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She might be Ansara, but if she was, she was completely untutored. Either that or she was skilled enough to appear untutored. If she was Ansara, he would bet on the latter. Being Raintree had a lot of advantages and one big disadvantage: an implacable enemy. The hostility between the two clans had erupted into a huge pitched battle about two hundred years ago, and the Raintree had been victorious, the Ansara almost destroyed. The tattered remnants of the once-powerful clan were scattered around the world and had never recovered to the point that they could again make concerted war on the Raintree, but that didn’t mean that the occasional lone Ansara didn’t try to make trouble for them.
Like the Raintree, the Ansara had different gifts of varying degrees of strength. The ones Dante had infrequently crossed paths with had all been trained as well as any Raintree, which meant none of them were to be taken lightly. While they weren’t the threat they had been before, he was always aware that any one of them would love a chance to get at him in any way.
It would be just like an Ansara to get a kick out of stealing from him. There were bigger casinos in Reno, but stealing from the Inferno would be a huge feather in her cap—if she was Ansara.
He had some empathic ability—nothing in the same ballpark as his younger sister, Mercy, but enough that he could read most people as soon as he touched them. The exceptions, mainly, were the Ansara, because they had been trained to shield themselves in a way normal humans never were. Sensitives had to shield or be overwhelmed by the forces around them…much as Lorna Clay seemed to have been overwhelmed.
Maybe she was just a good actress.
The candlelight was magic on her skin, in her hair. She was a pretty woman, with finely molded bone structure, if a tad brittle and hostile in her attitude, but what the hell—if he’d been caught cheating, he would probably be hostile, too.
He wanted to touch her, to see if he could read anything.
She would probably run screaming from the room if he laid a hand on her, though. She was so tightly wound that she might throw herself backward in the chair if he said “Boo!” He thought about doing it, just for the amusement value.
He would have, if not for the very serious matter of cheating.
He leaned forward to hammer home a point, and—
A loud but not unpleasant tone sounded, followed by another, then another. A burst of adrenaline shot through his system, and he was on his feet, grabbing her arm and hauling her out of the chair before the recorded announcement could begin.
“What is it?” she cried, her face going white, but she didn’t try to pull away from him.
“Fire,” he said briefly, all but dragging her to the door. Once the fire alarm sounded all the elevators stopped responding to calls—and they were on the nineteenth floor.
FOUR
Lorna stumbled and almost went down on one knee as he dragged her through the doorway. Her hip banged painfully into the door frame; then she regained her balance, lurched upward and hurtled through so fast that she immediately crashed into the wall on the other side. Her arm, held tight in his iron grip, was wrenched as he ruthlessly pulled her onward. She didn’t say a word, didn’t cry out, almost didn’t even notice the pain, because the living nightmare she was in crowded out everything else.
Fire!
She saw him give her a searing, comprehensive look; then he released her arm and instead clamped his left arm around her waist, locking her to his side and holding her up as he ran toward the stairs. They were alone in the hallway, but as soon as he opened the door marked Exit, she could hear the thunder of footsteps below them as people stampeded down the stairs.
The air in the hallway had been clear, but as the door clanged shut behind them, she smelled it: the throat-burning stench of smoke. Her heartbeat stuttered. She was afraid of fire, always had been, and it wasn’t just the caution of an intelligent person. If she had to pick the worst way on earth to die, it would be by fire. She had nightmares about being trapped behind a wall of flame, unable to get to someone—a child, maybe?—who was more important to her than her own life, or even to save herself. Just as the flames reached her and she felt her flesh begin to sear, she would wake, trembling and in tears from the horror.
She didn’t like any open flame—candles, fireplaces, or even gas cooktops. Now Dante Raintree was carrying her down into the heart of the beast, when every instinct she had screamed for her to go up, up into fresh air, as far away from fire as she could get.
As they made the turn at the first landing, the mental chaos of panic began to strengthen and grab at her, and she fought it back. Logically she knew they had to go down, that jumping off the roof wasn’t a viable option. Clenching her teeth together to keep them from chattering, she concentrated on keeping her balance, making sure her feet hit each step squarely, though the way he was holding her, she doubted she could stumble. She didn’t want to i
mpede him or, God forbid, cause both of them to fall.
They caught up with a knot of people also going down the stairs, but the passage was clogged, and people were shouting at others to move out of the way. The uproar was confusing; no one could make themselves understood, and some were coughing now as the smoke thickened.
“You can’t go up!” Raintree thundered, his voice booming over the pushing, yelling human logjam, and only then did Lorna realize that the uproar was caused by people trying to push their way up the stairs while others were just as focused on going down.
“Who the hell are you?” someone bellowed from below.
“The owner of the Inferno, that’s who the hell I am,” Raintree snapped. “I built this casino, and I know where I’m going. Now turn your ass around and go all the way down to the ground floor, that’s the only way out.”
“The smoke’s worse that way!”
“Then take off your shirt and tie it over your nose and mouth. Everyone do that,” he ordered, booming out the words again so all could hear him. He suited action to words, releasing Lorna to strip out of his expensive suit jacket. She stood numbly beside him, watching as he swiftly removed a knife from his pocket, flicked it open, and sliced the gray silk lining from the jacket. Then he just as swiftly ripped the lining into two oblong panels. Handing one panel to her, he said, “Use this,” as he closed the knife and slipped it back into his pocket.
She expected some of the group to push on upstairs, regardless of what he said, but no one did. Instead, several men, the ones who wore jackets, were following his example and ripping out the garments’ linings. Others were taking off their shirts, tearing them up and offering pieces to women who were reluctant to remove their blouses. Lorna hastily tied the silk over her nose and mouth, pulling it tight so it hugged her face like a surgical mask. Beside her, Raintree was doing the same.
“Go!” he ordered, and like obedient sheep, they did. The tangle of people began to unravel, then ribbon downward. Lorna found her own feet moving as if they weren’t attached to her, taking her down, down, closer to whatever living, crackling hell awaited them. Every cell in her body was screaming in protest, her breath was coming in strangled gasps, but still she kept going down the stairs as if she had no will of her own.
His hand put pressure on her waist, moving her to one side. “Let us pass,” he said. “I’ll show you the way out.” The people in front of them all moved to one side, and though Lorna heard several angry mutters, they were drowned out by others telling the mutterers to shut up, that it was his place and he’d know how to get out of the building.
