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Mac had never suffered vertigo, but the world was spinning in a kaleidoscope of colors. She clutched Tristan and he groaned. Had she hurt him?
The spinning stopped and she took several breaths. “I was dizzy, but I’m good to go. You ready?” She lifted her head.
He looked down at her. “We’re here.”
“Where here?”
“A place I stay when I come to town.”
She looked around at a room that reminded her of elegance from another era. The sleek furniture would now be called retro, with clean lines and linen upholstery. Lights glowed in the night outside, filtering through the sheers. She gawked at the room that she should not be standing in at this moment.
A bar stocked with fine liquor. Blonde hardwood floors ran across the space. She turned the other way. A six-foot-wide, flat-screen television sat in one corner.
“Mac?”
She pulled out of Tristan’s embrace and walked to the window, pushing aside the sheer. The lights shining outside were from the Fox Theater marquee. Everything along the street had been decorated for the holidays. “Where are we?”
“Georgian Hotel in downtown Atlanta.”
That’s what she’d guessed, but hadn’t wanted to believe. She turned back to Tristan. “How did we get here?”
“Teleported.”
“Your eyes glow. You throw invisible power around and you teleport.”
He nodded and crossed his arms. Waiting.
Did he expect her to keep calling him a lunatic? Of course he did, because earlier she’d thought if she kept saying it, she might make it true.
“What are you, Tristan?”
She grimaced at how she’d spoken to him. He hadn’t flinched, but her question had sounded disdainful to her own ears. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound–”
“As if I’m some monster?” he finished. “I am. So is Sethos. So are a lot of people in this world you aren’t supposed to know about.”
She waited now, rather than say anything else insulting. Yesterday she would have backpedaled like crazy from this whole conversation, but she’d just traveled a great distance in a matter of seconds. And she’d watched Seth ... no, Sethos ... throw fireballs and Tristan shove kinetic energy around.
What would scientists who had studied kinetic energy for years give to have seen all that?
If Mac had learned one thing from facing difficult facts while growing up as a Mackenzie, it was that, ready or not, if truth stepped in front of you and stood there, you looked it in the eye and took it for what—or who—it was. Then you found a way to deal with it. You didn’t try to make it go away, pretty it up, or dumb it down.
That had gotten her through accepting the truth when she’d learned about sharing DNA with the senator.
Tristan said, “I’m what’s called an Alterant. There are ancient warriors who live among humans and protect them from people like Sethos. The majority of those warriors are called Beladors. You might say I’m ... associated with them.”
“And what is Sethos?”
“He’s a sorcerer.”
“Seriously? Did you, I don’t know, grab that from my thoughts?” A sorcerer. Her brain was going into overload.
“No, I can’t read your mind.” Tristan’s lips curled into a sly grin for a moment, then his face and tone dropped back into serious zone. “Sethos captures preternatural creatures and sells them to the highest bidder, or hunts them down for a bounty for other beings who want to use them for dark purposes.”
“Creatures ...” She cringed at that description and changed it. “I mean beings like you?”
“Yes. Like me.”
She’d fallen for a quiet, wonderful man who had made her feel special when she knew she was no prize. The years had moved past since he disappeared, but not her longing to see him again even after reminding herself daily about how he’d made a joke of her.
At night, the Tristan she’d known for ten glorious days and one amazing night snuck into her dreams any time she closed her eyes.
And now, she knew the truth.
He hadn’t played her false and walked. He’d been captured and locked away.
“Tristan, why were you locked up in South America?”
She saw him draw in a breath, watching her as he considered how to answer. His jaw worked. “It’s complicated.”
“Did you do something bad to deserve being locked up?”
“No.”
Her heart had known the answer, but her brain needed her to ask and hear it with her own ears just the same.
“Alterants have never been understood, and at the time, some considered us dangerous, which we are, but I was locked up because of fear–on the chance that I might do harm. Not because I did.”
How horrible.
She couldn’t imagine what it had been like, forced to live alone in a jungle. And even when he thought she’d caused his imprisonment and that she’d been behind his capture tonight, he still stepped between her and danger. Why would he do that after all this time?
