City In Embers Read online

  For more than two years I’d been in love with him. It wasn’t long after the awareness of my feelings for him I foolishly conveyed them. He was kind and tactful in my letdown. He didn’t let me quit or switch partners, telling me I would get over him and find a guy who was more suitable and my age. Neither of those things happened. I only fell more in love with him. Most days I could act like I didn’t feel anything, but other days it was torture. I could see how good we’d be together. How amazing our future could be.

  My world revolved around him and my sister. I’d constantly taken care of myself. I had to. But when Daniel came into my life, I didn’t realize how much I needed someone. He took care of me and made sure I was all right. I had this fantasy he and I would take Lexie and get away from Seattle. Leave this whole world behind. Start a program to help disabled kids, especially in the foster system. Have kids of our own. Grow old. Maybe travel the world.

  It was merely a dream... until lately. His glances remained on me a little longer, his touch lingered. Every moment, hope bloomed in my chest. I wanted nothing more than to feel his lips on mine, his experienced hands caressing my bare body. I had sex before, but it had never been with someone I loved. Because he was that person. He always would be.

  “Hello, Zoey? Are you listening to me?”

  “What?” I glanced at him. The late afternoon sun glittered off the silver streaking the sides of his temples. Sexy.

  “I asked what you are doing for your birthday.”

  “It’s not till next month.”

  “Technically, it’s in twenty-four days.” He shifted in his seat, keeping his attention on the motorway. The flickering of streetlights glimmered against the windshield in a rhythmic pulse. “Curious if you have plans with any of your friends or maybe a boyfriend taking you out.”

  “You know I don’t have either.” Feeling a moment of boldness, I stated, “Besides, you are taking me to dinner.”

  His eyebrows hitched up. “Oh, am I?”

  “Yes.” I forced back my fear, biting my lip. “Someplace I have a reason to wear a dress and heels. Where there is a beautiful view.”

  “Sounds romantic.”

  Twisting my neck, I peered at him through my lashes. “Exactly.”

  His head turned to look at me. He didn’t say anything, but a smile hinted at his lips. I grinned in response, our eyes connecting. Charged tension occupied the space between us and lessened only slightly when his attention went back to the road, slowing the car as we reached our destination.

  “Kate said her source hinted a group of fae had been spotted throughout this area a couple of days ago and then earlier today.” Daniel pulled the van into an empty parking spot along the street.

  “Not an obvious change in conversation.” I smiled into my cup. The sweet and acidic smells wafted into my nose.

  He turned off the engine and sat back in his seat. “Zoey, what do you want me to say?”

  “That you’re taking me to dinner,” I exclaimed, turning my body to him.

  He leaned against the headrest and rolled his head to gaze at me. “Zoey, you are twenty-two, and I am forty. I’m too old for you. You need to date boys your own age.”

  “Exactly—boys. I don’t want a boy. I want a man.” I swallowed, my voice going low. “I want you.”

  He tipped his head back, closing his eyes. Pain flickered across his face before a heavy sigh bounded from his chest. “I have tried so hard to dissuade your feelings for me, hoping you would find someone more suitable.” His lids lifted as he peered over at me. “But you’re not, are you?”

  “No.” My determination was one thing I was sure of.

  He was quiet for a long time. I pursed my lips, waiting for his response. He glanced out the side window. “Not sure I could handle seeing you with some young idiot, anyway.”

  My chest locked. No air moved in or out. “What?” I sputtered. He didn’t respond. “What are you saying, Daniel?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.” My tone was unflinching.

  He shifted in his seat. “If... If we cross this line, there is no going back.”

  “I don’t want to,” I uttered. “And there is no if.”

  “Even if we ruin what we have? I know how I function. I will not be able to stay partners with you if it doesn’t work.”

  “You are worth it to me.” I swallowed. “I’m willing to take the chance.”

  He chuckled. “It’s because you’re young and think everything lasts forever. Love will conquer all. My ex-wife will tell you differently.”

