My Forbidden Desire (8 page)

“Oh, yeah,” he said with a straight face. “Me and Rasmus. Practically twins.” He was surly because she was being a bitch to him. She knew she was going off on him for no good reason, but she couldn’t stop herself. She was on overload and looking for a way, any way, to release the fear and tension of the last hours. Fighting with Xia was an easy, chicken-livered out.

“You are,” she said. “Neither of you give a shit if I live or die. I take that back. I think if you slip up and I get killed, you’ll be doing the happy dance. Whoopsie there, Harsh. So sorry about your sister, may she rest in peace.”

From where she stood, his eyes looked like they were glowing. Pretty unsettling, that. “I wouldn’t wish for you to rest in peace,” he said in a low, honey-spiced voice. “And I wouldn’t slip up, either.” He sneered. “If it weren’t for my promise to Nikodemus and Harsh, you’d be dead already, baby.”

“Thanks so much for sharing the love.”

He glared at her. His eyes were definitely glowing. “I keep my promises.”

“Goody for you.” Inside, she was standing on the edge of a bottomless pit, about to fall over. “Why don’t you go do whatever the hell you want, and I’ll take care of saving my own skin. Really. I’m used to it.” Her voice rose. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. I don’t need Harsh, and I don’t need you, so just get the hell out, the way you should have the first time I told you.”

“I promised Nikodemus and your brother I’d keep you alive. It’s something I did tonight, in case you didn’t notice.”

She knew that, but she was in self-destruct mode and unable to stop. Alexandrine stepped up to him. She was tall enough to look into his eyes without tilting her chin. Much. “Did you happen to mention your little conflict of interest to them?”

“They know all about me and Rasmus.”

“Fine.” She threw her hands up, but they were shaking so hard she was afraid he’d see and realize she was losing it. She wanted to strangle her brother for this. She really did. This was all his fault. All of it. Why hadn’t he stayed dead? “What’s your plan for keeping me alive, then? Let’s hear some brilliant strategy, because that thing that jumped me, it wanted to kill me.”

Xia shrugged. “Whoever comes, I’ll take care of them.”

“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?” Now she wanted to strangle Xia. The lights were still off, but the streetlamp outside shone through the side windows and cast a yellowish glow on everything. She could see him just fine. He was standing, naked, with his arms crossed over a chest you could use for an anatomy lesson. “I feel safe and snug. There’s an unknown number of crazed magehelds out there who think my heart is their target for the night, and you’re just going to take care of them. Pardon me if I don’t get much comfort from that.”

He made a noise low in his throat that sounded an awful lot like a growl and made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “Quit arguing and listen up, why don’t you?”

“Fine.” She glared at him. “I’m listening.”

“I can take care of them when they get here.” He touched her cheek with the tip of a finger. “Seriously, Alexandrine. I can and will. You can trust me about that much. But since I can’t feel magehelds, it’d be nice to have some advance warning.” He waited a minute. “Stay close and tell me when you feel them coming, and we’ll be just fine.”

Tension curled in her, choking her. “How am I supposed to know something like that? I mean, what if it doesn’t work? My magic. It doesn’t always, you know.”

Xia shrugged. “I don’t know what you mages feel.” There was enough light for her to see his muscled chest and the quite noticeable bulge of his biceps, not that she was staring, and below his belly button, she noted he had an innie, a narrow dark line of hair descended south, and… No. Not looking. “You knew to get the hell away from the door before it blew.”

“I’m not reliable that way.”

He rolled his eyes. “All I’m asking is that you tell me when you feel the urge to book it out of here.”

“Believe me,” she said. “I feel the urge right now.”

He tensed, and it wasn’t just your average tension but a state that telegraphed his readiness to engage and fight. For her. She got another chill. This was the real deal, she thought, him flipping from standard pain in the ass to combat-ready in a blink. This just couldn’t be happening. “For real?”

