“You didn’t remember me.”
“I don’t remember anything. Who are you?”
“I told you. I’m Embry Hollister—” she began.
“No. Who are you to me? Or who were you?”
Drink the scotch. Drink the scotch. The words repeated like a mantra in her head. She took another sip of her own, hoping he’d follow the example. “We were…involved. I wanted to see if you’d remember anything from spending time with me.” Okay, partial truth.
The ice cubes clinked in his glass as he began to pace restlessly. “I saw you. During the fight. And I felt… I don’t know what I felt. But something. When I asked you in the locker room if you knew me, you blew it off.” He stopped pacing to face her. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for someone who knew me from before?”
“I imagine as long as I’ve been looking over my shoulder hoping to find you.” Embry was out of scotch.
“So we were involved? Important to each other?” he asked.
“Very,” she said softly.
“Do you know what happened to me? Why I can’t remember?”
“Some of it,” she admitted.
He tipped the glass back and drained it. “Tell me everything,” he said, slapping the glass down with a thunk.
Embry stared at it in relief. “I don’t have to. You’re about to remember.”
A vein popped out at his temple and his eyes went wide. One hand flew to his throat as he began to wheeze, the other reached out to her as he stumbled forward. “What… have… you… done?”
“Set you free,” she said softly.
He crashed onto the coffee table. The wood splintered, the tray and the ice bucket flying.
Even knowing that the antidote wouldn’t kill him, panic pulsed through her at the sight of his purpling face. His limbs flailed, his body bowing as the potion worked its way through every cell, eradicating the memory block imposed there all those years ago.
At last, he was still, his color returning to normal. With considerable effort, she hoisted his dead weight and repositioned him on the bed. Then she poured herself another scotch and settled in to wait.
Chapter 4
Sweat slicked his skin. He lifted his arm in an automatic block and felt the zing of impact up to his shoulder. A grin stretched his lips as he backed up, circling her on the sparring mat. “You’re getting better, Ember.”
“I still haven’t taken you down,” she panted, her sunburst eyes glowing with battle light and with the power she managed to keep just banked.
“Keep dreaming, baby,” he laughed.
“I’m going to beat you, Gage Dempsey,” she declared, punctuating each word with an attempted strike.
When she snuck in a blow to his kidney, Gage stopped laughing and corrected his stance.
He lived for these sparring matches with Embry. He lived for any of the stolen time they managed to spend together, even if she just came to the dojo because she wanted to learn the ways of the Shadow Walkers and her father wouldn’t teach her. He didn’t know how Adan would react to the fact that he was teaching Embry to fight. Or the fact that his protégé was in love with his daughter. And Gage couldn’t afford to anger his mentor. Not when he owed Adan everything. So other than this, Embry was off limits.
A blast of dry heat knocked him back two steps.
“Hey now, you’re losing your cool. Keep the fireworks under wraps, padewan.”
“I will burn your ass, Obi-wan.”
Gage ducked as a roundhouse whispered by his head, countering with a low spin kick that caught and buckled her knee. From the mat, Embry scissored her legs around his and brought him down to her level. She swarmed over him like a monkey, struggling for any kind of hold, but he just rolled and twisted in her ever frustrated grasp. Which was amusing until the friction of her lithe little body rubbing against his caused another problem.
He pinned her with his body, pressing both her arms to the mat. Her long legs were wrapped around his hips like a vice, and Gage could feel his erection straining against his gi pants toward her heat. His breath shuddered out as he struggled for some kind of control. This was Adan’s daughter. She was practically his sister.
Gage tried to back up, but Embry’s legs only tightened. He felt himself twitch against her, and his face flamed in mortification. “Uncle,” he muttered, voice rough. “You win. Let me up.”
Embry tipped her hips experimentally against his, and he strangled on his own breath. His head dipped as he struggled not to react. She moved again.
“Don’t,” he barked. “We’re not going to play this game, Embry.”
