Tempting the Fire (41 page)

No, instead, he was on a king-sized bed with the familiar rich chocolate-colored comforter, next to Devlin.

Next. To. Devlin. What the fuck?

The man looked as shocked to see him as Gabe was to be there. Devlin threw his papers down and cocked his head to the side. Stared.

“Gabriel, I’d have thought you understood the importance of not going where you’re not invited.”

“Dev, look, I didn’t … I mean, I didn’t come here. Not on purpose. I didn’t do the invisibility thing.”

Dev scowled. “What are you talking about?”

“I was thinking about you. Missing you. Worried that I’d fucked everything up. I tried to talk to you but you didn’t answer. Then I ended up here.”

Dev’s mouth dropped open. “Are you saying you … transported here?”

“I guess. I don’t know what to call it. One minute, I was in my room. The next, I was here.” He ran a hand over his head. “Weird, huh?”

Dev shook his head. “Not so weird. But we’ve got a lot of work to do on this. More testing. Because if you can transport …” He trailed off and Gabe wondered if this would help with the big plans Devlin supposedly had for him, the plans Akbar had mentioned the other day in Dev’s office.

Whatever the challenge, Gabe would be ready. “I’m so sorry about Akbar.”

“You’re going to need to see the ACRO psychologist,” Dev said in response. “You saw the whole thing happen, according to Stryker. Ani said you saved her life.” Dev’s gaze hardened. “After you put her in danger in the first 233

place.”

Gabe didn’t know what to say to that at first. And then, “I was such a fucking shit to all of them before this. They only wanted me to learn my job.”

Dev sighed, and the angry light faded from his eyes. “You’re learning, Gabriel. None of this is easy. It’s not meant to be.”

Never will be was the unspoken message. But when Devlin pulled Gabe into his arms, he knew that some things were meant to be.

234

Creed’s motorcycle hummed along the highway leading to his newest job for ACRO, an overnight in a haunted restaurant thought to be inhabited by a demon.

He hadn’t wanted to leave Ani alone so soon after they’d made up, hadn’t wanted to leave her at all, especially without her powers. But Devlin had promised he would send someone to stick with her like glue.

Ani hated that arrangement, mainly because Devlin was sending Gabe. And so Creed promised he’d kick the demon’s ass and be back by her side ASAP.

“Let me come with you,” she’d cajoled right before he left, standing in front of the doorway holding a giant bag of M&M’s that was half empty.

He’d already pulled his black leathers on and shouldered his bag. Normally, he’d have loved nothing more than to work with Ani. But even Kat, a vocal advocate for keeping the couple together as much as possible, didn’t voice her approval over Ani’s wish. “Ani, you stay here and rest. You know as well as I do that these things are unpredictable. If you get knocked off your feet—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Nine months, baby machine, take it easy, blah, blah, blah,” she muttered. “You do know that, no matter what, this kid’s going to be as tough as nails.”

He’d kissed her on the forehead. “Of course I know that. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

And as he cruised, he let himself think about his impending fatherhood.

And marriage. And forever.

Maybe Ani was right and Oz had been fuzzy, or so caught up in the sacrifice he knew he’d have to make for Dev—trading his own life for the life of the man he loved—that he’d fucked up the prediction. Misinterpreted it.

Except Oz never really did fuck up. Even the time Ani had mentioned to reassure him, about the accident Oz saw Devlin getting into, Dev had only told Annika he’d helped victims of an accident. He hadn’t wanted to upset her with the fact that he had indeed been the victim of a very serious car accident.

Think about the baby. Pure and good.

Oz, you’re going to have to protect this baby—and Ani and me. The way you did when I was a baby.

He gave a quick glance up at the sky as he spoke to his brother and then continued down the highway with the wind at his back and his troubles hopefully behind him.

235

CAROLINE’S MIND-WIPE HAD BEEN EXHAUSTING FOR LOGAN,

but it had been just what his sister needed.

He’d remained with her in the ACRO infirmary for a week—she needed to be strong and healed before they could work their magic. The doctors used some serums that accelerated her healing, because erasing the horror of her kidnapping wouldn’t do much good if her face and body still bore the bruises of the beating she’d taken.

