Cross Council Page 29

  Chapter 2

  “I never thought I’d see the day when you actually walked down the aisle, my friend,” Jordan clapped Marcus on the shoulder affectionately.

  Damian gave a silent sigh from the back of the limousine. It was the fourth or fifth time that Jordan had said the same words this evening, but Marcus wasn’t going to begrudge his old friend’s slurring taunts. It was Marcus’s bachelor party and Jordan had gone all out, so Marcus was inclined to let his best friend’s jibes slide. In any case, Marcus was just this side of slurring drunk himself.

  The limousine was stocked with a full bar. The first clubs they went to all had specialty drinks. At this point they’d settled down into beer and shooters. It all added up to a lot of alcohol and Damian was having to work hard to metabolize it quickly enough to keep his head from spinning off his neck. On his native world, he’d had to imbibe generously at the parties and he’d learned how to use quiet moments to keep up with even the heaviest drinkers.

  “He’s going to be stumbling down the aisle if we keep this up.” Zack let his head drop back on a cushion of the limo seat like a dog with floppy ears.

  “Non-sense,” Jordan proclaimed, poking a finger dramatically through the open sunroof. “We still have three more strip clubs to hit before we call it a night, right Marcus?”

  “You’ve already outdone the five clubs I took you to,” Marcus grumbled, referring to the bachelor party he’d thrown for Jordan a few months back. Damian had heard the horror stories from Greg. At least Marcus had spread the clubs over a week.

  “Double or nothing, my friend,” Jordan declared, his eyes wicked with the challenge. “Nothing less will do for my best friend! Seven down and three to go!”

  “I’m not going to make it,” Zack protested with a sloppy grin.

  “You can’t leave yet,” Jordan wheedled. “You’re the last one left!”

  “I’m still here,” Damian groaned out softly.

  Greg and Pete had bailed three clubs ago. Damian thought they’d had the right idea, but a prince did not go home until the party was over. It was something that coming of age on the Procession had ingrained too deeply in Damian. The Procession on his native world was a travelling campaign trail for the princes and it brought festivals and holidays to every town it visited. Always an overachiever, Damian wasn’t about to lower his standards just because he was on another plane of existence.

  “We thought you’d passed out already, old man,” Jordan called out as if Damian were blocks away instead of mere feet. Damian wasn’t physically older than Jordan or Marcus, but Jordan considered the term “old man” a term of respect for Damian’s knowledge and power. He had a reputation to uphold.

  “I’m conserving my strength,” Damian cracked one eye open to glare at them. “These rituals of yours are for testing one’s manhood and I refuse to let the two of you best me at them. I’ll quit when you quit and not a moment before then.”

  Zack chuckled at Damian, brushing a sandy hank of hair out of his eyes. “I feel like I’m rushing a fraternity.”

  “Nah,” Jordan joked. “You’re already a full-fledged member of PSI Consulting.”

  “I’d hate to see the initiation now,” Marcus muttered. Their little company had gone from being minor psychics to throwing fireballs in the living room. For two months they’d all been practicing “magic” and Marcus had been practicing ducking.

  “Hmm,” Jordan pretended to muse seriously on the idea. “Rush week would include tests on calling lightning, mind reading, and dimension hopping. Weak of spirit need not apply.”

  “It’s worse than the summer you talked me into playing that game with twenty-sided dice,” Marcus groaned. A year ago the world had been a normal place for Marcus. Sure, he and Jordan had been chasing psychic cheaters in the casinos and putting the finishing touches on an underground home worthy of masked crime fighters, but Damian knew that Marcus had never imagined that it would turn into this. Damian wondered how much longer Marcus’s loyalty to Jordan would override his distaste for magic. Probably forever, Damian admitted to himself.

  “Isn’t a fraternity for men only?” Damian protested.

  “Yeah,” Zack agreed. “Rianna would chew us all out if we started calling PSI Consulting a frat.”

  “Just one more club,” Jordan slipped an arm around Zack’s shoulders and squeezed. “You don’t really want to miss Cheaters, do you?”

  “Ah, let the boy go, Jordan,” Damian drawled lazily in a voice muffled by his arm over his face.

  “I’m not a boy,” Zack responded predictably.

  Marcus hid a smile and shook his head at Damian. Damian noticed. His arm covered his face and eyes, but Damian noticed Marcus shake his head. They had a deal for the night. No magic. But it didn’t take magic for Damian to manipulate the inebriated Zack or see Marcus shake his head.

  “I’ll do Cheaters but that’s the end for me. After Cheaters, you guys can drop me off at the Lair on your way to whatever you’re hitting next.”

  If this had been a dangerous situation, Jordan would have been the first to try to send their youngest team member home. He was protective of the kid, though he technically wasn’t a kid. They’d almost lost him in the last fight. Damian had been working hard with them so that they wouldn’t be caught off guard like that again.

  “What are the girls doing tonight?” Damian asked, wondering if he should have tried the female version of this ritual instead.

  “Audrey took Tiara and Rianna to a spa for the full treatment,” Marcus answered. “Their plan was to hit the spa today and end up with a slumber party back at Rianna’s old apartment.”

