Tales of the Otherworld (8 page)

I was heading into the alley behind my apartment building when a black BMW rolled to the curb. The passenger window buzzed down.

“Get in, Eve.”

Kristof leaned over and flung open the door. When I didn’t move fast enough, he opened his side, ready to come out and get me. I slid in and shut the door.

“How—?” I began.

He handed me a handkerchief and motioned to my lip.

“Don’t bleed on the leather, right?” I said.

He gave me a look that said that wasn’t what he meant. I nodded and pressed the cloth to my lip.

“As I said, I suspected Lavina would make a move on the Granvilles. So I decided to monitor the situation and received word this afternoon that Rick Granville had been found dead. By the time I was on the plane, his brother and father had followed him to the afterlife. I tried to contact you.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I got the page, and I meant to call back …”

“No, you knew you were making a risky choice, and you preferred not to speak to anyone who might talk you out of it.”

True.

A loud ringing made me jump. Kristof motioned to the glove compartment. I opened it and found a telephone the size of a brick. A mobile phone. I’d heard of them, but never seen one. I handed it to him. He answered, listened, said a few words, then hung up.

“As I suspected, you won’t be returning to your apartment tonight.”

“Tucci’s men were waiting for—?” I stopped. “No, not waiting for me. Setting me up to take the fall for the murders.”

“Yes, but it’s been taken care of. I sent a team there earlier to wait. They’ll deal with it.”

“Is that safe? Involving the Cabal?”

“Safer than letting you take the fall—after being rumored to have completed a similar assignment for me. My father will be happy to be rid of the Granvilles—and happy not to care too much about how it was done, as long as I’ve taken care of any potential link back to us.”

“Thanks, Kris.” When I realized what I said, I backtracked, “Kristof. Sorry.”

“Kris is fine.”

“No. If you don’t like it—”

His brows lifted. “Did I say that?”

He hadn’t. He’d just said no one ever called him Kris.

I nodded and said, “Thank you. And I’m sorry. I screwed up.”

“Which you always realize and never repeat the same mistake. That’s all that matters. However, if this were to make you think twice before ignoring my advice again …”

“You aren’t
always
right, you know.”

He arched his brows, looking so shocked that I had to laugh. When I did, my lip split, blood gushing. He handed me another handkerchief and pulled into a parking lot, then twisted to inspect my injuries. When his fingers slid under my chin for a better look at my lip, I jumped, head banging against the roof.

“Sorry, just …”

“Not used to being touched,” he murmured.

I nodded, cheeks heating. Sure, I did the one-night-stand thing, and that obviously involved physical contact. Beyond that, though, I avoided it. My mother hadn’t been affectionate and I’d grown up keeping my distance. In a lot of ways, I guess.

“May I?” Kristof said, motioning at my lip. “It might need stitches.”

I nodded. His fingers slid under my chin again. Smooth fingers. Warm skin. My heart started to race. I closed my eyes and let him check out my lips, then my nose, and even when he let go, I could sense him there, feel the heat of his body, smell his faintly minty breath, hear his breathing. As my heart pounded, I blamed a long dry spell between those one-night stands, but I knew it was more than that.

I was falling for Kristof Nast. It didn’t matter, though, because he wasn’t falling back, and that meant it was safe. I’ve never thrown myself at a guy. Never even made a pass at one. As long as he kept it business, everything would be fine.

“We’ll get the lip looked at,” he said. “Your nose is fine, though. Anything else?”

I opened my eyes and shook my head.

“Nothing?” His look told me to save the bravado for someone else.

I lifted my arm. He examined the burn and said that it, too, needed checking. He’d take me to a doctor he knew—not a Cabal one, but another, where he could drop me off and wait outside.

He backed the car from the lot. “As for Lavina …”

“I need to strike back. I can’t let her get away with this.”

He nodded. “I have a few ideas on that.”

“I don’t doubt it. In this case, though, I think I’ve got the situation under control.” I reached into my waistband, took out a minirecorder, hit rewind, then play. My voice filled the car.

“—killed them, Lavina. Slaughtered a family with direct ties to—”

“The Cortez Cabal,” Lavina replied. “So you insist—”

I hit stop and looked at Kristof. “Good?”

