StrategicLust (8 page)

“Well, that’s because I think it
is
more twisted than
that,” Josh replied. “Whoever put up that money has to know about the ritual.
More importantly, they also have to know that both Kiera and myself read a small
part of it. The bounties are not just for killing us, but for bringing us in so
our memories can be extracted by whatever means possible. That indicates to me
that some dark wizard isn’t just pissed that we destroyed a grimoire, but also
wants the ritual for time-manipulation for himself.”

The three of them were silent for a moment as they digested
this knowledge.

Josh finished with his
pièce de resistance
. “Even
more difficult to accept is the possibility that the person responsible for
orchestrating this might be a Tribunal member.”

“What?” Kate and Aubury simultaneously replied, each equally
surprised.

“This all happened too quickly,” Josh explained. “There’s no
way this all snowballed so fast without inside help. Someone is driving this,
and simple psychology says that a driving force this powerful could only come
from someone wanting the power of the dark ritual.”

“That’s quite a leap, son,” Aubury stated. His tone and
manner were pensive, thoughtful, not disbelieving or rude. Joshua nodded sadly
and sighed.

“And it could be completely true, but that doesn’t help
Kiera or Hayden,” he replied morosely. Aubury looked perplexed and Josh went on
to expand.

“Kiera and Hayden have been chased and assaulted—Hayden was
even shot a few days ago,” Josh explained. “They’ve left the city to lie low
and hide. Hayden has a cabin an hour or more outside Chicago, in the middle of
nowhere from what I can gather. Hayden needs to recuperate for starters, but
Kiera was also starting to fray around the edges. They needed to get away from
all this.”

“You’re a good friend, Josh,” Kate interjected softly. Josh
made a slight face.

“Kiera is the closest thing to a sister I’ve ever had,” he
replied with a casual gesture. “She’s also my only close friend—a true and good
friend who has stuck by me through all my ups and downs. I completely
understand and agree with them going into hiding and protecting themselves, but
that doesn’t make it less upsetting. The very fact that all this skulking
around and hiding is necessary is enough to turn anyone’s stomach.”

“You truly do have uncharted depths, Josh,” Kate teased him
lightly. Her smile, the evil light in her eyes as well as the humorous tone of
her voice all told him she was yanking his chain. For once Josh didn’t mind in
the least.

“Who’d have guessed it of the lazy, slutty playboy wizard,
eh?” he teased her right back. Aubury snorted, clearly amused despite probably
not truly understanding their jesting.

“Come on,” Kate replied as she sat next to Josh on the cot.
With her shoulder, she nudged him gently. “Cheer up. There’s no need to be
morose. Kiera will be just fine—indeed I bet she and Hayden are holed up
happily doing kinky, ruinously sexual, deviant things to each other and having
a blast while they do so. If nothing else, this self-enforced holiday will do
them both a world of good and they’ll both be better for it. You know that as
well as I do, even if we might both need brain bleach after picturing them
together with whipped cream, blindfolds and riding crops.”

Josh shuddered at the vivid mental image Kate painted and
had to close his eyes to ward it off. Forcefully, he replaced the picture with
one of
Kate
blindfolded and cuffed and
he
with the crop… He had
to force himself to stop before he became erect again. Being so heavily aroused
in front of Aubury would just feel flat-out wrong.

“I’ll make you pay for that,” Josh warned only half
mockingly—the other half was completely serious. Kate snorted.

“With any luck, Daniel and Melissa will have something on
this Elijah person for us to work on and follow up when we meet them later this
afternoon,” Kate pointed out optimistically.

Josh frowned thoughtfully. “I was surprised when you agreed
to a second meeting,” he began hesitantly, not wanting to ruin what little luck
he had already managed to scrounge. “After the debacle of my insane urge to
play hero this time, I had assumed you’d put your foot down and go back into
rigid Guardian mode.”

Kate threw her head back and laughed. Aubury cracked a smile
but Josh couldn’t tear his gaze away from Kate. With her hair down and her eyes
sparkling with humor, she looked radiant in his opinion.

“My rigid Guardian mode?” Kate repeated with another
slightly breathless laugh.
“Oh Josh, believe me, I am never fully out of that mindset. Through to my very
heart and soul, I am a Guardian to the core. I will always be slightly over
protective and anal about following all the correct safety procedures. That
doesn’t mean in the least that I don’t want to uncover all the answers. Not in
the least.”

“So you’re happy to follow the rules
and
help me
uncover what’s happening here?” Josh tentatively checked, not quite able to
picture how two such diametrically opposed things could coexist.

