Masked Desire Read online

  “She’s safe,” Michaela said with relief.

  “You’re not going to see her?”

  Michaela had already turned to walk away. “Why? To tell her what happened? That I transformed into a giant vampire to save her life?”

  A siren shrieked in the distance as Cormac followed. “Good point.”

  She stumbled as they ducked into a side street and he instinctively laid a hand over hers. Her skin was warm and he was astonished when a shiver ran through her.

  Then even more surprised when he felt a strange twist in his gut, a warmth that replaced the cold anger that had filled him.

  Impossible. They didn’t even like each other.

  Yet he hadn’t imagined that shiver. Or his matching reaction.

  “How did you find me?” she asked.

  “Heard you leave and flagged a cab.”

  “No, I mean my masque.”

  He could tell this bothered her, and at least this gave him the upper hand. “Instead of that, why don’t you tell me about sneaking out past your Watcher? Your council-mandated Watcher?”

  She grimaced. “Look, sneaking sounds so—”

  “Correct? Dammit, you could have been killed.”

  Michaela glanced around and when she turned back, a thick man with glaring eyes and heavy, pale brows stared back at him. He had no neck, just a solid trunk of muscle from his ears to his shoulders.

  He reeled back. “Good God. What is that?” Was it more disturbing to see her as this hulking man or as the ghoulish vampire? He shivered. Both were wrong.

  Yeah, like talking to birds is totally normal.

  “I am Yuri.”

  Her clothes had stretched to the ripping point around the masque’s husky barrel of a chest. She must have considered her point made because she shifted back into her natural self.

  “Who the hell is Yuri?”

  “I am a masquerada,” she said with heavy patience. She stepped close to him, so close he could smell the tuberose that wafted from her skin. “Not a human woman. Frankly, even if I was a woman, I wouldn’t need—or want—you to take care of me.”

  “I was right to intervene.”

  “I’m the judge of that.”

  “You could have been injured,” he said evenly.

  They arrived at the car. She glared at him. “I needed to check on Ivy and I had it under control. They were only humans.”

  “What if they hadn’t been?”

  “Get in the car, Cormac. Now.”

  “Not until we discuss this.”

  “Here? You want to discuss this on the street.”

  “Yes. Better start talking.”

  She opened the door with a savage yank. “Fuck you I will. Walk if you don’t want to drive with me.”

  “I need to drive with you, remember? I’m the Watcher. Mandated to be with you every minute. Watching your every. Goddamn. Move.”

  “Let’s get this sorted, right now. I don’t like being with you. I don’t like you around me. I don’t like having you hanging over me, breathing down my neck as I try to work.” She blew her breath out and controlled her voice. “Yet I bowed to the will of the council.”

  “With such grace.”

  “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “No, but you know what part of the deal was? You don’t go out alone. You did. I can report this to the council and have you removed from this case.”

  She got in the car and powered down the passenger window. “This had nothing to do with Hiro, and I don’t like threats.”

  Didn’t she get it? It didn’t matter what she thought. They were stuck together. “Then stop acting like a petulant child and giving me something to threaten you with.”

  * * * *

  Michaela laid her hands carefully on the steering wheel, the right at two o’clock and the left at ten, before she leaned over to address Cormac through the open window. She wanted her hands fixed on something to prevent her from getting out and throttling him.

  “I fail to understand how continuing my commitment to Ivy makes me more petulant than the man yelling at a car in the middle of the street.”

  She could almost hear Cormac grind his teeth as he got in the car and slammed the door.

  When he huffily crossed his arms over his chest, she laughed out loud.

  He glanced over, a small reluctant smile quirking his lips. “Not funny. You broke the rules.” His eyes widened as if he just realized what he’d said. “You broke the rules.”

  “Not that big a deal.”

  Now he faced her with a huge grin. “Wait until I tell the Council this. They probably won’t even believe me. Michaela Chui, stickler extraordinaire, sneaking out of her room in the middle of the night like she’s trying to beat curfew.”

  “Look, I really—”

  He didn’t even pause. “Do you even feel guilty? I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  Michaela focused on driving until he finally stopped. “I don’t know that the Council needs to hear about this,” she said.

  “Oh, I think they do.” Now Cormac sounded serious, and when Michaela checked his expression out of the corner of her eye, she saw that he was frowning slightly. “The Council assigned you a Watcher for a reason. Your protection. I can’t protect you if you’re sneaking around. I’d be derelict in my duty.”

  Did he think she was so stupid? “Please. Don’t make my car a den of lies. We both know that your offer had nothing to do with me. You want something.”

  “Maybe I want you to be safe.”

  “Maybe I’ve managed to do that myself for a half-millennia and have a pretty good handle on it.” Now she was getting a little pissed. Her own protection had been the same excuse her parents had used when they brokered her first marriage to a doddering old man. By the time they’d married her the third time, she’d realized she’d had enough of people protecting her. Whenever someone decided to protect her for her own good, they usually had a stake in the result, one of more benefit to them than her. She’d learned the lesson early and learned it hard.