She considered all he’d said and mused, “You’re a ... Belador?”
“No. Well, sort of. Like I said, I’m an Alterant. That means I have half Belador blood and half Medb.”
“Mave?” She’d heard that earlier. The question must have shown on her face.
He spelled it for her and explained, “The Medb are a coven of powerful dark witches, ruled by a goddess who calls herself Queen Maeve and has been around as long as our goddess.”
This just got better and better. “You have a goddess?”
“I don’t personally claim her, but the Beladors answer to Macha, and so do the Alterants for now, only because it’s better than being stuck with Queen Maeve.” He swiped a hand across the stubble on his jaw. Now that she took the time to notice, he looked exhausted. Throwing power around and teleporting must really take it out of a guy.
Tristan walked to her and started to reach out, then dropped his hand. “It’s a long story.”
“I studied about those goddesses and—” What was she trying to say? That she believed all of this? How could she not, after what she’d just experienced?
Tristan put his hands on her shoulders. “I know this is a lot to take in.”
“Goddesses, Beladors, Alterants, trolls and ... you say Seth Kako is a sorcerer.”
Tristan could call Sethos a lot of things, but he’d go with sorcerer for now. Mac had absorbed a lot already. “He’s a very nasty one. His real name is Kakosethos. Greek for Sethos the Mean.” Heat still singed Tristan’s back. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but he wanted to make sure Mac wouldn’t go screaming out of here while he called up his beast power to heal himself.
She sniffed. “What’s that singed smell?”
“Sethos got in a last shot at me as we left.”
“Where?”
“My back. If you won’t freak out, I can heal–”
“Let me see.” She hurried behind him. “Oh my God, Tristan. Your back has a hole in it. You’re burned. You need a hospital.”
“No.” He swung around and caught her shoulders again, gently, to anchor her. “Human doctors can’t fix me. I need a shower.”
“It’s. A. Hole,” she said slowly, as if she still thought he was an idiot. “A big, freakin’, burned hole!” she shouted at him.
“I can heal it.”
“Are you crazy? No, that looks insanely bad.” She kept trying to pull away to get around to his back again.
Unbelievable. Mac had accepted Tristan fighting nonhumans, that his glowing eyes were real, and teleporting, taking it all in stride, but she freaked out over a wound.
His wound. Damn, that caused a warm spot in his chest.
When was the last time anyone had fussed over him?
Let me think. Never.
“Mac, listen to me. I’ve got this. Really.” He let her go.
She stepped back with her arms crossed and a determined look in her eyes. “You could be dying while we argue.”
“I’m not dying.” He couldn’t explain any more. He was physically wiped out from flinging all that power around. This constant drain would screw his getting back up to full speed.
Ah shit. And how was he going to take Petrina and Bernie back to Treoir on time if he didn’t have enough energy to teleport even one of them by tomorrow? “Damn it.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Once Tristan had Mac safe, he’d figure out about taking those two back to Treoir. He might have to send them without him. Even so, he’d need time between each teleport.
A shower would clear his head, then he’d have to shut down for a while to have any chance of killing a light kinetically without help.
Tristan strode to the bathroom, tugging his shirt up as he walked, but the material stuck and pulled at his skin. He growled a curse. Material must have melted.
“Stop, Tristan!”
He paused and Mac blew past him.
She ordered, “Follow me.”
Amused with her take-no-prisoners tone, he followed her into the bedroom and on to the bathroom.
She peeled off her sweater and jeans, then stepped inside the glass shower and cranked on the jets. Water hit all the exposed skin that her bra and panties, pink, no less, didn’t cover.
Not what he’d had in mind, but the horndog in him was on board.
She turned to him, holding the door open. “Take off everything but your shirt and get in here.”
He normally didn’t like bossy women.
Evalle Kincaid annoyed the piss out of him when she got mouthy and started tossing around demands. His sister Petrina could be just as irritating when she got her back up.
But demanding Mac was a serious turn-on. And that right there was why men dropped half their brain cells every time they dropped their pants around a woman.
