“No, you won’t,” he said, strangely calm as he released the last shred of illusion.
Auggie’s jaw firmed. “If you run now, we’ll just have to come after you again.”
“I’m not running. I’m burned out. Can’t dematerialize.” It was nothing more than the truth. Maintaining an illusion on this scale for this long had burned through his stores of energy. He’d been wrong, and he was far beyond fumes at this point. Marley wasn’t a permanent battery when out of range after all.
Auggie looked around, clearly trying to formulate another plan. “Maybe we can—”
Ian cut him off.
“Go. We did here what we couldn’t do before. Let me have that, let this atone for my sins. We both know this should’ve been my fate a year ago.”
Auggie hesitated, compassion and respect coloring the air around him. He reached forward, clasping Ian’s arm, and clapping him on the back. “It was an honor serving with you.”
“Likewise.”
Auggie climbed up onto the ledge.
“Let your heart be your compass, my brother. It’s wiser than our masters,” said Ian.
With a final look back, Auggie made the leap, sailing across the divide as the thermite on the floor below ignited, blowing out windows. As the floor beneath Ian collapsed and the world became a ball of molten flame, he breathed Marley’s name.
And fell.
Epilogue
“You remembered the little paper umbrella.”
“Your wish, my command.” He’d promised her white sandy beaches, Ian thought, as he covered Marley’s lips with his. He let his fingers dance down the bare, sun-warmed skin of her back, and wondered how much effort it would take to charm her out of her bikini.
The ringing of the sat phone put a damper on that plan. He broke off with a curse. “We could ignore it. We were out swimming. Or otherwise…occupied.”
She laughed. “I’ll take you up on that later. We promised we’d answer in case they uncovered evidence that the Council didn’t buy our deaths. And really, I don’t want my father showing up here to interrupt our vacation. You know he would.”
“Point taken.”
Ian watched her walk inside, gaze lingering on the three rows of scars scoring her calf as she answered the phone, greeted the caller with a laugh. They were the only thing left of her ordeal. No limp, no other permanent damage. A whole different type of mark to show she belonged to Harm. That he wasn’t letting her go. She had family now, and she’d embraced it. He wished he could settle in to life in Clementine as easily. But he was restless, twitchy. Marley called it mission sickness, said it would fade. Ian wasn’t so sure.
Once a soldier.
“He’s fine. No trace of infection. No scarring.” Marley stepped back out onto the veranda. “No I’m looking at his back right now. Hang on, let me put you on speaker.” She punched a button. “You talk to him.”
“Ian, how are you feeling?” Thane’s voice was a tinny echo out of the speaker.
“Fine. As Marley said, everything has healed up fine. Nary a twinge.”
“Remarkable,” Thane muttered. “Those were third degree burns. Even you should’ve been healing for weeks.”
The recall spell had taken longer to kick in than Ian had anticipated, and he hadn’t made it out of the building unscathed. But he’d survived.
“I could make a snarky remark about the power of lurve, but I’ll restrain myself.” Laughter laced the edge of Marley’s voice.
“I have a theory about that, actually.”
“Oh yeah?” asked Ian.
“There’s some compelling scientific evidence that positive emotion actually fundamentally alters the biochemicals in the body. They, in turn, alter the ways your DNA gets expressed within your cells. There’s this whole big long chain of biological reactions that has to do with health and resilience—fascinating stuff. It’s human science, but given your accelerated physiology, there’s no reason to think that the same wouldn’t apply to you on an exponential scale. So your connection to Marley, the relatively stable and permanent link to her positive regard for you, actually impacts your levels of oxytocin and your vagus nerve—”
There was a scuffling noise, followed by a new voice on the phone. “Give me that. You can geek out over your theories when they get back. Let me talk to my daughter.”
Marley chuckled. “Hey, Dad.”
“How’s the vacation?”
“It’s good. Barely started yet. Is anything wrong?”
