My Forbidden Desire (16 page)

He glanced at her and while he did, she looked past him into her living room. Through some trick of the light, the interior looked oddly gray and empty.

“Stay put,” he said.

Knife in hand, Xia went inside. Geez. It was like he vanished into the gray. A moment later, he appeared in her line of sight, light on his feet despite his clunky black boots. While she stared inside, normal fell away. Her throat closed up, and she quivered with the certainty that she and Xia should never have come inside the apartment. Ice swarmed up and down her spine. Something was in her apartment. Something dangerous. “Xia!” she called out.

He turned his head and looked right at her. His gaze burned neon blue and connected with hers with the disorienting dizziness of last night. “Run,” he said.

Chapter 12

A
lexandrine dropped the rest of her bags at the same time she saw a twisted quasi-human form leap at Xia’s back. Light as air, Xia turned. He moved with a dancer’s grace as his arm slashed upward. The man—animal? Thing?—who’d thrown himself at Xia screamed and hit the floor in a boneless heap. With sickening horror, Alexandrine realized Xia had killed his attacker and was turning to a second intruder with the same fluid grace. She didn’t need to see more. Heart pounding in her chest, she bolted.

She didn’t get far. At the top of the stairwell, she collided with a hard body. The impact sent her reeling backward, but a large man caught her by the shoulders and kept her upright.

“Whoa there,” he said.

She looked into Durian’s face, and her stomach turned. There hadn’t been any warning. None at all.

“Are you all right?” His fingers tightened on her shoulders. A lovely, slow smile curved his mouth. “Is there a fire somewhere?”

“Let go of me.” She whipped away, scrambling to get her backpack around to the front so she could grab her phone. He didn’t release her. “I said let go.”

“Rasmus doesn’t want you hurt,” he said. He smiled again, but there was something off about it. Something unreal. Unsettling. “If something’s wrong, maybe I can help. I can protect you from Xia.”

She didn’t like him touching her. Her skin flashed cold, and the talisman, swear to God, she felt it moving. Her belly crawled with the sensation. Alexandrine used her backpack as a weapon. He didn’t even grunt when her heavy, can-filled pack hit him. He got a hand on one of the shoulder straps and yanked her pack from her hands. So fast she didn’t see him move, his hand curled around her throat, his fingers digging into the back of her neck, his thumb pressing on her windpipe.

“It won’t take much for me to kill you,” he said. This time, he didn’t try to hide his eyes or the malevolence in them. “Don’t think I can’t, witch. I know a hundred ways to kill you with a twist of my hands. Rasmus doesn’t want you hurt, but he understands reality sometimes intervenes with his wishes. I have dispensation for circumstances such as that, little witch.”

Alexandrine went still.

“Much better.” He walked her backward, toward her open apartment door, scooping up her backpack on the way. “Inside, Ms. Marit, if you please.” Durian pushed her inside and shut the door after them. Her backpack landed on the floor with a thud. He released her throat and spun her around with his forearm jammed underneath her chin. His other hand held her wrists behind her back. He pulled back hard enough to threaten her air supply.

“Thank you, Durian,” said an accented voice. Two bodies lay on the floor, and they were dead; there was no question of that. She smelled blood and something acrid underneath. But the room was so crazy wrong with light and color she couldn’t tell if one of the bodies was Xia.

Durian turned her toward the kitchen. Where her television used to be, Xia had a tall platinum-blond man pinned to the wall. His arm seemed to have stopped its downward thrust just in time. Despite the knife at this throat, Rasmus Kessler was unruffled. “If Xia does not release me,” her father said, “terminate her, Durian.”

Durian’s arm tightened around her throat. “With pleasure.”

Rasmus lifted his hands. Everything about him shouted rich as all get-out, from his suit and tie to the heavy gold ring on his thumb. The faceted red stone flashed in the light. Impossible as it was chronologically, the mage looked about thirty, maybe thirty-five, with hair the exact same color as hers. His eyes were blue, though. Not brown like hers. “Alexandrine Marit, you see I am defenseless.”

“Fuck you, Rasmus,” Xia said. His body trembled. He looked at Alexandrine. “Don’t believe a word he says.”

