By Ilona Andrews
On-Sale 10/28/2014
ISBN: 9780062289230
SYNOPSIS
Nevada Baylor is faced with the most challenging case of her detective career-a suicide mission to bring in a suspect in a volatile case. Nevada isn’t sure she has the chops. Her quarry is a Prime, the highest rank of magic user, who can set anyone and anything on fire.
Then she’s kidnapped by Connor “Mad” Rogan-a darkly tempting billionaire with equally devastating powers. Torn between wanting to run or surrender to their overwhelming attraction, Nevada must join forces with Rogan to stay alive.
Rogan’s after the same target, so he needs Nevada. But she’s getting under his skin, making him care about someone other than himself for a change. And, as Rogan has learned, love can be as perilous as death, especially in the magic world.
A FIRE FAIRY REVIEW
I received a complimentary copy of Burn For Me in exchange for an honest review.
FIVE AWESOME FAIRY WINGS!!!
Welcome to the world of magic-users. A world where wealth, prestige, and people are measured by magic potential. And powerful dynasties are made by careful breeding according to magic skills. Powerful people control cities; as well as destroy them. When one Prime, the highest ranking in terms of magic skills, goes terrorist mode, a small PI firm was tasked to apprehend him and returned to his family, alive. Blackmailed to do the task, Nevada Baylor has no choice but to get him, no matter what it takes. Adding to the problem is Mad Rogan, another Prime who kidnaps her for information. But having a common target, is it possible for Nevada and Mad Rogan to work together for a common goal? And how about the undeniable attraction brewing between them?
Burn For Me is the reason why i didn't read a book for 5 days. Yup, I just had a severe case of book hangover. I was already expecting it, actually. Ilona Andrews always do that to me. So I would have been more surprised if I'd moved on sooner.
Anyway, if you're an Ilona Andrews fan like me, then I'm 100% sure that you'll also love this new series. Burn For Me has all the familiar things we love in their other series, and yet it's a totally different and new world. It has the signature Ilona Andrews voice and humor that we read from the other books and yet you know it's not the same story. In fact it's so different from Kate Daniels you won't even remember to compare the stories.
I love this new world created by the authors. It's refreshing, interesting, and since it's written by Ilona Andrews, you know you're in for another exciting adventure into a new world. The setting is contemporary, same as our time today but mixed with magic and fantasy. I also love the infusion of a little bit of myth. It added mysticism to the story.
“I opened a writing app and began typing what I knew about Pierce.Vain. Terminal fear of T-shirts or any other garment that would cover his pectorals.Deadly. Doesn't hesitate to kill. Holding him at gunpoint would result in me being barbecued. Whee.Likes burning things. Now here's an understatement. Good information to have, but not useful for finding him.Antigovernment. Neither here nor there.Hmm. So far my best plan would be to build a mountain of gasoline cans and explosives, stick a Property of US Government sign on it, and throw a T-shirt over Pierce's head when he showed up to explode it. Yes, this would totally work.”
The characters have are awesome; antagonist included. Well, it's hard to truly hate a handsome, well-muscled, charming man, right? Good thing Mad Rogan was wayyy hotter or I would have cheered for Pierce. Anyway, Mad Rogan is... my newest book boyfriend! Lol! Seriously, you'd fall in love with him when you read the book. There were so many scenes where my heart fluttered because of him. Yes, he's all that! Ugh! He was probably the reason why I even had such a long book hangover. Lol! Anyways, let's not forget Nevada, our heroine. I love this girl. Another one of those women who have a lot of potential to become a bad-ass heroine in the next books. Don't get me wrong, she's an ass-kicker but softer than our dear Kate Daniels. But I'm blaming it on her still dormant powers. I love Nevada's family. they're a cool bunch of funny people who will do everything to protect each other. Hey, a grandmother who fixes and installs armors and weapons on tanks is cool on my list. As well as a kick-ass sharpshooting mom and a genius hacker for a cousin. I'd pay or a family like that, lol!
“You're Mad Rogan!" Leon burst out."Yes," Mad Rogan said, his voice calm."And you can break cities?""Yes.""And you have all this money and magic?""Yes."Where was Leon going with this?My cousin blinked. "And you look . . . like that?"Mad Rogan nodded. "Yes."Leon's dark eyes went wide. He looked at Mad Rogan, then glanced back at himself. At fifteen, Leon weighed barely a hundred pounds. His arms and legs were like chopsticks."There is no justice in the world!" Leon announced.”
Romance-wise, OMG it's HOT!!! No, the scenes are not that explicit but it's steaming hot. The chemistry between Nevada and Connor (aka Mad Rogan) isn't just sizzling. It's boiling! Hint: Mad Rogan has this special skill that makes women crazy. Nevada isn't immune, no matter how much she denies it. And no, it doesn't need to involve the actual deed. Read the book if you're dying to know what it is. :P
I'm giving this book 5 SOLID Fairy Wings! I LOVE IT! I GO CRAZY OVER IT! I NEED THE NEXT BOOK but I know I have to wait a little while so I'm consoling myself with the thought that the 2nd book of the Innkeeper Chronicles will be released soon (hopefully). As well as another Kate Daniels book. I'm not just recommending this to all of you. I'm forcefully insisting that you read this book. I'm gonna chop my right arm if you don't like it. Which means my arm is safe coz there's no way you wouldn't like it.
