Chapter 17

17

Tension crackled between us as the limo drove to Thorn’s safe house, and not the fun and sexy kind.

When we arrived, Thorn escorted me in and proceeded to pace the living room for a good fifteen minutes as his agitation rolled off in waves. I watched silently, not sure of what to say or do. Was this in any way the result of the Hand? Wrath was one of the seven deadly sins, and the artifact in my chest contained the essence of that vice and all the others.

Then Thorn stopped in his tracks and scoffed.

“What possessed me at that gala? Ridiculous. There’s no good reason to let that pathetic thief get to me.”

“Kye has that effect on people. He gets under people’s skin.”

“Not mine,” said Thorn with defiance. “Not when humans would see my most monstrous self and call everything I’ve done and everyone who’s ever associated with me into question. People might believe we’re criminals, but we keep the machine running smoothly for preternatural beings, free from witch-hunts and government intervention.”

Thorn vibrated with frustration and irritation, and his Italian leather shoes beat a staccato rhythm on the wooden floor in time to his words.

“Hey. Let’s look at this artifact and see what it has under the hood.”

Thorn waved his hand dismissively as he paced, giving me unspoken permission to proceed. I snatched up my purse where I had stashed the stone when in the car and retrieved it. Then I grabbed its friend from where I hid it behind the fireplace. Because of the other reactions I observed, I wanted Thorn to see.

The spearhead vibrated as soon as it was next to the eye, and the artifact began to glow. “I think the relic is encased in the stone rather than being the stone.”

Thorn stopped pacing and leveled his gaze at me. “So, break it. Go ahead.”

His laser-focused interest ratcheted my nerves, and my hands shook with micro-tremors as I handled the spearhead. The stone stung as it hit my palm’s flesh.

“Ouch!”

Thorn glanced at me with concern— the first time I saw that in his eyes.

“Problem?” he said.

“No. Yes. It’s warm to the touch, almost scalding. I’m afraid the stone would sink into my body without a barrier between us.”

“That really would be something, wouldn’t it? Two artifacts in your chest.”

The thought intrigued and terrified me at once. Already the Hand influenced my desires and behavior, as demonstrated by my near rape of Thorn in the limo. What would a second magical object do? Increase my abilities while turning me into a raving lunatic?

I managed a nervous chuckle. “What abilities do you think I’d gain from this one?”

He moved in and stroked the stone with one finger. “The stones don’t give abilities.”

“But my heightened eyesight and sense of smell. I didn’t have those before.”

“You’re a finder whose senses have always been supernatural.”

“But—” I can’t piece together what he’s saying. Was that because Thorn was so close, and his subtle but sexy cologne curled in my nose, enticing me to bury my face in his body? I can’t help but fixate on what it would be like to spend a weekend full-on succubusing Thorn.

Stop, Elena. You cannot jump Mr. Sex-On-A-Stick.

I don’t have to jump him. Just licking his delicious all day-sucker—

“Am I interrupting you?” said Thorn dryly.

My cheeks flushed at my salacious thoughts, and I hoped Thorn didn’t catch a stray wisp of my lust through our connection. Lucky for me, he appeared unperturbed.

Bullet dodged.

“No. Sorry.”

“The stone artifacts are keys,” he said. “You are the lock. Each key unlocks part of you, and they are meant to work together. We must secure all the pieces to release the Hand from your chest. But no one’s ever had the courage to try. We don’t know what it would unlock.”

“So what does that make me? I don’t even have enough power to shift.”

He scoffed and shook his head. “Many creatures are more powerful, beautiful, and compelling than shifters. Why are you so dead set on being one?”

His question kicked up my discomfort in his presence.

“They’re all I’ve ever known, all I’ve ever endeavored to be.”

“But why, when they aren’t fit to drag your dinner to you?”

