A Sinister Game (34 page)

At that
conjured image
, the invisible Loki made a face.
He can have the bloody knowledge
, he thought, disgusted.
I’ll
just damn well
do what I’ll do.

He quietly left the cabin through the still
open door. O
nce outside
,
he materialized into the form
Victoria Red would recognize.
Then he gently knocked on the door.

He sensed the sisters separate
,
and
he chanced a peek
around the
edge of the door
. “Might I come in?”

Andromeda smiled warmly, the expression lighting the gold in her eyes like
flecks of solidified honey. Loki’s gut clenched, and h
is body heated. He concentra
ted on keeping his cover,
hiding the flames that so badly wanted to burn in his own fire
god eyes.

“
Come in
my love,
” Andromeda said.

Victoria’s eyes widened. “You know him?” she
asked.

“Of course
I do
. Y
ou do too, and not as Anders.
Just try to remember,” she said, taking Victoria’s hands. “
You prayed to him every night when you were a child, Rose.
” She paused, adding with more weight, “
Before you were taken.”

Anders
could have sighed out loud with relief. Andromeda was going to let
him off of the hook and a
llow him to be who he really was.
He could drop his act and spare his power for something more important
.

Andromeda
was everything in a goddess that he was not in a god.

Victoria looked from her sister to Loki, her brow furrow
ing and
her own golden eyes twinkling with confusion. “I prayed to Anders?”

Andromeda laughed. “No
! You prayed to
Loki
!”

Loki
slowly let his form shift.
Anders’ long blond
e hair turned
red, and his tall, strong form became even taller and stronger
.
H
is clothes melded into white
, yellow
and red leather garb
,
decorated with
the fire emblem
of the god of flame
.

Victoria stood transfix
ed, watching the transformation. H
er full pink
lips parted in silent, muted wonder
.
Loki could read in her thoughts that she
was
n’t certain whether to kneel, stay standing – or even
turn tail and run.

He had to admit a
surge of pride when her next impulse was to throw a
fireball
at him and see whether he truly was who he pretended to be.

He wanted to explain everything to Rose Tyrnan, who had become Victoria
Red
. But there was no time. H
e could sense
them
out there now.

Maxwell the Bloody was stepping through the last of the underbrush lining the clearing around Elizabeth’s cottage. His men were right behind him.

Victor Black was closer than Loki’s originally thought.

This was about to play out now. Loki
didn’t think it would hurt to give Black the
slightest
little advantage in this situation. Other than that, the fire god
woul
d step aside and let things unfold as they would
… until it was time to do otherwise.

* * * *

Any sane individual would have relegated the events of the last ten or twenty minutes to a highly emotional
dream
.
But for some reason, Victoria believed it all. She knew it was real, from her nanny to her sister to Anders becoming the god she’d worshipped as a child.
She just wasn’
t quite sure what to think of
it.
Or do about it.

“Victoria!”

If she’d had any emotion left to spare, Victoria would have been shocked to hear that voice. It was Ty Murrey’s, and
easily recognizable. He
was hollering at her from
the clearing outside
the cottage
.

“Boss, it’s us! We need to talk! Please don’t blast us into oblivion!”
he called and then fell silent, clearly
waiting for a reply.

Victoria gave herself a little shake. She closed her eyes, trying desperately to get a grip on the situation.
Everything was out of control. The
world
was out of control. She didn’t like that. It felt discombobulating, uncertain and a little nauseating.

She needed to take control
again
.

She opened her eyes again to find that Loki was watching her with keen interest. Small flames danced in the pupils of his gold and brown eyes. It was unsettling being watched so closely by someone whose gaze was literally on fire.

She looked away, focusing. F
irst things first. She
would
go outside and talk with her
t
eam
mates. How had they gotten past Game Control?
Why were they here
? Sh
e needed to find out how they’
d managed to make their way to the other side of the wall… and whether or not, in the end, they would be willing to help her tear it down.

* * * *

Max watched from the shade of an overhanging willow. He didn’t know if this was going to work and would have given it slim cha
nces had someone actually
asked him. But his heart thudded with rare hope when
Victoria
appeared in the doorway to the cabin.

She was falling for it.

And then Black was there, appearing out of thin air,
directly
behind her.

Max couldn’t move fast enough to warn her. Black had his arms aroun
d her and was pinning her to his chest
before she could blink. One hand slipped effortlessly over her mouth and the other arm trapped both of her own against her body.
She was immobile and silenced
.

And
Black stared over Victoria’s shoulder, his ice green eyes locked on Max the whole time.

