Darkness Hunts (DA 4) (9 page)

“Any sorcerer who trades with darkness is not a wise choice,” Azriel said. Though his voice retained its usual even tone, his distaste and annoyance still shivered through me.

Which was odd. It was almost as if the chi connection had somehow deepened, allowing me greater access to the ebb and flow of his emotions. And from what I’d gathered, that
shouldn’t
have been the case.

Unless it was a sign that assimilation was a whole lot closer than we’d presumed.

No
.

I glanced at him.
If it’s not assimilation, then what is it?

He gave me the mental equivalent of a shrug and my annoyance surged. Some things, it seemed, would never change.

“We haven’t even had the chance to explore our options with the Brindle witches yet,” I said to Lucian.

And since they were some of the most powerful witches in the land, you’d have to think they should be able to come up with something.

“What you bear in your heart is unlike anything the Brindle witches have seen before,” Lucian commented. “It is Aedh in origin, and their magic far exceeds anything ever seen here on earth.”

“By that logic,” Azriel said, before I could even open my mouth, “a dark sorcerer will be of as little use as the Brindle witches.”

Lucian gave him a somewhat scathing glance. “Except that witches rely on natural magic, whereas a dark sorcerer uses the magic of this world
and
the other. In this case, that is probably as close as we’ll ever get to Aedh-strength magic.”

“Which does not mean we should discount other options without even exploring them.” Azriel’s voice held a dangerous edge. “Risa, you cannot—”

“We have to at least
talk
to this sorcerer,” I cut in firmly even as trepidation crawled across my skin. I’d heard too many of Ilianna’s stories to ever be comfortable in the presence of a dark sorcerer. “Even if we do nothing with the information he gives us.”

“At least someone in this little group has some common sense,” Lucian said. “I’ve arranged a meeting for this evening.”

“I’m working at the café until eleven.”

He shrugged. “Shall I pick you up, or would you prefer to meet us there?”

“The latter.” I didn’t want to be reliant on him to get back home, simply because that was one sure way to end up in his bed rather than alone in mine. Amusement teased his lips again. I added, somewhat crossly, “I thought you could only read my thoughts during sex?”

“That is mostly true.”

Azriel snorted softly. I ignored him and said, “Define ‘mostly.’”

Lucian shrugged again. “Thoughts of a sexual nature are easier to pick up. Anything else is very muddy.”

“Muddy” didn’t mean he couldn’t read them, just that they were harder to hear. Fabulous.
Not
.

“When and where do you want to meet?”

“There’s a lovely little bar down the Paris end of Collins Street—Maxwell’s, it’s called. Shall we say midnight?”

“Fine. Now, if you don’t mind, get the hell out of here so I can go home and get ready for work.”

“Your grouchy side is showing, my dear.” His gaze swept to Azriel. “Understandable, I guess, given the company you’re forced to keep twenty-four/seven.”

Azriel took one step forward, then stopped. Other than the slight tightening in his jawline, his expression remained as impassive as ever. But the emotional turmoil that exploded through my being just about sent me staggering.

Lucian was a dead man if he ever gave Azriel the slightest reason to attack.

He will not,
Azriel said.
He is not that stupid. Nor am I that rash
.

You might be if you hang around me for too much longer
.

Many things might happen if I hang around you too much longer
.

It was a comment that sparked an avalanche of questions and possibly some hope, but before I could say anything, Azriel winked out of existence—neatly avoiding said questions—and Lucian stepped closer. His scent was an enticing mix of lemongrass, suede, and musky, powerful male.

“Until tonight.” He caught my hand in his and raised it to his lips. The kiss was light and teasing, and oddly erotic. “Wear something sexy.”

“I have no intention of wearing anything sexy—either for you or for this dark sorcerer.” I ripped my hand from his, but the warmth of his lips lingered, making my skin tingle.

Amusement played about his mouth. “I can’t
still
be in the bad books for previous behavior, surely.”

“You can, and you are.” I shrugged. “It’s going to take some pretty stellar behavior to get you out of the bad books.”

