Authors: Angela Knight

Master of Smoke (5 page)

BOOK: Master of Smoke

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And she smelled delightful—citrus and femininity, with the faintest hint of fur. And under it all, the rich, fizzing scent of magic.

David realized he was purring and made a conscious effort to stop as he prowled after her to the kitchen table. Settling into a straight chair with red cushions, he watched her return to the refrigerator and pour drinks for them both.

Absently, he picked up the fork she’d placed beside his plate and dug in as he watched her carry their drinks back to the table. The “lasagna” was delicious, tasting of tomatoes, spicy beef, and at least three different kinds of cheese. “This is very good.”

“Thanks,” she said with a pleased smile as she put the glasses down. “I love to cook. Taking a bunch of ingredients and combining them to make something special—it’s a lot of fun.”

He listened to her talk about cooking as he ate, watching her full lips shape words like kisses. Until he could stand it no longer. Grabbing the arm of her chair, David pulled her closer. Her eyes widened in surprise as he leaned forward and took that tempting mouth in a long, erotic plunge into heat. The moment he tasted her, he wanted more. She moaned softly against his lips. He reached across, scooped her up, and pulled her into his lap. She wrenched her mouth away. “Wait—we can’t ...”

“We can,” he growled back, and swooped in for another kiss. To his satisfaction, she hesitated only a moment before she threaded her arms around his neck and started kissing him back.

Which was when someone began pounding on the front door in desperate slaps. “Eva! Miss Roman! Help!”

It was unmistakably the voice of a child.

Warlock jolted awake
with power singing arias in his veins and the Demigod’s memories howling in his brain. The storm of power and alien recall sent him staggering to his feet.

Thousands of years. The cat had lived thousands and thousands of years.

All that experience and power seared Warlock’s consciousness like a blowtorch. He could feel his mind cracking under the strain, and panic rose.
It’s going to destroy me!

He realized he had only seconds before his mind shattered. Reaching for his magic—it answered with a pounding fire-hose force—Warlock wove a spell to contain those alien memories. The spell took hold with blessed speed, sealing away the banshee shriek of the Demigod’s life. He’d be able to access it, but only if he chose to.

He slumped in relief, knowing he’d come within seconds of destruction.

And then a new thought sent his fear shooting into an even higher spike:
Where is Smoke?

Warlock stared around wildly, looking for his enemy. The last he’d seen of the cat, Smoke had been sealed in the force globe Warlock had created to drain his powers.

Yet somehow, the godling had outsmarted him. Instead of fighting the drain, Smoke had rammed the full force of his memory and power right down Warlock’s throat, damn near frying him in the process.

And now the cat was nowhere to be seen.

Well, Warlock would just have to find him. Smoke had no power now, nor any of that incredible wealth of experience. It should be a simple thing to find and kill him.

Warlock shifted to four-legged form, the better to track his prey. He picked up Smoke’s scent at once and began following it across the lawn to the edge of the trees that bounded the yard.

Where it blended with the scent of
another Dire Wolf
.

Who
dared
? He snapped his jaws in rage, wanting to rend the werewolf into rags of torn flesh. Instead he wrestled his fury back under control, reminding himself that his existence was a secret from all but a handful of trustworthy Chosen aristocrats. No doubt this idiot thought he was protecting some poor human from a rogue werewolf.

No, not he. She. He could tell as much from her scent. His lips drew back from his teeth. The little bitch would pay dearly for her error.

Nose to the ground, he followed the scent through the trees to the yard beyond. The trail stopped on the edge of the road. Throwing back his head, Warlock howled in frustrated rage. The idiot wolf had put Smoke in a car and driven away!

Perhaps he could track them with his strengthened powers ... He cast a spell with a flick of his mind and sent it questing after the Demigod.

Nothing.

He snarled. The Direkind were resistant to all magic, even his. Spells slid off them like water beading on an oiled griddle. Only he and his descendants did not have that ability; otherwise they would not be able to work spells. If this she-wolf was too close to Smoke, the aura of her power would block Warlock’s magic.

No matter. The moment she left Smoke alone, Warlock would be able to pick up his magical scent.

And then Smoke was a dead Demigod.

Eva jerked the
apartment door open to reveal a small boy standing on the other side. He was shirtless and barefoot, dressed only in a pair of flannel pants covered in tiny white ducks. Flinging himself against her thighs, he wailed out something, crying so hard she couldn’t understand a word.

Eva dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around him, stroking the disordered white-blond silk of his hair. “Terry! Calm down and tell me what’s wrong, honey.”

“Mommy!” A bruise covered one entire side of his small face. His bastard father had hit him again. Eva was seriously considering catching Ronnie Gordon in the parking lot some moonless night and showing him what it felt like to get beaten up. “Mommy’s sick! Daddy hit her in the head, and now she’s on the floor, and she’s not movin’!”

Oh, yeah. Ronnie definitely needed quality time with a certain werewolf. As Fluffy put it, “With great power comes a great responsibility for asshole education.” Swallowing her rage, Eva forced a smile for the little boy. “It’s all right, Terry. We’ll take care of your mother.”

She started to rise. Terry’s big blue eyes fell on David, and he cringed against her legs. “Who’s that?”

“He’s just a friend, baby.” Eva stroked Terry’s head and looked at her houseguest. “This is likely to get very messy. You should probably stay here.”

“I’m coming with you.” David peeled his lips back from his teeth. “I will take care of this ‘man,’ ”—she could hear the sarcastic quotes—“... while you deal with the boy’s mother.”

“Eva!” Terry tugged at her sleeve to regain her attention. “Please! Mommy needs you!”

“All right.” She lifted the boy into her arms, then looked over her shoulder at David. “Just try not to start a fight in front of Terry.”

