Odd Melody (Odd Series Book 2) (17 page)

I blinked and studied the newcomer with interest. Standing a few inches taller than me, he wasn’t much sturdier in build either. His blunt military style hair seemed very manly compared to the men I had been associating with lately. His buzz cut offset his sharp leather jacket, a buttery suede that appeared to be made from pieces of leather hand stitched together in a haphazard way that had to have cost a fortune.

Dark denim seemed painted on his high, tight ass when he turned to lock the door. I glanced over to see Sven tilt his head in interest as well. I grinned a little. The new guy was hitting the radar apparently.

“Oh, thank goodness, Frank. I was beginning to think you were never going to show up!” Mia rushed around the counter and hugged the man tightly.

He embraced her then pushed her back to study her curls and face and batted her away. “What, and I mean,
what
happened to you, Mia-girl?” His voice could only be described as nasal.

That wasn’t his fault. He had quite the nose. The long angled hook of it dominated his face. Then again, I had read somewhere the size of a man’s nose compared directly to the size of his—

“I am sick. Really, desperately, terribly sick.” Mia interrupted my train of thought as she pulled a tissue out and blew her nose again.

“Blech.” The man, apparently Frank, sneered at Mia.

I guessed this was the muse, but how he was an inspiration to anyone sort of escaped me.

Mia drew up to sneeze again, but, before she could get it out, Frank swatted her in the head with the butt of his hand.
Thwap!
Right in the dead center of her forehead.

Huh
. That was inspired. I hadn’t thought of doing that. I looked with new appreciation at the muse. I stepped up to the plate, so to speak, and introduced myself. “Hi, I am Janie. Can you fix my daughter?” I gave him my best respectful, yet pleading, smile.

He arched one brow at me in disdain. His forehead wrinkled when he did that. Apparently, no one had warned Frank that after a certain age you weren’t supposed to do that.
Poor Frank
.

“And I care about you, why?” His lip curled, and his nasal voice dripped with the scorn that his forehead wrinkles suggested.

I raised my own brow automatically. “Because Mia did it and you are her muse. Aren’t you going to fix it?”

“No.” He turned away from me as if that ended the conversation.

Mia turned from me to him, eyes widening as she struggled to head off the anger she had to see in my expression. “What he means is that I will fix it when I am fixed because I am the one that did it, Janie.” Her tone soothed and she reached a hand toward me in comfort.

“Why are you explaining yourself to her, Mia?” Frank glanced at me again. His eyes traveled from my head to my toes and his expression said simply,
not impressed.
 

“Janie is my best friend, has been ever since high school.” Mia’s voice was stern and she glared at the muse.

He glared back.

I glared, too. It was a regular glare-fest. My power shimmered, just a little around me. A hand touched my back.

“Temper,” warned a voice behind me.

I did not even glance back to see who it was, and I felt my eyes flash gold.

“Dude.” Vickie’s squeal reminded me she was still in the room. “Who is that guy?” She swung down from where she had been hanging and came to stand next to me. She gaped at someone behind me.

Instead of answering her, I ordered, “Vickie, go upstairs.”

“But—”

“Now.”

She scowled at me and stomped upstairs. Sven fled after her.

After my daughter left, Chance tried to slide closer to me. I spared a dark glance over my shoulder at him.

He shrugged and raised a hand in a gesture that said that he wasn’t sure what would help.

Since I had not wanted him to appear, his popping out again would have helped most. I turned back to the muse. “So are you here to help or be a jerk?” Bluntness was my friend. Always had been, always would be.

“Look, honey, I don’t know
what
or
who
you think you are, but I am a muse. Whatever you are is
nothing
on
me
. I am the very spirit and essence of inspiration.” He raised a long elegant palm and flapped his entire hand at me in a go away gesture. “You need to back up a little.”

I had no clue why I took his attitude as a challenge or why I riled so easily. What was left of my hair rose and floated on my powers. I felt my eyes flash as my temper increased. Chance’s hands closed on my waist, and this time I did not spare the attention to stop him.

