Warrior Betrayed: The Sons of the Zodiac 3 (3 page)

A loud scream pierced the air as the room went black and a wave of static electricity washed over her with harsh, piercing needles. Montana reached instinctively to protect herself, wrapping her arms around her midsection and bending at the waist to stop the jagged pain coursing through her.

Before she could even utter a sound, Montana felt large arms wrap around her just as her knees buckled from the pain. The last thing she felt before going utterly numb was the sensation of falling against a very large, broad chest as the man cushioned her suddenly lifeless limbs and dragged her to the ground.

“Shhh. Don’t say a word.”

Quinn felt the long, supple lines of the woman in his arms and—for the briefest of seconds—forgot the danger that surrounded Montana Grant like a haze of noxious smoke.

Her luscious breasts pressed against his chest and his inner thigh lay against the taut lines of her outer leg where they sprawled as he’d fallen with her in his arms.

What the hell was this woman involved in?

Every instinct he possessed suggested she was anything but the peace-wielding, beloved-by-all heiress of Grant Shipping.

The static that had taken hold of her body when Quinn first touched her was gone. The effect of his body, as well as the room’s sudden plunge into darkness, killed the field of view of her attacker. Almost immediately, she began to struggle, pushing at him, hissing in a dark throaty voice still trying to recover from the unexpected electric charge. “Get off me!”

“Shhh, heiress. Not yet.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Her words spewed anger, but she could do no more than whisper them.

Quinn tightened his grip on her, well aware the He-man routine wasn’t going to win him any points in the “trust me” department. “Your savior, unless you insist on struggling away from me.”

“What do you want?”

“A really good corned-beef sandwich. An ice-cold beer. World peace. I’m relatively easy to please.”

The hotel’s generator kicked in and a dull, grayish wash of light filled the room. Montana’s bright blue eyes never left his, her long lashes framing a stubborn gaze. “Who
are
you?”

“Quinn Tanner, Emerald Security. At your service.”

He shifted slightly, moving off of her but still keeping her body shielded from the ballroom. He suspected her attacker had moved on, but he wasn’t taking any chances until he could check out the room himself.

Extending a hand and helping her into a sitting position, he couldn’t resist adding, “I’m your new shadow, sweetheart.”

Quinn shook the leaded glass tumbler in his hand, considering the clinking ice at the bottom of his empty club soda. He had to admit surprise—and was that disappointment?—at the lack of fight Montana had put up.

Despite the late hour—the society holding the benefit had oh so thoughtfully refused to shut down early once the lights had come back on—Montana had allowed him to accompany her out of the ballroom and to her limousine, where they now drove in a winding, roundabout path through the city as they headed in the direction of her home.

“Are you going to tell me why you’ve taken a sudden interest in me, Mr. Tanner? Especially seeing as how I haven’t actually retained your incredibly expensive services.”

“You know who I am?”

“Why else do you think I let you in the car? I couldn’t place you until you said Emerald Security. Then it all came tumbling back.”

“It?”

“Grant Shipping tried to hire your firm two summers ago, yet you had no interest in bidding on the business. I remember investigating you at the time.” She waited a beat before adding in a prim voice, “I also believe I have an unreturned call awaiting your attention.”

Quinn recoiled inside, his gut clenching in a tight fist. While the information age had been very kind to him, both in his business and in the Warriors’ ongoing fight with Enyo, goddess of war, he loathed the fact that there was data—both visual and written—on him. Although he sought to minimize it—and erase or tweak said information wherever possible—it simply wasn’t a realistic goal to steer completely clear of the grid.

The reprimand on the unreturned phone call didn’t sit all that well, either.

When he didn’t say anything, she continued. “I do my homework, Mr. Tanner.” Montana folded her arms, the action pressing her breasts even higher above the luscious neckline of her dress. He gave in to an appreciative glance, then shifted gears to focus firmly on her face. “Yes, well, I didn’t appreciate the scope of work the assignment entailed.”

“Didn’t appreciate it? That’s awfully diplomatic of you.”

“Your people had too much power. I don’t take jobs I can’t control as I see fit, Ms. Grant. As to the second call. I wanted to do a bit of research before calling you back.”

“How kind of you. Based on the line of business you’re in, I’d have to imagine you lose a lot of customers that way.”

“There aren’t many who do what I do.”

Her voice held all the smokiness of good, aged whiskey; the notes were threaded with steel. “All the more reason you likely lose customers. Death threats have a way of coming true if there’s no one to counteract the threat.”

