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"I don't think any of us trust you enough to agree to a deal like that."
"Tough. It's my way or the highway. They can put a tracker under your skin if they think I'm going to do a runner with you."
They could, and they would. I'd be damned if I'd risk getting snatched again. "Why just me?"
"Because I'm walking the edge of a sword right now, and have no intention of slipping over that edge until I'm sure of what lies below."
Which was a poetic way of saying he wanted to test the waters first. "You'd better not be bullshitting us, Misha."
"I'm not, believe me." He paused, and shifted. Silk sighed, and I had sudden visions of black sheets sliding over pale skin. "To prove this, may I suggest you get out of that Brighton penthouse within the next five minutes?"
Blood drained from my face, and my gaze jerked from Quinn to Jack. "How do you know we're in a Brighton penthouse?"
Even before I'd said the words, Jack was ordering Quinn to wake Rhoan and Kade.
"Same way I know you're about be attacked by air. I suggest you move your pretty butt, Riley, if you want to make the meeting tomorrow."
By air? We were ten stories up, for fuck's sake...
I hung up, and swung around.
Just in time to see several blue things blast through the plate glass windows. ies reeled through a sea of agony, fractured images of a violent movie, viewed through a broken projector. The car that had hit mine from behind; the tree I couldn't avoid. The warm flush of blood on my face and arms, then pain, and darkness, and the sensation of floating. Nothing but floating, for what seemed like forever.
Then sounds crept into the mix. A steady beeping. The click of heels against flooring. The slap of flesh against flesh, and the sense of violation.
Finally, smells. Antiseptic. Sex. Forest, pine and orange blossom.
The last three were a strange combination I'd smelled before.
Riley!
The voice was distant. Demanding. It echoed through the agony locking my mind, nipping like a terrier. But the pain swirled, and I couldn't tell where the voice came from. Couldn't reach it.
Riley!
It was sharper this time, more urgent. The clouds of agony stirred, dissipating. Suddenly, Quinn was in my mind, standing between me and the pain, holding out a ghostly hand I clasped it, and it felt real, and solid, and oh so warm.
This way, he said, and led me back to the light.
Awareness returned, and I gasped.
"Its all right." Rhoan's voice was soft, soothing. His arms were wrapped around me, and he was rocking me as a father would a child "You're all right."
The air that swirled around us was cool against my fevered skin, and the air I sucked fiercely into my lungs filled with the scent of eucalyptus and night. We were outside again.
I opened my eyes. Quinn's gaze met mine, dark depths as expressionless as his face.
"The door wasn't open," I said.
"No," he agreed softly.
"Door?" Rhoan said. "Which door?"
I pulled my gaze from Quinn's and looked at my brother. "Nothing. It doesn't matter " But it did matter, because Quinn had just breached my shields and entered my mind after telling me not so long ago that he couldn't.
Rhoan touched a hand to my cheek. "Did you remember anything important?"
"Just a smell. A man, someone I've met before."
