Part 5 (2/2)

I faced Bran head on, not caring if he heard the pleading in my voice. ”I'm running out of time to save my brother. Why won't you help?”

”I am helping.” His words slapped like a wet towel against my bare skin. ”But I won't run head on into another ambush as you're suggesting.”

”I made no such suggestion.”

He stood, barely holding in the pressure I could see building behind his rigid stance. ”Vaverek is dangerous, but he's nothing compared to the individuals behind him.”

”I know that.”

”I don't think you do.” He lowered his voice until it stroked my awareness like heat lightening before a summer storm. ”You're acting like one of your American gunslingers, rus.h.i.+ng in unprepared, and only by sheer luck do you come out without dying.”

I walked up to the edge of his fancy huge desk, this time planting my hands on it, to give me support and to keep me from crawling across it to shake some sense into him. ”Have you forgotten my brother's life is at stake? I don't have the luxury of sitting around, twiddling my thumbs, and-” I waved my hands at the door where Miss Bonjour had just exited, ”doing casting calls. Van is going to die if I don't help him.”

Bran leaned forward and I swore I could see steam rolling out of him. ”Is that what you were doing this morning? When you used me? Tapped into my abilities?”

So that was it. That's what all this emotion hid. He was angry because I'd pulled power from him. To save the lives of my teammates. To save my life. And his too because he was there. Mister I'm-in-charge didn't like not being the one in control.

I straightened, brus.h.i.+ng my palms against my jeans, corralling my own emotions so they wouldn't betray me. Up until this moment, in spite of his threat to kill me, in spite of our differences, and in spite of everything I knew about him, knew about his kind, I had hoped a tiny kernel of hope that he would help me. That he, who valued family so much, would know why I was willing to risk everything to save Van.

”What? No pithy comeback?” he said, his jaw so tight I was surprised it didn't fracture. ”No justification as to why you put all of us at risk to pull that stunt?”

Stunt?

”That wasn't any stunt, Mister High-and-Mighty,” I snarled, stepping away to give myself breathing room. ”What I did I'd do again to save lives.”

”And if it had backfired? What then? You'd have left all of us vulnerable to attack with no abilities, no powers. You blindsided all of us, Alex. Can't you see that?”

”Yes.” The single word shot from me. As if I was so clueless. So uncaring. ”But if I hadn't acted you, and my teammates, would have been killed. So it was a risk I was willing to take.”

He shook his head, his eyes darkening in color, his shoulders tensing. ”Your risk. Your decision. I don't know how you can call yourself a team member when you don't have any idea what the word means.”

Where was this coming from? I was a teammate. I was part of the IR Agency. And who the h.e.l.l cared anyway?

Not him obviously. He was just nursing a bruised ego.

I didn't have time for this c.r.a.p. Or for him. I'd have to hunt for Van on my own without his contacts and a.s.sistance. I had to believe my team and I could find and nail Vaverek.

But just as I was turning to storm out, his desk phone rang.

For a second our gazes clashed. His unreadable. Mine no doubt looking as I felt-betrayed.

As he reached for the phone I started walking across the expanse of his office, until his words stopped me. ”She's right here.”

He thrust the handset toward me as if daring me to ignore it, and him.

But who would call me here? No one knew where I was.

I swallowed, a nervous betrayal of emotions and something I hoped he couldn't see.

Walking back to take that phone from him was as hard as facing down a raging rogue Were who was trying to kill my brother.

And look where that had got me-a life sentence in prison.

”h.e.l.lo?” I had to speak over the fist-sized lump in my throat. ”Alex Noziak here. Who's this?”

”Ling Mai.”

CHAPTER 13.

Bran jammed his hands in his pants pockets to keep from reaching for Alex. He had no idea who the h.e.l.l was on the other end of the phone. He knew it was a woman but he didn't know who or why they'd tracked Alex down here.

All he knew was her skin had paled and the fiery emotions behind her eyes winked out and he wanted to grab her, pull her close, and protect her from whoever was on the other end of that line.

No doubt he'd get his head bitten off for the gesture.

Alex was the p.r.i.c.kliest, most infuriating, most pig-headed woman he'd ever met and she continued to have him tied into knots even as he debated whether eliminating her might be the best approach to protecting her and everyone around her.

Did she have any idea what she'd done this morning? Fairytales and ancient ma.n.u.scripts spoke of the ability to steal and amplify others' abilities, but he'd thought it was the stuff of legends.

Now he knew better. He knew and feared. For her and because of her.

Sacre bleu, the woman was going to be the death of him. But that's not what had him awakening in the middle of the night in cold sweats, nor what was driving him to shout at her like a fishmonger's wife. He feared she would be the death of herself. And that would be a loss he'd never recover from.

”No.”

”But I”

”If you'll let me explain.”

Each of her chopped words sounded softer and less acerbic and he doubted it was because he was in the room. From her body language he might have been another chair, an inanimate object that could be ignored. Witches could be like that-use you and then discard you. He knew that going into a relations.h.i.+p with her and yet it still blindsided him when she had manipulated him to get what she needed. Her and her team. The 'greater' good.

He caught his hands curling and released them, out of sight of her. Not that she would notice. Alex Noziak was the most focused person he'd ever met, outside of himself. He had been a fool to get involved with her once. He was a bigger fool to still care now.

”Yes, I'll be there.” She spoke the words with the somber cadence of death bells ringing and replaced the phone in its cradle without looking at him.

”Who was it?” he demanded, aware how close he was to losing his control.

”Doesn't matter.”

This wasn't the spitfire, in-his-face Alex of a moment ago. The one who crashed his meeting like a heat-seeking missile and latched on to Guinevere Worthington as the target. An action that gave him the most hope in weeks that he wasn't the only one hurting since their breakup.

No, this Alex was pulled in, which wasn't her way at all. Hurt or preparing herself for battle? Knowing Alex, it was probably the latter.

As she reached for the closed door he stepped toward her. ”Then tell me what they wanted? What they said.”

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