David said nothing and followed, his hands balling into fists despite her instructions. A man who harmed his own mate deserved a beating—at the very least.

Terry’s apartment was
two doors down, a mirror image of Eva’s, except for the furnishings. Unlike her bright color scheme, everything in this one was some shade of brown—dark brown couch, brown leather easy chair, beige carpet. Instead of posters, the walls were decorated with photos, most of them of Terry at various ages.

Shelly Gordon was sprawled in the floor by the kitchen table, surrounded by spilled food and the shards of a broken plate.

“I gather Ronnie didn’t like the menu again,” Eva growled, her full mouth drawing into a thin, pale line of rage.

David knelt and started to scoop the woman into his arms.

“Don’t lift her,” Eva said sharply as she dropped to her knees. “She may have internal injuries. Shelly? Shelly, honey, wake up. Terry needs you.”

At those words, one swollen hazel eye opened a crack. “Ronnie?” She sounded dazed. No wonder, considering the beating she’d taken.

“It’s Eva. And my friend, David. We’re going to call an ambulance ...”

Shelly’s battered eye tried to widen in alarm. She was a pretty woman, but you’d never know it now with all the bruises distorting her delicate features. “No!” she rasped, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “Ronnie won’t like it.”

“I don’t care. You’re hurt, and you need help.” Eva brushed the bright blond hair back from the woman’s forehead to reveal a huge knot. “Looks like you’ve got a head injury. And you were unconscious, so you definitely need to be seen.”

“Who the hell’s here?” a male voice slurred from somewhere down the hall.

David rose to his feet as the voice’s owner staggered around the corner. He was a massive man, his bearded face flushed red from drink. Enormous hands flexed and fisted as his gaze came to rest on David. His head lowered like a bull about to charge. “What the fuck are
you
doin’ here?”

David gave him a smile that wasn’t in the least pleasant. “Taking care of the wife and child you abused.”

Ronnie’s booze-reddened face flushed even brighter, and his small eyes narrowed to slits. “Get the hell out of my house!”

“Not until we’re sure you haven’t killed your wife.”

He sneered and lurched closer. “What, are you trying to get into her pants?”

It would be profoundly satisfying to beat the bastard as badly as he’d beaten his woman. Unfortunately, the cretin was so drunk, he’d be no proper contest. David stepped forward, knocked aside Ronnie’s clumsy punch with his left arm, and plowed his right fist into the man’s nose. There was a highly satisfying spray of blood, and Ronnie toppled like a felled tree.

“Daddy!” the boy cried, running to his father’s side. He shot David a glittering, betrayed look. “You hurt my daddy!”

David stared at him, nonplussed. The bastard evidently made a habit of brutalizing both the child and his mother, yet Terry was furious at David for one soundly deserved punch.

“He’s brainwashed them,” Eva explained tightly as she pulled her cell phone out of a jeans pocket. “They think they deserve anything he does, while he can do no wrong. Nine-one-one? I need an ambulance at Apartment E-7 at the Drayton Apartments. A woman’s seriously hurt. Her husband beat her pretty badly.”

As she talked to the dispatcher, David watched the boy pat his father’s face anxiously until the man began to stir.

“Get the hell away from me!” Ronnie pushed his son roughly aside. Shooting a glare at David, he scrambled to his feet and reeled back down the hall.

David curled his lip at the man’s back and moved to crouch beside the women again.

“... time to go to the women’s shelter before he hurts you and Terry any worse than he has,” Eva was saying.

“But he’s not always like this.” Shelly licked blood from her swollen lips. “He just had a really bad day, and then I overcooked the steaks, and they were so tough ...”

David stared at her. “He beat you because the meat was tough?”

“Well, they were really expensive steaks. And his boss had raked him over the coals today ...”

“I notice he didn’t beat up his boss.” Eva sighed and gently touched the woman’s bruised shoulder. “Look, you’ve got to face facts, Shelly. Ronnie
could
control his temper—after all, he never attacks anybody at work. He takes it out on you because he’s a bastard, and he can.”

Shelly winced, but she didn’t deny it.

David heard a heavy step in the hallway, and his jaw clenched in rage. Ronnie, coming back for another round. David rose to his feet and stalked into the hall.

To find the man holding a .22 pistol pointed right at him.

Ronnie gave him a sneering yellow smile. “
You’re in my house
—and this is South Carolina. Which makes you bought and paid for, motherfucker. I can blow your ass away.”

David backed up a pace, watching Ronnie’s hands as the man stalked him, gun pointed right at the center of his chest. One more step, and Ronnie would be in range for a spinning kick ...

Then there was a growl and a blur of motion. Eva’s hand clamped down over Ronnie’s gun and wrenched it upward. Before the man even knew what was happening, she’d jerked the weapon out of his hand as though he were an errant toddler. Even in human form, she must have enormous strength.

Ronnie swung at her, but she evaded the clumsy blow with a twist of her torso that made the bastard’s fist shoot right past her head. Before Ronnie could try again, David grabbed him by one arm, half-lifted him off his feet, and hauled him toward the door.

Reading his intention, Eva dodged around them and opened the door, then slammed it behind them as David shoved the man hard against the outer wall. The big man’s feet swung several inches from the floor as David pinned him with a hand wrapped around his sweating throat.

“Let me go!” Ronnie howled, his eyes rimmed with white. The flood of astonished terror at David’s strength had evidently sobered him. “Get off me, you son of a bitch!”

“No!” David snarled, shoving his face an inch from the drunk’s. “You will listen now. A man cares for his woman. A man cares for his child. He does not hurt them. One who does is no man at all.”

“Fuck you!”

“Shut. Your. Mouth!”

“Your eyes!” Ronnie froze, staring at him in horror. “You ain’t human!”

BOOK: Master of Smoke

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