Chapter 18
Blaze stared at him. “Where did you get that?”
His eyes never left her face. “You know where.”
Off her workroom floor, after it had burst into flames. But it wasn’t burned now.
“Why did you take it?” she asked.
“I saw you working your spell. I was in it.”
“You were spying on me?”
He shrugged, a small smile hovering around his lips. “I was breaking into your house, remember? Of course I was spying on you. What I want to know is, why did I come up in a card reading you were doing?”
Blaze snapped, “Maybe because you were about to break into my house?”
“It’s more than that,” Zane said. He nodded at the idol in her hand. “Whatever is going on with that idol, I’m connected to it. I have a right to know what it is.”
“You have no right to anything of mine,” she said. “Including secrets and information. You broke into my house and stole from me.”
“I gave it back,” he pointed out, giving her a smile and a ‘don’t I get points for cuteness?’ look.
No. He did not. She couldn’t let his overwhelming hotness make her let her guard down. “Only because you want something else from me. That being the case, it might be a good plan to start by saying you’re sorry for breaking in and stealing my idol. And smashing my window.”
The smile widened. “You wouldn’t want me to start our relationship out by lying to you, would you?”
“We don’t have a relationship.”
He held the card out to her again and said softly, “You don’t think so? You saw me in your spell.” He took a deep breath. “And I’ve seen you in my dreams. For almost as long as I can remember.”
That stopped her breath. Once again she saw the tumble of memories and sensations that had washed through her mind when he kissed her.
I’ve seen you in my dreams…
They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment. Then he asked, “Who was the other man in the vision? And how is he linked to the idol?”
She said quietly, “His name is Silas Turner. I stole the idol from him. One day soon, he’s going to come and try to take it back. And then I’m going to kill him, if he doesn’t kill me first.”
Zane’s dragon roared inside him. It was all he could do not to Change right there where he was standing—and then go find this Silas dirtbag and turn him into a pile of charred bones.
“You’re not going to die,” he said. She looked taken aback at the ferocity in his voice.
“I doubt you can stop it, and I doubt even more that you’ll try,” she said.
“Maybe I can stop it,” he said. “Maybe that’s why I was in your vision.”
She didn’t say anything, just rubbed her thumb absently over the idol, as if she were thinking. Then she seemed to realize what she was doing, and he saw a shudder pass through her body. She stuffed the idol into her clutch bag and snapped it shut.
“Look,” he said. “If I help you with the idol, with this Silas guy, will you let me look at the Dragonfly of Morocco? Just look at it.”
She studied him. “Why is it so important?”
He hesitated, not knowing what to say. How could he possibly make her understand? He looked at her, clutching her purse with that damned evil idol in it. He could tell she hated it, but she was keeping it away from this Silas dude.
He’d worried at first she was a dark sorceress, but he knew now she wasn’t. She’d taken on three dragons just to get this thing back in her vault where it couldn’t do any damage.
He said, “You think Turner is going to take the idol and hurt a lot of people with it, right?”
She nodded.
“And you’re willing to risk your life to stop that from happening?”
She gave a tiny shrug, looking away. “If I have to.”
His heart surged with pride. She was amazing, brave as well as powerful. She cared about doing the right thing.
“Okay,” he said. “I get that. My brothers and I—we’re also trying to prevent something from happening that will hurt a lot of people. And the Dragonfly might be able to help us stop it. All I have to do is look at it, maybe touch it. If it’s what we think it is, we’ll give you a fair price for it. Hell, we’ll give you whatever you want.” He paused. “And whether it is or not, I’ll help you fight off this Silas person, when he comes.”
She studied him, her eyes looking deeply into his. He wondered what she was seeing. He saw a hundred years of dream-memories. Love and laughter and joy and tears.
“Okay,” she said. “Come to my house tomorrow night. At seven. You can tell me about this mini-apocalypse you’re trying to stop, and I’ll decide if you can see the Dragonfly.”
He nodded. It was a chance. That was all he could hope for. “Thank you.”
She nodded back. He stepped aside, and watched her walk into the house. As she disappeared through the French doors, he called after her, “I wish I could say I’m sorry I broke into your house, but I’m not.” He paused. “After all, I got to kiss you.”
She froze in her tracks for a moment, then started walking again. “Yeah,” she called over her shoulder. “Try that tomorrow, and I’ll shove you out the window again. And this time I’ll make sure you go splat on the patio.”
A worthy mate, his dragon said again.
Yep. All he had to do was convince her that he was one, too.
“It isn’t there,” Rebel said.
She still wasn’t used to talking to a magical projection of a dark wizard. And he was a dark wizard, no matter what he or Jack tried to tell her.
All she had to do was look at Jack, hanging in the air like a marionette in his crappy living room, eyes open and staring at nothing, a black hole in his chest where this motherfucker projected himself through from whatever hell he inhabited. No one but a dark wizard would use another person that way.
Rebel was in way over her head here. She should never have listened to fucking Jack Harper when he was on drugs. And now he was a puppet and she was face to face with a dude with a black robe, with a face that looked like it had been mauled by a rabid raccoon, and a dangerous obsession with a golden idol.
“It has to be there!” the wizard snarled. “I have not come this far to be thwarted now. I paid you to find the artifact—”
Rebel interrupted him. “I went back in the house. I looked in the vault. The box is there, but the idol isn’t. I also looked in the artifact room and her magic room. And in her bedroom. I couldn’t search every nook and cranny in the whole goddamn house while she was out at a party. She could have sold it. Given it away. Put it in a bank vault. This job is a bust. I’m out.”
The figure of the sorcerer grew very still, his eyes dark and deadly. “You’re not out until I say you’re out. I have my hand on your pathetic boyfriend’s heart, and I could kill him with a thought. So listen carefully to what I require of you now.”
Rebel listened as the sorcerer issued his orders. When he was through, he disappeared back through the hole in Jack’s chest. Jack crumpled to the floor, heaving in his breath with a great gasp, his chest intact again.
He got weaker every time.
He might be a useless good-for-nothing addict who she’d fallen out of love with a long time ago, but he still didn’t deserve this.
She got Jack some water and helped him onto the couch, putting a blanket over him.
Then she left, thinking hard.
She didn’t like the sound of the sorcerer’s final plan, but she didn’t see that she had much of a choice. The gloves were off. He wasn’t even pretending to be a good guy anymore.
If he turned on Rebel, Tempest could get caught in the crossfire.
There was nothing Rebel wouldn’t do to protect her sister. And as far as tough decisions went, throwing an evil rogue sorceress under the bus wasn’t even in the top ten.