Masked Desire Read online

  “I know. That’s why I’m giving it unsolicited.”

  “What exactly are you blaming on us?” Her day with Cormac had caused a headache that had settled directly behind her eyes.

  He gave a languid shrug. “Not Hiro’s death, necessarily. The tension between arcane groups, yes.”

  “This is not our fault.” Why was it her job to defend her race against the stupidity of a single bigoted man who the Hierarch had killed in combat? Hadn’t she spent the last half year fighting death threats to make sure masquerada with such heinous beliefs were taken into custody?

  It must have been chilly in the room, because she shivered as he moved by her to flick open the window curtain and check outside. “No need to get high and mighty. Perhaps if you treated the rest of the arcane world with the respect you demand, it would be easier to work with you.”

  True enough for some of her compatriots, but no need to get into it. The other groups were no better. She refused to get defensive.

  Cormac pushed on. “Iverson might be dead, but can you tell me that what he believed died with him? Obviously not, with the amount of work you’ve been doing to crush his supporters.”

  It wasn’t surprising others knew of her role in clearing Iverson’s poison out of the masquerada. Franz Iverson had been vile and Eric had killed him and then systematically destroyed his networks. Most of his lackeys were either dead or imprisoned—thanks in a large part to her.

  “Rumor has it that you let Iverson’s deputy escape,” he said. “You can’t even find her.”

  Time to end this conversation. “Frieda is of no concern to me.” Michaela glanced down at her notebook. Right now she had a murder to solve.

  Chapter 5

  Cormac paid little attention to the other councilors who came in to provide their alibis. His gut already told him what he needed to know.

  Rendell was the killer. Looking for more money, Hiro had offered the forest to the other feyman, who had immediately seen an opportunity to thwart Cormac. A foolish and greedy thing to do, but that was the kind of man Hiro was. As if reading his thoughts, Oksana admitted to Michaela that she, no surprise, hadn’t liked her compatriot. “Trying to keep a united front with Hiro was impossible,” she said bitterly. “He would turn on you in a moment. His principles were as fluid as water.”

  Turn on you in a moment, like he had with Cormac’s forest. Since Rendell was not one with a huge respect for human life, it was reasonable he would consider Hiro’s death an appropriate price to keep Cormac from returning to the Queendom. It ended the risk of Cormac ingratiating himself with Queen Tismelda before it even began. Cormac never would, of course, but Rendell was a courtier to the bone. Court politics would be his default—and probably only—consideration.

  After Oksana took her leave, Michaela turned off her digital recorder and flipped through her notes, written in a compelling Chinese running script. Cormac considered her. She was as fresh as when they’d started, except her normally pale lips were even paler. Red lips might be the usual standard of beauty, but there was something about the way hers blended in with the skin that he found almost stunningly erotic. He wanted to see that lower lip crimson and full with desire.

  “Curious.”

  Cormac tore his attention away from her mouth. “What?”

  Michaela capped her pen. “Oksana wasn’t frightened.”

  He replayed the interview in his mind. Michaela was correct. “She thinks Hiro was specifically targeted as an individual, not a human.” Instead of congratulating his perception, Michaela bent and added a few more notes as he stared at the precise part in her black hair, straight as a sapling.

  “I have enough here to get the teams started,” she said.

  “They all hated him. You didn’t get anywhere.”

  “What were you expecting? One of them to jump up and admit their guilt?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Not to mention that you’re still no closer to knowing why he was in your office.”

  “An investigation takes time.”

  She stood while Cormac watched her unabashedly. Michaela was slender and straight as a reed but when she stretched, her body curved to emphasize a waist almost narrow enough for his hands to span. That blue-black hair remained tightly coiled, and he wondered how long it would be when she took it out.

  Get it together, Redoak. Michaela was a beautiful woman, but he’d always found her coldness a turnoff.

  Didn’t he? Or was it a challenge he’d never thought to accept?

  “I’m going to check in with the team and then go home.” She packed up her bag and double-checked the desk to see if she had all of her papers.

  He followed her to the security office. She paused with her hand on the door and he heard the voices inside.

  “It’s her. I’m telling you.” Nadia’s voice, an annoying mix of whiny and strident. Cormac winced.

  “For the tenth time, that is Hiro. They look completely different.” Dev sounded exasperated.

  Nadia snorted. “How can you tell? All Chinese look the same. Even their hair is the same.”

  Beside him, Michaela stiffened.

  There was a long silence and when Dev spoke again his voice was cold. “Hiro is Japanese. If you’re going to be ignorant, keep it to yourself.”

  “Chinese, Japanese, whatever. Look at that security shot and tell me it couldn’t be either of them.”

  Michaela must have thought this was a good time to interrupt, because she pushed the door open. Cormac came in behind her to see Dev’s poorly disguised fury and Nadia’s surly expression. Michaela didn’t mention what they’d overheard but went straight into updating her colleagues.

  On the screen was a security shot of a figure in black coming in the main door, head down and with dark hair smoothly tied back in a bun. He was about to examine it closer when Michaela gestured him out the door.

  “What a bitch,” he said conversationally.