He’d apologized to her so many times, she’d finally told him to shut up. He took that as a good sign, although she continued to wear that same guarded look of fear. At the end of the week, he escorted her back to her school in Virginia, along with an ACRO psychic. Caroline needed to be in the place she was right before the kidnapping. And as she sat in the back of the van right across from the library path she’d been swiped from, Logan held her hand and watched the woman named Sam replace bad memories with good ones.

Within half an hour, he had Caroline back. She now believed she’d left school because Logan was in trouble—a minor car accident, which explained his insignificant cuts and bruises. She thought she’d spent time with him, and that Sam was a GWC colleague. And Caroline told Logan he needed to come see her more often.

Sometimes, ignorance really was bliss, he thought as he left her at her dorm, listening to her talking excitedly with her friends about the weekend of parties planned around campus.

He’d never be able to forget the way she looked when he’d found her in the jungle. Which was why working for ACRO was the best choice he and his father could make—they could still do a lot of good with GWC, and Devlin would make sure they wouldn’t get into bed with the wrong players again.

The jet had taken him and Sam back to ACRO late that night. He’d hung around Caroline’s campus for hours, just in case something went wrong with the mind-sweep, until Sam gently convinced him that she had an excellent success rate with non-specials. Not that your sister’s not special, she’d said with a smile.

He’d been back at ACRO for less than fourteen hours and already he was restless as hell. He figured he’d meet with Devlin tomorrow, map out the changes for GWC. Figure shit out.

Dammit, he missed Sela.

A knock on the door roused him from his reverie, and he heard Sela call his name softly from the other side of the door.

He got up and opened it. She was leaning against the door-jamb, looking beautiful—strong and fragile at the same time. “Hey. I wanted to check to see how things went with your sister.”

He stepped aside, motioned for her to come in. “It worked out really well.

Caroline’s happy now.”

“What about us?” She shook her head. “Sorry. I’m impatient, I know. But it’s been a long week without you.”

236

He stuck his hands in the pockets of his BDUs. He’d missed the hell out of her, tossed and turned and paced the floors while he’d watched Caroline rest and recover and have her memories fixed on a trip to Virgina—and again since he’d gotten back here. “It’s okay. I was going to come see you. Sela, I can accept your past … it’s just, I don’t think I could handle it—no, I know I couldn’t handle it—if you continued working as a Seducer. I won’t share you, Sela.” His voice was fierce and his hand was on her waist, because he loved touching her. Loved being with her … loved feeling. “I don’t know how or why you make me feel, how you’ve managed to get in where no other woman has.”

“Maybe it’s just the sex that makes you feel,” she whispered, her eyes filled with pain.

But no, that wasn’t it.

“It’s more than that, Sela. I feel you here”—he pointed to his head and then his heart—“and here. And I don’t want it to end.”

“I haven’t worked as a Seducer in years, Logan. I wasn’t supposed to work as one on this mission either.”

“Still, you tried to get information from me.”

“I thought you were one of the bad guys—you can understand that. I work for the greater good, even if it goes against my own happiness.”

“That’s a hell of a sacrifice.”

“It can be. But Devlin says that things happen for a reason. I used a skill I haven’t used in years—and as it turns out, I can’t read your immediate thoughts.

You have no idea what a relief that is, how free I feel when I’m with you because of that. I can be normal with you. I can be in a relationship—and I really want to be. Because I love you.”

He paused, feeling like the breath had been kicked out of him. And then,

“Say it again.”

She smiled shyly. “I love you, Logan. I want to be with you. I want you to stay here at ACRO and continue your work. I want you to go out on Crypto assignments with me. I like that you’re possessive of me. That you want to protect me. I want our pasts not to stand in the way of our future, and I’m willing to fight to make sure that happens.”

He lowered his head and kissed her, a soft kiss that turned bolder and hotter as she pressed against him, held him tight, as if she’d never let him go. He was more than happy to ensure that happened.

PHOEBE STORMED INTO ITOR’S OFFICE HEADQUARTERS,

WHICH didn’t look like a headquarters at all. Itor ran its operations from several locations all over the world, chiefly in populated areas, where activity was hard to monitor. But its main hub was in the middle of nowhere, disguised as a sheep ranch in the Australian outback. Most of the work took place underground, safely shielded from radiation, satellites and psychics.