“Excellent.”

“I may screw up, but as you said, I’m capable of learning. And, unfortunately, what I learned is that I’m not going to be able to stay in Chicago, even with this tape.”

“I know you don’t want to move to L.A., but closer would be easier. San Diego? San Francisco?”

I shook my head. “If I’m going to move, that’s just silly. Is it easiest for you if I’m in L.A.?”

“It is.”

“Then that’s where I’m going.”

Los Angeles wasn’t my kind of town. Too phony. Too sunny. Too blond. But it had a thriving supernatural underground, if a more tightly regulated one, being in a Cabal home city. Still, it was a change of pace, and I liked it well enough. Or maybe I just liked seeing more of Kristof. It didn’t matter. Nothing had changed.

Well, it did change a little. Kristof found me an apartment in a decent building. I paid for mine and he got a second one in the same building as a discreet bachelor pad. Being in the same city meant we got together more than once a month—at least weekly, and not always for business. It was only friendship, though, and I was good with that. He needed a place to kick back with someone he could be himself around. I needed that, too.

Once I moved, our meetings shifted to afternoons, leaving evenings open for his kids. I’d been there just over two months when he called wanting a rare evening get-together. Rarer still, he didn’t want to hold it at the apartment.

“I have an engagement until ten,” he said. “Would you be able to come by and meet up with me after?”

“Is that safe?”

“It isn’t business,” he said. “It’s a personal engagement.”

Personal? As in, a date? My gut did a weird little flip. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see Kristof after a date with another woman. In fact, I was damned sure I didn’t. Which was all the more reason to say yes. Squash any romantic hopes while they were still at the squashable stage.

“Sure. Where is it?”

He gave me an address and I said I’d be there at ten.

I drove to the address Kristof had given me. Yes, drove. In a city the size of L.A., you’d think public transit would be the way to go, but it’d taken me about two weeks to realize that if I wanted to work efficiently, I’d need a car. In this case, it was a good idea, because I’d hate to have footed the cab bill.

The address was almost an hour outside L.A. And when I pulled into the parking lot, I had to double-, then triple-check it. And, even then, I was convinced I’d copied it down wrong.

I was at an ice rink. Indoors, of course. There’s no ice in Southern California. When I circled the lot, though, I found Kristof’s car. When he’d said personal, I’d jumped to the conclusion he was on a date, but with Kristof, the more obvious answer would be that he was with his boys. If so, I’d need to be careful. They were too young to recognize me as a witch, I thought, but I couldn’t take chances. Kristof would expect discretion.

So I went in the back door. It was locked, but a spell fixed that. Inside, I followed the blast of a whistle and the
skritch-skritch
of skates until I found the rink.

If Kristof’s boys had been here, their ice time was over. A hockey game was in progress. I like hockey. Well, marginally more than I like other sports, which is not at all, so I suppose that’s not the most ringing
endorsement. I’d never buy tickets to a game, but I could fathom the appeal more than I could with things like golf or tennis. Hockey combines skill, strategy, and good old-fashioned brute force. I could relate to that.

I just started for the front when a crash rang out as a player deftly shoulder-checked another into the boards. A whistle blast, and the referee signaled and waved the player off the ice. As the tall, broad-shouldered offender skated away, I admired the rear view.

He gracefully leapt over the boards into what I presumed was the penalty box. As he sat, he pulled off his helmet and shook out his blond hair. And I laughed.

I suppose shock should have been the correct response. Kristof Nast, scion of the Nast Cabal, playing
hockey
? Six months ago, I would have presumed he had a twin brother. Now I just looked at him, sitting in the penalty box, and thought,
I should have guessed.
Skill, strategy, and good old-fashioned brute force. That fit Kristof to a tee.

As I watched, he watched, too—gaze fixed on the doors at the far end of the arena. Looking for me. Frowning. Checking the clock. Waiting. Hoping.

I saw that and I knew he hadn’t invited me here because it was a convenient place to meet. There was a reason he was playing hockey almost an hour from L.A. No one else knew about it. In bringing me here, he was throwing the door open as wide as it would go. This is me. This is the real me. This is the me no one else gets to see. You don’t do that with someone you consider just a friend.