Rasmus Kessler smiled, and the effect wasn’t at all pleasant. “Durian. Proceed.”

Xia lowered his knife and took a step back from the wall. He didn’t look very happy about it, either. Rasmus straightened his coat and moved forward. Particles of gray dislodged from the wall and trickled to the floor. Everything around them was gray. A strong scent of ashes hung in the air. Her living room was more or less empty. The walls and floor were covered with a fine gray dust that clouded around Xia’s feet when he took another step back. He was breathing hard and looking totally pissed off.

Rasmus shook his long hair behind his shoulders. “That’s better.” He stared at Xia, twisting the ring on his thumb. She’d bet money the thing was magical. “Just like old times, isn’t it?”

Xia gave him the finger.

“Still a savage, I see.”

Rasmus Kessler wasn’t just youthful. He was young. Too young to be her father. Except he was. He was a handsome man, startlingly so, but not normal. Not a normal man at all. His accent wasn’t strong, and his English was otherwise impeccable. “Durian,” her father said without taking his eyes off Xia, “bring Ms. Marit to me.”

Durian’s arm eased up on her throat as he propelled her across the room. Whatever was all over the floor crunched like sand under their feet, and yet a fine dust rose. The smell of ashes choked her. When she was standing before him, with Durian gripping her upper arm, Rasmus nodded at Durian. “Please subdue Xia, Durian. Do not kill him.”

“No!” Alexandrine shouted when Durian let go of her. Farther in the room, Xia let out a growl. He crouched, his knife held loosely in one hand. From where she stood, his eyes looked white. Her chest froze solid. She was deathly afraid Xia would be so focused on her safety that he’d get hurt or killed or even taken.

Rasmus watched Xia with unsettling avarice. Her father was a mage, the man who hadn’t wanted her when she was a baby and who didn’t want her now. The man who had once enslaved Xia and who had sent magehelds to kill her. She didn’t know what was safe to say around Rasmus, what he knew and didn’t know about her, Xia, or the amulet. She wasn’t going to give him any information unless she saw a benefit. His thumb ring, set with a large ruby that, if real, must have cost enough to buy a place in San Francisco, pulsed with magic. She’d bet her own money he’d used it to disguise his presence. Not that tricking her would be difficult for someone like him.

“Ms. Marit,” Rasmus said in his calm voice. “You don’t know what Xia is. I do, and I assure you, you have had a narrow escape. You are fortunate to be alive.”

“Yeah, right,” she said. “That must be why you broke into my place and did this to it.”

He brushed gray dust off his coat. “You mustn’t think that, Ms. Marit.” The gemstone in his ring, the size of her middle fingernail, was set in a beveled mount. She didn’t doubt it was real. For mages, the ruby had special power, and he was using it right now. She could feel it. “Quite the contrary. I am trying to keep you alive.”

With a look in Durian’s direction, she said, “And you told numb-nuts over here to kill me because… ?”

“A verbal feint. I was confident Xia would not allow Durian to kill you when he wants to do that himself. In a most painful manner, I assure you. Such is his speciality, I fear.” He looked her up and down. “Xia has killed more women and children than you can count on your two hands. And, alas, I know how each murder was carried out. His reputation, deserved, I promise you, is… unsavory.” His eyes narrowed. “He hasn’t hurt you, has he?”

She studied his face, trying to find a resemblance to her. They were of a similar height, both of them six feet. They had the same hair, and maybe there was a similarity in the shape of their faces. But her eyes were brown, and his were blue. He was also too young to have a daughter her age. No one would ever believe he was her father. She felt sick, remembering what Xia had told her about how Rasmus achieved his apparent youth.

“I’m afraid Xia, like most of his ilk, has no great affection for our kind.” He gestured like he was Jesus in one of those cheesy icons pasted onto vases and tins in the housewares section of the grocery store.

“What do you want?” she asked. She knew the truth before he replied, which meant that when he finally answered, she knew he was lying. She’d be an idiot to think for a second that he cared about being her father.

