Touch of a Dragon

Touch of a Dragon

Kim Knox

Touch of a Dragon Copyright © August 2010 by Kim Knox All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions. eISBN 978-1-60737-840-2 Editor: Antonia Pearce Cover Artist: Christine M. Griffin Printed in the United States of America

Published by Loose Id LLC PO Box 425960 San Francisco CA 94142-5960 www.loose-id.com This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author‟s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Dedication To Jessica, Jennie, and Teebee.

Chapter One “Do you want to live?” What the hell…? I focused on the brown hand thrust into my face, held onto it like a lifeline. Everything else around me was a scorched blur. My heart beat hard, and pain rode through my flesh. Did I want to live? Where was I? What had happened? Panic bubbled and words burst out. “What sort of insane question is that?” I choked, and agony shot over my skull. “Make a choice.” I breathed slow, wanting to ease the fear, the pain enveloping me. I focused on the man‟s hand, on the ring on his third finger. Heavy, white gold, and ornate, it gleamed against his smooth brown skin. Something about it itched, tugging at my memory, but my dull brain couldn‟t help me remember. I concentrated on his question instead and let out a slow breath. My throat hurt. “Choice?” More sensation worked its way through my fogged brain, breaking the pounding pain beating against my skull. Flagstones scraped against my cheek, my jaw. Cold air brushed against my skin, and the thin taste of smoke, brick dust, and the river‟s damp air slid into my lungs. I swallowed, and blood and grit filled my mouth. All right, I was lying down outside somewhere. Which made no sense. I‟d been what…heading in to work? And then what? Collapsed, passed out? Then some freak had found me. Always my luck. It was time to try moving. My arm lay at an awkward angle under my hip, and I pushed my will into my muscles. Big mistake. The twitch of movement lanced agony down to my fingertips. The sudden flare of pain brought with it an

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unexpected clarity, and the surrounding haze of light and shadow fell into brief focus. Beyond the stranger‟s hand, flagstones coated with red dust stretched away from me and a morning fog rolled in from the river, wreathing around the black lampposts and obscuring everything else. “You have to answer me.” I winced, and a hot flush of pain ran over my face. Damn it, what part of me didn‟t hurt? “Answer you?” “Do you want to live? You have to make the choice.” His hand disappeared from my view, and for a panicked, confused moment, I thought he‟d left me, alone, injured. Then came the light brush of his fingers over my hair in a slow, sure rhythm. My thudding heart slowed…but something about his touch seemed wrong. However, even with the fading beat of pain in my head, thinking was still hard, and I just wanted the relief of not hurting. I closed my eyes and let my body pull in air, bitter as it was. Slowly, I drifted, and the warm tug of sleep dulled the agony— “Do you want my help?” I winced. The pain was back. Hell, was the deep voice stabbing into my head simply a figment brought on by my obviously cracked skull? “No, I just want to lie here.” I spat out the taste of blood. “Maybe bleed a bit more. What d‟you think?” He cursed, something ripe and not very complimentary. “Leona Munro. Yes or no? Do you want to live?” “I‟ve told you. What sort of insane, crazy question—” I made the mistake of moving my head from the flagstone pavement. Pain spiked and my stomach roiled. Nausea surged. I sank back to the cold stone and tried to breathe away the agony ripping through me. It didn‟t work. Damn it, I needed his help. If I had to answer his stupid question, then I‟d do that. “Yes.” The word gritted out from between clenched teeth. “I want to live.”

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His hand, still caught in my hair, pressed hard against my skull. And that was the something wrong. It didn‟t hurt. In fact…the searing edge of pain dulled, faded, and a slow fire slid through my flesh, relaxing every screaming inch of my skin, bones, and muscle. I sighed, and I couldn‟t stop my body from sagging deeper against the hard flagstones like a boneless doll. I didn‟t care. I didn‟t hurt. That was all that mattered in my world right then. “Thank you.” “You may change your mind about that.” Blake gripped my arm with hard fingers and yanked me to my feet. His strong arm hooked under mine, wrapped under my breasts, and clutched my hip. He held me up, and I let him, as my rag-doll body refused to work. I willed myself to find the strength to break away from him…and failed. On the plus side, my brain was clear and free from pain. I blinked, wishing I could rub the grit from my eyes, but my hand refused to lift. My fingers tingled, so whatever my stranger had done, I still had feeling. I did the only thing I could. I stared around me. I‟d had no idea where I was as my head pounded and I could barely focus. I‟d just known that I was outside and somewhere near the river…but I knew the stone wall curving away from me. It stretched up in front of the old pier master‟s house and was built around its ornate garden. My breath hitched, and a new panic hit me—hot, fast, firing adrenaline through every muscle. That tall, thin house was all that was left of the immediate waterfront. The riot of fear rushed strength into my body, and I broke free of my stranger‟s tight hold, staggered, and then slumped against the stone wall. My heart pounded, and I dug my fingers into the wall‟s crumbling mortar until the pain bit into my palm. It was real. The destruction was real. The brick-built warehouses that had stretched along the river, the ones due for regeneration, were gone. Rubble and twisting smoke obscured the surrounding glass-and-steel offices. And the gallery, my workplace, was a half-standing wreck. My stomach turned over. What could have done this?

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“Magic.” The word escaped me. Yet, it made no sense. I was an invigilator at the maritime gallery, a security guard with a degree in history and art, meant to work the floors and chat with the visiting public. The first thing I‟d learned in the job was that every stone bristled with reinforced antimagic. Centuries of it, worked into the old waterfront by the contractors from across the river. But no known tech could lay a precise area to waste and leave the surrounding buildings intact, untouched. “It can‟t be magic. That‟s impossible.” “So you would think.” I stared up at the man who had healed me, saved me. Dressed in a tailored black suit, shirt, and matching tie, I had the uneasy feeling he was just like me, a guard. Yet…there was something more to him. Something aristocratic in the turn of his strong jaw, and a power in his dark eyes that itched under my skin. Was he a magician? My stomach hollowed, and my hands tightened into fists. Had he done this? Destroyed the waterfront? “What are you?” A

smile

curved

his

mouth,

and

there

was

something

almost…animalistic…about it. I swallowed, and goose bumps ran over my flesh. “Well?” “My name is Samuel Blake.” “I didn‟t ask your name.” His smile deepened. “I know.” I straightened, hoping that if I controlled my body, then some sense would work its way back into my brain. I stared at my hands, clear of any cuts, and then pulled at my torn blue uniform. Blood still stained the holes, but there was only clear skin beneath. “You healed me.” I felt it deep into my bones. Yes, healed me completely. “That‟s self-evident.” I stopped myself from gritting my teeth. He‟d saved me; I wouldn‟t punch him just yet. “You‟re a magician.”

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Something shifted in his eyes, and a chill swept over my skin. I could almost taste his anger as if it were my own. “No.” His hand tightened around my arm. “Let‟s go.” “Go?” I grabbed at the wall again, anchoring myself to it. I shrugged my arm free of his tight grip. I‟d be damned if he thought I was leaving, running away from the scene. I didn‟t run. “I‟m the deputy.” I held his blank stare. “To the disaster recovery manager? I have to start to sort this out.” I glanced into the sky. “It‟s still early.” I tapped my watch. The cracked face showed six thirty-five. Damn it, how long had I been out? They relied on me. Douglas had made it very clear how important my role was in a disaster situation, how much trust he placed in me. “Shift change is…was due. We have to contact people, organize the search for survivors.” Blake‟s jaw stiffened, and there was that undercurrent of anger again, a raw, almost bitter taste in my mouth. “No.” His fingers curled around my upper arm, and he yanked me along with him. I stumbled over the debris, slithering over my own blood staining the flagstones. “I asked you if you wanted to live. For you to live, you have to leave.” “No?” I staggered back from him. How was he simply walking away from this? “What kind of man…” Blake‟s hand slid into his jacket, and everything about him screamed weapon. I pressed my lips shut. Who the hell was he? Samuel Blake radiated menace, and I really should get as far away from him as I possibly could. His gaze narrowed, and he pulled out a slim, silver-edged mobile interface. My heart squeezed and started beating again. Not a weapon. My brain kicked in as I realized what he was. He was a reject just like me. A reject for whom the techimplants of the South Bank simply didn‟t take. Blake stared at me—no, through me—as he put the device to his ear and listened to the voice at the other end. “All of them. All emergency services.” He paused, and the cold expression didn‟t change. “Yes. Didn‟t you notice the

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implosion?” His mouth thinned. “My tone is no concern of yours. But as you‟re not interested, I won‟t tell you that the Merrow Dock complex is flat.” He stabbed a thumb at the sleek interface, killing the connection. “Idiot.” He turned his attention back to me. “I contacted help. Good enough?” “No.” “Tough. You are—” The groan of metal was the only warning before the upper floors of the maritime gallery crashed into the tidal dock. I bit back a scream, only half aware of Blake yanking me back against his chest. “Damn it, what is it with you people? Are you not listening? The whole waterfront is unstable.” Blake‟s words were a low growl. I couldn‟t take my eyes off the gaping hole that revealed the reconstruction of the steam-age liner. I‟d worked on that floor, leading small groups of children around the long polished deck, warning them not to poke the already listing mannequin of the captain. And above it, exposed to the smoke-filled air, was the exhibition in which I currently worked. The Myth of the Sea-Dragon. I shuddered. It was the reason why I was late this morning. I hated that damn room. The dark chamber had cracked open, revealing the replica of the golden throne, from which the Dragon Lord ruled the world. Black silk banners streamed in the wind, the image of the Sea-Dragon twisting green and gold from the fourth floor. Another shudder shook me. I was slipping into shock, and I knew it. Couldn‟t stop it. “What did this?” “What you said.” Blake broke me from staring by lifting me over a shattered lamppost, sparks lashing the ground around us. The ease, his obvious strength, unnerved me. Hell, I wasn‟t a waif. I pushed my mind back to what he‟d said. “Magic?” He didn‟t reply, only turned me away, took my hand in a tight, hard grip, and tugged me forward. He broke into a run, and I had to follow. He pounded over the swing bridge, his boots thumping against the metal. I couldn‟t keep up with his

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harsh pace. My boot caught, and I stumbled, yanking my hand free. The metal dug hard into my knees, but what I saw through the grill cut off my pained yelp. The river, brown and frothing far below, its roar lashing, snarling and growling against my brain. I fought for breath. The tidal power of the river had always terrified me. “Leona.” Blake gripped my arm, and I tore my gaze up from the raging river. His dark gaze held no reflection, was endless, and pulled me in. Breathing came easier, and my surge of panic ebbed away. “It‟s just water.” “Water.” I repeated the word, needing to believe it. “Just water.” He pulled me up. “Now we need to get away. We‟re not safe here.” I stared back at the destruction of the waterfront. The black banners flashed in the clearing air, and a shiver twitched through me. Everything felt…wrong, and I didn‟t know why. “But magic? That‟s impossible. We signed treaties. The guild masters have honored them for centuries.” “Did I say it was the North Bank?” I blinked. “Magic is bound to the guild masters and exists only on the peninsula of the North Bank. Where else is there?” His smile was wry. “I‟ve said enough.” “Who the hell are you?” “Samuel—” I yanked myself free of his tight hold. “Yes. And that means nothing.” He took my hand again, his grip hot and strong around my bloodless fingers. “It‟s all you are to be told.” “As if just saying your name is a good enough explanation. I have no idea who you—” Something zinged past my ear. “Down!” Blake dropped, dragging me with him. My knees impacted the metal grill for a second time, and I winced. The water below lashed up, and horror twisted my

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stomach. Just water. Just water. Blake blocked me with his body, the fresh scent of him hiding the sour stink of smoke and rubble. He smelled like the clean ocean, and it threaded through me, calming me as I stared into the churning brown water far below. The metal bridge spanged. Bullets ricocheted. Bullets? What was going on? Who the hell had bullets anymore? And they were in plain sight. I crushed my eyes shut and willed us safe, willed that whoever was firing at us would carry on being such incredibly bad shots. Blake‟s harsh breaths rasped against my neck. His weight pressed me into the grill. My heart thudded. His hand was in exactly the wrong place. Someone was shooting at us, and all I could think about was the callused tip of his finger. The finger that caught the bare curve of my breast through the tear in my shirt, eliciting an unexpected jolt of need. “Keep still.” The hot growl had heat curling through my flesh. Obviously, the implosion had rattled my brain. I forced myself to focus and not think about the way he almost cupped my breast. Or the way his lips seared my skin with the hot pulse of need. Oh shit. My focus was shot. I tried talking. “Why…why is someone shooting at you?” “Not me.” That burned my lust to ash. “Someone wants to shoot me?” I choked on laughter. “Destroying my workplace wasn‟t enough?” Blake didn‟t answer. In one smooth movement, he leaped to his feet, and with his body still blocking mine, he bustled me from the bridge. He pushed me behind the curving safety of the high wall surrounding the dockmaster‟s offices. The short wall, that ended only meters to the right, separated the buildings from the corniche and offered some protection. Only some. We would have to run into the open of the corniche to get to the old transport offices. Terror gripped me, the strange calm Blake brought gone again. What the hell was going on?

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Bullets burst around us, thudding into the grass far to our right, smacking into the bricks of the offices, striking against the cobbles on the corniche on the other side of the wall behind which we hid. It was insane. Someone was shooting at us, at me. It made no sense. I led a dull, ordinary life. Not one filled with magic, implosions, and archaic weaponry. Blake pressed me hard up against the wall, and I forgot all about the bullets. He turned his head from me, and I stared at the taut line of his throat. I swallowed, fighting the need to lick his warm brown skin. Head injury. Serious head injury. I repeated that over and over and closed my eyes, desperate to deny the growing need in my flesh. It didn‟t help. With my eyes shut, I breathed in his clean, intoxicating scent. The delicious pressure of his body against my pelvis, stomach, breasts had my heart pounding. I balled my hands into fists and pushed them hard against the rough, old brick. Damn it, what was wrong with me? My wild mix of terror and lust had my thoughts spinning. “Bla—” He covered my mouth with his hand, and his gaze fixed on me. Something lurked there, and my chest heaved. His fingers tightened in reflex against my jaw. With my breath short, my body surged with liquid fire. He leaned in close, his lips brushing my ear. “Silence, Leona. They‟re still here.” He took a deep breath, scenting the air like a…a beast…and the shift in his chest, his hips tightened the need in my body. “Their scent is everywhere.”

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Chapter Two I should have been scared, terrified, but my only thought in the slow-beating seconds was my need to run my hands over him. I wanted the heat of his skin, his mouth, him buried hard and hot inside me. The need was a shock. He was a complete stranger…but the rush of lust was as fierce as it was unexpected. “Ah.” The slow exhalation of his breath curved my neck into his touch. His lips brushed my skin, and the tip of his tongue traced the edge of my jaw. “They‟ve gone.” Blake lifted his head, and his hand slipped from my mouth. His eyes narrowed. “You‟re hurt,” he said, and his thumb hovered over my ear. Had he felt nothing—none of the desperate need that still tugged hard at me? His words penetrated. “Hurt?” I touched my earlobe. Pain flashed, and my fingers came away wet. Shit, I hadn‟t even felt it. “Look at me,” he murmured. I sank into his dark gaze, and the pain faded. His hand brushed over the tear, and warmth spread through, healing the skin. With the heat came an unnerving thrum to my blood at his touch. His fingertip traced the shell of my ear in a slow and easy caress. Flesh tightened in a place I was not thinking about. “All better.” I swallowed, my throat dry. Shock. That explained the sudden and swift rise of desire. I was in shock and had a head injury. “How…how do you do that?” He wet his lips. I pulled in a breath and fought the hot pulse of need. His gaze narrowed. “What I did, it pushed fast through you.” Hunger sparked in his gaze, and the savage heat of it spiraled want in my blood. “I suppose that‟s a good thing.” He stepped back, and I wanted to be grateful that his muscled strength no longer

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pinned me to the wall. I wanted to feel that. It didn‟t happen. Chill air whipped between us. Blake tilted his head, and a dark smile touched his firm lips. “And after all, time is short.” He gripped my arms and turned me to the wall. “What…?” The long length of his body pushed me hard against it. His lips touched my ear, his breath hot and even. Heat curled low in my belly, and damn it, I could feel the press of his erection against my arse. “Healing you has accelerated events.” “Events?” The word was little more than a squeak as his large hands shaped my hips. His thumbs teased the band of my trousers, playing against the sliver of exposed skin he found on either side of my spine. He teased under the material, and my hands curled into fists, pressing against the rough brick of the wall. This wasn‟t happening. I was not being felt up by a stranger, didn‟t ache for his hands to do more than play my skin. “This is insane.” “It‟s necessary.” Blake‟s fingers dipped over my hips, the heat of his touch against my bare flesh forcing a gasp. He pushed the thick material down. I didn‟t stop him, and cold morning air ran goose bumps over my belly, my arse. His fingertips teased over my mons. I jerked back, gasping, and pushed hard against the length of his erection. His smile curved against my ear. It felt right, wicked. “Keep your eyes closed.” “What—” But the dip of his fingertip, the slow circle of its pad against my clitoris broke my question. I bit my lip, denying that he had me hot, that the idea of him taking me—fucking me—right there in such a public place burned up through my body. “We can‟t do this.” “Don‟t lie to me, Leona. This is the consequence of your choice. Of accepting my help.” A hand eased from my hip, and his knuckles brushed over the cleft of my arse. My heart pounded at the raw metal sound of his zip easing down. “I can feel the first fire in your blood. The need for me.” A darkness edged his voice, the strange burr to it twisting through my flesh. “It‟ll grow. You‟ll ache for me to fuck you.”

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The rough brick pressed into my forehead, and I stared down, fixing my gaze on the shadowed darkness of his hand against my pale skin. His finger circled and dipped in a tormenting rhythm, and the ache in my sex grew, driving my hips back. The heat of his skin against mine shocked me. A second finger joined the first, and I bit out a curse. The need to feel him, for him to sink deep into my body and fuck me until I screamed seared through my thoughts. My desire for him wasn‟t natural. Wasn‟t me. My pulse spiked. “Is this magic? Have you wrapped a spell around me?” Blake‟s bitter laughter ran a shiver over my skin. “This isn‟t magic.” His sharp teeth tugged at my earlobe, and the pleasure-pain rioted. The blunt head of his cock teased my arse and I sucked in a quick breath. “Now, shut your eyes and I‟ll fuck you. Fast, hard.” His low growl whipped the fire in my blood, his knuckles teasing my arse as his cock eased closer to where I ached for him. “Say you want it.” I shut my eyes against his words, wanting my dried mouth to say no, to deny him my body. But hell, it‟d been a long time since any man had had me this hot and wet. His strength, his not giving a shit that he‟d shoved me up against a wall and yanked down my trousers had my heart drumming and made the roll and push of my hips against his almost involuntary. I didn‟t care. Didn‟t care that anyone could see us—me being fucked like this. Whatever happened was…right. “I want you.” His low, guttural moan burned my skin. Blake pulled me back, changing the angle of my hips, and his cock brushed my wet folds. He pushed forward, the slow, slow stroke of him into my body pulling a soft curse from me. His hand snaked over my stomach to slip under my shirt and cup my breast. An unexpectedly rough thumb caught my nipple and spiked raw lust into my belly. “Keep your eyes closed.” The repeat of his raw command ran through me, hot and dark. “Why?” “Because I said so.” He pulled back and pushed deep. The first brief wave of my release caught me, and I gasped, panting out the flare of bright joy. He nipped

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at my ear, my neck, the brush of his cool hair and bristled jaw spiraling fresh heat under my flesh. “So sweet.” His low words seared me. “So”—he thrust again, hard, and I cried out—“hot and wet for me. Oh, I‟ll enjoy you, Leona Munro.” His fingers mirrored the rhythm of his cock, and tension tightened my belly. I needed him hard and fast, fucking me, taking me, making me—The strange thoughts whirled. Blake would do more than drive a wild orgasm through my flesh. I could feel it on the edge of my mind…and I grasped at it. He prepared me for something. Something…incredible. I felt his fierce grin against my neck. The power of him stroking into me, holding me hard to him, drove fire through my veins. I braced my boots against the cobbles and my hands against the brick wall. I didn‟t understand any of it. His need. My own. But I met every thrust of cock, welcoming the fast press of his fingers, the rough palm gripping my breast hard enough to bruise. I needed his strength, ached for it. Blake‟s scent, the sharp odor of the open ocean, filled me. His satisfied growls, slow and harsh, sank into my flesh, mixing with my quick pants. The rough sounds, so strange, so right, drove the promise of my release deep, made the need in me throb, my body tighten, and my thoughts spin. “I could strip you. Eat you. You‟d taste”—his lips and tongue found my neck and forced a shudder of desire—“delicious.” His increased strokes into my sex, the strength of his hands on my breast, my mons swept lust and fire under my hot, damp skin. I imagined him naked, the heat of his skin against mine. There‟d be none of the constrictions of jackets and shirts, the uniforms that bound us. We‟d be caught in the joy of darkness and fire, earth and stone. His low snarl gripped me, spun desire, the wild surge of my release so, so close that I could almost taste it. “Blake, make me come.” The words were a demand and a plea. My body shook. I needed to let the fierce glory of my release sweep over me. I needed—

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“Bite you, eat you, devour you.” He snarled against my ear. “Consume you.” White heat swelled up from my belly, rushing over my breasts and forcing me to throw back my head and pant out the hot blaze of joy and light bursting through my flesh, my thoughts. Blake‟s strokes became erratic, and there…there… He came with a low, wicked growl that deepened the pulse of my release, chased fresh fire through my blood. I felt the fury of his release, and it surged over my own. He licked and nipped my neck, nuzzling, his hands easing their fierce grip to caress my skin. Shivers rippled over my flesh at the slow patterns he traced. “This is a part of the choice you made, Leona.” He‟d known my name from the start… “How do you know who I am?” His fingers traced over the white enamel badge on my torn jacket. “I can read.” Blake pulled back and tugged up my trousers, covering my nakedness. “We are at the start of our journey.” I turned and flopped against the wall, watching him tuck his shirt back into his trousers. “Journey?” My fingers caught in my hair as I tried to make sense of what I‟d just done with him against a wall in a public place…with people shooting at us. My pulse jumped. The insanity hit me. We‟d risked our lives for a quick, hot fuck—and I hadn‟t given it a moment‟s thought. “What are you, Blake?” Blake wasn‟t listening to me. He searched the sky, his eyes distant. “Damn it, pay attention to me.” Angered at my own stupid reaction to him, I thumped his chest, and he winced. I stopped. Warm wetness coated the edge of my fist. I turned my hand, and in the early-morning light, there was no mistaking the thick coating of blood over my palm. “You‟re hurt.” I ignored the burst of panic running through my body. “We should—” “No.” He stared at me, and the arrogant power in his gaze twisted my stomach. “They were shooting at you. They missed.”

