by Linda Howard
“No one has ever tested the limits of that restriction?” Caine asked.
“Of course not.” Her heart did an unpleasant dance at the very idea. “Aeonia still stands.”
“Things change,” he said.
She turned to stare at him. Did he know something she didn’t? “How?” Less than two full days on Seven, and already she longed for that change. Since the Alexandria Deck had been rediscovered, would the Arcane be able to travel as they once had? Or would the Emperor destroy or imprison the deck so it could never be used again? She hadn’t possessed the ability to travel for more than two thousand years. She’d fed her need for knowledge by constantly losing herself in studies, but … it wasn’t the same.
She shouldn’t crave it now; she shouldn’t feel as if she’d been robbed of an important aspect of her life when it had been taken away, but she did.
“I have no idea,” Caine growled. “It was an observation. Things always change.”
Neither did she have any idea. Perhaps the Emperor, or the Hierophant, or the High Priestess could come up with a solution. How long had it been since the Major Arcana had petitioned the One? How long had they been content to watch the lives they touched from afar? For far too long the Arcane had blindly accepted the rules that bound them. Was that a revolutionary thought? Was she breaking some unknown rule for even considering the idea?
She looked back at the house, already second-guessing her decision to leave the Moon card there. The cards were too important. Perhaps they should—
She pointed to a second-floor window. “Elijah’s room is there. We can teleport in, grab the card—”
“No,” Caine interrupted sharply. “There are too many people in the house, and I can’t locate them all. I can’t take the chance that we’ll be seen.”
“But—”
He shook his head as he looked down at her. “You have your rules to abide by, I have mine. There’s too much activity here, and we can’t risk being seen. We can’t even stay here and watch for much longer. The police will be looking for Elijah, and these woods will be one of the first places they search.”
“They won’t find him,” Lenna said softly. She felt some satisfaction that he was so safely far away. “How long will they search?”
“For a long while. A missing child is a big concern.”
“Of course.” She tried to imagine that Elijah was truly missing, maybe dead, maybe lost, maybe held captive, and her heart leapt.
“We’ll come back tomorrow morning,” Caine said decisively. “We’ll retrieve the Moon card, and then we’ll concentrate on finding Uncle Bobby.”
“What do we do until then?” Lenna asked. The idea of returning to their hotel suite and waiting out the night didn’t appeal to her.
Thankfully, Caine had other ideas. “This might be your only chance to see the world, to experience it. What do you want to see?”
Lenna thought of all the things she had seen when she’d connected with Caine, all the beauty, all the wonder of this world. She didn’t hesitate a single second with her answer. “I would like to attend a concert, preferably one featuring a pianist. I want to experience a thunderstorm, and I’d like to see the sun come up over the desert. Any desert. And mountains!” she added. “I want to stand atop a mountain.”
A slow smile touched his lips. Her heart gave an unaccustomed leap. He didn’t smile often, and maybe he should. Or perhaps he shouldn’t, because the effect the smile had on her heart rate was too extreme, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach. He slid his arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him. “Piece of cake,” he said, and they were off.
Tomorrow they’d continue trying to solve Elijah’s problem, they’d argue about who should safeguard the deck, and they’d disagree about how best to accomplish the tasks at hand. For tonight, though, Caine put all that aside to show Lenna the wonders of Seven. She had asked for very specific things, but what she hadn’t asked for, what he suspected she needed more than anything else, was to interact with the humans here.
He teleported her to Paris for a concert, as she had asked. She was entranced by the young pianist, a prodigy who wasn’t much older than Elijah. Caine listened to the music, but instead of watching the musicians on the stage he watched her face. For someone who had lived such a long time, who possessed so much power, she was amazingly naive about some aspects of life. No, not naive—separate. Distanced.
After the concert ended, he took her to a café where they drank rich coffee drinks and ate decadent pastries. They walked, rather than teleporting. That, too, was an experience for her. He suspected the food on Aeonia was perfection, but she was thrilled with her Parisian snack. Even perfection got old, when it was all you knew. As he had expected she might, Lenna spent much of her time in the café absently nibbling on the pastry while she watched the people, the chattering friends, the teenagers full of life, the lovers young and old. She drank it all in, her hunger for new experiences raw on her face.
She deserved better than paradise.
As soon as he had the thought he mentally laughed at himself, because what was better than paradise?
Except the perfection of Aeonia would drive him crazy, and he knew it. He liked action, he liked being challenged, he liked overcoming obstacles and solving problems, getting his hands dirty, fighting, drinking, and relaxing with some fiercely hungry sex.
The thought of sex made him restless, and he pulled her to her feet, took her to an alley where no one could see them, and whisked her to Australia for a fierce thunderstorm.
They stood upon a stretch of land filled with sunflowers and watched the storm move in, and then he pulled her tightly to him and let the rain and wind rage around them. Lightning struck, thunder rolled. Lenna clung to him, shrieking a little when a bolt of lightning hit close enough to make the air feel as if it had exploded, but she wasn’t afraid; she didn’t know she should be. She laughed, then threw her head back and screamed, just because she could. There was no one there to hear her but him, and he had brought her to experience this very thing, the elemental power of nature.
