Fireborn (5 page)

He responded instantly and erupted into flame. It tore through my body, enticing my own fires to life with such force that it was hard to tell where his flame ended and mine began. This was no caress, no tease. This was a firestorm that ripped through every muscle, every cell, breaking them down and tearing them apart, until our flesh no longer existed and we were nothing but fire.

He was fierce and bright in the darkness, a being that radiated strength and passion and caring. All I could think about, all I wanted, was his heat and energy in and around me. We began to dance, entwine, wrapping the fiery threads of our beings around each other, tighter and tighter, intensifying the pleasure even as it rejuvenated and fed our souls. Soon there was no separation—no him, no me, just the sum of both of us, and oh, it felt glorious.

But this wasn't just sex for us—this was something a whole lot more vital. Phoenix pairs needed to regularly merge flames, or face diminishing—in some cases, even death. And
this
was the reason so many of our relationships had turned to ashes. No matter how much we might love someone
else, we could never remain faithful to them. Not if we wanted to live.

The dance went on, burning ever brighter, ever tighter, until it felt as if the threads of our beings would surely snap and implode.

Then everything
did
, and I fell into a storm of feverish, unimaginable bliss.

I'm not entirely sure when I came back to flesh, but it was to the awareness of a distant but determined pager buzzing away madly. I swore softly, but didn't move. In the aftermath of such an intense joining, my legs usually refused to support me. Professor Baltimore could wait for a change.

After several moments the page stopped. I stared into the darkness, listening to Rory's breathing, feeling good and happy and whole.

And yet . . .

And yet, as good as it was between us, I always wanted more. I wanted what Rory and I had
and
an emotional connection. But that wasn't my lot. Not in this lifetime. Not in any future lifetimes. The best I could ever hope for was a man who was willing to share—and men who understood the necessity of my being with Rory were few and far between.

Sam's image rose like a ghost to taunt me. Sam certainly
hadn't
been one of those few. He'd been furious when he'd found out about Rory's presence in my life—furious and betrayed, and justifiably so in many respects. I'd tried to explain what I was and why Rory was so necessary to me, but Sam had refused to listen.

I sighed and rubbed a hand across my eyes. After all this time, you'd think I'd be used to the pain of disappointment. But it never got any easier.

Ever.

Rory eventually rolled onto his side and dropped a kiss on my lips, soft and lingering. “I hope that page wasn't urgent.”

I took a deep, shuddery breath that did little to ease my aching heart. “Knowing Mark, he probably just wants coffee.”

“Then I better let you go. I know what it's like to suffer caffeine withdrawal.” A grin I felt rather than saw teased his lips. “It's almost as bad as sex withdrawal.”

“Which is
not
something you suffer very often.” Amused, I pushed upright, then walked into the living room and grabbed my handbag, rummaging through it until I found the pager. There was no message, but the little light on the side of the small screen was flashing, which usually meant he wanted to see me but was too busy to tell me why.

I threw the pager back into my bag, then headed into the bathroom for a quick shower. Urgent or not, I wasn't about to head to work smelling of smoke and fire.

“The chicken should be done in another twenty minutes,” I said, walking back into the kitchen once I was dressed. “Don't wait up for me—I have no idea how long this is going to take.”

He nodded, then wrapped his arms around me and dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “Catch a taxi. Public transport sucks at this hour.”

I relaxed against him for a moment, but as the air began to burn all around us again, I pulled away, grabbed my bag and coat, then got the hell out of there before desire got the better of common sense.

•   •   •

I arrived at the institute about twenty minutes later. Lights shone from various windows, including the one Mark usually operated from. I swept my ID card through the slot, then walked across the foyer to the security desk. The guard, a thin man in his mid-forties, watched me impassively from under heavily set brows.

“May I help you?”

I grabbed the sign-in book and nearby pen. “Is Professor Baltimore working in his usual lab tonight? He paged me about half an hour ago.”

The guard—Ryan Jenkins, according to his name tag—frowned. “I think the professor left about two hours ago.” He paused and checked the other book. “Yep. You can see his signature right there.”

He swung it around, then pointed at the appropriate spot. Sure enough, the professor had signed out at 8:52.

I grimaced. Not only had he called me from home, but he'd left the lights on in the lab again. Lady Harriet would not be amused—although she'd hardly say anything to him because he was her top scientist. It would come down to me instead. “Could you arrange for someone to go into his lab and turn the lights off? Her ladyship's got a bee in her bonnet about saving energy of late.”