  “Too tame,” Jordan complained, but his eyes darkened. It wasn’t often that Jordan left his new wife’s side, but Audrey was watching over them.

  Damian wondered how much of Jordan’s purposeful immersion into this inebriated ritual was Jordan forcing himself to trust Audrey with his wife. Before Audrey had come to Vegas, Jordan and Marcus had struggled to contain Tiara’s madness. Damian had at least managed to put a name to what was happening to her, but even his magic couldn’t teach her to control it. Only Audrey could manage to hold Tiara in on her own.

  “No contacting them!” Marcus grumped. “I have one night of normal. No telepathic check-ins, remember?”

  “They’re fine,” Damian assured Jordan.

  “You either!” Marcus insisted.

  “I can feel them without telepathy and they seem happy,” Damian asserted. “I’m not adept at ignoring my magic. It’s just not in my nature.”

  “I can shut it off for you,” Marcus warned. He wanted one night. Just one night without all the fireballs, lightning and mental whispering of the PSI Consulting crew. Marcus could and did shut them down when it got too loud or rowdy. It was Marcus’s one true psychic talent.

  Damian had been toying with the idea that he could shut Marcus’s powers down with sheer brute strength. Tiara had done it once, but no one talked about that. Marcus needed to know that he could enforce reality. So Damian left Marcus his illusions. He just wished that Marcus would consent to train those powers with them.

  “We got it,” Jordan said, raising his hands in submission. “No magic until after the wedding.”

  “Which is fourteen hours from now,” Damian said, checking his watch.

  The limousine pulled up to the curb in front of Cheaters. The whole building was painted black with red scrawls that suggested the lewd activities inside without disobeying city ordinances that prohibited blatant sexual displays in public. A great set of neon signs flashed full lips that pulsed red and the proud purple name that just said “Cheaters.” The parking lot couldn’t have held the long limousine, much less parked it, so the driver gave them a pager number to use when they wanted him to return. The four unlikely friends staggered, glided, and caroused their way into the front door of the noisy strip club.

  They didn’t have thi
s type of establishment on the Weaver’s world. Sexual activities were performed behind closed doors. Damian felt out of his element but he was too well-trained to show it.

  Cheaters thrummed with music that threatened to knock the four men back out the door. Damian laid a hand on Marcus’s shoulder and winked as he slid past him to find a table near the action. Damian glided so sensuously into the room that even the jaded strippers took note of his entrance. Marcus lumbered behind Damian, looking more like the bodyguard than the guest of honor. The four of them settled into a table near the center stage.

  Jordan rounded with a booming voice to point at Marcus. “It’s his last night of freedom ladies, and I’m buying, so show him a good time.” Jordan slipped the waitress a wad of bills to start a tab, and waved more cash at the half-naked women on the stage. “I’ll give a hundred bucks to the first woman to make him as red as I just did.” Then Jordan laughed and Marcus groaned.

  It was exactly what Jordan had done in each of the strip joints they’d visited but Marcus still wasn’t drunk enough to keep back the flush of embarrassment at being the center of attention. Zack laughed, fishing his ID out of his pocket as the waitress got the drink orders. Damian leaned back on two legs of his chair and grinned the lazy smile of a jungle cat.

  Unlike the other clubs, long legs in a short skirt sauntered from the bar to where Marcus had just sat down. It was obvious that she only had eyes for Marcus with only the barest glance at the hundred dollar bill in Jordan’s hand. Marcus tensed and twisted on his chair to face her. Damian knew that Marcus wasn’t interested in cheating on Rianna. Long legs weren’t going to tempt Marcus into blushing much less cheating.

  “This ought to be good,” Zack whispered into Damian’s ear, pulling his attention away from the long-legged woman.

  Marcus and Rianna were mated, and while that didn’t mean as much on this world as it did on the Weaver’s world, they were devoted to one another without the ceremony that would be performed tomorrow. Damian didn’t resent the union, even though he and Rianna had come close to having a fling of their own. Damian envied the bond. It was a bond he yearned for and was seriously worried that he would never find.

  “My money’s on Marcus,” Zack said, elbowing Damian.

  “I wouldn’t bet against him,” Damian agreed, sending a playful jab back at Zack.

  The woman from the bar paused beside Marcus until she was sure she had his attention. She leaned down and Marcus found himself eye to eye with some impressive cleavage. Damian wasn’t watching closely. He just didn’t care. The woman leaned in, whispered something in Marcus’s ear, nuzzled his neck and plucked the hundred dollar bill from Jordan’s hand as she strode back to the bar without a backward glance. Damian never even saw her face.

  “Score one for the electrified hot chick,” Zack declared, jostling Damian. Damian and Zack goggled playfully at each other, as much to rib Marcus as true surprise.

  Marcus turned four shades of red. The crowd that was normally the lurking, late night sulkers roared with approval as she sauntered back to the bar tucking that hundred dollar bill into that ample cleavage. If there hadn’t been mostly naked women writhing on the stages, the scene could have come straight out of a late night at a festival on Damian’s old world. The nostalgia had him thinking of that world in a way he hadn’t for months.

  “See?” Jordan crowed with laughter. “I told you that you didn’t want to miss Cheaters!”

