Burn for Me (Hidden Legacy #1)

by Ilona Andrews

She sighed. “Be careful, Nevada. That’s a very dangerous man.” Tell me about it. “I’m not planning on hanging out with him one second longer than necessary.” Grandma Frida gave me an odd look. “What?” “Does he know that?” “Yes, he does. I told him. This is a purely professional arrangement.”

“When I met you, you told me you’d rather drink sewage than work with a Prime or anyone from the military again.” Bug bristled. “So?” I pointed with my thumb over my shoulder. “He’s a Prime and ex-military.” “You don’t understand,” Bug said. “He’s . . . he’s Mad Rogan.” “Oh, spare me.”

He waved at me and Bern. “Kid, I’ll be moving soon. If you want the M9, you can have it.” “That’s mighty big of you,” Bern said. “What’s the catch?” “No catch. I’m getting something better, so don’t go thinking I’m being nice. It just saves me from having to torch all this junk.” The screens went dark. “Did Mad Rogan just recruit Bug?” I asked. “Appears that way,” Bern said. We stared at each other.

“I’m not telling you this to aggrandize myself. I’m establishing the frame of reference. When I want someone found, they are brought to me within hours.” Mad Rogan glanced at me. “I can’t find Adam Pierce.” For a moment the calm mask slid and I saw straight into him. He wasn’t just frustrated. He was furious. “He’s moving through the city like a ghost,” Mad Rogan said. “He appears and disappears at will.”

“What is it?” Mad Rogan asked. I realized I had glanced at the flowers for a second too long. “Nothing. I just like carnations.”

“What’s a tactile?” I really shouldn’t have been asking him that. His face blank, he didn’t answer.

“That was . . .” I saw his eyes. Words died. All the hardness had vanished from his eyes. They were alive and heated from within. “You want me.”

“I feel the feedback.” He took a step toward me, grinning. “Nevada, you’re a liar.” Uh-oh. I backed up. “What feedback?” “When I do this . . .” The heated pressure zinged from my back up my ribs. I gasped. Oh dear God. “. . . what you feel loops back to me. I’m partially empathic.”

He grinned, coming closer. “The hotter you are, the hotter I am. And you’re on fire.” My back hit the wall. He closed in with an almost terrifying intensity. His muscular body boxed me in. “Rogan,” I warned. In my head, a song played over and over, singing to me in a seductive voice, Rogan, Rogan, Rogan, sex . . . want . . . “Remember that dream you had?” His voice was low, commanding. “Rogan!” The delicious warmth danced around my neck. “Where I had no clothes?”

“One school of thought says that the best way to handle an issue like this is exposure therapy,” Mad Rogan said. “For example, if you’re terrified of snakes, repeated handling of them will cure it.” Aha. “I’m not handling your snake.” He grinned. “Baby, you couldn’t handle my snake.”

No, I would like it, which was even worse. If Mad Rogan suddenly appeared in the middle of my office, picked me up out of this chair with those hard, muscled arms, carried me into a bedroom, and threw me on the bed, at least 50 percent of me would be totally fine with whatever followed. It would be awesome. Just to see him naked, to see that honed, powerful body, to touch him, would be the highlight of my adult romantic life.

“I’m trying to give you a chance to keep your business,” Augustine said. “She’ll have to call you back,” Mad Rogan said. “What?” Augustine asked. “I said, she’ll have to call you back, Pancakes. She’s busy right now.” He pushed the disconnect button. He didn’t just hang up on Augustine. Yes, yes, he did.

“Mhm,” he said. “The irony of this is so rich, it’s simply delicious.” “I don’t see what’s so ironic about it.” “I’d tell you, but it would ruin the fun.” “Could you be more smug?”

