Visions of Magic

Chapter 4



Shea waited a few minutes after her gorgeous kidnapper left before she quietly opened the bedroom door. The long hallway was dark but for a few lamps set into the wall. The illumination they gave off was barely more than candlelight. There were at least six doors off the hall and at the end, near the head of the stairs, Shea spotted a woman with steel gray hair and a stick-straight spine sitting in a chair. The older woman was reading a book, but Shea wasn’t fooled. The woman wasn’t taking a break.

She was on guard duty.

Crap.

Closing the door with a soft snick, Shea looked futilely for a lock, then silently admitted that even if there had been one, it wouldn’t have kept out the man who had just left. She’d never seen a man more . . . powerfully male. It was more than his muscles, though they were plenty impressive. There was something else that fed into the indomitable male thing. A sort of aura that clung to him. One that spelled danger to anyone foolish enough to cross him.

Which she definitely planned to do.

Mating ritual?

She really didn’t think so.

But even as that thought blasted through her mind, her body was reacting in a completely different way. Desire pumped through her, making her skin feel heated and too tight. Her mind was shouting at her to run and her body was urging her to stay.

He’d saved her, after all.

Rescued her from a mob that would have killed her, given half a chance.

But he’s not even human.

Hard to forget the way those flames leapt and danced across his skin. Hard to forget the flash of something dangerous in those pale gray eyes of his, too.

Shea blew out a breath, and tried to come to grips with what had happened to her life in the span of a few short hours. She knew only one thing for certain. She had to get away. From the man asking too much of her and from the enemies she knew would now be tracking her relentlessly.

She had to disappear.

Again.

She leaned back against the closed door as her gaze swept the plush room. She had to give her kidnapper credit. At least he’d brought her to a damn palace. But an elegantly appointed trap was still a trap.

“Where the hell am I, anyway?”

Malibu, she remembered suddenly, though knowing where she was didn’t help her any. Long Beach, her home, her car, were about thirty miles away. He’d swept her out from under a murderous mob and taken her from everything familiar only to drop her into the middle of the unknown. Fine, she told herself with a nod of her head. She’d been in tough places before this one. She knew all too well how to deal with threats. She’d been handling her own safety for years now. It was him she didn’t have a clue how to deal with.

Torin.

Just thinking his name sent ripples of awareness spreading through her. She closed her eyes against the sensation of impending . . . something. It was something she couldn’t name. The moment she did, though, images dredged up from some distant corner of her mind flashed across the backs of her eyes like a kaleidoscopic slide show. Faces, places, voices all presented themselves in a staggering flood that made absolutely no sense. It was as if they were someone else’s memories rushing through her mind, but if that were true, why was she seeing them?

She saw fires burning, heard a scream that sounded as though it was pulled from the depths of a soul. She glimpsed a blossoming darkness that stretched and spread like a black flower rising from death’s garden.

Instantly Shea opened her eyes, gasping for breath even as her stomach did a fast lurch. She clamped her mouth shut and swallowed convulsively against the sudden urge to retch. Things were bad enough without her being sick on top of everything else. She knew she couldn’t afford to give in to whatever it was she was feeling. She had more important things to consider at the moment. Nerves jangling, mind still reeling, she pushed away from the door, crossed the room to the balcony and stepped outside.

Lifting her face to the cold wind driving at her, she hoped to let the images that were still fresh in her mind fade away. For months now she’d been having dreams filled with frightening shapes and sounds. She never could remember them on waking, but more than once she’d shot out of bed, desperate for a breath that wouldn’t come. Now, though, those mental dream collages were stronger, clearer. She didn’t know what was happening, but whatever it was, she was convinced it had something to do with Torin.

So the sooner she got away from him, the better.

The icy breeze off the ocean pushed at her as if trying to keep her in the room. But Shea knew better than that. She couldn’t stay here. Yes, he’d saved her from the mob, but he hadn’t let her go. And she wasn’t sticking around to see what else he had planned for her.