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He‟d taken bullets meant for me. Magicians didn‟t have this skill. For all of their power, a magician was still human, still bled, and died if you fired rounds into his back, his chest. I had to ask the question again. It wouldn‟t go away. “What are you?” “Someone who‟s going to get you out of here alive.” He glanced over me, the dark hunger in his gaze heating the slivers of release still caught in my flesh. “I‟ve done enough.” A wry smile pulled at his mouth. “For now.”

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Chapter Three Blake edged back to the end of the wall. I held my breath. He glanced at me and waved. I willed myself forward, stumbling over the muddy bank. He grabbed my arm and pulled me out along the cobbled corniche that stretched beside the South Bank of the river. “And that‟s all you need to know.” “Like hell it is!” I stared at his jacket, but it was hard to trace the stain of blood against the deep black. “You healed me. Twice. Hell, fucked me. Someone shot you, and you‟re oblivious to it.” I scrubbed at my face, trying to get my rattled wits in order. What had just happened to my life? I was a security guard with a fancy title and a useless degree. I was going to blame that damn exhibition. Why the new curator had thought that pulling together artifacts related to the mythos of the Sea-Dragon would tempt anyone—Something slammed into place. “You‟re from the cult, aren‟t you?” The Cult of the Sea-Dragon. A myth, a band of men who did not exist. That had been the very short speech from the curator. The bloody exhibition had been open a day, and already magic had destroyed the dock and the adjoining gallery. Blake stopped and stared at me…and something flickered in the depths of his eyes. “I knew it.” Blake resumed his fast pace, his grip on my arm tight. He said nothing. I should‟ve been organizing the scene, following the recovery plan. Not this. Not running away. I had responsibilities. They were relying on me. “I have to go back. My job is to coordinate the disaster recovery.”

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“You were caught in the blast. The first thing they would do is remove you.” “I‟m fine.” Blake snorted. “You‟re not thinking straight.” “I‟m fine.” Blake stopped, glaring at me. He crossed his arms. “So you‟re going to explain that a mysterious man in black, who may”—his eyes narrowed, and I knew he was mocking me—“or may not belong to the Cult of the Sea-Dragon, found you, healed you, shielded you, fucked you.” His laugh was to himself. “They‟d get you one of those nice white jackets where the sleeves go all the way around.” “This is not funny.” Blake‟s face slipped into its grim mask. “No, it isn‟t.” He waved me ahead of him, urging me to walk quickly. I glared at him, hating the reliance I had on this stranger, but he was staring down along the corniche. “We have to get away before they track back.” The wail of numerous sirens thickened the air. I craned my neck but caught only glimpses of the flattened rubble of the scaffolded warehouses. Choking dust and smoke still shrouded the dock, strong winds cutting into the billowing clouds. “Who did this, Blake?” “I don‟t know.” “How can you not know?” I wanted him to know. In the confusion, the insanity of magic destroying the dock, I wanted someone to know what was going on. And Blake seemed to know a lot more than he was sharing. He stopped and pushed me back into the shadows of a maintenance doorway of the old transport offices. He stood close as he stared along the empty corniche. “Quiet.” I bit at my lip to stop the why that wanted to burst out.

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His stillness unnerved me. Animal intensity gripped him, and I thought only of a large, dangerous predator scenting the air. To think such insane thoughts…and for them not to be the most insane of the morning? Yes, my life was out of control. Blake swore, and his arm snaked around my body, pressing me hard to his broad back. He stepped deeper into the shadowed doorway. “They‟ve found you.” “Who?” “Us.” I stared, my chin pressed against Blake‟s hard shoulder. Three men stood before us. I blinked. Where the hell had they come from? One second the stretch of gray-cobbled path had been empty…the next, three men stared at me. My mind screamed magic. Panic tightened my chest. Had they destroyed the waterfront and now planned to deal with witnesses? Two of the men were armed with small, ornate guns. Gloved fingers rested against the triggers, ready to squeeze. The third man leaned against the rail edging the pathway. Something about him seemed…different from his colleagues. Dressed the same as the others in the classic magician style, with a slick, hideously expensive suit and the affected cane, he was a beautiful, blond, carved god. But he had a sharp intelligence in his eyes that I‟d never seen in one of their kind before. The magicians I‟d met in secret hideaway clubs along the dock road had spilled over with stupid self-importance. This man had a contained air. “I know you.” He pushed himself away from the rail and planted his steeltipped cane on the cobbles. His head tilted to one side, and he studied Blake. “I do; I know you.” Blake remained still, his arm tight around me. The magician‟s pale gaze shifted to me. “And of course, you are Leona Munro.” I held his gaze. Obviously another who could read my work badge. “And you are?”

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“Tobias Conrad.” He performed a low and flourished bow that absolutely screamed magician. He straightened, and the intelligent gleam was back. “I apologize for my learned colleagues becoming slightly overenthusiastic with their weapons. Force of habit.” He glanced at the other men, and a smile twitched over his perfect lips. “Though their aim seemed very poor today. They‟re usually much more deadly. Anyway, I‟m so pleased finally to make your acquaintance.” “Really? Why?” I asked. “Go now, Tobias.” Blake‟s voice burned raw, rough after Tobias‟s urbane drawl. “End this.” “When it‟s only just begun?” Tobias leaned back against the rail, crossing his legs at the ankle. His silver-capped cane tapped against his bottom lip. “And Leona, you‟re so much more interesting in the flesh.” He craned his head to try to see around Blake‟s blocking body. “Well, what I can see of you.” “Again, why?” “Leona…” Blake‟s low growling of my name had my skin prickling. “He‟s very brutish, isn‟t he?” His smile was shark bright. “That means you must be…Blake.” The hand clamped to my waist tightened, digging into the flesh. I tried to keep my expression calm, neutral. “Yes, tall, solid, dark, absolutely no sense of humor. Sounds exactly like Samuel Blake.” Blake‟s shoulders straightened. “I don‟t know what you think you know, Tobias, but you and your men should leave now.” “Yes, they warned me about your need to threaten everyone you meet. Though with you, Leona, his interest seems more…physical.” The smile on Tobias‟s mouth almost became a smirk. “And you? You seem to enjoy being crushed up against that much muscle.”

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Magicians and their smart remarks. I hated that about them. Heat burned under my skin, and I tried not to think about how aware Tobias had suddenly made me of Blake‟s arm against my body. His large hand dug into my waist, my hip, and his heat bled through the tears in my uniform. The feel of him hard and hot inside of me still echoed in my flesh. I didn‟t need a reminder, not there, not then. “Did you do this?” Tobias glanced at the clouds of smoke billowing out over the river in a graybrown surge. “I grew up staring at those crumbling warehouses from across the river, watching the glass-and-steel towers burst up behind them. A daily reminder that the enemy was always watching.” He looked back to us, and something sparked in his pale eyes. Loathing, but he seemed…conflicted. “Never thought I‟d live to see the day someone blew them to so much dust.” And magicians were also strangers to a straight answer. “So is that a no?” “I will neither confirm nor deny…” Tobias straightened and pointed his cane at Blake and me. “But I have been ordered to bring you in, and that‟s what I‟m here to do.” Blake stiffened. “No.” “I thought you knew what the plan was, Blake?” “No.” Tobias grinned. “We should add monosyllabic to the list too, shouldn‟t we? Now.” His hand tightened around his black cane. “The time for chatting is over. And since we didn‟t kill you, which was rather fortunate, you will both come with us. You are…expected.” They wanted us? What the hell for? To go to North Bank? And how did they know that Blake would be with me? It was too early in the morning for my day to be going so much to hell. Blake‟s weight shifted, so slight an action that I wondered why my instincts were screaming at me. But I felt the sudden dropping of his shoulders. Tobias‟s movement, the tightening of his hand around his cane, had been Blake‟s trigger. My

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gaze flicked to the other magicians. Yes, they were ready to fight too. Shit. My training was basic and hadn‟t been called on before. Worse, they had guns—small ornate guns, but lethal nonetheless. We were screwed. Blake‟s arm slid from my waist, and he stepped forward. Cool air washed over me, and I shivered. There was no other option but to stand with him. The magicians had shot at me, wanting to take me in. Hell, they‟d quite possibly destroyed the waterfront in their attempt. Blake—and the strange burn of our connection, the one that fired his emotions through my flesh—would fight for me. Protect me. I glanced at him, the early-morning light cutting shadows over his strong face. Even in a smart suit, animal power pulsed from him. I balled my hands into fists and slid my feet slow over the stone step as I prepared my body to follow him. He would fight for me. I had to be prepared to do the same. “Don‟t start this.” There was a hint of regret in Blake‟s voice as he focused on the magician. Tobias‟s smile twisted into his shark-sharp grin. He jabbed the silver cap of his cane at Blake. “You know, it‟s not just the name. You are so familiar. It‟s annoying.” “Just walk away, Tobias.” “Not in this lifetime.” I caught the brief twitch in Blake‟s face. It almost looked like pain. But then it was gone, and I began to doubt that I‟d seen anything at all. I had no idea what world I‟d fallen into, but I wanted out of it. Magic had been an obsession since I was small. But if it meant being blown up and shot at…I wanted out of that world. Fast. “Then your choice is made.” The finality to Blake‟s words forced even the magicians‟ sharp grins to fade. Their fingers flexed around their weapons, and they shifted back toward the rail. It ran cold fear through me. Blake‟s power was almost tangible. Even I stepped back from the force, the threat in his voice.

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And then Blake attacked. He was a stunning blur of fists and kicks…and something else. In a frozen moment, I caught a glimpse of his face. A hot wash of panic shot over me, and I staggered back into the shadow of the doorway, grabbing at the rough stone wall to steady me. Horned. Unreal. Blake in that instant was anything but human. First one gun and then the other clattered to the cobbles. A punch to the throat and one magician dropped. The other took a kick to the stomach, cried out, and slumped against the railings. Slowly, he slid to the ground. With a blurring speed that almost matched Blake‟s, his cane a streak of black, Tobias parried Blake‟s blows. I could only stare, my heart in my throat. Blake grabbed his arm, but the magician‟s fist connected with Blake‟s jaw, snapping it back. Blood sprayed from his mouth. Using the distraction, Tobias gripped Blake‟s fingers, forcing his wrist back. An inhuman cry tore from my protector‟s mouth. My stomach turned over, pulling me out of the shadowed doorway. Blake dropped to his knees, and Tobias cracked his cane against the other man‟s spine. I had to help him. He'd saved me— “No.” Blake‟s dark gaze found me. Pain and power radiated there. “Run, Leona!” “I—” The cane struck his temple with a sickening crack, and he sank boneless to the cobbles. I stared at Tobias as he breathed out, leaning hard on his cane. He‟d outfought Samuel Blake. My brain kicked in. The magician was distracted. Hell, it was my only chance to get away. So I ran.

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Chapter Four People were staring. I glanced down at my jacket and trousers and batted red dust from the dark blue material. My fingers snagged on the long ragged tear cutting down to my jacket pocket. Blake‟s blood—half dried in dark, disturbing streaks over my jacket and shirt—I could do nothing about. Shrugging out of my jacket, I tied it around my waist. My shirt was—mostly— clean and rip free. Mostly. The slits in my shirt were better than a jacket wet with blood. I straightened and tried to fix a nonchalant expression on my face, when I felt anything but unconcerned. I turned my gaze on the smooth platform, knowing I looked a mess. A quick glance at the shining glass curving around the long station stop showed my normally tidy dark hair in a rough tumble. Debris caught in its mass. Dirt and blood smeared my face. I looked like a crazy woman. Tough. I just needed to get home. The rail pads pulsed with a slow whine. Yes, nothing stopped the workings of the South Bank. It was a well-oiled machine. Two station stops back, the line looked out onto the clouded rubble of the Merrow Dock complex, the trains no doubt witnessing the violent compression of the buildings. I pushed myself out of the safety of my corner. The platform was a crush of waiting people: businessmen, office workers, teenagers on their way to college. None of them had the sharp look of magicians. None of them looked like Tobias…or Blake.

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My gut tightened. I ignored the twist of guilt. I‟d left him to that magician. Maybe—the knot in my stomach tightened—maybe that strike to his temple had killed him. The crack of the metal-tipped cane striking bone still echoed through my mind, and I swallowed back the sudden urge to vomit. There was nothing I could‟ve done for him…and Blake himself had told me to run. Still, the sour guilt of simply abandoning him to his fate roiled. Running made sense. It did. Hiding made even more sense. Especially after I‟d seen Blake‟s face, the blur of an unknown beast twisting his features. I didn‟t know what the hell he was. Something twisted by magic? Did the Cult of the Sea-Dragon do that? And I thought I was well versed in magical lore and history. Blake proved that I really knew nothing. The train swept around the curve. I had one thing to focus on right then, and Blake‟s ancestry wasn‟t it. I had to get home. The approaching train would do just that. A rush of warm air swelled around me, and the gun silver train braked. Doors shot back, and I squeezed my way into the rush-hour crowd. The press of bodies around me, the scent of cloying perfume, soap, and sweat pushed a heavy weight down on my chest. The charged air, the residue from passengers‟ tech-implants had my head spinning. No doubt their brains buzzed with the catastrophe. My skin flushed. I covered my mouth with a trembling hand. Damn things always stabbed pain under my skin and often made me sick. The main reason that I didn‟t have one grafted into my skull. Slow breaths, take slow breaths. I repeated the words in my head. I couldn‟t panic now. Not now. I willed my attention on the smear of buildings streaming past the wide windows. The familiar route home calmed me. It wasn‟t far. Just one more stop. The train juddered to an abrupt stop in my home station. On automatic, I pushed my way to the doors, ignoring the mutterings of a man to my left, the sharp inhalation from the woman next to him. What? They hadn‟t

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seen a woman caught in a magic-induced implosion before? Hysterical laughter bubbled up through my chest, and I forced it back. With a hiss, the doors pushed out and to the sides, clanking against the metal of the carriage. My feet touched the gray concrete of the platform, and the doors closed behind me. I stood still as the hot air swirled, and pulled it into my lungs, the familiar burned metallic taste against my tongue grounding me. Home was only minutes away now. The train powered up and shot off down the rails, leaving me alone on the platform. I blew out a slow breath. My tiny flat was a lift ride and a short walk away, the measure of the steps running through my thoughts. I kept the short, short distance at the forefront of my mind. It stayed the panic. I crossed the platform to the row of lifts, stepping into the small silver box. The doors closed on me, and I forced my heart to slow. The everyday scent of metal, industrial polish and the burn of tech flowed over me. Magicians hadn‟t followed me. I‟d escaped them…whoever they were. I had to believe it. The lift dropped, the familiar sensation bringing with it another touch of normality. I clung to it and wanted to believe that the madness of the morning was simply a bizarre dream. Yet, the taste of brick dust and blood still filled my mouth, and Blake‟s scent, his fearsome touch clung to my body. I closed my eyes and ignored the rise of more guilt. He‟d told me to run, and I had to be honest with myself. I couldn‟t have taken out Tobias Conrad. I was a null, totally devoid of magic. And he had to have used magic to beat Blake‟s strength. Rationalizing it didn‟t help. The guilt of leaving him still had my gut in a knot. I leaned back against the rail and stared at my feet, forcing away thoughts of Blake. My plan was very, very simple. Get home. Pack. Leave the city. It was a fantastic plan.

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I ran my hand over my tangled hair, and more grit fell away. A wince pulled at my mouth. And if I wanted to stay anonymous, I‟d put “scrub myself till I shone” on that list too. “Street Level.” The soft, feminized voice made me start. “Relax.” My voice echoed against the metal-lined lift. “I wasn‟t followed. I wasn‟t.” Believing that didn‟t stop me from jogging across the tree-covered square. It was empty of people, and the towering blocks of steel and glass looming over me only made my shoulder blades itch. Wind whipped my hair, chilled my skin. Damn it. The unexpected and oppressive weight of someone watching me pushed against my skull. “Paranoia. Just paranoia,” I muttered, my gaze searching every angled shadow and ears straining for footsteps other than my own. Nothing. Just the twists of wind spinning loose leaves up into the air and the whine of the distant train over the rail pads. I was quite alone. I jammed my fingers into my pocket and pulled free my identity card. Its black-linked chain stretched tight, and I swiped it across the soft, synthetic panel running the length of the main doors. A slow hum resonated, making my teeth ache. The locks thunked in sequence. I pushed the glass door open and slipped into the atrium. I turned and shoved the door back into its frame. Hard. The locks engaged again, sealing me inside the building. I stared over the empty square in front me, making myself breathe slow and concentrate. My breath steamed the thick glass, and I wiped at it, afraid to miss any movement. No, there was no one. Only the silent wind whipping at the bare trees, glass facades gleaming in the cut of the early-morning sun, and the great curve of the tube line slicing through the hollows and gaps between the towers. Nothing unusual. The South Bank as it always was. Free of the insanity of magic. I pushed myself away from the entrance doors and kicked my plan into action. Shower. Pack. Run.

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I breathed in the antiseptic smell of the confining lift and watched the metal doors close over. Less than two hours before, I‟d ridden down in the little box, completely oblivious to the wreck my life was about to become. I pressed my lips together. My image distorted in the steel, and it unnerved me. I looked away. The lift pinged my floor, and the doors jerked open. I pulled in a breath…and waited. No one leaped out at me; no bullets zinged into the lift‟s metal walls. I‟d made it to my floor in one piece. My trembling hand caught in my tangled hair, and stupidity slapped me for my paranoia. I snorted. It wasn‟t really paranoia. People were out to get me. My boots were silent on the worn gray-brown carpet of the narrow corridor running the length of the building. Wide windows stretched out beside me as I walked, and their openness had my nerves stretched. I felt exposed and hugged the wall. My skin prickled. There was that press against my skull again, and I had the uneasy feeling that someone else padded the corridor with me. But that feeling was all in my imagination. I‟d read enough about practicing magic to know that magicians couldn‟t make themselves completely invisible. Bend light, yes, but I‟d be able to hear them, smell them. I took a deliberate breath, pulling the cool air into my lungs through my nose. The usual carpet and cleaning fluid smells slid deep into my senses. I found no trace of an overdressed and dandified magician. The suppressed panic had my imagination in overdrive. I stopped at my door. It looked normal, untouched. I had to believe that no one had found me already. My fingers curled into my palm. I had to risk it. Well, really, I had no choice. I swiped at the door with my card, rushed inside, and shut it behind me. My whole body fell against it. Home. I dug the heels of my palms into my eyes and expelled a slow breath. The past few hours already had a twist of unreality to them. Magicians could have no interest in me. I was a complete null. Even tech-implants didn‟t take to my body.

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Why did they want me? There‟d been no magic users in my family for generations. I came from a depressingly long line of magic-free ancestors. I pulled my hands from my face, and the rows of books packing four shelves of my small front room confronted me. Being a complete null didn‟t mean magic didn‟t fascinate me, though. Had I witnessed something in one of the dives on the dock road? I‟d spent hours in smoke-filled holes, where desperate people from the South Bank hung out with the magicians who‟d smuggled themselves across the river. For the magicians it was easy, if dangerous, money. Small feats of fire raising and image casting had had my heart in my throat. They didn‟t dare more. The guild masters‟ treaties would have them executed. But there‟d been nothing beyond those minor tricks. Nothing that suggested the scale of the destruction of the Merrow Dock complex. “You have messages, Leona Munro.” My pulse jumped at the sudden voice, and I cursed. It was my Interface. “Shower. Pack. Run.” I repeated my plan, tugging my jacket loose and throwing it over a chair. Kicking off my boots, I padded into the tiny bathroom. I stripped and turned the dial. The showerhead spurted a rush of water, and steam wreathed around me. Stepping into the hot jet of water, I soaped the grit, dust, and blood from my body. Water needled my face, soaked my hair. I sighed and felt in one of the alcoves for shampoo. My hair heavy with lather, I stuck my face back into the stinging water. “Not sensible to come back here. Not sensible at all.” I shrieked. Swallowed water. Choked. I shot out my arm for the towel hanging to the side of the shower cabin…and found only the bare hook. Blake had gotten to it first. He waggled the white towel at me. “Looking for this?” “No.” A rush of relief burst through me, hot and fast. He was alive. Somehow. How the hell was he alive when I‟d seen him take a crack to the head? A thousand

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questions bubbled through my thoughts—ones I knew I‟d never get an answer to— chased by too many conflicting emotions. I blinked. I‟d been forgetting the obvious. I was naked, and he had my towel. And he wasn‟t giving it back. I glared at him, unnerved by the hunger in his gaze, and snapped off the flow to the showerhead. The water died away, and cold bit at my wet skin. But I refused to fall into a tug of war with the man over the towel. Trouble was, I didn‟t know what to do with my hands. Long strands of my hair stuck to my face, neck, and spine. Yes, I needed something to do, so I wrung out my hair, cool water splashing over my feet. “Pretending I‟m not here, Leona?” Heat burned my face. It‟d been a long time since a man had seen me even remotely naked. The way I‟d reacted to Blake, his scent, his strength, the remembered brush of his lips against my skin, added more heat. Silent curses ran through my mind, and I pushed those thoughts down. “Is it working?” His laughter was rough. “No. Here.” He pushed the towel at me. His knuckles brushed against the wet skin of my stomach, and I sucked in a quick breath, liquid heat rushing through my flesh. Blake stood back, his face unreadable, his flare of desire gone, and he rubbed his fingers over the back of his wet hand. For a moment, the doorway framed him, and then he turned around. His tone was brittle as he said, “Dry yourself.” I ran the towel quickly over my limbs, my chest and back, then finally wrapped the damp towel around my head. “Excuse me.” I waited for Blake to move from the doorway and headed for my bedroom. Not rushing. I took slow, even breaths, extremely aware that I was completely naked. I had no idea why I hadn‟t wrapped the short towel around my body. Maybe it was a little push of defiance. And that was so unlike me. Maybe it was something else, something I wasn‟t thinking about as my body ached in places I also wasn‟t thinking about. He was alive. If he was alive…and I was naked… Fast, hot, aching lust sank through my flesh, and my skin ran with a shiver of goose

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bumps. Danger and magicians be damned. Sex with Blake. I deserved it. But he‟d stepped back and shuttered his hungry desire. “Pack while you‟re in there.” I ignored him. The door closed, and I let out a tight breath. How the hell had he found me? My just-dried skin prickled. Had he been following me before the implosion? No, I was not thinking about the stranger in my front room. I was getting dressed. Raiding my wardrobe and drawers, I threw clothes onto the smooth sheets of my bed. I sorted through the pile for something to wear and found underwear, a sweater, jeans, and socks. Warmth eased over my skin as I pulled the clothes on, and with them came a scrap of relief. What was I going to do? I had a strange man in my front room. A man mixed up with magicians and one I‟d thought dead. Hell, I‟d seen the connecting blow. He should’ve been dead. Dragging the towel from my hair, I rubbed it over my scalp, my fingers trembling. Finally, I had to acknowledge the small rush of relief that Blake wasn‟t dead. Did that mean he‟d recovered from the blow to his head? I winced. Had he killed Tobias Conrad? I rubbed at own my forehead, my fingers sliding over my temple. They stopped. There‟d been no evidence of the attack on Blake‟s skin, no strike from the bruising, no stain of dried blood. Nothing. My hand dropped away. I hadn‟t imagined Tobias‟s cane hitting him. The awful sound of the crack still echoed through my mind. I let out a slow breath. I had to get away until whatever was happening died down and they forgot all about me. My laughter was harsh. Running wasn‟t something I did, but this warranted it. I pulled a small case from under my bed and dropped it onto the mattress. After flipping open the locks, I paused. No, I wasn‟t packing. I couldn‟t run just yet. I had to know more.