EXCERPT
PROLOGUE AND CHAPTER 1
In 1863, in a world much like our own, European scientists discovered Osiris serum, a concoction which brought out one’s magic talents. These talents were many and varied. Some people gained ability to command animals, some learned to sense water from miles away, and others suddenly realized they could kill their enemies by generating a burst of lightning between their hands. The serum spread through the world. It was given to soldiers in hopes of making the military forces more deadly. It was obtained by members of fading aristocracy, desperate to hold on to power. It was bought by the rich, who desired to get richer. Eventually the world realized the consequences of awakening godlike powers in ordinary people. The serum was locked away, but it was too late. The magic talents passed on from parents to their children and changed the course of human history forever. The future of entire nations changed in the span of a few short decades. Those who previously married for status, money, and power now married for magic, because strong magic would give them everything.
Now, a century and a half later, families with
strong hereditary magic have evolved into dynasties. These families—Houses, as they
call themselves—own corporations, have their own territories within the cities,
and influence politics. They employ private armies, they feud with each other, and
their disputes are deadly. It is a world where the more magic you have, the more
powerful, the wealthier, and the more prominent you are. Some magic talents are
destructive. Some are subtle. But no magic user should be taken lightly.
Prologue
“I can’t let you do this. I won’t. Kelly, the
man is insane.” Kelly Waller reached over and touched her husband’s hand, looking
for reassurance. He took his hand off the wheel and squeezed her fingers. Strange
how intimate a touch can be, she thought. That touch, fueled by twenty years of love, had served as her rock in the
nightmarish storm of the past forty-eight hours. Without it, she would have
been screaming.
“He won’t hurt me. We’re family.”
“You told me yourself he hates his family.”
“I have to try,” she said. “They’ll kill
our boy.”
Tom stared straight ahead, glassy eyed, guiding
the car up the curve of the driveway. Old Texas oaks spread their wide canopies
over the grassy lawn, sprayed with drops of yellow dandelions and pink buttercups.
Connor wasn’t taking care of the grounds. His father would’ve had the weeds poisoned
. . .
Her stomach churned. A part of her wanted to
go back and somehow undo the events of the last two days. A part of her wanted to
turn the car around. It’s too late, she told herself. It’s too late for regrets and what
ifs. She had to deal with the reality, no matter how terrifying it was. She had
to act like a mother.
The driveway brought them to a tall stucco wall.
She raked her memory. Sixteen years was a long time, but she was sure the wall hadn’t
been there before.
A wrought-iron gate blocked the arched entrance.
This was it. No turning back. If Connor decided he wanted her dead, her magic, what
little of it there was, wouldn’t be enough to stop him.
Connor was the culmination of three generations
of careful marriages aimed at bolstering the family’s magic and connections. He
was supposed to have been a worthy successor to the fortune of House Rogan. Much
like her, he hadn’t turned out the way his parents had planned.
Tom parked the car. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do.” The dread that hung over her mugged
Kelly, setting off a wave of overwhelming anxiety. Her hands shook. She swallowed,
trying to clear her throat. “This is the only way.”
“At least let me come with you.”
“No. He knows me. He might see you as a threat.”
She swallowed again, but the clump in her throat refused to disappear. She never
knew if Connor could read people’s thoughts, but he was always aware of emotions.
She had no doubt they were being watched and probably listened to. “Tom, I don’t
think anything bad will happen. If something does, if I don’t come out, I want
you to drive away. I want you to go home to the kids. There is a blue folder in
the cabinet over the small desk, the one in the kitchen. On the second shelf. Our
life insurance policies are in there, and the will . . .”
Tom started the engine. “That’s it. We’re going
home.
We’ll deal with it ourselves.”
She jerked the car door open, jumped out,
and hurried to the gate, her heels clicking on the pavement.
“Kelly!” he called. “Don’t!”
She forced herself to touch the iron gates.
“This is Kelly. Connor, please let me in.”
The iron gate slid open. Kelly raised her head
and stepped inside. The gate glided shut behind her. She walked through the arch
and up the stone path that wove its way through the picturesque copse of oaks, redbuds,
and laurels. The path turned, and she stopped, frozen.
The large colonial beast of a house with white
walls and distinguished colonnades was gone. In its place stood a two-story Mediterranean-style
mansion, with cream walls and a dark red roof. Had she gone to the wrong property?
“Where is the house?” she whispered. “I demolished
it.”
Kelly turned. He stood next to her. She remembered
a thin boy with striking pale blue eyes. Sixteen years later, he stood taller than
her. His hair, chestnut when he was younger, had turned dark brown, almost black.
His face, once angular, had gained a square jaw and hard masculine lines that
made him arrestingly handsome. That face, suffused with power, harsh but almost
regal . . . It was the kind of face that commanded obedience. He could’ve ruled
the world with that face.
Kelly looked into his eyes and instantly wished
she hadn’t. Life had iced over the beautiful blue irises. Power stirred deep in
their depth. She could feel it just beyond the surface, like a wild, vicious current.
It bucked and boiled, a shocking, terrifying power, promising
violence and destruction, locked in a cage of iron will. A chill ran from the base
of Kelly’s neck all the way down her spine.
She had to say something. Anything.
“Dear God, Connor, that was a ten-million-dollar
house.”