  “It will if it’s with the right person.” There was not a doubt in my mind. Daniel was the right person for me.

  He turned to face me and reached out, his hand cupping my cheek. “You are a persistent one.”

  “I know what I want.” Being a poor foster kid and knowing no stability till my teens, I’d learned things weren’t given to you. You needed to go out and get them.

  He stared at me for a long time before his gaze dipped to my lips. Air stuck in my chest with nervous, excited energy. Slowly, he moved in, leading my face to his. Finally. I had wanted this for so long.

  His lips were only inches from mine.

  Millimeters.

  BOOM. A hollow bang shook the car.

  Both of us jerked apart to see a man standing on the hood of the van. My eyes shifted, my sight perceiving what he really was. His complex aura and glowing eyes showed me he was no ordinary man. He was fae.

  The man was so substantial it took me a moment to notice there was a girl beside him, holding his hand. She was tall; her hair was past her waist and a bright plum color. With every move she made, the color flickered and changed under the light. Her eyes were dark and sharp.

  But he was the one who captured my attention. A large battle axe stuck up over his shoulder, harnessed across his back. The blade was so sharp it glinted under the streetlight. His dark blond hair looked long, but lines of tight braids were snug on either side of his head, causing the top to look like a Mohawk. His face was thick with stubble and hard cheeks and bones. He had a tattoo on one side of his neck, disappearing under his shirt. Scars lined both his eyebrows, causing me to wonder if they were on purpose. The man had to be at least six-three and two hundred pounds of solid muscle. He was harsh and terrifying—a modern Viking.

  The man turned, his pale eyes stared through the window and locked with mine. Breath halted in my lungs. His irises were so light blue they looked white. The pinprick of the black pupils secured the middle of the stormy sea. His focus caused me to shiver, and I closed my eyes under his intense gaze. When I opened them... the couple was gone.

  FOUR

  “What the hell?” My lids blinked to clear my version. Emptiness filled the space the man and woman had taken up a moment earlier.

  Daniel leaped out of the car and spun in every direction, his trained eyes searching for the vanished threat. His hand grasped his dart gun, his fingers twitching to respond. I jumped from the van, mimicking Daniel on the other side.

  “You saw them, right?” Daniel touched the dent on the hood. “Where the hell did they go? I’ve never seen fae disappear like they did.”

  I saw the Viking man briefly, but it was enough to imprint deeply in my mind. The outline he left was still in my sight, the fae magic thick and overpowering in him. With my familiarity of fae and different levels of magic each one held, I had never experienced anything close to him. It almost hurt to look. Not in the way it hurt to peer at the sun, but that he almost couldn’t be held within my vision. It was a strange pressure. Visually, I had seen scarier creatures, but something about this man terrified me. He was not one you wanted to mess with.

  The girl held magic, too, but compared to him, hers appeared dim. It was her beauty that sucked the air from you. She had worn skintight black pants and a long black sweater, which hung slightly off her shoulder. Her over-the-knee black boots only added to her sleek model frame. Even though she looked toned, she
was tiny-boned, giving the appearance of being fragile. She seemed a little taller than me, but I had a lot more substance to my build. I was in shape and healthy from training, where a gust of wind might have knocked her over. She looked like she could be from someplace in the eastern block of Europe. She was exotic and beautiful, and I felt very ordinary in comparison.

  An unsettling feeling wormed its way into my gut, and I reached into the car and grabbed my phone out of my bag, stuffing it into my pocket. We always kept them on us in case of emergencies or if we got separated. My feet led me away from the van, an impression telling me to head down an unlit alley.

  “You sense something?” Daniel called. Sometimes I felt like a trained bloodhound. “You got their scent, girl?” I was waiting for him to pat me on the head.

