Night's Captive (5 page)

She glanced over her shoulder to see him watching her. His eyes didn’t move from hers and she turned away as if to make sure she didn’t trip on the stairs.

He stepped out of sight of the stairs and waited until he heard the door to the guestroom close. He returned to his living room and went to the window and looked out into the night. The rest of the Enforcers had gone out as usual but he’d decided to bring Loni back to his place as Selena said not to let Loni out of his sight for any reason. He wanted to get to know how much of a liability she would be before he took her out with him tomorrow night. Plus, the fact that she didn’t believe any of this was real would make it difficult to keep her from taking off to find her home.

It was easy to see that she was tired and needed to rest after what had to have been a traumatic day, having been taken from her life and thrown into his. Just the experience with the sorcerer stalking her had to have been beyond disquieting.

He thought of how beautiful Loni had looked tonight.
Damn it.
He dragged his hand down his face. How did he end up with a human in his life when it was the last thing that he needed? Especially one who looked like Loni. Her light brown hair was soft around her face and her blue eyes were so serious as she tried to grasp what was happening to her. She had voluptuous curves that he imagined touching and lips he wanted to kiss.

Selena had always been somewhat of a matchmaker. Was Loni intended to be his match? Was that why he felt such a strong connection to her?

No, that couldn’t be right. It was taboo for paranorms to mix with humans. There were few exceptions and that had been under rare circumstances.

He pushed away from the window, drew his cell phone out of his pocket, and pressed the speed dial number for Strike.

“Having fun babysitting?” Strike answered in an amused voice.

“Loads.” Alec’s jaw tightened. “How are things going tonight?”

“Quiet,” Strike said. “Not a damned thing happening other than the usual human criminal activities that we don’t deal with.”

Like the calm before the storm,
Alec thought. “Tomorrow isn’t going to be so quiet.”

“I’m ready for a good fight.” The fierceness in Strike’s voice was convincing enough to make Alec hope that the Enforcer wasn’t going to search one out just for the sake of a brawl. “I want to be the one to take down Dawson.”

“I plan to get to him before you ever have the chance.” Alec could picture himself ripping out the sorcerer’s throat and fury made his head ache. The bastard had gotten away tonight but he wouldn’t tomorrow.

“You had your chance earlier.” Strike’s words were harsh but true. “Have you figured out what’s important about that human?”

Alec let his breath out in a rush. “Not a damned clue.”

“She’s a liability.” Strike made a growling sound. “Max needs his head rotated to get it on straight.”

Alec shook his head. “Why don’t you share that little observation with him?”

“I just might,” Strike said.

“I’ll let you get your ass back on the job,” Alec said.

“And you make sure and enjoy your babysitting detail,” Strike said with a laugh.

“Screw you.”

“I’m taken.”

Alec snorted and disconnected the call. He spent the next hour contacting the other members of his team and to a one they were having an unusually quiet night.

When he finished, he turned out the lights and headed up the stairs planning to go to his study.

He reached the top of the stairs and couldn’t help but look toward the guestroom where Loni was probably in bed. The door was ajar and he found himself moving toward it. The latch didn’t always close properly and she probably didn’t even realize it was open.

The room was dark but he could see easily enough with his enhanced sight. He had expected to see her form beneath the blankets but instead she was sitting on the edge of the bed.

She looked up at him but didn’t say anything.

“This door doesn’t always close right.” Alec cleared his throat. “Just wanted to shut it for you.”

“Please don’t close it. Please don’t go.” Her throat worked. “After today I don’t want to be alone. At least not tonight.” Moisture glistened in her eyes and she looked down.

He nearly groaned aloud. It wasn’t one damned bit fair when a woman cried.

“Hey.” He strode across the floor and crouched in front of her. He took her hands in his. They were warm and so soft. “It’s going to be all right.” What was going to be all right he didn’t know, it just seemed like the right thing to say.

“Is it?” A tear rolled down her cheek as she looked at him. “Am I going to get to go back to my life? Will I be able to forget what happened with that—man?”

“I don’t know.” All he could do was be honest. He didn’t know what plans the Powers That Be had for her so he couldn’t promise her anything. “I can never tell what the plan is.”

“Then stay with me.” Another tear trickled from her eye.

He took a deep breath. “Get under the covers and scoot over.” He kicked off his shoes but left his jeans and T-shirt on. He wasn’t going to take advantage of a woman who was in the state that Loni was.

When she was over far enough, he slid under the covers with her. “Turn over with your back to me.” She obeyed and he put his arm around her waist. She moved back against him, as if needing the closeness.

His cock hardened at the feel of her soft bottom against him. She smelled so good, felt so good. He held his breath and tried not to move.

“Thank you,” she murmured and he felt her relax. Eventually her breathing grew deep and even, and tension gradually left his body.

He buried his nose in her hair, drawing in her scent and feeling it flow through his body. The realization came to him then that he was in one hell of a lot of trouble.

Chapter 6

Loni woke to bright sunlight. She rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling and frowned. It wasn’t her ceiling.

Disoriented, she sat up in bed and glanced around her at furniture she didn’t recognize. Her heart beat faster as she looked at the simple, masculine furnishings and tried to place where she was.

Her brow wrinkled and her breathing came a little faster, a little shallow. She almost felt like she was going to hyperventilate as images of two men who could hold fire in their hands flickered through her mind. And passing out then waking up to see a bunch of people in black leather who had the same names as a group of people did in a book.

