The soldier pulled his sidearm out. His hand shook, as if he strained against the movement. His lips quivered. His eyes, wide open, nearly black with desperation and fear, stared straight at us. He pressed the huge black barrel of the Smith and Wesson against his own temple and pulled the trigger.
The camera clattered to the floor.
It hurt to breathe. I wanted to cry, to stomp, to do something to let what I’d seen out of my head, but instead it sat there, hot and painful, while I grew numb. I looked at Rogan and saw everything at once: his impassive face, his hands quietly locked into a single fist, and his eyes, dark with rage and grief.
“May I have some privacy?” Cornelius asked, his voice ragged and broken.
Rogan and I rose at the same time.
Rogan led me across the room and we walked out onto the balcony. Comfortable chairs and a chaise lounge with blue cushions circled a coffee table. I sat down.
Rogan pulled off his tabard. The black pants and the shirt hugged his frame, showing off his flat, hard stomach, his chest, and his wide shoulders. Normally I would’ve stared. Now I was too numb.
The menacing elemental force that had terrified Forsberg was gone. Instead Rogan was grim and resolute now, his magic coiling around him like an injured wolf with savage fangs ready for revenge.
“Beer?” he asked, his eyes dark.
“I can’t.”
He walked over to the fridge built into the stone side of the balcony and brought me a bottle of cold water.
“Thank you.”
I took the bottle and stared at it, trying to purge the visions of blood, Nari Harrison’s dead eyes, and the young soldier’s desperation. Right now Cornelius was inside struggling with images of his wife dying. The tinted wall of glass, opaque from the outside, hid him from us. Bug was probably monitoring Cornelius via his tablet. The swarmer had escaped through the back door as Rogan and I stepped out, but I highly doubted Rogan would leave Cornelius completely unsupervised.
“Can Cornelius hear us?” I asked.
“No. He can see us, but I’d guess he’s currently preoccupied.”
“Why did you ask him if he was bonded to his wife?”
“Pretium talent,” Rogan said.
The price of talent? “I don’t understand.”
“Animal mages bond with animals at a very young age, some in infancy. They’re too young to control their magic and they become attuned to dogs, cats, wild birds, squirrels, any living creature their talent can reach. That power comes at the cost of cognitive development and their relationship with humans. Some of them never learn to talk. Most don’t develop empathy toward other people, except for a bond with their parents, but, when parents themselves are animal mages, they don’t always bond with their offspring. It’s not something they advertise for obvious reasons. Meaningful adult relationships are very rare for them.”
“But Cornelius loved his wife.”
Rogan nodded. Sadness softened his harsh expression for a brief moment. “Yes. Somehow she broke through to him. She gave him something he thought he would never have and now she’s dead. He knows he probably will never experience that again.”
That explained so much and made everything even more horrible.
We sat in tense, heavy silence. The anger boiled inside of me, a self-defense against shock and brutality. I wanted to punch something. I rested my elbows on my knees and buried my face in my hands, trying to keep calm. Don’t rewind it in your head. Focus on the job. Focus on doing something about it.
“Do you think an ice mage was responsible?” I asked.
“Yes. To drop the temperature that fast, it would have to be a Significant, but probably a Prime,” Rogan said, his voice clinical and calm. “And an egocissor.”
“A manipulator?”
He nodded again, wrapped in an icy detachment. “Definitely a Prime.”
Manipulators were dangerous as hell. They could impose their will on others and their victim was usually aware of what they were doing. Luanne knew she had fired at her own people. She watched herself do it, but couldn’t do a thing about it. The freckled soldier had put bullets into his friends and was powerless to stop it.
And Rogan had watched it all. Knowing him, he had gone over that recording moment by moment, studying it, searching for the instant it had all gone wrong, looking for some slight hint of the enemy betraying themselves. How many times had he watched his people die? I searched his face and saw the answer—too many. They’d had his people murder each other and sent him a special fuck you at the end. They’d made it personal. They wanted him to blame himself and feel helpless. In his place I would’ve raged. I didn’t know these people. They weren’t my friends or employees, but after watching that, I had trouble keeping it together. He sat across from me, cold and calm.
