Spirit Song Read online

  He knew life was never fair. He had the scars to prove that, but if he could make things better for her, then maybe it would have some deeper meaning for him.

  “He’s got two goons shadowing him everywhere he goes. I think Pieter put them there. If that’s the case…”

  “Then Viggo is gonna have kittens if he finds this out.” Viktor finished his thought. “If he’s still breathing, that is. Fuck. Why did they have to screw up such a lovely day?”

  Bastian barked out a sharp, mirthless laugh. “No kidding.” He sighed as he dug out his keys, intent on the tasks that needed to be done. “Lovely, indeed.”

  The knowing chuckle from his friend ended the conversation, his next course of action chosen. He took a deep breath, dragging the unforgettable scent of his angel into his lungs. Her spicy, flowery perfume fired his blood even as it soothed his soul. He opened his eyes, his lids peeling back to find her hypnotic blues aimed his direction. A languid smile spread across his face and he strolled back, his eyes firmly on his awaited price. The little voice in the back of his head ruined his mounting desires, but it did have a point. Until he got to the bottom of Sal’s involvement with the warring Rogue factions, his angel was in danger.

  His.

  There was that word again, that deep, driving possession that took hold of his senses whenever he thought of her. An unyielding need to pull her into his arms and lose himself in her. Words buzzed on the edge of his consciousness, tempting him to speak his desires aloud.

  He groaned, shoving his own needs into the farthest, darkest corners of his mind. Struggling not to scowl as his feet moved from rug to tile, he could tell by the growing frown on her face that he was less than successful in his attempt. He let out an exasperated growl before stopping just across the threshold.

  “I have to go.” Her sweatshirt-encased arms wrapped tightly about her as she nodded. Gods, he hated that glimmer of uncertainty in her eyes. Two strides of his long legs and he stood before her. He reached out, brushing the back of his fingers against her pale cheek.

  “There are dangerous people I need to find, Miranda. People I need to protect you from.” His reward for his chivalrous words was a shy smile brighter than the sun and twice as hot, enticing the corners of his mouth to join in and answer with a sly grin. “Be careful, tesorina. Looks like that will make me forget we’re not alone.”

  Her wide-eyed surprise and the tingling warmth beneath his fingertips triggered a light laugh. He was powerless to resist her natural and innocent sensuality. Her deep auburn waves tickled the palm of his callous hand, while her milk-and-honey skin glowed under her sparkling sapphire eyes. She was nothing short of absolute perfection in his mind.

  He was lost.

  Fuck.

  Miranda stood in awe at the dizzying display of emotions that skittered across the warrior’s face before her. For that was the only word that seemed to fit the chiseled mammoth man that dominated her tiny apartment. His broad shoulders looked like they would be better suited encased in ancient armor. Or maybe that was just the “happily ever after” fairy princess part of her mind that spun such a tale. Nut brown hair, sun-kissed olive skin, and those topaz eyes. He had hero written all over him. He’d even swooped in to save her once again. How could she think of him as anything less than her own personal Prince Charming?

  Yet there was something unsettling in the faltering smile, and the only word that popped into her mind was sad. As if he remembered a lost friend. Or girlfriend.

  Of course. There was no way someone that drop dead gorgeous was seriously single. A sick thought crept in on the heels of that lovely sentiment; exactly what did that make her? She promised herself she would never be “the other woman” to any man.

  Time to cut the strings before she did any more damage, to either of them.

  With a shimmy to the right, she eased between the countertop and the walking temptation in front of her.

  “Well, I guess I’d better let you go,” she said briskly, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. He narrowed his topaz eyes, thick black eyelashes hooding those smoky orbs in mystery. She smiled and patted his arm. “Thank you for stopping by. I do appreciate the concern.”

  His smoldering gaze darkened, and she shivered, though whether from anticipation or apprehension, she wasn’t sure. The playful protector melted, leaving only the fierce fighter standing in his place. Probably for the best, she thought, heaving a dejected sigh as he nodded sharply.