He shrugged. “I found it cathartic. Would you
like some coffee?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
He led her through the doors into a lobby, up
a wooden staircase with an ornate iron rail, to a covered balcony. She followed
him, slightly dazed, her surroundings a vague smudge until she sat down on a plush
chair. Beyond the rail of the balcony, an orchard stretched, the trees weaving
their way around ponds and a picturesque creek. Far at the horizon, the bluish hills
rolled, like distant waves.
She smelled coffee. Connor was standing with
his back to her, waiting for the coffeemaker to fill their mugs. Establish a common
ground. Remind him who you are. “Where is the swing?” she asked. It had been the
favorite hangout of the Rogan kids. That’s where they’d gone when he’d had to ask
her advice, back when he was twelve and she’d been the cool older cousin Kelly,
twenty and wise in all things teenager.
“It’s still there. The oaks grew and you can’t
see it from the balcony.” Connor turned, set her cup in front of her, and sat down.
“There was a time you would’ve floated the cups
over,” she said.
“I don’t play games anymore. At least not the
kind you remember. Why are you here?”
The coffee mug was burning her fingers. She
set it down. She hadn’t even realized she’d picked
it up in the first place. “Have you watched the news?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know about the arson at First National.”
“Yes.”
“A security guard burned to death. His wife
and their two children were visiting him. All three are in the hospital. The security
guard was an off-duty police officer. The security camera footage identified two
arsonists: Adam Pierce and Gavin Waller.”
He waited.
“Gavin Waller is my son,” she said. The words
sounded hollow. “My son is a murderer.”
“I know.”
“I love my son. I love Gavin with all my heart.
If it was my life against his, I would die for him in an instant. He isn’t an
evil person. He’s a sixteen-year-old child. He was trying to find himself, but he
found Adam Pierce instead. You have to understand, kids idealize Pierce. He is their
antihero—the man who walked away from his family and started a motorcycle gang.
The bad boy charismatic rebel.”
Her voice turned bitter and angry, but she couldn’t
help it.
“He used Gavin to commit this atrocity, and
now a police officer is dead. The officer’s wife and their two children were burned
very badly. They will kill Gavin, Connor. Even if my son walks out with his hands
in the air, the cops will shoot him. He is a cop killer.”
Connor drank his coffee. His face was perfectly
placid.
She couldn’t read it.
“You don’t owe me anything. We haven’t spoken
in twenty years, not since the family disowned me.”
She swallowed again. She had refused to follow
their instructions and marry a stranger with the right set of genes. She’d told
them she wanted to be in control of her own life. They’d obliged and thrown her
out like a piece of garbage . . . no, don’t think about that. Think about Gavin.
“If there was any other way,” she said, “I wouldn’t
bother you. But Tom has no connections. We don’t have power, or money, or great
magic. Nobody cares what happens to us. All I have now are our childhood memories.
I was always there for you when you got in trouble. Please help me.”
“What is it you want me to do? Do you hope to
avoid the arrest?”
She detected a hint of cynical disapproval in
his voice. “No. I want my son to be arrested. I want a trial. I want it to be televised,
because after Gavin spends ten minutes on the stand, everyone will recognize exactly
what he is: a confused, foolish child. His brother and sister deserve to know that
he isn’t a monster. I know my son. I know that what he’s done is tearing him apart.
I don’t want him to die, gunned down like an animal, without ever having a chance
to tell the family of the people he killed how deeply sorry he is.”
Tears wet her cheeks. She didn’t care. “Please,
Connor.
I’m begging you for my son’s life.”
Connor drank his coffee. “The name is Mad Rogan.
They also call me the Butcher and the Scourge, but Mad is the most frequently
used moniker.”
“I know you—”
“No, you don’t. You knew me before the war,
when I was a child. Tell me, what am I now?”
The pressure of his gaze ground on her.
Her lips trembled and she said the first thing
that popped into her mind. “You’re a mass murderer.”
He smiled, his face cold. No humor, no warmth,
just a vicious predator baring his teeth. “It’s been forty-eight hours since the
arson, and you are just now here. You must be really desperate. Did you go to everyone
else first? Am I your last stop?”
“Yes,” she said.
His irises sparked with electric, bright blue.
She looked into them, and for a split second she glimpsed the true power that lay
inside him. It was like staring into the face of an avalanche before it swallowed
you whole. In that moment she knew that all of the stories were true. He was a killer
and a madman.
“I don’t care if you’re the devil himself,”
she whispered. “Please bring Gavin back to me.”
“Okay,” he said.
Five minutes later, she stumbled down the driveway.
Her eyes watered. She tried to stop crying but couldn’t. She had accomplished what
she’d come here to do. The relief was overwhelming.
“Kelly, honey!” Tom caught her.
“He’ll do it,” she whispered, shell-shocked.
“He promised he would find Gavin.”
Chapter 1
All men are liars. All women are liars, too.
I learned that fact when I was two years old and my grandmother told me that if
I was a good girl and sat still, the shot the doctor was about to give me wouldn’t
hurt. It was the first time my young brain connected the unsettling feel-
ing of my magic talent detecting a lie to the
actions of other people.
People lie for many reasons: to save themselves,
to get out of trouble, to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. Manipulators lie to
get what they want. Narcissists lie to make themselves seem grand to others and
themselves. Recovering alcoholics lie to safeguard their tattered reputations.
And those who love us most lie to us most of all, because life is a bumpy ride and
they want to smooth it out as much as possible.