The guard smiled, and it oddly reminded me of a crocodile. All teeth, no sincerity. “Sure will. You need anything else?”

“No, thanks.”

I turned and walked out. I could feel the guard's gaze on me the entire time and, for some weird reason, it had chills skating down my spine.

I jogged down the street to Mark's place. From the various apartments on the first two levels came the sounds and smells of life—voices, music, late-night pizza, and even a baby crying. The third floor, however, was shadowed and silent.

I paused, the unease that had lingered after the guard's attention suddenly flaring again. There was only one other tenant on this floor besides Mark, and he was a man in his mid-twenties who was probably out partying, given it was a Friday night. The old woman who'd lived in one of the other apartments had died last week, and the remaining apartment still hadn't been rented out. So it wasn't surprising the floor was hushed.

And yet something felt wrong.

Wrong is better than boring,
that inner voice whispered. I flexed my fingers, then walked forward. When I reached his door, I pressed the buzzer. It rang inside, echoing softly. He didn't answer, and there was no other sound to indicate whether he was there or not.

If he was asleep, I
would
resort to violence.

I stepped across to the security panel, entered the code, and had my iris scanned. The door opened. It was dark inside. Real dark. He must
have drawn the curtains; otherwise the glow of the streetlights would be filtering in.

I swept my hand across the light switch. Light flared, the sudden harshness making me blink.

And I saw him.

Professor Mark Baltimore wasn't asleep.

He was dead.

H
e sat on a wooden-backed kitchen chair in the middle of the living room, his hands lashed behind his back and his feet tied to the chair's front legs. His nose had been smashed, and bits of blood and gore had splattered across his face and dribbled down the front of his shirt—which had been torn open, revealing more cuts and bruises. Even his spiky gray hair was matted and dark with blood. They'd really done a number on the poor sod.

But why? What did he have that anyone would want so desperately? Nothing in his molecular research warranted this sort of response—nothing that I could see, anyway. But then, what would I know? I only made his gibberish legible and had no real understanding of what most of it meant. I didn't even understand what type of molecules he was researching. Science had
never
been my forte. Reading illegible writing
was
, and that was the main reason I'd gotten this job—which no longer existed now that he was dead.

I smacked that rather self-centered thought away and dug my phone out of my purse, calling the cops for the second time that day.

As I waited for them to arrive, I dialed the office but got a busy signal. When I also had no luck with Abby's cell number, I left a message, saying she needed to contact me immediately. Hopefully, she'd do so sooner rather than later, because if Lady Harriet found out about the murder via the TV or newspapers, there'd be hell to pay.

Time after that seemed to drag. I tried to ignore the guilt that crawled through me every time I glanced at his body, but had little success. While I knew it was highly unlikely I could have changed the outcome here if I
had
answered the buzzer when it initially went off, there was always going to be that what-if question lingering in my mind.

Although—truth be told—if I
had
gotten here earlier, I might have been found dead alongside my boss. I sometimes dreamed of death, but my own usually came without warning.

The cops eventually arrived. I was questioned, first by the men who'd initially responded and then later by the detective in charge, and it was close to two—yet again—by the time I finally got home. I stripped off my clothes as I walked through the living room, then padded into Rory's darkened bedroom, crawled into his bed, and snuggled into his back.

And promptly went to sleep.

A strange sound woke me. An incessant, annoying noise that just went on and on. I blinked, my mind fuzzy and my body securely cocooned in the warmth of Rory's. Eventually, I realized what
the sound was. Someone was downstairs leaning on the intercom buzzer.

“Whoever that is,” Rory murmured, “tell them to fuck off. It's still early, for god's sake.”

A glance at the clock proved he was right. It was barely seven. But whoever it was apparently wasn't going to take silence for an answer.

I groaned and pulled myself away from the delicious heat of Rory's embrace, then staggered barefoot and naked through the living room. Only I wasn't entirely watching where I was going and I ran shin first into the coffee table, spilling Mark's precious notebooks everywhere in the process.

I cursed fluently and hobbled the rest of the way to the intercom, slapping the button hard and saying, “Whoever the fuck you are, you'd better have a good reason for waking me up at this hour of the goddamn morning.”