  “My reason doesn’t matter,” Cormac said with delight. “What matters now is that we have a situation where you have a secret you don’t want me to tell.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “Think of it more like a negotiation for mutual benefit.”

  “What do you want?”

  “An apology,” he said softly. “I want you to say you were wrong and I was right.”

  “The hell with that.”

  “Fine.” He spoke with an air of extreme unconcern. “We’ll chat with Madden in the morning.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  They said nothing to each other for the rest of the ride but by the time she pulled into her parking spot, the car was filled with words left unsaid, mostly hers. She wanted to point out—God, that she didn’t need a Watcher and that he was an asshole and how dare he treat her like some stupid underling and she didn’t owe him an apology and he should screw right off.

  The problem was, as her temper cooled, she knew she couldn’t.

  She didn’t like his motives but Cormac had acted correctly and was well within his rights to report her. She had broken the rules and left him behind. She was going to have to apologize. Not to avert the threat, but because she was in the wrong and owed it to him.

  Goddamn it.

  Michaela did not enjoy apologizing. Best to get this over with.

  Cormac had already cracked open the door when she held up a hand.

  “I apologize,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “That you felt I shouldn’t have left without you. Even for Ivy.”

  Now he turned back and Michaela dropped her eyes. “Look at me.”

  The power in his voice forced her eyes up. “What?”
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  “That’s a shite apology and you know it. I want you to say I was right.”

  “I…you.” It was difficult to concentrate. Cormac leaned towards her, his tall body twisting until she was almost suffocated by his closeness and even then wanted him closer.

  What? No, she didn’t.

  “Say you won’t leave again.”

  She shook her head. She’d experienced vampire compulsions before and this was similar, though far more intense. With a quick motion, she opened the car door and let the cool night air flow in, restoring her equilibrium.

  He might be her Watcher, but he wasn’t her controller.

  He got out of the car and came around to her side while she sat thinking, then opened the door and held out his hand.

  Slowly, she pulled the keys out of the ignition with trembling fingers and brushed him away as she got out of the car.

  A mocking voice came from behind her as she walked to the elevator door.

  “Apology accepted.”

  Chapter 8

  Cormac watched Michaela shut the bedroom door behind her. He was fairly certain she wouldn’t leave without him again…but not completely sure.

  Now he sighed and regarded the couch. Since it was a little too short for him to sleep comfortably, there was only one thing to do. He pulled the pillows and thick duvet from his bedroom and settled down in front of her door. There was no way Michaela would get around him again.

  He had only himself to blame. He should have kept a better eye on her. She resented his role as Watcher, but he’d thought her slavish adherence to orders meant she would play by the rules. That she hadn’t done so intrigued him. There was more to Michaela than he’d thought.

  The apartment was peaceful despite the annoying little blue security light beaming on the balcony. She didn’t need the rest of the beeps and bells. He was here to protect her now.

  He paused. That’s not what he was here for. This was a problem. Like all fey, he possessed a protective streak and as a caintir, it was almost impossible to combat. Kiana herself had warned him about it during one of their first training sessions. “The dolma wants all,” she’d said, her amber eyes wise. “Look at a fallen tree overgrown with vines.”

  He’d laughed. “I’m a vine?”

  She’d remained serious. “Yes. Your connection to the dolma means you will always have to fight a poisonous possessiveness. Otherwise, you too will choke the life out of what you love.”

  Since he only loved Yetting Forest and his sister, and was now in exile, that hadn’t been a problem for him. Michaela had roused those latent, primal emotions and made it clear that she expected him to mind his own business.

  Not an easy ask.

  Michaela was also more powerful than he had anticipated. He dredged his memory for what he knew about the masquerada. They had status levels, he knew, that were dependent on how many masques an individual could shift into. They were notorious for their blind worship of power. He frowned. Eric, the Hierarch, could shift into any form he pleased, and wasn’t constrained by race, gender, or age. In her life outside of Pharos, Michaela was the highest ranking member of Eric’s advisory council. Eric had made a Herculean effort to get his people to accept each other’s worth regardless of how many masques they could take on, but it was a slow process. To be on that council, Michaela needed to be strong.

  Seeing her as a vampire had been a shock. While there was no treaty against it, there was an unspoken agreement that masquerada only appeared in human masques. They were already the most numerous of all the arcane groups, and their ability to take on other personas made them feared. Who could know how many infiltrators one had when they wore the faces of your friends?

  Physically, she was also capable of almost ripping out a human’s arm without even blinking. That part, he had no problem with. It was kind of sexy, in a way.

  Michaela’s wooden floor hummed softly beneath him and he adjusted the blankets to prevent his flesh pressing against it. What had occurred in the alley with the pigeons couldn’t happen again; he’d been weak. Cormac wouldn’t be surprised if his old enemy Rendell made a habit of spying on him in the hopes of finding something to further discredit him to the queen, as if he could drop any lower in her eyes. Finding out Cormac was a caintir would be a choice morsel for him to bring back to the queen.