“No,” she said. Great. He was all business, and she was jerking him around. “I’m sorry.” She about choked on the words, but, damn, she owed them to him. “That was juvenile of me.” She stared at her feet. “I know this is serious. That was stupid. I shouldn’t have made light of it.”

He was silent long enough to make her uncomfortable. At last he said, “I still need to proof this place. You on board with that?”

“Proof my apartment.” She shook her head. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“You really don’t know anything, do you?”

He didn’t say that like he thought she was stupid. “No, actually, I don’t.”

He didn’t answer right away. “Okay,” he said at last. “Proofing means I make a place or a room less prone to getting broken into by a mage or a mageheld. Using magic. There’s not time to make it much more than difficult for them to get in, but the sooner I get it done, the safer we’ll be.” He strode toward her, his knife gripped in one hand. She stared at his knife. Was the blade actually glowing? “Relax,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m not going to off you.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“Then I’m losing my touch.” He was near enough now that pretty much nothing was lost to shadow.
Oh, my Lord, the man is gorgeous
. Flat-out gorgeously made. He put down his knife and crouched by his gym bag. She managed to look away instead of staring. He rummaged around inside until he extracted a pair of sweats. “Listen,” he said while he stuck one leg, then the other into his sweats. “By now, Rasmus, or whoever the hell sent those magehelds, knows someone is here protecting you, since his boys didn’t come back.” He checked the tie at his waist and didn’t do anything to it. “Next time, he’s going to send someone who can get the job done for him. More than one.” He bent for his knife. “We need to be prepared, witch, because when those guys come, it’s not going to be as easy for me to take care of them as it was this time.” His gaze seared her. “Now,” he said, “you going to watch my back while I proof this place or not?”

Alexandrine nodded. He didn’t answer, but after a tense silence, he nodded and headed back to her room. She waited a beat before she called out, “Stay away from my underwear.”

He was already down the hall. “If it’s pink, baby, I’m all over it.” But he was laughing, and it was actually kind of comforting to know they could joke at a time like this.

While he was off doing whatever the hell he was doing, she walked to her bookcase and pulled out a box hidden in the back of one of the middle shelves. She was getting jittery again, probably from whatever Xia was doing in her room.

She opened the box she’d taken out and removed a jagged metal blade lashed to a wooden handle. Both pieces were handmade. One of the felons she used to hang with had taught her how to make a shiv. Back in her wild days, this had kept her alive, and it would again if she had anything to say about it. She was
not
going to be caught unarmed around a mageheld again. No way.

She sat on the couch with her legs pulled up and one arm around her shins. The tension in her started to fall away, and what was underneath was shaky as hell. She wrapped one hand around the smooth wooden handle that was just long enough to stay hidden in her palm. For months after she’d made it, she’d polished the wood until the surface was shiny and smooth. She rested her forehead on her knees. Every few seconds, her skin goose pimpled. Her stomach was cold and empty. And on top of that, any minute she expected to hear someone breaking in or maybe just have someone grab her from behind. That was just normal twitchiness, because waiting was a bitch. This wasn’t a premonition like the one that woke her up tonight or the one that made her throw herself away from the back stairway door.

She remembered the mageheld falling on her, but what she remembered most after the feeling of pure ice down her spine was the smell of heat and sand and the rage that vibrated from her attacker. When he’d grabbed for her amulet, something inside her had snapped. She hadn’t just been fighting for her life. In fact, she was pretty sure she’d have traded her life to keep the amulet—the talisman, or whatever the hell it was. And that, she knew, was not a normal rational response for someone being attacked.

Xia came down the hallway and into the living room, and she jumped about a foot and a half, because, once again, she hadn’t heard him coming. She tried to cover the reaction by standing up.

“I did the bathroom, too,” he said. He came to the front of the sofa, and the first thing he did was stare at her shiv. “What’s that?”