  Marcus glared at Jordan, grinding his teeth to keep from laughing with them as the heat rose all the way up to the dark roots of his buzz cut hair. The waitress delivered their four bottles of beer with chasers and the laughter was still burbling. Marcus downed his chaser first. Then he threw back Jordan and Zack’s chasers too. Damian handed him the last chaser, but he took a swig from his own beer instead. Marcus was watching Jordan’s laughter suspiciously.

  “You know her,” Marcus accused as the club settled back toward its normal seedy nature. Marcus knew Jordan so well that he knew a setup when he saw one. Damian and Zack both turned to Jordan expectantly.

  “Okay, yeah, by proxy,” Jordan admitted, taking a long pull of beer to stall having to tell the rest. When Marcus continued to glare, Jordan relented. “She’s the newest manager of the club. Her name’s Cyn. I knew her predecessor, Maggie. The gal I knew has moved on to another job, but when I called, Cyn said she’d honor an old favor for Maggie. I warned her we’d be coming and she said she’d keep an eye out for us. I didn’t know she’d do that though. What did she say?”

  Marcus gave Jordan a mean smile as his only response. The whole table laughed as Jordan shot glances back and forth between Marcus and the bar where Cyn was gloating. Damian and Zack ducked their heads and snickered with each other earning a snarl from Jordan. Damian didn’t usually goggle or snicker but his alcohol levels were high enough that he played along with the mood and ignored the morose tension that was building in him.

  “That’s cold man,” Jordan mocked Marcus.

  “Actually, not the way she said it,” Marcus shot back.

  Marcus broke into a good-natured smile behind his beer. Damian noticed and turned away to keep his own expression from giving it away. Jordan turned his attention to the stage with a lazy shrug. There was a relaxed set to Jordan’s shoulders that Damian rarely got to see.

  The stripper on their side of the stage was ruffling Zack’s hair and trying casually to get closer to what she considered the men with the money. Jordan handed a roll of small bills to Zack. The stripper’s eyes followed the money and she gave Zack her full attention. The exchange of goods for sexual stimulation was unheard of in the Weaver’s world. Scanning the strippers’ surface minds casually, Damian understood why.

  Damian turned back to the table to find Marcus’s eyes on him. Marcus was brooding. Kidding aside, Marcus didn’t like Damian. Marcus didn’t understand how Rianna had turned away from Damian’s charms and into Marcus’s arms. Even when Damian had showed Marcus the power of mating bonds, Marcus was unconvinced that Damian would not spirit Rianna away at the first opportunity.

  Damian turned to smile at a stripper that was on another stage, trying to diffuse Marcus’s brooding. The stages were set up so that three prongs of the stage reached out like fingers into the scattered chairs and tables. Each of the casual tables was next to a stage with a row of semi-private booths along the walls and a bar set against the back wall. They sat at a table at the end of the middle stage. The stripper Damian was eyeing rubbed herself against a pole on the right stage. It amazed him that her eyes could be so glazed with boredom while her body writhed in a mockery of sensual pleasure. If Damian had taken a woman like that to bed, he’d have done it merely for the challenge of knocking the glaze off those dead eyes.

  Damian could feel Marcus’s eyes on him. Damian didn’t normally show an interest in the women of this world. For one, there wasn’t time with all the training they’d been doing. For another, the women here didn’t understand flings like Damian did. It would be hurtful to them when he casually moved on.

  “Interested?” Marcus prodded Damian bluntly, tipping his beer in the direction of the stripper on the right stage.

  “Maybe for a night or two,” Damian smiled knowingly.

  “She’s not it?” Marcus asked.

  “No,” Damian sniffed a brief chuckle.

  Damian eyed Marcus for a brief moment then took another drink of his beer and relaxed into the buzz. “I’ve told all of you my darkest secret.” Damian considered how to phrase his next statement and chose to allow Marcus to see the bitterness in his eyes. “My mate didn’t exist, they told me.”

  Marcus snorted a bit of disbelief and Damian internally rolled his eyes at the man’s obtuseness.

  “I’ve been looking in some of your books lately for a way to explain the magic of my world and I have found your science very revealing,” Damian warmed to the subject. “On this world, it would be ca
lled natural selection. Genetically, certain people are more prone to mate successfully. When you find a person who is a genetically complimentary person, you are compelled instinctually to bond with that person.

  “I believe it validates your feelings with scientific facts. You and Rianna are well matched genetically for procreation. This doesn’t sadden your love for one another, but rather validates it as more than mere whim.”

  “But not for you,” Marcus’s brow creased.

  “No,” Damian admitted. Damian rolled his bottle between his palms. “My reading was flawed.”

  A wealth of pain was written in the single word flawed. Damian had been considered flawed on his old world. He’d gone from being a Prince to being branded as a traitor. Audrey had removed the magical tags on Damian but she couldn’t heal the brand on his heart.

  “I was young and inexperienced in detecting lies,” Damian shrugged. “You saw Chianti’s reading when I took you back into my memories. She went through the motions, but the magic didn’t engage or reach out. I was suspicious at first, but after another dozen readings, I realized that I was such a misfit in my own world that nature itself didn’t bother to set a mate for me. In the world of science here, I would be considered a bad candidate for marriage. Oprah would say that I have commitment issues.”