Rain soaked both of them; wind blew Lenna’s hair into a tangle. The wonder on her face was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.
When that was done, he took her to a desert in North Africa to watch the sun rise. She wasn’t bothered by the wet clothes she wore, and neither was he, but in any case their clothing dried quickly. The sands turned orange as the sun rose, and silently she watched, entranced. She didn’t laugh and scream, as she had in the storm, but remained silent, as if to make a noise in this place would be somehow wrong.
They traveled the world in a single night. They experienced daytime on one continent, dark of night on another, and then they teleported into the sun once more. They walked in the teeming crowds of large cities, and watched children play on suburban playgrounds. They saw farmers and businessmen, mothers and movie stars. In the blink of an eye, they could be anywhere, do anything. He took full advantage.
Caine didn’t want to dwell on the hardships that existed here, that existed on every plane except Aeonia, and he didn’t want to distress her, but her experience wouldn’t be the same without it. They visited a village so poor every man, woman, and child was undernourished. They went to a hospital and walked a hallway crowded with the sick and dying.
While she didn’t touch anyone as she had touched Elijah, he could tell when she imparted her strength and will to the humans who had need of it. It was as if a wave only he could see undulated from her hands to touch those around her. In these instances she was no longer Lenna, a woman he desired, but was Strength, of the Arcane. Yes, they were one and the same, but now he could separate them to some degree.
As the night came to an end, he took her to the top of a mountain in Tennessee. It wasn’t the highest mountain in the world, not anywhere close, but it was an impressive sight. Before them mountains stretched as far as the eye could see, smoky and blue, undulating across the horizon. They sat
until the edge of the sun was visible on the horizon, his arm around her, enveloped by the silence of the winter mountain. Then he took her to a small café there in the mountains, where she ate biscuits and grits like a woman who had never before tasted such wonders.
For most of the night he was able to forget that Lenna was who she was—a powerful being, a goddess to many, a woman out of place, out of time. She was simply a beautiful woman inhaling the wonders of this world in the limited time she had here.
The night was over; it was time to get back to the mission that had brought him here. He teleported them back to the hotel room. They needed to shower and change clothes, and then they needed to get back to the business at hand.
He could’ve worked last night, hacking into the local police department’s computer to snag whatever information they had on Elijah’s mother. If the name “Robert” or “Bob” popped up as an acquaintance or a suspect, they would likely have their murderer. The police might also have a list of next of kin. Eventually Elijah would need to be left with someone who would care for him—grandparents, maybe, an aunt or an uncle. If there weren’t any relatives, a friend or a couple willing to take in a child would have to suffice. There had to be someone on the world who would welcome Elijah and take care of him, give him a home.
But the computer could wait. He wouldn’t have given up the adventures of the night in order to move themselves a few hours closer to their goal.
Elijah was safe. Uncle Bobby wasn’t going anywhere. But Lenna’s time here was limited, and he’d wanted to share those experiences with her.
He steeled himself not to react as they began stripping off their clothes to take a shower. He’d known shielding her, having to stay permanently, physically close to her, would be a trial, but he hadn’t realized the situation would elevate into torture.
If her mind was on being naked with him, it didn’t show. “I want more,” she said, absently tossing her clothing aside. Caine did the same, his eyes on her, on the slim line of her back, on her shapely ass, on that golden hair and glowing skin. Why the hell couldn’t Strength have been a burly blacksmith type? Was it some kind of cosmic joke, to pair unending determination and endurance with … this?
“More what?” he asked, forcing himself to look away from her ass.
She spun to face him, throwing her arms out to encompass the world. “More everything! Music, food, people, storms, sunshine, beaches.”
“I thought Aeonia was the perfect place,” he said. “The perfect world with the perfect music and food and weather.”
“Perfection is boring,” she replied with heat. “It’s perfect. It’s all the same. I’m tired of it, and I want more!” Fiercely she seized his face in her hands, rising up on her toes to press her mouth to his. Her lips were parted, her tongue teased at him, then she tilted her head and the kiss wasn’t teasing at all.
Caine wondered if he should be insulted that Lenna apparently considered him imperfect, but she was kissing him and he didn’t give a damn about insults.
Lenna was giddy with delight, electrified with discovery. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so alive, so connected—not simply connected with one being, but with all of creation, with pain and beauty and joy.
She kissed Caine, and he kissed her back. His steely arms wrapped around her, pulling her completely against him. Their tongues danced, and hunger surged between them. Skin to skin, mouth to mouth, they were connected in an entirely different way. She didn’t invade his mind, but she didn’t need to, to feel connected to him. They melded, their bodies flowing together, skin hot and sensitive to every touch.
The night had been magnificent, but it wasn’t yet complete. She wanted him. She needed him, in a way she’d never before needed a man. What she felt for Caine was out of control, for she who was never out of control. This passion, the need she felt for him, went beyond anything she had known in the past.
