Phoenix Rising (4 page)

‘…my blood alone remains: take it, but do not make me suffer long.’

~Marie Antoinette

It was Miles, of course. Waiting for her. He was a smoky shadow against the rightmost of the two willow trees that flanked the entryway of the Phoenix building.  The long, feathery branches shivered in the air around him, but his eyes weren’t the white-blue of her nightmares, not yet.

But they were glowing.

Kelsey had frozen in mid-step when she saw him, her mouth half open. Now she put her foot down slowly, pressed her lips together and turned back to brush her fingers over the panel that would engage building lockdown. Her heart was racing, but when she spoke she was surprised by the evenness of her tone.

“Why didn’t you answer my text?”

He didn’t respond. Kelsey pivote
d
—

And fell back against the glass doors when she found him standing only inches from her. Miles wasn’t an overly large man, not to someone that was used to being around Jules.

That didn’t stop him from seeming huge at the moment. Impossibly huge. His hair was glinting in the moonlight, dark gold, a little damp and curling at his temples. He smelled like soap, water and fresh linen, but danger rolled off him in dark waves.

“Miles?” He didn’t respond and fear tickled her insides.

Kelsey raised her hand between them, hesitated, then placed it on his chest, splaying her fingers and pressing him back. His chest was hard and unyielding under her hand, the muscles there could have been carved from granite. He felt cold. Vampires got colder the longer they went without blooding.

Miles was very, very cold.

“Miles?”

He finally yielded, though only when her arm had started to ache and then he only stepped back a pace. She let her hand fall back to her side, her fingertips tingling.

“I am here, am I not?” His voice was rough and his lips barely moved.

It took Kelsey a second to catch up. Her text. Sammy. The photo.

Yeah, that.

She swallowed, wishing Miles would move back more. She thought about side stepping past him and saw his eyes narrow, the predator locked on his prey.

Her.

Kelsey stayed put.

Miles considered that a wise move on her part. He knew he was scaring her but he didn’t give a damn. There was a plane waiting for him at O’Hare and he planned to be on it before the sun rose. He would hear what she thought was so important first, but he didn’t plan on being more than civil about it.

Civil might be a stretch.

Her voice a little shaky, Kelsey began.

“The pictures you left, we put them through…Sammy put them through a filtering program he designed. He is our tech guy. You met—”

“I remember,” Miles’ voice was short. The little man glued to the phone. “I already had them put through every enhancement program known, Kels.”

“Yes. Yes, I'm sure you did.” Kelsey folded her arms, hugging herself as she leaned back against the wall of plate glass windows. The gesture wasn’t lost on Miles. Something other than him was making her nervous.

“You…well. Miles,” she took a deep breath. “You remember the Cleaners.”

It wasn’t a question and she wasn’t able to look at him when she said it. Her golden eyes instead locked on a point just over his left shoulder.

Miles laughed. Once.

It cracked the air between them like a fist striking flesh.

“Indeed.”

Her cheeks went pink, but her eyes came back to his. He saw something there that bit into his heart. It was a deep, soul-sick fear.

But not of him.

“I think this is them. Or rather one of them.”

“Someone in particular?” He knew nothing really of the Cleaners, other than they were a sick, twisted cult that had stolen gifted children and terrorized shades; and that once upon a time they had struck him a blow that they thought had failed and that Miles knew he would never recover from.

He hadn’t been interested in them. Then or now. Before her, they had operated in the States alone. After her, he was alerted to their ambitions and they never crossed the Atlantic en force again. Not into Europe and certainly not into France, his network had made sure of that.

There had been no need to go after them. He was a practical man, not a vengeful one. He was also proud. Prouder than he ever realized. He had done everything in his power to forget Kelsey—not dwell on her.

Vengeance, after all, was nothing if not indulgent wallowing.

Anything to do with her, her past or her future, was negative space in his world. He’d tried very hard to pretend she didn’t exist anymore.

That was the line that had kept him from doing more than dreaming of coming after her in the first place.

As for the Cleaners, someone had tidily cleaned them up anyway. It had been a year or two after Kelsey left Paris. The whole mess had been damn near blown clean off the planet. He had known Kelsey was no longer with the group. Beyond that, he hadn’t really cared.

About anything.

He watched her face now, his mind turning. Wondering. What had she done after Paris and before raising Phoenix Inc.?

What indeed?

She bit her lip and broke eye contact, looking over his shoulder again.

“There was a man….You might call him…a handler of sorts.”

“Did he
handle
you?” Miles’ tone was mild, but cutting as his stomach lurched. He couldn’t think of another man touching her without feeling sick with rage.

Kelsey gave a shudder and hugged herself tighter. Even though he hated himself for it, Miles was relieved at her reaction.

“In a manner of speaking. Reegan was high up in the Cleaners, he schooled most of the psych paras, including me.” She hesitated, then gave Miles a sidelong, considering glance. “He’s also a eunuch.”

Miles raised his eyebrows. “Really? And he
is
human?”

Kelsey nodded once.

“That is not exactly an accepted modern medical procedure…or do you mean a chemically-induced eunuch?” Besides measures forced on known pedophiles, he had heard of some odd nuts who thought removing sexual drive would give them a kind of purity, or at the least cut down distraction and increase focus.

Miles couldn’t exactly argue with that point of view at the moment either, sick as it was.

