Burn for Me (Hidden Legacy #1)

by Ilona Andrews

She forced herself to touch the iron gates. “This is Kelly. Connor, please let me in.”

“Gavin Waller is my son,” she said. The words sounded hollow. “My son is a murderer.”

Pyrokinetics manipulated fire, aquakinetics manipulated water, and enerkinetics manipulated raw magical energy.

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.”

“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.

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

was. Magic users were divided into five ranks: Minor, Average, Notable, Significant, and Prime.

Leon was sixteen. Getting him to sit still for longer than thirty seconds was like trying to herd cats through a shower.

“We’d like you to apprehend this man.” He slid a photograph across the desk. I leaned forward. Adam Pierce looked back at me with his demon eyes. “Is this a joke?” “No.” I stared at Montgomery. “In light of recent events, the Pierce family is concerned about Adam’s welfare. They would like us to bring him in. Uninjured. Since you are our subsidiary, we feel you’re perfectly suited to this task. Your portion of the fee will amount to fifty thousand dollars.” I couldn’t believe it. “We’re a tiny family firm. Look at our records. We aren’t bounty hunters. We do small-time insurance fraud investigations and cheating spouse cases.”

“He left the military four years and eight months ago. Nobody has seen him since. By all indications, he became a shut-in. The chatter on the House groupie forums says he was heavily scarred in the war.” “Yes, and he’s waiting for just the right woman to come and love him as he is.”

“Let’s do it,” Bern said. “Let’s get Pierce and shove him down their throats so they’ll choke on him.” Yes. “Thanks.” “Always.” Bern grinned. “We are family.”

Cornelius laughed quietly, a humorless, dry sound. “Are you a member of House Pierce?” “No,” I said. “So you’re hired help?” “Yes,” I said. “Are you doing this job under duress?” “Yes. How did you know?”

Mech-mages like my grandmother were rare.

He chuckled. “She probably meant vagrant. So you want to find me?” “Want is the wrong word. I’m forced to find you. I don’t particularly want to.” “Who’s forcing you?” Got you. “What are the chances of you surrendering to me?” He laughed again, a distinct male chuckle. “Come see me and we’ll talk about it.”

Grandma Frida’s parents came to the US from Germany. She was dark haired and light skinned naturally. Grandpa Leon was from Quebec. I didn’t remember much about him except that he was huge and dark-skinned. It caused some issues for both of them, but they loved each other too much to regret it. Together they made my mother, with dark hair and medium brown skin.

her. He looked part Caucasian, part Native American to me, with dark blond hair, but I never asked. All of those genes fell into the melting pot, boiled together, and I came out, with tan skin, brown eyes, and blond hair. My hair wasn’t silvery blond but a darker, tupelo honey kind of blond.

They dismissed me as a peasant, I dismissed them as shallow, and we were all happy like that.

Wait. There were two other attractive women in his way, both brightly dressed, better styled, and telegraphing “available” with every cell in their bodies. They were roses, and in my current getup, I was a daisy. He should’ve looked right over me. He was staring at me like he knew who I was. Like I was a target. My brain took a quarter of a second to process that fact before spitting back a cold rush of alarm. Stay or go? I wasted another precious second trying to listen to my instincts and my magic. My gut feelings were almost always right. Here I was in public. There were people in this plaza. The question was, would he care? Stay or go? I looked into his blue eyes. The romance books I read to unwind had all sorts of ways to describe dangerous men. They compared them to wolves, lions, tigers. By that logic, this man was a dragon, regal and deadly, and he was coming for me. Bad, bad, bad. I had to go. Now.

I braced myself against the pressure. He wouldn’t break me. “Eat dirt and die.”

Feed the beast. Feed it something secret, something I kept buried so deep in my soul that I swore never to let it out. No, I can’t. The magic ripped apart the inner walls of my mind. I can’t. My defenses burst, and with one last effort I shoved my deepest secret in front of the beast. It snapped my guilt into its jaws and tore it out.

Let’s see, I had blackmailed a mechanic; called my employer, who was probably a Prime, a terrible person—again; met with a pyrokinetic Prime and gotten kidnapped by a telekinetic Prime; gotten into a fight with my mother; and made the decision to have a weapon that could possibly kill me implanted in my arms. Some day I’d had. Too many Primes all around.