He laughed. It was a genuine, amused laugh. “You’re really mad at me.” I was mad as hell, but saying it would be admitting that I’d let myself get emotionally involved,

The icy vise of panic broke. “That’s enough,” I barked. The two men startled. Augustine frowned. “How . . .” “What the hell is wrong with both of you? This isn’t some bar you can wreck. This is my place of business. This is my home! There are children sleeping less than a hundred feet from this room.” The darkness vanished like a candle flame snuffed out by a draft. Rogan let go of Augustine. “I don’t know which one of you is worse. Are you out of your minds? You’re both selfish, spoiled pricks.” “Nevada?” my mother said behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. My mother stood in the hallway with Grandma Frida next to her. My mother carried a shotgun. Grandma Frida carried her phone. “Why are you screaming at an empty room?” my mother asked. It had to be Augustine’s illusion. I glared at Augustine. “Drop it.” He grimaced. Grandma Frida gasped. I had a feeling she and my mother just saw Mad Rogan and Augustine Montgomery suddenly pop into existence in my office. “Get out of my house,” I said.

“Nevada, how rich is Mad Rogan exactly?” I frowned. “I don’t know. Bern looked into him. His words were ‘scary rich.’ Probably a few million, I’d imagine. Or maybe a few hundred million.” My mom had a very neutral expression on her face. “And he’s unattached?” “I don’t know, actually. He strikes me as the kind of person who has a very liberal interpretation of that word. Why do you ask?” “Look outside your window.”

I got up and snuck to the window, trying not to wake Bern. Brilliant red carnations filled the parking lot. Some bright red, some dark, almost purple, they rose from planters—hundreds, no, probably thousands, illuminated by small red lights thrust between the planters, blending together into one giant beautiful carnation flower. I closed my mouth with a click. “They arrived around two,” Mom said. “Two trucks with flowers and eight people. Took them almost three hours—they just left a few minutes ago.”

“This is now yours. You’re both Primes. You’re responsible for Houston.” Rogan and Augustine looked at each other. “Do you have it on you?” Augustine asked. Rogan reached into his inner pocket, produced an object wrapped in silk, and passed it to Augustine.

“Did you mean Lenora Jordan?” I tried to keep excitement out of my voice and failed. Mad Rogan glanced at me, then looked back at Augustine. “You know her. She’ll take it.”

Because you’re dangerous as hell, you scare me, and because it would be mind-blowingly good. Which would mean I would want more and more and I really, really can’t afford to fall in love with you. “Because we don’t have that kind of relationship.”

“You want me, Nevada. You thought about it, you imagined it, and you probably touched yourself while you pictured it.” Oh my God. He just went there. “Have sex with me, Nevada. You

He smiled a slow, predatory grin. “Resistance is futile.”

“Well, let’s see, what do men in my position usually want?” “More money?” I sipped from my glass. “I’m worth one point two billion.” I choked on my tea.

“Do you ever regret mortgaging the business?” I saw how it was. An answer for an answer. A piece of shrimp slipped out of my taco and landed on my plate. Smooth move. “Oh God, yes. We should’ve sold it as soon as we knew Dad was sick. We would’ve gotten more money and started the treatment earlier. The experimental therapy was working, it’s just that by the time the mortgage went through, my father was too far gone. But I was very green at that point, and running the business with an established name seemed like a better option. Had we sold it, I would’ve built it back up by now under a different name. But hindsight is twenty-twenty. My mother got a little bit more time with my dad, and he got a little bit more time with us. I have to be content with that.” I realized he was looking at me oddly. “What?” “It wasn’t what I was asking, but I guess I got my answer anyway.” He tilted his head.

I reached out and touched his hand. “It’s okay.” He looked at me, stunned. “It’s okay,” I repeated. “He hired you. Your home is safe. You’re okay. Breathe, Troy.” Troy inhaled deeply.

The female paramedic leaned closer. “He’s Mad Rogan. The DA said I should talk to you about it. She said you could make him see reason.”

If the clouds split open and an archangel descended onto the street in all of his heavenly glory and tried to make Rogan see reason, he would fail miserably and have to pack up his flaming sword and go back to Heaven in shame. I had no idea what gave Lenora the idea that I could do any better.

So if you do anything to hurt him, I will put a bullet in your brain.” She smiled at me and opened the door. “Go in.”

I frowned. “So how does it help us?” “You’ll have to break the hex.” “Me?” “You.” I spread my arms. “I have no idea how to do

“Rogan, I don’t know how. I will try my best, but I don’t know how to do it.” He sat on the bed. “You’ll likely have to tap into the same place you did when you interrogated me after your grandmother nearly died during the arson.” Sure. Piece of cake. “Nevada?”