  In that memory sphere, Marcus had seen into Damian’s world and his life on the Weaver’s world. Damian had many children. He just didn’t have a mate. Marcus knew these things but he wouldn’t let it sink in.

  Marcus and Damian let the bawdy music fill the silence between them for three or four sips of beer. Damian searched for a way to make it more clear. Marcus had seen the woman’s torture and death first-hand in a memory sphere. He should understand, but he didn’t.

  Damian didn’t get drunk often and they weren’t exactly drinking buddies. Damian was too busy teaching and too driven to take much time off. Damian knew that alcohol blurred his magic, put fuzzy edges on it so that he couldn’t grasp the precision necessary for some of the more complicated spells.

  Marcus wasn’t a happy drunk. He took after his father. Damian had peeked. He shouldn’t have, but he’d glanced into Marcus’s memory of his father when Greg had outed Jordan and Marcus’s deep dark secrets. Marcus’s father had been a mean, abusive drunk. Marcus struggled to keep his drunkenness just mean.

  “Others of my old world,” Damian glanced over Marcus’s shoulder as if he could see his old world there, “they know something of their beloved. When they are ready to settle down, they simply seek out their other half. Eyes meet, the bond is set at that moment and sealed with what equates to a kiss on this world.”

  Damian’s bitter laugh said that he didn’t believe he would find his mate here or anywhere. Marcus had believed that Damian hadn’t pursued Rianna because Damian hadn’t felt the bond between them, but that wasn’t the truth. The only reason that Damian hadn’t played the field with Rianna was an honor that was rare in any world. Some part of Marcus knew that, but Marcus was drunk enough to forget.

  “Well then, how do you know that the stripper over there isn’t her?” Marcus’s words were wrapped in a nasty growl. They both knew that Marcus wasn’t asking about the stripper, but rather how Damian knew that Rianna wasn’t his mate. It wasn’t the first time Marcus had asked the question. It probably wouldn’t be the last.

  Damian leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees and gazing sincerely into Marcus’s eyes so there could be no mistaking his sincerity. “When mates meet, their eyes lock onto one another and a bond is formed. That bond is unmistakable and has physical feelings to it that are something that a man and woman respond to instinctually. That bond completely wipes the desire for others, even casually, from the mates’ minds. That pain begins to build. The pain escalates until the bond is consummated.”

  “You what, you meet a woman and have to have sex with her as soon as you can?” Marcus persisted.

  “Consummating is both simple and complicated. A kiss, a brush of the hand, a common submission to Fate within each other’s eyes, and ultimately, yes, sex,” Damian leaned back and drank, trying to wash away the bitterness that talking of his old world left on him. “I showed you the one woman I knew who tried to deny the bond. She refused to consummate.”

  Marcus blew a breath out over the rim of his beer bottle making it hoot eerily. Marcus set his beer down nervously. Seeing it in some dream or memory didn’t make it true to him. He’d convinced himself that Damian had exaggerated.

  Damian paused, at a loss for words. “Imagine how you would feel if you were forced to walk away from Rianna,” Damian challenged Marcus.

  Marcus huffed defiantly. Jordan and Zack were both pretending not to be listening, but Damian knew better. Damian grasped at a memory from Jordan’s mind to explain more explicitly.

  “Imagine that the worlds parted irreparably and she was on the other side of a chasm too large to cross,” Damian’s hypnotic voice washed the feeling over Marcus. “Now imagine that she is in danger and you cannot save her. Harry stands beside her with a knife to her throat…”

  Marcus growled and pushed back from Damian and his sick words. Marcus saw red. Damian wanted him to. Damian pushed. Perhaps he was picking up on Marcus’s mean drunk. Generally Damian was a happy drunk, but Marcus’s poking and prodding was pushing him too far. To Marcus, it wasn’t comfortable and it wasn’t real so he didn’t have to think about it. Damian made him think about it for a moment more before tuning it down.

  “That feeling you have right now is a form of pain,” Damian explained with a casual flick of his hand, releasing Marcus from the hypnotic trance. “It isn’t much right now, but it wears into you. Adrenaline is pumping so you don’t feel the brunt of it, but over time the adrenaline recedes and all that is left is pain. It is an emotional pain that escalates into physical pain. Those are your instincts that produce chemical reactions in your body.”

  Marcus shook off the feeling with difficulty.

  Damian looked up at Marcus and shook his head. “On my old world, this type of instinct is magnified. Walking away from a mate breaks your heart. That is a symbolic and mostly emotional reaction here, but on my old world the feeling is much more physical and irresistible.”

  It was easy for them to forget that Damian’s normally easy-going manner hid a ruthless heart of steel forged in the harsh rules of his old world. Damian normally smiled and bantered, his good humor unflappable. Damian did not brood. Marcus was the brooder.

  “I only tell you these things so that you may understand the seriousness of the bonds from my old world,” Damian hooked one elbow lazily over the back of his chair, smiling again as if he hadn’t just relived the worst nightmare of his life. “What you generally have the choice to ignore in this world is much more demanding in the Weaver’s world. Scientifically, one could say that my old world, having honed magic and intuition, is more slaved to instinct than this world is.”