“The only reason you’re sitting here under this tree is because my mother twisted Montgomery’s arm, and he twisted yours by threatening your family. If it wasn’t for them losing their house, would you have taken this job?” “Probably not. But in the end the choice was mine.” “Why? You don’t owe them anything. You didn’t ask to be born. They dragged you into this world kicking and screaming, and now they expect you to conform. Well, I say fuck ’em.”

Magic roiled about him, ferocious and alive, a pet monster with vicious teeth. He moved toward me, bringing it with him. “Tell me about Adam Pierce.” I reached over and put my hand on his chest. His skin was burning hot. The muscle tensed under my fingers. An eager electric shiver ran through me. I wanted to lean against that chest and kiss the underside of that jaw, tasting his sweat on my tongue. I wanted him to like it. “What happened to the boy?” I asked. “The one who destroyed a city in Mexico? Is he still inside?”

Okay. Either I was way more messed up inside, or Mad Rogan was a strong projector and could shoot images straight into my mind. Either way was bad. What happened to the boy . . . I needed to have my head examined.

“You seem to be under the impression that I work for you and you can give me orders. Let me fix that.” I hung up.

Grandma looked at my mom. “Did she just hang up on Mad Rogan?” “Yes, she did. Did you know that Adam Pierce showed up at our house last night?” Grandma’s eyes went wide. “He was here?” “She met him outside.” Grandma swung toward me. “Did you take any pictures?” My phone beeped. Unlisted number again. I answered it. “I’m not a man of infinite patience,” Mad Rogan said. I hung up. “Pictures or it didn’t happen!” Grandma declared.

She hung up and clicked the phone, typing with her index fingers. “Arabella is going to flip.” My mother sighed. Grandma passed me the phone. “Here’s your phone back.” Another beep. “Yes?” His voice was quiet and precise. “If you hang up on me again, I will slice your car into small pieces and hang them on your roof like Christmas wreaths.”

“MII employs combat-trained mages. Why would they send you? What are you? You’re something. Not a telepath, but something.”

He smiled. It was a scorching hot, self-aware smile. He looked at me like I was already naked and wrapped in his arms. I felt the need to grab a napkin and hold it in front of me like a shield. “I can project, but I would have to be next to you to do it.” Oh crap. His voice turned smooth and sensual. A man had no right to sound like that. “Tell me, what wasn’t I wearing in your dreams?” I rose, turned my back to him, and walked out. The sound of his laughter caressed my back, almost like a sexual touch.

Mad Rogan took in the canvas-covered vehicles. His eyebrows rose. “Is that a tank?” “Technically that’s a gun on tracks. Mobile field artillery. That’s a tank in the corner. His name is Romeo.” Mad Rogan shook his head in disbelief.

The way my body came to attention when he was near scared me too. He turned me on by just looking at me. Having sex with him would be an experience I would never forget, and some wild part of me wanted that experience. I wanted to see him naked. I wanted to have all of that overwhelming intensity focused on me. I’d never before had a reaction like that to a man.

I took a deep breath and pushed the keys. He answered on the second ring. “Yes?” Hearing his voice was like being caressed. Chains, I reminded myself. Basement. Psycho. Boundaries. Boundaries were good. “I thought about your offer.” “I’m aflutter with anticipation.” Psycho who likes to mock me. Even better.

We have to do it now, before Adam shows up at my house again, because my mother has threatened to deal with him and then send what’s left of his body to his House in a plastic grocery bag.” “Your mother seems confident,” he said. “Do you know what a Light Fifty is?” I asked. “It’s a Barrett M82 sniper rifle.” “My mother was looking at your head through the scope of one while we were eating lunch. We need to find Adam Pierce before my mother shoots him or my grandmother runs him over with a tank. Or before he incinerates our home and my family with it.”

“I just realized I shouldn’t be in the same vehicle with you. In fact, I shouldn’t have called you in the first place, so I’m trying very hard to rewind time.” He grinned. I’ve amused the dragon. Whee.

“Does Augustine know you’re a Truthseeker?” He’d figured me out. I wasn’t really surprised, not after I’d pinned him down and wrenched the answers out of him.

