Naughty Karma kc-7 Page 10
Karma nodded crisply and marched over to the screen that hid her meditation area, focusing on keeping things businesslike and professional so she didn’t have to acknowledge how much of herself she was exposing to him. There was a reason this area was screened off. She didn’t let people see her like this, see inside her, see her coping mechanisms.
She slipped out of her heels and knelt, carefully smoothing her skirt. She closed her eyes, but could still feel him looming behind her. It wasn’t his towering height that made his presence so overwhelming, it was something about him, something about the way he seemed to own every space he entered. His power rippled out around him; whether he was still or in motion, it was always flexing, brushing against her spine, curving a teasing finger up the nape of her neck until goose bumps rose on her arms.
Karma took a breath and started her exercises again, clearing, concentrating, taking command of her wayward senses, finding that central point where everything was calm and controlled.
“Wrong.”
She jerked at the sound of his voice, her eyes snapping open. “Excuse me?”
“You’re doing it all wrong. You can’t go building barricades in your mind. It’s like trying to hold back the ocean with a wall of sand. You need to learn how to ride it, how to channel it, and to do that you need to relax and let the universe in.”
She twisted to get a better angle to glare up at him. “I tried that. The universe, as you put it, overwhelmed me until I couldn’t think anymore. I was totally lost. I need the control. The focus. It’s the only thing that gets me through the day.”
“There’s such a thing as being too controlled. You can’t control everything. Sometimes nature gets to have her say. You could be a force of nature, Karma. If you let yourself.”
“I’m trying.”
“Then stop trying so hard. Get up from there.”
She put her hand in his to let him lift her to her feet, a tiny static charge shooting from his fingertips into hers.
“C’mere.” He tugged her out from behind the screen and over to the couch tucked along the far wall. She waited for him to release her, refusing to show weakness by pulling away, even though she was excruciatingly aware of every second her hand lingered in his. When he did drop her hand, she refused to show a reaction, holding herself perfectly still. “Sit.” He pointed to the couch.
Since he clearly hoped to get a reaction out of her by treating her like a German Shepherd, she pointedly didn’t give him one, sinking onto the designated cushion without comment. He folded his long body onto the cushion next to hers, not touching but close enough to touch.
“Think of that psychic well you can tap into like a riptide. An ocean. If you fight it, it will drown you. If you block it, it will keep coming at you. But if you can learn to move with it, rather than against it, it can take you some pretty freaking incredible places.” His grin was an advertisement for all the wicked ways magic could be used. “Your problem is that instead of learning to swim, you’re trying to dictate to the ocean how it’s supposed to flow. It doesn’t work like that.”
“So how do I learn to ‘swim’, as you put it?”
He held out his hand again. “Shall I show you?”
Her instinct was to say no, so Karma forced herself to nod and place her hand in his. The static charge was stronger this time and kept tingling, a low current sizzle.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed. “And if you can, take down some of those walls you love so much.”
She obeyed the first request. The second was harder. Undoing a lifetime habit wasn’t as easy as closing her eyes. She didn’t even know how to begin. She didn’t see oceans or walls of sand. All she saw was her safe place. Her inviolate core. That quiet, hard-fought calm.
The first awareness she had of her own walls was when she felt Prometheus pressing on them from the outside. Once she was aware of them, releasing them was as simple as taking a breath—but as soon as she did, she couldn’t breathe. A thousand chaotic images crashed in on her, flashes of this future and that tripping over one another and slamming into her brain: deaths, lives, moments. She was Jo laughing, Lucy shouting, her parents hugging—each flicker faster than the last, overlapping and running her over, through her, jerking her farther and farther away from a sense of self, jumbling up inside her until she couldn’t tell what was real and what was chance. She felt Prometheus trying to guide her, urging her to what? Float? Swim? But no sooner had he tripped across her awareness than she was pulled into a cyclone of possible futures—she was Prometheus holding a gilded box like it contained a viper, and punching a dark-haired man, and waking up in a bed, Karma’s bed, but she wasn’t herself, she was him, her sheets tangling around his hips.