By the time he’d shucked his jeans and stepped into the shower, he was hard and throbbing.
Water poured over Mac, turning her into his own personal wet dream nymph.
She glanced down to find him erect and poised for her.
Was she impressed? No. She arched an eyebrow at him. “Turn around.”
“Isn’t that my line?”
“Do it.”
He did and water sprayed across his raw skin. “Shit!”
Way to kill a hard-on. But fuck that hurt.
“Don’t be a baby.” She gently tugged the material as it softened under the water and pulled away. She murmured encouraging words the whole time, which did little to ease the feeling of his skin being ripped from his back.
“It’s clean, and the material is out of the wound,” she finally announced. “What are we going to do now, superhero?”
She had a mouth on her.
“Just stand back,” he said, keeping his back to her while he propped one arm against the tiled wall to hold himself upright. His knees had almost buckled while the water battered the raw wound.
Searching inside, Tristan called on his beast, which came slowly to life. Not all the way to shifting, but enough to send healing power to his back. Over the next few minutes, muscle regenerated, and a layer of skin formed. Must have closed the wound, because the water no longer felt like tiny daggers. He’d be sore, but he could deal with that.
The showerhead stopped spewing water.
When he turned to Mac, she had her hand over her mouth and her eyes were open so wide he could see white all around.
He swallowed, but what had he thought? That she’d forgotten he was a monster?
There was no way he’d ever be just a normal man to her again.
Not a human male like ... fucking Kossman.
Thinking of her boss just pissed Tristan off. The son of a bitch had sent her out into danger if he really believed in supernaturals. Anyone in the preternatural world had heard of Kossman, who was richer than four feet up a bull’s ass. Women whispered about him being sex on a stick.
Even Mac had Kossman on a pedestal.
When Tristan hadn’t been able to unlock her shackles, she’d implored him to escape and call Kossman. He’ll send the equivalent of a SEAL team.
She’d never think of Tristan the way she clearly idolized Kossman. A mere human.
The one thing Tristan would never be.
He didn’t want anyone to idolize him. But standing here, looking at Mac in all her gorgeous wet glory, he wanted her to look at him the way she had the night he’d saved her from a mugging. And the way she’d stared up at him as he’d driven into her when they’d made love.
The way she’d looked at him when they first met in the park, as a man ... not a monster.
She hadn’t cared about anything but him during those moments. As far as she’d known, he was just another guy.
Just a normal human guy.
Until he’d met her in Piedmont Park, he’d had few women in his life and none he’d wanted to ever see again. Certainly not a woman he’d burned for the way he’d wanted Mac.
And still did.
Time to put that all in the past and leave it there.
He was as bad as Bernie for wanting a human woman. Not an option in his world, with his life being pulled between the Beladors and the Medb.
But for just this moment, Tristan wanted to taste her again and feel the peace that had come over him during their one night together.
She cleared her throat. “Five years ago, when you disappeared ... would you have left me like that if you hadn’t been grabbed?”
“No.” He stepped over to her. “I thought about walking away the night you invited me up to your apartment. I didn’t want to risk anyone seeing my eyes, especially you.”
“What stopped you from leaving?”
He took his time answering. Should he tell her the truth or give her another reason to run from him?
Mac didn’t run. She deserved the truth.
He said, “You. I couldn’t leave because I wanted you too much to let you go.”
She stared and stared until he accepted his lot in life. He shouldn’t have made love to her back then without telling her he was not human. Now she knew. He had no excuse this time, which meant he’d get her to safety, and then disappear.
Tristan couldn’t take the silence anymore. “You can say what you’re thinking. How could I have touched you without telling you I’m a monster?”
Her tongue slid over her pink lips, torturing him with yet another vision he’d never forget.
She stepped up and put her hand on his cheek. “You’re not a monster, Tristan. I grew up with monsters, human ones. You have the ability to heal. That’s a gift, not a curse. You’re the most honorable man I’ve ever met, and I don’t regret one minute of our night together. I just want to know one thing.”
“What?” His voice came out sounding like a rusty hinge.
“Do you still want me?”