The only one she knew she could trust was herself.

Her gaze focused on the world beyond the fenced yard surrounding her. There were dangers out there, she knew. Hadn’t she been running for the last ten years of her life? She knew that the MPs and BOW were somewhere watching. She also knew that civilians, like the ones at the school who had surrounded her with fear and hatred just that afternoon, could be even more dangerous than the feds.

And still, there was little choice. She had to take her chances.

She couldn’t stay with her jailer. His presence was doing something to her. And she couldn’t risk sticking around to find out what more might be coming. Not only that—there was another good reason to run.

“Mating ritual,” she whispered, reminding herself that not every danger came with a threat to her life.

Heat instantly blossomed deep inside her and her body trembled at the thought of being under, over and around that incredible male. But she couldn’t help how her hormones reacted. That was just nature. Chemistry.

She was more than that.

She had a brain and she was going to use it.

Looking down at the hydrangea bush beneath the balcony, Shea considered just how badly she might be hurt if she dropped herself into it. “Worst-case scenario, I break a leg and I’m trapped here,” she murmured, as if hearing her own voice would infuse her with the courage she needed. “Best case, I’m out of here and on the run.”

She didn’t have the suitcase from her car trunk, but a quick check of her bra told her that she still had her stash of emergency money. She’d find the closest bus or train station, buy a ticket and disappear.

Not daring to waste any more time, Shea climbed over the edge of the balcony and sent one last look back to the lush, empty room she was leaving behind. Warmth and luxury weren’t everything, though. Sometimes safety was the open road and a cold wind at your back. She took a breath, then turned her mind to the problem at hand. Carefully, she lowered herself until she caught the bottom of the railing, her hands gripping the base of the twisted iron tightly. Chill dampness leached into her bones and fed the dark cold already settling in the pit of her stomach.

She could only hope that her jailer wasn’t currently in a room with a view of the hydrangea bush. Her legs swung free, her feet instinctively groping for a foothold that wasn’t there. She hung in place for a slow count of five, then bit her lip, closed her eyes and let go.

A brief yet seemingly interminable amount of time passed and then she dropped into the bush. Heavy branches and bunches of lilac-colored flowers broke her fall, but the air rushed out of her lungs on impact. Wincing at the noise she’d made with her fall, she waited to see if there would be an outcry, if someone in the house had heard the commotion and was even now racing out to recapture her.

But there was nothing, so she took a breath and did a quick mental inventory. Nothing broken, thank God. Sore, bruised undoubtedly, but she was ready to run. She peered up and around the thick dark leaves and was relieved to see that the bush surrounding her backed against a wall of the house. No windows. So no way for Torin to have seen her fall.

Now all she had to do was escape before he discovered she was gone.

Scrambling, Shea fought her way free of the heavy plant, then staggered to her feet. Instantly, she headed for the darkest shadows on the lawn. She knew there was a high wall around the property, but she’d already noticed the sturdy, ancient trees lining the perimeter. Surely one of them would be close enough to the wall that if she was lucky, she could use it to vault herself to freedom.

Freedom.

That one word was like a talisman. She had to stay free, not just of Torin but of the agencies chasing her. Free of the civilians who would no doubt be on guard for her. She had to find a way to hide deeply enough that the world would, eventually, forget about her.

Shea clung to the shadows, keeping low, half expecting to hear a shout at any moment. To feel strong arms covered in flames wrap around her. To look up into gray eyes that were as merciless as they were mesmerizing. She took a breath and ducked beneath a low-hanging branch of an oak that looked as though it had been standing in that spot for a century or more. Taking off her shoes, she tucked them into the waistband of her skirt. Bare feet would make climbing easier. A dense canopy of leaves hid her from sight as she hiked her skirt up to her thighs, grabbed hold of a heavy branch and pulled herself up. Her injured knees scraped against the bark and pain she didn’t have time to acknowledge shot through her.