  The pendant, with the leaf from his tree, lay heavy on his chest, a countdown clock reminding him of his first and only real responsibility. His forest needed him and nothing would distract him from his goal. He’d taken on the Watcher role to find out who had killed the man he needed, not as Michaela’s guard or protector.

  Nor could he get drawn into the easy, perfect joy of being a true caintir again. That power was what got Princess Kiana slaughtered. No. He corrected himself. The power didn’t kill her. Kiana’s ability to speak with wolves didn’t kill her. Her influence over the forests and its creatures weren’t what tortured her to death.

  Tismelda and her insecurity had done all that.

  To speak with the wolves again…He tucked his arms behind his head and stared at the smooth curves of a vase in the living room.

  A creak came from Michaela’s room and he listened closely before dismissing it. She was still there and not climbing out a window. He adjusted his pillows and propped his head on his hands. The day had been a series of unanticipated events, especially those involving her. Michaela was aggravating beyond belief. Devious. Robotically rational. Strong-willed. Make that iron-willed. Gorgeous. A vicious vampire. A huge, rough Russian man.

  Right. That he’d never seen her shift had blinded him to the point that not only could she shift, but it was the central part of her being. She was a masquerada and he could no more separate that from her than any other trait. What does it feel like for her to be Yuri, or any other masque? he wondered. He would ask one day.

  Though not tomorrow, which looked like it would be more irritating hours of by-the-books investigations. His gut still said Rendell had murdered Hiro in a power play to prevent Cormac’s return to the Queendom, but another possibility had come clear the moment he’d seen the security footage of Hiro and had solidified when he saw Michaela’s security precautions. Her work neutralizing the rest of Eric Kelton’s enemies meant she was a high-profile target, and she knew it. Hiro’s death could reasonably have been the result of mistaken identity. If Michaela was the target instead of Hiro, then he would need to find a way to bow out of his Watcher role to pursue other avenues of satiating the queen.

  He’d think about it tomorrow. It would give him a puzzle to ponder as he listened to toothless interrogations.

  His mind drifted to how to deal with Queen Tismelda. He’d make some discreet checks about the ownership of the forest, but it could take months to settle it. It was almost laughable that he, a creature who had lived for centuries, was now desperately measuring months. Hiro’s forest was the only leverage he’d had to end his exile and it was slipping out of his grasp.

  Well, it’s not like he was going to come up with a grand plan in the middle of the night lying here on Michaela’s floor. He shut his eyes, put one hand on his fading leaf pendant, and willed himself to sleep.

  * * * *

  Cormac woke when a door slammed into his ribs. He groaned, his dream state dropping him for one harrowing minute back into the battlefield of his youth, when he’d been woken by a spear in the side.

  No, he was too warm and comfortable for the battlefield. He opened his eyes to Michaela’s triangular face poking through the small gap that led to her bedroom.

  She tilted her head. “Were you lying in front of my room all night?”

  He rolled slowly to his feet. “Clearly.”

  She edged out. Her hair had come out of the braid she had twisted it in for the night and lay in a jetty fall around her face. He blinked. The morning sun streaming into the room lit her eyes and he saw the
y were a delicious chocolate brown, not the black he assumed. A small spray of freckles dotted her nose and cheeks, and one dark freckle lay near the cupid’s bow of her delicately etched mouth, the lips the palest pink he could imagine.

  His gaze travelled down to the white silk she wore, which clung to her every curve.

  Michaela cut the reverie short. “Was that necessary?”

  He moved out of the way. “After our adventures last night, yes. I think it was.”

  She muttered a vile insult in Chinese and stomped her way to the bathroom, hair swishing behind her as she gave her head an indignant toss.

  Cormac yawned. Yesterday, Michaela had shown him a small, plain room to use as an exercise space. He folded his blankets and made his way down the hall. Bamboo palms lined the room, narrow leaves shining in the sun. Their simple energy called to him, and he yearned to hover his hand over them to connect to the dolma, but he wouldn’t. Not after last night’s incident. He couldn’t risk it.

  He stretched his arms up and out, feeling the aches and stiffness disappear. After moving to the center of the room, he began the meditation exercises Kiana had taught him when he was a child. Combined with physical poses that resembled the yoga practices of the humans, the practice had saved his sanity through the endless years of his exile. During these almost sacred minutes he was able to mesh his fractured self together and believe himself back in his forest, his oak rising high above him.

  Michaela entered the room and waited quietly in the corner as he released the final pose.

  “There are some mats in the closet,” she said. “Straps and blocks as well.”

  Cormac blew stray hair out of his face. “I hope you don’t mind me using your room.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You use it often?”

  “For tai chi, mostly. Very good for mental clarity. Your practice was unfamiliar.” She hesitated, unusual for her. “Will you show me?”

  He smiled at the peculiar delight that coursed through him. “If you’ll teach me tai chi.”