  Jordan caught Damian’s eye and tried to sympathize. Jordan raised an eyebrow and Damian nodded. Damian had showed them the woman he had killed on his old world. They might all understand, but Damian had never forgiven himself for failing her.

  “Rianna is yours as long as the two of you choose. This is a foreign thing for me. Perhaps I will get to choose my mate as you and Jordan have done. Perhaps in this new world I am free from the bonds of my old one. Maybe that is why they did not or could not find a mate for me at my matchmaking ceremony.”

  Damian knew that Marcus and Jordan had a few stories almost as morbid in their own shaded past. He could see the wheels turning in Marcus’s mind. The brooding was broken slightly by the intrusion of the waitress who set down a new round of drinks. Marcus and Damian each took up a shot, clinked glasses and downed it together. Jordan tapped his shot on the table, looked Damian in the eyes and downed his own glass too. Once more Marcus had put off his distrust, but it would likely
return in the fog of morning. Damian wondered if Marcus would ever trust him.

  Damian glanced over to find Zack quickly turn back to ogling the stripper who cheerfully took his handful of money one bill at a time. They all treaded softly around the man they thought had the power to destroy them. Damian knew that he might have the power, but he didn’t have the black heart. The Weavers stripped away his home, his social standing, his family and friends, but they hadn’t taken his honor. He hadn’t become an Assassin.

  “In honor of our bachelor tonight, we have a special performance by none other than the golden lamb herself,” the manager’s voice announced over the sound system.

  The world did not stop for these moments, Damian mused to himself trying to buck up out of the negative mindset he’d allowed to cloak him. The world continued around them as if nothing could change the inevitable normality of this world’s humanity. For one moment Damian had the image of a cage of lambs sitting with a lion or two in their midst and yet continuing to gnaw on the grass of normality while the lions yawned. He shook it off. Omens were the last thing he needed now.

  “Please welcome Gilda to the stage,” the manager’s silky voice continued with a dramatic flourish.

  “I’ll be right back. It’s been so long since I’ve been inebriated that I fear the buzzing of this world’s alcohol is interfering with my magic.” Damian excused himself to the restroom as the newest stripper moved onto the stage.

  “You okay old man?” Jordan stopped Damian with a serious look only slightly fuzzy from the huge amount of alcohol they’d all consumed by this point.

  “Just a buzzing in my ears,” Damian said, waving off Jordan’s concern with a casual smile that he knew didn’t reach his eyes. “Nothing a splash of cold water on the face won’t fix.”

  Marcus deliberately watched the newest stripper as if doing so could turn back the conversation. Gilda was dressed as a nun in a full habit that had the audience booing. She had her hands piously folded in front of her and pretended distress at the booing crowd’s lewd catcalls. Her feigned piety turned to annoyance and anger as she pulled a ruler from some hidden pocket and threatened those nearest to her. This brought laughter and spurred more crass catcalls as she shuffled up and down the right stage.

  Now that Damian had left, Marcus tried harder to shrug off the mean drunk. The jealously wouldn’t shake loose when the man was around. Marcus hoped that two weeks alone with Rianna would begin to shake it loose. She was marrying him, not the sex god. He shouldn’t continue to hold it over Damian’s head. Marcus focused on the entertainment. All this self-analysis didn’t sit well with him.

  When Gilda got back to the main stage, she threw her head back as if one of the catcalls had shocked her silly. The headpiece of the nun outfit fell off her head revealing a long mass of thick golden hair. Now that she’d lost the headdress, she shook her hair out, dropped the ruler and clutched her hair in a way that fluffed it. Her hands went from her hair to her face and down to the collar of the habit. The habit tore off in one large dump of fabric just before she started down the left side of the stage.

  Marcus found himself caught up in her playful routine, letting it and the beer relax him again. Now she was a schoolmarm complete with thick glasses and a long, straight gray skirt. The thin ruffled white blouse was tight against her bulging breasts but demurely covered her as well as the habit had. Halfway down the left stage, she pretended to stumble on the skirt in such a way that it tore from her to reveal a very short schoolgirl’s skirt that matched perfectly with the white blouse, even as it also exuded an entirely different image from the strict schoolmarm. She grinned and scrunched her nose at the men who were practically drooling at her now.

  She scurried back up the left side to return to the puddled habit as if she were looking for lost homework. Marcus laughed with her as she now pretended that she’d lost something in the mass of folds of the nun costume. She bent over and wiggled her bottom, showing off modest white panties under the short plaid skirt to each side of the room as she rummaged around for the ruler or something she’d left there before. Marcus didn’t think anyone cared about what she’d actually been looking for by the time she was done.

  When she couldn’t find what she was looking for in the nun’s costume, she got down on hands and knees and began foraging behind the main curtain. All the eyes in the place were glued to that artfully wiggling bottom. Finally she turned around with what looked like a bouquet of balloons in her arms. She struggled clumsily to get on her feet and ended up kicking off her saddle shoes and tugging off the pristine white bobby socks around the balloons that remained clutched to her chest.