“Janie.” He spoke directly into my ear. “Control your power.”

I snapped a line of that power down my own skin and it hit him. Unlike before, this time the power sizzled hot with my anger. When it hit him, I could sense it hurt like an electrical shock. Rather than back off, though, he absorbed it with a hiss and closed his fingers tighter around my waist, digging into my flesh almost painfully.

“I am controlling it fine.” Still keeping my attention on the muse, I kept my tone demanding. “And you have no idea what I am, do you?”

Other than my eyes, I was not sure what other visible alterations to my appearance might occur, but I did not hold back. For the first time since Chance had forced my change, I embraced being something else. Right then I was neither siren, nor fairy. I was what Chance was. We were Other. We were Power. I could and would destroy this creature if it did not fix my child.
Now
.

“Janie, I really don’t think you are controlling anything.” Chance’s voice sounded breathy. “I am going to override you in a minute, and you are not going to like it. Get control and listen to Mia.”

It was an order. Power flared higher with my fury. He dared order
me
? The hairs on my arms raised and the air in the room crackled in answer.

The muse smiled at me, the first real smile he had smiled since he had entered the room. “Bring it.”

He dared, and I rose to the challenge. I turned my glare back to him and what grip I had slipped. But I could still control it. I snapped the reins, so to speak and raised the energy level higher. And then there was a pop and air rushed around me.

And I lay flat on my back in Peaches.

This time I was not on a mat. I was on the floor of the bar, or more accurately, the stage. Before I could gather my thoughts, Chance scooped me up and threw me across the room and into a wall. Fortunately for me, it was a padded wall done in red, leather-like, material. My breath rushed out of me from the force of hitting a wall at the speed I had been thrown. Before I could fall to the floor, Chance pressed my body to the vinyl mat and his hand pinned my neck. My cheek smashed against the fake leather and his face hovered inches from mine.

The power that I had raised had been lost to the shock of being yanked through space and time, dropped on a floor, and then thrown into a wall. I tried to call it again, but his fingers dug into my neck and face. “Ow!” I protested and tried to wriggle away, but he held me like a vice.

Rather than merely holding me, he pulled at my power, draining energy through my skin as surely as a vampire would drain a victim of blood.

I went weak. I grew so tired that my skin felt as if it would burn and flake off. As if my lungs and veins would collapse. He pulled power straight through my skin where it touched his hand. When he finally released me, I crumpled to the floor and lay in a heap.

I had no words, not even a movement, left for complaint. I lay there, enjoying the cool floor against my cheek and tried to breathe out of a throat gone to knives. My body had become a sobbing shell of fire and pain, and I did not want to be in it anymore. The only thing that felt good, the only thing that kept me sucking air, was that cool floor under my face. I saw his feet and through the pain, I barely registered what they were.

He stalked away from me and dug his fingers into his hair then returned. He dropped to his knees and glass green eyes pinned me in their penetrating stare. “I have to give you the power back. When I do, are you going to fly back to out of control or are you thinking straight again? I’ve had centuries to learn to control the power you have gained overnight. If you flip out, well, you don’t realize what you can do and…can you even understand me?”

I blinked at him though my eyes seemed too dry to do so. The weak response was the best I had to give.

He raked a hand through his curls again and flipped me to my back. The cord flared to life. Through it, I took some of my power back. A trickle of it came into me. Such a small bit, I normally would not have noticed, but since he had drained all I had, down to the last drop, that fragile shiver of energy tasted like water in a desert and my body absorbed it gratefully. I whimpered and hated it. Hated him.

He sighed. “I had to stop you.”

Our connection allowed me to feel his frustration at having to stop me while knowing I would not react well to him forcing me to do anything. I had not known it mattered so much to him what I thought about what he did.

“You were about to snap and, if you had let loose in that store, you could have hurt Mia and Vickie. You may have figured out how to transport or you may have shot out power, but if you had hurt your kid, you would have blamed me and yourself. I could not allow that to happen.”

I sucked in oxygen and found my voice. “So you tried to kill me?”