John Rutger lied because he was a scumbag.
Nothing about his appearance said, Hey, I’m
a despicable human being. As he stepped out of the hotel elevator, he seemed
like a perfectly pleasant man. Tall and fit, he had brown, slightly wavy hair with
just enough grey on his temples to make him look distinguished.
His face was the kind of face you would expect a successful, athletic man in his
forties to have: masculine, clean-shaven, and confident. He was that handsome, well-dressed
dad at the junior football league yelling encouragements at his kid. He was the
trusted stockbroker who would never steer his clients wrong. Smart, successful,
solid as a rock. And the beautiful redhead holding hands with him was not his wife.
John’s wife was named Liz, and two days ago
she hired me to find out if he was cheating on her. She had caught him cheating
before, ten months ago, and she’d told him that his next one would be his last.
John and the redhead drifted across the hotel
lobby.
I sat in the lobby’s lounge area, half hidden
behind a bushy plant, and pretended to be absorbed in my cell phone, while the small
digital camera hidden in my black crocheted purse recorded the lovebirds. The purse
had been chosen precisely for its decorative holes.
Rutger and his date stopped a few feet away
from me. I furiously shot birds at the snide green pigs on my screen. Move along,
nothing to see here, just a young blond woman playing with her phone by some shrubbery.
“I love you,” the redhead said. True. Deluded
fool.
The pigs laughed at me. I really sucked at this
game. “I love you too,” he told her, looking into her eyes.
A familiar irritation built inside me, as if
an invisible fly was buzzing around my head. My magic clicked. John was lying.
Surprise, surprise.
I felt so sorry for Liz. They had been
married for nine years, with two children, an eight-year-old boy and a four-year-old
girl. She showed me the pictures when she hired me. Now their marriage was about to sink like
the Titanic, and I was watching the iceberg approach.
“Do you mean that?” the redhead asked, looking
at him with complete adoration.
“Yes. You know I do.” Magic buzzed again. Lie.
Most people found lying stressful. Distorting
the truth and coming up with a plausible alternative version of reality required
a good memory and an agile mind. When John Rutger lied, he did it to your face,
looking straight into your eyes. And he seemed really convincing.
“I wish we could be together,” the redhead said.
“I’m tired of hiding.”
“I know. But now isn’t the right time. I’m working
on it. Don’t worry.”
My cousins had run his lineage. John wasn’t
connected to any of the important magical families whose corporations owned Houston.
He had no criminal history, but still something about the way he carried himself
set me on edge. My instincts said he was dangerous, and I trusted my instincts.
We also ran a credit check. John couldn’t afford
a divorce. His record as a stockbroker was acceptable but not stellar. He was
mortgaged up to the gills. What wealth he had was tied up in stocks, and divvying
them up would be expensive. He knew it too and took pains to cover his tracks. He
and the redhead had arrived in separate cars twenty minutes apart. He’d probably
let her leave first, and, judging by the tense line of his back, this open display of affection in the lobby wasn’t part of his plan.
The redhead opened her mouth, and John bent
down and dutifully kissed her.
Liz would pay us a thousand dollars when I brought
her the proof. It was all she could get her hands
on without John knowing about it. It wasn’t much, but we weren’t in a position to
turn down work, and as far as jobs went, this one was simple. Once they walked out
of the hotel, I’d leave through the side exit, notify Liz, and collect our fee.
The hotel doors swung open and Liz Rutger walked
into the lobby.
All my nerves came to attention. Why? Why don’t
people ever listen to me? We had expressly agreed that she wouldn’t do any sleuthing
on her own. Nothing good ever came of it.
Liz saw them kissing and went white as a sheet.
John let go of his mistress, his face shocked. The redhead stared at Liz, horrified.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” John said.
It was exactly what it looked like.
“Hi!” Liz said, shockingly loud, her voice brittle.
“Who are you? Because I’m his wife!”
The redhead turned and fled into the depths
of the hotel. Liz turned to her husband. “You.”
“Let’s not do this here.”
“Now you’re concerned with appearances? Now?”
“Elizabeth.” His voice vibrated with command. Uh-oh. “You ruined us. You ruined
everything.”
“Listen . . .”
She opened her mouth. The words took a second
to come out, as if she had to force them. “I want a divorce.” I’ve been working
for the family business since I was seventeen, and I saw the precise moment adrenaline
hit John’s system. Some guys get red-faced and start screaming. Some might
freeze—those are your fear biters. Push too far and they will go crazy. John Rutger
went flat. All emotions drained from his face. His eyes opened wide, and behind them a hard, calculating mind evaluated
the situation with icy precision.
“Okay,” John said quietly. “Let’s talk about
this. It’s more than us. It’s also the kids. Come, I’ll take you home.” He reached
for her arm.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed.
“Liz,” he said, his voice perfectly reasonable,
his eyes focused and predatory, like the hard stare of a sniper sighting his target.
“This isn’t a conversation for the hotel lobby. Don’t make a scene. We’re better
than that. I’ll drive.”
There was no way I could let Liz get into his
car. His eyes told me that if I let him gain control of her, I would never see her
again.
I moved fast and put myself between them. “Nevada?”
Liz blinked, thrown off track. “Walk away,” I told her.
“Who is this?” John focused on me.
That’s right, look at me, don’t look at her.