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Chapter Five “Ready?” I closed the door to my bedroom and glanced at Blake. He stood in the middle of the small sitting room, golden light from the long window forming a halo around his head and the breadth of his shoulders. I ignored the tug low in my belly that demanded I close the distance between us and press my body up against his lean, muscled strength. “No,” I said. Blake lifted a shadowed eyebrow. “No?” My mouth thinned. I would not be distracted by his harsh beauty. “What happened to the magician?” I edged past him, and habit made me click on the Interface for messages. The machine hummed. “Leona Munro, you have three messages.” “He left me for dead,” Blake said. He moved on silent feet around the couch and stopped at the narrow window. He twitched the blind and morning light gilded his profile. “You have to pack, Leona. You‟re not safe here.” “You make me not safe.” I closed the distance between us and reached out to turn his jaw. The touch of my fingers, the light contact of my skin against his, snapped a swift bolt of electricity through my flesh. I breathed past it, pushing down the need to make full body contact. There was a reason I was touching him. “There‟s not a mark on you, Blake. I saw that strike. I can see why he left you. You should be dead.” He smiled and covered my hand, gently pushing it away. “I get that a lot.” I stared at him and backed away before I did something stupid and ravaged his mouth. “I‟m sure you do.”

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“Leona Munro—” “Yes!” I rapped the acknowledgement at my Interface as it rolled into automatic reminders, and hit the contact on the machine. “Go.” “First message.” The computerized voice changed to that of a man‟s, heavy and edged with panic. “Leona? Have you left for work? Turn on the news.” I winced. My boss, Douglas Vincent. The man I should‟ve been reporting to at the gallery after the implosion. “Second message.” A pause and the device clicked and whirred. Douglas again. “Leona. It‟s six fifty-five. Call me!” “He seems concerned.” I stared at Blake. “I should be there right now.” “They would‟ve told you to go home. You know that.” I did. I still didn‟t want to admit it. Especially not to him. “Third message.” A more agitated Douglas. “Damn it, Leona. Call me right now!” “Very concerned.” There was an odd edge to Blake‟s voice, but I ignored it. He could imply what he liked. I was not sleeping with my boss. “What happened today, Blake?” “I told you, I don‟t know.” I‟d stopped believing that. “You just happened to find me under a pile of rubble? Convenient.” His shoulders tightened, and he turned from the window. Blake‟s blunt face was shadowed in the bright backlight. “Here‟s what I can tell you. You‟re a candidate.” I stared at him, waiting for more. And waiting. “That‟s it? I‟m a candidate. For what? Being blown up?” He twitched a smile. “I was as surprised by that as you were.”

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“You could expand on it, y‟know, Blake. Something like why I‟m a candidate. What I‟m a candidate for. Who you are. Why you don‟t die.” His bleak expression had returned. “This is a trial older than you can imagine.” I laughed at him. “What sort of cheesy line is that? With all that‟s happened in—what—the space of a few hours, and „a trial older than you can imagine‟ is what I‟m expected to swallow?” “Yes.” I thought about thumping him, but it would have no effect. A sudden idea struck me, and I stared at my closed and still-very-locked door. “How did you get into my flat?” “Trade secret.” My chest ached with held anger. “Everything with you is a secret.” I flopped onto my couch, intent on ignoring him. There would be no moving, no packing until I had more answers. “On,” I said to the screen mounted between my packed bookshelves. I glanced up at Blake, holding down a shiver at his dark, implacable presence. He wasn‟t…natural. “And I‟m not moving from this spot until you tell me more.” I looked back to the screen as it flashed into bright life. “News.” The channel changed, and aerial shots of the waterfront burst over me. My breath caught, and a trembling hand covered my mouth. River winds had thinned the clouds. The remains of pale foundations scarred the South Bank, rubble and grit staining the dock from a deep blue to a seeping, spreading industrial brown. The red vehicles of the emergency services spotted over the dock complex like blood. For months, I‟d leaned against the railings in front of the gallery and watched the workers as they‟d brought the warehouses back to life. Weather-proofed plans fixed to the barriers had marked them out as apartments, offices, exclusive boutiques. The South Bank was reclaiming its waterfront after years of fear of being

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so close to the river and the city of magic only half a mile away on the North Bank peninsula. Now it was gone. A crackling voice cut through the whine of the sky cam. “To recap, if you’re just joining us. What you’re witnessing is what is left of the Merrow Dock complex. At six thirty-five this morning, a massive implosion rocked the waterfront. “Investigations are underway. Guild masters on the North Bank are denying this was the work of magic. “Due to the early hour, casualties are few—” “Sound off!” I was not yet ready to deal with who I might have lost. Rubbing a damp hand over my face, I stared up at Blake. “And you still know nothing about it.” He expelled an irritated sigh and dropped onto the couch beside me. His leg almost brushed mine, and I fought the urge to shift away from him. He wouldn‟t know how uncomfortable he made me. “You‟re to be offered a choice. My purpose here is to ensure that you stay alive to make it.” Purpose. The word stuck in my mind. Could that be what he was and how he was so indestructible? And dour? And then I couldn‟t help it; I stared at his mouth, and my gut twisted. Yes, I‟d read every one of those magic tomes crowding my shelves. “Are you a golem?” Blake blinked. “A golem?” “Made of clay—” “I know what a golem is.” He loosened his tie and undid the first few buttons of his shirt. Pulling back the material, his mouth thinned before he said, “Satisfied?” I stared at the smooth skin, the shadowed trace of his pectorals and tried not to imagine how he would taste under my searching mouth. I trapped my hands under my thighs to stop myself from undoing more buttons. My fingers ached to run—I cut out further insane thoughts. All right, now I was staring too much. I

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forced my eyes shut. “No medallion.” I swallowed. It didn‟t help the sudden dryness to my throat. “Your mouth. Open your mouth.” “You‟re serious.” “You don‟t have a maker‟s medallion. Doesn‟t mean you don‟t have an aleph under your tongue.” Blake‟s jaw tightened. “How much magic have you dabbled in?” “None.” His dark eyes burned me and compelled me to add, “Books. I‟ve read a lot of books.” The fire faded from his gaze. “Just books?” I realized what he had done. “Open your mouth, Blake.” After a second‟s pause, he did as I asked. I leaned in close because I had to make certain he wasn‟t a man of clay and false fire. My hand pressed against his muscled leg, warmth and strength bleeding into my cool skin. I focused. No charms, no folded paper, just perfect curves of white teeth and a deliberately curling tongue. Embarrassment crawled through me as I made myself examine his obviously human mouth. The image of the wild animal I‟d seen at the dock burst back. Had that been real, or something conjured by the magicians? Anyway, I‟d just made a complete idiot of myself. Blake closed his mouth with a snap of his teeth, and hint of a smile lurked. “So I‟m not a golem?” “No.” “That‟s a relief. You had me worried.” I sat back and then remembered to remove my hand from his muscled thigh. “Don‟t be facetious.” I pulled at the tangled strands of hair wetting my neck. “So what are you?” “I‟m the man who”—his fingertip stroked over my neck. My skin burned, shooting sensation to my core—“marked you.”

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I breathed in and breathed out. My heart stopped. “Marked me?” “Here.” Blake traced a pattern of fire over my jaw, my throat, slipping beneath my sweater to trace my collarbone. My blood surged, and I leaned into his touch. Need burned within me, and at the edge of it I felt a living…presence…writhe beneath my skin. “What the—” I jerked back from his exploring fingers and scrambled off the couch. A mirror. I had to see what the bastard had done to me now. I skidded into the bathroom and yanked the sweater over my head. There. Curving around my neck in tiny tongues of flame, an image flickered. First teeth, long, sharp, fading back and letting the sinuous curve of a neck twist over my pale skin. That too faded, and I let out a slow breath. I was imagining it as I‟d imagined Blake‟s change. He had obviously brushed me with some sort of contact hallucinogen. That had to be it— Until an eye seared up from my skin. Bright. Red. Burning. I screamed and staggered back. I hit the solid wall that was Samuel Blake. “What… what have you done to me?” “It‟s proof of your candidacy.” I glared at him through the mirror. “What? Proof that you can pump me full of mind-altering drugs?” He stroked my neck, a slow, slow slide of his knuckles against my skin, and watching his hand, watching him rippled a shiver over my skin. The light, lingering caress slipped through my senses, making me melt. “It‟s alive, Leona. A fire wraith. Able to live in you. I prepared you for it. Will seal it in your flesh.” Fire wreathed, circling my throat, rolling a hot wave over my clavicle and slipping low over my breastbone. A curl of heat licked my nipple, and I gasped. “Accept it.” His voice was a drop of pure heat through my reeling senses. “Accept this, and the rest will be easy.”

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Too little oxygen had my head spinning…but steady breathing was just annoying, not when I could feel like this. “What—” The moving ripple of fire curved under my breast, and I couldn‟t speak. I forced my eyes open. “And this is what a fire wraith does?”

His hand splayed against my stomach, hot, intense. The feel of him enveloped me. His lips brushed my bare shoulder, and the flickers of fire surged beneath his touch. “That would be telling.” I pushed back against him. Blake‟s hand slid lower, caressing my belly, and his erection rubbed up hard against my backside. The fire within me flared and chased down my spine in a wicked wave, hotter, wilder than the first time he had taken me. I grabbed at the sink, the cold shock against my palms sparking some sense into my brain. “What are you doing to me?” A low animal growl vibrated against my shoulder blade, followed by the nip of sharp teeth. The sudden pleasure-pain had me gasping. “This is all you, Leona.” His softly spoken words eased through me. “Me?” The fire curled around my arse and slid between my legs. My grip on the sink tightened in reflex, and I bit my lip, holding down the moan. Blake‟s hand dipped lower, and I ached for him to find the fire curling, twisting within me, for him to use it, use me. “Close your eyes, Leona.” I met his dark gaze in the mirror. The spotlight slashed a white beam over him, carving deep shadows into his face, but his eyes gleamed, and for an instant, I thought I saw a curl of golden fire. I swallowed, fighting the raw desire weaving through my body. “Why? Why can‟t I see you?” His firm lips twitched. The smile he gave me pushed the hot wave over my sex, and I pulled in a quick gulp of air. “These are rules I must follow.” He held my gaze

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as he licked the curve of my neck. Tiny strokes of fire curled over my clitoris, and only Blake‟s hard hands kept me upright as my legs threatened to fold under me. “Now I can strip you and seal the evidence of your candidacy.” He dropped the strap of my bra over my shoulder and nipped the skin. “Or I can wait.” My eyelids fluttered, and the need for him made coherent thinking almost impossible. “Take you when you can no longer stand its lust.” The curve of his lips, touching, tasting me drove the alien heat deep into my flesh. “When you‟ll beg me to fuck you, on the stairs, in the street, to release the pressure.” My head dropped. I pictured Blake yanking down my clothes and pushing me against the nearest wall, the nearest café window, his fingers, his cock finding me, feeling the heat of his skin, hearing the low snarls, coming with the sharp bite of his teeth into my flesh. The creature buried within me flared, and the lust, the need for him to bring release to my tormented body soared. By all that was unholy… I hated that he‟d put the image in my head. This wasn‟t me. It was him. It was whatever the hell he had pushed under my skin. “Do you want that, Leona?” He unclipped my bra, and the fabric fell away, the metal hooks tinking as they hit the sink. “Want me to wait?” The flickers of heat caressed my sex, teasing, playing, sinking into my pussy, curling against my arse and the thought of lasting any longer without Blake fucking me was practically impossible. Still…I wanted to play his game, increase the torment…because he wanted that. I could almost taste it. He needed the raw satisfaction of knowing that I ached for him. “Yes.” His sharp intake of breath, the hard press of him against my back, and the tightening grip of his large hands against my body said I‟d given the proper answer. “Name the place.” He pushed my jeans and panties down, the warm, damp air of the bathroom brushing against my nakedness. He strung a line of quick, hot kisses along my shoulder and used his boot to drag my jeans to the floor. I pulled my feet free,

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stepping on the warm material. I didn‟t care that he‟d stripped me. Hell, the fire wraith within me rejoiced in it. “The coffee shop. On the high street.” “You‟re a regular.” His hand slipped from my belly in a quick slide over my hip. His knuckles teased my arse, caressing the quick flickers of flame that played with my puckered hole. “I‟d make you strip, make you stand in the window, your hands pressed to the glass. The passing world would see you being fucked by me.” My heart tightened at the lash of warmth and lust low in my flesh. The metal zip and the rustle of fabric made my breath shallow, the fire-thick beast sinking into my pussy, my arse and easing back from my body in delicious heat. Spots of light danced before my closed eyelids. “Yes.” I bit out the word. My desire for him swelled, coalescing with his own need that twisted tight within mine. “I want that.” Blake teased his cock against my arse and the creature within me surged over every inch of my skin. I breathed out against the riot of joyful lust. The ache for him to sink into me, to take me, fuck me, burned through my flesh and obsessed my thoughts. The blunt head caressed my wet folds. Blake‟s fingers, knuckles taunted me as he gripped his cock. With the first push of him into my body, the wraith moved, joining him as he fucked me. His hand eased free, and both hands gripped my hips, holding me firm and steady. “You‟re such an unexpected pleasure.” The deep strokes increased, grew harder, faster, and the heat of the beast within me wrapped around us, filled me, took Blake, and bound us together in fierce waves of lust. I met every thrust, willing him deeper, wanting him, needing him to join with me, the slap of his hips against mine mixing with the low snarls that made my knuckles whiten around the sink. He was twisted magic, beyond human. I‟d caught a glimpse of his beast nature, felt the animal power as his raw emotions, lust, and satisfaction burst over my own. I didn‟t care. With his creation deep in my flesh, fucking me as he did, I cared only about the promise of the most wild and fearsome release in my life.

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The thought of my release rode on the edge of my thoughts. So close the taste of it filled me, a hot pulse of vivid energy, a maelstrom that promised to overtake me, push me into becoming…something else. The image of it burned just beyond my focus, a thing caught in endless power, ancient and vast. The wraith surged, whipping my skin with desire and heat, and the insane throb of my flesh couldn‟t be denied. “Yes, accept it.” Blake growled against my skin, his fierce grip, the erratic pounding of his hips driving the flames higher and hotter. “Bind it to you.” His teeth sank into my shoulder, the sudden, unexpected blast of lust rioting through my body. My limbs shook and my heart hammered. There—as Blake held me and fucked me—the glory of my release swept over me in a wild rush. I cried out, arching back into him, eager for his mouth, to kiss him, stroke my tongue against his, sealing more than the creature in my flesh. But Blake came with a low snarl, his mouth on my shoulder. He let out a slow breath, his hands losing their harsh grip on my hips. The slow, warm caress of his palms over my belly licked fire under my skin. He brushed the underside of my breasts, teasing my nipples with calloused thumbs until the wraith, now languid, offered a sensuous tease of flame that played with the fading echo of my orgasm. “I could keep you,” he murmured. “Spend hours exploring every inch of your body. Lick you. Bite you. Savor the taste of your skin.” The taciturn Blake had become almost lyrical in his need, and a warm sigh washed over my damp skin. Damn it, the idea was too addictive. To find myself at Blake‟s mercy? Fire curled around my navel and sank lower to tease my mons. The curve of Blake‟s smile pressed into my shoulder. “But we have our duty, Leona.” His hands left my body, and cold air forced a shiver to run through me. He eased back. The wraith wasn‟t the only one regretting it. I opened my eyes and rubbed a hand over the tightness of my forehead. I met Blake‟s dark gaze. Wetting dry lips, I pulled in a deep breath. “What kind of magic is this?” He stroked his

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fingers down the length of my spine, and the delicious spin of heat almost distracted me. “Blake?” “The fire wraith is sealed within you.” He straightened his jacket, his expression once more closed and cold. “That duty is completed.” “Duty?” I tugged my jeans on, pulling them over my hips. The first flecks of anger stained my thoughts. Stress from everything that had happened—that kept on happening—stretched my nerves. “What about savoring me?” I pulled on my bra and found my sweater. “Duty to what? What is this magic, Blake?” His mouth opened, and I could practically hear his denial forming. I jabbed a finger into his chest. “And don‟t say it‟s otherwise.” “Events have to unfold in order. It‟s the way it‟s always been.” “How it‟s always been—” Through the open bathroom door, I half-caught image on the screen in my front room as it flashed away to a journalist and a gaunt blonde woman sitting in a newsroom. It killed all questions, all thought of Blake. “Sound on.” “The Council deputy, Clair Musgrove, has just released these stills.” The fast flow of images slowed, and focus sharpened. My heart lodged in my throat. I grabbed the doorjamb to stop my drop to the floor. It was me. An image of me running across the swing bridge filled the screen, Blake in front of me. In swift bursts, the view contracted until it showed my blood-smeared face and matted hair. The expression fixed on my face was wild, anger and fear twisting me. “This woman, fleeing the scene, has been identified as Leona Munro, a senior gallery worker. If you have any information on the whereabouts of this woman, please press Contact.” The familiar bright red circle flashed onto the screen. The circle the non-tech public used to contact the authorities about criminals. Fear twisted my insides. Is that what they thought I was? A criminal? “Members of the public are advised not to approach Leona Munro, nor her companion, who has yet to be identified.”

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The focus swung to Blake‟s grim face. “Sources close to the Council believe it is possible that he is from North Bank.” I stared and found I couldn‟t say anything. I was fleeing the scene with a magician. I was not to be approached. A slam to the head couldn‟t have hit me harder. All hope of a normal life had ended. I was a scapegoat. They were blaming the destruction of the Merrow Dock complex on me.

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Chapter Six I surged forward. Pressing Contact would sort this mess out. “No.” Blake grabbed my arm, the tight grip twisting my shoulder as I struggled. “Let go of me!” I wrenched my shoulder and ignored the twist of pain. “They‟re blaming me. I have to contact them and tell them the truth.” “And they‟re going to believe that you have nothing to do with magicians?” His grip eased, and his fingers lightly stroked over my arm. The surge of fire rose again, chasing under my skin to writhe over my shoulder blade and clavicle. The heat dissipated the pain. “With that playing through your body.” “Bastard. You knew.” “That they had pictures? No.” Attempting to practice magic on my side of the river was illegal. Splinters of ability could stretch into the South Bank, and the authorities clamped down on them. Hard. Damn it, I looked guilty, and though I‟d had nothing to do with it, I felt guilty. “But you thought it.” “It was a possible interpretation.” I pushed my fingers through the tangles of my wet hair. My mind was in riot, and I couldn‟t think. The only solid thought was, what the hell am I going to do now? Pounding edged my skull. Stress had my body wracked…but then a pulsating whine joined the pounding. Just like the rail pads. The whine wasn‟t in my head. It was the familiar vibration of a police vehicle. I cursed, and adrenaline spiked

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through my body. “They have my name. It‟s not that much of a jump to find out where I live.” I stared at my shelves, crammed from floor to ceiling with magical lore. Not illegal to own…but now they just added to my supposed guilt. “Time to face the police.” “Or not.” Blake strode to the long window. He held back the blind and stared up, probably at the police vehicle landing on the block roof. “Too late for you to pack now.” “I‟m not going anywhere with you, Blake.” I sat on the couch and watched my hands knot. I‟d run from the magicians, but I would not run from police. “I‟d rather chance them than you.” He muttered, thick and guttural, in a language I didn‟t understand, but I knew he cursed me. The ripple of anger was unmistakable. “I‟m giving you a choice—” “Oh yes, you‟re all about choice.” I made my hands hang loose between my thighs. “And I choose to stay here and wait for them to find me.” “You have a small library of books. A wraith settling in. And me.” He paused, and the rush of anger slid from his voice as he said, “Do you know what they do to people on the South Bank who ally themselves with magicians?” I‟d read too much. Of course I knew. “If found guilty, they throw you into the river and make you swim to the North Bank.” I stared at the screen that had swung back to the scarred images of the waterfront. “They haven‟t proven a case of magic in decades—” “How many survive the crossing, Leona?” “It‟s been forty years since a judge passed that sentence.” “How many?” I released a slow breath. I needed to bunch my hands into fists again. He was right. For this crime, they would throw anyone they could find into the wild currents of the river. No one survived the river. No one. My gut twisted. I didn‟t

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run. Running felt…wrong. It always had. The whine of engines died, and the silence filled me. In the quiet seconds, I made the only choice I could. “Where could we go?” “Leave that up to me. Get your coat.” He paused and stared. His eyes narrowed. “And a hat and a scarf if you‟ve got them.” I found my boots and looked up at him, before jamming them on my feet. “That‟s hardly going to disguise me.” “You‟ll blend in.” “Can‟t you”—I waggled my fingers—“whip up a spell or something?” Blake glared at me, pulled my long black coat from the door hook, and held it up. “I am not a magician.” “Of course not.” I shrugged the coat over my shoulders and fastened it with quick fingers. “You just follow me through empty air. Plant…something…inside of me.” I pushed that from my mind, terrified that the thought of it would send the wraith writhing through my body again. He gave me my hat and scarf from the coat stand. “Nope, nothing odd about you.” I twisted my damp hair up into a knot and pulled the woolen hat over my ears. “And what about you?” “Me?” He took over wrapping my scarf so that it muffled my face. It was too intimate. The wraith flickered points of heat over my lips, eager for me to find Blake‟s mouth with my own. No. I would not be controlled by whatever the hell it was. I stood back from him, needing the distance to stay calm, contained. “You were on the news too.” “There‟s nothing distinctive about my face.” I stared at his hard, brutally handsome face. Did the man not own a mirror? “Don‟t get out much?” For a brief moment, doubt creased his forehead and there was a look of confusion in his eyes. In a blink, it was gone. “Ready?” I took a final look around my small flat, with its piles of books and battered furniture striped with morning sunlight. The tiny place had been my home for nine