No. I had to be wrong. Kristof had never given me so much as a lingering glance. He just needed someone in his life who didn’t expect him to play the role he’d been born to. That’s all I was.

I stayed at that far end of the ice, watching him as he watched for me. When his penalty ended, he leapt out of the box and back into the game, playing with that same ferocity he showed in business. The same, yet different, too. Here he could pull the punches himself, and as I watched him skating around, blue eyes glowing behind his mask, I knew he loved that. The chance to get in the game, not just call the shots from the sidelines.

The game ended a few minutes after he left the penalty box. Then he finally saw me.

As the others streamed from the ice, he skated over to where I stood
by the boards. At the last moment he sheared off to send a wave of shaved ice my way. I laughed and jumped back.

“Just get here?” he said as he hit the boards.

“Nope.”

“Snuck in the back, huh? I should have guessed. So, surprised?”

“Pfft. Kristof Nast likes playing games where he gets to throw his weight around. Big shock there. Though I bet getting sent to the penalty box for it is a new experience.”

He grinned. “It is. Nice in a way, though, to actually be called on my transgressions once in a while.”

He pulled off his helmet and a glove and ran his fingers through his hair. Then he leaned against the boards and looked at me, still grinning like a little boy, face alight, and I knew I wasn’t just falling for Kristof Nast. I’d fallen. Hard. And as he looked at me, I felt my cheeks heat and his smile widened.

One look at his face and I knew I hadn’t been wrong about why he invited me here. One look at mine, and he knew he hadn’t been wrong to invite me.

I should have run screaming from the arena. Well, excused myself and fled at least. I’d spent the last few months saying it was okay to fall for Kristof because there was no danger of him reciprocating. But now there was. And I didn’t care, because when it came down to it, there was only one question to be answered. Did I trust him enough to take a chance? The answer was yes. I trusted Kristof more than I’d ever trusted anyone in my life.

We stood there for a minute, just looking at each other, until I cleared my throat and said, “Your teammates will be looking for you.”

He leaned farther over the board and I thought he was going to reach for me, but he just said, “There’s an empty changing room at the end of the hall. It’s locked, but I’m sure you can fix that.”

“I can.”

I paced around the empty changing room. What if he didn’t make the first move? I’d never made the first move. I had no problem with the general concept, but I’ve never chased a guy in my life—my ego couldn’t stand the rejection.

I was supposed to be this tough, knows-what-she-wants, gets-what-she-wants girl. Maybe he’d expect me to make a move. How? What if I was wrong? I’d let Kristof see me make a fool of myself more than once, and I was fine with that. But this was different. Screw this up and—

The door opened. Kristof stood there, only his skates off, the hockey uniform now paired with a pair of thousand-dollar Italian loafers. At any other time, I would have laughed, but now I just stood there, staring at him.

“Is this still business?” he said.

I shook my head. “It hasn’t been business for a long time.”

He crossed the room in three strides and swept me up in a kiss that sent any last doubts flying. A deep, light-my-insides-on-fire kind of kiss—one I returned like I’d never returned a kiss in my life, arms going around his neck, body pressing against his, legs wrapping around him as he pressed me into the wall.

We kept kissing, gasping for quick breaths, neither pulling back long enough to breathe properly, let alone say a word. He managed to get my T-shirt off with only a split-second break. I didn’t have nearly as much luck with his hockey uniform. With a little help, I got his shirt off, then the pads, and by then we were on the floor, still kissing, grappling to get out of our clothes as fast as we could. We were down to the bare essentials when he suddenly pulled back.

“—need—better,” he said between pants.

“Sorry, but I don’t get better than this.”

He laughed, breath still heaving. “I mean, you deserve better. No changing-room floors. A hotel. I’ll take you somewhere. Anywhere.”

“Huh?”

He disentangled himself and backed up. “Where do you want to go? Someplace special. You deserve special.”

“I do?”

His gaze met mine. “You do.”

I stretched out on the floor and considered it. “Bali, then. Or Monaco. No idea where either one is, but they sound special.”