If she hadn’t found herself in a strange room this morning, she would have thought it all a dream. She looked at the pillow on the right. There was an indentation as if someone had been sleeping there. Had Alec really held her last night?

Nothing made sense. She squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe someone had slipped her some kind of drug and that caused hallucinations. Although that didn’t explain the room she slept in last night.

She opened her eyes and slipped out of bed, the carpet soft beneath her bare feet. She looked down and saw that she was wearing one of the long T-shirts and Capri pajama pants that she liked to wear to bed. Her bright pink suitcase was on a chair and it was filled with her clothes and toiletries, and other odds and ends she would need on a trip. Jeans and T-shirts comprised most of the clothing along with her athletic shoes as if whoever packed her suitcase knew she was going to need something other than her skirts and flats.

A bathroom was connected to the bedroom and she went into it. After she relieved herself and returned to the bedroom, she tugged on jeans and a T-shirt, socks and athletic shoes, then pulled her hair back in a ponytail. She needed a shower, but more importantly she needed to figure out exactly what she was facing.

The house was silent as she left the guestroom and stepped onto polished wood flooring. Her heart beat a little faster as she went down the stairs. She had woken in a strange house after having a crazy dream that had been so real that she almost believed it had all really happened.

She headed down stairs, the middle step squeaking before she made it to the hallway. To her left she could see a living room that looked familiar—just like the one she had dreamed about. To her right was the entrance to a kitchen and she heard the sound of something sizzling and caught the delicious scent of sausages and pancakes.

When she entered the kitchen, she saw him. Alec. Her heart rose into her throat and blood rushed in her ears. Either she was having a never-ending dream or this was real. He was real. His dark brown hair fell over his brow as he concentrated on fixing breakfast. He wore a pair of Levis with a royal blue T-shirt, and he had on a pair of white and blue athletic shoes.

“Good morning.” He flipped a pancake on a griddle on the stove. “Hungry?”

To her surprise she was. She nodded and he gestured to the kitchen nook table and she saw two tall glasses of orange juice in front of two place settings.

She glanced at the kitchen window. It looked like it was a bright and sunny day, normal for Phoenix. “What time is it?”

He was holding the pancake spatula as he spoke. “A little after noon.”

With surprise she said, “I never sleep that late.”

“You needed it.” He spooned scrambled eggs onto a platter that had a tower of pancakes then placed the sausages on the same platter. He took the last pancake off the griddle, turned off the heat, and picked up the platter. “Have a seat.”

She sat at the table and watched him as he set the platter between them and then took his own chair.

He picked up her plate and heaped generous portions of everything onto it, more than she thought she could eat and then he filled his own plate.

She bit the inside of her lip as she poured syrup from a pitcher onto her stack of three medium-sized pancakes. Did she just go along with this? “Are you really over a century old?”

He looked at her as he set the platter down. “Where did you hear that?”

She shrugged and picked up her fork. “I read it.”

“In the book you mentioned?” he asked as he took the pitcher of syrup and poured over his own pancakes.

The metal fork bit into her skin as she squeezed her hand around it just to see if it felt real. It did. “Yes, in the book.”

He set the syrup down, picked up his fork, and speared a sausage. “If you believe everything that you read about me,” he said, “then you believe you know all about me.”

“Not really.” She cut into her pancake as he bit his sausage. “I think you’re probably far more complex than the writer showed you to be. I don’t think he could truly get inside your head.”

For a moment their gazes met and held and she felt an arc of electricity between them that had the effect of rendering her speechless. When she gathered her composure she said, “The least you can do is tell me about yourself.”

“All right,” he said before digging into more of his breakfast.

“So tell me, how old are you?” she asked. “Where do you come from? The book isn’t clear about your origins.”

He drank from his orange juice then looked at her as she took a bite of her pancakes. “I’m a hundred eighty-three and I was born in Ireland shortly before my parents immigrated to America.”

“Almost two centuries?” Loni raised her brows. “You were born in the early 1800’s? You look like you’re in your mid-thirties.”

He stopped chewing and wiped his mouth with his napkin as he swallowed. “My people don’t age physically past thirty,” he said as he set down his napkin.

“Wow.” She considered what he had said as she ate her breakfast. It was delicious, especially after not having eaten much yesterday. “Were you born a sorcerer?”

He shook his head. “My father was a shifter and a Dark Enforcer. My mother is a witch.”

“Your mother is still alive?” Loni asked. “She would be over two hundred.”

“By marrying a shifter and carrying his child,” Alec said, “her life was extended beyond most witches’ natural lives. Something about bearing a shifter child and the symbiotic relationship, as the younger paranorm doctors put it. She won’t live as long as most shifters, but she’ll probably live another twenty years.”

“If you weren’t born a sorcerer…” She frowned. “I don’t understand. I saw you with fire like that Dawson guy had.”

“I’m a mimic,” Alec said. “Whatever type of being I touch, I’m able to take on their abilities until I touch another being and then my abilities mimic theirs. That was why I tackled the sorcerer after I threw the dagger at him. I needed his sorcerer powers to fight him.”

It was all hard to believe but she went along with it. “I noticed that you talked about your father in the past tense.”

She wondered if she had crossed a line as his features darkened and he didn’t say anything for a long time and ate instead.

He finished off his pancakes and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I’m surprised you didn’t read about my father in your book.” He dragged his hand down his face then met her gaze. “Dawson murdered him several years ago.”

“The book didn’t mention your parents.” She bit her lower lip. “I’m sorry about your father.”

“His life was cut short far too young,” Alec said. “He should have lived another century, at least.”