  When she made her way down the middle stage for her finale, she was the shy schoolgirl, carrying the balloons like school books. Again she feigned that clumsy attitude and fell flat on her bottom, legs spread in front of her. As she fell, she must have done something that managed to pop all the balloons at once, because they burst their water all over the thin white shirt. From that point, she very practically removed all her wet clothes while she writhed down the center stage pretending to slip and slide on the water from the balloons. For all that she was pretending clumsiness, she was more alluring than all the sinuous movements of the other dancers.

  By the time she’d slithered to their table, she was down to a g-string and lacy bra. Sitting casually in front of Marcus, she unhooked the bra and shyly handed the end of the strap to him. As if she was the shy virgin and he the star of the football team in their parent’s basement, her big deep green eyes stared into his and the rest of the world seemed to drop away.

  “It seems I’ve gotten all wet,” she cooed at him, emerald eyes blinking innocently. “My bra is clinging to me like a second skin. Will you help me take it off?”

  Marcus took the strap she handed to him between two fingers. Feigning innocent dismay, Gilda glided away from him, the bra peeling off with a sticky slurp. Two perfect mounds with beggingly attentive nipples jiggled out to obscure all else from Marcus’s vision. For one breathless instant, Marcus felt himself harden, captivated despite his love of Rianna. The moment was over as soon as she turned her attention to Jordan. Marcus found himself in possession of a dripping lacy blue bra and shook his head a little to clear it. He closed his slack jaw and tried to shake the awe from his booze-addled brain.

  “Um, I gotta--” Zack broke the moment as he turned a sickly green and rushed to the bathroom.

  Jordan laughed at Zack’s retreating back and at Marcus’s stricken face. He laughed until the stripper named Gilda made it back to the main stage. Then the light of laughter on Jordan’s face traded itself for one of surprise. The realization came slower due to their alcohol laden heads, but they were drunk, not dead or stupid. The ping of recognition flared. Marcus rolled his eyes at Jordan and the two exchanged knowing looks.

  “A little too real?” Jordan asked.

  “A little too vivid,” Marcus nodded.

  “One of us?” Marcus asked.

  “Probably,” Jordan nodded.

  “Tonight?” Marcus moaned with as close to a whine as his low timbered voice could achieve.

  “I think so,” Jordan nodded. “We don’t want to chance waiting until you get back from your honeymoon. She’s just started the business but it’s a tough one. Two weeks of an empath projecting sex to a crowd of horny guys?” That thought had Marcus wincing. Gilda was like a walking date-rape drug. “We can’t leave her here.”

  “You could bring Damian in tomorrow,” Marcus suggested weakly, knowing they wouldn’t.

  “He doesn’t know the drill, yet,” Jordan replied, reaching for his beer automatically and then pushing it away consciously before he took a drink. It was a little late to be thinking of going into this sober, but he didn’t need to make it worse. “Besides, if she throws a fit like Rianna did, he can’t shut her down like you can, buddy.”

  “Now?” Marcus whined again. “We’re
not exactly dressed to impress a new recruit.”

  It was true. They’d dressed for comfort over fashion. It was something you could do in most places in Vegas since the overall dress code rarely got stricter than the no shirt, no shoes, no service rule. They were all in sneakers, jeans and casual shirts. Jordan’s casual was a navy blue polo shirt. Damian wore a long-sleeved dress shirt hanging open over a black t-shirt. Marcus wore a tight, sleeveless t-shirt. He had another casual shirt he’d worn over it, but he’d left it in the limo. Zack was his own guy in a plaid flannel work shirt.

  “Zack is quite ready to go home now, having lost half the alcohol he’s consumed into the toilet,” Damian interrupted their silent communication as he sat back down at the table. “I came to suggest that we swing by the Lair on our way to the next club.”

  “Here,” Jordan handed the pager for the limo to Damian. “Call the limousine back for him and it can come back here when it’s through dropping Zack off. We’ll be staying for a bit.”

  Damian blinked, only now sensing that the situation had changed. He’d been so wrapped up in his own memories that his read of them had been slow. Damian had to admit that he was more drunk than he’d let on. He normally didn’t miss things. That buzzing in his head hadn’t diminished either. Jordan and Damian were watching him closely.

  “What did I miss?” Damian keyed in the number for the limo as he asked the question. One thing that Damian had picked up on quickly in this world was cell phones and everything like them. Not much need for them on a world that included telepaths, but Damian liked the mechanical precision that didn’t include any practice or thought to manipulate.

  “We’ll fill you in when Zack is safely in the limo,” Jordan said, all business now that the need had arisen. “You and Marcus can get him to the limo and I’ll go talk to Cyn about Gilda.”

  They might sway. They might wobble. But they were a team and they didn’t get to pick when they would need to be on the job. They’d do the job, drunk or not. Damian hadn’t understood teamwork two months ago, but he was getting it. He fell into step with Jordan’s orders. Jordan headed to where Cyn still sat at the bar and Damian and Marcus went to fetch Zack.

  “Who’s Gilda?” Damian asked Marcus as they headed for the bathroom. “The stripper they were announcing when I left?”

  “Yeah,” Marcus nodded. “Let’s get Zack out of here then we can get this over with. Maybe this’ll convince Jordan to call it quits for the night.”

  “Get what over with?” Damian prodded Marcus now that Jordan was out of earshot.