“I was going to talk to you tonight. In person.”

The lift of one delicate eyebrow over those bright blue eyes conveyed her skepticism as clearly as a shouted retort.

Quinn couldn’t help the slight quiver at the corner of his mouth. Damn, but this woman had some fire. And she proved it with her next words.

“So why are you here? Or, perhaps more accurately, what do you now think you can control?”

Quinn stopped clinking the ice in his glass. How to play this one?

Honesty was out.

No one liked to know they were being followed as a person of suspicion. And based on the attack in the ballroom, he certainly wasn’t sharing the small tidbit that he needed to know how she was mixed up with Destroyers. Those supernatural assholes didn’t make their own decisions—they simply took direction from others—so clearly she had pissed off someone with very powerful connections. With a Destroyer attack, the likely candidate was Enyo.

Lately, it seemed like it was always Enyo.

“Mr. Talbot. I asked you a question. Why are you here?”

Okay. So honesty was out. Magnanimous charm it was. “I figured you were going to need some help.”

“And whatever gave you that idea?” Montana gestured with a half-full water bottle. She’d avoided an open bottle of champagne when they’d settled themselves in the car, instead zeroing in on the water.

“Was I wrong?”

“No.” She gazed thoughtfully at the bottle, plucking at the warped edge of the peeling label. “I…I felt something. In there.”

“What kind of something?”

“I thought it might be you at first, once I realized you were watching me. But then I looked at you and—”

“And what?”

“I somehow knew it wasn’t you. Whatever it was that was making me uncomfortable.” She shifted her gaze to his, the incredible blue of her irises nearly opaque in the reflected streetlights outside the limousine. “But something was in there.”

“Yes.”

“So I have to ask again, why were you there?”

“I think someone’s trying to kill you, Ms. Grant.”

Montana gripped the cool bottle of water until her knuckles turned white. The fear from earlier in the ballroom roiled through her stomach on a return trip, making her very glad she’d been too nervous to try any of the rubber chicken.

With sudden desperation, she focused on the man across from her, seated with a lazy sprawl across the bench seat of her limousine. His pose suggested supreme confidence, both in his course of action that evening and in the physicality of his body.

This was a man unused to losing.

Nothing can touch me
, screamed from that insouciant pose and she couldn’t say why it both infuriated her and soothed her at the same time. Because whatever else she might have felt at the moment, there was an odd sense of safety sitting in his presence.

Like nothing could touch her either as long as he was in range.

Unless, of course,
he
was the one out to get you, you idiot
. Her conscience rose up to taunt her, pricking at whatever sense of calm she had regained once they were safely ensconced in the vehicle.
Damn fine time to finally get attracted to someone, Montana. Your life’s in shambles
and
you’re suddenly the target of a crazy person.

An image of her mother filled her thoughts—and with it—the familiar clench of longing immediately on its heels. The last time they saw each other, her mother’s frail body and fragile mind had left her with a sad despair she’d been unable to fully shake off.

Was this the underlying reason for the unease?

Even as she thought it, Montana quickly discarded it. A frail woman full of mad ramblings—and one she gave easy access to her home, at that—couldn’t possibly be responsible for what was going on.

No. Montana gave herself a mental shake. The only feelings her mother engendered were the desire to scoop her up and protect her.

But Eirene would have none of that.

She arrived in her life when she chose and disappeared when she chose and no matter how hard Montana tried to find her, her mother remained elusive.

But in each successive visit—three in all over the past month—her mother had grown more and more agitated and her warnings more dire.

And through it all, she’d repeated one word, over and over.

Themis.

It was an odd word, and at first Montana hadn’t understood exactly what it meant. But as she’d listened, and put her mother’s words in context, she’d realized Themis was a
who
, not a
what
.

A quick Google search later and Montana had all she needed to know.

Themis was the goddess of justice, as presented in Greek mythology. The former wife of Zeus, she was said to have birthed the Moirae—the three Fates—and the Horae—the Hours. Although she’d heard of the Fates, it was their sisters, the Horae, that had oddly fascinated her. According to the ancients, these daughters were the natural personification of justice—peace, law and governance and moral justice.

What any of it could possibly have to do with her mother and her muttered instructions, Montana had no earthly idea.

And why the hell was she even thinking such nonsense in the face of Quinn’s announcement?

Kill her?