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years. I had no idea when I‟d see it again. Deliberately, I turned back to the door. “Ready,” I said. The door closed silently behind us, and I locked it. Not that that would stop the police. I winced. They would trash the place. “Stairs.” Blake broke into my thoughts. He gripped my upper arm and urged me into a fast walk. I was really doing this, running from the police. My heart thumped hard, and I willed myself to be calm. Panicking wouldn‟t help anyone. He opened the door and the stairwell beyond was empty and quiet. “So far, so good,” Blake murmured. He was probably being sarcastic, but I wasn‟t concentrating on subtleties. Suddenly, from a law-abiding citizen, I‟d turned into a fugitive, on the run with a man I really didn‟t know— “Leona?” I caught my foot on the stair, almost tripping, but Blake‟s grip tightened on my arm, keeping me upright. “What?” “Stay with me. Stay focused.” I jerked a nod. “Yes.” “To do that, you can‟t let your mind wander.” “Right.” The drum of our boots echoed over the tile-lined stairwell, chasing up the narrow twists of marble-edged steps. Shit, it was too loud. The police weren‟t stupid. They‟d station themselves at all exits from the building. They‟d be waiting for us. “In here.” Blake pulled me through another set of doors onto a landing that was an exact replica of my own, four floors up. “Time for a slightly different exit.” “Where…?” Blake strode to the end of the corridor. He stopped before the window that looked down onto the square at the back of my building. We were on the fourth

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floor. In the winter winds, the thick, bare branches of a tree scratched back and forth against the glass. “That glass doesn‟t break. In the event of fire…” My automatic words fell away. Blake had pressed his hands to the window. A rush of heat burned through the air, finding echoes in the wraith swiftly surging across my chest. One instant the glass was there. The next, cold winds whipped my face as my scarf slipped under my chin. The glass had vanished. “How did you do that?” Blake, his face grim and set, said nothing. He guided me to the frame‟s edge, but his dark skin had grayed at the effort of calling on his magic. And it was magic. His denials meant nothing. He let out a slow breath. “I‟ll climb out first. You follow.” “Into the tree?” I stared at him, and my palms began to sweat. “Climb into the tree?” “Who said you weren‟t quick to catch on?” With that, he disappeared over the metal edge of the sill. I stepped back on instinct. We were four floors up. Blake, though tall, climbed with a catlike ease; still the branches bent and creaked under his weight. My extra weight? We were dead. His hand jabbed at me, indicating for me to follow him out. The distant pounding of heavy-duty boots made up my mind for me. A tree, or the police and the ferocious current of the river? Easy choice. Or not, as I swung one leg and then the other over the metal sill to stand on the thin lip. The very solid ground surged up at me in a dizzying rush. I swallowed down the sudden wash of fear. Blake had made it look simple. I, on the other hand, had never climbed a tree in my life. “The river or this,” I muttered, grabbing at the nearest branch that seemed to be able to bear my weight. “At least I know I can swim.” “That‟s it.” Blake‟s voice rose soft above the rush of the wind. I supposed he meant to calm me. It wasn‟t working. Not a magician? Yeah, right. I would‟ve told

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him exactly what I thought of that lie if I wasn‟t clinging to twigs for dear life. “Now, lean your body. I can steady you.” I followed his instructions. The branch groaned, twigs digging into my face, twisting my coat back from my body. The ground loomed toward me, filling my vision, and fear-thick heat rushed though every muscle. I crushed my eyes shut against the terrifying view. “This is a stupid idea.” Blake grabbed my waist, half hauling me onto the thicker branches. I bit down on a shriek, my boots slipping and sliding on narrow branches. My heart leaped into my throat, but Blake pulled me close and kept me steady. I hated that the solid strength of his arms made me feel safe…and loathed the empty fear hollowing my stomach when his arm slid away. “Follow my lead.” The manic beat of my heart slowed, but only to a pace reflecting my fury. He‟d turned my life upside down. I was in a tree. I let the anger flow over me. It was the easier emotion to have right then. Any other I didn‟t want to think about. So I thumped his chest. Hard. “I could have fallen!” “No. Now do as I do.” What the hell was I thinking trusting this man? A sound punctured my anger, and I glanced back to the window. Nothing there. I let out a slow breath and flexed my hands around the gnarled branch, desperate to keep my balance. Maybe I risked my life with him because I had no alternative. So much for choice. “You. Stop!” “Shit.” The word burst out of me. Where had he come from? One minute the window had stood empty, the next an armored police officer stood there, his hand hovering over the canon strapped to his thigh.

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Chapter Seven “Move!” Blake‟s harsh voice cut through my haze, and I scrambled and slid down the branches, dropping farther, until my arms and legs gripped the trunk of the tree. “I said halt!” Seconds passed. With each one, I expected the searing flash-burn of a stun gun to blast me out of the tree. Nothing. I risked a glance upward…and what I saw caught my rapid breaths. Without realizing it, my feet hit the soft earth, and I staggered back onto the pavement. The window shone in the morning sunlight. It glinted over the man‟s badge, over his helmet, face, hand, and gun as the returned glass moulded with intimate precision to his body. The officer stood frozen, his features a perfect mask, no surprise, no fear showing on his gleaming skin. “Is…is he dead?” Blake glanced up, took my hand, and started a fast pace through the rows of trees. I stumbled after him. “Maybe,” he said. “You don‟t know?” He shrugged. “The nanotech inside the glass reacts to heat. He‟s also inside the glass, generating heat. It may melt. Whatever happens, it‟s giving us the time to get away.” I strained back, ignoring Blake‟s harsh tug on my hand, and caught the profile of the officer‟s body edged in golden sunlight. Had he just moved? My gut cramped. This was so wrong. “I can‟t believe you.”

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“He was going to shoot. That gun was on full charge. He‟d have taken out half the tree.” “So you did that?” “No.” He turned down one of the alleys leading away from the sweep of the silver tube line humming far above us. The road stood empty, the supporting struts of the track clamped to brick and steel. I winced at the heavy press of static against my skull. Damn it, I stayed in the open for a reason. He had no tech in his body. Surely the heavy pulse of the tube pained him as much as it did me. But nothing seemed to break his stride nor the grim turn to his features. Blake was a breed apart. I forced my pained thoughts back to my question. It helped to take my mind off the stabbing pins in my brain. “How could that not be you?” Blake didn‟t look back, and his strong, steady pace continued. “I only temporarily removed the glass. Him? That was just luck.” I swallowed bile and tried not to think about the man trapped in the window of my tower block. “What the hell is going on here, Blake?” “You‟re a candidate.” He slowed as we neared the end of the alley. Stopping, he rearranged my arm through his, closing my fingers over the cold material of his sleeve. The warmth of his touch prickled my skin, and the wraith curled around my forearm, eager for more of his touch. “To be successful, you must face certain tests.” His profile turned to stone. “And not others.” I flexed my fingers against his forearm, relaxing them—and fought the very real need to form a fist and jab him in the ribs. “Do you enjoy being cryptic?” He slid his glance to me, and I didn‟t need the wraith‟s heat to appreciate the hunger lurking in his gaze. “Maybe?” The smoothness of his voice rolled over me. The urge to push him against the shadowed wall and ravage his mouth rioted in my flesh. And the bastard knew. I

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saw the inner gleam in his eyes sharpen. I pulled in a tight breath, ignoring the curl of flame curving across my breast, blocking out the fierce image he had placed there, of me needing him, aching for him. The police would be tracking us. I couldn‟t afford to give in to the desire. However much I wanted to. Light arched, filling the end of the alley. The street beyond was crowded, the pavement bustling with people and opening shops. Fear turned a tight knot in my stomach. Blake pressed his fingers over mine. The frisson under my skin forced me to suck in a breath. His eyes narrowed. “Stay calm and relaxed. We‟re simply a couple window-shopping.” I held down a snort. “This is never going to work. Your face and mine were plastered over every screen, downloaded into every tech-wearer. People know us like they know their own family.” “Probably better.” I glared at him. “Do you do this to annoy me?” “Yes,” he said, and a rare bright smile broke out across Blake‟s mouth, transforming his grim features from starkly handsome to simply…beautiful. My heart missed a beat, my stomach hollowed, and all thought dribbled from my brain. I was already having dangerous reactions to him. Now that smile? Wrong in every way. I pulled my gaze away from him, down to my hand, and realized his palm still sat warm against my knuckles. What game was he playing? Was his touch, his—for want of a better word, charm—an attempt to gull me? He had managed to pull my thoughts away from my earlier question. “I‟m a candidate for what?” Blake ignored the question and tugged me forward into the busy shopping street. I silently cursed him. Adrenaline surged, riding the edge of growing panic. Nearly every individual over sixteen had our image at the forefront of their brains, and Blake had us strolling through the middle of them.

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My gaze fixed on my feet. Slyly, I watched the shop owners as they arranged their wares in stacked crates or waiters as they planted tables and chairs with a loud clatter on the flagged pavement outside of cafés. My attention darted over strangers‟ faces, my nerves tight. They seemed preoccupied, probably catching up with tech-updates that streamed into their brains. I could never tell. The old insecurity twisted my anxiety. I was a part of the 2 percent. I was set apart from the people in the South Bank and had never shared in the network that linked them. Could never share in it. It was probably why my obsession with magic grew as the magicians rejected modern technology in all its forms. I couldn‟t make a scene, but I would have answers from Blake. My voice became a tight whisper. “A candidate for what?” I repeated. “However much you try to deny it, you work magic. I don‟t. I would love to…” I paused. I was not revealing that need to him. “I would. But my entire family for generations have been null. Super nulls,” I added for emphasis. “So I can‟t—” His hand closed over mine, and the heat of contact silenced me. I hated my reaction to him, hated it. He stroked my fingers. “When we‟re safe, I‟m sure you‟ll get your answers.” I counted my breaths. It didn‟t help the burn of anger in the pit of my stomach. “Could you be more patronizing?” Blake glanced at me, and a ghost of smile touched his mouth. “Yes,” he said. My gut tightened, and for a hazy moment, more than anger burned there as his smile touched the wraith deep within me. Heat flowed. Hell, my legs wobbled. “This is insane,” I muttered. His gaze snapped away, and his profile became stone. Damn it, answers were obviously something Samuel Blake did not give. I just got looks that turned my legs to jelly. I focused on the long street, slowly coming to life. Sunlight slanted over the old stone facades, gleamed against wide windows, and cast thick shadows as it hit colored awnings. Everything looked normal, until I followed the line of the street as

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it sloped down to the river. A heavy bank of cloud shifted gray and brown over the fast flowing water. Wait. This street led down to the piers, and that meant the river. He couldn‟t be thinking of going back there. That would be insane. “Where are we going?” “The river.” He was insane. “Why?” “Too many questions, Leona,” he murmured and patted my hand again. I knew he was smiling. I gritted my teeth and tried not think about the heat of his palm against my hand. I failed, and the…thing…he had planted in me shifted hot under my skin. I let out a short, quick breath, fighting the need pulsing through my flesh. Blake‟s hand snapped back, untangling his arm from mine, and he shoved his hand into his trouser pocket. “It‟s where I have to take you.” He sighed and straightened his shoulders. “This has become overly complicated. If you hadn‟t run at the dock…” He was blaming me for this? The cheeky bastard. I willed myself to stay calm. Just. “That…” I risked a look around. The thick run of pedestrians wove past in varying streams, all of them oblivious to us. Damn it, arguing was dangerous. Why didn‟t he simply tell me what the hell was going on and have done with it? “You told me to run. Tobias had won. I had thought that you…” The rest of the words soured in my mouth. I wanted to bite my tongue before I gave the bloody man a compliment. I already gave in to him too easily. But I had thought he would take the magician apart. “What?” Seemed he wanted me to say it. I lifted my jaw and stared off into the morning crowd. He didn‟t seem to be taking the threat to our lives seriously. Practically every person on the street had our faces inside their skulls…and he played. And I‟d be damned if I would join him in his game. He walked silently beside me, a hulking presence I was determined to ignore.

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He leaned in close, and his breath brushed my ear. “Thought that I‟d what?” The deep smoothness of his voice slid through me. I cursed yet more reaction as heat pooled low in that place I didn‟t want to think about, and a flicker of fire curved against my hip. What the hell was he doing? The pulse of sirens thickened the air, growing louder with each passing second. Soon cars would put men in the street. My gaze flicked up, but the air was still clear of vehicles. I pushed my mind back to questioning him while I still could. “Nothing.” Damn, the man made me crazy. “What about the cult?” His stride didn‟t falter, but there was a hesitation before he said, “Questions are for later.” “You‟re in the cult, aren‟t you?” “Leona…” My name was a growl. It licked heat through me and stirred the wraith into a slow twist over my breasts. Shit. There, striding toward us, hands gripping holstered weapons, were four police officers. Riot helmets shadowed their faces, and antimagic bristled over the armor plating of their black uniforms. But the wraith would not be denied. The slight curl against my forearm, my hip I could handle, but now it wasn‟t playing fair. Just like Blake. And damn it, I had to clutch at him to stop my knees from buckling, my fingers digging into the soft material of his sleeve. I couldn‟t help myself, but contact made it worse. I groaned against the fire in my flesh. “Get this bloody thing out of me.” “What is it doing to you?” “You know what—” I bit off the rest of my words, the sudden searing intensity scattering my thoughts. Ripples of pleasure rose in heated waves through my body. The wraith slid slow across my belly, licking a liquid fire through my muscles, sinking deeper, sinking down. “I need…” I swallowed in a parched mouth. “I think I need somewhere…private.”

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Chapter Eight “We don‟t have time for this,” Blake grated, his gaze fixed on the approaching officers. My hand bunched into a fist, dragging at his sleeve. I needed something to stop the relentless tug of wraith-driven desire. Dragging Blake closer to me didn‟t help. He smelled cool and fresh with the scent of the ocean. Biteable. Lickable. I moaned and wet my lips. “Tell that to this…this…thing.” “Over there.” Blake pulled his arm free and snaked it around my waist. He took a firm grip of my hip, and his touch burned hot through the layers of my clothes. The wraith sank lower. Not good, so not good. We wove across the street, sidestepping those rushing to work and those ambling outside a nearby coffee shop. The wraith flared as I recognized the place as the one Blake had threatened, promised to fuck me in. Walking became almost impossible. How could my day get worse? Now we couldn‟t even escape because I had some sort of magical creature twisting through me, intent to work my flesh into a frenzy. I‟d never read of such a thing. It had to be high, restricted magic, because if the average magician knew a wraith existed, they‟d have charged every client a fortune for a few minutes with it. To my relief, Blake pulled me into the dark slice of narrow alley cut into the long terrace of shops. I had to lean against him, my legs losing strength. Bricked-up windows and doorways sank back against the high walls. The bustle of the street faded away, and the alley seemed to fill with my hoarse breathing. This smacked of

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madness. Complete madness. The police would find us. But my body teetered on the edge of—No, I wouldn‟t think the word, because if I did— Heat flared between my thighs. The wraith twisted there, endlessly shifting, moving. I twitched, shuddered, tried to hold it together as Blake hustled me farther into the dank blackness of the alley. “This isn‟t supposed to be happening,” he muttered. “Tell that…to your wraith.” My back hit a wall, and the chill only intensified the fire burning tight and hot in my belly. Blake stood close. So close I drew in his scent with every breath. Clean, sharp, with the tang of the sea, and I ached to taste him: his lips, his skin, hell, any part of him I could have. My head dropped back against the cold brick. My eyes closed. I didn‟t understand the need I had to kiss him, just knew it would somehow bring us closer. Which was a strange thought as we‟d done so much more, but the wraith ached for my mouth on his, echoing something deep and buried within me. I could sense Blake, his outline. A burning shadow against my flesh. I almost expected the brush of those large hands over my breasts, slipping, sliding lower. “Leona.” The growl of warning in his voice danced sparks behind my eyes. A moan escaped me. “Damn it, Leona. Be quiet.” What the hell had he done to me? I burned with the need for him to touch me. And the wraith twisted faster, fire searing through my tight flesh. It held me. My blood pounded. So close, I could almost taste my release. I just needed— Frustration and desire surged through me. I just needed— Him.

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Without thought, I dragged Blake to me. I thrust his hand between my thighs while my mouth found his. Hot, wet, our tongues fought. He tasted… I couldn‟t help the little escaping mewl of satisfaction. He was everything I wanted. Everything. And his fingers… Oh his fingers curled in exactly the right way. I gripped his hand, urging him harder, faster. Little splinters of light burst through my brain. My release pushed closer. His fingers, mouth, the relentless twisting of the wraith pulsed my body with a delicious ache. Just a few seconds more. “Come for me, Leona.” The heat of his thoughts, of Blake touching my mind burned through me. My spine arched, pressing me hard against his hand. The orgasm shattered over me in a joyous burst of heat and light. Blake swallowed my cry, his kiss easing me down, down as the rush left my body weak and sated. His hand curved around my hip, gently stroking. Kissing my lips, my jaw, he drew me tight into his arms, buried his face against my neck. I closed my eyes and breathed him in. Safe. I finally felt safe. “Leona…” The hot whisper of my name stirred the sated wraith. I slid my hands beneath his shirt to the smooth heat of his skin. The wraith teased my fingertips, and Blake groaned, his arms tightening around my body. Could he feel the pinpricks of fire that burned my fingers? “What are you doing to me?” That question had me grinning. I slipped my hand down, breaching his trousers, working my way over the smooth, hard muscle of his buttocks, around to his hips, and then finding the rough curl of hair below his abdomen. My fingers closed around the solid length of his erection, and he growled against my skin. I ran my thumb over the sensitive head. “I‟m doing this.” Blake lifted me, pushing me hard against the alley wall. I lost myself in the endless black of his gaze. The wraith burned between us, a surge of flame and rising desire. Cool air washed over my suddenly exposed skin, and I watched a smile curl Blake‟s mouth. My trousers had undone themselves and pushed down my legs. My underwear, trousers, and boots dropped to the alley floor.

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“No, I‟m still not a magician.” Returning words dried in my mouth as his cock pushed against my clitoris. My spine arched, and the action slid him farther against my sensitive flesh. Almost, almost… The wraith twisted wildly, pulling us together. This was right. This would seal the touch of our minds, the telepathy that our kiss had instigated. His hands tightened against my backside, and the first push of him into my body flared a rush of bright joy. I clung to him. Groaning, I found his mouth, biting his bottom lip, my tongue eager to tangle with his. Blake deepened the kiss, mimicking the slow, deep stroke of his cock. The wraith burned between us, the feel of it connecting our minds, our flesh, bringing such incredible desire and the promise of even greater satisfaction. I didn‟t care. Didn‟t care that we could be caught with me half-naked, that the police would see Blake fucking me up against an alley wall. I needed him. Needed to pull him hard against me, taste him, kiss him, fuck him, have the fire wraith within me bind our flesh, make us one. Blake moaned, the sound rumbling from his chest, and his fingers flexed against my arse. “We shouldn’t do this.” The burn of his thoughts across mine shocked a gasp from me. I hadn‟t imagined it. My mouth broke away from his. I almost sank into the shadowed darkness of his eyes, the feel of a heavy, satisfying warmth filling me. I blinked. “You‟re letting me look at you.” Blake rolled his hips, and the push of hard joy through my flesh arched me against him. A sharp smile curved his mouth. “And you’ll have to accept what you see.” “What—”My thought cut off as a dark shadow fell over him and something other lived in his features. A great spread of wings arched behind him, and the saltsharp scent of the ocean filled the air, wrapping around me. Had magic done this to him? Had following the Sea-Dragon twisted his flesh? “What are you?”

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Blake grinned, the blur of the creature moving with his harshly handsome features. “That would be telling.” “Damn it, Blake—” His sudden thrust, deep and hard, broke my complaint. He pulled me toward him, and the great cool curve of his wings wrapped around my body, cocooning us. The strange touch of the taut skin of his wings over my bare thighs ran a shiver through my flesh. But Blake held me, his fierce grip urging me against his cock, the angle finding my clitoris with each thrust. I buried my face against his shoulder, the mix of realities riding my thoughts. My cheek rubbed against the smooth material of his suit, but there too, I felt the silk-smooth press of his hot, bare skin, the taste of it spiced on my tongue. I clung to him, and whatever intoxicating magic he spun, my fingers, my breasts, stomach, and thighs found the same duality. I didn‟t question the feel of my naked skin against his. I wanted it. Craved it. Craved him. Yes, my life was insane. His low growl rumbled through his chest. “So sweet.” Blake‟s thoughts caressed mine, and the wraith surged, driving a bright curve of flame-heated desire up from my pelvis. “I wanted you. The hunger to take you, to taste you.” His wings tightened, the sensuous slide of warm skin against my spine, my arse, my thighs making me push hard against him. “I couldn’t deny you.” The rush of sensations, of his form, his nakedness, the twist of fire and arousal of the wraith through our flesh surged over me. The fierce pulse of my release throbbed just on the edge of my awareness, tightening my body, making me meet every wild stroke of his cock, glory in the hard grip of his hands on my backside. “You make me think bad thoughts.” There was an undercurrent to his words that made me breathless, a promise that if he followed his desire, it would be glorious. I took his mouth, his raw, powerful taste sweeping over my thoughts. I pushed down on his cock, and need flared. “How bad?” “Very bad.”

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“Think them.” The tightness in my belly promised that my release was close, so close that my body shook, sparks of light dancing across my vision. My damp skin was slick against his, the warmed air, the scent of sex, the rich aroma of the open ocean catching my senses. I wanted him to fulfill the shape of the promise lurking just out of my reach. If he did that— My back hit the wall again, and Blake‟s thrusts wiped out all thought. The wraith curled through my flesh, skimming over my clitoris. “I have my duty.” He spoke the words out loud against my lips, denying our sudden closeness and what it meant. “I will see it through to the bitter end.” He thrust, harder, faster, giving me little time to do anything but cling to him and pant out against the spinning fury of the wraith. “After this.” His lips brushed my ear, his breath hot and ragged. Already the twisting threads of my orgasm began to weave up through my flesh, the final rush almost, almost taking me. “I will make you come one more time.” His low snarl, so wanted, so familiar, burned through my body, and my release hit me in a hot, blistering wave. I shook, my fingers curling into fists, and I moaned as Blake‟s final few erratic thrusts pushed him over to find his own orgasm. I pressed my lips to his damp neck, stringing insane little kisses over his skin. The wild joy still flowed through me. Blake was completely, completely addictive. My mouth froze. His final words broke through the swell of happiness. I found the will to ask the question that seared my thoughts. My tongue-tip wet my lips. “One more time?” Blake held my gaze, his dark, endless and flickering with golden curls of magic. I couldn‟t feel his thoughts, and that lack of connection…hurt. We had shared something, something impossible, something beautiful. But he continued to deny us. “I have one more bind to secure in you.” His other self, the creature with incredible wings and satin skin, faded back, and Blake was all black suit and bleak humanity again. The gold in his eyes coalesced. “I‟ll bring you to orgasm, and you will be ready.”

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“Ready for what?” “So, Mr. Blake.” A woman‟s sharp voice cut through the dark silence of the alley, and a sudden tight fear gripped me. “You‟ll obviously go to any length to secure her.”