There was a long silence; then an all-too-familiar voice said, “It's Sam. We need to talk.”

Surprise, and perhaps a tiny bit of pleasure, raced through me. “You and I said all there was to be said the other night. I don't want—or need—you in my life.”

“Look,” he said, voice gravelly and decidedly grim. “I don't want this any more than you do, but you happen to be the only witness to Professor Baltimore's murder—”

“I didn't witness it,” I corrected tartly. “I found the body. Big difference.”

“And,” he continued, like I'd never spoken,
“you worked for the man. You knew him better than anyone else at the institute, apparently, and that makes you a possible key to tracking down his murderer.”

“I met the case detectives last night. You're not one of them, so why the hell are you here?”

He hesitated. “This case is no longer being handled by homicide. It's been turned over to us.”

“And who, pray tell, is ‘us'?”

My voice was every bit as cold as his, but my heart was hammering so hard it felt like it was going to tear out of my chest. And I didn't know whether it was the fear that talking to him could inflame all those barely buried feelings or the half certainty that it would turn them into ashes and blow them away forever.

“That is not something I'm about to explain over an intercom. Let me in, Emberly.”

“Never again,” I muttered. And the last thing I wanted was memories of him in
this
apartment. When we'd split, I'd either thrown out or gotten rid of every single thing that reminded me of him, and that not only included all the furniture and every gift he'd given me but also the apartment we'd once shared. “I'll come down. Give me five minutes.”

I turned around. Rory was standing in the living room doorway, his arms crossed and his expression grim. “Do you want company?”

I hesitated, then shook my head. Sam wasn't dangerous—at least not physically. My mental
health was another matter entirely, but that wasn't something Rory could help me deal with. “Go back to bed. I'll join you afterward.”

He continued to study me, concern radiating from him in waves. I picked up my old sweatpants and T-shirt from the floor and dressed, then grabbed my jacket and slung it on. “Honestly,” I said, when I finally met his gaze again. “I'll be okay.”

He didn't say anything, but his gaze remained on me as I picked up my keys and headed out.

Sam waited to the right of the building's main exit, his arms crossed and his expression closed. The early-morning sunshine gave his black hair an almost blue shine, but his face, like his body, seemed leaner now than it had once been. Certainly his cheekbones looked more defined. More French, I thought, though I knew he could claim that blood only through his mother's grandmother.

“So,” I said, stopping several feet away. The air was crisp and cool and filled with the salty scent of the nearby ocean, but this man's smell seemed to override all that, filling my lungs with his warm, lusciously woody aroma. “I'm here. What do you want?”

“Breakfast.” He pointed with his chin to Portside, the small café several doors down from our building, and, without waiting for me, walked toward it.

I trailed after him, tugging up my jacket's zipper to protect myself from the chilly breeze
coming off the sea.
Liar,
that voice inside me whispered.
It's not about the chill; it's about him. About protecting yourself from him.

That inner voice was altogether
too
smart.

He chose an outside table overlooking the marina and as far away from the other diners as possible. Not that there were many people here. It was seven in the morning, after all, and not even Portside, as popular as it was, started getting really busy until at least nine on the weekends. Had it been a weekday, we wouldn't have gotten a table.

I pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him. He didn't say anything, simply picked up the menu and studied it. Frustration swirled, but so, too, did curiosity, and that—and only that—kept me from leaving.

The waitress came up and gave us a cheery smile. “Are you ready to place your orders yet?”

Sam said, “The breakfast fry-up and black coffee for me, thanks.”

The waitress glanced at me, pen poised, so I added, “I'll have the French toast with strawberries and double cream and a Moroccan mint-green tea, thanks.”

She nodded. “Any juice?” When both of us shook our heads, she added cheerfully, “Won't be long.”

As she disappeared inside the restaurant, I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair. Leaning on the table would have brought me far too close to him. “So, to repeat my question, what the hell is this all about, Sam?”

“I've already told you why I'm here.”

“And I've already given my statement to the police. Everything I could tell you is there.”

“Not when there have been further developments.”

“Like this case being taken from homicide and given to your unit, whoever your unit actually are?” My voice was dry. “Why is that?”

“Because Baltimore's murder isn't as straightforward as it seems.”

“I guessed that the minute I saw him trussed up like a turkey and beaten to death. Just spit it out, for god's sake.”