He has a Truthseeker on staff and he has no idea. He’s likely been looking to employ one for ages.” Mad Rogan chuckled again. “The irony, it’s delicious.”

“Truthseeking is the third rarest magic talent. Why not make a living from it? Shouldn’t you be in some office with a two-way mirror asking uncomfortable questions?” “That’s not covered under our agreement.”

Mad Rogan’s face had hardened into a cold, determined expression. His eyes turned merciless. “What is it?” I asked quietly. “He’s a swarmer,” he ground through his teeth. “Yes.” “How long?” “How long has he been one?” “Yes.”

Swarmers were surveillance specialists. They were bound by magic to what they themselves described as swarms. Swarms had no physical manifestation. They lived somehow inside the swarmer’s psyche, letting him or her split his attention over hundreds of independent tasks, like a river splitting into narrow streams. Swarmers processed information at a superhuman speed. Most of them had the binding done in the military, and most of them didn’t live two years past that. Those who volunteered for the procedure were either terminally ill or tempted by a huge bonus payable to their families. Bug somehow survived. It might have been his deprivation chamber, or maybe he was just better suited for it than most, but he lived, got out of the Air Force, and hid here, away from everyone.

“Why can’t you just slice them to pieces like that chopstick?” “Because my telekinetic magic doesn’t work on living things. I can throw something metal fast enough to slice an opponent to pieces. I can hurl a board at him, because cut wood is dead. I can choke him with his own clothes if they are loose enough. But I can’t simply throw a body.” Oh. “So the best way to fight you is to strip naked and attack?” His eyes flashed with a wicked light. “Yes. You should try it and see what happens.” Well, I did walk right into that one.

He chuckled into my hair. My body decided this would be a fine moment to remember that his body was wrapped around mine and his body was muscular, hard, and hot, and my butt was pressed against his groin. Cuddled up by a dragon. No, thank you. Let me off this train. “If you keep wiggling, things might get uncomfortable,” he said into my ear, his voice like a caress. “I’m doing my best, but thinking about baseball only takes you so far.”

“Can you turn so you’re not pressed against me?” “I could,” he said, his voice amused. “But then you would have to lie on top of me.” My brain said, “NO.” My body went, “Wheee!”

Mad Rogan saw me and smiled. And my mind went right into the gutter. How was it that he was sitting in my kitchen?

“Aha,” Mother said. “Get to the call-from-school part.” “I told her that snitches get stitches. And Coach said that I made a terrorist threat.” “That’s stupid,” Lina said, pushing back her dark hair. “It’s not a threat, it’s just a thing people say.” “Snitches do get stitches.” Bern shrugged. “Your school is stupid,” Grandma Frida said.

“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 down at himself. At sixteen, Leon weighed barely a hundred pounds. His arms and legs were like chopsticks. “There is no justice in the world!” Leon announced. I giggled and almost choked on my pancake. Mother cracked a smile. “Can you play guitar too?” Leon asked. “Because if you can, I’ll go kill myself right now.” “No, but I can sing a little,” Mad Rogan said. “God damn it!” Leon punched the table.

“According to our mother,” Bern said, “he was conceived because she was too wasted to remember a rubber.” Mad Rogan stopped chewing. “I was conceived because my mother skipped bail. Her boyfriend at the time threatened to call the cops on her, so she had to do something to keep him from doing it,” Bern said helpfully.

A second text popped under the first. It said, Whos the guy? Rogan focused on the phone. “Pierce.” I texted back, Where are you? Outside ur house. My heart hammered. Mad Rogan leaped up and took off for the door. My mother moved. I hadn’t seen her go that fast since she left the Army. Grandma Frida dashed to the motor pool, Bern ran to the Hut of Evil, while I chased Mad Rogan.

And that was about enough of that.

the gash and blotted it. “We agreed on full disclosure,” he said. “When were you going to tell me that Pierce is obsessed with you?” “He isn’t obsessed with me.” “He called you to let you know he was starting his fireworks today. He claims he’s in lust. Then he texted you to make sure you saw him blow up my car. That’s twice he notified you before he did anything he views as impressive.”

“But if he kills Pierce, it becomes a matter between House Pierce and House Rogan. Let them sort it out. Your primary objective here is to survive. Then to bring Pierce in, if possible.”