I blinked, looked into this cool, collected, and sophisticated man’s eyes, and saw reflected not a failed shifter but a powerful woman with talents and abilities. I swallowed hard. This was the first time that anyone, aside from Chastity, looked past what I couldn’t do to what I could.

And it was a freeing and terrifying thought. Thorn’s eyes demanded I live up to my potential, not default into a victim’s role.

Holy shit.

“Fine. I see your point. I suppose you’re the first preternatural person I’ve met who doesn’t fit the conventional mold. You’re not in a pack and don’t care to be. It’s new to what I’ve always thought I should aim for.”

He nodded toward the stone in my hand.

Back to business, then.

“Can you crack it open?”

I tried squeezing the stone, but it didn’t shatter. I threw it into the fireplace’s masonry, but it bounced out and landed on the floor.

Thorn sighed.

“It’s an item of power, Elena. You can’t just smash it and hope for the best.” He retrieved it up and held it out to me. “You have its mate inside you. Call it out of the stone.”

I frown at him. “You say it like it’s easy.”

“No, I say it like it can be done, and I say it like you’re the one to do it.”

I rubbed my palms toward the stone in his palm but didn’t touch it. While it was in his hand, I called it, using my seeking ability. When I felt the artifact in my mind, I pushed harder, mentally reaching through the layer of sediment around it until I visualized the internal object in my mind.

I flipped the image upside-down and recognized it as a heart. With the image firm in my head, I turn up my seeking, increasing my intensity. I focused on the rune inside until the stone quivered.

“More,” he whispered, and the golden flecks in his eyes glinted as though lit with a radiating light.

I did as he said, focusing with such intensity that the stone crackled, and fine lines appeared on its surface.

“Yes, yes, still more. You’ve almost got it. Stop holding back. You want it, take it.”

Almost as if he thrust it at me, the artifact flew from stone straight toward me. I threw up my hands and flinched while closing my eyes.

Nothing happened.

I opened my eyes to Thorn holding the heart rune in his hand, smirking at me.

“Didn’t know you could do that, did you?” he asked as though he knew I could all along.

“No. Did you finish it for me? It suddenly got, I’m not sure— It got easier, at the end.”

“I suspected that when you stopped thinking you couldn’t do it and wanted it, it came to you.” His demonic smirk widened to a grin. “In fact, I suspect if your friend, Mr. Driftwood, had seen that, he wouldn’t have been nearly as surprised as you were that it worked.”

“Well, I’ve never done that before.”

“But all this insecurity about not shifting. Do you think the pack thought you were a shifter all that time? Or did you exhibit your unique powers when you were young, and they stifled them until they knew what to do with you or how to hamper you? What if they spent your whole life trying to make you doubt yourself so you could never live up to your potential?”

“But why? Why would they do that?”

“Because, my dear, your power frightened them.”

My jaw gaped. When I was young, things happened around me that others thought were strange. They even sent me to the pack witch to make the animals who found the plants that grew in my bedroom to stop. I wasn’t ready to talk about that with the guy who’s metaphysically attached to me.

“Maybe.” I drew out the word, trying to mentally sort this reframing of what I had been. “Maybe it’s true,” I whispered.

“Care to elaborate?” His grin spread until it wrinkled the corners of his eyes, and the gold flecks swallowed the brown and red, making him appear rakish and charming.

No one had taken so much time out of their own lives to take an interest in mine. Butterflies fluttered wildly, dangerously in my stomach, dive-bombing my good sense and threatening to tear down the walls I’d been building around my heart.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. It’s not important right now.” I backed away from him and the stone, and he placed it on the side table.

“Would you like something to drink? We left the party rather early. We could order in.”

“Thank you, I wouldn’t mind. After all, we’ve got one last artifact to retrieve, and we might as well plan our mission tonight.”

Just as he removed his coat, something reverberated through the room. Suddenly, he looked more himself, less irresistible. His shoulders relaxed too, and he stopped pacing back to the stones every few seconds and sat in the chair.

