Fire Storm (3 page)

“I’m not so sure about that, but I hope you’re right. I can’t believe any of this is happening.”

Chapter Two

Ari dragged her feet as she climbed the front steps of the Victorian home she shared with Andreas. They’d talked twice during the day. He’d called right after he first awoke, concerned when their magical link telegraphed her unsettled mood. She’d brushed him off, saying it was nothing important, but he hadn’t believed her. There were definite drawbacks to having a strong psychic connection to someone. It made it impossible to lie with impunity.

He’d called again, later in the evening when she was beginning patrol, but she’d delayed the discussion again until she got home. Well, she was home now and not looking forward to the coming rehash of her meeting with the wizard.

She keyed in the front door code, raising a brow when Andreas pulled it open. “Hi, I figured you’d be at the club.”

A slow smile parted his lips, and his dark eyes gleamed. “No, you did not. You knew very well I would be waiting.” His magic reached out to brush against her skin, a warm, soothing sensation.

She sighed. “OK, so I figured you’d be home, but not manning the front door.”

“I wanted to give you these.” He pulled a bouquet of daffodils, her favorite flower, from behind his back. “You sounded like you could use a little TLC. Consider this my first contribution to that end.”

She tipped her head and took a long look at him. The black wavy hair, the sexy dark eyes with those incredible long lashes. His black Armani jeans and the bluish-silver silk shirt unbuttoned at the throat couldn’t have fit him better. Long, lean, muscled. And he shared his life with her. Ari smiled and leaned forward, resting her head against his chest. Did he know what one look, one gesture from him could do? And how much she’d come to count on it?

She turned her head to bury her nose in the fresh, delicate scent of the bouquet. “I won’t even ask where you found them at this time of year. But thanks, I guess I needed this.” She raised her head and brushed her lips across his. “You’re too good to me.”

He wound an arm around her waist. “Always glad to help, but dinner awaits, and we can talk afterward.”

Andreas steered her toward the study, his favorite room. She was delighted but not surprised to see a candlelit table and bottles of wine. This wasn’t the first time he’d arranged intimate dinners brought in from Club Dintero, his fancy supper club. Nor was the dinner menu a surprise when he pulled the silver cover off her plate to reveal chicken marsala. It was her favorite fancy dish. Well, fancy when compared with the sandwiches, chips or fries that she often grabbed on the run.

As he pulled out her chair, his fingers brushed her neck. Her breath quickened, and he responded with a deep chuckle. She smiled up at him, and an understanding passed between them. They’d been together long enough that the unspoken promises were comfortably tucked away for later.

Once they were seated, they made small talk about the club, the two cats that shared their home along with several vampires of his lineage, and the weretigers whose family had been in his service for two hundred years. Ari mostly fiddled with her food. Andreas’s eyes flickered to her plate, but he didn’t comment on her lack of appetite. He sipped a glass of Chianti and talked a lot about Italy, especially the coming grape harvest. Was he missing his native home?

When he brought it up again, she asked. “Are you planning a visit to your Italian estates?”

He looked up from his drink with a faint smile. “I’d intended to put off the discussion until later, but I appear to have tipped my hand. I am considering the possibility. I had a letter from my overseer reporting some mysterious incidents—destroyed vines, break-ins at outbuildings, petty thievery. Nothing significant, but it made me realize how long I have been away. Almost four years. It is time I went home, looked over the land, visited the people.” His eyes lit with memories. “It would be fun to oversee the harvest again. We still have a harvest party where they stomp the grapes with their feet. You could come with me.”

“That’s just the thing,” she said, putting down her fork. She pushed the plate away and took a sip from her wine glass. “I can’t. I’m pretty much grounded.” When his brows shot up, she went on to explain her meeting with the council president and the elf representative. “It’s not that they’re wrong, but they’re not taking into account the amount of trouble you’ve had in the last two years. Between Sebastian, a bunch of evil witches, and the O-Seven, you’ve been under constant threat.” She cocked her head at him. “Should you even be going to Europe? Aren’t you safer here if those creepy old men are still on the rampage?”

