The taste of garlic-fried mushrooms and chives melted on my tongue as I wolfed down the omelet. We hadn’t had time to eat before we left for Malcolm’s mansion, and after the day we’d had, I was starving. Glancing up from the plate in my hand, I watched the force mage leaning against the kitchen counter opposite me as he inhaled his food as well.
When he had found me waiting for him in the darkness a short distance from Malcolm’s back porch, he had seemed incredibly surprised. To me, that was a bit odd since he already knew that I had made it out of the trap. I was the one who had been surprised when the walls around the porch had suddenly dropped, revealing a kneeling Callan on the smooth black stone. He hadn’t given me a lot of details about what had happened except for telling me that Malcolm had shown up and reminded him of the deadline. But I knew what Malcolm was like so I had my suspicions.
“Why are you here?”
The question jarred me slightly, and at first, I just blinked at him.
We hadn’t bothered to set up a real dinner in the dining room. Instead, we just ate our omelets in the kitchen right after they came out of the frying pan. Callan’s kitchen staff hadn’t seemed terribly upset when they’d been woken up in the middle of the night to make us food. Or that we were now occupying their sacred space. But then again, with an employer like Callan Blackwell, I supposed that complaints were always kept to a minimum.
Sitting on top of the counter, I studied Callan’s face for a few seconds while I tried to figure out where he was going with that question. He just kept leaning against the edge of another counter across from me. Watching me. Waiting for me to answer his incredibly vague question.
“What do you mean?” I asked at last.
“I meant exactly what I said. Why are you here? Henry means nothing to you, and you break agreements all the time. Why haven’t you just left? Especially when I got trapped inside that box back there. Why did you stay?”
Because I have a bigger plan in place that will both get me Lance and make you surrender to me. I just need a little more time to make it work.
But I couldn’t tell him that, of course. So instead, I said, “Because I can’t let you mess this up. If you give Lance to Malcolm, my life is going to get increasingly difficult.”
“That’s really all there is to it?”
The memory of him helping me out of Malcolm’s trap and telling me to go swirled up inside me. He didn’t have to do that. And it made no sense that he had. Instead of using those precious seconds to try to get out of it himself, he had spent them making sure that I escaped. And instead of letting me help pull him up, he hadn’t wanted to risk dragging me back down again so he had told me to leave him there. Those actions alone confused me. But what I most of all didn’t understand was the expression he’d had on his face when he had told me to go.
“Why did you sacrifice your own chance to get out by helping me escape the trap?” I countered instead of replying to his question.
A faint clinking sound filled the kitchen as Callan just continued eating his omelet for a while. I watched him from where I sat atop the counter. When the food was gone, he set down his plate and finally turned to me. After putting down my own empty plate, I met Callan’s gaze and raised my eyebrows expectantly.
“You really don’t know?” he asked.
Something about that question sent a thrill through my stomach. “Enlighten me.”
He pushed off from the counter. While still holding my gaze, he closed the distance to where I was sitting. Warm light from the candles throughout the kitchen cast his face in a soft glow and made his dark brown eyes look like they were flecked with gold. I studied the way his lethal muscles shifted as he moved. Hell damn it, but at that moment, I kind of missed the feeling of his hands on my body.
As if Callan could read my mind, he stopped in front of my knees and placed his hands on my thighs. Taking them in a firm grip, he spread my legs wide before stepping between them. When I sat on the counter like that, my face was slightly above his, and I had to tilt my head down to meet his eyes.
He slowly drew his hands up my thighs.
My heart skipped a beat.
Grabbing my hips, he pulled me towards him. I slid across the counter until my pussy was pressed against his firm body. He kept his grip on my hips as he leaned forward and brushed his lips over my jaw.
“You truly don’t know?” he repeated.
“Tell me,” I answered, more breathless than I had intended.
His lips skimmed across my skin. Each warm breath was like a gentle caress. My pulse was thrumming as I suddenly found myself desperately wanting to hear the answer to my question.