An officer, I realized. He was acting like a capable military officer whose unit had taken heavy casualties—methodical, almost serene, while his mind feverishly sorted through threats and strategies. Rogan wouldn’t fall apart. He would stay just like that until he eradicated every last person responsible for his people’s death.
“Bug’s equipment says Luanne’s heart stopped beating three seconds after Rook fired at her,” Rogan said. “She was clinically dead. Only a Prime manipulator could’ve held on to her for a full ten seconds after death. An ice mage and a manipulator of that caliber working together means two different Houses.”
It meant a conspiracy and an alliance, the same type we had seen behind Adam Pierce. Rogan was right. Something big was happening and we had just grazed the edge of the storm.
“How many ice mages with that kind of capability are in Houston?” I asked.
“Sixteen, by conservative estimate. Twenty-two, if we’re being generous. Four Houses.”
Too many. “Manipulators?”
“Three Houses, but that doesn’t help us. I told you that animal mages don’t like to advertise the side effects of their powers.”
“Manipulators may not admit to being manipulators?”
Rogan nodded. “They rank as other telepathic specialties. Psionic inundation is a heavy favorite.”
Psionics had the ability to temporarily overload other minds. A psionic Prime could generate a field of mental effect and everyone caught in it would go blind, or fall to the ground in pain, or flee for their life.
“What about the glass breaking toward the end?”
“He dropped something out of the window. Bug thinks it may have been a USB drive. Whatever it was, a vehicle drove up and one of the passengers grabbed it off the pavement. My sniper had no clear shot because of the traffic.”
We sank into silence again. The recording kept playing over and over in my head, so visceral it shot right past all of my normal brakes and reached deep into the vicious part of me that usually woke only when my family was threatened. I wanted to kill the people who did this. I wanted to murder them and watch them die. It would be just. It would be fair.
I met Rogan’s gaze. “Do you have any leads?”
“Do you?” Rogan asked. “Did you get anything from Forsberg?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“No.”
He stared at me.
“You’re not my client,” I told him. “I don’t work for you and I’m not going to share confidential information with you unless my client directs me to do it. Even then, I have misgivings. I’m still trying to come to terms with what happened to his wife.” Her death kept playing though my head, stuck on a perpetual loop.
He leaned back and studied me. An imperceptible shift took place in the way he sat, in the line of his shoulders, and in his eyes. Apparently we were done talking about work.
“What?”
“I missed you,” he said, his lips stretching into a slow, lazy smile. The ice in his eyes began to melt. “Did you miss me, Nevada?”
He said my name. “No.”
“Not even a little bit?”
“No. Nev
er thought of you.” Just because I usually chose not to lie didn’t mean I couldn’t.
Rogan grinned and all of my thoughts went to the wrong places. He was almost unbearably handsome when he smiled.
“Stop it,” I growled.
“Stop what?”
“Stop smiling at me.”
He grinned wider.
“Why did you even get involved in this? Trying to punish your cousin?”
“Yes.”
And he’d just lied. I squinted at him. “Lie better.”
“Nice, Ms. Baylor. That was a partial truth and you still tagged it. Been practicing?”
“None of your business.” I hadn’t just been practicing. I’d been actively working on being better. I studied my books, I worked on arcane circles, and I experimented with my magic. I enjoyed it too. Using my magic was like stretching an aching muscle. It felt good.
“Mmm, prickly.”
“You’re not answering my questions. Why should I answer yours?”
He surveyed me, his eyes half closed, as if wondering if I were a delicious snack. I had an image of a massive dragon circling me slowly, eyes full of magic fixed on me as he moved, considering if he should bite me in half.
“Dragons.” Rogan snapped his fingers.
Oh crap.
