‘‘What kind of information do you have about your father’s death?’’ And even though he was quiet, there was that air of authority again. Like he expected people to tell him things because he said so. Like he expected me to do what he thought was best.
And I guess because that reminded me too much of the sort of things my father used to do to me, or maybe because I’d just had the crappiest day on earth, I suddenly didn’t want to do what he wanted me to do.
‘‘Information I’d be happy to tell the police.’’ And not you, not yet, I silently added. ‘‘And unless you can give me a better reason than ‘you’re being hunted by Hounds,’ then this is kidnapping, Jones.’’
Zayvion snorted. We had stopped at another light, another intersection. He turned and looked at me.
‘‘I’m trying to help you.’’ The baffled smile was real and nothing like my dad.
‘‘Why?’’
‘‘Because I have . . . friends in the police department. This isn’t an average arrest order. Someone wants you gone from public view, locked away, shut up, dead, if need be. Someone wants to kill you, and whoever it is, they have the money, the manpower, the Influence and drive to make sure you are removed from the picture. They think you know who killed your father.’’
‘‘Why?’’ My heart was pounding with equal parts fear and anger. Mix in a cup of tired, two spoons of shock, and a heaping portion of way too much magic, and all I could think of was, ‘‘Why me?’’
‘‘Because you are Daniel Beckstrom’s only heir and your father was a very shrewd, very bad man in the world of business and the world of magic.’’
‘‘Like that’s news.’’ I’d grown up hearing about the Hoskil and Beckstrom fight over the patent for the Storm Rods. Grown up listening to the news stories about how my father had outmaneuvered Perry Hoskil, filed the patent in his name alone, and then bought out Perry’s share in what was now Beckstrom Enterprises. That action had ruined Perry Hoskil and made Daniel Beckstrom what he was. I’d grown up hearing other, darker stories of my father’s magic and business deals too.
But Zayvion had done his job. I was spooked. I always knew my dad had enemies. For some reason, I just never expected to be their direct target.
‘‘Listen, Allie. The police . . .’’ He stared out the window, thinking. ‘‘Anyone can be bought for the right price. Even people in authority positions. It’s not safe to go to the police right now. I’ll take you anywhere else you want me to. All I ask is that you lie low for a day or two before you approach a lawyer—and yes, I think you should go to a lawyer before you go to the police. Do you have a place I can take you to? Maybe out of the city? Out of your father’s range of influence?’’
Right. Like I, the girl drifter, would have some out-of-the-way cottage on a sunny shore where I lounged and drank fruity rum drinks, waiting for bad guys to give up plotting my demise. My life was starting to sound like something out of the movies, and I didn’t like it one bit.
‘‘My friend Nola . . .’’ I didn’t know if I should mix her up in this. What if he was just making this all up? What if he were the one out to hurt me, out to kill me? He could have killed my father. He was there too.
Okay, now I was just getting paranoid.
‘‘Who?’’ Zayvion asked.
I swallowed.
‘‘Can you convince me to believe your story?’’ I asked, ‘‘Give me one indisputable reason why I should trust you enough to put my friend in danger.’’
Zayvion eased out of traffic and turned down an alley. He put the car in park, but left the motor running and shifted his whole body toward me. I was ready for him to punch me like I had just punched him. Instead, I got honesty.
‘‘You should trust me because I’m trying to look out for you. And I don’t want you to be hurt, or to die.’’
He sounded sincere. He looked sincere. Everything about him seemed sincere, but I’d been wrong before. I’d been wrong a lot lately, and people were dying.
‘‘Really? Why not?’’ I wanted it to come out strong, accusing, but I just didn’t have it in me. It came out quiet, sad. Maybe even lonely.
‘‘Because,’’ he said gently. ‘‘I care about what happens to you.’’
He leaned forward, and I thought about leaning away, but then his hand was on the unburned side of my face, and I didn’t want him to stop touching me there, even though he paused. His eyes were still brown and gold, still earth and fire, but the heat warmed me, made me feel welcome, wanted. For the first time in a long time I felt like I was right where I wanted to be, with who I wanted to be with, doing exactly what I wanted to do. That electric tingle flipped in my stomach and rushed along my nerves. I brushed my fingers down his long, lean chest and stomach, then dragged my stiff hand around to his back so I could pull him closer.
I was bloody, filthy, and stank of a garbage dump on fire. I was pretty sure most guys would consider that a turnoff in a woman. Still, the need to feel his touch, to savor again the richness of his mouth, the heat of his lips, the strength of his body, pushed all other thoughts aside.