  “Keep yourself safe, Miranda. I—” He stopped speaking, abruptly turned on his heels, and stalked out. The door swung shut, banging against the cracked frame before coming to rest. Her heart remembered how to beat after silence filled the room. What was he going to say?

  “So who the hell was that guy anyway?”

  She shook her head slowly, her gaze riveted on the battered barrier. “He…um. He’s just a friend.”

  The raucous laughter at her back yanked her out of her day-dreamy mood. With a perturbed smirk, she pinned her brother to the wall with eyes like daggers. The hyena was holding onto the small kitchen table to stay standing.

  “Friends don’t look that way at other friends, unless they’re looking to get some.”

  She rolled her eyes with an aggravated shake of her head. Her gaze dropped to the ground as she searched around for something to use to shore up the fragile door. “How about you help me figure out what to use on the door until we can replace this thing?” She kept her eyes downcast until she was certain her cheeks were back to their normal pale cast.

  “Uh huh.”

  She turned to face his mocking tone, her brow furrowed as she forced her lips to stay firmly frowned.

  “I am not going to stand here and defend myself to the likes of you.”

  The angrier she got, the louder her brother laughed until he had collapsed into a nearby chair, his legs apparently unable to hold him up.

  “I give up,” she muttered, the smile refusing to stay dormant. She wedged a chair under the door knob, ensuring the snug fit before setting the new security measure aside. “All right, all right. I’m gonna jump into the shower. Unlike someone else, I do have to get ready for work.”

  She waited patiently while Kyle regained his composure. When it was apparent she would need to wait longer, she tossed her arms up and headed down the hall to her bathroom. She continued to mumble under her breath as she cranked the hot water to scalding. As she slipped out of her sweats, her mind wandered to Bastian’s unfinished statement. She would find out how he planned to end that sentence if it was the last thing she did today.

  Just tell me you didn’t regret what we did last night. She lathered up her hair, letting the building steam clear her head and carry away her fears. Her eyelids slipped down as she ducked under the lukewarm sprinkle, and she swore that rumbling voice caressed her skin, whispering a single word.

  “Never.”

  Wishing her imagination was on the mark, she finished her daily routine and prepared for another night. With a new flicker of hope, but still far from free, she found an unfamiliar smile taking shape. She knew better than to bet on things turning around, but that didn’t stop her from pinning a little bit of faith onto that dream.

  Just this once, she wanted to believe in miracles. Even if only for a day.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  By the time Bastian pulled up to his place, Viktor had already devoured half a pizza and most of the beer in the fridge. Grateful not to find a blue Bug on the street, he dropped the keys into the ornate ashtray on the library table, kicking aside the pile of junk mail in the process. He quelled his desire to torch the standard load of shit that littered his floor each afternoon, choosing to growl in frustration as he made his way into the kitchen.

  His drive back was about as enjoyable as gargling glass. Although, he believed the glass would be less painful at this point. His choice of leathers had been made in haste when he rushed out of the house hours earlier, but at least the constricting fabric kept his ragin
g hard-on in some level of control. Achingly so, but confined nonetheless. Yet as he limped toward the large silver beacon of cold, he realized anything that did not involve his ramrod shaft buried back in that sweet piece of heaven between the legs of his angel would only amplify his agony.

  He yanked open the fridge and grabbed the nearest black, necked bottle. His Bic doubled as an opener and the cap went sailing as he downed half the contents in one long swallow.

  “So, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”

  Bastian flipped off Viktor without pausing from pounding the remaining beer. After he slammed down the empty and took the second out, he finally shut the door, rattling the marinades and mustards in the process. He sucked in enough breath to grumble an elaborate curse requiring a certain degree of flexibility and a great love of pain before starting in on the next drink.

  Silence shifted to that uncomfortable level and he glared at his friend. The responding look he received deepened his scowl.

  “You got something on your mind, asshat, or are you just gonna stare at me like your naked prom date?”