His blue gaze raked me, as sharp as a knife. There was a tension in him I didn't understand, a hunger that was deep, dark, and not
entirely
sexual. My traitorous body nevertheless responded. Damn it, why did he still have the power to affect me so strongly?

Because he is this lifetime's love,
that inner voice whispered.
And there is nothing you can do about it but suffer.

I hated my inner voice sometimes.

“It wasn't only Professor Baltimore who was murdered last night,” he said, voice curt. “A security guard by the name of Ryan Jenkins was found dead—and stuffed into the janitors' closet—by the morning relief.”

My eyes widened. “I talked to Jenkins last night.”

“We know,” he said grimly. “At ten eighteen.”

I frowned at the odd emphasis he placed on the time. “So why does this seem to be a big deal?”

“Because Ryan Jenkins was apparently murdered between nine and nine thirty. The man you were talking to was
not
Jenkins.”

I remembered the unease I'd felt as I'd walked out of the building. Instinct had known something was wrong.

“Meaning I talked to one of the men involved in his death, and you want me to give a description and work up a composite?”

He nodded but didn't say anything as the waitress approached with our drinks. “Your orders shouldn't be much longer,” she said and left again.

I opened the lid of the little china teapot to let the water cool a little, then said, “So they killed the guard because they wanted to get something from Mark's office?”

He nodded. “Both the lab and his office were ransacked. We want you to go through those areas as well as his home to see if there's anything missing.”

I frowned. “That's going to take all day and half the night. And I seriously doubt—”

“You'll do it, no matter how long it takes.” His voice was harsh. Cold. “It has already been cleared with Harriet Chase.”

I glared at him for several seconds, annoyed as much at his manner as the order itself. But, truth be told, I probably was the only one who'd have
any
sort of chance of spotting if something had gone missing. It made sense to at least try.

I plonked the little tea bag into the pot and closed the lid. “Have you any idea what they were after?”

He hesitated, his gaze raking me again, as if he was deciding whether I could be trusted or not. And that stung even more than his bitter words had five years ago.

He leaned forward and crossed his arms. It accentuated the muscles in his arms and the broadness of his shoulders. “Your Professor Baltimore was working on a possible cure for the red plague virus.”

I blinked. “Really? I knew he was involved in molecular research and was attempting to track down certain amino acids, but I had no idea there was a virus involved. He certainly never called it by that name.”

“He wouldn't. For security purposes, it was simply given a number—”

“NSV01A,” I cut in, remembering seeing it repeatedly in the notes. When he nodded, I added, “But how did these men know that? I mean, I didn't, and I worked for the man.”

“It was kept quiet for the same reason the virus has been kept quiet—we don't want to alarm the public unnecessarily.”

“So who knew what he was doing? Because someone must have talked if these men were after his research.”

“That we don't know. But as far as I know, only
Harriet Chase was fully aware of what he was doing.”

And
that
old battle-ax wasn't about to blab to anyone about a project that could potentially net her billions. “Well, someone else obviously
did
know.”

He eyed me severely. “Yeah, you. Or at least, you knew about his notes.”

I snorted. “I can't understand half the crap he goes on about in those notes. I'm just there to type it up.”

“Doesn't mean you couldn't have mentioned it to someone.”

“Meaning I'm both a witness and a suspect? Way to get my cooperation, Sam.”

Our meals arrived, and I tucked into my French toast and berries with gusto. But he, I noticed, pushed his meal away before he was half-finished. He picked up his coffee and cradled the mug in his big hands, watching me eat for several minutes. The intensity of his gaze was unnerving.

I scooped up the last of the strawberries, then pushed the plate away with a contented sigh. “What about Mark?”

He blinked. My question had obviously caught him by surprise. “What about him?”

“Well, couldn't he have talked to someone?”

“Who? From what we understand, his work was his life. He had few friends and did little beyond moving between his home and the institute.”

“That's not entirely true. He ran regularly with
one of the other professors, and he had breakfast at the café across the road every morning. He was quite friendly with several of the waitresses there.”

“Friendly as in lovers?”

I hesitated. “I don't know. I never had reason to ask or care.”

“We'll check.” He drank some coffee, then said, “Were you and he lovers?”

I bit back a snarky remark and simply said, “No.” Snarky remarks, I suspected, would run off his back as quickly as water off a duck's.