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Chapter Nine I froze. For a long moment, I closed my eyes and felt the red-hot burn of embarrassment color my cheeks. Blake was still hard inside me, and I had to ignore the little flickers of the wraith as it teased its heat around his cock. I eased myself free of him, and my feet, still in my socks, stood on the damp alley floor. Cold cut through the thin wool, and I shivered. I dropped down to pull on my underwear, trousers, and stamp into my boots. I wrapped my coat around me and folded my arms tight across my chest, desperate to find some control. The power of the wraith gave a final flicker and stilled. I was grateful. I took slow breaths and stared back at the woman edged by light in the entrance of the alley. Tall, with blonde sculpted hair, her classic business suit silhouetted her thin frame. Her face was half masked by shadow. I knew the voice. However, my head was a mess, and I couldn‟t remember where I‟d heard those scrapingly aristocratic tones before. There was one thing I had to know. I made myself look up at Blake's bleak face. “Ready for what?” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, and his eyes wouldn‟t meet mine. “Not now. Not here.” I held back a curse, the flow of anger taking me again. Calm, sane emotions had not been with me since I‟d met Blake. My arms tightened against my side. Really, what the hell was going on? “Samuel Blake.” The stranger‟s sharp accent cut through my nerves, and I winced. “You have your orders.”

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Blake turned his pitiless stare on the woman. “I know my orders.” A muscle jumped in the woman‟s gaunt cheek. “You are needed at the Chamber. Come now or…” She left the words as a hanging threat. Her chin lifted. “Well?” I found myself pushed ahead of him. “Take your hands off me.” “Not what you thought a minute ago.” I forced down the too-recent memories, willing myself not to taste him on my tongue, not to remember the hard press of his body into mine. I shivered and bit out hard words. “A minute ago, I was insane. Anyone would have done.” His solid silence followed me from the alley. “Well, Ms. Munro.” The woman held out her manicured hand. I kept my arms firmly crossed. The stranger‟s left eyelid twitched, and a hardness slid over her face. “You as first choice is, well, unexpected.” I glanced across the street. A Council shuttle squatted in the middle of the pavement, all sleek lines and screaming power. People milled around the black, shining vehicle, their gazes shifting over it, nervous to be caught staring. “If you would like to come with me?” It wasn‟t a question. The armed Council officers standing on either side of the open doorway proved it. I had no choice. “Who are you?” “Me?” The strain of staying polite cracked the stranger‟s voice. She forced a false smile. “I am Councillor Clair Musgrove. Perhaps you‟ve heard of me?” Oh, my life had just become ten times worse. Clair Musgrove, deputy leader of the Council and an antimagic hard-liner. At least what had happened in the alley— and I wasn‟t thinking about it, much—had calmed the wraith within me. It wouldn‟t be obvious that magic had taken possession of my body. All that she‟d seen was Blake buried inside me. And I blamed the wraith for my need to screw Blake up against the nearest wall. Denial was safest right then.

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This woman seemed to know Blake, but did she know what he was? How twisted he was by magic? Hell, that wasn‟t my concern. Staying alive was. “What do you want with me?” Musgrove‟s red-painted lips thinned. “I‟m sure Mr. Blake has told you that, for the moment, we must maintain our silence.” “Not in those exact words.” Clair waved her manicured hand to the open shuttle. “Inside, Ms. Munro.” I stared at the large guns held tight by the Council officers. Yes, I‟d stopped running—but not through choice. Tracking lights shone out from the deep black carpet covering the floor of the shuttle. I sank back into a leather chair, and the safety belt snaked across my chest. I bit back a cry. I had no intention of letting Clair Musgrove know that I‟d never set foot in anything like this before. The undercurrent of tech already had my teeth on edge. I twisted myself into my seat, the leather molding to my backside and thighs. The air smelled scrubbed, sanitized, only a hint of the soft rich aroma of the leather, of the wool carpet fighting the filters. Fear sat heavy in my gut. Blake sat next to me. I fixed my gaze on the tinted window. My leg inched away from touching his, but his heat still swept over me. I knotted my hands in my lap. What had happened in the alley was something beyond my control. I had to remember that. It meant nothing. Just like all the other times. I held down a wry smile. He‟d fucked me, but I took more intimacy from a kiss. It sounded—Hell, it was crazy. Clair sat opposite us, settling herself before the belt shot over her. She nodded to the guards, who closed the outer door. Fresh lights sparked above our heads, filling the cabin with a soft, golden glow. I wet dry lips. “What‟s the Chamber?”

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Clair smiled, a political smile that offered me no reassurance. “You have no need to worry, Ms. Munro.” That was too much. Had she been paying any attention to my day? “You released my pictures to the media. Told them about Blake. Blamed me for the implosion. Why should I trust you?” “Would you rather trust Mr. Blake?” I didn‟t look at him and didn‟t answer the councillor. Clair knew too much about me already. Had seen me shoved half-naked against the wall with Blake—I damped down that memory. I was relieved at the distraction of the slow, rumbling shuttle as it lifted up from the pavement. It swayed, steadied, rose, and then banked sharply, heading away from the river. “We all have the best interests of the South Bank to think about, don't we, Ms. Munro?” Clair‟s finely carved face glowed in the soft shine of the overhead lights. “You were a witness to the power of uncontrolled magicians.” Beside me, Blake stiffened. The councillor‟s gaze slid to him. “Deny it was the magicians all you want, Mr. Blake. No weapon we have yet devised could vaporize so large a target so cleanly.” “Don‟t underestimate yourself.” The councillor‟s expression hardened, but she turned back to me. Her previous mask fell away, and her sympathetic face returned. Clair Musgrove was a politician. She lived for lying and lied for a living. “There have been a number of candidates; I can safely tell you that. We‟ve been watching you—and waiting—for a very long time.” “And I‟m the chosen one?” “One of them.” Clair‟s gaze flicked over me and obviously found me lacking. “Yes.” “So there are others?”

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“That is enough discussion.” Blake‟s harsh voice broke between us. “You know the rules, Councillor Musgrove.” A derisive snort escaped her. “Facing a test in ignorance is not sensible.” “It‟s how it‟s always been done. It won‟t change.” He sank back into the soft leather, the seat creaking. “And your test? It‟s unnecessary.” “So you say.” I pulled at my scarf and tugged the hat from my damp hair. “I am here, y‟know.” I loosened my coat, thankful that the scrubbed air cooled my skin. Clair smiled and recrossed her legs. She settled the hem of her skirt across her knees. “Mr. Blake is being overcautious.” I matched her smile with a tight one of my own. “I'm sure.” I shifted in my chair and tried to ignore the tight fury boiling through Blake. It burned so sharp and strong I could almost taste it. “So, Councillor, what else can you safely tell me?” “I'm glad you‟re taking such interest, Ms. Munro.” “I think I should.” “Leona…” I ignored Blake‟s now familiar growl of my name and the little spark of memory that came with it. Damn him. I let out a slow breath, and the first flicker of wraith-fire died away. “Please continue, Councillor.” Clair relaxed back into her chair and smoothed over the material of her skirt in slow, deliberate moves. Her long, polished nails shone. “The South Bank does not need magic.” A sharp smile cut her mouth. “I think we do very well without it.” Was she waiting for a response? I shrugged. “Yes.” “There‟s no doubting it. We‟ve exported our culture to the rest of the world.” She straightened her shoulders. “We are not confined to the banks of a river, the sliver of a peninsula, and have a level of technology that rivals anything a magician could hope to conjure.” Her expression slid into smugness, and her gaze fixed on Blake. “And I've yet to see one of you fly.”

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“I‟m not a magician,” he said. “So you always claim.” Clair paused and pressed her finger to her temple implant. “We‟re about to land. And there are a number of people who are dying to meet you.” The sharp sting of her implant transmission cut under my skin. Tech always did this. And Clair‟s embedded tech burned longer and sharper than most. No doubt a sign of her power within the Council and her access to hyperadvanced tech. I fixed my gaze on the tinted window, watching the shapes of the city below. I was not thinking about what could await me. Instead, I let the sweep of the shuttle over ancient buildings push my mind in other directions. The Chambers. Of course. My brain needed an inspection, as I hadn‟t had a clear head since I‟d woken up. The Council chambers, cut into the hills a safe distance from the danger of the river. Centuries old, my books of magic had always claimed they were build by magicians‟ hands. Staring at the spindle spires of white stone, the gleaming crystal dome, its sweeping curve blending into the hillside, it was obvious why magicians would want to acknowledge such beauty as their own work. It was impossible. Magic didn't work beyond the banks of the river. It didn‟t even reach the other side of the North Bank peninsula. Magic was limited to the city of North Bank, with the occasional splinter of weak magic firing through my city. All that Blake had done shot over my thoughts. Well, I thought it hadn't stretched with such ease. Was that what the councillor feared? That magic would, was invading her technological world with stronger bursts of power? The shuttle plummeted and my stomach jolted. I gasped, and my fingers gripped the edge of my seat. The sharp descent of the shuttle had caught me by surprise. The craft dropped into a floodlit hangar and hit the floor with a dull thud. “New pilot.” The tone in Clair's voice didn‟t bode well for his continuing in the job. With a slow whoosh, the outer door opened and thumped against the deck. Beyond, in the wide bay, uniformed men filed in front of the shuttle, their heavy

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boots striking against the concrete floor. As one, the Council officers stood ready, weapons primed and aimed. At us. “After you.” The councillor waved Blake and me out of the shuttle. The officers‟ gloved fingers creaked as they bent and slid, stopping over the triggers of their guns. Yes, I felt so safe now. The seat belts shot back into their sockets, and slowly I stood. I was careful to keep my hands in plain sight, to keep my movements slow, precise. My heart pounded. My life was crazy; it really was. “Are you absolutely sure you have the right woman?” Clair laughed, a dry sound, holding no humor. “Oh yes.” I padded down the ramp and stood in the center of the weapons all aimed at my head. Blake followed. The men shifted again, the tension in their bodies screaming at me. My breath puffed pale before me, and I shivered. The air in the hangar froze against my skin after the scrubbed environment of the shuttle. “As I have said”—the councillor walked around the six men, and I caught glimpses of her conservative gray suit through the gaps between the officers‟ blackarmored bodies—“we have watched you, and others, for a number of years.” She began to walk across the hangar, her thin heels clicking. With a flick of their weapons, the officers indicated we both should follow. “Your genetic structure identified you at birth as a possible candidate.” I stared at the woman‟s straight back. What? “It did?” “Councillor…” Blake‟s low growl prickled my skin. At his warning, one of the weapons emitted a slow whine. Blake turned his head, and he glared at the man to his left. The unerring gun began to shake. Clair waved a dismissive hand. “We have worked with you for centuries, Mr. Blake, perfecting a system for finding those you need from the South Bank. In return, we must have full control of both banks.”

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Blake‟s mouth thinned. “That was never the deal.” His thoughts formed dark and uneven shapes that I could almost read. The connection to him was still unnerving. Clair walked toward a section of blank gray wall. The air fizzed with the familiar charge of her implant, and the door appeared, then opened, revealing a lift. “It is now.” Dazed, I followed Clair into the metal-lined lift. I could even ignore the press of the surrounding officers in the cramped space as one word had stuck in my brain. “Centuries?” “Mr. Blake looks well for his age, don't you think?”

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Chapter Ten I stared up at him and found the familiar bleak expression. Centuries. He had survived being shot, used magic I‟d never read about…but his incredible age had me stunned. “How many?” My voice was no more than a croak. “How old are you, Blake?” Muscles hardened in his jaw. “Older than I look.” “He won't tell you,” Clair said, absently batting one of the weapons from her hair. “Four hundred years old, at least.” I blinked. “Four…” I swallowed. “That's impossible.” “Initially, it was thought he was cloning.” Clair‟s sharp, pale gaze inspected Blake, her head tilted. “But that has now been ruled out. So we have to believe he is the same man with whom the Council has been dealing for so long.” The door closed, and the lift started to descend. I almost grabbed at Blake‟s arm at the sudden lurch of the metal box, but I fought that need and shifted my feet, my body to keep my balance. “So what am I doing here?” Clair smiled and said nothing. I sucked in a deep breath and forced myself to remain calm. Demanding answers wouldn‟t get me anywhere. A leather-armored arm and the stock of a gun now pressed against my back. It certainly wouldn‟t get me out of the testosteronepacked lift. Yes, arguing with Clair Musgrove was not an option. I‟d had no interest in tech. Hell, it hurt down to the bone to be near it, so the secrets that shrouded the Council chambers had never interested me. I stared up at

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the slow roll of numbers on the monitor over the doors. It had already scrolled into double figures. How far down were we going? I winced. How deep was this place? With a thunk, the lift stopped. Floor eighteen. The doors slid back with a metallic whine. A long, brightly light tunnel stretched out before me, blank gray doors breaking into its white walls at regular intervals. The silent air smelled dry, stale. My heart squeezed. This did not look promising. Clair pushed past me and strode down the corridor. Her heels clacked against the rough metal flooring. The officer with the weapon in my back pushed me forward. Blake slid his hand over my spine, blocking the muzzle of the gun from digging into my flesh. I shrugged myself free, pushing ahead of him into the long corridor. I didn‟t need his help. And I was ignoring that burn under my skin, the imprint of Blake‟s hand searing though the heavy layers of my clothes. I counted breaths, waiting for the flare of intense heat heralding the return of the wraith. Nothing. I ran a trembling hand through my drying hair. It was a relief. There was no telling how I would react to so much testosterone surrounding me right then. “Stay focused.” Blake‟s growl over my ear did little to help with that. “Isn‟t your job over now?” I waved my arm down the bright corridor. Clair had stopped at a blank door, one that matched all the others. “I have been delivered.” “Oh, this is far from over, Leona.” A little shiver rippled over my skin at his words, the promise lurking in his voice, the promise of one last fuck from him. I ignored the pulse of excitement and regret. He glared up at the low curve of the ceiling, and color slashed his cheeks. “I didn‟t make you ready for this.” “Then what the hell—” Blake let out a slow breath. “It‟s become a modern necessity. One you don‟t need.” “So you say,” Clair said, not breaking her stare from the opaque panel built into the door frame. It glowed briefly.

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“I have more skill than your clunking machines. Leona is free of tech.” “Again, so you say.” Clair looked up, her pale eyes cold. “We would rather not chance our future on something you say, Mr. Blake.” The door slid back with a soft whoosh. Narrow stairs wound downward, surrounding a bright central core. A circular laboratory squatted at the bottom, technicians in gray lab- suits scuttling from terminal to terminal. The councillor led the way down, her heels clacking against the metal. I followed, my hand tight around the cold rail. Free of tech. The words ran uneasily under my skin. Something tugged at my mind. The charged air stabbed at me, harsh and grating, pushing out other more tenuous thoughts and rubbing coarse against my skin. My pulse rate jumped. So whatever it was, it wouldn‟t be a nice surprise. “Councillor Musgrove.” A thin man in a padded lab-suit strode toward them, pulling off a glove. Clair took his hand. He held it for too long, and her expression hardened. She yanked her fingers free. The technician continued to smile, something almost reptilian. “Professor Jones.” Clair rubbed her hands together with a dry scraping sound. “I have a candidate for you.” “Ah, one of Samuel Blake‟s little breed.” The thin smile made my skin twitch. “Finally, in the flesh.” His hard gaze fixed on me. I froze as a pale hand followed the line of my hair, curling a still-damp strand around his bony finger. “Leona Munro. With your history, who would have thought it?” I pulled my hair free from his finger and tucked the strand behind my ear. “Does anyone not know me?” “I‟ve watched you for a long time.” Professor Jones widened his reptilian smile. “That doesn‟t make me feel any better.” I stepped back from him and from the gleam of too sharp an interest in his eyes. “But I‟ll ask you. What am I here for?”

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Professor Jones turned away. “To prove your candidacy, we must ensure that you are free of all the conveniences of modern life.” “And what exactly does that mean?” “We‟ve kept you device free. Conditioned you with a severe dislike of technology. Now I have to see if you‟ve managed a few illegal implants.” He turned back from the console, his thin, ungloved hand resting on a tech‟s shoulder. “We have to purge you.” The fury at their interference fell away. “Purge me?” I backed away, backed into the solid wall of muscle that was Blake. His hand slid over my hip, and I hated the sudden rush of relief running up through my body. I took an even breath. Purging? They were all crazy. “Mr. Blake here”—Jones waved his hand at the silent man standing behind me—“has always bemoaned the toxicity of the lifestyle we enjoy.” He gave me a snake-thin smile. and I held down a natural shudder. “I, on the other hand, have no problems binding my body to our modern world.” I crushed the run of lurid images his deliberate words conjured. “I‟m sure.” My gaze flicked up to Blake. “But that still tells me nothing.” “You must be free of all implants, all devices connecting you to South Bank society.” Blake‟s hand on my hip slid into slow, soothing strokes. The wraith stirred under his touch, a flickering curve of fire that almost felt like the thing purred within me. It was a distraction, but I pulled my mind away from his addictive touch. “I have never—” Blake‟s softly whispered “I know” brushed against my ear, and I fought to keep my eyes open. I was in a room full of people who planned to do who knew what to me, but the warmth of his breath against my skin negated every fear. I wanted to turn to find the connection that simmered between us. Strengthen it. Make it shine. Against all my better judgment, my instincts screamed that being with Blake was right.

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“As Professor Jones said, we limited your exposure.” Councillor Musgrove‟s brisk voice cut through Blake‟s hold on me. Panic started to well again. “Now all discussion stops. Ms. Munro needs to change.” She waved a hand at Blake. “If you would be so kind?” His hand closed around my arm. “I don‟t agree with it, but…” So much for feeling safe with Blake, for him feeling right. My own thoughts mocked me. Was that the push of his magic twisting me? I had to recognize that I was just a commodity to these crazy people. “I know what purging is.” My laugh was bitter. “I should have taken the river option. Though thinking about it, that wasn‟t open to me either. Was it?” We crossed the laboratory and Blake waved his hand over a clear stretch of gray panel. The door shot back, revealing a small, starkly lit room beyond. His face grim, he pulled me inside and the door reappeared behind him. “Get changed into that.” He pointed to a rack of skins filling one wall. “You know what a purge is, don't you?” Blake blocked the doorway. “As they‟ve told you, I‟ve been around awhile.” So no sympathy from him, then. I unwound my scarf and tugged at my coat. Fear and fury had my fingers numb, sliding over the smooth buttons. I turned that anger onto Blake because hell, he deserved it. The councillor and her pet mad scientist were at least up-front in their treatment. Blake enjoyed playing his games with me. “Turn around,” I muttered. I‟d be damned if I got naked in front of him. Again. The word whispered through my thoughts. “Nothing I haven‟t seen.” A ghost of a smile lifted his lips, and I hated the flare of wraith-inspired need. “And fucked.” My chest kicked at that reminder. “An aberration.” “Of course. All three times.” He turned and presented me with his back. “Anyone would have satisfied you.”

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Was that a hint of censure, of bitterness in his voice? I shut my eyes and willed myself to ignore him. I pulled my sweater over my head and dropped it on the bench. Cool air prickled my bared skin, and with quick fingers, I tugged down my trousers. I grabbed the first suit and stepped into the slippery stuff. The cold bonded gel glued itself to my feet, my calves in a swift rush. It started to crawl upward. I held down the rush of bile to my mouth. “You all right?” Blake‟s head turned, but not enough to witness my nakedness. The skin sucked to my stomach and wrapped around my arms. I fought my revulsion as it crept into the webs of my fingers and had to will my breathing into a calm, even rhythm. The crawl of synthetic tech spread higher, faster, a rush of cold liquid skin over my chin, skull, ears. It became harder to pull in air as panic had my breaths short and my head spinning. Sweat soaked me. “Leona?” Blindly, my skin-bound fingers grabbed at Blake‟s offered hand, gripped it tight, and his touch forced my fear to ease. Breathing. I was breathing, not panicking. The skin surged over my face. Eyes, nose, lips, teeth, tongue. I gagged, dragging more of the semi-liquid deep into my throat. My choked gasps echoed hollow in my ears. Pain ballooned behind my eyes. My heartbeat jumped, my lungs straining for air. Blake held me tight, murmuring words I couldn‟t understand. The heat of his palm on my spine distracted me in the unending seconds. The skin burst. Air rushed down my throat. I sagged. Blake‟s strong arms held me up, and I pressed my skin-covered face to his chest. His body scent, the cool, soothing smell of the open ocean, wrapped around me, and the wild pounding of my heart eased. He calmed me. I had no idea why or how, and I wanted to hate it. But in that moment, I couldn‟t. The man—or whatever he was—had my emotions in turmoil.

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I rubbed my palm over my eye, but gel only rubbed at gel. The thin layer had absorbed my tears. “Is it really worth this?” The tech shrouding my flesh thickened and distorted my words. I closed my eyes, and not even Blake‟s easing presence could calm my next thought. “And what‟s to come." He stroked a hand over my head, my hair now glued to my skull. “You will be worth it.” I stared up at him, reading nothing in his dark gaze. “Have you always been so cryptic?” His mouth twitched. “I‟ve had time to work on it.” I pulled back from his hold. His warm touch delayed on my jaw, bleeding heat through the synthetics. My gelled fingers touched his, and my gut ached. I missed the contact of my real skin against his. “I need to get this over with.” “Yes.” Blake stood away from the door, letting out a heavy breath. It shot back, and he lifted an eyebrow. “We both do.”

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Chapter Eleven I didn‟t know what to do with my hands. After a brief time knotting them in front of me, I settled for crossing my arms. Tight. The surrounding air had that familiar charge of advanced and aggravating tech. It prickled the hair on the back of my neck, made my skin itch. Skin I couldn‟t scratch. I took a steadying breath and shifted my feet over the cold metal of the purging chamber. Blake watched me. The thick glass encircling me distorted him, but still his harsh, dark gaze pierced mine. Anger burned through him. I could taste it, raw, bitter in my mouth. Suddenly he was angry? He‟d stood by and raised only minor objections to this procedure— “We know you aren‟t a criminal we wish to punish by removal of tech privileges, Ms. Munro. However this is the only way we have of taking away said tech.” The councillor‟s voice filled the chamber, bursting with static. “Are you ready?” “I doubt it.” Heat surged against my bare soles. Stasis clamped my lower body into place. My nails curled into my palms, and I fought to ignore the buildup of pain. What the hell was I doing? Why had I gone in to work that morning? Rolling over and ignoring the alarm, that had been the first thought of the day. I should‟ve run with it. Fire burned over my calf muscles, the sweep of sharp light rising inexorably. Not that staying in bed would have made any difference. They‟d been tracking me for years. I focused on Blake‟s stern face. He‟d lived for centuries, had plans even the mad scientists could only guess at. He was ancient and thick with magic,

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yet looked not much older than me. And I was not going to think about how insane that was. Fire curled around my thighs in a fierce lash of pain. I crushed my eyes shut. At least it was better than the wraith fire. A smile bit through the agony in my flesh. Better to be fighting this than having a gang of drooling techs getting their jollies from watching me orgasm in an isolation chamber. “I’d kill them first.” The growled words burst through me. It forced my eyes open…but I stared at the man through the thick glass. He hadn‟t moved, and his expression still held its usual grim blankness. The familiar touch of his thoughts eased the agony for a single, blissful moment. But his thought, his magic couldn‟t break the pain, and thought evaporated as the toxic sweep cut across my hips, rising higher. My stomach, ribs, arms, breasts scorched with burning light. I breathed in and breathed out. Slow. Measured. Blowing away the pain. Light enveloped my shoulders, neck, seared the underside of my jaw. Panic wanted to swallow me whole. I breathed past it. Only a few more seconds and I would be free. I had no illegal tech in my body, had always hated the whine of it and the way it cut under my skin. Their conditioning? Had they pushed it into my parents and grandparents too? All of them had an almost allergic reaction to implanted technology. Had Blake been overseeing what was effectively a breeding program for centuries? “What you are has always been important.” Blake‟s voice echoed in my head, but I refused to look at him, pushing him and the tearing in my flesh away. But one thought leaked. “You said what, not who. Nice to know you care.” The language I didn‟t understand seared through my thoughts in a muttered rush. I almost laughed. Blake was swearing at me again.