  Vik howled, his blond hair tossed back as he regained his feet and crossed from the dining room. “You only wish you were my drunken prom date. Then you’d have an excuse for feeling like shit.” He clasped Bastian on the shoulder with brotherly concern and an open smile. “C’mon. Just accept it. She’s your—”

  Bastian swatted his hand away, opting for the lighter touch instead of ramming his fist down his friend’s throat to stop his words. “What else did you find out?”

  Vik sighed, the happy smile drooping a hair, but still plainly visible on his face. “Bas? This is good news for you. You finally found your out. I thought you’d be ecstatic and over there right now, working on finishing the ritual.”

  Bas looked away, self-loathing rising up to strangle his voice. “She’ll never know and she deserves better. No.” He cut off any further debate on the matter. “She wants nothing to do with me and she is right. I will not curse her, Viktor. I will hear no more on this.”

  He half hoped for stabbing pain to resonate through his skull, but sadly, the only hint of his lie was the last sentence. He knew Vik would continue to harp on him about her, but he believed that she was not meant for him. But that did not stop him from doing all he could to keep her safe. I made a promise, and I will keep it.

  Seconds ticked away until Vik groaned in momentary defeat. “I checked out those guys and you were right. Both of them are Pieter’s and apparently, no one has seen or heard from Viggo in weeks.” Bastian took another cooling drink, leaning back against the white marbled counter. “If you’re thinking maybe we’re a little late to the party and now it’s the clean-up time, I think you may be right.”

  Fuck. If the coup had already happened, then this was nothing more than a purge of the Rogues who refused to follow Pieter’s lead.

  “Why can’t those fuckers just leave well enough alone and be happy with their piece of the pie?”

  Vik scoffed and helped himself to another beer from the fridge. “You would think that selling their humanity would have made them better people, right?” He snapped off the cap with the thick titanium band on his index finger and sipped at the escaping foam. “So I took a chance and spoke to Solomon, and he said things in Detroit had been amped up until about two months ago.”

  Solomon Bouvier was one of the recent Guardians, Haitian by decent, and was rumored to be a voodoo priest. But the man did have a way of keeping things in the Motor City as civil, and out of the public eye, as possible.

  Bastian nodded slowly, his head stopping once he caught the timeline and completed his computations.

  “Wait, two months? That’s when those bodies showed up on the docks.”

  Vik tipped his head. “Yeah. Right after that, things in his neighborhood got really quiet.”

  Bastian dragged his fingers through his hair, growling in impotent frustration. “Gee, I wonder why. Maybe because all his assholes found a new playpen.”

  A Gallic shrug was all the answer Bas would get and all the answer he would need. Both men knew Pieter had sent his best and baddest across the lake to slaughter the competition. And from the look of things, he had succeeded.

  “So you think these recent killings are what? Just to weed out any loyalty issues?”

  Vik set down the empty bottle with another unreadable lift of his shoulder. “You expect me to make sense of those crazies? Hell, I can’t make heads or tails out of what you do most of the time.” Bastian answered his grinning friend with a bland stare. “But yeah. It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what was going on.”

  And they were grooming Slick Sal Francciolli to step in as resident puppet-in-charge. For a puppet was all he would be. Bastian knew enough about Pieter, and power sharing with a flesh-peddler would not be high on his to-do list. But the bastard would use Francciolli to strengthen his empire of darkness in the heart of the country. So what? Why should he care? Regimes came and went, for both the good and the bad. Why the fuck should he stick his neck out to stop this current petty squabble?

  The only reason Bastian gave two shits about not letting this run its course was currently chatting with her younger brother, a warm smile on her face. Her unadorned beauty stirred his heart, awakening long dead emotions like joy and compassion. He imagined her deep rolling laughter as she tossed her head back, her soft mahogany waves bouncing happily. The sound of fingers snapping bounced off his nose, yanking him out of his trance and back into the reality of his kitchen. He narrowed his gaze at his smirking friend. “What?”

  Vik held his ground, his sly grin saying more than words ever would.