  “The stripper, Gilda, was a psychic,” Marcus answered gruffly, as if that answered it all.

  “And it can’t wait until you’re home from your honeymoon?” Damian pulled on Marcus’s shoulder to stop him before they went into the restroom. “More than that, are we in any condition to face a new psychic? I’m not the only one buzzing.”

  “You think she’ll still be sane in two weeks when we get around to coming back?” Marcus asked, shrugging off Damian’s hand.

  They were set on this course. Damian recognized the closing of ranks between the two. Once they made a decision, they barreled into it shoulder to shoulder. Damian knew that he was expected to line up and take lessons on how they did things, but something felt wrong about this. Still, Jordan had been forced to take lessons from Damian. It wouldn’t do to baulk orders now that Jordan had the baton. At least that’s what Damian’s alcohol laden mind convinced himself.

  The bathrooms were in the back down a dark hallway behind the bar. Marcus shouldered his way through one scarred door with a bare grunt. Drunk or not, they were doing this thing tonight.

  “The gal that was on stage last,” Marcus explained to Damian. “Gilda or whatever her name was. She was projecting. She probably doesn’t even know she’s doing it.”

  “The stripper?” Zack croaked, staggering out of one of the bathroom stalls. “Yeah, that explains it. I always feel a little sick to my stomach when someone projects toward me.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Marcus teased, trying to get more cheerful and less resentful. “It couldn’t have been the barrel’s worth of alcohol you’ve guzzled tonight. It must have been the stripper pulling some psychic voodoo on you.”

  “It’s not voodoo, and she had a name,” Zack struggled for dignity as he stumbled to the sink to splash cold water on his face. “What was that name again?”

  “Gilda,” Damian supplied, rubbing the back of his neck with a frown. “We’ve called the limousine for you.”

  “Yeah, not that it’s her real name,” Marcus tore off a strip of paper towels and held them out for Zack. “Go ahead and take the limo back to the Lair. Party’s over anyway. Jordan and I are going to show Damian how we bring in someone new.”

  “I could help,” Zack managed to stand up straight as he took the paper towels and dried his face and hands.

  “No need, really,” Marcus forced a smile though a sigh. “We’ve got it covered.”

  Damian watched Marcus frown at the idea. There was some merit in it. Damian wasn’t about to intervene. He considered himself lucky that he was being allowed to stay and play with the big dogs, though if they’d “sent him home,” Damian would have stayed in the shadows and watched over them. They might be big dogs in this world, especially with all the training Damian had given them, but there were still exiles like Harry out there.

  “Jordan and I could do it with Damian as backup,” Zack suggested unaware that he was swaying where he stood. “That way you could go home and get some rest for tomorrow. Big day.”

  “I’m good,” Marcus almost laughed, but obviously thought better of it at the last minute. Zack looked and acted young but he could now manipulate fire better than the mythical dragons. Training had honed a natural talent.

  “Go home, Zack,” Damian filled in with diplomacy. “Let the old man keep these boys out of trouble. In any case, if something terrible happens, I don’t want to be the one to face the ladies tomorrow.”

  Marcus winced and Damian wondered if Marcus was starting to feel the foreboding that Damian was. Marcus had one other minor psychic gift. He had what was generally called a cop’s instincts. Something could be knocking on Marcus’s instincts but if so, he was too drunk to pin it down.

  “We’re all too drunk for this,” Damian dared to suppose out loud what they all had to be thinking.

  “Jordan’s not going to leave a budding psychic out there to those wolves,” Marcus protested, shaking his head.

  “She looked like she was handling them just fine,” Zack pointed out. Damian hadn’t seen her so he didn’t know.

  “You two don’t know him like I do.” Marcus wet his hands at the sink and splashed a bit of water on his face. “This is his dream. It’s what he does. He gathers psychics.”

  “Then we can do it tomorrow,” Zack argued. “Damian, Jordan and I can do it without you.”

  “He won’t back down,” Marcus said, drying his hands and face with a paper towel. “He’s seen her. He can feel her in his bones. He won’t let go until she’s either one of us or turned him down a dozen times.”

  “She’s important enough to let it crash your bachelor party?” Zack asked.

  “Better that than the honeymoon,” Damian jibed, trying to lighten the mood. If Jordan was going to be obsessed, then it really was better to get it over with tonight.

  “We’ve got to get back out there and check on Jordan,” Marcus put in with a self-depreciating smile.

  They found Jordan at the end of the bar chatting innocently with the bartender. Cyn was nowhere to be seen. Whatever Jordan had said to the woman, Jordan looked pleased with the outcome.

  “The limo is out front waiting for you,” Jordan told Zack.

  Zack looked about to protest again, but Jordan gave him a boss look. They may be off duty. They may be drunk and half-stupid. But when the boss ‘suggested’ something, Zack wasn’t going
to argue. Zack took the pager from Damian and headed out.

  “Have him come back in about an hour,” Jordan called after Zack. “We might not impress her with our drunkenness but the limo could tip the scales.”

  “Sure,” Zack sulked out.

  Marcus turned to Jordan with a question on his face that didn’t need words. Damian scanned the club nervously. The splash of water hadn’t eased that buzzing in his head. Something was off about the place. He just couldn’t pin down what it was and every time he tried, his magic slid off the source.

