StrategicSurrender (5 page)

“Come on, Josh,” Kiera scoffed lightly, “how many times have
you complained to me about how people ask for your advice and then ignore it,
or about how much you wish you could get out there and
do
something?
This is your chance. Morgan has asked us to do something powerful, something
for the side of
good
. If we were down at the local bar, running through
hypotheticals, and I said to you, ‘You find an incredibly evil manuscript with
an earth-shatteringly bad time-magic ritual in it, what do you do?’ After you’d
turned back time so Becky Lomaz would give her virginity to you on the eve of
the junior prom, you can’t tell me you’d say that you wouldn’t simply destroy
it?”

“If we had just happened to discover it, sure,” Josh agreed
crankily, “I might be more inclined to watch it burn. But we didn’t ‘just
discover’ it. The Tribunal owns it. It’s not ours to burn.”

Kiera frowned, torn slightly by his decent point.

“Wanting to get out there and do something, craving to make
a difference in our world is one thing,” Kiera finally said as she turned to
face Hayden, uncertain again. “Being prepared to burn one of the Tribunal’s
grimoires, you have to admit, is a much bigger step.”

“Exactly!” Josh agreed strongly. Looking slightly abashed at
the manner in which his voice had risen, he lowered his tone before he
continued. “Look, Hayden, I think there are plenty of alternatives we can
follow that
don’t
include breaking what has to be a dozen federal
crimes.”

Hayden merely crossed his arms over his chest and raised an
eyebrow. Kiera’s heart sped up at the sight of him and she had to mentally
chastise herself for letting her mind wander during such an important
discussion.

“Okay, I’m listening,” Hayden said with a faint hint of
mockery. “Name one other course of action we could take that you can say with
complete honesty won’t lead to serious repercussions and outright danger to the
mass population out there.”

“Well…” Josh stumbled slightly. He looked at Kiera with a
pathetically pleading expression. Kiera snorted but, wanting to get off the
fence and decide one way or the other, closed her eyes and thought furiously. Mentally
ran through the threads she had perceived surrounding the manuscript.

The seconds ticked by and she became more and more anxious.
After a minute or more she stole another quick glance at the folder on the floor,
cracked open a small amount of her magic and studied the file intently. She
remained focused completely on the threads she could “see” and this time she
was able to look for a few minutes before once again closing her talent down
and admitting defeat.

“Damn,” she swore softly. As before, each and every possible
future thread she perceived led in varying ways to the manuscript falling into
the wrong hands and being misused for malicious purposes.

“So…?” Hayden prodded her. Joshua leaned forward in his seat,
obviously very eager to discover her thoughts. Kiera frowned and tried hard to
think of an alternative suggestion to offer that might help save their skin
from the wrath of the Tribunal.

“I’m thinking,” she insisted weakly. “This certainly isn’t
something I just want to jump into rashly. Nothing is currently leaping out at
me but let me just think this through.”

Kiera took a few deep, steadying breaths as she hovered on
the edge of throwing her fortunes in with Hayden in a far more dangerous manner
than she could have believed twenty minutes before when they had been
passionately kissing and necking like a couple of teenagers.

“Okay…so my main concern about burning the manuscript—apart
from the Tribunal coming down on us like a load of bricks—is that they will be
livid about the knowledge that was lost,” Kiera said in a rush. “You both know
as well as I do what they are like about their precious knowledge. Possibly one
of the main reasons Morgan was so keen for us to hold the file was because he
didn’t want to bring it with him tomorrow to the meeting. They’d all insist on
reading it in turn and instead of the knowledge of this particular horrifying
ritual being lost into obscurity there would be two dozen or more Tribunal
members who would have it engraved upon their memories.”

“Well, I guess,” Hayden replied thoughtfully. He frowned,
obviously not sold but also not having thought of this snag.

“I’m not following you,” Josh replied with a perplexed
expression on his face.

“Well, any fool who has spent a few minutes with this folder
can tell the ritual contained within it is exceedingly dark magic,” Kiera
explained. “Morgan may very well have decided he wants to argue
against
the Tribunal members reading this manuscript. This is not even your ‘regular’
dark magic ritual, this is even worse. So if he didn’t bring it with him they
couldn’t force the point, could they?”