Karma recoiled, slamming walls, doors, fences, barricades, anything she could grasp between herself and the wild, plunging tide of futures. For a long, stretching moment, they continued to rush around her, a barrage of unfettered possibilities, then finally a quiet place emerged, that lovely center, that sense of self amid the chaos and the door of her internal safe slammed closed.
Her eyes flew open and she came up gasping for air. She heard a thud, but it took a moment for her eyes to focus enough to see Prometheus sprawled on the floor at her feet, the long fingers of one hand cradling his head.
“What happened?”
He groaned. “You cold cocked me.”
She looked down at her hands, surprised.
“Not like that.” He flashed his teeth, levering himself up off the floor. “My own fault. I didn’t expect you to blast me out hard enough to actually throw me. Serves me right for underestimating you.”
She pressed her palms to her cheeks, feeling them heat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“I know. And don’t apologize.” He stretched, rotating his torso like an athlete working out the kinks.
“I don’t like being out of control.”
“Aw, come on. It’s fun to take a flying leap every so often. What’s the fun in holding the reins so tight you never go anywhere?”
She glared at him. He made it sound so damn simple. Such unmitigated bullshit. “You don’t like giving up control either,” she snapped. “You don’t really believe in throwing yourself into chaos and letting it roll you. You always have to be in control—why else are you always fighting me for it? You want to be the one person pulling the strings, standing at the eye of the hurricane and watching all the mere mortals flail about, so don’t tell me you’re such an expert at letting go.”
Black eyes flashed. “Ah, but there’s a difference. I like being the puppet master, sure, but I only need to be in control of myself. You have to be in control of every little detail of your life. Everything that has happened or will happen to anyone who crosses your path. I can jump out of a plane, but as long as I’m at home in myself, I’m in control. You can’t jump because you’re too busy trying to fly the plane and dictate the weather and repack your parachute. So don’t go putting us in the same boat, sweetheart. I’m not the one who needs to learn to let go.”
She rubbed a hand over her eyes. “You don’t know what it’s like when I’m drowning in there. I can’t be reckless like you.”
“I understand better than you know. But I’m not saying you have to be like me. Just try to be a little less judgmental and controlling all the time.”
“Judgmental?”
He put his hands up for a truce. “You’re right. We agreed to let bygones go and all that crap.”
“You think I’m judgmental?”
“Do you have a better way to describe your moral there-is-no-gray-area stance?”
“Ethical, perhaps?”
“You do magic tricks for money. How is that any better than what I do? We both sell our services.”
“I don’t indiscriminately—”
“So you admit that you discriminate? What gives you the right?”
“Someone has to police it. Especially with people like you spreading magic willy-nilly.”
“Equal
access is—”
“Irresponsible!”
“Democratic.”
“Capitalist, you mean.”
“You profit from it just as much as I do.”
“I’m doing good!”
It wasn’t until he reached for her that she realized she was on her feet, in his face, shouting at him, hands clenched.
“What are you doing?” She stumbled back to avoid his hands, bumping into the couch and sitting down hard. She was breathing too fast, heart pounding. She’d completely lost herself in the argument. How could he do that? He was the only one who’d ever made her lose her cool like that.
“Let’s try again.” He stepped toward her, reaching for her.
“No.” Karma ducked under his hands, scrambling away, all but running across the room, breathing again only when she’d gained a safe distance. “I can’t.”
“The whole idea is to get you out of your head and letting loose. How much looser can you get than screaming at me?”
“So that was all to get a reaction out of me?”
“Honey, I believe every word I said, but if I can argue you out of your hang-ups, I’m not going to let an opportunity pass me by. Come on.”
She shook her head, shying away from his extended hand like it was a live snake. “I can’t. I just need a break. A chance to get myself centered—”
“The last thing you need is a chance to get back in your head.”