I’m a bigger threat. I body-blocked Liz, keeping myself between them. “Liz, go to
your car. Don’t drive home. Go to a family member’s house. Now.”
Muscles on John’s jaw bulged as he locked his
teeth. “What?” Liz stared at me.
“You hired her to spy on me.” John shrugged
his shoulders and turned his neck like a fighter loosening himself for a fight.
“You brought her into our private life.”
“Now!” I barked. Liz turned and fled.
I raised my hands in the air and backed away
toward the exit, making sure the camera in the hotel lobby had me in plain view.
Behind me the door hissed as Liz made a break for it.
“It’s over, Mr. Rutger. I’m not a threat.”
“You nosy bitch. You and that harpy are in it
together.”
At the desk the concierge frantically mashed
buttons on a phone.
If I’d been on my own, I would have turned and
run. Some people stand their ground no matter what. In my line of work, a stint
at the hospital, coupled with a bill you can’t pay because you’re not working, cures
that notion really fast. Given a chance, I’d run like a rabbit, but I had to buy
Liz time to get to her car.
John raised his arms, bent at the elbow, palms
up, fingers apart, as if he was holding two invisible softballs in his hands.
The mage pose. Oh shit.
“Mr. Rutger, don’t do this. Adultery isn’t illegal.
You haven’t committed any crimes yet. Please don’t do this.”
His eyes stared at me, cold and hard. “You can
still walk away from this.”
“You thought you could humiliate me. You thought
you’d embarrass me.” His face darkened as ghostly magic shadows slid across his
skin. Tiny red sparks ignited above his palms and flared. Bright crimson lightning
danced, stretching to the tips of his fingers.
Where the hell was the hotel security? I couldn’t
take him down first—it would be an assault, and we couldn’t afford to be
sued—but they could.
“Let me show you what happens to people who
try to humiliate me.”
I dashed to the side.
Thunder pealed. The glass doors of the hotel
shattered. The blast wave picked me up off the floor. I saw the chair from the lounge
fly at me and I threw my hands up, curling in midair. The wall smashed into my
right shoulder. The chair hit my side and face. Ow.
I crashed down next to the shards of a ceramic
pot that had held a plant two seconds ago, then I
scrambled to my feet.
The red sparks ignited again. He was getting
ready for Round Two.
They say a hundred-and-thirty-pound woman has
no chance against an athletic two-hundred-pound man. That’s a lie. You just have
to make a decision to hurt him and then do it.
I grabbed a heavy pot shard and hurled it at
him. It crashed against his chest, knocking him off balance. I ran to him, yanking
a Taser from my pocket. He swung at me. It was hard and fast, and it caught me right
in the stomach. Tears swelled in my eyes. I lunged forward and jammed the Taser
against his neck.
The shock surged through him. His eyes bulged.
Please let him go down. Please.
His mouth gaped open. John went rigid and crashed
like a log.
I knelt on his neck, pulled a plastic tie from
my pocket, and wrestled his hands together, tying them up.
John growled.
I sat next to him on the floor. My face hurt.
Two men burst from the side doors and ran to
us. Their jackets said security. Well, now they show up. Thank God for the
cavalry.
In the distance police sirens blared.
Sgt. Munoz, a stocky man twice my age, peered
at the security footage. He’d watched it twice already.
“I couldn’t let him put her into the car,” I
said from my spot in the chair. My shoulder hurt and the handcuffs on my hands kept
me from rubbing it. Being in close proximity to cops filled me with anxiety. I wanted
to fidget, but fidgeting would make me look nervous.
“You were right,” Munoz said and tapped the
screen, pausing on John Rutger reaching for his wife. “That right there is your
dead giveaway. The man’s caught with his pants down and he doesn’t say, ‘Sorry,
I fucked up.’ He doesn’t beg for forgiveness or get angry. He goes cold and tries
to get his wife out of the picture.”
“I didn’t provoke him. I didn’t put my hands
on him either, until he tried to kill me.”
“I see that.” He turned to me. “That’s a C2
Taser you’ve got there. You do know range on those things is fifteen feet?”
“I didn’t want to take chances. His magic looked
electrical to me, and I thought he might block the current.”
Munoz shook his head. “No, he was enerkinetic.
Straight magic energy, and education to use it, courtesy of the U.S. Army. This
guy is a vet.”
“Ah.” That explained why Rutger went flat. Dealing
with adrenaline was nothing new to him. The fact that he was an enerkinetic made
sense too. Pyrokinetics manipulated fire, aquakinetics manipulated water, and
enerkinetics manipulated raw magical energy. Nobody was quite sure what the
nature of that energy was, but it was a relatively common magic. How in the world
did Bern miss all this in the background check? When I got home, my cousin and
I would have to have words.
A uniformed cop stuck his head in the door and
handed my license back to Munoz. “She checks out.”
Munoz unlocked my cuffs, took them off, and
handed me my purse and camera. My cell and my wallet followed. “We have
your statement, and we took your memory card. You’ll get it back later. Go
home, put some ice on that neck.”
I grinned at him. “Are you going to tell me
not to leave town, Sarge?”
Munoz gave me a “yet another smart-ass” look.
“No. You went up against a military-grade mage for a grand. If you need the money
that bad, you probably can’t afford the gas.”