Well, I guess he’s happy with my work this time.

He folded his jacket over his arm. “I should hang this up.”

“I’ll hang it in the first bedroom.” I take it from him, and an electrical jolt jumps from the pocket closest to me. “What the hell?” I rub my fingers and laugh. “What do you have in your packet that shocked me?”

“Nothing. I don’t carry anything in my jacket.” He reaches for it and checks both pockets. In the first, nothing, but when he put his hand into the second, his eyes shot through with red. He gasps and pulls away, shoving the jacket at me.

I reached into the pocket and pulled out a talisman. “I know this magic.”

Thorn refused to touch it but placed his fingertips over mine, holding my hand steady as he scrutinized the talons wound around the tourmaline. “A little rudimentary.”

I scoffed. “Did the job, though, yeah? You just about lost your shit at the gala. Back when Kye was there. Your teeth elongated and your eyes turned red.”

He sighs. “You’re right.” He holds up the talisman. “You said you know who made this.”

“No, I said I know what kind of magic it is. I can’t name the witch who made it without more research. Chastity could probably name them just by seeing what kind of thread they used.”

“Could it have been Chastity?”

“Gods no. She’s a fucking artist. She’d never put out work this shoddy. Besides, she does no harm, including to the bird sacrificed to bind this.”

“Okay, okay. I respect the vegan witch. How do you get rid of it?”

“You don’t know?”

He sighed and gave me a long look. “If I were an all-knowing, all-seeing god, I certainly wouldn’t need your services, would I?”

“Maybe, but I get the impression that sometimes, you have me do things you could easily do for yourself or have your real people do.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “You are my real people, and no, I am no mystic. In fact, my abilities are more akin to a shifter’s than yours are. That’s why we make such good partners.” His eyes twinkled, and he tried in vain to stifle a smile. “You complete me.” He holds out his hand dramatically.

He surprised a laugh out of me, and I snorted. “Shit. Okay, okay, I get it. I’m actually useful to you, but let’s not start that ‘you complete me’ bullshit.”

Not unless you mean it, Thorn, not because you’ve got some brain-bending talisman in your jacket pocket.

“You’d have been useful to the pack, too, if they weren’t so determined to ostracize anyone who isn’t a werewolf.”

He’s right, so I didn’t argue. After a few years left to my own devices and especially the last week, I hardly remember why it was so painful not to be accepted by the pack and why I’ve been trying so hard, for so long, to be ‘worthy.’

“Well then, tell me about the final piece of the puzzle, while I pour us a couple of stiff drinks with the very expensive booze you have here.”

He gestured at the fireplace, which started to crackle almost immediately, tiny flames licking the ceramic faux wood. I know he must have the remote in his hand, but it still gets a double take from me.

He stepped to my back and laid his hands on my shoulders. I leaned against his chest and breathed in his sexy scent, but he pushed me forward.

“Stare into the fire, Elena. You have three artifacts, now call to the last and command it to reveal itself to you.”

The fire cracked and flared a bright blue, and at first, I got nothing. But then I sensed a steady pulsing, and I turned toward it.

“Did you find it?”

“I have an idea where it is. You won’t like it. I know I don’t.”

“Where is it?” he said eagerly, like a kid drooling for ice cream.

“I’m pretty sure it’s in pack territory.”

Thorn turned solemn but then looked me straight in the eye. “Nothing you can’t handle.” He smiled and spoke with such confidence that my heart warmed, and I felt ten feet tall. I’m willing to go to hell and back to see that rare smile again. But I didn’t get to revel in it long. The smile disappeared again as he stared intently at his phone.

“Barbecue?” he said.

“Sure. But how about you order some liquor with the food. And while we’re waiting, tell me about this artifact I’m seeking.”

He looked up from his phone, and the excited gleam in his eyes made me rethink the whole “get the artifact” quest.

With a smirk, he said, “It looks like a finger.”