Twice as Hot (2 page)

Before,
I was an everyday, average,
normal
girl. Normal and wishing for more. I
should have known better. Sometimes you actually get what you wish for, and the
results are
not
what you expected. I’d wanted excitement. And yeah, I’d
gotten it. But that excitement came with a death warrant.

See,
a few months ago a crazy scientist secretly dropped a chemical into my grande
mocha latte and that chemical…changed me. Belle Jamison, average no longer.
Suddenly I could shoot fireballs from my eyes, freeze an entire room with a
brush of my fingertips against a wall, cause a tempestuous rainstorm with my
tears and start a level-five tornado with only a thought.

At
first, I was upset. I mean, really. The ability to destroy the entire world and
everyone in it is a huge burden to carry. But that burden also brought the sexy
and insatiable Rome Masters into my life, so I don’t begrudge it too much.
Anymore. Plus, now that I have a little influence over my gift—yeah, that’s a
better word for it. Gift—people who piss me off “accidentally” get their
eyebrows singed and that’s pretty damn fun.

Sure,
Rome once tried to kill me. Or, as he’d say, “neutralize” the threat I’d
become, as I’d had yet to perfect my new powers. Sure, I later accidentally-on-purpose
Tasered the hell out of him. But now we can’t live without each other.

That
might seem weird, but hey. Some people held hands to show their love; we drew
blood. Or we would, if Rome was anywhere to be found.

“I
swear, he has five seconds to call me or I’m going to torch his entire gun
collection and use the melted metal to make a few necklaces. Maybe some
earrings.”

My
best friend Sherridan looked up from the romance novel propped against her
upraised legs. She lounged on the couch, a vision of curly blond hair, big blue
eyes more often than not filled with sadness nowadays and curves that went on
for miles. I wasn’t jealous. Really. “He’s called you, like, four times in the
past week. And seriously, you should be embarrassed. I’ve never met anyone who
has as much phone sex as you two.”

My
eyes narrowed on her. “How do you know about the phone sex?”

“Duh.
I pick up the phone and listen.”

I
gaped at her.

Sherridan
laughed. “Kidding, I was only kidding. But you should see your face.
Hi-lar-ious! The problem is, you’re, like, freakishly loud. Seriously, earplugs
don’t help. Cranking up my iPod to full blast doesn’t work. Despite myself,
I’ve been really impressed with your skills.”

Color
flooded my cheeks.
This
was the problem with roommates. But better
Sherridan and Tanner, my other BFF, lived here where Rome and I could protect
them from scrims—supernatural criminals—wanting to hurt us by hurting our loved
ones. “Never mind my incredible phone sex. Rome was supposed to call me again
last night. He didn’t. He hasn’t. That’s not like him. Do you think something’s
wrong?”

“Stop
worrying,” she said with a wave of dismissal. “That he-man can morph into a
jaguar, for God’s sake. He’s fine. He’s probably planning a surprise homecoming
or something.”

Yes,
Rome could morph into a jaguar—a sleek and sexy jaguar I loved to pet—all
because of experiments he’d volunteered for, hoping to make himself stronger to
better guard his loved ones. He
could
defend himself and he
did
like to please me, so a surprise arrival wasn’t a stretch, but…My hand
fluttered over the pulse hammering in my throat. “Really? You think that’s
what’s going on?” Was that neediness really mine?

“Of
course.”

She
sounded confident. But then, she hadn’t battled people more monster than human.
People who could walk through walls, shift into creatures of the night and leap
at you with fangs and claws bared—or simply materialize in front of you with a
knife in hand.

I
had. Rome had. And I had no idea what he was up against this time.

Heart
thundering in my chest, I stood in the middle of the living room and studied
the home I now shared with him. I’d decorated it, so of course it was made of
awesome. From the bright red velvet chairs to the beaded blue pillows tossed
haphazardly about to the purple lace hanging from the windows, the place was a
veritable rainbow. Rome hadn’t complained. First time he’d seen it, he had
walked in, looked around and shaken his head with a wry smile.

“Should
have expected it,” he’d said, before pouncing on me for a few hours of
undercover fun.