Three minutes later I climbed into my five-year-old
Mazda minivan. The paperwork described Mazda’s color as “gold.” Everyone else said
it was “kind of champagne” or “sort of beige.” Coupled with unmistakable mom car
lines, the minivan made for a perfect surveillance vehicle. Nobody paid it any mind.
I once followed a guy for two hours in it on a nearly deserted highway, and when
the insurance company later showed him the footage demonstrating that his knee
worked just fine as he shifted gears in his El Camino, he was terribly surprised.
I turned the mirror. A big red welt that would
mature into one hell of a purple bruise blossomed on my neck and the top of my right
shoulder, like someone took a handful of blueberries and rubbed it all over me.
An equally bright red stain marked my jaw on the left side. I sighed, readjusted
the mirror, and headed home.
Some easy job this turned out to be. At least
I didn’t have to go to the hospital. I grimaced. The welt decided it didn’t like
me grimacing. Ow.
The Baylor Investigative Agency started as a
family business. We still were a family business. Technically we were owned by someone
else now, but they mostly left us alone to run our affairs as we saw fit. We had
only three rules. Rule #1: we stayed bought. Once a client hired us, we were loyal
to the client. Rule #2: we didn’t break the law. It was a good rule. It kept us out of jail
and safe from litigation. And Rule #3, the most important one of all: at the end
of the day we still had to be able to look our reflections in the eye. I filed
today under Rule #3 day. Maybe I was crazy and John Rutger would’ve taken his wife
home and begged her forgiveness on bended knee. But at the end of the day, I had
no regrets, and I didn’t have to worry about whether I did the right thing and
whether Liz’s two children would ever see their mother again.
Their father was a different story, but he was
no longer my problem. He made that mess all on his own.
I cleared the evening traffic on I-290, heading
northwest, and turned south. A few minutes later I pulled up in front of our warehouse.
Bern’s beat-up black Civic sat in the parking lot, next to Mom’s blue Honda Element.
Oh good. Everyone was home.
I parked, went to the door, and punched the
code into the security system. The door clicked open, then I let myself in and paused
for a second to hear the reassuring clang of the lock sliding home behind me.
When you entered the warehouse from this door,
it looked just like an office. We built walls, installed some glass panels, and
laid down high-traffic beige carpet. That gave us three office rooms on the left
side and a break room and large conference room on the right. The drop ceiling completed
the illusion.
I stepped into my office, put the purse and
the camera on the desk, and sat in my chair. I really should do a write-up, but
I didn’t feel like it. I’d do it later.
The office was soundproof. Around me everything
was quiet. A familiar, faint scent of grapefruit oil in the oil warmer floated to
me. The oils were my favorite little luxury. I inhaled the fragrance. I was home. I survived. Had I hit my head on the wall
when Rutger had thrown me, I could’ve died today. Right now I could be dead instead
of sitting here in my office, twenty feet from my home. My mom could be in the morgue,
identifying me on a slab. My heart pounded in my chest. Nausea crept up, squeezing
my throat. I leaned forward and concentrated on breathing. Deep, calm breaths. I
just had to let myself work through it.
In and out. In and out. Slowly the anxiety
receded. In and out.
Okay.
I got up, crossed the office to the break room,
opened the door in the back, and stepped into the warehouse. A luxuriously wide
hallway stretched left and right, its sealed concrete floor reflecting the light
softly. Above me thirty-foot ceilings soared. After we had to sell the house and
move into the warehouse, Mom and Dad considered making the inside look just like
a real house. Instead we ended up building one large wall separating this section
of the warehouse—our living space—from Grandma’s garage so we didn’t have to heat
or air-condition the entire twenty-two thousand square feet of the warehouse. The
rest of the walls had occurred organically, which was a gentle euphemism for We
put them up as needed with whatever material was handy.
If Mom saw me, I wouldn’t get away without a thorough medical exam. All I wanted to do was take a shower and eat some food. This
time of the day she was usually with Grandma, helping her work. If I was really
quiet, I could just sneak into my room. I padded down the hallway. Think sneaky
thoughts . . . Be invisible . . . Hopefully, nothing attention-attracting was
going on.
“I’ll kill you!” a familiar high voice howled
from the right.
Damn it. Arabella, of course. My youngest sister
was in rare form, judging by the pitch.
“That’s real mature!” And that was Catalina,
the seventeen-year-old. Two years older than Arabella and eight years younger than
me.
I had to break this up before Mom came over
to investigate. I sped down the hallway toward the media room.
“At least I’m not a dumb ho who has no friends!”
“At least I’m not fat!”
“At least I am not ugly!”
Neither of them was fat, ugly, or promiscuous.
They both were complete drama queens, and if I didn’t quash this party up fast,
Mom would be on us in seconds.
“I hate you!”
I walked into the media room. Catalina, thin
and darkhaired, stood on the right, her arms crossed over her chest. On the left
Bern very carefully restrained blond Arabella by holding her by her waist above
the floor. Arabella was really strong, but Bern had wrestled through high school
and went to a judo club twice a week. Now nineteen and still growing, he stood an
inch over six feet tall and weighed about two hundred pounds, most of it powerful,
supple muscle. Holding a hundred-pound Arabella wasn’t a problem.
“Let me go!” Arabella snarled.
“Think about what you’re doing,” Bern said,
his deep voice patient. “We agreed—no violence.”
“What is it this time?” I asked.
Catalina stabbed her finger in Arabella’s direction.