“So are you going to tell me why you think someone’s trying to harm me? That’s an awfully large bomb to drop on a g-girl, Mr. Tanner.” Her attempt at light and breezy indifference failed miserably as the last few words came out on a breathless hiccup, the plastic bottle in her shaking hand sloshing water.

He leaned forward so that those broad shoulders covered in an acre of black silk blocked everything else from view and all she could focus on was him.

The fear rippling in her belly changed instantly, morphing into something far more interesting…far more feminine.

Hungry.

“Call me Quinn.”

The air around her grew perfectly still as she stared into those deep chocolate-colored eyes of his. In that moment, Montana found herself unexpectedly in his thrall. His eyes appeared to be deep, dark pools that held so many things.

Sensual promise. A lifetime of secrets. And—was it possible?—an overwhelming sense of pain.

He’d only asked her to call him by his name. Why did that seem like such a big thing to ask? Should she give in? Back down? She’d never felt so off balance and so oddly powerful, all in one fell swoop.

On a quick nod, she whispered, “Quinn.”

“Did you get a load of anyone out of the ordinary tonight?”

“Besides you, you mean?”

“Yes.”

His lack of smile broke the intimate moment and she sat back in her seat. He clearly wasn’t willing to be baited and, even more clearly, he wasn’t interested in any attempt at lighthearted banter.

Despite the fact he refused to humor her, the seriousness in his tone went a long way toward keeping the whispering tendrils of fear from regaining strength. Instead, she focused on his question.

“No.” She glanced down at her water bottle. “And I looked.”

“Well, someone was there.”

“And there was that strange paralysis. It was like an electric shock all over my body, like when your hand falls asleep.” Montana thought back to that moment. The panic—no, the paralyzing terror—when she lost feeling in her body. “Only, not like that.”

She fought the sharp stab of nerves, focusing again on the remembered moments in the ballroom. She could only liken the sensation to what she imagined a Taser felt like, but no one had approached the dais.

Nothing had touched her until Quinn had tackled her to the floor.

“What do you think they want? And how are you suddenly involved?”

“I get involved when security matters require my attention.”

“Who hired you?”

“For now, you can just assume I hired myself.”

“Excuse me?” Montana heard her voice notch up, the screechy tone an embarrassing departure from the normally silky-smooth voice she’d deliberately cultivated over the years.

“You’re not the only one with interests to protect, Montana. I sensed a problem, looked into the situation and seeing as how I’m right, have stepped in to handle things.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I just did.”

Quinn had just sidestepped a bullet and he knew it. Montana Grant was too smart—and too savvy and well connected—to leave this subject alone. He figured he’d bought himself twenty-four hours, at most, to get a handle on what was really going on.

Every bit of sense he possessed screamed she had something to do with the diamond smuggling out of Africa, yet even as his mind told him she was to blame, his instincts left him in doubt.

“You have no right to barge into my life.”

“Actually, I do. If my suspicions are correct, some very powerful people have suddenly taken a large interest in you. I’d like to understand why.”

There. That was vague enough to buy him a bit of time. Not much, but some. The evening’s intel had given him the three things he needed to know.

He now knew how to get into her apartment. She now knew he’d be hanging around for a few days. And whoever was stalking her now knew she was protected.

And his involvement would raise the stakes.

Because whatever she was in the middle of wasn’t caused by a mortal.

“When did you feel things start to change?”

Quinn watched a small furrow mar the smooth perfection of Montana’s forehead as she mulled over his question. She really was a vision, all smooth porcelain skin and lush pink lips. They were decadent—plump, firm and eminently kissable.

She had a face a man
noticed
.

Of course, if she was responsible for even half the things he suspected, it was a very lovely facade that hid a truly nasty soul.

Even if the peaches-n-cream vibe she was giving off suggested otherwise.

On a small sigh, she began speaking, her voice a husky whisper in the dimly lit interior of the car. “I started to notice things about two months ago.”

“What kinds of things?”

“Little things, really. Oddities. Things that in and of themselves I’d have ignored, but once I started to put them together, they seemed to mean something.”

“Such as?”

“Items slightly out of order in my office. An unsettling feeling at a board meeting after all the materials I prepared vanished. An increased number of threats that seemed to have the same pattern.”

“What type of threats? Against your home? Travel plans? What patterns emerged?”

“I can’t explain it, but they stood out because they were
more
sinister, somehow. Most threats against me or the company are generic in nature.” She waved her free hand in illustration. “You suck, so does your company and you’re going down, that sort of thing. They’re unsettling, but we check them out and put them to bed. It’s usually some crazy who’s mad about their stock portfolio or some group who thinks we’re not socially responsible enough.”