“Gage.” At her soft voice, he looked up and met her eyes. The gold ring that circled her pupil was pulsing. “Let go of my hands.”
He released her, planting his own hands on the mat and pushing up to keep them from touching her anywhere else. He tried to find somewhere else to look. Straight down put him on eye level with her breasts, and his mouth watered at the thought of suckling one puckered peak. Straight ahead gave him a full on view of them in the mirror, and his all too active imagination decided to treat him to what those tangled limbs would look like if they were both naked. Christ.
Her hands, soft and insistent, framed his face and forced him to look at her. And it wasn’t a girl beneath him. Wasn’t anyone he could convince himself to think of as a sibling. She was a woman, fully aroused, fully aware. Her extraordinary sunburst eyes stayed focused on him as she rose up and captured his mouth.
His arms and shoulders trembled. He was not so weak a fighter that he couldn’t extricate himself. He should throw her off, end this madness.
But the taste of her seeped into his veins and fired his blood. She would burn him up from the inside out, leaving nothing but cinders. Yet he couldn’t pull away.
She shoved at him until he rolled, reversing their positions. Rising over him like some kind of fire goddess, she pulled the tight t-shirt over her head, growling a little in frustration as it caught in the long tangle of auburn. The sports bra she wore zipped in the front. The zipper was already partially down, and her breasts strained against the cotton. He ached to fill his hands with them. Because he didn’t trust himself, he clutched her thighs and held still.
She bent over him again, her hands sprinting over his chest. Everywhere she touched, he burned, a delicious edge one step away from pain that left him wanting more. If this was lunacy, he reveled in it.
“Gage,” she murmured, her lips barely brushing his.
“Mmm?”
“Touch me.”
Embry sat up, her eyes fixed on his in challenge, and slowly unzipped her sports bra. Her breasts spilled out as she shrugged the thing off. “Touch me,” she ordered again, lifting both his hands and placing them over her breasts. A hum of pleasure escaped her, and he was lost.
He reared up to take her mouth as he shifted his hands to cradle her breasts. They were full and heavy in his palms, the nipples budding taut and hard beneath the stroke of his thumbs. In his lap she began to move to the rhythm of his stroking. On a gasp he broke the kiss and stilled her. “You’ll need to stop that unless you want this over before it’s started.”
“I need you,” she whispered, and the plea brought him one step closer to madness.
Gage dropped his forehead to hers. “I have to know, Ember. Have you ever… ”
“No. I wanted it to be you. I always wanted it to be you.”
Her first. God, he’d never imagined she would want him.
Gage stroked the hair back from her temple. “Embry, I… ”
“Let her go.” The voice echoed through the dojo and froze his blood, drying up the words he’d been about to speak
Instead of obeying, Gage pulled Embry closer to shield her from the intruders as he watched them step out of the shadows. There were three of them, each clad in the dark gray or black that was the standard issue for Shadow Walkers. He didn’t know them, but he knew their kind. After all, he’d been trained to be one
of them. As Adan wasn’t among them, Gage could only assume the powers that be had finally found out about him and the vigilante missions Adan had trained him for.
“What do you want?” he asked, carefully easing up, keeping Embry’s body pressed close to his as he shifted to put himself between the intruders and her, both as a means of protection and to preserve some measure of her modesty.
“I said, let her go.”
“Matthias, don’t. He didn’t—” Embry started.
“Shut your mouth, child. You weren’t supposed to be here.”
Gage’s mind whirled. So they were coming after me. They don’t want her. I can keep her safe if I can just get her out of here. “Will you be taking me to the Council?” he asked. He moved over a couple of steps, retrieving Embry’s t-shirt and passing it back to her.
“And expose Adan’s little side project? I don’t think so. We’re simply here to take care of the problem before it gets any further out of hand.” This came from the Walker to Matthias’ left. He was lean with the ropy muscles and long-fingered hands of a wraith.
