Authors: Lexxie Couper
Two words whispered through her tumultuous mind. Two words.
Dangerous. Love
.
Irritation shot through her. She curled her fist. What was going on here? She’d come to arrest a jewel thief and instead she was having arousing and down-right disturbing flashbacks?
Giving the concierge a smile, not wanting him to see just how shaken she was, she moved away from his desk, heading toward the glass doors that would take her out to the Los Magia streets. Fresh-air. She needed fresh air. And sleep, but the latter would have to wait. She didn’t have time for jet-
A tall man with dark, honey-brown hair crossed the foyer to her far left, broad shoulders and wide back snugged by a spotless white t-shirt, low, lean hips, tight arse and long, muscled legs encased in faded denim. He moved like smoke, effortless yet determined at the same time. It was sensual. It was confident. It was…
“Familiar,” Katrina whispered, her heart leaping into wild life.
The Mouse.
Are you sure
?
She narrowed her eyes, tracking the man as he moved deeper into the
Lynx’s
foyer, heading toward the line of elevators she’d only just walked away from. She wasn’t sure. Not one hundred percent. But she would be. After following him for a bit. Apart from a vague identikit description, she didn’t know exactly what The Mouse looked like, but she knew—
knew
—her gut would tell her when she found him. All she needed to do was…
touch him
? …stand before him.
Stuffing the
Tartarus
pamphlet into her back pocket, she touched her cuffs tucked in her waistband and started toward the elevators.
Okay, O’Lauchlan, how are you going to do this? You can’t follow him into the elevator without him seeing you, you sure as hell can’t let him get out of your sight and you don’t have a phase-shifter to mask your presence. If it
is
The Mouse he knows exactly what you look like. Shit, he knows you’re in Los Magia, so how are you
…
The man headed to the left, disappearing around a corner marked with a sign reading ‘stairs’.
“Shit.”
Katrina quickened her pace, slipping large amber-tinted sunglasses on her face. The Mouse knew what she looked like, but with any luck she’d pass for just another tourist if he quickly glanced her way.
The wide, carpeted staircase was empty when she reached it, but she could hear, over the sounds of the hotel, the very faint thud-thud of footfalls further up. Curling her fingers around the cool, golden rail beside her, she took the stairs two at a time, her heart in her throat. Damn, she wished she had her gun. Not that The Mouse had ever displayed violent behaviour. No one had ever come close enough to him for him to display
any
type of behaviour. Well, except smug arrogance at never been caught, but that was more a personal jab at her.
You don’t need you gun, O’Lauchlan. Just use your head, and if the worst happens, your fists and your feet. You’re not a black belt for nothing, remember
.
The footfalls continued above her, growing softer, more distant. He—whoever
he
was—was moving quicker.
Did he know he was being followed or was he just in a hurry?
Or is it a trap
?
Katrina quickened her own pace. Trap or no, she wasn’t letting him get away. Not until she ascertained if he was The Mouse or not.
She increased her speed, taking the stair three at a time, her palm hot under the cool rail from friction. Or was it excitement? Nerves?
Hurry up. You should at least be getting a glimpse of him by now. His heel, an elbow… something
.
The stairs curved to the left. The footfalls grew fainter. Fainter.
Shit.
Throwing caution to the wind, Katrina broke into a sprint up the remaining stairs, bursting onto a carpeted landing painted in warm muted light. The mezzanine.
The empty mezzanine.
She scanned the thoroughfare. A row of closed doors stretched out before her on the right, obviously guest rooms, statues of big cats—tigers, panthers, cheetahs—occasionally resting between them. On the left, the foyer sprawled below, guests moving across the lushly carpeted floor, checking in, checking out, perusing the lines of slot machines, staring up at the enormous statue of a proud lynx rising from the centre of the space, a wicked glint of devilishness in its large emerald eyes…
Fuck. She’d lost him. He’d either entered one of the rooms unfurling before her, or jumped over the balcony down to the foyer, and something about the relaxed way the people moved down there told her a tall, broad man in denim jeans hadn’t just come vaulting into their presence.
She swung her stare back to the doors, doing a quick count. Damn it, there had to be at least sixty before her, and that
didn’t
include the ones she couldn’t see on the other side of the mezzanine behind the lynx statue. He could be anywhere.
“Ms O’Lauchlan?”
Katrina jumped, her hand snapping immediately to where her gun would normally be. She spun about, fixing the woman standing behind her with a steady look.
“I’m sorry to startle you, Ms O’Lauchlan,” the woman apologised, her clear eyes the most unusual shade of gold. “But I have a message for you.”
Katrina noticed a slim silver nametag pinned to the lapel of the woman’s immaculately tailored black suit. She was slipping. She should have noticed that before now.
Focus. Focus
. She bit back a scowl. Fair Dinkum, she was getting sick of that word.
“Ms O’Lauchlan?” the woman—Tiamat—gave her a small, quizzical smile.
“I’m sorry. A message?”
From nowhere a small folded piece of paper appeared in Tiamat’s slim hands and she held it out to Katrina. “From a friend,” she said, and for a moment her eyes seemed to shimmer with a deep golden glow.