“I wondered why I kept getting dragons around you.” He leaned forward. His eyes lit up, turning back to their clear sky blue. “You think I’m a dragon.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” My face felt hot. I was probably blushing. Damn it.
His smile went from amused to sexual, so charged with promise that carnal was the only way to describe it. I almost bolted out of my chair.
“Big powerful scary dragon.”
“You have delusions of grandeur.”
“Do I have a lair? Did I kidnap you to it from your castle?”
I stared straight at him, trying to frost my voice. “You have some strange fantasies, Rogan. You may need professional help.”
“Would you like to volunteer?”
“No. Besides, dragons kidnap virgins, so I’m out.” And why had I just told him I was not a virgin? Why did I even go there?
“It doesn’t matter if I’m the first. It only matters that I’ll be the last.”
“You won’t be the first, the last, or anything in between. Not in a million years.”
He laughed.
“Rogan,” I ground out through my teeth. “I’m on the clock. My client is in the next room mourning his wife. Stop flirting with me.”
“Stop? I haven’t even started.”
I pointed my bottle at him.
“What does that mean?” he asked me.
“It means if you don’t stop, I’ll dump this bottle over your head and escape this compound with my client.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
The door opened and Cornelius stepped out. His face was flat, his eyes bloodshot. All my selfish embarrassment evaporated. Rogan’s sensual smile vanished and I was once again looking at a Prime—cold, hard, collected, and looking for revenge.
Oh. He’d done it on purpose. He’d riled me up and pulled me out of the terrible place I was in after I saw the video. The awful loop of death no longer played through my brain.
Cornelius sat in a chair and looked at Rogan. “What are you offering?”
“You have an excellent investigator,” Rogan said. “Ms. Baylor is competent, thorough, and holds herself to a high professional standard.”
I waited for the other shoe to drop.
“But her firm is small. It lacks resources and power. Things I have in abundance.”
Was he trying to get Cornelius to fire me?
“I, on the other hand, require Ms. Baylor’s services,” Rogan said. “She has the ability to greatly speed up the search for the murderer of my people.”
“Because she’s a truthseeker,” Cornelius said.
I sighed.
“I’m not an idiot,” Cornelius said quietly.
“We’re after the same thing,” Rogan said. “I propose we join forces.”
“I need a few minutes with Ms. Baylor,” Cornelius said.
“Of course.” Rogan rose and went inside.
Cornelius waited until the door shut behind Rogan and leaned back against the cushioned seat. “I realize that this is an uncomfortable question, but I have to ask. What’s your relationship with Mad Rogan?”
“We cooperated to apprehend Adam Pierce.”
“I know that. I meant emotional relationship.”
He deserved an honest answer.
“It’s the same old story.” I made my voice sound as nonchalant as I could. “Billionaire Prime meets a pretty girl with a little magic, billionaire Prime makes the girl an offer, and the girl tells him to hit the road.”
And then billionaire Prime makes all sorts of heated promises and dramatic declarations that make the girl think that maybe he might actually view her as more than a pleasant diversion, except he disappears for two months and doesn’t follow through.
“Will it be difficult for you to work with him?” Cornelius asked.
His wife was dead, Rogan had offered him the deal of a lifetime, and Cornelius was thinking of my comfort. In his place, I didn’t know if I would be capable of that much compassion.
“It’s very kind of you to take my feelings into consideration.”
“We’re a team. I’m asking you to put yourself at risk for my sake. I want to know your opinion.”
“I’m a professional and so is he. We’re able to put things aside. Whatever discomfort I may or may not feel is irrelevant.”
“Do you think I should agree to this?”
“Rogan is a cold-blooded bastard, but he’s right. We’ll need muscle, money, and firepower. He has them; we don’t. And, despite all of his high-handed arrogance, he keeps his word.”
“How do you know?”
“He spared Adam Pierce. I needed him alive and Rogan refrained from killing him even though he would’ve loved to twist Adam’s head off.”
