smile as the other woman brushed past me in a cloud of perfume that no doubt cost a thousand dollars an ounce, and felt my ring heat up indicating the Worthington woman was non-human.

Interesting. I wondered if Bran knew then ditched the thought. Of course he did. It was only one of the traits that pissed me off about him. I might identify Weres, warlocks and vamps pretty easily but was still getting used to all the other preternaturals roaming around. Mostly because before joining the IR Agency I didn’t have a lot of exposure to non-humans. More than my teammates, but less than Bran, far less.

The plus side to my naiveté was that I was more wary around what I didn’t know whereas Bran assumed he was the bigger, badder threat. Most times he was, but not always. The one session with his cousin who turned out to be a nasty, and rare, Grimple, didn’t seem to have taught him otherwise.

Arrogant or not, I still needed him, so I waited until the door clicked shut before crossing to the middle of the room and taking the vacated seat. “Your latest bimbo?” I asked Bran as I settled into the plush cushions, hoping the lingering perfume wouldn’t gag me.

Bran continued to stand, hands flattened against his desk, his knuckles white, the pulse point along his temple beating hard
. “Is that what you came to discuss, Alex?”

Damn. Just the way he said my name made my skin heat and my pulse kick into high gear
. Which explained why my voice was a little tighter than I intended as I snapped, “Of course not. I expected no less of you.”

He smiled, a real smile that crinkled the edges of those dark blue eyes and made him less arrogant warlock and more approachable lover.

He so didn’t play fair.

“So you have thought of me with other women already, Alex? You betray yourself.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” I wanted to jump to my feet to dispel some of the tension rocketing through me but that would put a lie to my next words. “I have more important things to focus on than you and your conquests.”

He eased into his seat, his smile now mocking me. Warlocks learned arrogance in the cradle and Bran was no exception
. Damn his hide, and his patience as he steepled his fingers before him, tapping his forefinger against his lips, waiting for me to speak first.

As if I’d give him the satisfaction
. On the other hand I could only stare at his fingers tapping against that sexy lower lip of his, again and again, and not turn into a needy puddle begging to taste him.

Good thing Noziaks never surrendered.

Instead I cleared my throat, leaned back in my chair as if I had all day and glanced at the windows before finding enough spine to meet Bran’s too-penetrating gaze. Only then did I demand, “How did you know Vaverek was ambushing us this morning? And why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

“The option was always a possibility. It’s what I might have done myself. So I came to see for myself and informed you as soon as I was aware of the preternaturals surrounding you.”

Believe him? Or not? Oh, the part about him being underhanded and devious was a given. It was the I-was-there-to-help-you part I had a hard time swallowing. Threatening to kill me last time we crossed paths tended to make me a bit more wary than usual.

“And now?” I pushed.

“Now?”

“Now I want to know everything you know about Vaverek.” I didn’t mean to growl but it sure sounded that way as I gave up my pretense of calmness and jumped to my feet. I hated this strain between the two of us. Not that ours had ever been an easy relationship but now it felt like ice rain pelting me.

“There’s something more at play here with Vaverek, but I don’t have all the details yet.”

“Such as?”

He paused, then continued, “Have you heard about the family in the 8
th
arrondissement?”

“What family?” If he was trying to confuse me he was doing a great job.

“Mother, father, two boys and an infant daughter appeared to have been attacked by a wild dog.” He looked at me as if waiting for something.

“And this means what? That Paris needs more dog catchers?”

“Don’t be flippant.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “They all died.”

I unfurled my hands that I hadn’t realized I’d clenched
. “I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.”

“Think, Alex,” he almost growled the words. “What’s the likelihood of a whole family being savaged by a dog?”

I paused, chewing over what he said. “Are you talking about a Were?”

“Or shifter. . .”

That had my back snapping straight. “Are you saying my brother Van?”

“No.” Before I could inhale a breath, he pushed ahead. “My contacts indicate a shifter was used to attack the family, but he then killed himself, his human body being found a few blocks away. Only those who knew him connected his suicide back to the killing of the family.”

“What does this have to do with Van?”

“It has to do with Vaverek. It looks like he’s testing his drugs on preternaturals.”

I swore I could hear the toll of death knells. If Van was held by Vaverek, how soon would it be before he was forced to do something that he could never recover from?

I faced Bran head on, not caring if he heard the pleading in my voice. “I’m

running out of time to save my brother. Why won’t you help?”

“I
am
helping.” His words slapped like a wet towel against my bare skin. “But I won’t run head on into another ambush as you’re suggesting.”

“I made no such suggestion.”

He stood, barely holding in the pressure I could see building behind his rigid stance. “Vaverek is dangerous, but he’s nothing compared to the individuals behind him.”

“I know that.”

“I don’t think you do.” He lowered his voice until it stroked my awareness like heat lightening before a summer storm. “You’re acting like one of your American gunslingers, rushing in unprepared, and only by sheer luck do you come out without dying.”

I walked up to the edge of his fancy huge desk, this time planting my hands on it, to give me support and to keep me from crawling across it to shake some sense into him. “Have you forgotten my brother’s life is at stake? I don’t have the luxury of sitting around, twiddling my thumbs, and—“  I waved my hands at the door where Miss Bonjour had just exited, “doing casting calls. Van is going to die if I don’t help him.”

Bran leaned forward and I swore I could see steam rolling out of him. “Is that what you were doing this morning? When you used me? Tapped into my abilities?”

So that was it. That’s what all this emotion hid. He was angry because I’d pulled power from him. To save the lives of my teammates. To save my life. And his too because he was there. Mister I’m-in-charge didn’t like not being the one in control.

I straightened, brushing my palms against my jeans, corralling my own emotions so they wouldn’t betray me. Up until this moment, in spite of his threat to kill me, in spite of our differences, and in spite of everything I knew about him, knew about his kind, I had hoped a tiny kernel of hope that he would help me. That he, who valued family so much, would know why I was willing to risk everything to save Van.

“What? No pithy comeback?” he said, his jaw so tight I was surprised it didn’t fracture. “No justification as to why you put all of us at risk to pull that stunt?”

Stunt?

“That wasn’t any stunt, Mister High-and-Mighty,” I snarled, stepping away to give myself breathing room. “What I did I’d do again to save lives.”

“And if it had backfired? What then? You’d have left all of us vulnerable to attack with no abilities, no powers. You blindsided all of us, Alex. Can’t you see that?”

“Yes.” The single word shot from me. As if I was so clueless. So uncaring. “But if I hadn’t acted you, and my teammates, would have been killed. So it was a risk I was willing to take.”

He shook his head, his eyes darkening in color, his shoulders tensing. “Your risk. Your decision. I don’t know how you can call yourself a team member when you don’t have any idea what the word means.”

Where was this coming from? I
was
a teammate. I was part of the IR Agency. And who the hell cared anyway?

Not him obviously. He was just nursing a bruised ego.

I didn’t have time for this crap. Or for him. I’d have to hunt for Van on my own without his contacts and assistance. I had to believe my team and I could find and nail Vaverek.

But just as I was turning to storm out, his desk phone rang.

For a second our gazes clashed. His unreadable. Mine no doubt looking as I felt—betrayed.

As he reached for the phone I started walking across the expanse of his office, until his words stopped me. “She’s right here.”