Kate nodded happily, clearly not as perplexed as he. “I do
have a brain, Josh,” she chided him gently. “Just because I’m not going to let
you wander the streets alone and uncovered, or go to the library or Archives
and do research out in the middle of the day without protection, doesn’t mean
we can’t finesse a few databases, run a few searches of our own. Believe me, we
can coexist on a mutual wavelength somewhere between the two polar opposites.”

Josh wasn’t astonished, but “surprised” wouldn’t be out of
the ballpark to describe his reaction. Largely, especially when it came to
witches who knew his reputation, Josh was used to being treated as a cock with
a body attached. Few people outside his small circle of work-only acquaintances
ever understood that he had a brain—and a fairly clever one at that—and even
more rarely did anyone accept that he could use it.

Yet here Kate was, happy and almost seeming eager to allow
him to dig into this matter and see if
they
could solve it together. The
rush of potential glory filled Josh’s head and for a short second he
entertained the awesome fantasy of he and Kate uncovering exactly who Elijah
was—even possibly unmasking the Tribunal traitor. Morgan would be exceedingly
proud and Kiera would about burst with mingled excitement, happiness and envy.

Josh sat up straighter, brimming with eagerness and
anticipation.

“When can we start?” Josh all but demanded. “Aubury, do you
have a computer? Preferably one that has an internet connection?”

“My laptop is still in the car,” Kate replied with a grin.
“We can connect to Aubury’s internet and do a few searches while we hammer out
our plan of attack for later tonight with Melissa and Daniel.”

“I might leave you young whizzes to it,” Aubury said with
good humor. “I’ll be in my greenhouse out back if you need anything.”

Suddenly famished, Josh picked up the fork next to the plate
and dug in to the lukewarm omelet Kate had scrambled up for him earlier, as his
lover left to retrieve the laptop and Aubury made his way out of the room and
down the corridor.

His brain whirling madly, Josh had inhaled almost half the
plateful before he paused for breath and realized how hungry he must have been.
A quick glance at his watch showed that they only had a few hours before they
were due to meet again with Melissa and Daniel.

Scooping more eggs into his mouth and chewing ravenously,
Josh tried to order his thoughts into a coherent plan of attack for when Kate
returned with the laptop.

Josh hadn’t been able to help himself. Within the close
confines of the spare bedroom, when he and Kate sat at the short table both
peering over the laptop, her scent had driven him to distraction. Sweet, spicy
cinnamon coupled with the warm aroma of honey had him needing to taste Kate,
craving her unique flavor.

For the third time he used a finger to tilt her chin toward
him and captured her lips with his own. Soft and warm, Kate was a wizard’s wet
dream come to life. Her mouth tasted faintly of the omelet she had eaten and
the underlying flavor of tea. At first she moaned in surrender, the sound still
remarkable to Josh’s ears.

“Josh,” she moaned. Josh deepened the kiss, his tongue
flickering out to stroke over hers. The chair scraped as he moved closer, one
thigh moving over her legs as he half sat in her lap. His erection pressed
hungrily against the seam of his pants, his cock, hands and whole being eager
to explore Kate’s body again and again.

“Josh, we need to focus on this,” Kate moaned, her voice
still husky from arousal and need.

Josh grunted his assent. “We can move back onto that bed,”
he suggested, his brain already flashing pictures of Kate shirtless above him,
riding him hard. She looked like a slender queen, muscled but still so small
and strong. A package of feminine strength and agility all wrapped up in a
siren’s body.

Josh couldn’t wait for her to take him, and then he would
reverse their positions once more and take
her
. Maybe this time they
could even—

“No, Josh,” Kate replied with a breathless laugh as she
pulled her luscious lips away and pressed her hands gently against his
shoulders to create some room between them. Her actions cut off his mental
fantasy and with a bit of effort he focused on her and what she was trying to
tell him.

“We need to focus on the
laptop
and the search,
remember?”

His initial reaction was to pout and suggest that they throw
the damn laptop out the window. Who the hell wanted to
work
when here
was the witch of his dreams, wet, willing and ready, practically in his lap?

You did, jerk,
his brain reminded him.
Remember
wanting to research that witch who drugged you?

Josh stood up and scraped his hands through his hair,
massaging his skull as he drew in a sharp, deep breath and tried to will his
body back into inaction. His cock remained thickly erect, but Josh hoped that as
they threw themselves into their research it would begin to wilt. Either that
or he would be driven mad by Kate’s tempting scent and the nearness of her
body.

He tried to console himself with the fact that she was obviously
as addicted and aroused as he. Her face had a delicate tinge of a flush to it,
her nipples showed clearly erect through the thinness of her shirt and he’d bet
a large sum of cash that if he stroked his fingers over her labia, they would
come away slick and wet.