237

The huge ranch house topside was staffed by Itor agents who actually ran the sheep operation—and ran it well, at a profit. About a dozen agents lived permanently in the house, and another dozen lived in the guest quarters behind it.

All other Australian-based agents lived in the small town about twenty miles to the south, including Phoebe, though she also kept two smaller flats, near their Madrid and Kiev strongholds.

Her footsteps echoed with a metallic clang as she walked down the brightly lit, tubelike corridor. At the end of it, she submitted to a retina scan, and the titanium door whooshed open. On the other side, Dawn, Alek’s hyperannoying assistant, sat at her desk, her fingers flying over a keyboard.

“He’s waiting for you,” she said, without even looking up. “You’re late.”

The head of Itor had absolutely no patience for tardiness, and even though Phoebe knew she got a little more slack than others, her stomach still knotted. She was in enough trouble as it was.

She entered his plush office, but the room was empty. He was either in the bathroom or the bedroom. Grateful for the extra time, she poured herself a brandy from the wet bar and settled into one of the overstuffed leather sofas.

She’d just taken her third sip when she felt Alek. Drawn to the dark power that emanated from him, she swung her head around to where he stood in the hallway, filling it more with his presence than with his size. He was tall, but lean, his muscular runner’s body rippling with banked energy. Usually he wore slacks and a fitted shirt, but today he must have been handling ranching duties, and he looked as at home in jeans as he did in more formal attire.

But then, a man like Alek could wear anything he wanted and own it.

“So,” he said tonelessly, “ACRO fucked things up again.”

“There was no way we could have predicted—”

“Shut up.”

She bristled, but shut her mouth. He was the only person on the planet who could do that to her. She wondered, though, if Devlin had the same commanding presence. She’d only seen pictures of Alek’s son—he looked like a younger version of Alek, with the same piercing, knowing eyes, the same shade of brown hair. But she doubted Devlin’s ruthlessness could compete with Alek’s. Maybe his mother had contributed some weaker DNA. Pussy genes, as Alek liked to say.

“Did Melanie make an appearance?”

“Yes.” Phoebe had no idea why he did shit like this: ask questions he already knew the answers to. The man could read her mind. Could read pretty much anyone’s, even through shields. Except Melanie’s, which pissed him off to no end. It also made no sense, given that Melanie and Phoebe weren’t split personalities. They were identical twins mashed into the same body. Then again, they possessed different abilities, thanks to the experimentation that had taken place while they were just embryos in a petri dish.

“When we’re done here, I want to see her. You’ll let her out.”

Phoebe smiled. Melanie was in for a world of hurt. Alek didn’t ask to see 238

her very often, but when he did … well, Phoebe never knew exactly what he did to her, but when Phoebe got their body back, she was always bruised and sore. He never bothered to beat Phoebe; he’d learned a long time ago that she enjoyed pain too much to make the expending of energy worth it.

Which wasn’t to say that he didn’t punish her in other ways, and she sat nervously as he moved to the wet bar and poured himself a vodka on ice.

“You failed to procure the chupacabra, and you have probably lost us GWC

as our primary weapons supplier.” He didn’t wait for an answer, because he wasn’t expecting one. “On the other hand, you did arrange for the delivery of the Izapa crystal.”

That had been a six-month-long endeavor. The crystal, covertly excavated from a Mayan temple, was part of the 2012 doomsday prophecy, which Itor fully intended to exploit. With the crystal, Alek planned to create a device that would harness the cosmic radiation scientists believed would be funneled toward earth on the day the winter solstice sun intersected with the Milky Way’s dark rift. With that energy, Itor would be in possession of the greatest, most powerful weapon known to man.

And with that weapon, Alek intended for Itor to rule the world.

Phoebe planned to rule at his side, and she’d do anything to get there. But first, there was the small matter of getting ACRO out of the way. The bunch of meddling do-gooders.

“I didn’t just arrange for the delivery,” she said, with a trace of bitterness she hoped he didn’t pick up on. “I supervised the excavation and made sure no one got in our way.” Which meant that she’d killed a few government officials. “And I did it without alerting ACRO to our presence.” She’d finished there just before she’d gone on the chupacabra operation that she’d botched.