  Bastian growled and waved off the rest of the conversation, opting on a change in topic as well as venue. He stalked into the hall that led to the straight stairs climbing to his study. He bypassed the swirling colors on the sleeping computer screen and aimed his nose to the locked door halfway down the hall. His fingers flew across the hidden keypad and the door popped open.

  Weapons from every era graced the walls of the small closet. As he scanned the selection, spying the rapier that had carried him through many of his first jobs, he wished for simpler times. Not the silly dreams of childhood, but the secret desire to have an obviously armed populace. One thing his long life had proved was that people tended to be more polite when they knew their fellow man was sporting enough steel to split them from nose to navel.

  “God, I miss the old days.”

  “Never known you to be sentimental about things. She really has done a number on your head.”

  Bastian snaked his arm behind his back, flipping off his talking shadow while still focusing on his concealable choices. He settled on a classic stiletto, the four inch blade of blackened steel fitting snuggly in the hidden sleeve sheath of his leather coat. Some habits died hard and he never lost the need to have a blade within arm’s reach. They never failed him, and unlike guns, his daggers never ran out of ammo. All Guardians carried a long weapon disguised as a short wooden staff, or as in his case, a pair of fighting sticks. With the flick of a wrist, the simple stubs transformed into forty-seven inches of razor sharp steel, lethal in the hands of a Florentine master such as himself.

  “Why not just bring the garrote while you’re at it?” Viktor asked.

  An evil twinkle glinted in his eyes as he traced his fingers along the worn wooden handles of his old signature weapon. Silent, deadly, and unforgiving. Had that hired assassin used the slender harpsichord string rather than the thick rope all those years ago, his life would have been much different. Certainly much shorter.

  “Don’t tempt me. Never known you to be blood thirsty, fratello.”

  Leaving the past in its place, he shut the door and turned to face his friend. Brotherly concern reflected back at him from those strong, pale blue eyes. Not the same shade as those of his angel. Hers were deeper, the color more intoxicating. He was so lost in his musings, he nearly missed Viktor’s hand as it
reached toward his shoulder. He sidestepped the contact and moved back down the stairs.

  “Bas, you can’t just pretend that this isn’t real,” Viktor said.

  Bastian paused midway down the steps, deciding if it was worth the argument. Luckily, strains of “Sexy and I Know It” chimed in from behind him. He turned as Viktor answered his phone. He waited, one eyebrow arching up as Vik gave an uncharacteristic groan.

  “Yeah, thanks, Monica. No, no, doll. Of course, I didn’t forget. Yes, we’re still on for tomorrow night.”

  Bastian smirked at the confident response, biding his time until the conversation came to a close.

  “Aw, now baby. You wound me. When have I ever broken a…well, other than that one time. And if you remember, I did make up for it.”

  This time, Bastian rolled his eyes before pinching the bridge of his nose and starting back down to the front door. He snatched the keys up as Viktor joined him on the first floor. Without pausing, he grabbed Vik’s fingertips before they tapped his shoulder. A frown tugged on his lips when Vik pulled his hand free and jabbed his finger toward the bay window. His scowl deepened as the powder blue Beetle pulled up to a stop beyond the well-trimmed hedgerow.

  “Perfect. Just fucking perfect.”

  Anger swirled around his legs, his long strides eating up the space from his front door to his Chevelle. The car door swung open, and he had one foot inside when a voice like glass in a blender scratched against his ears.

  “Darling, where are you going? I haven’t seen you all day.”

  He slammed the door, jamming his key into the ignition and cranking the beast to life. Half tempted to throw the car in reverse, he opted on a level of gentlemanly behavior one step above Cro-Magnon and rolled down the window.

  “Veronica. Go home. You don’t work here. You don’t live here, and I sure as fuck don’t want you here.”

  Her brown eyes narrowed at him, her loose red hair tumbling around her shoulders as she jutted her rack out, nearly resting the barely clothed tits against the frame. “Are you going to see her?”