I stroked the arc of his dark cheek with my bloody, bruised fingers and cupped the back of his neck with my hand. I thought I’d have to bring his head down to mine, but that was not the case. He leaned down and kissed me.
Oh, sweet loves, I wanted him. All of him.
I breathed in deeply as the kiss lingered. The electric tingles built up and up and poured through me in a wave of luxurious heat. I opened my mouth to him and he moaned, shifting closer, his knees, the stick shift, and his seat belt all stopping him from making much progress.
I, however, hadn’t buckled my seat belt. I pulled my legs up and shifted in the seat so I could face him. He drew his hand down the back of my left arm and pressed his palm against my ribs. With his help, I crawled over the stick shift and then placed my knees on either side of his seat. I eased down across him and straddled his lap.
He was built thicker than I’d expected, and there was barely enough room for me to press tightly against his thighs and chest without my back hitting the steering wheel. It was a cramped space, a small space.
And I liked it.
He smiled, and I noticed I had left a smudge of dirt, or maybe blood, on his face. I touched his face, and hesitated. He did not. He kissed me again, and the pleasure, the want, the sweet hot need for him radiated through me.
Oh, I thought. Yes. More.
Zay’s hand slid up my thigh. His palm, wide and hot, squeezed my hip and I gasped hungrily. Fire followed his thumb as he stroked down the curve of my hip bone. I moaned for him, for the taste of him, for his touch that was hot and cool, mint and magic licking beneath my skin. I wanted him to fill me, to ride this sweet, hot fire I could not quench. Then his hands were gone, fumbling between us, and I thought he was trying to unzip his pants, or unbuckle the seat belt, so I leaned back.
The car horn blared out—loud, jarring a Klaxon of reality—and we both held very still.
We just stared at each other and breathed hard and didn’t move. There were things I wanted to say, like ‘‘please don’t stop,’’ and ‘‘please don’t go away,’’ but the suddenness of this, of us, of everything, came crashing down around me.
I was in the middle of a crowded city crawling with cops and Hounds, running for my life, and had decided that taking a quick sex break was a good idea? The practical side of my mind sent off rockets and warning sirens.
If Zay was telling the truth, I was in a world of trouble. The cops, Bonnie, and a bunch of other Hounds were looking for me. They thought I was a murderer.
If Zay was not telling the truth, he himself might be a killer.
That was not a quality I looked for in a man.
And this was not a good way to start a romance. No matter how much I wanted it.
‘‘I can’t—’’ I started.
‘‘Mmm.’’ Zayvion leaned his head back into the headrest and looked away from me, out at the cold and the rain. Fina
lly, he looked back, and his eyes were brown, warm, with barely a spark of gold. He was good. I’d never met a man so in control of his emotions.
‘‘I know,’’ he said. ‘‘But you asked me why I didn’t want you dead.’’ He smiled and, even though I was cold and shaking with need for him, he was a perfect gentleman and sweetly helped support me as I lifted off his lap and settled back into my empty seat.
I needed an attitude adjustment myself, something to get my mind off him, off what it had felt like to be with him. Sarcasm usually did the trick.
‘‘So. You’re saying you don’t want me dead because you want me in bed?’’ I said. I thought it would come out a lot funnier than it did.
‘‘That’s not what I said.’’ He put the car in gear again and drove down the alley to a cross street.
‘‘Your kiss said you wanted me in bed.’’ That was better.
‘‘You mean the kiss you started?’’ Zayvion shook his head. ‘‘Maybe that’s all you were saying, but I was saying I was open for more than just sex—maybe a real date that didn’t involve blood, bruises, that incredible odor you’re wearing, or unconscious people in the backseat. But if it’s just sex you’re offering, I wouldn’t turn it down.’’
‘‘Right. Is there anything else a man really wants from a woman? Wrap it up in pretty words all you want, Jones. You can’t tell me you’re any different than any other man I’ve dated.’’
‘‘Maybe not. But you are different than any woman I’ve ever known.’’
Oh. That was sweet too.
‘‘You don’t get involved with women on the run from the law?’’
He paused before answering. ‘‘That, actually, is none of your business. You can’t take a compliment, can you? Let me say this as straight as I can. I like you. A lot. Enough to follow you all over this town, even when I’m not getting paid for it—in the rain, I might add. Enough to get you out of town before you’re killed, enough to quit my job, and you have no idea how much hell I caught for that. I like you enough to do what it takes to keep you safe.’’
‘‘You are a cop, aren’t you?’’
‘‘If I were a cop, would I be taking you away from the police to keep you safe?’’
‘‘Who said I need someone to keep me safe?’’