* * * *

Victor had wanted to just kill him and be done with it. It would have been so easy to rip a huge chunk out of the man’s throat with his dark powers and let him bleed to death right there beneath that tree where he watched Victoria coming out of the cottage.

But as they’d been
in the on Max’s heels
,
Thor had asked Victor
not to kill B
lood.
Despite everything Maxwell had done, Thor had some plan for the other dark leader, and it didn’t involve Black bleeding him to death or turning him into a human icicle.

Fine.

He wasn’t happy with it, but so long as Maxwell the Bloo
dy came nowhere near Victoria
ever
again
,
he would let him live and leave him to the gods.

Victoria struggled
in his grasp, and he could hear
her thoughts racing. She wanted to melt him
into goo
or slam the nearest wagon wheel into his head
.
She was as feisty as ever, and it filled Victor with a swell of pride at how she continued
to fight him. But something about her
felt different, as well.
Her anger
toward him
was more irritated than truly angry. It was impatient rather than fearful.

And her
mind
felt different. It
felt restored.

She remembered.

Everything.

A few yards away, Ty Murrey and April Rose stood side-by-side, unsure of what to do. They wanted their
t
eam leader, but she was literally in the hands of their sworn enemy.
Instinct told
them not to make any sudden moves.

They watched him
in silence, waiting to see what he would do next.

Black
, however, kept his own gaze locked on
Blood, who was invisible to everyone but him and was now quietly stepping out of the shadows and into the clearing to face him.

Victor quickly decided to take full advantage of the fact that Victoria was now aware of what Game Control truly was.

“We need to talk, Victoria,” h
e whispered in her ear. She bucked in his grip, attempting to say something from behind the hand he held tightly over her mouth.
From the sounds going off in her mind, it wasn’t at all ladylike.

He held her fast and continued. “I know what you’re
thinking. I know you’re afraid of all of this,
but I’m not here to hurt you, and you
must
realize that or you would have simmered me in my uniform by now.”

She stopped struggling, and he could feel her heart hammering under his arm where it secured her so tightly to him.
He shamelessly read her thoughts.

She knew he was right. Now that she remembered what they’d done to her and was once more aware of what they did to
everyone
, s
he wanted to go up against Game Control as badly as
he did. She no longer had any real reason
to fight Victor.

But her instinct was to fight – and she hated the smug way he’d managed to sneak up on her.

“Hear me out, t
hat’s all I ask.” He considered letting her go, then. She was coming around and he was fairly certain she
wouldn’t run
. Bu
t the moment he let her go, her
teammates
would
undoubtedly
try something.
He didn’t need to contend with them right now as well.

Instead of releasing her completely, he
loosened his grip a little and
uncovered
her mouth.
“We need to stop Game Control
. They
will continue to
kill innocent people
as long as we let them.”

Maxwell Blood slowly paced toward them. Victor wasn’t certain what had changed that allowed him to
now see Blood through his
shield of invisibility, b
ut
he was unduly grateful that
something had. Pity it couldn’t also gain him access to Blood’s mind.

Max’s blue eyes were burning like sapphire fire. Victor could feel the cold fury coming off of the other dark leader in stifling waves. He had no idea what the man was planning to do. Victor couldn’t get past the fake, planted surface thoughts in the man’s head to read his intentions.

Now that his hand was
removed from Victoria’s lips, Victor
could hear the soft sound of her ragged, uneven breathing. He chanced a quick glance down, his gaze flicking to the side of her face. He noted the long, thick lashes that rested
momentarily against her cheek, the soft
peach-colored skin, the full red pout of her now freed lips.

And then he was zeroing in on
Blood again.

Victoria cleared her throat
and tr
ied a few words. “What exactly
do you think we can do, Black?”
s
he asked
.

It was getting hard for him to think. Danger was all around them
,
and he was finding it increasingly difficult to pay attention to anything but the feel of her long, lithe body against his, the sound of her breathing,
and
the heat from her form as his grip tightened
around her
.

“Come with
me to Game Control headquarters,” he said. “
Together, we can take out the Game Lord. Once he goes, they’ll all go.”

“Don’t listen to him, boss
,” Ty told her from where he stood several yards away. “
He’s messing with your mind. He’s planting thoughts there that aren’t yours
.”

April
nodded her agreement. “He’s right, Victoria. Max told us
he would do this
.”

“Did he, now?” Victor asked, his tone practically dri
pping acid. He lowered his head and met Max’s gaze
. “I just bet he did,” he whispered.