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The surge of energy rose higher, scouring my chin, my pressed-thin lips, and all further thought scattered. Shit, it hurt. It tore over my nose. I fought to get air into my lungs but drew in only heat and pain. I couldn‟t breathe, and panic fired over the nightmare of agony ripping through me. It wasn‟t fair. I didn‟t have any implants. Blake was right. Couldn‟t they see that? “This always proves the highest area of concentration for illegal tech.” I lashed out against Professor Jones‟s dispassionate voice, my fists impacting the chamber walls. They didn‟t care, none of them. I was simply some animal in a laboratory experiment. Nothing more. What the hell had I ever done to deserve this? Fresh agony lanced through my arms, burning down to my fingertips. Gasping, my head ballooned with pain. My lungs screamed for air. The light burned across my eyes. I screamed. And blackness took me.

*** A familiar scent threaded itself through my senses. The taste of skin and heat and the sea lapped warm against my tongue. I shifted my mouth, letting my lips find more skin, discovering a pulse other than my own. He tasted incredible. I groaned. “Leona…” His voice. Blake. My tongue tip traced a slow pattern over his warm flesh, unable to deny myself more of him. I needed him buried inside of me, buried deep. And that was right, wanted. The now familiar hot stirrings of the wraith down across my belly had me pressing openmouthed kisses over his throat. The heavy pulse of need throbbed, and I wanted nothing more than to find his mouth and a wall and repeat what we‟d found in the alley. Our connection began there, the start of our binding…

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Blake muttered something under his breath, and his large hands tightened around my ribs, my thighs. For a flicker of a second, I welcomed his touch. My tongue stopped. He was carrying me? Memory of the purification chamber erupted. Adrenaline hit me, and my arms and legs thrashed. “Leona.” The soft, almost gentle use of my name calmed my sudden panic. I relaxed, and his arms tightened around me. But then I remembered it was Samuel Blake. The man who had betrayed my trust. “Put me down. Right now.” “So no more necking?” “Don't even go there.” “Spoilsport.” Blake let me slide out of his hold. My bare feet hit cold metal, and despite the skin, I shivered. I stared around the small, metal-lined room. It was similar to the one I‟d changed in, but there was no rack of unused skins. There was also nothing for me to change into. “Here.” Blake shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to me. A knot tightened in my chest. I took the jacket. “Thank you.” His scent, his warmth surrounded me. I dropped onto the metal bench and unwillingly hugged the coat over my breasts. This wasn‟t what I needed right now. I could only be grateful that the wraith sat sated in my body. The sharp scent of the sea prickled my skin. I took a deep breath and forced myself to be angry. “So did I pass your test?” “Their test. And yes, you did.” Blake sat on the opposite bench and picked at fluff on his immaculate trousers. The silence of the room filled me. And it seemed that Blake was happy to stay quiet, but questions bubbled up through me. “So how old are you, Samuel Blake?” He huffed out a breath. “Old.” “And that‟s all you're going to tell me?”

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“Yes.” A smile quirked his mouth, and he leaned back against the smooth metal wall. “You should know not to ask that, Leona.” I ground my teeth together, tensing the muscles in my jaw. “Yes, stupid me.” Without thought, I hugged the jacket to my body and breathed in the intoxicating scent too close to my skin. Bad idea. “So…what happens now?” His head tilted up, and he stared at the low curve of the softly lit ceiling. “Now? What do you think we should do?” I was calm. I was. I was not going to ask the annoying man any more questions because I knew what he‟d promised. I didn‟t want to go there, fall into the last time we would ever have sex. I pressed my lips together. It was as though I was losing more than that, which felt a little crazy, as I‟d only known him for a few hours. I closed my eyes. “I‟m not saying anything.” “And who said you can‟t be taught?” Smacking him, that felt like a good plan right then. I should‟ve simply stuck to it being lust. Blake did not inspire any finer emotion in me. “Funny.” I stared at my skin-covered feet and curled my toes against the cold floor. Yesterday, I‟d had complete control over my life. I knew my job, got happily drunk with friends, hung out at the dockside dives, and lost myself in my magic books. Not a riveting life, but I‟d been happy. And not sitting practically naked in a metal box with a man I‟d known—in every sense—for no time at all. “The cycle is coming to its end. It must begin again.” Blake stood up, the stark light from the curved ceiling creating heavy shadows across his features. My heart tightened, and its thudding beat made my head light. His gaze narrowed, and the glitter of gold shone from his eyes. “So the cycle of my time with you has one last turn.” “Blake…” I wanted to say that Professor Jones would be monitoring the room, that the technicians outside would be crowded around a screen watching every stroke of him into my body. But the ability not to care about who saw us took away that embarrassment. No, my reluctance came from it being the last time, the very

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last time Blake would touch me. We were bound, almost a part of each other. That—the knowledge that Blake would break our bond—edged a pain as sharp as implanted tech under my skin. Why, I didn‟t understand. It should simply be all about lust. But it wasn‟t. “I don‟t want us to end.” There. I‟d said the words that couldn‟t be taken back and watched Blake pause as he crossed the short distance between us. He stared down at me. “It has to end, Leona. What I do, it always has to end.” His incredible age shot through my mind. “How many candidates have you presented to the Council?” Blake‟s bleak expression didn‟t change, his thoughts a wall of shining, impenetrable glass. “Enough.” A wry smile pulled at my mouth, but I didn‟t find the strength to hold his gaze. How many had he fucked and brought to ecstasy with wraith-fired heat? How many stupid candidates forgot they were simply a tool for him and for the Council and started to—I cut out the word before it formed a shape in my mind that he could read. “Leona.” Blake knelt before me. His hand brushed my skin-covered thigh, and the cold, wet substance rolled back from me, the stuff melting away in a quiet rush with no effort, no pain. Within a moment, the last of it rippled from my face, my eyes, my mouth, and I shook my hair free of its constriction. I pulled in a deep, releasing breath. His dark gaze held me. “You‟re different.” “From the many you‟ve fucked up against a wall?” I winced, hating that I cared. He leaned in, and his mouth touched mine in the lightest caress. The wraith stirred, its heat burning in my cheeks, little licks of flame teasing my lips. I felt his smile. “Not once have I shared this. Only with you.” The need to be sarcastic matched the wraith for its burn…but with his kiss, Blake‟s thoughts caressed mine. He was telling the truth. Candidates were a duty, nothing more; he did what he had to, used sex combined with his power to prepare

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them. Yet, I… No. I didn‟t believe him. This could be more lies to twist me. “Is this what you tell them all? That they’re the special one?” His large hands parted my thighs, his thumbs drawing lazy patterns against the sensitive inner curve. “I‟ve given you the truth.” He pressed light kisses to my jaw before his mouth hovered over my ear. “It would be easier for me if it were a lie.” My head fell back against the metal wall as his fingers teased over the crease of my thighs. I had to stop him. He twisted the truth, had fucked countless people down through the centuries…and hell, he wasn‟t even human. He smiled against my neck. “Admit it. The wings turned you on.” Unseen hands pushed his jacket from my shoulders as his magic drew it back from my skin. It crumpled into a puddle of cloth on the metal bench. Blake strung a line of kisses along my shoulder, the wraith meeting each fleeting touch with a point of fire. “So…should I mention my tail?” Laughter broke from me. Damn the man. “You have a tail?” “A thing of beauty.” His tongue drew a line along my clavicle, and I sucked in a quick breath. “And at my full command.” I threaded my fingers through his dark hair and tried not to go where his words took me. I failed. “Kinky.” “But that excites you too.” And that was the price to pay for having sex with a man who could read my thoughts. “Maybe,” I admitted. His soft laughter brushed my skin, and he kissed his way to the curve of my breast. “If I could, Leona…” His tongue curled around my nipple, and I tightened my fingers in his hair, my spine arching at the unexpected spike of joy. The wraith chased down my belly, eager as I was for Blake to find me, to fuck me. “I would make love to you.” The words contracted my heart, and tears stung my eyes. “Damn it, Blake.” “Stand,” he murmured, his fingers gripping me, urging me up.

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The metal bench vanished as I put my weight on my feet and slid my spine up the cool wall. Yet more of his magic. I stared down at Blake, the stark light illuminating his face. I frowned. He‟d stayed on his knees. His wicked smile grew and caused my heart to flutter. “But I can do this.” His mouth pressed to my mons, and the wraith showered sparks of brilliant heat under my flesh. “Taste you, eat you.” His low growl prickled my skin, and his thumbs stroked the sensitive flesh of my thighs. “Make you scream for me.” I closed my eyes. The intense sensation of the wraith, of Blake licking me flared warmth through my flesh. His soft, appreciative growls vibrated through my flesh. He lifted my leg, supporting it with his shoulder, and his thumbs teased my folds. I gasped, my fingers fisting in his hair. The raw fact that he had never taken a candidate—man or woman—in this way burned over my thoughts. And his hunt for candidates stretched back further than the measly Council‟s four centuries. I felt the weight of millennia press against me. Samuel Blake was ancient. “Who are you?” My question came out on a huff of air, the curl of his tongue around my clitoris bursting wild joy up through my flesh. The flames of the wraith curled around me, intensifying the hot surge and flashing sparks behind my eyes. My limbs trembled, and Blake‟s hard fingers gripped my thighs and held me up. “What are you?” He didn‟t reply, simply increased the quick licks, pushing closer and closer to where I ached for him. My heart hammered, desperate for him to find me, fuck me with his tongue, knowing that it would be over. That when I came, we would be finished. “Leona…” His thoughts touched mine, and I pulled in a sharp breath, denying the pain of no longer sharing my thoughts with him. It was crazy, to have this want, this need of him, when I‟d known nothing of Samuel Blake before that morning. “I don’t understand…”

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“Lose yourself.” The hint of forbidden decadence flavored his words. “Think of my mouth on you. Of wings against your skin. How a tail would bring you such pleasure.” An image flashed of Blake wrapped around me in his true form, not the harsh human flesh he wore for the benefit of others. Vast wings, as soft to the touch as the satin smoothness of his naked skin. And a tail slipped across my leg, curling around my thigh, smooth like his skin. The blunt end teased across my backside. I bit my lip, wanting and denying the image, letting the heat of his mouth, his tongue, the sharpness of his teeth on my clitoris fire over me. The deep throb in my flesh promised to fill me, take me— “Give in to it, Leona.” Blake‟s simple command rioted joy through my flesh, and still he licked and sucked, driving the wraith into a searing spin, driving the wildness deeper until a second release broke over me. I cried out against its fierce power, every inch of me shaking, my thoughts chaotic, lost. A soft moan escaped me as Blake wrapped me in his arms. I buried my face against his shirt, breathing in his unique scent. I fisted my fingers in the thick material and resisted the hard pain in my chest. “I don‟t want to lose you.” He tensed but then let out a slow breath. He rested his chin on my head. “We will never be together as we are now, Leona. But I will be with you. Always.” Tears burned and my throat hurt. Blake‟s mind was stone, yet an undercurrent pulsed, something that hinted at the reality of his being with me. And all that I could feel was pain and regret. From me or him, I didn‟t know. “Blake, we don‟t have to do this.” “It‟s my ancient duty.” He paused and then stood back from me, his hands covering mine to ease them free of the heavy material of his black shirt. “None of us can oppose it.” The air shimmered, and for a second, his other self was imprinted on the air. My heart lodged in my throat, and I folded my arms across my breasts. This was it.

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We were over. My gaze skimmed the shadow of his vast wings as they brushed the ceiling, dropping to catch his blunt-headed, sinuous tail curling. A wry smile pulled at my mouth. Yes, I would‟ve had fun with his tail. His harsh features mixed with those of the beast, horns curving from his forehead. Blake was terrifyingly beautiful. I pressed my lips together, needing to deny that I wanted the creature he was as much as the man. And I still didn‟t know what he was. It didn‟t matter. Whatever he was, he was a part of me. That was another thing I couldn‟t explain. I pulled in a heavy breath. Already he was fading and would soon be gone. “Good-bye, Blake.” He lifted a hand, mouthed words I couldn‟t hear, and then he vanished. I sank down, finding the metal bench returned and Blake‟s coat under me. Shrugging the heavy material over my shoulders, I hugged it closed for warmth and found only Blake‟s rich scent. Breathing it in only made my chest tight. I slumped back against the wall and tried not to cry. “He’s gone, as he abandons all the candidates, Ms. Munro.” Clair‟s synthesized voice reverberated against the metal walls. “Did you honestly think you’d be any different?” The door shot back, and the councillor stood framed in the archway. I willed myself to sit straight, wormed my hands through the sleeves of Blake‟s jacket, and buried them in the empty pockets. My fingers curled back into my palms, and my heart thudded. Blake was gone. I had no idea what would happen to me now. “So what‟s the next test?” And there was Clair‟s cold political smile. Something gleamed in her hand. The cold sting of air hit the back of my throat. “What the…?” I crashed to my knees, swayed, and fell forward. I couldn‟t control my muscles. Panic hit me. “Samuel Blake has chosen you. I'm sure you’ll be able to tell us.” With those words, my world faded.

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Chapter Twelve Cold ran goose bumps over my skin. My bare skin. I‟d lost Blake‟s coat, and its absence hurt. I had no connection to him now. Nothing. I stretched, and the lumpy mattress dug into my ribs. My feet dangled over the thin side. I pulled in a deep breath and winced. The air smelled musty, dry, the thick odor of dust and plaster tickling my nose. There was something else too, but I couldn‟t quite grasp what it was. I risked opening an eye. The room was dark, only thin streaks of sunlight chinking through the broken slats of a dirty window to stripe the floorboards. There was just me, my bed, a closed door, and no other furniture. I rolled upright and stared down. Yes, I was naked. “Fantastic.” “I wouldn‟t go that far.” I jumped, curling my knees up and wrapping my arms around my bare legs. The room had been empty. It had. But there stood Tobias Conrad before the dirtsmeared window. His cane tap-tapped against the wooden floor. His head dropped to one side. “Though what‟s-his-name—Blake—seemed thoroughly interested.” He jabbed his cane at me. “There are clothes at the end of the bed. Boots under it. Unless you intend to remain naked?” His cane dropped again. “It‟s a risk you can take. However, my overkeen colleagues might not find you so unappealing.” My own jeans and shirt were neatly folded, socks and underwear on top. “How did you get me out of the Council chambers?” I waggled my fingers. “Magic?” Tobias paced the room, his heels clicking loudly. “Oh, something much more simple.”

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I shrugged into my clothes. Warmth spread over my skin, and I stared at the still-pacing Tobias. He hadn't spoken again in the few minutes it had taken me to dress. “Is it a problem with magic users, this inability to answer anything?” Tobias laughed. “Nothing if not blunt.” He pointed his cane toward the door. It opened with a slow creak and a fall of grit and plaster. “The Council has performed their little test. Now it‟s our turn.” I blinked. A sudden chill ran down to my fingertips. “A test? From you?” I scanned the room. But then my brain kicked in. This was North Bank. Technology was frowned on, and the ceiling corners were too dark and thick with cobwebs for me to see any sign of sympathetic magic. “I‟m a null.” “A deliberate choice.” Something crossed the man‟s face, but the fleeting expression of doubt passed. Something about me being a null disturbed him. With the magic flowing through his veins, it was probably distaste. “No. The immaculate Councillor Musgrove gave you to us.” My heart turned over. “You know her?” “The Council and certain guild masters have a long and intimate history.” He stood by the door. “Not as intimate as I would like…” And he smirked. “But then Councillor Musgrove has an insane aversion to magicians without truly understanding our potential.” Pale eyes narrowed on me. “However, I think you might.” My cheeks burned, and I forced myself to stand. My head felt light and my stomach cramped. I was hungry. How long had I lain unconscious? It probably wasn‟t a question Tobias would answer. Not right away. I pushed forward with the questions he seemed happy with. “So the two Banks are in collusion?” “Not exactly.” He let me precede him from the room. “Factions within factions, my dear Leona. But we all agree, if you are the Chosen, then it‟s time to act.” The Chosen? What the hell was that? I was tired of everyone I met being fullon cryptic. I stood in a long corridor. A bulb buzzed, and its intermittent light flickered over the closed doors and peeling walls. “Nice place.”

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“The center of North Bank is closed to the general public. Guild master decree.” I frowned. I‟d thought everyone in the North Bank peninsula had access to magic, that only the degree of ability limited them. “Why?” “You've read the books.” I had. Hunger had obviously my brain clouded. Of course, there was one area sacrosanct to magicians. The heart of their magic. The place that gave them their powers. “The Source is in the old Basilica.” Tobias smiled. “Precisely.” He touched my arm and then threaded it through his own. He patted my hand. “And the crusty old guild masters don‟t want young upstarts leeching their precious power.” “But they let you in.” “You have quite a nasty streak, don‟t you?” He started a quick walk along the dusty corridor. His cane clicked. “Councillor Musgrove and I have come to a nice little agreement. And now that the choice—Blake‟s candidate—has made it to North Bank”—his gaze slid to me—“we can once again move forward.” He grinned and waited for me to precede him down a twisting stairwell. I took to the stairs, the wood creaking under my boots. Chill air worked its way under my shirt, and I wished they‟d remembered my coat too. “What do you want?” “The delectable Ms. Musgrove wants magic gone. And I want to make her happy and provide that service.” I stopped. “But you‟re a magician.” “Yes. And I intend to become a very powerful one.” He pointed into the dark turn of the stairs where the landing split and offered two ways down. “This way.” I pushed down the old riot of anger. Hell, I should be used to these people by now. “Does anyone not talk in riddles?” There was a sharp crack and a fizz. Brilliant white light created sharp shadows. I glanced back. The tip of Tobias‟s cane flared, lighting our way. “In your

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case, ignorance is a shield. Know too much, think too much, and it doesn‟t work.” His voice echoed over the stairwell. “That‟s ridiculous.” Tobias shrugged. “It‟s how it‟s going to be. The Council assures me that Blake has been around a long time. If he‟s doing something in a certain way…then I‟m not going to fool with it.” The stairs stopped. The light from his cane faded away. Tobias wove his hand with an intricate flourish, and a shimmering light filled the cracked bulbs lining the wall, washing over shabby chairs and the once-rich fabrics covering the walls. Boarded doors creaked open onto an empty street, dust falling through the gray beams. Tobias glanced at me and planted his cane on the floor. “Aren‟t you going to be even a little bit impressed?” “With light?” I thought of the dormant wraith coiled in my chest. “No.” He smirked. “Maybe I can see what Blake sees in you.” “You‟re crazy.” He flashed me a brilliant smile. “I‟m a magician. I thought that was a given.” We stepped out onto the narrow, cobbled road. Tall, boarded buildings stretched up either side, their plaster and brick crumbling. The air smelled damp, and a chill wind cut across my face. Ahead, the road ended with the curve of an older stone building, stretching up beyond the shattered roofs. The infamous Basilica, a place about which even my extensive library had only rumors and hearsay. What the hell was I doing here? Tobias let go of my arm. “Welcome to the Maze of the Basilica.” “What?” I didn‟t trust that sharp gleam in his eyes. I stepped back, my hands raised. I knew how dangerous the man was. “And you‟re going to stop me finding my way through it? Hunt me?”

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“No.” The shark-bright smile was back. “Time for you to fly.” I blinked. My feet kept moving, sliding back over the wet cobbles. He wasn‟t attacking; that was the only thought in my head. My spine hit the edge of a stone doorway. I scrabbled my hand against the lintel, feeling for the door…and found only empty space. Tobias watched me, his expression blank and so like Blake‟s it unnerved me. I had no idea why he was letting me go. Everything about the situation screamed that it was wrong. But I couldn‟t ignore the chance to escape. Tobias Conrad touched the tip of his cane to his forehead in a brief, sarcastic farewell. “Myth says this is the Chosen‟s final test.” His mouth curved into a wry smile. “Though what you are to choose is still shrouded in mystery.” He paused. “But good luck, Leona Munro.” It was the last thing I saw before I took my chance to escape him and bolted into the stinking shadows.

*** “This seemed like such a good idea.” I scrubbed my damp hands over my face, fingers tangling in my hair. I leaned against the ornate doorjamb and tried to force my swirling mind to think. In the first rush of escape, I‟d run, I thought away from the Basilica and logically back toward the city of North Bank and the promise of the river. The buildings and streets around the Basilica were a tight-knit warren of narrow alleys and interconnecting houses. Risking what appeared to be a major road only revealed a thick-clouded sky and no sun. And I found the road simply twisted in on itself and forced me back into the network of houses. I stared up at the crumbling ceiling of yet another once-beautiful drawing room. Chinks of murky light cut across blackened plasterwork. And now I was here. Completely lost. “I really am an idiot of the first—” I stopped.