“She never put the cap on my liquid foundation. Now it’s dried out!”
Figured. They never fought about anything
important. They never stole from each other, they never tried to sabotage each
other’s relationships, and if anyone dared to look at one of them the wrong way,
the other one would be the first to charge to her sister’s defense. But if one of
them took the other’s hairbrush and didn’t clean it, it was World War III.
“That’s not true . . .” Arabella froze. “Neva,
what happened to your face?”
Everything stopped. Then everyone said something
at once, really loud.
“Shush! Calm down; it’s cosmetic. I just need
a shower. Also, stop fighting. If you don’t, Mom will come here and I don’t want
her to—”
“To what?” Mom walked through the door, limping
a little. Her leg was bothering her again. Of average height, she used to be
lean and muscular, but the injury had grounded her. She was softer now, with a rounder
face. She had dark eyes like me, but her hair was chestnut brown.
Grandma Frida followed, about my height, thin,
with a halo of platinum curls stained with machine grease. The familiar, comforting
smell of engine oil, rubber, and gunpowder spread through the room. Grandma Frida
saw me and her blue eyes got really big. Oh no.
“Penelope, why is the baby hurt?”
Best defense is vigorous offense. “I’m not a
baby. I’m twenty-five years old.” I was Grandma’s first grandchild. If she lived
until I turned fifty, with grandchildren of my own, I’d still be “the baby.”
“How did this happen?” Mom asked.
Damn it. “Magic blast wave, wall, and a chair.”
“Blast wave?” Bern asked.
“The Rutger case.”
“I thought he was a dud.”
I shook my head. “Enerkinetic magic. He was
a vet.”
Bern’s face fell. He frowned and marched out
of the room.
“Arabella, get the first-aid kit,” Mom said.
“Nevada, lie down. You may have a concussion.”
Arabella took off running.
“It’s not that bad! I don’t have a concussion.”
My mother turned and looked at me. I knew that
look.
That was the Sgt. Baylor look. There was no
escape. “Did paramedics look at you at the scene?” “Yes.”
“What did they say?”
There was no point in lying. “They said I should
go to the hospital just in case.”
My mother pinned me down with her stare. “Did
you?” “No.”
“Lie down.”
I sighed and surrendered to my fate.
The next morning I sat in the media room, eating
the crepes and sausages Mom made for me. My neck still hurt. My side hurt worse.
Mom sat at the other end of the sectional, sipping
her coffee and working on Arabella’s hair. Apparently the latest fashion among middle
schoolers involved elaborate braids, and Arabella had somehow cajoled Mom into
helping her.
On the left side of the screen, a female news
anchor with impossibly perfect hair profiled the recent arson at First National,
while the right side of the screen showed a tornado of fire engulfing the building.
The orange flames billowed out the windows.
“It’s awful,” Mom said. “Did anybody die?”
I asked.
“A security guard. His wife and their two children
came by to drop off his dinner and were also burned, but they survived. Apparently
Adam Pierce was involved.”
Everyone in Houston knew who Adam Pierce was.
Magic users were segregated into five ranks: Minor, Average, Notable, Significant,
and Prime. Born with a rare pyrokinetic talent, Pierce had Stainless Steel classification.
A pyrokinetic was considered Average if he could melt a cubic foot of ice under
a minute. In the same amount of time, Adam Pierce could conjure a fire that would
melt a cubic foot of stainless steel. That made Pierce a Prime, the highest rank
of magic user. Everybody wanted him— the military, Home Defense, and the private
sector.
A wealthy, established family, the Pierces owned
Firebug, Inc., the leading provider of industrial forging products. Adam, handsome
and magically spectacular, was the pride and joy of House Pierce. He’d grown up
wrapped in tender luxury, had gone to all the right schools, had worn all the right
clothes, and his future had had golden sparkles all over it. He’d been the rising
star and the most eligible bachelor. Then, at the ripe age of twenty-two, he’d given
them all the finger, declared himself a radical, and gone off to start a motorcycle
gang.
Since then Pierce had been popping up in the
news for one thing or another, usually involving cops, crime, and antiestablishment
declarations. The media loved him, because his name brought ratings.
As if on cue, Pierce’s portrait filled the right
side of the screen. He wore his trademark black jeans and unzipped black leather
jacket over bare, muscled chest. A Celtic knot-work tattoo covered his left pectoral,
and a snarling panther with horns decorated the right
side of his six-pack. Longish brown hair spilled over his beautiful face, highlighting
the world’s best cheekbones and a perfect jaw with just the right amount of stubble
to add some scruff. If you cleaned him up, he would look almost angelic. As is,
he was a tarnished poseur angel, his wings artfully singed with the perfect
camera shot in mind.
I’d seen my share of real biker gangsters. Not
the weekend bikers, who were doctors and lawyers in real life, but the real deal,
the ones who lived on the road. They were hard, not too well kept, and their eyes
were made of lead. Pierce was more like the leading man playing a badass in an action
movie. Lucky for him, he could make his own background of billowing flames.
“Hot!” Arabella said. “Stop it,” Mom told her.
Grandma Frida walked into the room. “Oooh, here
is my boy.”
“Mother,” Mom growled.
“What? I can’t help it. It’s the devil eyes.”