  “She is that,” Michaela agreed, to his surprise.

  “You didn’t say anything.” He would have thought that Michaela would have taken the opportunity to lay down some home truths to the vampire. She was not a woman who shied from necessary confrontation.

  “Dev handled it well enough that I didn’t need to.” She picked up her bag and touched the pocket where her keys were. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow? “No need for good-byes.”

  Her thin black brows knit together. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m your Watcher.”

  “I know. You’ve watched. All day.”

  He cocked his head curiously at her. Could she not have known? “I don’t leave your side, Michaela. Not until this is done.”

  Her face said she hadn’t. He nearly rubbed his hands in delight.

  She didn’t even bother to answer. Instead, she took her phone, made a call, and spoke without any greeting. “When were you going to tell me about Redoak living with me?”

  She must have called Madden. There was a long silence. Cormac could hear Madden’s warm soothing tones, his vampire’s compulsion at work, and also knew by Michaela’s expression that she was not convinced.

  Then she turned her back to him. “I don’t want him at my place,” she hissed.

  Pause. “I’m not going to a hotel with him.”

  Pause. “That’s not the point, Madden.”

  Long pause. “Yes.”

  Very long pause. “Right.”

  Michaela hung up and Cormac leaned over into her view. “Your place or mine?” he asked innocently.

  She took a deep breath and Cormac took a prudent step out of her strike range. “You’ll come to my apartment,” she said, having regained her calm. “Do you need anything from your house?”

  “I keep an overnight bag in my office.”

  She raised her eyebrows. �
�Prepared for anything?”

  He nodded, deciding to take it as a serious question. “Yes.”

  Cormac grabbed his bag as they passed his office and they walked in silence to the garage. He remained a few steps behind and watched Michaela’s straight back. Being her Watcher was turning out much better than he had imagined. He’d confirmed Rendell had the motive to kill Hiro—he would do anything to keep Cormac away from court—and he’d managed to get a rise out of Michaela.

  She pointed her key fob towards her car and it unlocked the doors with a series of cheerful beeps. Then she made a careful tour of the exterior. Was she worried about her safety, or was this another manifestation of her excessively cautious self?

  Cormac slid in as she checked the mirrors. “No need to be angry at me.”

  “You don’t know what I was thinking.” She shoved the key into the ignition so hard that he winced as it jammed into the palm of her hand.

  “Of course I do. You’re furious I offered to be Watcher. You think the council doesn’t trust you.” He considered this. “They don’t, but they don’t trust anyone.”

  She drove onto King Street at a speed more suited to the autobahn than the busy downtown core. It didn’t matter; traffic ground them to a stop before she’d even gone twenty feet. Damn. They were enmeshed in the tail end of rush hour. More time trapped in the car, cooped up in a metal cage in this concrete valley.

  “Might be faster to walk,” Cormac offered finally. “How long have you had this car?”

  “Five years.” She paused. “Why?”

  “No reason.” It was spotless and even had that chokingly chemical new car smell. He pulled the seat back and stretched out to relax as she chauffeured him around. It would be better if he had his eyes closed.

  She stared straight ahead. “What was that about?”

  “An observation about the speed of traffic.” Let her work for it.

  “I don’t mean that and you know it. There hasn’t been a Watcher appointed for over a hundred years.”

  “As I told the council, this is sensitive. You know it, Michaela. In fact, in different circumstances, I’m sure your fine mind would have been one of the first to suggest it.”

  She inched the car forward and swore as the light turned red. “You decided you would be the best choice? An exiled fey?”

  He put a hand on his heart. “Wounding but technically accurate. Who else would be acceptable? None of the others trust each other. I am the only one with no master. Or mistress.”

  He said the last in an arch tone that made Michaela’s lips thin. She must know he was right. Every member of the Pharos had a dual role. The first was to make sure the Law was obeyed by every arcana and to punish transgressors. The second, and unspoken, role was politics. Pharos was the unofficial overarching council for all arcana. So secret that not even their rulers knew they were members, the councilors worked outside the official avenues to solve disputes that threatened to destroy the delicate balance of power between arcane groups. Secret though they were, there was a clear loyalty to one’s ruler and one’s race above all.

  Cormac, as an exile, was beyond at least this level of local politics. The other fey didn’t even acknowledge him.

  “I meant what I said about staying out of my way.”

  “And I have.” He yawned and nestled back into the seat. “At least in public.”

  Chapter 6

  Damn him. Damn. Michaela wanted to scream with the intense frustration of being stuck in traffic with the world’s most irritating feyman. Of course she didn’t. As a masquerada she could maintain precise control over every nuance of expression she wished to reveal.

  Cormac, though, had the disturbing ability to peel back her defenses until she felt as open and unsophisticated as a child.

  She glanced over at him when she stopped at the next light. Cormac lay with his eyes closed and his arms tucked behind his head. He was tall for a fey. His hair was golden but by his ear she noticed streaks of what looked like silver, as if the metal had been coated with pearl. His face was perfect, of course, although slightly more rugged than the other fey she’d met. The body was…nice. Exceptionally nice.