  With my dart gun ready, I nodded and followed my seer intuition. We reached opposite walls before peering down the gloomy lane. Clouds were rolling in, covering the light from the moon. Extra energy crackled in the air, hinting at rain and a possible thunderstorm. A dim light above the back door of a closed store at the end of the lane gave a little depth to the passage. It was empty, but something told me to venture in. Without question, Daniel trusted my instincts and followed. We crept slowly down the way. The hair on the back of my neck prickled in warning the farther we advanced. We were more than halfway along the alley when my skin tingled, the feeling of magic enveloping me. I had denied my sight for so long. But now I had let it out, it was like floodgates. It would never go back in.

  I stopped.

  “What?” Daniel whispered.

  I bit on my lip and shook my head as I searched for the source of all the magic. My focus shifted to the wall we had been following. Something was off. My vision zeroed in on it, and slowly the wall broke away, evaporating into air. There was another small alleyway leading at a right angle from this one.

  “Glamour.” My hand reached for the wall, going through it.

  Daniel’s eyes widened. He blinked several times and shut his lids to rub them.

  “Extremely powerful.” Glamour was magic fae used to influence a person’s mind. Other humans would not question the dead-end alley. Their mind would trick them into trusting what they saw. But if you had the sight, you could see through it. Once you stopped believing it was there, it broke the spell. One word from me put doubt in Daniel’s mind, and now the illusion was broken for him, too.

  “That will always disturb me.” He stepped into the space where the wall used to be. It was disturbing to be so certain of something, then find you were wrong, and your senses were misleading you.

  We moved together down the narrow passage. Everything in me was on high alert. The energy in the air and our surroundings unsettled me. It twisted in my gut; the feeling was not right. I was about to suggest we abort the mission and go for coffee and a slice of cake at the diner near the Space Needle when I heard voices—a lot of them.

  Daniel touched my arm, taking a step in front of me. His protective civility kicked in when going into unknown territory—part special-ops training and part him. As the voices grew closer, their tone sounded angry and low. Slowly, outlines appeared. Fae had better sight and hearing than humans, so it was difficult to sneak up on them. With so many of them in one spot, we could have been in trouble. Daniel pushed us behind a dumpster and crouched low.

  “This doesn’t feel right,” I whispered into his ear. He nodded but put up a finger—our sign for I want to check it out. I nodded but swallowed back the fear in my throat. I slipped my hand in my pocket, my fingers grazing my phone. It helped my nerves.

  Daniel tapped at his ear and did a V-sign to his eyes. Listen and watch. We peeked around the bin. I instantly recognized the two fae from earlier. The scary Viking and the model stood opposite a smaller but toned red-headed man. Actually, anyone seemed small next to the Viking. The redhead had a matching beard covering his features. He appeared to be the leader. He had a dozen men, splitting their count on either side of him. As with most fae, they were all beautiful. They were unique and different from humans but not enough you could pinpoint.

  “Give it to us, Ryker. You have done your job. Now hand over what the boss paid for,” the man with the red hair said, his Irish accent so heavy I almost needed a translator.

  The Viking’s name was Ryker. Of course it was.

  “Why won’t he meet me in person?” Ryker shot back.

  “You know he doesn’t do business like that,” Red said, patience thin in his voice. “Stop playing games and give us what is rightfully ours.”

  “Rightfully yours?” Ryker exclaimed. “I’m not stupid. I know what it is. It is something no one owns.”

  “Your intelligence is certainly in question if you think you can renege on our deal.”

  “Listen to yourself, Garrett,” Ryker scoffed. “You are his trained lapdog, not his partner.”

  Garrett clasped his hands. “My patience is thinning, Ryker. Give us the stone.”

  Stone? Like a jewel?

  Ryker’s shoulders shifted back, fists clenched. In one movement, in a blink of an eye, everything shifted. Ryker shoved the woman back, drawing his broad axe from his back. At the same time Garrett screamed, “Cadoc, grab her!”

  The brown-haired man farthest from Garrett and closest to the girl leaped out, a sword already drawn. The rest of the men jumped for Ryker.

  The Viking swung, his huge arms flexing as he tried to control the blade’s angle. It veered toward the group of men coming for him. All managed to escape the fierce blade heading their way. With a roar Ryker swung again, connecting with one of the men. Blood sprayed. A hoarse scream curdled the night, and a body fell to the ground.

