Frost Line Read online

  She hadn’t bothered to wrap the towel around herself, using it instead to continue wiping over her hair … slowly. Maddeningly slowly. Her body was bare, fair and smooth and shapely. Frustrated, he had to admit she knew exactly what she was doing to him, and that she was as ruthless in her own way as he was.

  “You can help me with that issue, if you will consent,” she said.

  “Help you how?” he asked between clenched teeth.

  Her hair mostly dry, she shook her head and rubbed the edge of the towel against the place on her neck where one last drop of water trailed down. Down and down, until she stopped it. “I can lay my hands on a being and absorb their knowledge. You have great knowledge of this world. If you allowed me to—”

  “No.” Lenna, Strength, poking around in his head? Reading him like a book? Absorbing not just his knowledge of this world, but all his secrets? Not that he had any secrets to speak of, but still … “No.”

  She looked peeved. Not angry, just annoyed. She still didn’t cover herself with the towel. “Then I will choose another tomorrow, someone from this world. Perhaps while we are shopping.”

  It wasn’t his imagination that she sounded disappointed.

  One corner of his mouth lifted in a quirk. After all, negotiation was the name of the game, and he had something she wanted. “What concession will you make if I allow you to read me?”

  She stiffened, her blue eyes flashing. “There is no knowledge you could give me that would cause me to turn my back on Elijah.”

  No, of course not; she was called Strength for a reason—damn it. She continued in a frosty tone. “If, however, you require sex before you will agree to help him, that is nothing to me and you may relieve yourself with my body.”

  He could have her. His penis surged even harder and thicker, urging him to say, Hell, yes, but then, it wasn’t a thinking organ. He liked living on the knife edge of danger and tangling with her in the sheets would be that, and yes, he wanted her, but he didn’t want her as payment. He didn’t want having her to mean nothing to her. Being near her all this interminably long day had worn on his nerves, and this almost made him snap. He was savagely angry that she would even suggest such a thing.

  “Thank you, but no,” he said as coldly as she had, and turned his back on her to go into the bedroom, leaving it to her to follow or risk losing the protection of his shielding.

  He had turned on one bedside lamp before going into the bathroom, illuminating the bed but casting shadows all around. Lenna dropped her towel on the floor and slipped into bed, making herself comfortable.

  Caine ground his teeth. She had insulted him, and he returned the strike. “If I sleep, will you take what you want from me, even though I refused?”

  “No.” She looked more than a little pissed by his question; she looked as enraged as he felt. Good. “Don’t be insulting. I would never invade your mind without your permission. That would be rude.”

  Caine dropped his towel, walked around the bed, and slid under the covers on the other side. “As insulting as thinking you could buy my cooperation with sex?”

  She didn’t reply, and he turned off the lamp.

  The darkness was worse than the light. It was more intimate, wrapping them together in night’s cocoon. Darkness was when bodies came together, when barriers were let down. He was in bed with a beautiful woman who obviously didn’t mind being there, who didn’t mind being naked in front of him—but a woman who hadn’t given his erection much more than a glance. What was he thinking? She wasn’t a woman; she was Strength.

  But he wanted her. Bad idea.

  More than that, for him to succeed in his mission he needed her to function as efficiently as possible in this world she didn’t understand. For that, she needed knowledge. She needed not to be so obviously out of place. She could get that knowledge from someone else. Tomorrow would be soon enough.

  “Can you read the kid’s mind?” he asked. “Maybe he knows something about the man who killed his mother that he just doesn’t remember. You could at least figure out what this Uncle Bobby looks like.”

  “Elijah is too young, his brain far too fragile.”

  Too bad, but … they’d find another way. He turned toward her and moved closer. She was warm, as warm as he was. The comfort of animal warmth shared in the night wasn’t lost on him. Somehow she glowed a little, as if she drew more light to her body than ordinary beings did.

  “What else can you do?” he asked. “You never know what might be helpful.”

  She lifted a hand, which made the covers fall back from her just enough to reveal her breasts, and created a ball of light that danced on her palm—a light as soft as stars, rather than glaring like sunlight. A soft light. This had to be the magic light Elijah had mentioned earlier.

  “Great. You’re a walking flashlight and you can read fully formed minds with a touch. What else?”

  The light on her palm died. “My purpose is strength of will and determination. I represent, and share across the worlds, patience and courage. I would think a Hunter would appreciate all of those, though I suspect patience is not one of your personal virtues.”

  “No, not really.” He turned the focus back on her. “What about this great temper I’ve heard of? Can you truly wreak havoc when it’s roused? Can you control it?” That would come in handy.

  “It’s been thousands of years since I’ve lost my temper,” she said, obviously uncomfortable with the turn in the conversation. “And it’s not something I can control, any more than other beings can control their tempers. It is, as I recall … unpredictable.”

  Now it was she who moved closer, turning on her side to face him. Her smallish, exquisitely shaped breasts were just inches from his hand. Perhaps she didn’t notice, but he did; his fingers twitched, and he moved them away from temptation. She said, “Once I was called Fortitude, but over many years that changed, and I became Strength. Even though I was not in the worlds where that shift took place, I, too, was changed. Who I am, what I am, has not faltered.”

  “So, you don’t shoot lasers out of your eyeballs.” He barely knew what he was saying, but he was intensely aware of every word she said, every movement she made.

  She smiled. “Not to my knowledge. I have never tried to do so.”

  “Well, don’t try now.”

  She laughed, the sound low so as not to disturb the sleeping child in the next room. He liked laughter on her, better than the annoyance and stubbornness. Vae, he didn’t need to like anything about her.

  “It seems that I’m a little faster than the humans of Seven, and a little stronger, too,” she added. “It’s been so long since I’ve ventured beyond my home … so much is uncertain.”

  Caine considered all the variables and options, cutting through his innate dislike of leaving himself open to anyone. Nothing she had said swayed him, but he did find himself swayed by what she hadn’t said. Here they were, lying naked in bed together—talking. She was silently offering him more trust than anyone else ever had, in all his travels across the universe. He’d been pissed off at her all day long, and yet now … now he felt the strong impulse to show his trust to her.

  Silently he said one of the most pungent curses used on Seven. Ah, well. Might as well get it over with.

  “You have my permission.” His voice was low, but the words were clear and laced with steel.

  She had evidently dozed off in the few moments that had passed; at least, her eyes had closed. Even a Major Arcana got tired after such a tumultuous day, being jerked from Aeonia into this world, nearly being killed, fighting and running and dealing with being responsible for a child. “What?” she murmured, opening her eyes.

  He said roughly, “Touch me.”

  Chapter 10

  He’d given his permission, but now Lenna hesitated. She knew she needed to read him to acquire crucial information about Seven, but … touching him while they were both naked and in bed was infinitely different from touching him when they were fully clothed