A hawk shrieked. Talon swooped past us and a dead mouse fell on the table. The big bird turned and landed on Cornelius’ shoulder. The animal mage raised his hand and stroked the bird’s feathers gently, his face thoughtful.
The hawk was trying to feed him. Even Talon realized Cornelius was grieving.
“Think of Rogan as a dragon,” I told him. “A powerful, ancient, selfish dragon who’ll devour you in a blink but who also has an odd sense of honor. If you make a deal with him, make sure to spell out all of the important things now and get him to agree to them.”
Cornelius picked up the dead mouse and held it up to Talon. “Thank you. Not hungry. You eat it.”
Talon regarded the mouse with his round amber eyes, grabbed it out of Cornelius’ hand, and flew off to the tree line. Cornelius walked over to the window and tapped on the glass. Rogan stepped out and joined us at the table.
Cornelius took his seat. “We’ve considered your proposal and I have some conditions. Only one, actually.”
“I’m eager to hear it,” Rogan said.
“I understand that there are forces bigger than all of this,” Cornelius said. “I’m not interested in that. I want the person who killed my wife. There may come a moment when that person may become extremely valuable to you because of the information he or she carries. You’ll want to keep them alive as an information source or a hostage. You must understand that I don’t care.”
Cornelius’ voice dropped into a quiet, fierce growl. The pain was so raw on his face he didn’t look quite human.
“No matter how important that person is to you, you’ll give them to me. My price is the life of Nari’s murderer. I, and I alone, will take it.”
A thoughtful expression claimed Rogan’s face. His eyes turned calculating.
Cornelius waited.
Rogan offered his hand. “Agreed.”
Cornelius took his hand. They shook on it.
“Shall we formal
ize the arrangement?” Rogan asked.
“Yes,” Cornelius said.
Rogan dialed a number on his phone. “Bring me a blank House contract, please.”
“You’re actually going to write out a contract where you specify that you surrender the right to kill Nari’s murderer to Cornelius?”
Both of them looked at me. “Yes,” they said at the same time.
I just stared at them.
“He’s a member of a House,” Rogan said. “Why would I treat him with anything less than courtesy?”
We weren’t even from the same planet.
A woman appeared with a blank contract. They worked on it, Cornelius’ face haggard and angry at the same time. He and Matilda deserved to know what happened to Nari, and Matilda deserved to have her father return home to her. I had given my word and I was committed already, but if I hadn’t been, this would do it. If I walked away, Cornelius would run straight into whatever deep water Rogan was wading through, and keeping up with Mad Rogan was bad for one’s life expectancy.
“I need a security team on my house,” I said.
Rogan picked up his phone, texted a short word, and looked at me. “Done.”
“Were they already waiting somewhere conveniently close?”
“Yes.”
I pulled out my own phone and dialed the house.
“Yus!” my youngest sister chirped into the phone. Arabella was fifteen, but going through this weird phase where she acted like she was eight.
“Is Mom home?”
“Yus!”
“Find her and tell her that Rogan’s security team is watching our house. Please ask her not to shoot them.”
“Okay! Nevada?”
“What?” If she asked me about Rogan, I swear I would . . .
“Will you pick up some sushi for dinner?”
“Yes.”
“No nasty mayo sauce?”
“No mayo.”
“Will you tell Mad Rogan that he should ma . . . ?”
I hung up and turned to Cornelius. “How would you feel about moving into our house for the duration of the investigation?”
Cornelius blinked.
“This is going to get dangerous and complicated,” I said. “The people behind this aren’t going to have moral scruples over doing terrible things such as kidnapping and torturing a child. Our warehouse has an excellent security system, and it’s protected by Rogan’s people. If they somehow get past Rogan’s soldiers, they’ll have to deal with my mother, who’s a former sniper; my grandmother, who builds tanks; and four teenagers who have no fear of death and who all have been taught to shoot properly. You and Matilda will be safe.”