“No, no. Ears to the ground still don’t detect any rumblings that you and Ian didn’t perish in the bombing. The IED investigation is winding up. No word on who’s actually taking the credit, but someone is, which takes the heat off of us. Everything went according to plan.”
“Good. Oh, I left my drink inside. Here.” Marley passed him the phone.
“Just as well. Take me off speaker. I wanted to talk to you.”
A vague sense of apprehension began to gnaw as Ian did so. “What?”
“You’re a soldier.”
“Yes,” Ian agreed, wondering where Harm was going with this.
“You’re bored in Clementine.”
He didn’t hesitate. It would be senseless to deny it. “Yes.”
“I’ve got a proposition that might help with that.”
“I’m listening.”
“We are, as I told you before, a haven. We’ve got rock solid wards and glamour on the compound itself, and we have strict rules about who we bring in and how. We’re growing. But most of the people here are civilians who want or need to live a life away from Council rule. In order to continue to do that, we need to remain hidden. As various sects of the Underground become more active, the threat to us will rise, even if we aren’t the ones directly causing problems.”
“What are you saying, Harm?”
“I’m saying we have need of someone who knows intelligence, how to gather it, how to interpret it. You have that skill set, and others to boot. I want you to head up the initiative. To start, it would be you and only a handful of others. Your choice to see who fits the bill. I know it’s not the kind of active missions you’re used to, but it’s a valuable job, one that will ensure our continued survival. I don’t need an answer right now. Feel free to wait until you both get back.”
A mission. A purpose. Exactly what he needed, what he wanted. “I don’t need to wait. My answer is yes.”
“Good. We’ll discuss the details on your return. Take care of my baby.”
Ian stared at the now silent phone.
“Is he already gone?” asked Marley, coming back with her mai tai.
“Yeah.” Ian tossed the phone into a lounge chair.
“What did he want to talk to you about?”
He snagged her around the waist, plucked the glass from her hand, and pulled her in until her body fit flush with his. “A job.”
“Doing what?”
“He wants me to be the cell’s intelligence division.” Ian waited to see her reaction.
A sunburst of pleasure streaked off her. “That’s wonderful!”
“You think so?”
“Of course. Don’t you?”
“Well yeah, but I thought you might not want me involved in anything dangerous.”
“You had over three centuries of taking care of yourself before I came along. I don’t expect that to change now. This is the perfect job for you. And it proves Dad is willing to trust you. That you have a place in Clementine. I know that’s been worrying you.”
Ian opened his mouth. Closed it again. Of course she knew. She understood him. He’d been foolish to think she wouldn’t.
He tucked a strand of her breeze ruffled hair behind one ear. “How did I get so lucky to find you?”
“Actually, if you’ll remember, I was the lucky one that night.”
He thought of D.C., of his first glimpse of the fireworks of her emotions that changed everything. “I followed stars and found you.” He heard the dreamy quality of his voice and was em
barrassed.
Marley grinned, the apricot shades of her delight defusing the air around her. “Oh that’s good. That’s very good.” She rose to her toes, gave him a smacking kiss. “You should keep that up, because it’s in your best interest to maintain my ‘positive regard.’”
“Oh I am all about maintaining your positive regard. I thought I convinced you of that last night.”
“Turns out, I’m high maintenance. Who knew? Come on, I’ve got a whole laundry list of wishes I’m just dying for you to grant.”
As he followed her inside the cabana, Ian thought he’d happily spend the rest of his long life doing exactly that.
Finis.
A Note From The Author:
I hope you enjoyed Ian and Marley and this introduction to the people of Clementine as much as I enjoyed writing it. I can never promise whose story will be told next, but I can promise we’ll be seeing this crew again.
If you enjoyed the story, please consider leaving a review or telling a friend.
If you’re new to the Mirus series, you can check out my other titles, listed on my website: http://kaitnolan.com or turn the page for a full list of books or flip to the end for a sneak peek at Devil’s Eye!
