White Hot

  “Leave the room.” Her voice turned cold and harsh.

  Arabella blinked. “Mom, what’s wron . . .”

  “Now.”

  My sister took off, her eyes opened wide. Mom fixed Bern with a thousand-yard stare. He retreated without a word.

  My mother slowly wiped her hands with a towel. Her face turned rigid and calculating. I had only seen that expression once, when she had become a total stranger and ended her PI career. Fear squirmed through me.

  “What did you do?” she asked, her voice eerily calm.

  “I saved a little girl. Amy Madrid.”

  “Who knows?”

  “Augustine and his secretary. Mom, you’re scaring me.”

  “Is Victoria on her way to the city?”

  “Yes.”

  “When is she arriving?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  My mother hung the towel on a rack with methodical precision. “Listen to me very carefully. You have to wipe Augustine’s mind.”

  “What?”

  “You have to wipe Augustine’s mind. Fry him if you have to.”

  I recoiled. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do? Even if I did know how to do it—and I don’t—it would turn him into a vegetable.”

  “You can do it,” my mother said with complete confidence.

  She’d turned into someone I didn’t recognize.

  “I know him. He is a human being. I can’t just break his mind. I won’t.”

  “Then I’ll kill him.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” my voice squeaked.

  “Wipe his mind, or I’ll kill him.”

  “Mother! That’s not what we do. It’s not who we are. Dad wouldn’t—”

  “It’s not just about you.” A hint of emotion finally broke through my mother’s expression. “You have a responsibility to your sisters! If the Tremaine bitch finds you, she’ll kill me and your grandmother. Arabella will end up in a cage, and you and Catalina will end up serving her for the rest of her life. Is that what you want? You have to protect your family.”

  I opened my mouth but no words came.

  Mom’s bottom lip trembled. She moved across the kitchen and gripped me into a fierce hug. “I know. I know it’s hard. That’s okay. I’m asking too much. Don’t worry, baby. I’ll take care of it. Forget it ever happened.”

  I broke free. “Why is she after us?”

  “She’s your paternal grandmother.”

  The hair on the back of my arms stood on end. I dropped into a chair.

  “She couldn’t carry a child to term, so she did . . . things and your father was born. She wanted a son who was a Prime. Your dad had no magic. None. She always neglected him, but while she was waiting for his talent to manifest, she would pull his mind apart every day, looking for the evidence of magic. When she realized that he was completely normal, the indifference turned to hate. He ran away from her as soon as he could. She needs you desperately, because without another Prime, her House will die with her.”

  Oh my God.

  “Don’t worry,” my mother said. “I’ll . . .”

  No, she wouldn’t. Like Rogan said, this was House warfare. I was the oldest Prime in my family. I’d made this mess. This was my responsibility. I held up my hand, my own voice dull. “No. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Nevada . . .”

  “I’ll take care of it, Mom. I’ll take care of it by tonight. Promise me you will wait. Promise me.”

  “I won’t do anything until you tell me,” my mother said.

  I got up, held my head high, and went to my room to clean up.

  I took a shower, dried and brushed my hair, and put on my work clothes, moving on autopilot. I should’ve been freaking out, but somehow I couldn’t muster any emotion. All I had was a cold methodical rationale. It was what I needed.

  Victoria Tremaine was my grandmother. In retrospect it made sense. My father’s reluctance to speak about his family, his insistence that I was very careful with my magic, and my mother’s distrust of Primes. If Victoria Tremaine was my mother-in-law, I wouldn’t trust Primes either.

  Victoria Tremaine had no heirs. Certainly no Prime heirs. That was an established fact. If she realized I existed, she would move heaven and earth to make me part of House Tremaine. She would do it by holding my sisters hostage. Of the three of us, I was the only truthseeker. It would be slavery for the three of us.

  I couldn’t let her meet with Augustine. She would crack him like a walnut.

  I couldn’t wipe Augustine’s mind either. This was not what we did. It . . . it went against everything I stood for. Yet I would have to do it to save my family. It was that, or my mother would kill him.

  I couldn’t see a way out of it. I had to take care of my family.

  I walked down the stairs. Catalina marched out of the media room to intercept me. Matilda followed her, mimicking my sister’s movements. Any other time I would’ve found it comical.

  “What’s going on? Arabella said Mom went crazy . . .”

  “Mom is going through a rough time right now. Don’t worry. It will all get straightened out by tomorrow.”

  “What rough time? Why? You look like you’re going to kill somebody.”

  Funny choice of words. “Nobody is getting killed.”

  “I hate when you treat me like a child.”

  I looked at her for a moment to make sure she understood. “People are trying to kill us. Mom is freaking out. Augustine is freaking out. I’m trying to fix it. It would help if you didn’t freak out at me too.”

  She fell silent. I kept walking.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To make a plan.”

  I stepped out of the warehouse and paused by the Honda. It looked perfectly generic, at least three years old. I would ask Bern about it when I came back. I left the warehouse, walked two blocks over, and stopped on the sidewalk in front of Rogan’s HQ. This wasn’t my wisest move, but I had nowhere to turn. I dialed his number.