“He’s
never
not
called me when he said he was going to call me, Sherridan.” I
didn’t dare refer to her as Sherri. I was the one with superpowers, but she
would have found a way to peel the skin from my bones and wear it as a victory
coat. “He has one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. He could be a pile
of ash for all I know.”
Oh, God.
Another thought like that, and I was
likely to flood my beautiful rainbow living room.

Sighing,
she shut the book with a snap. “All right. You need to vent, so I’ll listen to
you vent. But do it quickly, because Rydstorm was about to plunder Sabine with
his thick, hard—”

“Sherridan
Smith! Tanner’s in the next room and from what I’ve been able to get out of
him, he’s still mourning Lexis.” Lexis was Rome’s still-infatuated ex-wife.
When she’d realized Rome loved me—and would always love me, I added for my own
benefit—she had turned to Tanner for comfort. The now twenty-year-old kid-boy-
man
had been all too willing to console her. Virgin that he was—is?—I think he’d
even fallen in love with her. But then, about a week ago, she’d kicked him out
of her house, claiming she didn’t want to see him again.

Tanner
had been a mess ever since.

Lexis
was the most powerful psychic I’d ever encountered, so I was willing to bet
she’d had a negative vision about Tanner and had cut him loose because of it.
While I (sometimes) liked her, though, we weren’t on friendly enough terms for
me to phone her and ask.

Sherridan’s
lips lifted in a slow, wicked smile. Her first in days, and that warmed me up
inside. Between her and Tanner, I’d gotten my fill of doom and gloom. “If I
know that pervert, he’s watching porn.”

I
couldn’t refute that. Tanner did like his porn.

“Besides,”
Sherridan said, “it’s not like his superpower is supersonic hearing.” She was
grumbling now.

No,
Tanner was an empath. A human lie detector. He could sense emotions, which was
why he was the perfect partner for me. He let me know when my feelings—and
thereby the world—were about to explode so that I could calm myself down.

“Call
your boss, whatshisname,” Sherridan suggested. “Bob…or Jim. John!” She clapped,
clearly proud of herself. “Yes. Call John. He’ll know where Rome is.”

“I’ve
already spoken to John. I had my mandatory testing twice this week, and he was
there to watch the poking and the prodding.” Because of the chemical I’d
ingested and its lingering effects, John liked to monitor me. To our mutual
consternation, his tests were totally screwing with my restraint. Every time he
had his vampire—you think I’m kidding?—withdraw a vial of my blood, I lost a
little more control and my powers went a little wonky. Yesterday I’d turned a
potted plant into a treecicle simply by glancing at it.

Or
maybe the problem was this distance from Rome. I needed my man. He kept me
grounded, centered. He was also able to filter out the worst of my emotions.
Yeah, it was probably this temporary separation that was screwing with me. It
was screwing with everything else. My peace of mind, my hormones, my appetite.

Was
such dependence dangerous? And did I care?

Where
the hell was he? My shoulders slumped. “John wouldn’t tell me a damn thing
about Rome. Even when I threatened to quit.”

Sherridan
rolled her eyes. “You threaten to quit every day, so that’s no big deal. I told
you that if you didn’t save the big gun for a big battle, you’d have no
ammunition when the big battle finally arrived. Didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you
that? You’re like the boy who cried wolf—or jaguar in this case—and I told you
not to do it. I told you.”

I
kicked into motion, pacing over to frown down at her. “Do you
want
to be
deep-fried?”

“Please.
I’m the only person brave enough to be the maid of honor at a wedding
guaranteed to be a Who’s Who of Superheroes and Supervillains, so you need me.
We both know I’m not in any danger from your fury-fire.”

No,
she wasn’t. She was more likely to drown in my tears or freeze from my touch. I
was depressed and scared, and my fear always summoned ice, my sadness rain. My
anger summoned fire, of course, and my jealousy summoned earth. Yes, I could
make dirt pies. Calling the wind required an emotional cocktail of both
negative and positive, so it was the hardest to manipulate. It was hard to be
happy and sad, loving and hateful at the same time.