  “I called in a favor,” Jordan explained. “Cyn said to wait ten minutes and then go back to the third door on the left. I had to promise her that we weren’t up to something naughty. I also had to tell her that Gilda might be an old friend.”

  “Why not just pay the extra for a private lap dance?” Marcus asked. It wasn’t supposed to happen but it did. Strip clubs had back rooms where a client could ask for a private lap dance. What happened behind closed doors was illegal, but expected by all.

  “Cyn didn’t like our numbers,” Jordan admitted. “One at a time would have been okay with her but she wouldn’t go for all of us at once.”

  “And now she will?” Damian asked, not understanding what they were really talking about.

  “I tip really well,” was all Jordan would say, his lips pressed together tightly. “Call it a finder’s fee.”

  Marcus glared at Jordan, again an undertone of communication that didn’t need words or telepathy apparent on both their faces.

  “Okay,” Jordan relented with a sheepish look. “I pushed a bit at her. She was a tough nut, but the Jordan charm finally won out.”

  “Aided a bit by the Damian-taught magic?” Marcus growled.

  “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” Jordan smirked. “I also got her to tell me what she told you and in case you were wondering, yes, that is anatomically possible.”

  Marcus blushed again.

  The back room held a long couch and a single chair. Gilda sat on the chair waiting for them, her head tilted down. Her thick blond waves of hair fell forward over her face and teasingly touched shoulders that were bare except for the thin spaghetti strap of her lacy camisole. If she hadn’t been wearing sexy lingerie she might have looked demure. As it was, Jordan was surprised to find that she reminded him of a bride on her wedding night. His bride. He struggled to remember Tiara. Only thoughts of Tiara kept the glamour of Gilda from overwhelming him.

  Marcus pushed into the room and felt the same pull to the woman. It was eerie and uncomfortable. Marcus halted in the doorway, leaving Damian outside the room. Her presence was strong and Marcus wanted to drain the magic from the room, but Jordan’s calm request stopped him.

  “You can turn it off,” Jordan said casually, leaning against the near wall. “We aren’t here for anything sordid.”

  “Then what are you here for?” Gilda asked, not raising her eyes. She ignored his suggestion as if he hadn’t said it.

  “You’re a psychic,” Jordan stated plainly, hoping to jolt her. “So are we. We don’t run into many like us, and I thought we should talk.”

  Gilda raised her eyes, flashing, sparkling and mesmerizing. Jordan jerked with the sexual aura she put off. Marcus grumbled low in his throat, but Jordan cut him off. Marcus would wait for Jordan to give him a sign. Damian waited in the wings, just in case.

  “Still want to talk, handsome?” Gilda purred.

  “Marcus here can shut you down in a second, but I’d rather we were civilized,” Jordan shrugged casually, as if he wasn’t fighting off powerful suggestions.

  “Shut me down?” she sounded amused, but the sexual glow of the room eased a fraction.

  “Maybe we could sit together and talk?” Jordan waved a hand at the couch. “Just talk.”

  The stripper waved a hand at the couch invitingly, her smile predatory. “Come on in,” she drawled, her words dripping with innuendos and insinuations. “I’m not worried about the three of you. I told Cyn I could handle it. Let’s just get to the meat of it, shall we?”

  Jordan moved toward the couch but Marcus got a touch stubborn. “Turn off that psychic come-on or I will,” he growled at her.

  Gilda swung her gaze to Marcus, challenge spurring a shower of stars in her laughing eyes. Marcus crossed his arms over his massive chest and stared her down. A slight glint of worry flitted as she looked deeply into the void of his eyes, but it didn’t show in her demeanor at all.

  “I would have thought that you boys would like that kind of thing,” she mused, the sexual thrall dimming slowly to something so subtle that even Marcus had to admit that it might be her natural beauty.

  Marcus gave her a nod and followed Jordan to the couch. Gilda watched him thoughtfully. Damian stepped into the room and closed the door behind him with a quiet snick that shook the room like a gunshot.

  Gilda had obviously forgotten about their third member in her assessing of Marcus. With a jerk, she slung her eyes back to Damian. Glittering green eyes collided with gleaming blue and the world paused. Damian blinked once.

  In one instant, there was panic and a surge of energy. Recognition ignited just as she squeezed her eyes shut and popped a small bubble between her fingers. “NO!” she screamed, either or both to stop the spell ball’s effects and to stop what a single glance had done to her well-ordered life.

  In the same tick of time, Damian breathed her real name, “Lexi.”

  The world pulsed around them. Marcus reached for his null effect. Jordan reached for sanity. Damian reached for Lexi, confusion and doubt plain on his face. Whatever she did, the stripper, Gilda, Lexi, or whoever she was, it collided with Marcus’s null effect smashing on.

  Lexi’s magic was quicker. Marcus’s magic exploded on the tail end of it. The world went sideways and then it went black.

  First Chapter of Widow's Tale by Maureen Miller

  WIDOW’S TALE

  Maureen A. Miller

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright @ 2009 by Maureen A. Miller

  ISBN 1448617936

  EAN-13 9781448617937

  PROLOGUE