Josh took another few breaths to try to clear his head so as
to not become diverted by
that
particular train of thought.

“Okay,” he finally, reluctantly agreed. “Let’s move this
into one of the main rooms. That cot, rickety as it is, has proven to be too
much of a distraction for me. Let’s take this somewhere else, where I might not
be tempted to ravish you at every turn.”

“Is there anywhere we can go where you
won’t
want to
take me?” Kate teased him even as she stood up to power down the laptop and
collect it. Josh rubbed the round curve of her ass, tempted almost beyond
bearing. Kate wriggled her hips and pressed back against the palm of his hand
for an all-too-brief second before moving to the door and out of his reach.

“Probably not,” he replied honestly. “But at least if I know
people might walk in on us at any second it might slow me down until I’m
distracted by the search. Let’s at least give it a try.”

Kate laughed and led him out the door and down the corridor
into another, more public room.

Josh followed slowly. He only felt the faintest remnants of
the drug, as if he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep and was a little cloudy and
dull around the edges. Otherwise he just felt tired in his bones, as if he were
getting over a cold or something. He knew as time passed the feelings would
dissipate, but remembering the witch who had knocked him out helped to divert
his mind and recall why this was so truly critical.

Determined once again, Josh sat down on the couch in the
main living area, which also appeared to double as a waiting room for Aubury.
The moment Kate powered the laptop back up again, Josh opened a window and
began to type.

He looked at the open tabs on the laptop as Kate sat down
next to him on the couch. For a moment he felt briefly overwhelmed. While every
witch or wizard walking down the street certainly didn’t know who he was or
that there was a reward out for his capture, there were more than enough ways
to discover this news. In the underbelly of their world, it was common
knowledge. Josh couldn’t even think where to begin his search for the blonde
witch.

“I almost wish we’d given this to Melissa and Daniel,” he
said wryly. “Where do we even start?

“We start with the blowpipe,” Kate replied, smoothly and
calm as ever. “Also the neurotoxin. You can’t just walk into a chemist and pick
that up.”

Relief trickled through Josh as the enormous task before him
suddenly narrowed and became far more manageable. With a deep, soothing breath
he straightened his shoulders and began to type. Kate watched over his shoulder
and spelled out the derivative of toxin Aubury had determined he had been
injected with.

Adding it into a keyword search, Josh scrolled through the
numerous links that popped. The back of his neck prickled as Kate breathed
softly so close to him.

“That one.” Kate indicated with her finger. “And let’s see
that one too.”

Logically Josh knew that Kate had no idea of the depths of
his physical reaction to her. Nor did he honestly think she understood what her
every movement did to him. The friction from her arm as it rubbed gently across
his sent small frissons of heat through his nerves. The slight puff of her
breath sensitized his skin to her.

Josh longed to feel her lips and tongue along his flesh once
again. With a hard, long swallow, he forced himself to focus on the screens
open before him. It took a few minutes for his body to cool down, though his
erection only half wilted as his blood began to pump around the rest of his
body.

Only as the picture began to come clearer did his attention
truly focus on the data they’d collected and not the sexy witch beside him.

“If I’m reading this correctly,” Josh said after almost a
quarter of an hour, “the neurotoxin has been used in the past by select groups
of the Special Ops teams. Now, initially that might lead us to believe it’s an
old agent who has been trained by our legal system. But it hasn’t been used in
quite a while. Look at all these dates here.”

Josh indicated numerous journal and summary report references.
All were at least five years or more in age. Kate nodded beside him and hummed
her understanding.

“So I’m of two minds here,” Josh continued. “Either Blondie
is an extremely well-preserved forty- or fifty-year-old, or she has connections
that managed to pilfer samples of the neurotoxins before they were rendered
obsolete by the powers that be.”

“I could think of another explanation for Blondie’s age and
the neurotoxin,” Kate remarked slowly, obviously thinking her way through it as
she spoke. “Let’s hypothesize for a minute and assume she’s working for someone
on the Tribunal. The newest member has only been on the council for three
years, but more than three quarters of them have been around for seven or more
years.”

“Agreed,” Josh nodded. “It’s practically unheard of for a
member to be thrown out or stood down. They usually retire in good standing and
it’s not as if there are a limited number of seats. The Tribunal is a fluid
council, not restricted in its number of members.”

“So what if we’re going about this the wrong way?” Kate
suggested. “What if instead of looking for a connection from Blondie to the
neurotoxin, we change the parameters slightly? Why don’t we look for ex-Special
Op Tribunal members who could have potentially stolen the toxin, then try to connect
them to someone matching Blondie.”