Callan traced his mouth lightly over that sensitive spot below my ear, and a pleasant shudder coursed through my body.
“I did it because if Malcolm had found out that we were working together, I would never have been able to save Henry.” He drew back abruptly and raised his eyebrows while a mocking smirk curled his lips. “Why? Did you want it to be something else?”
It felt as though he had thrown a bucket of ice water in my face. Embarrassment washed over me. Of course that was the reason. Why hadn’t I figured that out earlier? After all, that was why he had gone to the trouble of ramming a force lance through the chest of the guard I had killed with my poison. Malcolm couldn’t know that we were in league with each other, and if he had found the two of us in that kill box together, he most certainly would have. It was of course the only logical reason for Callan to do something like that. But it made disappointment twist in my stomach, and I wasn’t sure why.
Shoving the confusing feelings aside, I painted an equally mocking expression on my own face while I reached up and gave his cheek a couple of brisk pats. “Don’t flatter yourself, pretty boy.”
He released my hips as his hands shot up instead. One wrapped around my wrist, forcing my hand away from his cheek, while the other took my chin in a firm grip.
“Now, you answer my question.” He leveled a commanding stare on me. “Why are you still here?”
Using my free hand, I picked up the fork from my plate and stabbed it towards his neck. He yanked his hand away from my chin. It shot through the air, and he managed to grab my wrist right before I could sink the sharp utensil into his skin.
Incredulity, rather than rage, pulsed in his eyes as he let go of my other hand and used that to pluck the fork from my trapped fingers. Holding it up in front of my face, he shook his head at me while stunned bafflement still bloomed in his eyes.
“You were going to stab me with an omelet fork?” Light glinted against the polished surface as he shook the offending utensil before my face. “Seriously?”
A sharp smile stretched my lips. “You seemed to have forgotten that you don’t give me orders, so I figured I would remind you what happens when you try.”
“For fuck’s sake, Audrey,” he muttered, but he released my wrist.
The fork clinked against the plate as he put it down in its proper place again. Then he grabbed both his plate and mine and stalked over to the sink. Water splashed for a while as he rinsed them. Leaving the plates in the sink like that, he turned and moved back to his previous position by the counter opposite me.
“There,” he began. “No more ridiculous fork weapons. Now, answer the bloody question.”
Heaving an annoyed sigh, I drew a hand through my hair and rolled my eyes. He really wasn’t going to let it go, was he?
“Because Henry reminds me of Paige.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was part of it. “And I just… I don’t know. It’s a moment of nostalgia, I guess.” I shot him a challenging stare. “But if you want me to break our agreement right now, I’d be more than happy to.”
His eyes softened. It was such an odd sight that it took me off guard.
“Alright, I believe you,” he said, and that soft look in his eyes disappeared as a considering expression took its place. “So if we can’t break Henry out directly, we need to find a way to make Lance do what we want.”
Indecision blew through my chest. I didn’t want to admit to Callan that there was a move with my poison magic that I hadn’t fully mastered yet. It would make me look weak, and that was incredibly dangerous around someone like him. But at the same time, I needed time and space and, well, let’s call it resources, to practice it so that I could actually use it on Lance.
“Who’s your least favorite guard?” I asked.
Callan frowned at me in confusion.
“I have a way to break Lance,” I elaborated. “But I haven’t… fully mastered it yet.”
I paused, expecting him to mock me. He didn’t. Instead, he leaned forward slightly as hope and new possibilities flared up in his eyes.
“And I need someone to practice it on,” I finished.
“Done. I’ll send someone your way first thing in the morning.”
“Good.” I drummed my fingers on the counter underneath me. “So let’s operate under the assumption that I can bend Lance to our will and make him do what we want. We still need a plan for how to actually use him to rescue Henry.”
“If you can truly break Lance, I think I have an idea for how to get Henry back and also solve some of our other problems.”
Candlelight danced across his face as he cocked his head and locked serious eyes on me. I raised my eyebrows in silent question. For a while, he said nothing. Then he lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
“But you’re not going to like it.”