Andreas threw back his head and laughed. “Creepy old men? The vampire elders might be offended if they heard you call them so.”

“Too bad.” She cracked a impish grin. “As if I care what they think. But I’m serious, will you be safe in Italy?”

“Once I land, I will not leave Tuscany. The jet will fly directly to an airfield on the estate and return from there. The O-Seven will never know I left Riverdale. In fact, I will be safer than you are.” He frowned, indicating the thought was a new and unwelcome one. “If the O-Seven is intent on further trouble, this is where they will look for us. Perhaps I should wait for a better time rather than leave you alone.”

“Yeah, like when? I’ll be fine. I’m surrounded by people who’ll protect me. I’m more worried about the elders finding out you’re in Europe. What if they do? I know you think that’s unlikely, but humor me. Do you have sufficient staff in Italy to protect you?”

“There are hundreds who work on my estates, and a staff from here will travel with me. More than enough.”

Ari wasn’t convinced, especially since most of those people worked in the vineyards—they weren’t trained in security—but she’d learned to accept his decisions. Respect had to go both ways, and that was how they’d managed to merge their divergent lives. “How long will you be gone? A week? A month?”

He reached a hand across the table and captured hers. “No longer than necessary, but it will be weeks. Perhaps four or five. There is always much to do on these infrequent trips.”

Ari tried to ignore the empty feeling in her chest. It had been a bad day. The meeting with her boss had sucked, and now Andreas was going away. She remembered how it had been when she’d returned to Riverdale last year and he stayed in Canada. For two weeks she’d felt…incomplete.

She rallied a lighter tone. “I think it’s great that you’ll see your family home again.”

“Casa De Luca,” he murmured, as if he were seeing it in his mind.

“Yes, the casa. I’ll miss you, but I can concentrate on my job and mend fences with the council reps. How soon do you plan to leave?”

His soft voice told her he wasn’t fooled by her forced enthusiasm. “It is not decided yet, but if I go it will be by the end of the week. I want to meet with the family solicitors while I am there, and I should hear from them tomorrow. I will miss you too,
cara mia
. Very much.”

With emotions threatening to spill over, she pulled her hand away and stood. “If you’re going to be gone so long, we better make good use of these last days.”

“What did you have in mind?” His lips curved into a smile, and he leaned back, looking up at her. When his gaze darkened, she had no trouble interpreting what was on
his
mind. It was the way they often dealt with strong emotions.

“I was referring to plans for the running of the club and how I can support Gabriel in his position as prince pro tem while you’re gone. But I can see your imagination has gone somewhere else.” Ari tapped her cheek with one finger. “Now I wonder where? How about a good movie in the rec room? I’ll go pick something.” She grinned and walked out the door.

He caught her in the hallway and pinned her against the wall with an arm on either side. Andreas bent his head to nuzzle her neck. “We have not had dessert yet,” he whispered. “Perhaps the movie could wait.”

His lips claimed hers. He deepened the kiss, tightening his hold, pressing her body against him. When Ari sighed against his mouth and wiggled her hips, he picked her up and carried her to the second floor. The only recreation room on that level was the master bedroom.

* * *

Ari was seated at her office in the cultural center by 7:30 the next morning. Although she was often there on Wednesdays, as one of the two days she tried to squeeze in appointments, she hadn’t made it on Monday, and she wanted to get an early start. It might help her prove to the council president that she could do things by the book.

It was a busy morning. Besides three regularly scheduled appointments for clients to sign up for community services, she spent a long time with a family of weretigers. Mother, father and two young cubs arrived unannounced to complain about the stench from their next door neighbors’ garbage, which hadn’t been taken to the curb in three weeks.

“It smells like road kill,” the father declared. “Very tempting to our children.”

“Did you complain to city services?”

“We’re telling you.”