Once,
for a short window of time, I’d been able to use my powers without relying on
my emotions. No longer. For whatever reason—cough John’s tests and Rome’s
absence cough—that was now nothing more than a pipe dream.

“What
if he’s…” I couldn’t say it. I just couldn’t finish that sentence. Suddenly my
chin was trembling too badly. God, I was a wreck lately! And no, I wasn’t
pregnant. (I’d already taken a test.)

“He’s
not. Who was Rome battling, anyway? And why didn’t you go with him?”

“Run-of-the-mill
armed guards, most likely, and I’m an idiot. Besides, Cody went with him.” Cody
could manipulate electricity, so he was a good partner to have. Better than me,
for sure. “I’ve been planning a wedding, babysitting yo—uh, Tanner, researching
Desert Gal and—”

“Desert
Gal, huh.” Sherridan sat up straighter. “You mean the psycho-bitch who drains
the water out of everything she touches?”

“Yes.
That’s her.” Unfortunately—or fortunately?—I hadn’t had a face-to-face with the
sadistic woman yet. One, she’d managed to elude me and two, I’d been too busy
getting nailed by other scrims who’d started coming after me the moment I
joined PSI. Their mission: recruit me to OASS—Observation and Application of
Supernatural Studies, a nongovernment agency whose methods sometimes bordered
on criminal and sometimes straight up
were
criminal. Or, if they
couldn’t recruit me, plan B was to kill me.

Eight
had tried so far, and I’d managed to beat them all. Okay, okay, Rome had
ensured victory most of the time. I was still new at the whole shadow-game
thing.

“What’s
she look like?” Sherridan asked.

That
was the kicker. No one had a picture of her. Well, not that they’d shown me.
Secret agents were so…secretive. But still. I’d already proven I was
trustworthy, and why not share something that would help me? “I don’t know, but
I’m envisioning a dried-up prune with teeth.”

“Okay.
I’ve got a visual on her now. Continue.”

“One
of Rome’s contacts intercepted a communication between her and some as yet
unknown man and learned some stuff we didn’t know. Like how Pretty Boy, her
former boss—you know, the evil guy Rome and I had to kill during our
courtship—had several warehouses filled with people he’d locked up and
experimented on. Desert Gal moved them to a central location to test them and
weed out the weaklings, and Rome went to save them. But knowing Pretty Boy, and
having studied Desert Gal, there were a few booby traps along the way.” Just
saying those two words—Pretty Boy—caused me to shudder. And I’d said them
twice. Double shudder.

He’d
been the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, lushly sensual, darkly erotic, yet
he’d possessed a black, monstrous heart. He’d tried to experiment on me, too,
as well as attempting to kill Rome. He
had
experimented on others—the
ones we’d known about before his death—replacing their skin with impenetrable
metal, adding animal glands to their brains so they’d have beastlike instincts.
He’d done other stuff, too. Stuff I couldn’t even consider without gagging. All
to build an army. An army that would bring him money and (more) power.

Très
cliché if you asked me.

Sherridan
leaned forward, clearly intrigued. The book fell to her feet, a warrior’s
bright eyes staring up at me. “There were survivors?” she asked. “I thought all
the people Pretty Boy tampered with ended up dying. Even the ones you guys
rescued from those cages.”

“They
did. Well, those did. Like I said, he had other warehouses, more people.
Apparently these groups not only survived, they’ve begun to thrive. Rome was to
bring them to PSI for questioning and testing. John wants to do a little
recruiting of his own, I’m sure.”

“Wow,
experiments that actually worked,” she said reverently, her blue eyes glazing
over. Then her features softened, and her mouth parted on a dreamy sigh.

Her
mind was wandering.

What,
she wanted to be experimented on? I shook my head and had to hook several
strands of my honey-colored hair behind my ears to keep them from slapping my
cheeks. “Sherridan.”

No
response.

I
rubbed my temples and closed my eyes for a moment. If I knew my friend, and I
think I did, since we’d been friends for years, she’d just entered her Happy
Place. She would be there for half an hour, at least. Trying to engage her now
would be pointless.