“Take care of the problem,” said Gage. “Meaning me.” Behind him, he felt Embry stiffen. Before she could speak, he clamped his hand down tight on hers in warning. He knew every inch of this dojo, could visualize it under any condition. Right now he opened his mind, searching for the shadows. There was a sliver, behind him. Not much, but it might be just enough for him to dematerialize them both out of here. Without knowing him, they wouldn’t be able to follow. Not fast enough. He could get Embry away, keep her safe.
“Do you have any idea how many rules Adan violated with you? Bringing a human into our world?” The demand came from the Walker on the left. His dark face was barely differentiated from the shadows in which he stood. The outlines of his broad body were still blurred.
“I know he gave me my life.” Gage edged backward, trying to push Embry into a corner.
“A mistake we intend to rectify before it destroys him,” said the wraith.
“No!” The heat behind him was instant, scorching.
Gage turned toward her, shouting, “Embry, no!” But the fireballs were already flying from her hands toward the two flanking Walkers. They phased out even as Matthias dove forward and caught Gage around the waist.
Matthias was the bigger man, but Gage was younger, faster. He twisted and threw the Walker into a wall, already scrambling toward Embry.
She was a living flame, more than ever the child of her fire elemental mother. Heat and light pulsed off her in waves, expanding, beating in a terrifying rhythm as the nimbus grew and grew.
If she went nova, she’d kill them all.
Gage dove into the light, feeling no burn, no pain, just desperation to save her. If he could drag her out of the light and into the shadows, he could get her away to safety. Drawing on the darkness, he reached out for her. “You have to shut it off!”
“No, you don’t underst—”
His hands closed around her arms. For a heartbeat everything stilled. Then, agony ripped through him, an insatiable inferno of pain as everything she was projecting shot into his body and ripped him apart.
* * *
Embry shoved the barely there dress and ankle-breaking pumps into the bag. Good riddance, she thought, far more at ease in the jeans and knit top she now wore. A quick pass through the rest of the room showed that she’d gathered up everything. Her single duffel bag was packed and ready to go.
She wiped the room down for prints. Not that the IED used such primitive methods. If they came looking, they would find the characteristic traces of her magic in the room from when she’d nearly lost control with Gage. That spark would be as damning as a signature to those who knew how to read the scene, and there was no way to wipe that. And there really wasn’t anything she could do about the broken coffee table other than clean up the mess and let the hotel charge her credit card. So it was best that they get moving as soon as possible. Except she couldn’t lug Gage as a deadweight all the way to the car, not without arousing undue attention and suspicion.
Two long, restless hours had passed since he’d taken the antidote. How long is this going to take? The potionmonger from whom she’d obtained the antidote hadn’t said. If Matthias hadn’t recommended him as a source, Embry might be worried she’d given Gage some kind of poison. She moved back to sit on the edge of the bed.
He looks like he’s fighting a war, she thought, watching his face. What was he remembering?
Picking up one of his hands, she was startled at the sight of his palms. They held none of the usual lines but were, instead, covered in smooth, white scar tissue. Burns.
Embry closed her eyes and could still feel the desperate terror of that night. She’d been trying to save him the only way she knew how—by banishing the shadows with light. The dojo and Gage’s quarters were housed in a building with no windows or doors. If she eliminated all shadows, wrapping him in light, they couldn’t touch him, couldn’t take him into the shadows and away forever.
But he’d seen the aurora and mistaken it.
You have to turn it off!
The moment he’d grabbed her, something had changed. The nimbus of light she’d woven condensed and shot into him, slamming him back into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster. Then he’d slid limply to the ground and lay still. So still.
Matthias had walked over, checked his pulse, and shaken his head.
Matthias had lied. He’d let her live for ten years with the corrosive guilt that she’d killed the man she loved, until it suited his purposes to tell her otherwise. The bastard.
