Zero to Love (5 page)

He worked on the lock in the back of his mind while Magda revolved through the forefront. Golden limbs, hair like fire around her beautiful face. Beneath the skin of her eyelids, a small vein rode the surface and only reminded him of how delicate she was—more so than other humans.

And her mind puzzled him more than any other he’d ever seen. A complex passageway that appeared to have been sucked dry by Free Wills, but something deeper lived there just under the gray matter. The only way to truly unlock her secrets was to take her. At the moment he joined with her, he would be able to see more.

The memory of them cruising past the frozen Mindchangers in the town square struck him. Magda shaking her head, her red waves snaking over her shoulder, eyes closed.

Was it possible she’d heard the drone?

No.

He pressed on the door lock, and it gave way. The wooden slab opened a crack. He found the number eighteen in the corner lamp and flipped it on. Warm light spilled across the space. Simple furnishings filled the open area—a kitchen and seating space with a modern sectional and glass coffee table. A few lamps dotted the metal tables. All filled with complex numbers. Metal and glass, while based in nature, underwent more processing by human hands, and therefore had complicated numerical patterns. A wooden furnishing would possess a much lower number.

He started stripping off his weapons. In the small hip pocket of his leather pants he carried throwing stars. A knife worn along his thigh. And a small dagger in his boot. Fights among Mindchangers happened too often not to come armed, and he didn’t like to use his mind to harm unless necessary.

Like tonight.

This thought brought him full circle to Magda. She hadn’t been affected by the boom. The only way that could happen was if she had a Mindchanger in her parentage, and even then it was a slim chance. After all, Keefe, one of the strongest of Mindchangers, had been knocked on his ass.

Monroe had seen Magda’s father through the study window, and he definitely wasn’t a Mindchanger. He was the worst sort of threat to the Mindchangers race. Hate had oozed from him.

After walking to the window facing east, Monroe stood at the glass and sent his feelers out after Magda. She should be safely tucked in her house where a contraption stood in her bedroom corner, keeping her safe from him.

A thought catcher.

Did she even realize its purpose? To her, it might look like a simple lamp. But its numbers were more complex than he could process. When he’d sent his mind in after her and encountered that thought catcher, his circuits had been boggled by the enormously long chains of numbers spouting from it.

But he couldn’t hear Magda at all now that the light was switched on, which meant she was shielded.

Who had put a thought catcher there? Her father? Brother? And why?

Monroe ran a palm over his face, catching her scent. His forehead rested against the window before he realized he was leaning. Fuck, she did that to him—stole his mind.

After whirling from the view of the city lights, he strode into his bedroom. The space was small and cozy. The cotton coverlet on the bed a number five. The wooden bed frame slightly higher. Quiet numbers to help him rest.

He stripped off his clothes and kicked them into a heap in the corner. The cooler air on his skin should have slaked his passion, but it did nothing.

A sharp banging on the door downstairs made him jerk. Automatically he sent out his mind.

“Keefe, go the fuck home.”

His friend paced before the door, looking up at the windows of Monroe’s apartment.
“Can’t. Time to do your job, man.”

“Fuck,” he said softly. Falling into bed and forgetting about the frozen Mindchangers—about Magda—seemed the best idea. But he couldn’t sleep while someone needed him.

When he reached for a fresh set of clothes, Keefe loosed a low laugh.

By the time the sun rose over the jagged cityscape of Helgedom, Monroe was no longer hungry. But his cravings were stronger than ever as he sat in the SUV parked outside the campus building where Magda worked.

While he had no intention of showing himself, he’d felt the need to set eyes on her just to make sure she was okay. When she climbed out of Elijah’s car, Monroe’s gaze locked on to her like a Free Will’s feeler on a vulnerable mind.

She twisted toward the building, sapphire eyes uplifted, a smile curving her lips.

Monroe saw
it
—her dream from the previous night. Her mind spilled open to him, the contents as sweet and ripe as forbidden fruit.