He lifted her from her feet and turned toward the bed. He laid her there, on sheets still rumpled from the previous night, and kissed her again. Still. More. There were kisses deep and then easy, kisses that aroused and then soothed, kisses that asked and then gave.
He stopped, and lifted his head just enough to give her a narrow-eyed look. “You’re not peeking into my head, are you?”
She shifted restlessly, because he’d stopped touching her and she didn’t like that. “Of course not. It would be rude to connect without your permission.”
“Good. Because what I’m thinking right now might scare you.”
She reached for him, stroked her hands over that hard, muscled chest. Her eyes were heavy-lidded as she looked up at him. “I doubt that, but do your best.”
This time when he moved in to kiss her, it was even slower, even deeper. In answer, she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him closer. Her entire body trembled and ached, wanting him, wanting to be filled by him in the most intimate way possible.
“Now,” she whispered.
Caine scooted them farther onto the bed as he answered, “Not yet.” He lowered his head and took a nipple into his mouth, kissing, sucking, nibbling.
Foreplay, any foreplay, was torture right now. The entire night had been foreplay. She had laughed in his arms in the middle of a thunderstorm; she had almost climaxed during the last teleportation. She wanted him. “Now!” she gasped. Her back arched as she tried to lift herself to take his penis, jutting so hard and long from his body. The thick head brushed between her legs and a small, breathless cry broke from her when he twisted just enough to deny her.
“Not yet,” he said again. His voice was deep and thick with his own desire, his eyes like obsidian. His mouth moved to her neck, where he kissed and licked, slowly tasting her as if she were the most luscious of desserts. “I taste the night on your skin,” he whispered. “I taste rain and sand and sugar. I taste the winds of all corners of Seven.”
She wanted to taste the same on him, and as he rose up again she did. She put her mouth on his throat and kissed the flesh. She sucked. She moaned. And one more time, she said, “Now.”
“No going back.”
She didn’t know what he meant, and didn’t care. Go back? Return to not knowing how he tasted, how it felt to have his heavy weight bearing down on her? No, a thousand times no. “No going back,” she agreed.
He pushed inside her, heavy and thick, connecting in a way she had never before known, because this was Caine, because in just two days he had become so important to her she couldn’t find any boundaries to what he meant. It was the way he’d cared for her and Elijah, even against his own instincts. It was the way he’d known what she wanted, and shown her more beauty than she’d imagined existed. It was even that damn flannel nightgown, because it had spoken to how deeply she affected him.
She had her arms and legs curled around him. His hands were under her, gripping her buttocks, lifting her to meet every thrust. At first he was slow, lingering, enjoying every sensation inch by inch as he pushed in and pulled out. But eventually their breaths began to come fast, their hearts were pounding in rhythm with each other, and slow wasn’t enough. He was fast, then, pounding into her, and whatever control she might have had left fled, unmourned.
Chapter 14
Derek sat back in his recliner, took a sip of steaming hot coffee—black and strong, not any of that sissy crap from a coffee shop—and watched the local news. Five minutes in, he sat upright with a bang from the footrest slamming down, an impressive stream of foul language exploding from him. If he hadn’t just swallowed, coffee would have been included. Damn the senator! If there was a bigger fuckup, Derek hadn’t met one. Markham couldn’t do anything right, not even disposing of a body, which wasn’t that difficult if you just put a little thought into it.
He rubbed his forehead. If he’d been in charge of disposing the Tilley woman’s body, it wouldn’t have been found so soon, if ever. Not only had she been found too soon, she’d been identified very quickly, thanks to her fingerprints being on
file. He didn’t know why her prints had been in the system, if she had applied for a job that had a strenuous security check or if she had a checkered past that included an arrest. The why didn’t matter. If he’d been called in sooner, if the senator hadn’t been such an idiot to begin with—
But it was too late to go back. As he liked to say, “It is what it is.”
All things considered, the senator’s instruction to make the mechanic’s death look like a suicide hadn’t been a bad idea. Sammy’s body hadn’t been discovered yet, but when he didn’t show up for work someone would go looking for him—if not today, then tomorrow. And they’d find him, in his own bathtub with his wrists slit. The GHB he’d used to knock Sammy out—or, at the least, make him far more manageable—would be long gone from his system by the time he got to a medical examiner’s table. And once they connected the idiot to Amber Tilley, the story would become clear. Their love affair had gone wrong, he’d killed her and dumped the body, and then in remorse he’d killed himself.
But what about the kid? Where would Elijah fit into the story?
The kid’s last school picture had been plastered all over the news. Every law enforcement officer, victim’s group, and friend or friend of a friend was searching for him. Derek mumbled another curse. He probably wouldn’t be able to step out his own door without tripping over someone who was looking for the kid.
Derek wondered if the blonde still had Elijah. If she did, why hadn’t she come forward? Why hadn’t she taken the kid to the police? There was something going on there that wasn’t quite right, that just didn’t make sense. He hated it when things didn’t make sense.