  “Yes?” he answered.

  “I need your advice,” I said. “I’m in front of your HQ. May I come in?”

  “Yes.”

  I walked in past the soldiers, who all stopped talking as I passed them, and climbed the stairs. Rogan was waiting for me. He surveyed my work clothes with his familiar focus.

  “I don’t want Bug to hear us, if that’s possible.”

  “It’s possible.”

  Rogan led me to a door in the far wall and held it open. I walked into a small office. A desk, a couple of chairs, and a bookshelf filled with notebooks and manuals. Rogan closed the door and sat on the corner of the desk.

  I swallowed. Everything in me rebelled against sharing the information, but I had no choice. He already knew I was a Prime. He said he had no intentions of fighting me.

  “Victoria Tremaine is my grandmother.”

  The five words fell like bricks and lay between us.

  His eyebrows crept up a fraction of an inch. “I had expected House Shaffer. Tremaine is a surprise.”

  “She’s coming to see Augustine tomorrow. If she finds out I exist, she’ll destroy my family. My mother will kill Augustine unless I wipe his mind.”

  “A predicament.” Rogan’s expression was nonchalant, as if he were playing a particularly convoluted game of chess. “Do you want me to rescue you?”

  It was tempting. So tempting. “No. I want advice.”

  Pride flashed in his eyes. “You’re turning into a dragon.”

  “I have no choice. I own this. Even if my mother tried her best, I don’t believe she could get a shot at Augustine.”

  “I agree. Very well.” He leaned back. “Victoria Tremaine is despised and feared and knows it. She travels with an aegis, a cloaker, and a telepathic shielder. Her body and mind are superbly protected at all times and if she is under attack, the cloaker will make her disappear in a fraction of a second. She is an extremely difficult target. You can’t eliminate her. Your mother knows this, which is why
she focused on Augustine.”

  I nodded. I had gathered as much.

  “Augustine is the closest thing to a friend I have among members of the Houses. He has a much younger sister and a brother. His father is dead and he is their caretaker. Don’t mistake his professional interest in you for friendship or camaraderie. If he thinks for a moment that you pose any danger, no matter how slight, to his siblings, he’ll kill you. From a Prime’s point of view, you owe him nothing.”

  “Rogan, I can’t just wipe his mind.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  I sighed. “I’m not sure.”

  “Yes, you are.” His gaze was merciless.

  “I can.” I could break Augustine. I had been on the verge of breaking a mind before, when interrogating the mercenary and when practicing on my sisters. I knew precisely where that wall lay, and I had worked my hardest to never approach it.

  “Augustine has a strong will. If I attack Augustine’s mind, let him feel it, and push it too far, he’ll cripple himself trying to fight me. It will take time, minutes, possibly an hour, so it’s not a good combat power, but it will leave his psyche shredded. I could do it. But I won’t.”

  “Yet you have to protect your family.”

  “Yes.”

  “This is what I was trying to avoid when I urged you to not go to Baranovsky’s gala,” he said. “It happened anyway, sooner than you or I would’ve liked. I thought we might have more time. The question now isn’t what you should do. You know what you should do. The question is, what can you live with?”

  “Would Augustine willingly open his mind to Victoria Tremaine?”

  “He’d rather die,” Rogan said without any hesitation. “Augustine is intensely private. A man who never shows the world his real face would never allow intrusion into his inner sanctum.”

  “Would he be open to the idea of protection?”

  “By you? You would have to convince him that he is powerless before a truthseeker. Be very careful, Nevada. If you make that demonstration too personal, he’ll turn on you. Go after something that’s confidential but without emotional baggage. He must not feel that his deepest secrets have been violated.”

  That would be a very delicate dance, and even if I could get what I wanted, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it.

  “What are you planning to do?”

  “I’m planning to apply the lessons Adam Pierce taught me.” I shook my head. And if I failed to pull it off, my life would collapse and Augustine could spend the rest of his life with a feeding tube, not sure where or who he was. No pressure.

  “Let’s say this problem is resolved,” he said. “What then? Victoria Tremaine doesn’t give up. She won’t simply turn around and go home empty-handed. She’ll continue her pursuit. This is only a short-term solution to a large looming problem.”

  I made my mouth move. “I realize that.”

  “What’s the long-term strategy?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  He frowned. “Does your immediate family have more than one living Prime?”

  He was asking about my sisters. “Yes.”

  “Is that other mage a truthseeker?”

  “No.”

  Surprise reflected in his eyes. “But you’re sure they can qualify as Primes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then your best option is to petition for the formation of your own House. It would require you and the other Prime to admit to your magic in public. The qualification process and House formation is very fast, less than forty-eight hours, once all the proper forms have been submitted and the date of the trials has been set. Should you become House Baylor, you’re granted immunity from aggression from all other Houses for a period of three years. It is a cardinal rule not even Victoria Tremaine can break. It’s put in place to protect the emergence of new magic, which is good for everyone, and is a cornerstone of our society.”

  House Baylor. I would be throwing myself and my sisters into shark-infested waters.