A field of nodding poppies, the high grasses brushing her bare thighs as she crossed to him. The low buzz of bees and the sun beating down on her bright head. The slippery sway of her hips revealing her want.

Juices oozing from her folds, dark lust a coil in her belly. “What do you want from me, Mindchanger?”

He rose from the grass, extended a hand to her, and she twined her fingers into his as he reeled her into his arms. His hard body against hers, stoking the flames of her desire. She slid her arms around his neck, and he kissed her with a dizzying possession.

As he chased her tongue, she moaned, her nipples so hard, throbbing in time to her heart. He ground against her, pushing his erection into her pussy. Then the dream sped up, and they were rolling nude as the bees hummed softly and his cock slipped in and out of her tight sheath.

One.

Monroe’s heart seized around the number that tipped into his consciousness from her dream—a number ripped from her mind.

Confusion barreling through his system, he snapped his hands into fists. He stared at the woman who’d dreamed of them making love. Her brain was a steel trap, giving up nothing besides that dream.

Except…

She’d fingered her pussy last night before falling asleep.

Slowly, he ran his tongue along the roof of his mouth, hungry for a taste. Just one.

One.

Her number—the code that made up her being. It had to be wrong. The Free Wills must have stolen her number—something he’d never encountered before. No one—human or Mindchanger—had a number so pure. Not even the first leaf in God’s world had been a one.

Black forms swarmed out of nowhere, swallowing the bright head Monroe kept locked in his gaze.

“Goddamn it,” he roared and kicked open the door of his SUV. The engine silenced behind him as he raced toward Magda.

Students screamed and scattered around the three Free Wills and their victim. Magda was on the ground, her arm in a wrenching grasp, and the bastard was looking into her eyes.

Stealing from her
. How was it possible? Monroe couldn’t touch her, but the Free Wills could because they’d drunk from her before?

For the second time in two days, Monroe threw his mind. Every ounce of his energy he poured into the fight. Molecules froze. Humans stilled with mouths open in screams of horror or paused midstep as they fled the scene.

“Magda!”

Her thought was frozen in the air between her and the Free Will. Half of it had disappeared into the evil bastard.
Fuck, it was part of her dream.

Now this son of a bitch would know that not only was Monroe protecting her, but that they were emotionally connected.

Yeah, time to admit that to myself
. It was too late to try to extricate himself. She was as much a part of his makeup as the number one was part of hers.

He sent a brutal kick to the frozen Free Will’s chest. Ribs cracked under his boot.

Magda winced and jerked one hand up to shield herself.

Monroe gripped her waist and yanked her off the ground. Grass clippings clung to her, smelling as fresh as her dream. With her lush body plastered to his, he didn’t bother to resist. He claimed her mouth.

She opened to him, and he swallowed her cry. Emotion bled from her, which he devoured even as he delved into her mouth with his tongue. Cock painfully swollen, he resisted the urge to toss her down and take her right here while the immediate world was frozen.

A breathy sigh washed across his lips. With a growl, he went in for more. He drank deeply, then delivered short, shallow flicks that maddened him. She dug her nails into his shoulders, her whole body straining against him.

He lashed an arm around her waist and hitched her higher. Instead of squirming away from his obvious arousal, she pressed tighter. Monroe slipped his hand around her nape to cup the base of her skull where her brain’s center lived. He should be using the time to get away from the campus with Magda, but dammit, in another minute he might sink into her mind and drink.

Beneath his fingers, he detected the whir of activity controlling the beat of her heart, her breathing, her ability to blink.

One.

Yes, it was there, bright and shimmering.

Mine.

Flexing at the knees, he scooped her into his arms. After snapping back his engrossed mind, he followed the trail of a single neuron of a Free Will’s brain. Soon the enemies would recover from the boom, and he was too weak to throw another.

He stared into Magda’s eyes, his feelers extending automatically. Her head fell back as if allowing him to drink, but he could do nothing more than probe the edges of her thoughts, which were filled with as much passion as her gaze. He still couldn’t drink from her, but those bastards could. The idea made him grind his teeth.