Pierce did have devil eyes. Deep and dark, the
rich brown of coffee grinds, they were unpredictable and full of crazy. He was very
nice to look at, but all of the images of him looked staged. He always seemed to
know where the camera was. And if I ever saw him in person, I’d run the other way
like my back was on fire. If I hesitated, it would be.
“He killed a man,” Mom said.
“He was framed,” Grandma Frida said. “You don’t
even know the story,” Mom said.
Grandma shrugged. “Framed. A man that pretty
can’t be a murderer.”
Mother stared at her.
“Penelope, I’m seventy-two years old. You let
me enjoy my fantasy.”
“Go Grandma.” Arabella pumped her fist in the
air. “If you insist on being Grandma’s little stooge, she can
do your hair,” Mom said.
“We will return to the investigation on the
arson after the break,” the news anchor announced. “Also, iconic downtown park infested
with rats.”
The image of Bridge Park popped on the screen,
its life-size bronze statue of a cowboy on a galloping horse front and center.
“Should Harris County officials resort to drastic
measures? More after the break.”
Bern walked into the room. “Hey, Nevada, can
I borrow you for a moment?”
I got up and followed him out. Without saying
a word, we went down the hallway and into the kitchen. It was the closest place
where Mom and Grandma wouldn’t overhear us.
“What’s up?”
Bern ran his hand through his short, light brown
hair and held out a folder. I opened it and scanned it. John Rutger’s lineage,
biography, and background check. A line stood out, highlighted in yellow: Honorable
Discharge, Sealed.
I raised my finger. “Aha!” “Aha,” Bern confirmed.
Usually employers liked hiring ex-servicemen.
They were punctual, disciplined, polite, and capable of making quick decisions when
needed. But combat mages sent the typical HR manager running in the opposite direction. Nobody wanted a guy stressing out in their office when he had the ability to summon a host of
bloodsucking leeches. To circumvent this issue, the Department of Defense started
sealing records of some combat-grade personnel. A sealed record didn’t always meant
combat-grade magic, but it would’ve given me a nice heads-up. I would’ve approached
Rutger’s situation from an entirely different angle.
“I screwed up.” Bern leaned against the counter.
His grey eyes were full of remorse. “I had a modern history exam. It’s not my strongest
class, and I needed at least a B to keep the scholarship, so I had to cram. I gave
it to Leon. He ran the lineage and the background check, but forgot to log in to
the DOD database.”
“It’s okay,” I told him. Leon was fifteen. Getting
him to sit still for longer than thirty seconds was like trying to herd cats
through a shower.
Bern rubbed the bridge of his nose. “No. It’s
not okay. You asked me to do it. I should’ve done it. You got hurt. It won’t
happen again.”
“Don’t sweat it,” I told him. “I’ve missed stuff
before. It happens. Just make it a point from now on to check DOD. Did you get
a B?”
He nodded. “It’s kind of interesting, actually.
Do you know that story about Mrs. O’Leary’s cow?”
I used to really like history. I even thought
of getting a minor in it, but real life got in the way. “Didn’t she knock over a
lamp in the barn and start the Great Chicago Fire sometime in the 1860s?”
“In October of 1871,” Bern said. “My professor
doesn’t think the cow did it. He thinks it was a mage.”
“In 1871? The Osiris Serum had barely been discovered.”
“It’s a really interesting theory.” Bern shrugged.
“You should talk to him sometime. He is a pretty cool guy.”
I smiled. It had taken me four years, including
every summer, to limp my way to a criminal justice degree, because I’d had to work.
Bern got an academic scholarship because he was smarter than all of us combined,
and now he was doing well. He even liked at least one of his classes outside his
major.
“There is more,” Bern said. “Montgomery wants
to see us.”
My stomach did a pirouette inside me. House
Montgomery owned us. When savings and the money from the sale of our home hadn’t
been enough to cover Dad’s medical bills, we’d sold the firm to Montgomery. Technically,
it was mortgaged. We had a thirty-year repayment term, and every month we squeaked
by with the minimum payment. The terms of our mortgage practically made us a subsidiary of Montgomery International Investigations. Montgomery had taken very little
interest in us up to this point. We were too small to be of any use to them,
and they had no reason to bother us as long as the check had cleared, and our checks
always cleared. I made sure of that.
“They said ASAP,” Bern said. “Did it sound routine?”
“No.”
Damn it. “Don’t tell Mom or Grandma.” He
nodded. “They’ll just stress.”
“Yes. I’ll call you as soon as I find out what
this is about. Hopefully we just forgot to file some form or something.”
I was almost to the door when he called, “Nevada?
John Rutger’s wife wired the money. A thousand dollars, as agreed.”
“Good,” I said and escaped. I needed to brush
my hair, make myself presentable, and hightail it across town to the glass towers.
Really, how bad could it be?
Tour Giveaway
1 print copy of BURN FOR ME along with some BURN FOR ME swag
About the Author
“Ilona Andrews” is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing team. Ilona is a native-born Russian and Gordon is a former communications sergeant in the U.S. Army.
Contrary to popular belief, Gordon was never an intelligence officer with a license to kill, and Ilona was never the mysterious Russian spy who seduced him. They met in college, in English Composition 101, where Ilona got a better grade. (Gordon is still sore about that.)
They have co-authored two New York Times and USA Today bestselling series, the urban fantasy of Kate Daniels and the romantic urban fantasy of The Edge and are working on the next volumes for both.
They live in Texas with their two children and many dogs and cats.
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