“But these have been different?” Quinn’s eyebrows rose. “Sinister, you say?”

“Yes. They’re actually menacing.”

The word hung between them and Quinn paused for a moment, searching for the next thing to say. The next
right
thing. If she was involved in even one-tenth of the things he suspected, it was no wonder she was receiving threats. But…something didn’t quite fit.

Quinn knew the niggling doubt hovering at the edge of his mind was stupid—an angelic face and wide, guileless blue eyes didn’t mean she was innocent.

Far from it.

But even as he fought to keep his normally suspicious nature intact, he admitted some small part of him
wanted
her to be innocent.

Shaking it off, Quinn pressed on with the questions.

“Has there been anything else?”

“I feel like I’m being watched.”

“I’d wager the paparazzi spend a lot of time paying attention to you. Could it be that?”

She shook her head, the movement sending an errant auburn curl tumbling over her shoulder. “To your point, that’s such a constant in my life, I’ve learned to tune it out. It’s different now. And tonight it was the worst it’s ever been.”

Quinn let out a small laugh. “The entire room was staring at you, Ms. Grant.”

A distinct shiver ran through her body and she wrapped her arms around herself. “That’s what made it so awful. The entire room was staring at me and I couldn’t find the threat.”

Quinn removed his jacket, handing it to her. She laid the water bottle on the seat next to her and took the coat, quickly wrapping herself in it.

“Thanks.”

Although he was sorry the vision of smooth, creamy skin was gone, some deep, ferocious pleasure he couldn’t define reared up and grabbed him by the throat.

Montana Grant was wrapped up in his body heat.

On a rough cough, he muttered, “Better?”

“Yes, much.”

“You want to tell me the rest?”

“I can hear the skepticism in each of your questions, Mr. Tan—Quinn—but the best I can explain it, something’s not right. These…
things
. From the start, they’ve felt different. I felt—
feel
—threatened. Vulnerable. I know that sounds silly, but that’s the best way I can explain it. Things are
off
.”

“Our instincts are powerful things. That little voice is worth paying attention to.”

Montana huddled down into his coat, the material large enough to cover her three times over. Even under all that cashmere and the blanket of danger that surrounded her, her eyes took on a merry little twinkle. “I couldn’t agree more. I let you in the car, didn’t I?”

Whatever enjoyment she had at the retort was short-lived as the small smile hovering at her lips vanished. “And then things got really weird.”

“How so?”

“My mother showed up.”

Although the background check he’d done on Montana indicated she and her father had been abandoned by her mother years ago, nothing he could turn up suggested it was anything ominous. Sadly—and years spent with mortals had proven it—humans had an amazing capacity to fuck up their lives and the lives of others. He’d chalked up the story of her mother as one more example of that.

“You haven’t been in touch with her?”

The urge to pull her into his arms at the bleak look that filled her eyes made his hand tremble. “No. She left when I was a baby.”

“How did you know it was her?”

“My father kept photos of her. And”—the word hung between them, before she turned her hands up, palms out—“I just knew.”

“Clearly you’re connecting the two—the feeling of discomfort and your mother’s reappearance. Why?”

“I don’t believe in coincidence. But it’s more than that. It’s the things she’s said. I know it’s very possible she’s not well, but…she’s oddly lucid when she speaks to me, even though none of it makes any sense.”

“Go on.”

Quinn saw the look of hesitation reflected in her eyes a split second before she leaned forward. “Have you ever heard of Themis?”

Quinn nearly choked on the ice cube in his mouth. How the hell did she know anything about Themis? And why was her name suddenly popping up all around him? Thoughts of how to play this raced through his mind when the car came to an abrupt, jerking halt.

In a rush of motion, Montana slid forward on her seat in the slick fabric of her evening gown. Quinn intercepted her midslide, his glass falling to the floor of the limo with a heavy thud. For the second time that night, Quinn got an armful of Montana Grant and for none of the reasons he usually held a woman solidly in his arms.

“What was that?”

“I’m going to find out.”

“Tony!” Montana scrambled up and reached for the divider between the back and front of the limo.

“No.” Quinn stayed her hand. “Let me check things out. Tony knows how to take care of himself. If the car’s stopped, it’s not for a good reason.”

“But he could be hurt.”

He leveled her with a direct stare. “You looking to get hurt, too?” With a quiet nod, understanding filled her bright blue eyes and she sat back on her seat.