  “This is the best course of action for you.” A muscle jerked in his face, then his expression relaxed as if he’d purposefully willed himself into neutrality. “You asked for my advice. Become a House.”

  Too bad there wasn’t enough time to do it now. It would’ve solved the Augustine problem. No, I needed to think about this. Becoming a House had to be the last resort.

  “One more point. Once you’re formally registered as House Baylor, this . . . whatever it is between you and me has to end.”

  Whatever it is? I leaned back, putting one leg over the other. “Why?”

  “As the head of a fledgling House, your first responsibility is to secure the future of your family. You have to make the connections and secure alliances so when the three-year period runs out, you’re anchored and well-defended against any attack. Your best bet is to cement such an alliance through marriage. It will assure protection and the future of your House. There are services available that will map your DNA and suggest the match which would most likely result in children with Prime truthseeker talent, someone from one of the truthseeker Houses, or someone with a complementary discipline like manipulator to compensate for your lack of combat magic. You and I are not compatible. Our magic comes from entirely different realms. It is clear that despite my father’s efforts, our bloodline doesn’t mesh well with mind-domination mages. Should you and I produce offspring, they may not be Primes.”

  Ah. So that’s where he was going with this. “Mhm.”

  Rogan’s voice was eerily calm. “You think you won’t care about it, but you will. Think of your children and having to explain that their talents are subpar, because you have failed to secure a proper genetic match. It will matter, Nevada.”

  “If you say so. Right now I’m more concerned with Augustine.”

  “Don’t worry. You will persevere. Things have a way of working out.”

  He said it with utter confidence. Rogan wasn’t the kind of man to leave things to chance. Unease crept over me. I might have just done something very stupid.

  “Rogan, I want to be completely clear. I came only for advice. Don’t act on my behalf.”

  He smiled back at me. The civilized mask tore, and I saw the dragon in all of his savage glory, teeth bared, eyes cold. He would kill Augustine if I failed.

  “Don’t,” I warned him. “He’s your friend. You don’t have that many.”

  He kept smiling. I had no power. Nothing to counteract the promise of murder I saw in his eyes.

  “You promised.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Damn it. I should’ve made him promise before I said anything. “I’ll never speak to you again.”

  “That would be terrible,” he said.

  “I don’t want this. I don’t want Augustine’s death. You’re doing that thing again when you think you know what’s best for me and you insist on it in spite of my wishes.”

  “We Primes tend to be assholes that way.”

  “I’m a Prime too.”

  “Yes, but I’m Mad Rogan.”

  Of all the stupid, bullheaded, idiotic things . . .

  “If something were to happen to Augustine, you would bear no responsibility for it,” he said.

  “But you will.”

  “I know what I am,” he said.

  “Connor . . .”

  “Rogan,” he corrected. “Mad Rogan.”

  The man who told me the story about running away when he was sixteen and the Prime here and now couldn’t be the same person. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Good,” he said. “You’re catching on. This is the world you’re walking into. It’s a place that requires people like me, capable of doing evil things so people they love survive.”

  He hadn’t just said that.

  I was in love with Connor Rogan. And he was in love with me.

  I got up and walked toward him. A step. Another step. One more, and I was in his personal space, standing too close. He towered above me. Barely an inch of space separa
ted us. I raised my chin and looked into his eyes. I saw cold determination and nothing else. He was keeping it all hidden.

  He wanted me badly enough to kill his friend to save me, but he’d told me I was a Prime. He was telling me to become a House now, fully convinced that he was severing any hope for a relationship at the root, because he believed it to be in my best interests. Being a Prime had ruled his life and he thought that becoming one would trump everything else for me.

  “If you had a child, somebody like Matilda, and that child wasn’t a Prime despite all the proper genetics, would you still love that child?”

  “Of course.”

  “Would you protect her and take care of her? Would you teach her and try to make sure she has a happy life?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good to know.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

  “It means you won’t kill Augustine, Rogan. You will let me handle it.”

  His magic spun out, surging in a wild typhoon, potent enough to send you screaming. It twisted around us and met the cold wall that was my power. The line of his jaw hardened. That’s right. This is me not cracking under your pressure.

  Power suffused his voice. The dragon was staring me straight in the face, his eyes full of fire and scorched earth. “And why would I do that?”

  “Because killing your friend would hurt you and I wouldn’t like that.”

  His magic raged, but mine persevered. I held his gaze.

  “Respect my wishes, Rogan. And I’ll respect yours.”

  I turned on my heel and walked out, straight through the torrent of his magic warping the reality around us.

  Chapter 12

  I needed power. When you were a mage, there was only one way to bump up your power reserve. Which was why I walked into Grandma Frida’s motor pool carrying a box of chalk and my arcane circle book. She saw my outfit of spandex shorts and a sport bra and her eyebrows crept up. I would’ve stripped naked if I could to maximize the power gain, but my room and bathroom were the only places that allowed me to parade around in the nude. My room had a bumpy bamboo floor that wouldn’t take the chalk well, and my bathroom had tile. My circlework wasn’t anything to write home about to begin with, and I wanted a level surface.