Shea tossed a quick glance through the leaves at the brightly lit house behind her.

No sign that anyone was after her. Yet. Clinging to a branch, she pulled her shoes free and then tossed them, one after the other, over the wall. Her bare feet walked up the heavy limbs of the oak until she was within reach of the top of the wall. Leaning out, she held tight to the tree with one hand and reached for the wall with the other.

Don’t look down, she told herself, focusing solely on the top of the cinder-block wall. She bit back her fear, released the tree and clambered onto the wall, stretching out flat atop it. She threw a quick glance at the street below.

Torin’s house was set back from the main road, where streetlights threw soft golden circles of light. Here by the wall, there was only more darkness. Better, she thought. Staying out of the light would help hide her. She swung over the edge, dug her toes into the wall, then carefully dropped to the ground. Blindly, she searched for her shoes, tugged them on, then hurried toward the road.

She hated having to be anywhere near the main street, since Torin would be following her soon. But what choice did she have? She wasn’t even sure where she was.

Her heels tapped lightly on the asphalt and she cringed at even that slight sound. But better to risk the noise than to step on something and injure herself before she got a running start.

Her breath came in uneven gasps and her long red hair fell in tumbled curls around her shoulders. Her gaze continually swept her surroundings and she jolted at every brush of wind against a bush. Somewhere down the road a dog howled and Shea shivered.

Overhead, clouds raced across the sky. The ever-present wind tugged at her hair, her clothes, with icy fingers and through it all, the pulse beat of the ocean thrummed in the air.

At the corner, Shea pushed her hair back from her face and paused in the shadows, scanning the road in front of her. Not much traffic. Must have been later than she’d thought. The residents were all tucked in behind their privacy gates, secure in their elegant mansions. And with any luck, none of them would ever know she had been there.

She stepped into the street, avoiding the circles of light thrown from the old-fashioned streetlamps. Thankfully, this part of Malibu obviously preferred form over function. If they’d had the more modern lights here, she would have had a much harder time remaining unseen. As it was, she had to move quickly, walking on grass and gravel, trying to get as much distance between her and Torin as possible. Then she would be free to lose herself in a new identity.

The tightness around her chest loosened with every step. She would survive. She’d done it before. She could do it again. This time was no different.

But it was different.

The last time she’d disappeared, she hadn’t been a murderer. Now she was. She’d killed that man who had attacked her. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t meant to. Mistake or premeditated, he was just as dead. She bit down on her bottom lip and told herself that it was an accident. She’d never hurt anyone in her life until today.

Shea swiped one hand across her eyes, wiping away the sting of tears with impatience. Being sorry wouldn’t accomplish anything. Wouldn’t change anything. What had happened, happened and there was just no going back.

So she would go forward.

And what about the fire? The pulse of energy that had jolted from her fingertips? What was she supposed to do about that? For ten years, she’d been denying that she was a witch to anyone who would listen. Now, though, that argument wouldn’t work, even with herself. There was magic inside her, whether she wanted it or not. And she really didn’t.

Even being suspected of witchcraft was dangerous.

To actually be a witch was usually a death sentence.

Frowning at her own scattershot thoughts, Shea told herself that she’d do what Torin had said and would learn to control it. Just because she apparently carried magic within her didn’t mean she had to use it. She would stop the magic. She’d figure it all out. But she’d do it her way, on her time. She wasn’t going to trust anyone. Certainly not a man who could manifest the very flames she was terrified of.

On her own, she’d be safe.

It was the only way.

She smiled to herself, ducked beneath the overhanging branches of a jacaranda tree, lacy leaves tickling her skin. The soft slide of her shoes on the grass was the only sound except the ocean. Even that lonely dog had stopped howling. Maybe that was a good sign, she thought.

She was free. The danger was behind her and safety lay within reach.

A deep voice erupted from behind her. “Gotcha!”