“Ah, a challenge. I like that.” He hesitated, then added, “One thing, though.”

I raised my eyebrows in question when he didn’t immediately go on, and he half smiled. “This may seem a strange request, but do not wear your demon sword when you meet our sorcerer. They tend to be sensitive to demon magic, and it would create the wrong impression.”

I snorted. “I’m not really caring about the impression I give to a sorcerer.”

“You might if you want a solution to your problem.” He caught my hand again and dropped a soft, sweet kiss on it. My toes curled in delight. “I promise to protect you from any harm the sorcerer might offer.”

“Yeah, but who’s going to protect me from you?”

“Ah,” he said, his voice filled with mock distress. “You’ve uncovered my evil plan to have you helpless with desire by the evening’s end.”

Despite the annoyance—at both myself and him—I couldn’t help smiling. “Amaya’s presence won’t stop that from happening.”

“No, but it may stop the sorcerer from helping us. Will you leave her behind? Please?”

I eyed him for a moment, then said, somewhat reluctantly, “Okay.”

He bowed lightly. “Until tonight, then, when the games will commence.”

He gave me another smoky smile, then turned and walked away. And I knew that if I didn’t end up in his bed tonight, it would be a goddamn miracle.

*  *  *

It was just after three by the time I arrived at the café we’d named RYT’s, an acronym for
rich young things
, which was precisely what we’d been at the time we’d started the business. Though I was a good fifteen minutes late, the café wasn’t that busy, with only a couple of regulars sitting at the bar drinking Irish coffees and a third at one of the tables reading the newspaper. The article, I noticed with amusement, was one of Jak’s, but I resisted the temptation to peek over the customer’s shoulder to see just what he was reporting on this time. He might have stepped back into my life, but that didn’t mean I now needed to keep up with everything he was doing.

Even if that wistful, not-quite-over-him-no-matter-what-he’d-done piece of me desperately wanted to.

“Hi, Risa,” Manny, one of our newer waiters, said as I walked in.

“How’s things going today?”

“A particularly insane lunch rush has been followed by this lovely lull.”

“Enjoy it while you can,” I said with a smile, “because it won’t last long.”

The afternoon rush usually hit between five and seven, when werewolves hungry from the afternoon spent at the werewolf sex club Blue Moon came in to eat, and those on their way to the club came in to fuel up.

I looked around for a moment, then added, “Where’s Linda?”

“Apparently one of the kitchen hands didn’t turn up today, so Tao’s asked Linda to help with the dishes while we’re slow.”

I cursed softly. If there was one position we couldn’t seem to keep filled long term, it was the damn kitchen hand. It paid well enough, but it was hot, grubby work, and it seemed the younger generation weren’t inclined that way—it was all middle management and high starting salaries for them, or it was nothing.

Which was a comment Mom often used to make. I smiled, even as the wistful ache that she was gone swept through me again. No matter how close I was to my aunt Riley, she wasn’t Mom and never could be.

I grabbed the banister and headed up. “I’ve got to go do some paperwork, Manny, but give me a yell the minute it gets busy down here.”

He nodded, and I continued on up to the office.

I was near the top of the stairs when the kitchen exploded in flames.

Chapter 4

There was a gigantic
whoosh
; then the kitchen doors burst open and a fist of flame punched through them. I ducked instinctively, but the flames were sucked back into the kitchen almost as soon as they’d appeared.

It
wasn’t
a natural action.

The flames were
Tao’s
.

He’d lost control. Had to have.
Fuck
.

I jumped over the banister, landed lightly in a half crouch, then surged upright and ran forward. The fire alarm went off, forcing me to shout as I said, “Manny, get everyone outside!”

He nodded, his face white as he herded the three customers out. I made a quick dash into the bathrooms to ensure that no one was there, then bolted for the kitchen.