And be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you don’t miss out on new releases! You can get a free copy of my contemporary romance, Be Careful, It’s My Heart! http://kaitnolan.com/free-copy-be-careful-its-my-heart/
Thanks for reading!
Other Books By Kait Nolan
Contemporary Romance
Wishful Series
Once Upon A Coffee (Avery and Dillon): Available for FREE!
To Get Me To You (Cam and Norah): Available for FREE!
Be Careful, It’s My Heart (Brody and Tyler)
Know Me Well (Liam and Riley)
Once Upon A Setup (A Meet Cute Romance with Piper and Myles!)
Just For This Moment (Myles and Piper)
Wish I Might (Reed and Cecily)
Turn My World Around (Tucker and Corinne)
Wishing For a Hero Series (A Wishful Spinoff Series)
If I Didn’t Care (Judd and Autumn)
Meet Cute Romance
Once Upon A Snow Day
Once Upon A New Year’s Eve
Once Upon An Heirloom
Once Upon A Coffee: Available for FREE!
Once Upon A Setup
Meet Cute Romance: Volume 1 (Meet Cutes 1-5)
Paranormal Romance
Mirus Series:
Genesis (an omnibus including, Forsaken By Shadow (Mirus 1.1), Devil’s Eye (Mirus 1.2), and Blindsight )
Riven
Whisper of Shadow(Also available in the Magical Mayhem anthology)
YA:
Red
Whisper of Shadow
Trouble. That’s what wolf-shifter Mick thinks when a beautiful woman appears in his New Orleans bar with a hurricane at her back. His first impression is confirmed when Sophie starts asking questions about his missing waitress, Liza. Mick will do anything to rescue a member of the pack he’s made for himself, including forming an unlikely alliance with a woman with a badge.
Sneak Peek at Devil’s Eye
“Hurricane Roy has been upgraded to a category four and continues to bear down on New Orleans. If you haven’t already, batten down the hatches. Police are manning evacuation routes, so be prepared for something of a wait if you’re trying to get out of the city before the storm hits.”
Mick turned the radio down, keenly aware of Sophie’s silent tension in the passenger seat.
“Pull over here,” she directed.
“Lafayette Cemetery?” he asked, peering through the rain-streaked windshield. “Y’all hid it in a crypt?”
“Not exactly.” She slipped Liza’s cell phone and her own into the glove box.
“You’re not taking it? What if the kidnapper calls?”
“Can’t risk it getting wet and shorting out. He’ll know this is going to take time.”
He didn’t think it was raining that hard but it was her call.
Masked by rain and the falling dark, they slipped over the wrought iron fencing and into the cemetery. Crypts and mausoleums reared up around them, grim gray and white sentinels to their breaking and entering. Uneasy, Mick felt the wolf rise closer to the surface as they slogged down the alleys. He hated these cities of the dead. Too quiet. Too closed in. The dead didn’t belong above ground.
As Sophie wove her way through the aisles, back tracking once or twice, Mick mused at how a common enemy made strange bedfellows. His mind inconveniently focused on the bed part, his eyes noting how Sophie’s wet clothes clung to her compact little body before he mentally slapped himself back to attention. As IED, she shouldn’t be trusted any further than he could throw her. Yet as Liza’s sister, they had a common goal. Her reaction back at the apartment hadn’t been faked. This was no sting operation against the Underground.
They passed monument after monument, some dotted with signs of respect and remembrance. Votives now drowned. Flowers, beaten ragged by the rain. Mick stayed silent, senses on alert. Not that he expected muggers or mourners to be out in this weather, but if the kidnapper had known to reach Sophie on Liza’s cell phone, he had to have been watching the apartment. Mick wouldn’t put it past him to be tailing them on this retrieval mission in case Sophie balked or failed.
She came to a stop at a derelict tomb toward the back of the cemetery. This part of the dead city was neglected, older. Vines trailed up the stone, roots sneaking into cracks and taking hold so fiercely that to remove them might mean bringing down the crypt itself. Beneath the natural ropes and foliage, a pair of small gargoyles peered out, mouths agape with fangs worn by time.
