“After.”
“Was that the deal? That you helped him, and he did your books in exchange?”
“Yes.” But Maldon’s gaze was too steady and Megan recognized a lie. Her clients did that too—or had, when she’d had clients.
What was he hiding? It couldn’t be loyalty to her dead father that stilled his tongue.
The question clicked into place. “How did he know you? I mean, how did he know to come to you to begin with?”
“Everyone in town knows me.”
“No, no they don’t. I didn’t, when I lived here. I never heard anyone talk about you. When did you move here?”
Maldon sighed and shifted in his chair. “You were fourteen, I believe. Miss Chase, my time this evening is limited, and we still have to discuss your payment for the demons you stole. Can we hurry this up?”
Shit! She’d forgotten about that, and she couldn’t possibly pay him. “I—”
“She’ll give you ten grand for them,” Greyson cut in, so smoothly she wasn’t sure at first he’d even heard her start to speak. Was he crazy? Ten thousand dollars?
“She will or you will?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does if I’m deciding whether to treat her as head of her own house, or as your ornita.”
Megan didn’t need to know the literal meaning of the word to understand what had been said. Gasps sounded around the table; one or two rubendas pushed their chairs back in shock, and fury and embarrassment rose in her chest despite their obvious disapproval.
“Hit him,” Greyson muttered.
“What? I—”
“Show him your power. Now.”
No time to worry, to wonder about what might happen if she did. He was right. Megan closed her eyes and gathered her strength, seeing the door inside herself, finding her connection to her demons and the source of her own power. Like a rushing underground spring it welled up inside her, filling her chest, flames burning cold into her head. She saw it, tasted the ozone flavor of it, and let it form itself into a wave and pour from her, over the table, over the floor, smashing into Orion Maldon and knocking him from his seat.
She stood up, aware that the others around the table had leaped out of the way and were now staring openmouthed at her.
“Does she feel like an ornita now, Orion?”
“Bitch,” Maldon spat from the floor. He wiped blood from his lips and licked it off his fingers.
“Don’t do it,” Greyson warned. Tension laced his pose as he stared at Maldon. “Insult a Gretneg and get punished. Attack one…”
“Eska brenti Gretneg, kallahept!”
Megan blinked. The sensation of cold from the anger in the room seeped through her skin, into her body, as if the blood in her veins was running cold…running more slowly…
Her knees buckled and she grabbed for the edge of the table with stiff, numb fingers. She couldn’t seem to hold it, couldn’t put any strength into it…Why was it so hard to breathe? The room started swimming as blackness filled the edges of her vision.
Greyson’s hand closed over her arm, his fingers dragging bruises from beneath her skin. “Meg, come on, don’t give in,” he said, but she couldn’t hear him very well through the haze of voices and the loud, slow beating of her own heart. Ba-bump…ba-bump…ba…bump…
“Damn it, Meg, reach for it!”
Ba…what was he saying? Did it matter? The cold was starting to feel pleasant now, the way she’d heard it did when you started to freeze to death. Maybe that’s what was happening, maybe she could just slip off into sleep now and—bump.
What? No!
Her panicked brain rebelled, woke up, and she knew what Greyson was telling her, begging her, to do. Heat burned the arm he held, warming her freezing blood enough to keep it beating, but she needed the heat inside, all the way through her. Somehow she forced herself to open up, envisioned tentacles coming from the demon inside her and reaching out, reaching through her skin, until she found Greyson’s power and grabbed it with every bit of strength she had left. It roared through her body, obscuring everything else. For a moment she didn’t just see the flames, she was them, bright and glorious as she rose to the ceiling and burst apart.
Greyson tugged at her, dragging her away from the table. Her vision cleared, the flames subsiding enough to see it wasn’t just in her mind, it wasn’t a hallucination built on power. The room was on fire, the curtains already gone, the crystal glasses on the table shattering from the heat.
They made it almost to the edge of the dining room before Maldon grabbed her other hand, almost yanking her away from Greyson. The shaggy blond hair on one side of his head was gone, burned away. His cheek on that side was red, his eyebrow singed.
“T’gau li!” His voice, thick with rage, chilled even Megan’s overheated skin as his piercing blue stare bored into her.
But more than his gaze on her, she felt his power. Not being aimed at her, but resting in his body. His abilities, like hers with reading images in people’s minds or Greyson’s with fire. She felt his connection to blood, felt an answering bell somewhere in her chest and knew that if she wanted to she could attack him in the same way. She could turn his power back on him, combine it with her anger and Greyson’s fire, and make him explode from inside. For one moment she wanted to, needed to. Desire burned in her breast and raced through her veins.
Then it was over. And she would never know if it ended because she wanted it to, or if it ended because Greyson punched Maldon squarely on the nose and sent him sprawling across the carpet.
The sliding glass doors behind the dining table exploded. Megan started to turn toward them but she was already falling, being shoved down to the carpet a few inches from Maldon’s feet. Demons ran everywhere, down the hall to her right, escaping from what, Megan didn’t understand.
Maldon stirred. Blood poured from his nose down his face as he tried to sit up, but Greyson was already grabbing his lapels and using them to lift his upper body.
“You set us up!”
Maldon swung his fist. Greyson’s head snapped to the side but he held on, managing to hit Maldon again in the process.
Porcelain shards filled the air as a vase shattered only a few inches from the men’s heads. Greyson dropped Maldon and ducked. Megan ducked too, covering her head and screaming as a wall of flame rose behind her.
“Megan! Go!”
Glass and china tore her stockings and cut the skin on her knees and palms as she scuttled away. The front door filled her vision, the front door and the promise of freedom from the hell this modern suburban home had become. Over the subtle roar of the fire and Greyson’s shouts she heard more gunshots.
No time to waste wondering who was doing the shooting. She had to get out, now, immediately, before the heat overcame her. Sweat poured down her forehead to sting her eyes, but she dared not stop even to wipe it away.
It felt like an eternity before she made it. Her hand slipped on the knob once, twice, three times before she realized the door was locked. She fumbled with the dead bolt, aware that as she stood in front of the ivory-painted door in her black dress she might as well have had a target painted on her back.
Other fingers covered hers, strong and sure, flipping the bolt. Greyson yanked the door open. Cold air rushed in, cooling the sweat on her skin. It felt wonderful, but not as good as knowing she could get out. She lifted her foot to take the first step toward freedom, then stopped short when the cold barrel of a gun pressed right between her eyes.
Chapter 15
Time froze while a thumb cocked the gun. It took forever for that movement to complete itself, while Megan’s mouth opened to scream. Instinctively she fell back to her knees, knowing it wouldn’t help her, it would only delay the inevitable by a few seconds.