“Tomorrow.” When he started to argue, she snapped. “It’s been a hard week, okay? Just give me tonight.”
“It’s going to take twice as long to break you down if you keep taking time off to build yourself back up again.”
“Can’t we do this without breaking me?” She didn’t realize until the words were out of her mouth the raw vulnerability they exposed.
But for once, thank God, he didn’t mock. And twice the thanks that he didn’t show sympathy. His face was blank, his dark eyes expressionless as he nodded. “Tomorrow, I’ll bring a tool that might help, but until then, do me a favor, okay? Try to relax. Let your hair down. See how you like life without a stick up your ass for a change.”
She gave a hoarse laugh. “Asshole.”
He smiled, smug, cocky and unrepentant. “G’night, Karma.”
He turned away, but the intangible weight of his power flared out until it brushed her skin in a sort of farewell, like he needed to touch her one more time before he could go.
“Good night, Prometheus.”
She rested her bottom against her desk, gripping the edge with both hands as she watched him leave, making a point not to think. Not thinking about how she felt about him or how she felt when she was with him or who this person he believed she could be was. She retreated to her cool, calm place and held the quiet around her, hoping it would last, hoping tonight the visions would let her sleep.
Chapter Fifteen
Charm and Punishment
The bell over his shop door had never sounded so clear, reminding him he was back where he was supposed to be, watching another satisfied customer walk into the world with magic in her pocket. He’d been spending too much time with Karma, starting to wonder—not enough for the thought but enough for an uneasy feeling—if she was right about him. If he really was doing more harm than good by putting magic out into the world. And after last night, when he’d felt…what was that? Close to her? Comfortable with her? That wasn’t him. Prometheus didn’t have confidants. He didn’t rely on people or build relationships with them. Relationships were vulnerabilities and he was invulnerable. Immortal.
Or he would be as soon as he got his heart back.
He needed today to get his center, as Karma would say. And his center was this shop. He wasn’t selling bad juju. He was selling catharsis. The ability to get back at that cheating ex or vindictive boss so his clients could move on. Nothing felt so pure as vengeance. Sure, he wasn’t putting strictly white light into the universe, but sometimes a person needed to scream and lash out before he could be whole again. Prometheus understood that better than most and he made sure his clients lashed out in ways that wouldn’t leave them heartless for twenty years.
Taking stock of the store, he noticed they were running low on love charms—always a big money maker—and debated flipping the Back in Five sign over to run into the back and whip up a few more, but he wasn’t feeling particularly loverly. With the mood he was in, his love charms would probably summon stalkers rather than reciprocated love. It was a delicate thing, magic, and it listened to the caster, sometimes more than he might want it to.
Maybe he could make a charm for Karma. Not a love charm—gods, not that—but something to help her work her abilities. And if it happened to help her trust him and want to help him…so much the better.
He’d have to be careful, subtle about it. She’d examine any gift he gave her and if she suspected for a second that he was trying to manipulate her, she’d flip her shit. And that right there was a challenge he couldn’t resist.
If he failed, at least he’d get to watch her in full meltdown mode. She was something else when she lost it.
He sent out a little flick of telekinetic energy to click the lock and flip the Back in Five sign, turning toward his workroom. He’d recently received a shipment of Celtic knot pendants. His customers loved those things—even though it was just as easy to work a charm into an ugly lump of rock as it was a pretty worked knot. Karma wouldn’t be impressed by them, but there was one that was a modified yin-yang design. He was already picturing how he would layer the charm into it—no compulsion, just persuasion. Subtle.
The bell over the door chimed.
Prometheus froze, half in, half out of his workroom. The door hadn’t opened. The shop was empty. But an icy hot chill slithered down his spine and he knew before he turned that he wasn’t alone.
“Prometheus,” she purred, her voice liquid sin and velvet kisses wrapped in pure feminine sweetness. “It’s been too long.”