“Trust me.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He took off for the SUV, streaking around frozen humans on their way to classes. In their midst stood the man who had lain with her, Nick Hart.

His steps slowed without conscious decision.

Magda’s gaze darted to the professor.

“Before I go further with you, is there something you want to tell him?” Monroe asked.

The answer was clear in her mind. Yes, she needed to stop seeing Nick, had wanted to for weeks. If she was with Monroe, it was only right to break up with Nick.

“Put me down.”

Monroe let her slide down his body until she stood on her high heels. With a single glance, Monroe dug deep into Nick’s mind and saw that he wasn’t that serious about Magda, and what she was about to do wouldn’t really hurt him.

Monroe concentrated on the man until Nick’s eyelids fluttered. All at once, he was mobile as if he’d broken free of a glacier.

Before Nick could look around, Magda placed a hand on his forearm. Monroe found himself staring at those ivory digits, hating that the pair was so familiar.

“Nick, I’ve wanted to talk to you about this for a while.”

His dark gaze ran over Magda. “What’s happening?”

“This talk is happening,” she said. “I don’t want to see you outside of the classroom anymore, Nick.”

“Wait…you’re dumping me?”

She smoothed her hand over his arm again, and Monroe locked his fists to his sides to keep from hurling the man through the glass front of the auditorium.

“We were never right for each other, no matter what my brother said.”

Nick reached for her, but Monroe saw his intention to touch Magda before he could act. With a hard push of his now-hungry mind, Monroe stopped Nick’s momentum, freezing him once more.

Magda tossed Monroe a look. “That was necessary?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “I never do anything that isn’t necessary.”

“Will he at least remember the conversation?”

“Oh yes,” Monroe said, probing the man’s mind, “he remembers every word. Now come on.”

With a hasty glance at the Free Wills, Monroe grabbed her hand and hauled her across the last stretch of parking lot to the SUV. When he had her locked in and safely away from the Free Wills, he breathed a bit more easily. But their close calls were just beginning. Free Wills wouldn’t give up once they trained sights on a target. And obviously Magda was delicious to them on a primal level. Part of her still belonged to them after they’d drunk from her in childhood.

He shot off into the street and turned to her. Wanting to claim her swollen lips, he demanded, “Tell me your parentage.”

“My…” She twisted in the seat to face him, one knee hitched up at an angle to reveal the shadow under her skirt. Damn, did she never wear anything but provocative clothing?

“Why don’t you dress in maxiskirts and long shirts like the other artsy types I’ve encountered?”

She shook her head, stumbling over his change in questioning.

He held up a hand. “Never mind. Now your father. Where is he from?”

“Italy.”

“What about his father? Any supernaturals in your family?”

“No.” A crease formed between her long red brows.

“You’re sure?”

“Well, I’ve never met the entire family, but I’m pretty certain.”

Rounding a corner at a neck-breaking speed, Monroe plucked an image of her relative from her thoughts. “Your uncle Vincent lives on the other side of Helgedom.”

“That’s right. I don’t see him very often anymore.”

“But you used to when you were small. Your father held secret meetings.”

At that she blushed five shades of red, beginning with a charming baby pink and ending with a scorching brick. Perspiration broke out on her hairline. He couldn’t contain the soft sound of wanting that broke from his throat.

“Magda, I can see you aren’t one of those who wish to wipe my race from the earth.”

She placed her warm hand on his forearm. Finally. “I don’t think you’re bad, Monroe.”

“I’ll never hurt you.”

She searched his face, her eyes fever bright. “You saw the dream.”

“Yes.” He dragged the word through a throat that made him sound as if he’d gargled his throwing stars.

Some of the color in her face had dissipated, but now her cheeks flamed hotter than ever. He took pity on her and changed the subject again. “And what do you know of your mother?”

She blinked. Looked away. “She was killed when I was seven.”

About the time her memories begin
. Not entirely unusual, but…

“And her background? Human?”

Magda nodded. “Entirely.”
Do you think my father would have married a Mindchanger?

He grunted. “Her family has no trace of our race in their roots?”