Ari refrained from rolling her eyes, made the call, and filed a complaint on the tigers’ behalf. Once that was done, the father left to get to his job, but the mother refused to take her children home until the problem was resolved. Since city services were notoriously slow, Ari pointed out the center’s formal waiting room and called in her next appointment. When her client departed a half hour later, Ari found the tiger family still sitting in her hallway. She sighed. Obviously the mother wasn’t budging until something was done. The tigress and her cubs sat stiffly on a row of hard wooden chairs along the side, flanked by two large potted plants. The cubs squirmed restlessly. Having raised Bella’s kittens, Ari knew the signs. Trouble wasn’t far away. Scrounging through the storage room, she found two balls of twine for the cubs to use as toys. Picking up tangled string would be an easy cleanup.

The tigers had a long wait. It was almost noon before city services called to say the neighbors had moved without notice, but the garbage had now been removed.

When Ari stepped into the hall to give the family the good news, she clapped a hand over her mouth to stop the laughter that threatened to bubble free. She doubted the council members would share her amusement. As anticipated, the twine wound up and down the hallway. What she hadn’t counted on was the cubs would also unearth the potted plants, leaving a trail of soil, shredded leaves, and dirty paw prints.

“Sorry.” The frantic tigress was trying to corral her unruly brood. “It all happened so fast. While I was chasing one, the other… I’ll clean it up.”

Ari could only guess how long that would take with the cubs continuing to run back and forth in the debris. “No, it’s not a big deal. I can take care of it. Really.”

Flashing a grateful smile, the tigress grabbed each cub firmly by one hand and marched them toward the front door. Once they left the building, Ari ran to the storage room, gathered a broom, dust pan, and bags. It took forty-five minutes to clean the worst of the mess. She had no idea what to do about the ruined plants, and from up close the pots had an odd odor, so she dragged everything—pots, plants and dirt—outside and stuffed them in a large dumpster. Without the foliage, the hallway looked rather cheerless, but it was clean. If she was lucky, no one would think to ask her about the change in decor.

She finally collapsed into her desk chair, clutching the last cup of coffee, and put her feet up. She’d been too busy to think about Andreas’s imminent departure. If things continued like this, his absence might not be too bad. Yeah, right. Night would be a different story.

The council president’s wizened face appeared in her doorway. Ari dropped her feet from the desk and jumped up to greet him.

He waved for her to be seated. “Please, don’t be so formal. I merely stopped to commend you on your redecorating of the hallway. I’ve been telling the custodian for months that those plants were a bad idea.” His eyes twinkled. “Young shifters frequently relieve themselves on the pots, leaving unpleasant stains and odors.” He chuckled and continued down the hallway.

Ari sank back into her chair. Was there anything the old wizard missed?

The afternoon was nearly as hectic. She’d only scheduled appointments in the morning and had no idea the center had so many walk-ins throughout the day, looking for information or Otherworld-friendly resources. She suspected the center’s receptionist was taking advantage of her presence by sending all the unscheduled visitors to her. In spite of the steady traffic, Ari made the rounds of other offices and talked with any council reps she saw. The schmoozing was something new for her, but she needed to get back in touch with the rest of the magical community.

When four o’clock arrived, she grabbed her jacket and headed for the door. A stop at the shapeshifter shelter, then home to see Andreas. Had he firmed up his plans for Italy? She hurried her pace. With a little luck, she could squeeze in both visits before evening patrol.

There was only one all-shifter shelter in Riverdale. The other two Otherworld shelters in town were multi-species, but shifters usually chose the Shifters’ Den. Most lycanthropes were pack creatures by nature and newly transformed werecreatures were readily taken in by the packs, leaving the shelters to transients, loners who had chosen a solitary life, or the occasional trouble-maker. Approaching the house on the edge of town, she realized it had received a new coat of brown paint since she’d been there. Had it been that long? She shook her head. Just more proof she hadn’t been giving the shifters enough of her time. She pushed the all-hours button.

The suspicious face that peered from the window immediately smiled, and the door was opened for her. “Guardian,” the headkeeper said. “Always delighted to see you. But today, I could use your advice.” The matronly-looking werewolf was in charge of the facility. “Got a bit of a problem.”

She swung the door wide, and Ari immediately saw the source of the trouble. A young werejavey.