“You are wearing a necklace, no? A carved panther.” He cocked his head. “Surely, even you with your so very limited powers must have guessed by now what it is.” His attention shifted to Xia again, and the greed in his eyes chilled her heart. Oh, she knew what Rasmus Kessler wanted most of all, and it wasn’t her amulet. He wanted Xia back in his control. Rasmus twisted the ring on his thumb. “An object of such power as that cannot fall into the wrong hands.” With a glance toward the center of the room, he said, “Durian, do take care of our little problem. I should like to have him in hand within the minute. Have I made myself clear?”

Maybe Rasmus did want her amulet, she thought, but he wanted Xia more. He hardly gave a damn about the talisman compared to how badly he wanted Xia back under his command. Alexandrine glanced at Durian and Xia, who were circling each other warily.

“Fine,” she said. “Take the damn thing.”

Durian lunged at Xia, but Xia sidestepped him and brought the hilt of his knife down on Durian’s back. Durian hit the ground hard enough to shake the floor but was on his feet in a flash. “Nikodemus wants you,” Xia told Durian. He drew back his clenched hands and struck Durian again. The air around Xia wavered. Durian doubled over. “He’s going to send Carson after you, and that’s a promise.”

She pulled the leather thong over her head. Her insides felt like they were being ripped out as she dangled the talisman in front of her. Rasmus reached for it, but just before his fingers touched the thong, Alexandrine took a deep breath and threw it across the room. It landed with a dull thud and skidded several inches, sending a cloud of dust into the air.

Rasmus backhanded her. After all these years, her survival skills remained intact. She went down but didn’t make a sound. She knew how to keep quiet when she was hurt and how to fight dirty, despite her desperate, stomach-killing need to have the talisman back. She kept moving, raising a cloud of ash. Eyes closed and breath stopped against the choking dust, she threw her leg up and caught Rasmus in the side of the knee. She heard and felt a satisfying crack. The mage roared with pain, but he headed for the talisman. Relentless bastard, wasn’t he? Alexandrine rolled and pushed to her hands and knees in one motion. She tackled him around the ankles. Rasmus went down, and Alexandrine kept moving through a billowing cloud of stinking, gritty dust. Her compulsion to regain the talisman worked in her favor. She wanted it more than Rasmus did.

To her left, Rasmus staggered to his feet. The air around her turned to ice. She was frozen there on the ground, breathing in the dust, choking on the stench. Her last sight of the world was going to be of her father about to kill her. “Go ahead,” she said, connecting with his eyes. “Kill me, Dad.”

“Durian,” Rasmus called, “the woman is yours when Xia is mine. This must be done. End it now.”

Across the room, there was a horrendous crash. The floor shook. Dust rained from the ceiling.

Rasmus bent for the talisman. When he came up, he held it clenched in a fist. Alexandrine screamed and clapped her hands to her head. Her eyes burned like hell-fire. From the corner of her eye, she saw a shape moving toward them. She didn’t know whether it was Xia or Durian, because they were all covered with ash by now—her, Rasmus, Durian, Xia.

The energy coming from Rasmus’s ring shivered her bones. He was saying something she couldn’t make sense of. A moment later, she couldn’t breathe. Even as she struggled to draw air that wasn’t there, she saw deep into Rasmus, connecting with him in a visceral, terrible pulse that was nothing but raw emotion. She saw his magic as if it were a living thing. She also felt his rage at having lost Xia and his utter conviction that Xia was a danger to them all if he remained free. And under that certain belief there was also greed. He wanted Xia’s power under his control.

Every word Xia had said about him was true. Rasmus Kessler, a killer many times over, was now intent on reenslaving Xia. She could feel it happening. The sheer ugliness of his intent made her sick.

Xia collided with Rasmus, knocking him to the ground. She heard the clink of the talisman hitting the floor, and at the same time, her connection with Rasmus ripped away. Burning white heat blocked her vision and,
bam
, she was in Xia’s head, looking out of his eyes at her, on her knees, gasping, and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it. She didn’t know how to make her body move when she wasn’t inside it. The pain coursing through her belonged to Xia, and she didn’t see how anyone could survive it. Someone shouted, and then she fell out of Xia’s head and back into her own body. Xia had the amulet now, the thong clutched in one hand so he wasn’t directly touching the carving. Her burning need to have her amulet back overwhelmed everything else. Something in her chest went
pop,
and just like that, the amulet was back in her hand. She clutched it hard.