He arched over me as a lover would though he was no lover of mine.
Not yet, not ever.
“I think, although I am not sure, that if you died at this point, Janie, you might take me with you.”

With that tidbit of information, he closed his lips over mine. My mouth still felt burnt to ashes, yet cold from the lack of power. Warm and sleek, his brushed over mine. His tongue slid into my mouth, fever hot and so wet.

I took it in. I had been so dry and cold until he kissed me.

His hands framed my face, and he still did not give up the power. My ultra-sensitive skin hurt and tears pricked my eyes at his touch. His lips moved to tease the corners of mine.

I gasped and my hands came up to his hair. The cord flared harder, and I tried to pull power from it, but he had more control over it than I did at that moment, if there was such a thing as control over that. I tried to think through the hunger. Through the blindness that overtook my vision and the lethargy that stole through my limbs. I tried to think. I slid one leg up slowly and Chance met my gaze.

I thought about earlier. He had liked me taking from him. I pushed at him with what strength I had. It wasn’t much, but he moved for me when my hands touched his chest. He allowed me to roll him to his back and crawl over him, allowed me to slide my fingers over his handsome face until his eyes fluttered closed.

He tested my control.

I was starving. I was dying. Yet I was in control.

I felt my eyes flash and his snapped open as my fingers dug into his shirt. I clutched both sides of the button down and tugged. Buttons popped and I had his chest bared to my sight and touch. I tugged at the shirt pulling it down his arms.

He wanted games?

I dug my nails in lines down his chest and he arched for me. His control slipped a little and I took some of his power through the tips of my fingers, like dipping into cotton candy and coming up with sticky strands. As he knew my body in a way that no lover should, I knew his. I bent to his nipple and took it in my mouth and bit, sipping of his power. The grey dots faded and the worst of the dizziness steadied. Still I needed more from him, much more. But he wanted games so I rolled my eyes upward, away from his tantalizing chest to see him breathing hard, jaw clenched.

“Janie.” His harsh whisper tugged at my desires. “Janie.” He did not seem to be able to get more out.

Hovering above him, I smiled and I slid my hands lower. I closed my mouth over his while my hands grazed at belt level. I teased with my mouth, feasting on him with tongue, lips, and teeth, still not feeding on his light and power, nor lowering my body, never quite touching him where I sensed he wanted me.

“Please.” His whisper barely penetrated my conscious. “I’m sorry I drained you. Please, I am begging.”

Shocked, I stilled. After a moment his vision cleared enough that he realized it too. Chance had apologized to me and begged.

We both lay still as statues and stared into each other’s eyes. I breathed hard and so did he, but we simply lay there frozen as a clock somewhere ticked off the minutes.

“You aren’t going to take it back?” My voice was no more than a sigh of sound as I broke the silence.

He did not move. Not even a muscle twitched in that face. The smell of a storm around me intensified slightly and the wind of his power rose. With most of my power and his in him, he ran hot. He still did not respond though.

“You aren’t even going to say you didn’t mean it?” I touched his face softly, wonderingly.

His response was to pull my face close to his and kiss me. He ate at my lips with teeth and tongue. I closed my eyes and my body dropped closer to his automatically. I had to concentrate not to collapse onto him and bring us into full contact.

I pulled back. “Chance, answer me.”

“No.” The answer was clipped. He touched his forehead to mine. His breathing grew harsh.

“You meant it.”

“Yes.” He growled low in his chest. “Don’t push me. I don’t push you. Not in this.”

He was right, he didn’t. Not when it came to the two of us alone like this. I closed the distance between us. I sealed my lips over his and dropped my body fully against him.

He rolled on top of me and pressed me into the floor. His power roared down my throat.

I fed.

He pushed harder.

I rocked against him, but with clothes between us, the connection only mocked what my body cried out for. I screamed into his mouth and tore at his hair.

He ate my scream.

While I fed, the cocoon of light formed fully around us, but I remained unfulfilled. His need wrapped me like a hunger. I rubbed my face against his like a cat, and I slid a hand down between us.