  Over generations, humans had imagined fairies into tiny winged creatures that tended to flowers and giggled behind trees. The fey were nothing like those translucently dressed beings. Like the rest of his kin, Cormac exuded an aura of wild power.

  His eyes opened and she was taken aback by the motley mix of grass-green and dark sable, illuminated by the fading sunlight. It shadowed his face and highlighted his bone structure, almost too lovely for a man but still enticingly masculine.

  “What do your eyes mean?” she asked abruptly.

  He looked confused. “That I can see?”

  “No. The colors.”

  “There’s no guide.” He gave her a whimsical smile. “Like to a box of chocolates. Are you looking for the caramel or the candied cherry?”

  She ignored that. “They must reflect something about how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking.”

  “If you want to know that, why don’t you ask me?”

  “You lie.” The words came out before she could check them and a quiver ran over him, gone so fast that she wondered if she’d even seen it.

  “Aye. I suppose I do.” He glanced up, eyes now a cool gray. “You know I love your admiration for my good looks, but the light changed.”

  Michaela hit the accelerator.

  “Nadia might be an idiot, but I saw the screen,” said Cormac. “The figure was clearly Hiro, but it did resemble you.”

  “Generic Asian?”

  “Generic business casual. He wore all black, like you, and he had his hair pulled back, like you. If you ask me, he was impersonating you.” And if he was, then Hiro wasn’t the target.

  Rendell might not be the killer.

  “First, I didn’t ask. Second, we’re in Toronto. Everyone wears black.” Michaela kept her voice cool, but inside pieces were clicking together. Hiro was in her office, dressed like her. It was so obvious whoever killed him thought it was her, especially since there was no reason for Hiro to be there at all. She now needed to find enough incontrovertible proof to convince Madden.

  Too bad her own mentor didn’t trust her.

  They drove a few blocks in thick silence until her phone rang.

  “Auntie! Ni hao le ma?” Ivy’s cheerful voice filled the car and Michaela’s entire body relaxed.

  “Hao le, xiao xiao.” She ignored Cormac as his entire, rather distracting, body swiveled towards her. Best to keep the conversation in Chinese so her Watcher couldn’t spy on this part of her life.

  “You sound stressed, Auntie.” Ivy was excellent at reading people and Michaela hadn’t been surprised last year when she decided to go to medical school. “Are you driving?”

  “Stuck in traffic.”

  “I won’t be long. I wanted to remind you about dim sum this weekend. My parents are coming to visit.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  Ivy chattered on a little more about her schoolwork and roommates and job. “Late shift tonight,” she said.

  “Your parents won’t like that.” Her parents thought Ivy’s efforts should only be academic but Michaela had supported her. A woman had to know how to earn money of her own.

  Ivy’s happy laugh came down the line. “That’s why they don’t know. I keep safe.”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you too, Auntie. See you this weekend.”

  Michaela hung up and stared at the bumper sticker of the car in front of her. Hanging with my gnomies was inaccurately pictured with a line of small, colorful goblins. Yao would have been proud of Ivy, thought Michaela, reeling with a momentary grief for her old friend, dead these many years. Not that he ever would have had a chance to meet his great-great-granddaughter. A human’s lif
e was so very brief and his had been cut even shorter.

  “A friend calling?” asked Cormac neutrally.

  “Yes.”

  “She sounds young.” He said it in perfect Chinese.

  “Your accent is very good.” He wasn’t going to shock her.

  “I’m an exile. I have plenty of time to practice.”

  “Where did you learn?”

  “Here and there.”

  She almost grinned, knowing he was remaining vague to irritate her.

  “I have a sister,” he said.

  She glanced over in surprise. “You do?”

  He laughed and regarded her with eyes that were now deep gray. “Is that any stranger than a human niece for a masquerada? Isindle stays in the Queendom.”

  “Do you see her often?” Michaela could have bit her tongue off the moment she saw Cormac’s face go blank. She hadn’t meant to be deliberately cruel and had forgotten his exile.

  “No. Tell me about Ivy and why she thinks you’re her aunt.”

  “She doesn’t. It’s a term of endearment. She knows me as a family friend.” Although she watched over all Yao’s descendants, she rarely made herself known. It was too difficult to explain her lack of aging. From the first, though, Ivy had spoken to her heart.

  “Are you?”

  “I knew one of her ancestors.” Michaela skirted around the issue, not wanting to discuss Yao.

  Incredibly, Cormac seemed to respect her reticence. “She seems happy,” he said. “You must watch out for her.”

  Michaela laughed. “Ivy wouldn’t like that.” Which is why she didn’t know.

  He shut his eyes. “When has that stopped you from doing anything?”

  * * * *

  Cormac kept his eyes closed.

  He didn’t like going to Michaela’s box in the sky any more than she wanted him in it. Like a proper fey, he made his home in a tree. Not the great oak of his forest—he prevented himself from instinctively touching the pendant at his throat—but a perfectly serviceable chestnut tree he’d found in the hidden depths of High Park. Keeping himself isolated (not that other fey would risk being seen with him) was necessary to hide his physical need to be close to the dolma.