“That’s true,” Hayden agreed with her. “Fine. But that
doesn’t mean I think we shouldn’t still destroy it beyond recovery.”

“I know,” Kiera replied. “But just follow me here. So if the
Tribunal doesn’t just outright excommunicate us for burning one of their
manuscripts, they
will
blow their tops that the ritual was lost. So I
think all three of us should visually scan a small part of the ritual.”

“Are you out of your freaking mind?” Hayden gaped at her.
Josh also stared at her as if she had lost the plot. Kiera shook her head.

“No, listen,” she urged the two wizards as she leaned
forward on the table and rested her arms on the top. Her fingers linked
together to stop the urge to gesticulate madly. “If I just briefly scan my eyes
over a small part of the manuscript, say just the first page, and then both you
guys do the same with another page or so each, and then we leave the rest
alone, with our photographic memory we can always assuage the Tribunal’s anger
by saying we can copy out what we do know and they can work on the rest.”

“You’ve gone mental,” Hayden swore as he shook his head.

“No,” Josh averred, seemingly struck by her explanation.
“You know what, Foxworth? I think she might have a point there.”

“Thank you,” Kiera replied, still trying to find holes in
her thought.

“It will take the Tribunal months to re-create everything,
and that’s assuming they even can,” Josh continued thoughtfully. “With a small
segment of the knowledge separated between the three of us they would still
have to make us give them what we have. But honestly, I don’t know if they even
could
re-create the ritual from just a small amount.”

“It would all be moot,” Kiera assured Josh. “I am only
suggesting it purely for the fact that it would calm the Tribunal down, lessen
the punishment they would undoubtedly want to hand down to us.”

“I really think that would be an awesome insurance to cover
our ass,” Josh agreed with a look to Hayden.

“Don’t look at me,” Hayden insisted. “I want no part of
that. I don’t have a photographic memory and I refuse to have anything like
that in my brain. I’d have to read it thoroughly, possibly multiple times to
memorize it. Count me out of that bit.”

“But you still want to destroy it?” Josh checked. “Even
without us having a chip to bargain with the Tribunal?”

“If you and Kiera want to do that, I won’t argue with you,”
Hayden replied after a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t believe it wise and I
refuse to do it myself. But I can understand why you think it necessary and so
I won’t put my foot down over such an action.”

“I don’t want to know about this ritual any more than you
do,” Kiera insisted quietly. “There has to be pages of details in there for it
to have such a potency about it, not to mention for how quickly it seeps
through the folder. We would only have to take in a small measure of it. I
honestly feel it’s the safest way to go about doing this. For the sake of all
our safety.”

Josh eyed the folder uncertainly, his amber gaze as serious
and intense as she had ever seen it. Silently drawing in a deep breath, Kiera
held her silence as her partner thought through what she had suggested. His
gaze drifted over to where the manuscript lay on the floor and he studied it
for a further moment. After a short while had passed Kiera finally spoke again.

“If you have a better suggestion for how we can cover our
asses, I’m more than open to hearing it. But I really feel we all need to
compromise here. Hayden is willing to not stop you and me taking out some
insurance by scanning a page of the ritual each. And then we can both be
willing to burn the grimoire, destroy the manuscript beyond ever being passed
on to anyone, human or wizard.”

“I guess so,” Josh replied reluctantly. “Morgan keeps on
telling me compromise is good for my soul, anyway. Heaven knows the old guy
would be pleased at least to see I’m taking his lessons on board.”

“I think he’ll just be proud all three of us have agreed on
a course of action that will make absolutely certain the ritual can never be
misused,” she replied softly. “I’ll read a section first if it will make you
feel better. If I start frothing at the mouth or if my head turns around a
hundred and eighty degrees like I am possessed, just knock me out and drag me
to a healer immediately.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Josh agreed half-jokingly.

Kiera turned to Hayden and met his dark gaze with her own.