“Blondie handled that blowpipe like a pro,” Josh thought
aloud. “She has to have had some training. Assassin, Enforcers…maybe even
another Special Operative. I can guarantee she didn’t learn that accuracy and
technique in accounting class or in a Healer course.”

As he spoke, Josh opened yet another window and found a
private page listing the local Tribunal members. Each name listed had a photo
and a link to an individual biography page. Josh quickly scanned through the
list of names and, based on their time of serving on the council, opened all
the applicable pages.

Josh let his fingers hover above the keyboard for a minute
as he focused his magical energy. With a bit of effort he pumped his senses up,
wanting to look at Strategic connections in the summaries. He hoped that with
his senses jacked up, he might make connections better than simply from reading
with his eyes. The brain had a tendency to miss huge volumes of information
through regular distraction and unconsciously not paying attention. When
reading important reports and summaries, Josh could frequently make leaps of
logic and deduction he would not necessarily have made as promptly without his
magical talent humming energetically.

When he could feel the crackle of magical talent tingling
just below the surface of his skin, Josh skimmed each summary of the various
Tribunal members. After skimming for less than a minute each, he could make an
educated judgment call whether the member might be connected to this Strategy
or not. When he felt confident one way or the other, he either shut down or
minimized each successive tab.

With magic humming in his veins it only took ten minutes or
so for him to work his way through the list. Finished, he slumped a little in
his seat and slowly closed down his talent. A faint headache made his ears ring
and a small throb began behind his eyes. Kate rested a hand on his shoulder and
squeezed gently.

“I’m fine,” Josh insisted as he rubbed the bridge of his
nose and closed his eyes to will the pain away. He popped his ears and squeezed
his eyes shut, waiting for the worst of the edge to pass before sitting upright
again and focusing on what they had uncovered.

“So we’re down to the big three,” Josh said in a dramatic
tone.

“You didn’t include Morgan,” Kate pointed out delicately.

Josh snorted. “Morgan isn’t involved,” he replied flatly.
“Aside from the fact that the wizard is my mentor and I know him as well—if not
better—than I know anyone else alive, he’s a Strategist to his soul. He’s got
few links to the Enforcers or Special Ops, and those connections are tenuous at
best. Added on to that, if he’d wanted to use the grimoire for his own benefit
he never,
ever
would have given it to Kiera and me. It was always a
strong possibility that we would destroy it—he had to have known that. No,
there’s no way he’s involved.”

Kate chewed that over thoughtfully for a moment but finally
nodded her assent.

“Okay,” she agreed. “So where do we go from these three?”

“Now we go searching through the haystack,” Josh replied
with a wry grin as he rubbed his forehead again. Kate pressed closer to him and
dragged the keyboard and laptop base away from him to start her own search.

They both hunched over the small device, pointing at the
screen and debating back and forth between themselves. Time passed and they
worked faster when they realized there was only an hour left until their
designated meeting with Melissa and Daniel.

“I never realized how many blonde witches were floating
around our law-enforcement areas,” Josh commented almost wearily.

“I’m surprised you don’t know or recognize more of them,”
Kate teased. “I thought you were this great playboy—a different witch for every
different day.”

Josh snorted and elbowed her gently.

“I’m not that bad, not even close,” he insisted. “Besides,
I’m being reformed, remember?”

“Oh, is that what you call gazing at my lips constantly and
getting all glassy eyed every time I lick my lips?” Kate teased back. Josh was
about to retort but she ducked forward and their lips met in a fusion of heat
and electrical energy.

In an instant all his attention snapped to Kate. The need
and desire that had been building within him screamed for release, and Josh’s half-hard
cock lengthened and thickened in a split second. Of their own volition Josh’s
hands raised to cup Kate’s jaw and draw her closer to him. Their bodies pressed
together and Josh knew he could never get enough of this intoxicating witch.

They pulled apart a moment later, both breathless and
gasping for air as if they had been locked underwater. Josh ran his tongue out
over his lips, the faint taste of tea from Kate drying his mouth out. Honey and
cinnamon surrounded him, causing him to crave this witch who seemed to hold his
heart.

Kate cleared her throat and pulled the laptop closer to her.
Josh grinned wryly.

“I know,” he half laughed. “We really want something
concrete to offer Melissa and Daniel. Let me have a proper look at this last
group of witches.”

Josh breathed deeply a few times as he once again focused
his scattered magic. It took him a short time to order himself and force enough
energy into his system to open his magical talent. Tired, still feeling the
last remnants of the effects of the toxin and horny as hell from Kate’s
nearness, it was tougher than usual for Josh to rally himself.