I hit the doors with enough force to wrench one from its hinges. Water poured from the ceiling sprinklers and soaked me in an instant, but it wasn’t doing anything to extinguish the source of the fire—Tao. He was on his knees in the middle of the kitchen floor, his arms wrapped around his chest and his entire body alight. It wasn’t burning him—it couldn’t, because he was now more a spirit of flame than a werewolf with pyrokinetic abilities, thanks to the fire elemental—a creature created from magic—that he’d consumed to save Ilianna’s life. But his flames leapt high enough to fan out across the ceiling, and there were thick scorch marks above the stainless-steel oven surrounds—obviously, that was where the initial loss of control had happened. Yet nothing else had been set on fire, even though the intensity of the heat pouring off him had me flinching.

My gaze swept the rest of the kitchen, looking for Linda and Rachel—the other chef who was rostered on to help today. Neither of them was here, but the rear door was half open. Tao must have sent them out just before he exploded.

I scooped up tea towels from the nearby bench, dunked them in a sink that had trays soaking, then wrapped them around my hands as I approached Tao.

“Don’t,” he croaked. “You’ll burn.”

“Then fucking control it.”

His gaze leapt to mine—haunted, desperate. “It’s not me. It’s not my fire-starting abilities—it’s the elemental.”

I bit my lip against the urge to say something comforting. That was
not
what he needed right now. “And you’re
both
now, like it or not. You
can
do this, Tao. You
can
control it.”

“If I
could
, I wouldn’t have exploded,” he ground out.

True enough. But all I said was, “Well, the only thing on fire in the kitchen is you, so don’t bullshit me about not being able to control it.”

I grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him toward the freezer. His entire body shook violently, as if the flames that enveloped him were physically assaulting him. Heat soaked through the towels and singed the hairs on my arms, but the flames leapt no farther up my arms—he
was
controlling it, even if imperfectly.

I opened the freezer, shoved him inside, then grabbed the safety-release knob and slammed the door shut behind the two of us. The flames were so fierce it felt like I’d stepped into an oven, and I briefly wondered if he’d get himself under full control before everything started melting—me included.

He squatted on the freezer floor and hugged his knees, making the overall area of his flames small. I stepped past him and grabbed some bags of ice, tearing them open, then pouring the contents down his back. The blocks melted in an instant, but it didn’t matter. What that did was get his core temperature down so that he could have some hope of regaining control.

Gradually, the flames subsided, until they were little more than fireflies dancing across his skin. I poured the last of the ice down his back, then tossed the bag on the floor beside the others and knelt behind him. I wrapped my arms around his still-shaking shoulders and held him tight. I was soaked to the skin—we both were—but I wasn’t cold. The flames might be practically out, but the heat in his body was still enough to warm an entire battalion of people.

After a while, he took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Don’t ever do that again, Risa.”

It seemed to be my day for getting told that. But there was no anger in Tao’s voice, only resigned weariness. I said, “You know it’s pointless telling me that, so why even waste the words?”

“Because I keep hoping one day you’ll actually listen to someone.”

I snorted softly. “And how long have you known me?”

He made an odd sound that stood somewhere between laugh and groan. “Okay, point taken. But it was still one hell of a risk. I wasn’t in control, and I could have hurt you.”

“As I’ve already pointed out, you were the only thing alight in the kitchen.” And that alone meant he had some level of control, even if he couldn’t immediately douse the flames. I dropped a kiss onto the back of his neck, then pushed to my feet. “I knew you wouldn’t let the elemental hurt me.”

“Next time I might.” He took my offered hand and let me haul him upright. As a werewolf he was naturally lean, but these days, thanks to what resided within him, he could only be considered skin and bone. Not abnormally so, not yet, but not far from it, either. “And the fire trucks have just about arrived.”

I cocked my head a little and caught the wail of the approaching fire engine. “You want to go out the back and reassure Linda and Rachel? I’ll go talk to the firemen.”

His smile was a little on the wan side, but it nevertheless warmed me. He was going to be okay—at least this time. “You always did like a man in uniform.”

“Most women do.” I gave him a grin. “And some men.”

“Not this man.”

“Well, no, not unless you’d walked in on one of Ilianna’s potion-making moments.” I hesitated. “Once this mess is all sorted out, you’d better meet me upstairs and tell me exactly what happened.”