He looked at me. “Are you telling me that all this time you’ve been tapping your passive field, and it has never misfired?” “I don’t know what that means.” His expression went blank. Silence stretched. I felt stupid standing there. “Rogan?” “Hold on. I’m trying to figure out how to condense thirty years of being a Prime and learning magic theory into twenty minutes of explanation. I’m

He focused on me completely, the same way he did when he asked me a question and waited for an answer. It was almost impossible to look away.

If he ever fell in love—which probably wasn’t possible, given that he was likely a psychopath—his would be the kind of devotion people fantasized about.

It would be an exercise in frustration and lust, and at the end of it his significant other would strangle him.

He moved forward, fast, his arms catching me, and he sealed my mouth with his.

“Fine,” he said. “You had no idea it could be this good. Nobody in your past was ever that good and you know that nobody in your future will ever be this good. You’ve had a taste and you want more. You want sex. Dirty, naked hot sex. It’s floating through your head as we speak. You think you can imagine what it would be like. Trust me, you have no idea. I haven’t even started. So run from it, think it over, pretend it didn’t happen, it doesn’t matter. I’ll allow it for now. The more you fight, the more irresistible it will become, until one day I’ll motion with my hand and you’ll come running.”

“The problem with ‘thousands’ of people,” Mad Rogan said, “is that it’s not personal.”

imagined us together, all of my gratitude for saving my grandmother and for protecting Houston and its people, all of my frustration and anger for putting my cousin into harm’s way and for having no regard for human life, I poured all of it into that kiss. It was made of carnations and tears, stolen glances and desperate, burning need. I kissed him like I loved him. I kissed him like it was the only kiss that had ever mattered. His mouth opened wider beneath mine. His arms closed around me. He kissed me back. There was no magic this time. No phantom fire, no velvet pressure. Just a man, who tasted like the glory of heaven and the sin of hell rolled into one. My feet touched the ground and I opened my eyes. He was looking at me. His irises were still turquoise. His skin still glowed. But he was here now, with me. The circle was still up, and rivers of tar and fire flowed past us while Adam burned in his own hate. “You have to stop,” I whispered. “You’ve won, but you’re wrecking the city.” “Kiss me again and I will,” he said.

He wore a dark suit. It fit him like a glove, from the broad shoulders and powerful chest to the flat stomach and long legs. Well. A visit from the dragon. Never good. He started toward me. The track vehicle on his left slid out of his way, as if pushed aside by an invisible hand. The Humvee on his right slid across the floor. I raised my eyebrows. He kept coming, his blue eyes clear and fixed on me. I stepped back on pure instinct. My back bumped into the wall.

“If that’s the way you see it, fine.” I raised my chin. “I have nothing to prove to you, Rogan.” “But now I have something to prove to you,” he said. “I promise you, I will win, and by the time I’m done, you won’t walk, you’ll run to jump into my bed.” “Don’t hold your breath,” I told him. All of his civilized veneer was gone now. The dragon faced me, teeth bared, claws out, breathing fire. “You won’t just sleep with me. You’ll be obsessed with me. You’ll beg me to touch you, and when that moment comes, we will revisit what happened here today.” “Never in a million years.” I pointed at the doorway. “Exit is that—” He grabbed me.

He let me go, turned on his toes, and went out, laughing under his breath. Aaargh! “That’s right! Keep . . . walking!” I threw the wrench down. “Now that was a kiss,” Grandma Frida said from the doorway behind me. I jumped. “How long have you been there?” “Long enough. That man means business.” All my words tried to come out at once. “I don’t . . . what . . . asshole! . . . screw himself for all I care!” “Aww, young love, so passionate,” Grandma said. “I’m going to buy you a subscription to Brides magazine. You should start shopping for dresses.” I waved my arms and walked away from her before I said something I would regret.

He wanted Nevada Baylor. He wanted her more than he had wanted anyone in a long, long time, and he would get her. She just didn’t realize it yet.