Not with the honey and roses smell of her seeming to reach out, caressing his skin. A teasing, trailing touch that made him ache. He clenched his fists.

Kelsey shook her head. “No. He is a true eunuch, his father did it to him. When he was about twelve. He told us the story many times.”

“He did this to frighten you?”

She laughed bitterly. “Perhaps, but more to shame us with our weaknesses, I think. He was proud of it, very proud.”

Despite himself, Miles sucked in a breath.

“Lovely crowd, your Cleaners.”

Her eyes drifted to his again, the gold searing with emotion, but she didn’t say anything. Just looked at him with those sad eyes. It was clear Kelsey wasn’t going to waste her breath trying to make him feel for her.

Where no amount of pleading or excuses could have, it gave him pause.

He’d be damned if he’d ask though.
Certainement pas.

“So you think this is him then? Why? What did your Sammy find that I did not?”

“Even though his power worked well enough without it, physical touch is an amplifier. Sweat, water, lotion—they all dilute that power—even if only a little, so this man always used a powder on his hands to keep them absolutely dry at all times. Like the chalk gymnasts use? It was pink like that, but grainier because he would grind bits of dried lavender into it. He always smelled like lavender and bleach,” she shivered again.

“He was a maniac, about being clean. He was a maniac, period.

"That dust is all over your victim’s faces. Fine and pink with purple specks, just like I remember.”

Miles stared at her.

“Why would he do this?”

“I think he read them as they were dying. He would have liked that, Miles. Hearing their pain and suffering and fear. Actually, he would have
loved
that.”

Realization was dawning on him. “What is this man’s particular para gift, Kelsey?
What is he?”

She gave him a bleak look. “The same as me. The only one like me I have ever heard of. Except he can’t track. He can read people though, like I do, but he’s better at that part.

"He likes getting inside, delving deep. And there isn’t anyone that can keep him out. Not even me.” She looked sick. “He can read
anyone
, Miles. And I thought he was dead.
He was supposed to be dead,
goddamn it!”

She was shaking now, but more from a righteous anger mixed in with her fear. Anger that got her blood up, warmed her cheeks and gave her skin a sheen as he tried to process what she had just told him, and why she was so angry about it. As if she
personally
had been cheated by the possibility this man still lived. He couldn't understand that.

In fact, Miles was finding it increasingly hard to think...to focus…on anything but how much he wanted the woman before him. Something that he was abruptly so aware of it hurt.

The hunger, his vicious hunger, had flared up in tandem with Kelsey’s anger.

Je te pleure.
Please, no.

Miles breathed deep as her sweet honey smell suddenly lit the night air around her like a thousand fire flies. Ravenous, he put one hand on either side of her, trapping her as he leaned forward slowly…inexorably.

His palms flat on the cool glass, feeling hunger blaze through his body with the bright flare of a match set to gasoline-soaked charcoal. Spreading until it burned in every cell, utterly consuming him. He shook with it, his muscles going rigid as he tried to control himself.

“Miles?” Her voice was a whisper again, pale with uncertainty.

He’d never tasted her blood, not once.

He wanted to. Of course, he’d wanted to. But Kelsey was scared of being bit.
Terrified.
Miles didn’t know why, and shied away from asking exactly why for reasons he had been loath to examine too closely at the time.

He had always known even when she seemed to be giving herself to him so completely, every inch of her body his, that she was holding back. That there were parts of her she was unwilling to give to him. They'd both known it.

They just hadn’t talked about it.

When her secret was finally revealed, he hadn’t wanted to talk about it, or anything else to her.

Ever again
.

He had only wanted her gone.

Tonight Miles thought they might be forced to talk about it. Because he was rapidly losing his ability to control himself, and the truth was….

He didn’t fucking want to anymore.

“Miles?”
Her golden eyes had widened when he leaned into her, but other than that she hadn’t moved. Smart woman.

“Stop saying my damn name like that.”

“Then stop going all silent vamp on me! You’re scaring me here.”

Her voice rose a hair and he could tell she was getting angry again, albeit with a keen edge of panic. Her adrenaline rush sent a fresh wave of that mouth-watering scent into the air. He growled.

“
Je m’en fous.”

Her French wasn’t the best but Miles knew she understood
that.
Her face flushed and she shoved at him.

“Miles, back the hell off.
Please!”
Her voice cracked on the last word and part of Miles, a small soft part buried deep in his heart that he hadn’t even known still existed, broke a little at the fear he heard.

Even as the monster inside him thrilled at it.

He grabbed her wrists and pinned them to the glass above her head with one hand.

“Stop fighting!” Something in the whip-like crack of his voice, the strain in it, finally got to her and she went stock still.

“You don’t have to do this, Miles.”

Miles laughed again, low and bitter. Have to. Want to.

Need to.

He let himself lean forward until their foreheads touched, feeling her start at the contact. The light breeze tangled their hair together, inky black and burnished gold. Tendrils caressing the soft sheen of her skin in the moonlight. Miles closed his eyes. But her silky hair still tickled his forearms and he could still feel the beat of her rapid pulse against the tips of his fingers bracketing her wrists.
And her smell….

He inhaled deeply. Her scent sliding sweetly down his parched throat, easing the pain for a second… Then making it a thousand times worse.

His knees went weak and he started to shake.