He hoped he was hallucinating, but when he turned, there she was. Petite, curvy, purely female, with large, dark eyes and thick, dark hair curling loose and wild over her shoulders. There was a Mediterranean cast to her features, reinforcing his instinct that she’d once been worshipped in Greece and Italy. Deuma. Handmaiden of Bacchus. Sex devil of the highest, most dangerous order. Owner of his heart. The Big Bad Bitch herself.
She studied him—white hair, broad shoulders—and smiled, dark eyes twinkling with sweet invitation. “You’ve changed, my pet.”
“You haven’t.”
“Haven’t I?” she pouted. “Doesn’t it show?”
Her body, her face, she was exactly as she’d been engraved in his memory. But when he looked at her through the filter of his power—her power—he saw it, the way she was gleaming, swelling, pulsing with dark strength. Before she’d been enthralling, but now he could barely look at her for the power blinding him. She’d been a devil—or at least a creature constrained by devilish handicaps—but now she was verging on something else. She’d appeared here without being summoned—the power differential that involved… No. It couldn’t be. He would be so screwed if Deuma was on her way to becoming a god.
Prometheus struggled to keep his face and his mind blank. It was risky enough to double cross a devil. To renege on a deal with a god… Suicide.
“I have two more months.”
“What if I’m in the mood to round to the nearest year?” She strolled through his shop, trailing her fingers through the charms, every movement of her hips oiled and designed to draw the eye.
“That isn’t how it works.” It couldn’t be. He needed more time. He was so close to getting free of her. He’d been so sure he had more time.
“No, you’re right,” she admitted. “A contract is a contract. But there’s nothing in it saying I can’t come play.”
If he’d had a heart, it would have been pounding. The blood rushed loud in his ears. “Why would you want to do that?”
“You’ve become very
interesting lately. Aren’t you glad to see me, love?” She sent him a half-lidded look that made Marilyn Monroe look frigid by comparison.
Prometheus felt his body responding, even as his mind screamed in silent protest. She could make a dead man pant, but no living man was safe in her bed. She was a scorpion. The most dangerous thing he could imagine was for her to decide she wanted him again. “I’m surprised is all. Your time is valuable.”
“You’re valuable to me, Prometheus. Especially with the interesting company you’ve been keeping lately. Whatever are you up to, dear boy?”
“Can’t a man enjoy his last months on earth?”
“Is that was this is?” She smiled. “A last, tragic leap into love? How like a man to want love when he knows he won’t have to keep working at it after the initial infatuation fades.” She lifted a love charm off the rack, twirling it between her fingers. “I can’t fault your taste. She is delicious, isn’t she? All that lovely power. She’s worth three of you.”
“Stay away from her,” he growled, feinting like a man in love to sell the facade. “Or try to tempt her if you want. She’s too good for you. She’d never deal with devils.”
“No? Maybe not. But she’s dealing with you, isn’t she?”
“What do you want, Deuma?”
“What does any eight-thousand-year-old handmaiden want?” She laughed, sweet and girlish. “Don’t be thinking you can weasel out of our arrangement, Prometheus. I don’t take well to those who try to cross me. I’ll be watching you.” With that last, comforting thought, she tossed the love charm into the air, vanishing before it landed on the counter, the soft pewter of the charm somehow leaving a dent in the Formica.
Prometheus grabbed it and moved quickly through the shop, gathering up everything else she’d touched—he didn’t trust her not to have contaminated half his wares. He dropped them all into a bag, bringing them back to his workroom with him. He’d go through each one later to cleanse them, but in the meantime, he had a charm to work for Karma.
She’s worth three of you. Deuma’s words echoed in his mind as he took out the yin-yang charm. It could have been just words. She was too good for him. But Deuma didn’t say anything without purpose. Worth three of me. So would Deuma accept a trade? He really would be the bad guy then. But he’d be alive. And perhaps he could work it so Karma was too. She didn’t even want her power. Surely she could spare some of it. Best for all of them.