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In the musty stillness, I sensed it again. I winced. I wanted to call it a sound, but it wasn‟t. It was a slow-twisting hook through my blood. I forced my mind to fix on the intricate design of the cracked moulding. It eased the fast beat of my heart, the sudden dry breathlessness. I pushed myself from the doorjamb. It wasn‟t the wraith. That lay coiled in my chest, only a slight flicker of heat across my clavicle. Proof that the creature wasn‟t an insane memory. No, I could almost taste whatever it was tensing my body. A cold, bitter herb that burned my throat. I swallowed and gagged. It was getting stronger. I froze at the entrance to another dark room. The Source sat in the Basilica. Was I tasting magic? And how crazy does that sound, Leona? I let out a slow breath. It was the only idea I had right then. And I couldn‟t continue to run from one derelict house and shop to another. “Decision made,” I muttered, and the peppery taste of magic burned the back of my mouth. “And do I feel stupid.” I turned and wiped my hand over my lips. No magician had ever written about a magical scent. “Not something tasting vaguely like arugula.” I paused, and my tongue licked around my mouth. “Only worse. All right. The talking to myself stops too.” My boots echoed over the wide, shadowed space of an old ballroom. Floorboards squeaked…and something else. Heat bloomed in my chest at the panicked thought of rats. I curled my hands into fists and forced myself to keep an even pace. The circle of houses surrounding the Source had been abandoned for decades, maybe centuries. I put my shoulder to a door and shoved. Hinges creaked. Had Blake known these rooms when they were first decorated? I imagined his tall, dark form standing in front of the wide window. His tangible power would‟ve eclipsed any other magic users in his presence. I could almost see him stalk toward me, his vast true form easily stretching to the high

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ceiling. My heartbeat ramped, and I tasted the clean scent of the ocean through the musty decay of the room… But the mirage faded. The wraith flickered a hiss of flame over the curve of my shoulder. Regret had kicked that reaction. I missed him. A lot more than I thought I would. A part of me felt…missing. The sharp burn of the creature within as it curled around my spine proved the damn thing was wide awake again. I cursed silently. Yes, it was the very last thing I needed. I strode through more rooms. At least there was a bright side to the wraith. It kept the chilled, damp air from biting deep. Pulling in a breath, I found the bitter taste of magic easing from my tongue. Good, my plan had to be working. An empty doorway led into a bare-bricked barn. There were stains against the crumbling brick, perhaps marking out pens. So it could have been an animal shed. I didn‟t care. It only left a faint peppery taste in my mouth. I hoped that meant beyond the patchy wall was the start of the North Bank. I stared along the blank expanse of wall. No doors marked it. My stomach growled. I rubbed an absent hand over it, trying to think. Damn, I hadn‟t eaten for hours. Not since a hurried breakfast. And who knew when I would get the next meal. Maybe when all the stupid tests were finally over. The guild masters had built a deliberate maze around the Source and the Basilica. A protection and possibly a test… Given that, it meant there had to be a way in. I rubbed damp palms against my hips. I hadn‟t studied the history of the North Bank. My books had focused on the performance of magic. It was a hole in my knowledge I now regretted. “But then, I never thought I'd cross the river.” My voice echoed. A fall of dust caught in a slice of light from the high slate roof. Timber struts creaked. My stomach tightened. I had the horrifying thought that the whole structure could crash down with a few more words. I found myself holding my breath as I laid my palm against the rough brick of the long wall. It was

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cold and damp to the touch. My fingernails scraped grooves through the thin brick and mortar. Dribbles of dust and grit dropped to the hard earthen floor. I pressed harder. The texture of the wall…changed. Cold and wet, it slid between my fingers, as slick as river mud. I watched my hand disappear beneath the thin red line of bricks. My stomach turned. But I could still feel my hand. I twisted it; the cold mud turned to sludge over my skin. And no, I hadn‟t read about that either. I snorted. Why had I wasted good money on any of my books? If I got out of this alive, I was going to have strong words with those who claimed to have so much knowledge about all things magic. My hand curled into a fist. I tried to tug it free. The edge of the brick dug into my wrist, trapped me with little sharp jabs of pain. I cursed. Twisting only made the brick bite harder, and blood stained the cuff of my shirt. The wall bulged. Panicked heat shot through me. What the hell was going on? One insane thought burned. It had tasted my blood. It wanted more. The wall surged. I thought I screamed, and the raw taste of magic, of mud and rot burst over me.

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Chapter Thirteen “Seems he was right,” Tobias said. My face had mashed against cool, dry stone. A bitter cough escaped me. Twice in one day, I‟d fallen flat on my face. At least, this time, I hadn‟t been crushed by falling masonry. I risked moving my head and found it free from pain. So that too was an improvement on the morning. I squinted against the bright, golden glow of too many oil lamps. Planting my hands on the stone slabs, I pushed myself up. “Do you have any food?” “This is hardly the time to think of your stomach, Leona.” The familiar tip-tap of his cane drew closer from the darkness of the surrounding shadows. I rubbed a gritty hand over my eyes and focused on the man standing over me. “You try being blown up, shot at, purged, and abandoned in a derelict maze. It gives you an amazing appetite.” His head tilted. “Doesn‟t that level of sarcasm sour your gut?” “I can‟t feel it for the growling hunger.” A genuine smile lit Tobias‟s face. He offered a gloved hand and helped me to my feet. “No food here.” He let out a sigh. “I‟m sorry.” I stared around the circular room with its high, domed ceiling. Clean, white plaster reflected the thick scattering of oil lamps. And at its center stood a canopy, twisting columns supporting a crystal roof. Beneath that sat a round table and a plain golden cup. Curving light spiraled upward from it, blazing through the crystal. I was an idiot. Everything had led me to this place. Not away from it. “That‟s the Source?”

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“That‟s the Source,” Tobias agreed. “A cup?” “Go closer.” My feet moved automatically. The fascinating rush and swirl of light drew me. It was beautiful, sparks and myriad colors bursting out to hang in the still, damp air. My boot stubbed the first marble stair, and I blinked. A ball of brilliant white light hovered within the cup, spinning and twisting. It caught my breath. I stared, leaning closer until the mist of light wreathed around me. Warm and smooth, a wash of peace, but it wasn‟t just light. Facets gleamed with it. So, a diamond? “Not exactly.” My heart stopped. I couldn‟t turn to look. “Blake?” Blake‟s warm hand closed around mine, pulling me from the mist, and I caught the faint, bitter burn of magic. I stared up at his bleak face. The wraith hissed a hot welcome across my shoulder blades, and a shiver caught me. His brow creased but then cleared. “It‟s a filter.” I forced myself to look back to the stemmed cup. The hard edges had softened to a blur of white again. “Filtering what?” His hand tightened, and he eased me away from the canopy. The heat of the wraith surged in lazy, disconcerting patterns across my shoulders. I made myself focus. “And how do you know what I‟m thinking?” He twitched a smile. “Leona, how could you forget?” “How did you get in here?” Tobias‟s knuckles showed white around his cane, his expression grim. “The same way as you. Knowledge brought us here. Though you acted more on instinct, on suppressed memory.” Blake stared up to the crystal dome, filled with glistening light. “And unlike you, I know where this place is.” Tobias snorted. “I think most senior magicians know where the Basilica is.”

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Blake straightened. “Really? So you know it‟s under the river.” Tobias stared at him. I pulled my hand free of Blake‟s, and with a parting pinprick of fire, the wraith faded. It cleared my mind. “You left the Council chamber?” It was an accusation; I couldn‟t help myself. He was my protector…and he‟d abandoned me. “I‟m not Tobias. Councillor Musgrove holds little charm for me.” “That‟s not an answer.” Blake shrugged. “I know.” I held back a curse. I was tired and hungry, and his nonchalance hurt. I turned away from him, and my gaze strayed to the stream of light, letting the rush of its almost mesmeric glow calm me. “Leona.” Blake‟s rough voice broke its spell. And it was a spell. “It‟s pure magic,” I murmured. “New magic.” I blinked. Yes, my books were woefully lacking. “There‟s an old magic?” Blake‟s laughter was harsh. “Oh yes.” His hand skimmed my jaw, the callous touch causing the wraith coiled in my chest to stretch, a flicker of flame scorching my breast. “Leona.” He let out a slow breath. “There is a way of doing things. A way I have followed for far too long.” I swallowed. “But?” “But.” He ran a finger over my bottom lip, barely touching. “The situation is very different this time.” The wraith‟s coiling body licked heat down across my stomach, curling with tiny, tender flickers of flame around my navel. “Blake…” The sharp strike of Tobias‟s steel-tipped cane against the stone echoed around the room. I jerked back from Blake‟s needed touch.

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“You can get a bed later,” Tobias said. “Right now, if I understand correctly, Leona must face a test.” Blake‟s jaw tightened. His eyes held mine. “Yes. Another one.” He turned away. “She has already passed the initial North Bank test, which was to find this place. But your games”—he stood before Tobias; I watched the magician lift his chin—“with the Council have forced me to move faster. There should have been time for her grow used to the wraith, to accept her choices with a clear mind.” They were talking about me as if I wasn‟t standing three feet away from them. “And what if I refuse? I‟m under the river, as insane as that sounds, and well beyond the reach of the Council.” “Yes.” Tobias‟s sharp smile sent my nerves skittering. I couldn‟t trust him. “She can do a deal with us.” “Tobias…” Blake‟s warning growl lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. “What? You‟re the only one to decide?” Tobias pointed his cane at the canopy, its tip tracing through an outer strand of light. “Magicians and the nulls have warred forever. Here is a woman who could bring peace. Leona”—my name was a velvet drawl—“take the cup. We can leave here with it. Then both sides of the river will have what they want. I‟ll move magic far away from the Council‟s precious technology.” I paused. “Why can‟t you take it?” Tobias let out a heavy breath. “I tried. Only someone who can truly control magic can pick up the cup. All magicians just direct the power, twist it, turn it. And only the Chosen can control it.” “Enough.” Blake cursed in a rough language. His words sparked a silver blaze beneath the crystal canopy. “How tempted are you by the promise of magic, Leona?” Being the focus of the two men stretched my aching nerves to snapping. “Right now, I‟d sell my soul for a decent meal.”

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Tobias tilted his head, and he leaned forward on his cane. A bright smile cut his handsome face. “Have I mentioned how well magicians eat?” I couldn‟t help the laugh, but I caught Blake‟s grim face and sobered. “What happens if I choose magic?” Blake paused. “Nothing.” “What?” He was not making any sense. “Nothing?” Blake ran a hand over his short hair and began to pace. “Candidates have fallen at this point. Tobias did.” “What are you talking about?” Tobias‟s cane stopped Blake midstride, hitting him square in the chest. “I was a candidate?” “Yes. A street kid from Beranin. As null as they come.” Blake paused, and the silence hung heavy. Tobias‟s jaw had tightened, and his shoulders tensed. Had Blake spoken the truth? “You came late to your powers, didn‟t you? Everyone, even you, had given up all hope of joining the guild. But then your family for generations were notorious nulls, shunned by every self-respecting magician—” “Fuck you.” Blake ignored the insult and carried on. “You were what, twenty…twenty-one when magic found you?” He paused, and his dark eyes gleamed. I recognized that raw hunger, and my gut twisted. Blake had fucked Tobias to create another candidate, for his body to accept the burn of a wraith. “Then your ability to direct magic shone, bright and clear, burning within you with so little effort.” His lips thinned, but the corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Sound familiar?” My head was spinning. Blake and Tobias. I didn‟t know how I felt, but Blake had obviously removed the other man‟s memories of their time together. “And he chose magic?” Blake let out a slow breath and pushed the cane from his chest. Tobias let him, obviously still in shock. “Right here. I‟m sorry, Tobias. You know this is the truth. There are closed memories within you. Their shapes sometimes push into your

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mind.” Blake snorted, but Tobias stepped back, shaking his head. “It‟s how you‟re here. Now. You chose new magic, wanted to bond with it, direct it. You weren‟t the one meant to be chosen. As you said, you can‟t truly control magic.” “Silence.” Tobias‟s voice, sharp and hard, made me jump. He struck his cane against the floor. “No one was with me when I found my way in here, when I tried to take the cup.” He shook his head again. “No, I would remember you—” Blake‟s laugh was sharp, bitter, and a loneliness lurked under his words. “No. You wouldn‟t. None of them do.” I bit my lip, wishing I could find somewhere quiet to think. The light caught me again, blocked the low muttering of the others. Magic. The promise of magic. With the twist of my fingers and a silent command, I could hold a flame in my palm, conjure a breeze, bend light. And if I took the lure, I would forget all about Blake. The promise of never knowing him, never remembering our time together… It was tempting. But something would always ache… The glowing streams wreathing around the columns of the canopy drew me closer. My gaze narrowed on the light. Was I imagining the darker flashes, moving, fading between the arcs of white? The darkness coalesced, and I found myself staring at buildings I seemed to know. A higgledy-piggledy tumble of red brick, spires, and stone porticos, with narrow alleys threading black through them. A drawing. They reminded me of a drawing in one of my books. I was looking at North Bank. The focus widened, dropped. And strangely, the scent of cold winter air, dust, traffic washed over me. A bitter blast burst out, knocked me back, and I stumbled and fell. Screams. Pain. Death. Over me. Around me. I fisted my hands in my tangled hair, denying the fierce sweep of human agony. “What the hell was that?” The room rumbled, and Blake swore in a language I understood. He swept his hand through the mists streaming from the canopy, and an image brighter than a tech-screen shone there.

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Bile rose in my throat, and I fought not to retch. I had seen it before. Seen it that morning. Gray-scarred ground, smoking rubble. “Where… where did it happen now?” Blake closed his eyes. “The Beranin Quarter.” “What have you done?” Tobias grabbed Blake and shoved him up against a carved black column. “You knew I once lived there. That my family still lives there.” Blake stayed still, calm. “It wasn‟t me.” “You spoke. The Source responded. My home was flattened.” Tobias‟s cane dug against Blake‟s windpipe. “Why?” Blake twisted his neck but didn‟t struggle. “The”—he swallowed—“the Dragon Lord has lost control.” Tobias barked a laugh. “The Dragon Lord is a myth.” I ripped my gaze from the devastation still burning in the mists that surrounded the columns. The world had just gone insane. “This is the end of the peace.” Tobias stared at me. “What?” “She‟s right,” Blake said. The magician growled and pulled back. He strode away, his hand a fist in his hair, his other hand bloodless around his cane. “So now you‟ve resolved your problem with our games.” I pushed myself onto my feet. “Someone else is doing this?” Blake rubbed at his throat. “Yes.” He stared at the too-sharp image of the devastation, and it began to fade. “You are my best candidate, Leona.” Anger burned through my gut. I was tired of his prevarication. “To do what?” “Replace him,” Blake said. “Replace the Sea-Dragon.”

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Chapter Fourteen I stared at him. What the hell was he talking about? “What?” “This is your choice.” Blake‟s stern face, his professional mask had found him again. “You and your choices,” I muttered. “It‟s what Tobias said.” I jabbed my hand at the man who stood staring at us. “The Sea-Dragon, the Dragon Lord, whatever, is a myth. It‟s ridiculous. No one rules the world from a golden throne.” Blake scratched his hand through his hair and blew out a slow breath. “I cannot make these decisions for you.” “Why? You seem to be running everything else.” “It‟s my job to create the candidates. Nothing more.” I turned away before I followed through with my increasing need to punch him. The obliteration of whole blocks of North Bank had changed everything. My city was already blaming the magicians for the destruction of the waterfront. Now this would be seen as retaliation. Both sides would clamor for retribution. The swirling light caught me again. I could do what Tobias asked. Take the cup, leave, remove magic… “Is that your choice?” Blake‟s voice burned through me. “Get out of my head.” I knew it was ineffectual, but I moved away, putting yards between us. If I removed magic, I would leave North Bank defenseless. Councillor Musgrove would have her dream. The North Bank would fall to her and her technological ambitions.

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And I could take it. Somehow I knew I could do that. Magic would be mine to control. I thrust my hands into my pockets and curled them into fists. I was about to make a mistake. A big stupid mistake. “The Dragon Lord? He lost control, how?” Blake‟s mouth twisted, and I knew he was ready to come out with his usual line. “I‟m your best candidate? Well, this time I want to be one that makes an informed decision.” Blake smoothed his still-immaculate tie. He began to unfasten and refasten the buttons of his jacket. His hands stopped. “He‟s ancient. The burden is too much now.” My mouth thinned. “What burden?” “Guarding us from the chaos of old magic.” “This is unbelievable.” Tobias strode back across the floor, grabbed my arm, and pulled me toward the canopy. “That is the Source of magic, not some old myth about dragons and chaos. Become a magician, Leona. Take it. Give the North Bank people a chance to live in peace somewhere else.” The temptation was there. Magic called to me. It always had. Was that a part of my being a candidate? “Wherever you go, it would start again.” I stared back at Blake. The mist-light formed unnatural shadows over his blunt face. “You‟d make certain of it, wouldn‟t you?” “Make your choice, Leona.” Blake‟s command sat heavy on me. Yes, I was about to make a big mistake. A huge one. “I‟ll replace him.” Something in Blake‟s expression changed, as if a deadness had settled on him. “Your choice is made?” I forced myself to nod. “That‟s what I said. If it stops both Banks launching into all-out war, then yes, I‟ll replace your Dragon Lord.”

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Blake held out his hand. His white gold ring glittered in the cast light, the carved image of a dragon rising up from the brilliant metal. “The choice is made.” At his words, the ball of shining light within the cup began to spin faster, flashes of scintillating white sparking into the air. “And the Dragon Lord has accepted your challenge.” I paused; my hand stopped in the act of reaching for his. “Challenge?” Blake frowned. “You have to prove that you are worthy—” “Wait. No one said anything about proving.” “Leona.” Blake growled my name, and I stared as my arm started to move. I willed it down but could only watch my fingers sliding into his warm hold. “What the…?” “You are bound to the choice you made.” “Now you tell me.” Tobias still stood on the steps leading up to the Source. His expression was glazed, even as he stared at us. He was slipping into the same shock that had consumed me this morning. I kept my voice soft. “Go help people, Tobias.” He rubbed his hands over his jaw, and it lifted his glazed expression. With a brief nod, he turned and broke into a run. The wall bulged. He was gone. “Come with me.” Blake led her to a plain stone arch that had not been there a moment before. “My way is slightly less disgusting.” “What have I got myself into?” He squeezed my hand. The caring gesture burned an ache in my chest that had nothing to do with the wraith. Yes, the man drove every emotion through me. I had to wonder if I‟d find any calm that day. “I should‟ve known you would be the one.” He stopped a few steps from the archway. There was only blackness beyond it.

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“The Dragon Lord is our guardian. He protects this reality from the chaos of old magic. Without him, there would be no order, no new magic, and no people who can live free of magic‟s influence.” He paused. “You have accepted the challenge.” Sarcastic words itched on my tongue. His speech sounded pompous, ridiculous. I forced down my comments, keeping them unsaid. My stomach had twisted into a tight knot. It was the fear that drove me to sarcasm, and I would not let it have power over me. Blake stepped forward. Blackness surged around me, pressed against my skin, down into my lungs with a taste of mud and rot. Endless seconds stretched, and I counted them in the rapid thud of my heart. I didn‟t think about my choice, only added it to the growing list of insane decisions I‟d made. If I stopped a war, it was enough. We emerged into a softly glowing, circular room. One I recognized. Yes, the gallery replica had been impressive. Organic lighting had been grafted onto the slime-smoothed walls at regular intervals, and with it came the stink of rotting vegetation. The floor was smooth and seamless. My boots sucked and pulled through sticky, glistening sludge as we made our way to the center of the room. Blake stopped at a tiled circle edged by a rail of carved black stone. He released my hand. Cold air washed away the warmth from my skin. I straightened my spine, my chin lifting, and pulled in a deep breath of icy, stinking air. I had made my choice, after all. Now I had to find a way to stay alive. On the far wall was a throne. Slippery steps led up to the gold-crusted stone chair, its high back, thick arms, and heavy canopy pushing out of the softened rock and into an intricate mold. A wizened old man in white, jewel-caked robes trimmed with a pale fur sat on the throne. His face was wrinkled, white, the skull pushing out against thinning skin and muscle.

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He was ancient, looked weak and decrepit. That had to be in my favor if I was to challenge him, though guilt twisted in my stomach at the thought of trying to best an old man. Meeting his gaze tightened the fist in my gut from guilt to unease. His eyes glittered black. Insane. Bony fingers drummed against the arm of the throne. The scrape of his nails on curiously dry stone echoed through the chamber. “So you are Leona Munro,” he stated in a thin, husky voice, craning his skinny neck to peer at me. “Obviously,” I said. Hell, everyone knew who I was; why shouldn‟t he? The Dragon Lord‟s body hunched forward, his fingers stretching into claws, which gripped the thickened arm ends of his throne. The old man‟s eyes were little more than black slits. “You will address us as Majesty. We are Alexander Inigo.” His gaze flicked to Blake. “This woman is your challenge to me?” He hacked up a laugh, and spittle coated his lips. “And you think I’m the one who‟s lost control.” Anger rose up through my blood. “You lost it just now. Scores of people are dead.” “I did not lose control—” And then he stopped. His grip on the stone loosened finger by finger, bits of grit and dust dribbling down onto the dais as if someone were pulling them away one by one. Alexander‟s ancient vertebrae cracked, echoing a hollow sound across the stinking chamber. His back slowly straightened, and he pushed himself up against his throne. “So this is her.” I blinked. Another voice, another personality had manifested in Alexander. What the hell…? A ripple of air passed over the throne, and the hunched old man faded. Strong hands gripped the arms of the chair. The jewelled vestments sparkled and shaped themselves to the lean torso of a much younger man.

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“I think I did well.” Alexander leaned back and crossed his legs. His dark head tilted. “Have you had fun with my wraith yet?” Heat flooded my cheeks. He obviously knew more than just my name. “That would be a yes.” A smiled twitched over his firm mouth. “Surprised, Blake?” Blake frowned. “What have you done?” “Leona.” He ignored Blake‟s question and pushed himself to his feet. He padded down the few steps to the chamber floor, but his boots, unlike mine, didn‟t sink into the sucking mud. “Blake here likes to keep his secrets. It‟s only been a day, but you must have noticed that already.” I kept my answer to a nod, not trusting myself to speak. “Did he tell you what the wraith was for?” I shook my head. “Mute? That must be fun for you, Blake. Finally found someone who likes to talk less than you do?” Blake‟s hands clenched into fists. “Alexander. What have you done?” The Dragon Lord circled them, his long white robes drifting in a soft rush above the filth of the floor. “How long have I ruled here, Blake?” He snorted. “Ruled. Don‟t let him make you think that you have any power down here, Leona. So.” He stopped in front of Blake and gripped the stone rail hard. His knuckles showed white. “How long?” “Three millennia.” “Three thousand six hundred and twenty-seven years, to be exact. Oh, and ninety-eight days, three hours, twelve minutes, forty-nine seconds.” He grinned. Sharp white teeth flashed. “But, then, who‟s counting?” His expression hardened. “Certainly not you.” “I gave you a choice.” “Ah, your infamous choices. I know you‟ve encountered those too, Leona.”