With one hand, she reached out, tracing her fingers over the contorted muscles in Gage’s face, as if she could ease the strain. “I’m so sorry.”
“Embry!” The scream burst from his mouth, and her heart jumped into her throat.
She leaned forward, intending to comfort, but he shot up, tackling her backwards.
Her breath whooshed out as they landed hard on the floor, his hands tight around her throat. Power swelled inside her, but she held it in check long enough to see his eyes clear, his face shift from rage to horror. He released her and scrambled back. One hand clutched at his head as he stared first at her, then looked wildly around the room, struggling to get to his feet, to raise his fists.
Embry sat up, clearing her throat. “It’s okay. We’re safe.”
He stumbled a few paces, looking as punch drunk as Archer had, and fell to his knees.
Embry scrambled to him before he could rise again, grabbing at his forearms, “Gage look at me. Look at me.” When he did, she could see the panicked fury in his eyes. She reached out to touch his cheek. “We’re alone. There’s no one here to hurt us. We’re safe. We’re safe.”
“Ember?” His eyes searched her face, and she wondered what he saw.
“I’m here.”
Her breath whooshed out again as he crushed her to him, almost cracking her ribs with shaking arms as one hand cradled her head. The combination of strength and gentleness all but undid her. It took every shred of self control to hold her body stiff in his embrace when she wanted to stroke and soothe—anything to ease his transition.
At length he stopped shaking. His frantic pulse slowed, and he loosened his grip, seeming to become aware that she was not returning his embrace.
“Embry, what the hell is going on?”
His eyes seemed clearer, more firmly grounded in the now than when he’d first awakened. “I’ll explain everything on the way.”
“On the way to where?”
“I need your help. Can you walk?”
“Probably. Why do I feel like I just went ten rounds with Chuck Liddell with both hands tied behind my back?”
“It’s a side effect of the antidote,” she said, heaving him to his feet.
“Antidote to what?”
“The Lethe potion.”
Gage slumped unsteadily against her. “The what?”
“Lethe. Like the river in Greek mythology.
To make you forget.”
“Forget… I don’t… ” He shook his head.
“It’ll be clear in a while. But we have to move. We won’t be safe here for long.” She snagged the duffel and led him out the door.
They were alone in the elevator, so she asked, “What do you remember?”
He frowned, his eyes seeming to glaze over a bit as he tried to think. “They hurt you,” he growled. “They hurt you, and I couldn’t stop them.” His voice was ragged, and the self-condemnation on his face raked at her heart.
“They didn’t hurt me,” she told him. It wasn’t the sort of lie she minded telling. Not under the circumstances. “You, on the other hand, were another story.” The doors slid open to the lobby. “C’mon. I need to check out, and we have to get going.”
He moved more steadily as they crossed to the counter. To the average observer, he probably just appeared hung over or tired. Embry plastered a bright smile on her face and tucked one arm more firmly around his waist as they approached the desk clerk. “We need to check out.”
“Room please.”
“Nine seventeen.”
The receptionist’s fingers flew over her keyboard. “Will that be charged to the card we have on file?”
“Yes. And um, we needed to let you know we had a little… uh… issue with the coffee table.” The smile threatened to crack her face, but Embry cuddled up to Gage and hoped they looked honeymoonish or something. “Just charge me for the replacement of that too. Whatever is necessary.”
The woman’s eyes flicked to where Gage had dropped his head and was nuzzling Embry’s neck. Only the fact that she was supporting the bulk of his body weight let Embry know that it was a cover up.
The clerk’s eyebrows rose. “Very well. Please sign here.”
Embry signed the bill.
“Please come again.”
The black Dodge Charger was gleaming with a coat of droplets from the flash summer shower that had blown through an hour or so before. Using the keys she’d liberated from his jeans pocket, Embry opened the passenger door and more or less dumped Gage into it. When he opened his mouth she said, “You’re in no condition to drive,” and shut the door.