“Protection.” She didn’t have to hide what she was from Xia. No pretending. No leaving out big chunks of her past because she could hardly deal with it, let alone someone she was interested in dating. If finally occurred to her as a solid fact that she wasn’t looking at a human man. He’d said himself he had been mageheld. So, what did that make him? She knew the answer. A demon of some kind. The kind of creature mages thought were too dangerous to go free.

“You make that yourself?” he asked.

How the hell did you tell the difference between a demon and a normal man? He looked human to her.

“Don’t worry. I know how to use it.” She cocked her head, daring him to make a crack. Her knife might be ugly, but the blade had saved her life and kept her out of trouble. More than once. “I’ve used this before. I can do it again.”

His eyes settled on her with unnerving intensity. “Can I see?”

“No.” Like she wanted his ridicule.

“What’d you use for the blade?” Hell if he didn’t look genuinely interested. Not that she trusted him. No way. He was probably faking. Most men were when they wanted to sleep with you.

“Scrap metal I found at a construction site.” Where
found at
might possibly be the same as
stole from
.

“Magic?”

“I tried a few times. It didn’t work that I could tell.” She shrugged. “My magic hardly ever does.”

“I don’t know,” he said with a tilt of his head. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”

Was he serious? Nah. Not possible.

She nodded, and his face got thoughtful. “When was the last time you sharpened that?”

“A while,” she said.

He drew his knife from his scabbard and held it up in the light. The blade definitely had some sort of bluish aura. “I made this, too.”

“No shit?” His knife was a work of deadly beauty, with a carved hilt and that gorgeous glowing blade that looked to have some interesting shadows now that she could see it better. Was the thing completely carved?

“I worked on it for years. Still working on it even now.” He reversed his grip on the weapon and presented it to her hilt first. “Trade you. Just for the night.”

“Why?”

“I like yours.” He didn’t laugh or anything. The guy looked dead-on serious. “You don’t have time to sharpen yours. Not the old-fashioned way.” He extended his knife to her again. “Mine’s already sharp. And if you need to use a weapon, you’ll have a better chance with mine.”

She nodded because all he was doing was stating a fact. His blade was wicked sharp. And magic. And hers was pathetically not.

She took Xia’s knife in her right hand, keeping hers in her left, and figured she wasn’t imagining the tingle in her palm when she held his. Was that how she could tell the difference between human and not human? That chill in her body? The blade was made up of dozens of smaller blades that twisted around and under and over each other so that every surface was a cutting edge. “It’s beautiful.” And ghastly. Fearsome, like its owner.

“Thanks.” Xia reached out and clipped his scabbard to her jeans. As he did, his fingers brushed over her bare skin. Heat flashed through her, and this wasn’t of those freaky sensations she’d been getting from him all night. The heat was nothing but pure sexual reaction. Damn it. She gasped, and that made him glance up at her. Their gazes collided. Hard. “What’s the matter, witch?” he said in his low and golden voice. His fingers feathered over her belly, a light enough touch that, if she was into self-delusion, she could call it incidental.

“What’s up with that, Xia?” she said. She didn’t move away and neither did he.

They spent some time standing there with his thumb brushing across her navel, just below her amulet. He was big and strong enough to hurt her, but she knew he wouldn’t, even if he wanted to. The thing was, he didn’t like her but he
liked
her. And she was thinking she liked him that way, too.

“Nothing’s up,” he said. But his thumb pressed gently over her navel while his fingers spread out, pulling her forward oh so slightly. Alexandrine bit down on her lower lip, not wanting to be the first one to admit she was turned on.

“Nothing, huh?” She looked into his eyes. “That’s good. I thought maybe you were coming on to me.”

“Baby,” he said, and God, did she want to melt at the way he made the word sound so wickedly rich. She wanted to hear that voice when he was about to come inside her. “You worried you might like a fiend’s dirty hands on you?”

“Not worried at all,” she said. His slid his thumb up the midline of her torso, and this time she took a step forward. “I just think it’s funny how you can’t stand having the hots for a witch.”