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He reached out to touch my face, tracing a slow path down my cheek to stop at my chin. Beside me, Blake stiffened. “Going to stop me?” Alexander focused on me, and the shine I found there panicked my heart. “I can feel my wraith within her.” His voice dropped low, smooth. “What did he tell you this was?” I swallowed in a dry mouth. “A mark.” “So you do speak. A mark?” He tutted and shook his head. “Samuel Blake and his understatement.” His finger continued to trace a path down the contours of my throat. So light a touch, it itched my skin. There was a responding hiss from my wraith, the traitorous beast reacting to the man‟s touch as easily as Blake‟s. “It‟s more than a mark, but you already know that.” He skimmed the collar of my shirt. “It‟s ancient, almost as old as the first magic. It‟s a creature formed to bind.” His touch dropped lower to tease the curve of my breast. Blake‟s hand shot out…but stopped short of grabbing Alexander‟s wrist. “Stop right there.” The Dragon Lord laughed. “Tell her who it was meant to bind.” Blake‟s lips thinned, whitened. His arm dropped back to his side, but he said nothing. I slapped Alexander‟s hand away and found my voice. “Me?” Alexander shook his head. “Us. The fire of the wraith binds our souls, and the power of the Dragon Lord passes to you.” “Us?” I stared up at Blake, but he didn‟t meet my gaze. “But it—” I stopped. Too-vivid images made me speak the words, the memory of how the wraith moved through my flesh. I thought it had been forming a bond with Blake. It hadn‟t. It was meant for the Dragon Lord. “It would force me to sleep with you.” “Not force.” Alexander swayed, and his face grew pale. He staggered up the steps to his throne. “You would find me—” The air rippled, and the man in the chair

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hunched and withered again. He cackled from a broken-toothed mouth. “Irresistible.” I wiped a grubby hand over my face. “This is insane.” The old Alexander jabbed a skeletal finger at his chest. “But we fooled Blake. We haven‟t guarded old magic without learning a few little tricks. The wraith we released is not meant for us.” Blake closed his eyes. “It‟s meant for me.” The old man laughed until his lungs hacked up tearing coughs. His head fell back against the high back, and he let himself breathe. “Yes. You cannot take my power. It‟s mine. Mine through eternity—” His spine arched, and the younger Alexander flowed back. “Three millennia ago you set us all on this path, all of humanity. You made the choice. And it was the wrong one. I‟m setting it right.” His mouth turned with a sharp smile. “I‟m forcing you to make the choice, Blake.” Alexander closed his eyes, and color bloomed over his skin. His head fell forward. “My other self grows more insane every day.” He looked up. “Is this what you want for her? For magic to fracture her soul and have the act of being a dam, a block to the wild power of magic, scorch her brain. Do you want her to learn to hate you down through the centuries?” “Create another wraith.” Blake‟s cold voice sent a shiver over my skin. Yes, I was nothing but a pawn to this man. And he would bind me to Alexander as easily as he had bound me to my choice. “And I thought she meant something to you.” “I have to do what is right.” Blake lifted his jaw, and I felt the hardness of his determination. “In that I have no choice.”

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“Do what is right…” Alexander mused. “In your long life, how many people have you let die, Blake? How many have you stood beside and let life bleed out of them?” The coil of anger uncurled in Blake. It was there in the color heightening his skin, the hard set of his jaw. “The wraith. There isn‟t time for this.” Alexander focused on me. “Do you know how close you were to dying today?” I couldn‟t help a sudden burst of sarcasm. The whole situation was insane. I had no idea what he was talking about. “At which point?” Alexander‟s mouth twitched. “Funny. This morning. When a warehouse should have fallen on you?” His dark eyes drilled me. The power pulsed through him, and I could almost smell the sharp burn of magic. He was telling the truth. I could feel that too. “You should have died.” “Alexander…” The Dragon Lord didn‟t flicker at Blake‟s low growl. “He protected you from the falling debris. He healed you. He gave you a piece of his own soul. The only magic left to him. And in that moment”—he looked away from me to Blake—“she was already half-bound to you. And you to her. My wraith was designed for that connection.” He laughed and picked at his nail. “Your stink is all over her, and yet still, you would gift her to me. Let me do whatever I want to that sweet body—” “Like hell,” I muttered. Blake clamped a hand to my arm, stopping me from leaping the rail and taking my fists to Alexander‟s smug face. I stopped. The disgust and anger were mine. The rage—the rage was Blake‟s. “Ah, I thought as much.” Alexander pushed himself up. He was slower, and there was a shake to his hands. “You watched her too intently. It gave me hope.”

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I was confused. I was tired, hungry, and wanted to know what the hell was going on. “Hope for what?” Alexander sank down onto the steps, his robes floating down around him. “I‟m tired of fighting the insane old man that shares my body. I‟m tired of having a surge of power eating at the base of my brain. And I‟m three-and-a-half-thousand years old.” He snorted. “I‟m just tired.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “You would wish this on someone you cared for?” Blake straightened, but his hand didn‟t leave my arm. His fingers flexed against my arm. “I did what was right.” “You ran from your responsibility.” Alexander‟s voice had thinned, and his skin paled to a cracked gray. Blake started forward. “Alexander, what are you doing?” “Stay back!” He waved his arm. There was a faint hiss, and the ground around the dais fell away to blackness. “I‟m still lord here.” His skin splintered. My hand clamped to my mouth to stop the rise of bile. In the soft glow of the lights, his other ancient face pushed against Alexander‟s skin. I swallowed. “What‟s he doing?” “Killing himself.” Blake gripped the rail. “Damn it, Alexander, return to your throne. This is the way it has to be.” The Dragon Lord shook his head. “No.” He slumped, his gaze fixed on the golden chair only a few feet away. “Your throne is empty.” He choked a laugh, and his eyes closed. His voice dropped, but his final words echoed. “Make your choice. One of you must occupy the throne, or magic will consume the world. So Blake, it‟s you—or her.”

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Chapter Fifteen I stared as the Dragon Lord‟s body crumbled to ash on the steps. A low rumble and the ash caved, a puff of gray drifting down into the pit surrounding the throne. My heart kicked. My instinct screamed that Alexander‟s threat was real. With no one sitting on the Dragon Lord‟s throne, wild, untamed magic would destroy everything. I didn‟t question my surety. I grabbed the barrier circling the pit. “Get me to that throne.” “No.” Blake blocked me from climbing onto the rail. “Idiot! Your guardian is dead.” Another low rumble reverberated through the curved room vibrating through the metal. I lurched, fighting to keep myself upright. “Whatever he protects is free.” “I can‟t let you—” I shoved him to one side. “You might let people die. I don‟t.” The gaping hole between the dais and the throne was under two yards. I could jump it. I scrambled onto the rail, and before Blake could react, I jumped. “Leona!” I crashed against the steps, the ash of the former Dragon Lord coating me and billowing into the air. My feet slid, slipped, and took my knees out from under me. I hit the stone, and winded, I rolled. I scrambled to stop my fall and tried to dig my fingers into the loose mortar. My legs swung off the last step, the momentum taking my hips, my chest over the endless, gaping darkness. My fingers found cracked stone, and the muscles in my arms strained. But I wasn‟t falling. Yes, another stupid decision in the life of Leona Munro.

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I snorted. My hands curled into stiff claws, and I heaved my body up. I pressed my forehead to the cold, grit-thick stone and listened to the heavy pounding of my heart ease, trying to get my wits straight. With a deep breath, I crawled onto my knees. I didn‟t look back. “Leona, what the hell did you do that for?” “Because you wouldn‟t.” The room began to shudder. Five more steps and I climbed to my feet and stood before the golden throne. Well, I‟d always wanted to dabble in magic. Taking a deep breath, I turned and sat on the golden throne of the Sea-Dragon. Stillness enveloped the chamber. I put my hands on the arms and shaped my fingers to the ornate carvings. Blake stared at me. His look of loss, of defeat tightened my chest. This was my choice. The only choice I could make. I would not see the world blasted by wild magic, not if I could stop it. And really, it wasn‟t so bad— My spine arched. The pain hit. A scorching surge of white-hot fire shot through my bones. In reflex, my hands clung to the stone arms of the throne. I thought I screamed. Agony seared my flesh. The choking stink of it enveloped me. No, not my skin. It was the rank odor of magic. Filling me, staining me, and with it came the insatiable need of magic to be free. I clamped my will on it. My teeth gritted and I forced the magic back, squashing it, containing it. I was a firsthand witness to old magic‟s destructive power. It would not break free. Not through me. The pain twisted, bursting hot against my skull. I gasped. Not pain. Information. In an instant, I knew everything. Everything. And something in me died.

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I blew out a hot breath, and the ache in my bones faded away. Tears wet my skin. Yanking my stiff hand from the arms of the throne, I stretched my fingers and wiped at my face. Tobias was right. Ignorance had been my shield. “Leona.” The pit had closed, and Blake stood on the bottom stair, his hands fists at his side. “You shouldn‟t—” “Get out, Blake.” He closed his eyes and took one step closer to the throne. Sweat stained his forehead. “No.” “Look at me,” I commanded. His dark eyes fixed on me. The hollow turn of my stomach forced nausea. I shouldn‟t feel betrayed by him, but I did. “Your creation is safe.” More tears burned my eyes. “You are safe.” “I didn‟t mean for this to happen.” “Liar.” I slapped the stone, and the dull sound echoed around the chamber. “Alexander was right. You created this place, the Sea-Dragon, the Source, hell, my home, all so that you could run away.” “It‟s not that simple.” “It is that simple.” Again I saw what he was, the shell of a man covering the terrifyingly beautiful beast-shape of something ancient and primeval. “You created a choice for yourself, when there should have been none.” Blake took another step toward me. His skin flushed. His strength of will drove him forward; I could taste it. “I was scared,” he said. “To accept meant losing control, losing what I was and becoming”—he shrugged and planted his feet on the next wide stair—“I don‟t know what.” “So you dammed old magic and forced it to fracture.” Another step brought him onto the throne‟s dais. “Yes.” He stared down at me. “It created nulls and magicians—” “And three thousand years of hatred.” Blake closed his eyes. “That too.”

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He dropped to his knees, his head bowed. So close that I could reach out and touch his face. My hand itched to move, to stroke through his dark hair, but I stilled it. We could never touch. Not anymore. And that pain hurt more than the old magic burning at the base of my skull, hurt more than his betrayal. He was a part of me I could never have again. “I told you to get out, Blake.” He looked up. A wry smile tugged at his mouth, and I felt the shape of his determination. “No,” he said. He leaned forward. He gripped the throne, and light sparked beneath his hands. Pain flickered across his face. “What are you—” The wraith snapped fire across my chest, licking flames down to my belly. I gasped. The creature within me recognized his intent. But he couldn‟t touch me. If Blake touched the Dragon Lord, his escape was over. He would assume the throne he‟d run from for over three thousand years. I swallowed. He was so close that I could chase my fingertip across his jaw. I didn‟t. He didn‟t want the responsibility. “Blake, you should leave. Touching the throne with me sat on it doesn‟t commit you to this life. Touching me would. Don‟t pretend that‟s what you want.” My fingers curled until my nails dug into my palms. “With you, I have never had to pretend.” And Blake covered my mouth with his. He tasted of the sea, his tongue flickering, teasing. I slid my hand to the back of his head, pressing his mouth harder to mine. I closed my eyes, the feel, the touch of him wanted and right. I‟d only been away from him for a few hours, but with him kissing me again, it felt like forever. The wraith flared between us, curling, binding, firing our need. I slid down, desperate to have more of him. The edge of the throne dug into my spine, and I winced. Blake pulled back, and his liquid black eyes held me. I felt the turn of his thoughts, though they were still murky. I didn‟t know what he planned. The uncertainty made my laugh wry. “Thrones are not made for sex.”

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A real smile creased his face, and I couldn‟t help myself. My finger traced over his lips. What was he doing? Touching me broke the first of the barriers he had erected between himself and old magic. He was opening the way to wild, free magic, negating the choice I‟d made. “Time to change position, then.” “Blake—” But before I could stop him, he had taken my place on the throne. For three heartbeats, his face twisted in agony. An echo of it ran through my body, and instinct made me reach for him. I stroked his jaw, the fire of the wraith at my fingertips. His pain eased under my touch, and Blake opened his eyes. I held his gaze, and the liquid black of his irises bore rings of golden flame. Around him, the image of Blake as a man flickered. Great wings spread out, arcing over the golden throne, and the lazy sweep of his tail mesmerised me. My heart in my throat, I ran a fingertip along the ivory curve of the horn jutting from his left temple. In some of the older spells, the ones that needed ingredients to direct the flow of magic, a dragon horn was a rare and precious thing. It held great power. Blake closed his eyes and sucked in a quick breath. “Not power.” I bit back a smile and slid my palm over the smooth ivory and stroked my hand down and up. My thumb teased the sharp point, and Blake‟s breath hitched. “It‟s an erogenous zone.” “Leona…” His low growl excited the wraith within me, and I straddled him, my calves and knees jammed against the hard stone of the throne. He caught my wrist and eased my hand away. “Don‟t.” I smirked at him. “I can‟t play with your horns?” Blake‟s mouth twitched, and his other hand slipped over my waist to my hip. “You really just said that, didn‟t you?” “You have horns. Of course I‟m going to make horn jokes.”

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He pulled my wrist down and threaded his fingers through mine. He watched the play of his fingertips against the back of my hand, wraith-heated points of fire meeting each light press. “I didn‟t mean for any of this to happen, Leona.” He glanced up, and I couldn‟t read his eyes. “I never meant for you to be a candidate.” My heart tightened and didn‟t ease as a bleak smile cut his mouth. “I watched bloodlines, encouraged meetings to continue the lack of affinity with new magic. But you…” He looked at me, looked beyond me, and I felt his thoughts, his memories moving, seeing me stride across the swing bridge, heading for work, telling tall tales to half-interested school children in the recreation of a steam-age ship, in the smoky dive packed with nulls and the sparkle of a magician. His feelings flowed with them, a want, a need, and something more. Something even he hadn‟t wanted to recognize. “I watched your life. I wanted you.” He focused on me. “Alexander was right. You should have died this morning, but I gave you a part of myself to keep you alive. I couldn‟t let you go.” The why burned in his thoughts. It was more than lust. For him, it always had been. I hugged him close, my face buried in his neck. He stroked my hair and pressed a kiss there. “I wasn‟t meant to love anyone.” I closed my eyes, my heart caught in painful thuds. “Who decided that?” “It was easier. Less complicated.” His hand stroked down my spine in a slow, even rhythm, the wraith a languid heat under his touch. “But now, I couldn‟t live any other way.” I pulled myself straight. His ascendancy wasn‟t yet complete. Magic was still fractured, and he had to heal that division. We had to. I was a part of him. “What will happen, Blake?” “I don‟t know.” He focused on my mouth, and a tendril of wraith-fire licked around my breast. I sucked in a quick breath. Blake‟s fingers tightened against my hip. “But I couldn‟t leave you as the Dragon Lord.” He pushed back my hair from

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my face. “I‟ve accepted what I must do. Not touching you again. That would be worse.” “Oh, smooth.” His grin was wicked. “Wasn‟t it?” His finger followed the line of my throat and flicked open the first button of my shirt. “Our wraith is waiting.” He opened another button, brushing my clavicle, edging over the curve of my breast. The wraith followed his touch with liquid fire. He pushed through a third button. “What to do next…” He pressed light kisses to my skin, the wraith curling, twisting across the curve of my breasts. I closed my eyes, letting the wraith and his mouth pulse pleasure down, down…to where Blake‟s fingers were waiting. His magical ability to strip away my clothes had not deserted him, and I found myself quite suddenly naked. I bit back a laugh. “That was not so smooth.” His brow lifted. “Complaining?” He urged me closer over his hair-roughened legs, his cock pressing up against my mons. Chilled air brushed my skin, but I didn‟t shiver. Blake radiated heat. His clever, stroking touch found sensitive flesh, slipping between my folds to tease my clitoris. “No, not complaining.” I groaned, my arms sliding across his shoulders and pressing him into my chest. His cool, addictive scent threaded through my senses. I shifted closer, aching to have him again. Wraith-sparked fire spat behind my eyes as his wings swept around us, protecting me from the cold air. The brush of his satin wings against my bare spine pulled a soft moan from me. My forehead fell against his chin, and his rapid breaths matched the quick thud of my heart. I had to have him now. The magic demanded it. But it wasn‟t just the magic. I closed my fingers around the smooth strength of his cock, my voice low as I moved over him. “You have a choice, Blake.”

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“No.” He groaned, and strong hands lifted me, easing me over his body. “I don‟t.” Holding his gaze, seeing the fierce surge of magic, his need, and his love, I slid down onto him. “What are you, Blake?” “I‟m yours.” His words burned through me, bringing tears and a deep, aching joy. He was mine. I was his. And the fire of the wraith spiraled white and hot between us, twisting, sharing, binding our souls together. His past, my past swirled between us. The flash of magic seared over our flesh in a violent wave, and I couldn‟t fight it. It burned faster. And faster. It brought with it the promise of unity, of healing, and of us being together. Always. I couldn‟t breathe, the glory of what we could become shining through my mind. So close, I was so close my blood thrummed. There was no finesse. I wanted only for us to fuck and find our release, for it to be wild and free. Just like the magic churning around us. With a grin, I found Blake‟s mouth as I rode him, swallowing his groans. His hands gripped my hips, urging me faster. His tail—by all that was unholy—his tail slipped over my backside, teasing my puckered hole and dancing sparks through my body. Orgasm flickered at the edge of my senses. I was so close, close enough to taste the wild power of my release, just there on the edge of my flesh. “Leona.” The soft vibration of his voice in my mind arched my spine, and it brought with it a final rush of fire searing through me. I broke from his mouth and cried out, my voice echoing across the chamber as I lost myself in the violent surge of joy and freeing magic. And magic twisted, the wraith and the power bound to the throne, spiraling fresh sensation until I wanted to scream. Blake. It was Blake. He needed to let go. “Come for me. Please.”

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With a shuddering groan, he buried his face in my neck and let the joy and the magic take him. I stroked the arch of his wing, the smooth, taut skin and the hardness of the bone beneath a new experience. His wings drew back, and I missed the warmth of them. I pressed a kiss to his jaw, and Blake‟s arms tightened around me for a brief moment before he relaxed. A slow, soft silence surrounded us now, the earth quiet and at peace in a way I had never felt before. Blake let out a slow breath. “Can you feel it? It‟s healed.” I stared at him. “What?” He laughed. I blinked. He had never laughed before. “Did I distract you from the reason why we were having sex? Want to play with my wings again?” I grinned at him. “Maybe.” The lightness filled me, and then I knew what he was talking about. “Magic‟s healed.” “Yes.” “And that means…?” He lifted his palm and narrowed his gaze there. A silver stream of fire danced across his fingers, twisting, flickering until it faded, leaving behind the faint hint of ozone. Blake‟s smile was to himself. “Oh, that‟s different.” “You had magic before.” He shook his head. “No. I didn‟t. I had limited control of my dragon form, had to pull at my soul to perform magic. That was where my magic came from. This is something completely different. Not directed, but living within me.” He lifted my palm. “Now you try.” I stared at my hand and thought about seeing a sprig of flame. Silver edged my vision, and with a faint pop, a sliver of pale fire tickled my palm. I started, yelped, curled my fingers and extinguished the brief flame. Blake laughed. “The Council and the guild masters are not going to be happy.” He held his palm over mine and laced his own magic through me. The sensation thrummed in

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my blood. Unconsciously, I tightened my thighs, and the hardness of his cock fired fresh desire through my flesh. “And I think we should find somewhere more comfortable.” “"That would be…better.” I slid down from his lap and stared around the chamber. The floor had solidified to a smooth, hard-packed earth, and the damp walls still glowed with the organic lights. But the throne had faded, the gold dulling to gray sand. “Magic‟s free, free for anyone to use, to control.” I spread my fingers through the air and conjured an image of Beranin. Gray clouds parted to reveal the scarred earth, and my heart twisted. But Blake had repaired some of the damage he‟d caused through fracturing magic by making magic whole. The people of that district now had full access to magic. Already people had learned of their new gift as they lifted rubble, healed the injured, dampened down fires. I saw Tobias, his beautiful suit stained with grit, his arms stretched out, his face fierce. He poured streams of magic into strengthening a crumbling tenement. I could see the difference in him, how his being touched by Blake had transformed him from an ordinary user of magic into something incredible. “Yes, he is,” Blake murmured. “The need for magic is a strong burn in him.” He stroked a light caress down my bare spine. “Now he‟s almost a perfect vessel for it.” “Any more candidates I should be made aware of?” Sharing the throne with him, sharing his mind, I knew every candidate Blake had tried to turn into the next Dragon Lord. But I didn‟t feel a threat from any of them. He pressed a kiss to my shoulder. “All fall away in comparison to you.” “I like you.” I grinned. “I may even keep you.” I faded the image of Beranin and widened my search, spreading out over the river. I snorted as I saw people on the tube staring in disbelief as an old woman conjured a lithe and very naked young man out of thin air.

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A flick of my fingers took me to Clair Musgrove‟s sleek office high in a spindled tower of the Council chambers. A blaze of white fire churned around her large desk, and through the maelstrom, I saw her, her body stiff in terror, her hands clawed to her chair. Light and fire sparked from her screaming mouth. Oh, the free magic simply loved her. And it had spread beyond the river, beyond the North and South Banks, sweeping around the whole world, touching, living in everyone. Just as it always should have. I pulled in a breath and cleared the image. “The guild masters will be busy. So much free magic. So many new magicians who need rules to follow.” I gave Blake a wry smile as he took my hand and I squeezed his. “I see Councillor Musgrove is not enjoying her newfound skill.” Blake grinned at me. “Not my problem. Not today.” “And us, Blake? What do we do?” He brought my hand to his lips. No wraith fired my body. I didn‟t need it. Not anymore. I was bound to him body and soul. And he to me. “So you want me to give you answers?” I pulled him across the floor to the stone archway, my laughter echoing. “New life, new rules, Blake. I get answers.” He snorted. “You‟re not the Dragon Lord.” “Not exactly.” Had he forgotten that I shared his soul? That now I was what he was? I waved my hand over my face and called on our power. It surged through my blood, ancient and consuming, dropping the flesh I had worn all of my life. And I knew what he had seen by his sudden back step. The beast shape, the dragon with vast wings, a tail at my command, and overly sensitive horns, writhed before him before magic settled it and I wore the shape as my body. “But is this dragon enough for you?” Blake shook his head and laughed, pulling me into his arms. “Life just got interesting, didn‟t it?”

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I grinned at him, my tail wrapping around his bare thigh. The blunted end tapped his hip. “Like you wouldn‟t believe.”

Loose Id Titles by Kim Knox Shapes in the Blood Touch of a Dragon

Kim Knox Kim lives on an ancient boundary line, once marked by a Neolithic burial tomb. The tomb's now a standing stone circle—thank the Georgians for that one— and stirs her mind with thoughts of history and ancient myths. She mixes the essence of the past into fantasy, along with the essential mix of magic and sex. She also writes science fiction romance, pushing out into the far future with effortlessly sexy men and the women who can't resist them. Kim is multipublished. Check her out at http://www.kim-knox.co.uk, or come and chat at her blog: www.darknessandromance.wordpress.com