Cole grinned. “I’m testing a new explosive that’s odorless and practically invisible. Really cool. Works with electronic devices.”
“Stephanie must have developed it,” Tayla said, and Cole nodded. Steph was their cell’s chief spellcaster, but because her specialized talents worked best—or only—with electronics, they’d had to adapt.
“We just blew the hell out of that mannequin with an MP3 player.”
“Why do we need an explosive like that?”
“In case we ever get into a situation we can’t get out of.” He shrugged. “Take out a lot of scum with us. And obviously, we can remotely detonate.”
Tayla grimaced. Sounded a little too suicide bomber to her.
“Call me old-fashioned, but I’d rather go down swinging a sword.”
She mounted the steps to the rear deck and entered the house without knocking. Laughter met her, the usual playful banter that filled the three-story house twenty-four-seven. An outsider would see a disciplined, happy group of teens and young adults living in the well-kept facility, but Tayla knew better, knew everyone here could turn into focused, deadly warriors in an instant.
As usual, someone was baking. Lori, fondly nicknamed June Cleaver, taught everyone to cook and assigned baking days to ensure healthful treats would always be available. Even now, the mouth-watering aroma of banana bread nearly had Tayla detouring to the kitchen. Instead, she cut through the living room that was as large as her entire apartment. Four Guardians looked up from playing video games, and one, a high-strung eighteen-year-old named Rosa, jumped to her feet.
“Tayla! Lori and Kynan have been worried.”
Tay strode past the TV, ignoring the curious faces. “Where are they?”
“In the library, I think.” Rosa tagged along. “Where’s Janet?”
“Dead.”
Tayla supposed she should feel bad for being so blunt, but the answer had the desired effect; Rosa stumbled to a stop in the hallway, and Tayla sped up to escape the shock and questions. She pounded down the stairs to the giant multiroom basement. It had, sometime before Tayla became a Guardian, been expanded from a small, unfinished cellar to an underground facility complete with its own security systems and escape tunnels. Should anything attack the house, Guardians could shut themselves in the basement indefinitely, and could use the two exits as well.
Two Guardians were sparring in the brightly lit workout area, their bare feet thumping softly on the padded floor, and two more lifted weights near the rock wall. She hurried past them, through the darkened lab, which was empty except for the mystical relics, weapons, and magic supplies. The door to the library was closed.
She opened it and immediately wished she hadn’t. Inside, Kynan had his wife bent over the arm of the couch. He drove into her from behind, his jeans bunched around his thick thighs, one hand playing between her legs. Lori whimpered, digging her nails into the cushions Tayla would never sit on again.
Quietly, Tayla closed the door and sagged against the wall to wait. The sounds of their lovemaking made her wince in remembrance of the noises she and Eidolon had made, though what they’d done had been anything but making love.
No, their romp had been raw and rough, sex born of anger, hormones, and wicked magic. Because what she felt for him when he was near had to be a result of some sort of incubus enchantment. Now she could sit back and be disgusted to the point of wanting to kill him, but when he touched her, heck, when he looked at her, she fell under his spell.
Yeah, he was a poster boy for hot doctors, but the memory of her mother, writhing in pain beneath the demon that raped and killed her, raked her brain like the back end of a claw hammer. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and shook her head, willing the memories away.
Only to have the fresher memories of being naked with Eidolon crash into her head.
Stop. She could tell herself that his incubus sorcery was still affecting her, but a tiny part of her, the part that had come closer to finding the ultimate pleasure with him than with any man, didn’t care why she kept thinking about him. In any case, she needed to be stronger.
Eidolon had to die.
When the door finally opened, Kynan stepped out, graced her with one of his killer smiles, though his blue eyes darkened with concern. He didn’t miss much, always appeared to be reading a situation about ten seconds into the future. Before she’d laid eyes on Eidolon, she’d thought Kynan was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice a gravelly mix of Afghan battlefield vocal cord damage and sexual afterglow. “We sometimes forget to lock doors.”
Sometimes? Lori had once confessed that when she and Kynan got into it, things ignited so quickly that they’d started up while people were in the room with them. Only when they’d finished and found the room empty did they realize how carried away in each other they had become.