She could see he had some serious qualms about what they
were doing. They each needed to compromise a little, otherwise they’d never
reach an agreement. The dark look was back in his eyes, however. He seemed to
have shouldered that weight once again. She wondered if he was second-guessing
his decision to not get involved in the manuscript. Would the tainted magic
tempt him? He’d foregone so much power, such darkness in the past—would this be
the time that tipped him over some point of no return?

Kiera pushed the thought from her mind. Her imagination was
getting the better of her, surely. Hayden was strong and more importantly
Morgan trusted him. She shouldn’t even entertain such notions. Thoughts had a
tendency to gain weight, then a power and life all their own. She didn’t want
to have doubts or questions about Hayden or his loyalties.

“You can still do this if you want,” she said, not even
knowing why she spoke when the words fell from her lips. Hayden’s face
tightened, his unease clear. He shook his head silently. Kiera instantly felt
bad for having added to the stress he seemed under. She nodded, tried to
reassure him with her eyes that she understood. She wanted to apologize.

“It will be okay,” she said instead.

Her attempts at soothing him seemed to hit home. A small
smile twitched at the corner of the handsome wizard’s mouth. He nodded gently
at her in acknowledgment of her placation.

Standing up, she pushed her chair back and walked over to
where the folder lay. Picking it up and carrying it back to the table, she
placed it between herself and Josh.

“It feels…
tainted
,” she said with evident distaste.

With faintly trembling fingers Kiera untied the string and
opened the folder, pulling out the first of about a dozen dried pieces of
paper. Lightning quick she scanned her eyes down the sheet, not truly reading
and absorbing the words, but glancing long enough at them so that should she
have need later she could re-create them from memory.

Making a sour face of disapproval, she hastily returned the
first sheet into the folder while averting her eyes.

“I feel dirty,” she warned Josh. “And I only glanced at it
so the words wouldn’t have time to actually form in my brain. I’d be careful,
Josh. That thing is really bad.”

“Are you okay?” Hayden asked. As she took her seat next to
him, Kiera cast him a glance. He clearly appeared concerned, but whether it was
worry for her or uncertainty of the ramification of her actions was impossible
to tell. Her mouth dry, heart pounding at the sticky, horrid feeling remaining
from her perusal of the documents, she could only silently nod. Kiera wiped her
hands down the front of her suit skirt. Josh stood up and walked over to the
other side of the room, his back to them.

As soon as Josh’s attention was on the grimoire, Hayden
gently touched her hand, covering the skin where she had made contact with the
tainted paper. The warmth of his skin penetrated her and Kiera felt her heart
turn over with arousal and affection.

“It will be okay,” she repeated.

Hayden lifted her hand to his soft lips and kissed her skin
tenderly.

Common sense warred with desire. Every rational thought
seemed to evaporate when this wizard touched her, kissed her.

“Hayden,” she said, trying to make her tone stern but
failing utterly.

He paused in his actions, lifted his face so they stared
silently at each other. Kiera could swear she saw him struggling with himself
too. A muscle along the sharp line of his jaw twitched, but he seemed to
overcome whatever internal battle had occurred.

Smoothly, Hayden strung a series of them all over her
fingers and into the palm of her hand, peppering the small, affectionate kisses
across her skin as if to remove the taint and replace them with his passion.

At first Kiera’s skin had crawled. She knew it was just her
mind, but she felt as if she had the annoying ghost of spider legs stamping up
and down her fingers and wrist. Hayden rubbed her skin vigorously and then
layered another series of the warm, smooth, erotic kisses all over her hand.

Uncomfortableness was replaced with arousal, heat and
passion. Desire curled through her stomach and crept up into her chest and made
her neck and cheeks flush hotly. When Hayden had finished she was breathing
heavily and could not help herself. Sitting on the edge of her chair, she
leaned over and captured Hayden’s lips with her own.

Rational thought had once again fled. She didn’t care she
had to work with this wizard, that it could all end very badly—with her heart
shattered or her professional image ruined. Right now all she wanted was more.
More of this hot feeling that blossomed inside her whenever Hayden touched her,
more kisses, more sizzling touches, and a lot more chance to explore his naked
skin, hot and slick beneath her fingertips.