  “Stop!” Garrett yelled. “You have already lost, Ryker.” Garrett snapped his fingers, and the man named Cadoc moved from behind Ryker. Another form came with him as he held a knife to the girl’s throat. Cadoc drew the two of them out of Ryker’s reach. “Are you willing to sacrifice Amara’s life for your stubbornness?”

  Ryker froze, except for his arm. His axe went to his side. “Garrett, she has nothing to do with this.”

  A slow smile etched up Red’s features. Then he looked at the wounded guy on the ground. “Get him up.” Two of his men helped the groaning man. When they lifted him, half of his arm stayed where it was. My stomach constricted at seeing the detached body part. They dragged him back, surrounding him as they turned and faced the Viking.

  “What’s it going to be?” Garrett widened his arms in question.

  Ryker shifted, looking at Garrett, then at Amara.

  “Ryker, don’t,” she cried.

  The Mohawked man’s gaze was glued on the girl. “Amara.” He stepped toward her. Her purple hair tangled around her arms as she reached for him. Cadoc tipped the edge of his knife deeper into her neck. Blood trickled off the blade. She grunted, forcing Ryker to stop in his tracks.

  “This knife is goblin welded. If you want her to live, Ryker, you’ll give us what we want.” Cadoc gripped her tighter to him. “The stone is ours.” He grinned and sniffed Amara’s hair. “Right, sweetheart?”

  Hatred narrowed her eyes, but she kept silent.

  A rumble rolled over the increasing clouds. Lightning tore across the sky. A boom sounded where the light contacted with the earth. I couldn’t see where it hit, but it was close enough to rattle the ground.

  What the hell?

  “We got to get out of here,” Daniel whispered in my ear, his gaze studying the sky.

  I agreed wholeheartedly. This entire mission felt wrong from the start. Daniel’s warm body stepped away from mine. The current stirring between our two forms when we were pressed together did not diminish when he moved away. The hair on my arms sang with the electricity in the air. Magic was growing denser.

  Daniel touched his halter and held up two fingers, flipping them. Switch. I shoved my dart gun back in my belt and drew my fae gun.

  “Leaving so soon?” a voice spoke above us, causing me to jump. “Look what w
e have here. Human spies.” One of Garrett’s men stood on top of the dumpster we were hiding behind, peering down at us. He had shoulder-length wavy blond hair and soft brown eyes filled with mischief. But not the fun kind. He was tall and lean and like most fae, very good looking. “You can’t go. The party just got started.”

  Daniel whipped around and withdrew his real gun in one fluid movement.

  The light-haired fae laughed. “That is so adorable.”

  Irritation spurred in my chest. Daniel and I had captured hundreds of fae during the last couple of years. This one was acting like we were no threat at all. My gun was out and pointed at the man. “Back off.”

  The man held up his hands and jumped down from the bin, landing silently. A smirk danced on his face. Daniel shifted around the guy, pressing the barrel to his back.

  “We don’t want trouble. I only want to get her out of here. Safe,” Daniel said.

  “No trouble?” The fae scoffed, his arms still up. But it didn’t feel like he meant his surrender. “I know what you are. You create trouble.”

  “Maxen, we don’t have time for you to play with them.” Garrett sighed.

  Maxen winked at me, then with speed hard to track he twisted and snatched the gun from Daniel. With one hand he claimed his prize and with the other he punched Daniel. Hard. Daniel stumbled back but did not fall. His training had him jumping forward to fight the fae. We had gotten into plenty of fights with fae. We always won.

  I kicked, connecting with Maxen’s stomach. He folded over as Daniel’s elbow crunched down on his back, hitting his kidney. Daniel’s gun fell from Maxen’s hand, clattering to the ground. Daniel swiped it up, smashing it into the back of the fae’s head. The man fell, unconscious. Daniel was impressive in a fight. He was clean, controlled, and swift. Daniel pointed his gun at the rest of the fae and moved us back toward exit.