Zayvion gave me a who-are-you-kidding glance.
‘‘Careful, Jones.’’
‘‘Fine. Maybe you don’t think you need someone looking out for you, but you’re wrong.’’
‘‘No, I’m not.’’
‘‘And stubborn. Like your father.’’
That shut me up. It was just not my day for snappy comebacks. Probably because he was right. The car rattled over potholes and jostled the kitten awake in the backseat. The little thing started mewing and wouldn’t stop.
‘‘What’s with the cat?’’ Zayvion asked.
‘‘She belongs to the kid.’’
‘‘Do you know his name?’’
‘‘He was sort of babbling, but I think he said Cody Hand.’’
I glanced at Zayvion. If his mood had just been warm, flirty, and fun, it had suddenly parked square in the middle of pensive, cool, and serious.
‘‘You know him?’’ I asked.
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. ‘‘No.’’ His mouth might be saying no, but his body language was saying oh, hells, yes. His body language might even be saying they were good friends—cousins, pals. Or maybe his body language was saying they were enemies. Close enemies.
‘‘No?’’ I asked.
‘‘I know of a man named Cody the Hand. He had a knack for magical forgeries. Landed him in the state pen, I think. But that was seven years ago.’’
‘‘Anyone who forges, or creates, original art with magic is called a Hand,’’ I said quite unnecessarily. ‘‘Maybe this kid is just a regular kind of magic artist.’’
Zay nodded and the rest of his body language said he wasn’t so sure this kid was just a regular kind of anything.
‘‘What? You want me to frisk him for ID?’’ I asked.
‘‘It wouldn’t hurt.’’
I rubbed at my face, which made both my face and my hands hurt. I tried to work up the desire to touch the kid’s garbage-and-blood-soaked clothes again. I wondered if I would feel the magic I’d painted in him. I wondered if it would burn through me again. Trap me. Scar me. ‘‘I don’t know how to frisk anyone. I’m not a cop.’’
‘‘It’s easy. Just like they show in the movies. Pat his pockets.’’
He was so not joking.
I twisted in my seat and looked back at the kid. He really did look better. No, he looked fine. His skin was pale, but he had a healthy pink across his cheeks and he was sleeping so hard he was snoring. Didn’t look like a mastermind magic forger to me. Looked like a sweet kid who fell on hard times.
I braced my foot on the floorboard and pushed up and around so I was sitting on my knees. I reach around the bucket seat to feel the front pocket of his jeans. No wallet in the first one and, thankfully, no garbage worse than what I was covered in, and no hint of magic. I reached back a little farther to check his other pocket.
The stupid kitten pounced, all claws and teeth and hissing fury, and tore the hell out of my left hand.
I yelled and shook my hand until the ball of fur tumbled to the floor, where it trembled and mewed and looked pitiful.
‘‘Are you hurt?’’ Zayvion asked.
‘‘No.’’ I lied. My hand looked like I’d lost a fight with a killer rosebush. The cuts and punctures probably weren’t very deep, but that cat had been scratching around in filth and garbage.
Great. On the run for my life, I try to do a good deed and now I need a tetanus shot. Maybe something for rabies, too.
Stupid cat. Good things did not come in small packages—mean things did.
I sat forward in my seat again. I tucked my bleeding hand under my tank top, hoping the cotton would help to stem the blood flow, but my sweat, cat piss, garbage, and river water made the cuts hurt more.
‘‘Anything?’’ Zayvion asked.
‘‘Nothing in his front pockets and I am not rolling him over to pat his butt. Think about it, Jones. What are the chances of me running into some infamous, escaped forger left for dead along the river on the one day I would go down there to stroll through garbage?’’
‘‘Amazingly low.’’
‘‘Exactly,’’ I said. ‘‘And besides, he doesn’t look old enough to be an infamous forger. He’s only a kid.’’
‘‘True,’’ he said. ‘‘And that cat doesn’t look like it can do any harm. It’s only a kitten.’’
‘‘Bite me, Jones.’’
That got a smile out of him. ‘‘That sounds promising.’’ He glanced over at me and I met his look, straight on. Dared him to offer.
He looked like he was about to, but said, ‘‘I can get the kid to a hospital and have him checked out. They’ll run his fingerprints and see if he’s on file or missing from anywhere. But first, I’m getting you out of town. You said you had a friend?’’
And it wasn’t like I could make up a phony address. I really had nowhere to go except to Nola’s. And besides, magic or no magic, Hounds, or no Hounds, Nola could take care of herself, and I was tired and feeling more bruised and achy by the minute.