Katrina’s already pounding heart leapt into her throat, obviously not content with staying in her chest.
A friend
…She took the offered note from Tiamet, mouth dry.
I can’t believe it. He’s done it to me again
…
Hands steady, she unfolded the paper.
Got to be quicker than that, Kat
.
Nothing else.
But there didn’t need to be. She recognised the handwriting.
Bastard
.
Lifting her stare from the note, she looked back to Tiamat…and discovered the space where the woman had just stood seconds earlier, empty.
Katrina frowned. What the hell was going on? Just what kind of place
was
Los Magia?
“The most amazing kind.”
Abaddon’s deep voice tickled her ear and she spun about, crumpling the note in her fist.
Nothing.
She was still alone.
Katrina rubbed at her face. Okay. This was getting ridiculous.
Go back to your suite. Have another bath, study the map and maybe get something to eat. Clear your head, O’Lauchlan. You’re starting to hear things
.
She stood for a moment, feeling The Mouse’s taunting note crunch in her fist. The bath could wait, but her stomach couldn’t. She needed coffee, lots of coffee, and toast. Preferably lathered with Vegemite. She’d park herself in a booth in one of
The Wicked Lynx’s
many bistros and caffeinate herself as she studied the map.
Then
she’d hit the pavement.
Four slices of Vegemite-smeared toast at The Feline Bistro later, Katrina felt better. More focussed. Taking a tentative sip of very hot coffee, she studied the unfolded map of Los Magia spread out on the table before her, admiring the city’s design.
Five main streets intersected to form a pentagram, with five major casinos located in each pointed sector.
The Wicked Lynx
sat in the south-west sector, surrounded by various strip-clubs, night-clubs and a comedy club called Laughter Bites.
Tartarus
, the BDSM parlour the concierge recommended to her (a little thrill, both dark and disturbing, shot through Katrina at the memory) was located in the North-East sector, a part of the
Olympus
casino. In the centre of the pentagram stood a museum dedicated to the city. Outside the star, the rest of the city sprawled in which Katrina noticed the airport, schools, hospitals and other less touristy buildings. In amongst all that, there were residential areas. A normal city. Yet something didn’t seem normal about Los Magia. Not at all.
Katrina lifted her head from the map, sipping on her coffee again. At first glance, normal people surrounded her. Normal tourists enjoying their vacation; laughing, eating, skimming tourist guides and talking amongst themselves. But a closer look, a “cop’s” look revealed something else.
Some of the people seemed different. Some reminded her of her collage performance of A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream, almost dream-like and ethereal. She kept getting the impression of delicate wings on some of them, of fangs on others. In one both an slim woman sat between two men, one nuzzling her neck, the other whispering in her ear, an expression of absolute rapture and—underneath that—stunned amazement on her face. A private moment Katrina wanted to turn from, but something about the two men kept her attention. Something about the way they looked. Handsome and dangerous, but somehow not human.
Not human? O’Lauchlan, you’re going out of your mind. You need more toast. Or coffee
.
No, that wasn’t it. There was something about Los Magia, an undercurrent, a…a…a vibe, that felt unnatural. That made her nerves twitch and her skin tingle.
And your nipples pinch and your sex flutter? Is it the place that has you thinking about sex constantly? Dominated, forceful sex? The kind of sex Flynn Marsters knew you
—
She dropped her coffee cup, the hot liquid splashing on her hand with a scalding kiss. But she didn’t notice. A tight, agitated beat thumped in her temples.
Flynn Marsters? Damn it. She’d refused to even
think
his name for the last ten years, and now here she was, not only thinking his name but, since touching down in Los Magia, remembering every immoral moment she’d spent in his arms. Reliving every aberrant, sinful second.
Her pussy constricted and she suppressed a scowl. What the bloody hell was going on here?
Snatching at her napkin, Katrina wiped the cooling coffee from her hand, mindless of the sting in her flesh. The city seemed to call to that dark, forbidden part of her, as if it knew what she wanted on a deep, base level.
How is that possible, O’Lauchlan
?
“Everything is possible in Los Magia, Ms O’Lauchlan,” Abaddon murmured, sliding effortlessly onto the bench opposite her, blue eyes sparkling. “Surely you have realised that by now. Your deepest fantasies, your darkest urges. The city knows them all. What you hunger for the most will be delivered to you.”
Katrina stared at her unexpected companion. “Forgive me, Mr Abaddon, but do you always sound like a tourist brochure?”
Abaddon chuckled, and a wave of warm fingers seemed to feather up Katrina’s arms, along her ribs. Her nipples puckered and a squirming sensation unfurled between her thighs. She tried not to fidget in her seat, a goal made trickier by the burning intensity in the man’s blue eyes.
“Shall I tell you what you want, Ms O’Lauchlan?” he continued, as if she hadn’t said anything. “Shall I tell you what dark desire burns in that delectable body of yours? Shall I tell you about the desire to be dominated? Controlled? Thrown against the wall, onto a bed, over the back of a lounge and taken by a man who can easily overpower you? A man who can draw one forceful orgasm after another from you no matter how much you fight? A man who refuses to listen to your ‘nos’ because he knows what you are really saying is ‘harder, harder, harder’?”