Sophie motioned him over to one of them. “Put your hand in its mouth. You should feel a sort of lever.”
Mick eyed the open mouth. They were too small, too stylized to be real gargoyles, so he stepped forward and did as she asked. His fingers brushed rough stone, then a bit of smooth wood carved in a rustic sort of lever. “Found it. Now what?”
Opposite him, Sophie slid her hand into the other gargoyle’s mouth. “On my mark,” she said. “One, two, pull.”
Curling his fingers, Mick shifted the lever toward him.
There was a pop, followed by a wheeze of air, as if the tomb had been air-locked. As a Council hiding space, maybe it was. The door shifted up a couple of inches, then swung inward, leaving an entrance into darkness.
Casting another quick look around, Sophie raised her hand, generating another blue energy field like the one she’d made at the apartment. Using its faint glow to light her way, she stepped carefully over the threshold. Mick was right behind. The ceiling was so low he had to stoop or bump his head.
As he crossed the threshold himself, the door began to swing closed. He sprang toward it, his heart thudding with sudden panic, but Sophie said, “Leave it. I know how to get back out.”
It fell shut with a definitive clang that left him short of breath. “Is that really necessary? Can’t you just grab it and let’s go?”
“It’s not here.” In the faint blue glow cast by her energy field, he could see Sophie looking around.
“What do you mean it’s not here?” Mick could hear the tinge of panic in his voice and fought to level it out. Not locked in, he told himself. The door’s right behind. “Did someone take it?”
“I mean that it’s not here in this tomb. This is just the doorway to the catacombs.”
“There are no catacombs in New Orleans.”
With a rasping noise came a tiny wick of flame that grew as she applied it to a waiting torch. The panic didn’t dim much as the torchlight showed him the confines of the crypt. Sophie moved over to a huge stone slab where a body would usually be laid out. This one was, thankfully, unoccupied.
“Help me shift this.”
Grateful to have something else to focus on, he joined her, heaving the slab aside to reveal a stone staircase spiraling down into darkness.
&
nbsp; “Grab the torch,” she said.
He did, bringing it back to illuminate the stairs. And the smooth black water that covered them about five feet down. Now he understood why she’d left the phones. “You didn’t say we’d need scuba gear.”
“We don’t.”
She stretched out her hands. At first nothing happened. Then the surface of the water began to ripple and sink. Mick glanced at her face, snared by the electric blue eyes that flashed with lightning and power. The tomb shuddered as the water receded, frothing and bubbling as she seemed to push it back into the ground, clearing the path below.
“Holy Moses,” he muttered. “What are you?”
“My family tree isn’t exactly a priority right now. Give me the torch.”
Mick handed it over, noting the tension in her back. “You’re still holding all that water back, aren’t you? It’s not gone.”
“Right. So we need to hurry.” She stepped over the ledge and started the descent.
Underground. It had to be underground. The wolf paced restlessly under his skin. Neither part of him liked enclosed spaces. At all. But, resolutely, he followed Sophie down the stairs, stepping carefully to avoid slipping in the still wet stone. To distract himself, he started asking the questions that had been spinning in his brain since the ransom call. “Who else knows about this Devil’s Eye? I mean, I’ve never heard of it.”
“You wouldn’t. It was lost to legend for centuries.”
“How did you find out about it?”
She hesitated a moment. “I was part of the retrieval team. We were following up on some rumors for the Council, trekking through the wilds of—well you don’t need to know where. Let’s just say we were feeding our inner Indiana Jones. And then it turned out that it wasn’t a rumor, wasn’t myth. The artifact was real. We didn’t know what it was when we brought it back. I still don’t know exactly what it does, just that it’s extremely dangerous. After some deliberation, the Council decided it was best hidden again, and a core group of us brought it here. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, it’s still lost.”