“I like to be thorough.”
“For what you’re charging me, I’d damn well hope so.” He shuddered. “Cristo would have only cost me half as much.”
Briana snorted. “That hack? He’s also the reason you needed me to begin with.” Frowning at the screen, she pulled up the chair Mac abandoned and dropped into it. “You’re not going to have any more theft problems when I’m done with this upgrade.”
“And you’re sure it will scare the shit out of any human thieves stupid enough to break into the hotel guest rooms, but not give them a heart attack?”
“I can’t promise that the Fae glamour I’ve got wired into this system won’t make a mortal piss his pants, but the illusion is nothing that’s going to bring the media or a huntress to your doorstep.”
Mac shuddered at the mention of the latter. “Crazy bitches. Did you know they got their girdles in a bunch when I refused to rent out my penthouse a couple weeks back after they decided to turn the Wolf’s Den into their new favorite playground?”
Laughing, Briana swiveled away from the screen. “Well that explains the naked picture of you they were circulating on the net.”
Judge, jury and oftentimes executioner, huntresses were hand-picked by Rhiannon to hunt down rogue immortals that threatened to betray the existence of Avalon to the human race. Getting on their bad side left immortals in a world of pain or dead.
Since Briana had become close friends with some of them after her oldest brother had taken a huntress as a mate, she knew firsthand how much trouble they could be. And that was if they liked you.
Apparently they weren’t fans of Mac’s.
She might have regretted mentioning it until she glimpsed the scowl on Mac’s face. It wasn’t easy to get a rise out of the laid-back wolf. “Could have been worse,” she added. “They could have Photoshopped in a really small pe—”
“Try not to have too much fun up here.” Cursing under his breath Mac headed for the door. “I’ll be in the control room when you want to check out the feed from down there.”
“I shouldn’t need to this time.” Still smiling, she turned back to the screen.
“You say that now. We both know you won’t be able to help yourself. You like to poke around down there too much.” He added something she didn’t catch, but sounded a little like room service.
She lifted her head. “Hmmm?”
He laughed. “Never mind. You’re too distracted with work and will just forget to eat anything I send up for you anyway.”
Sometimes it felt like she had
He paused in the doorway. “What should I tell Cian?”
“That I threatened to kick your ass in your fancy ultimate fighting ring down the hall when you asked me about it.” If she’d been more careful, Cian wouldn’t have discovered she turned to stone more out of habit than because of Rhiannon’s curse.
Mac scoffed but thankfully left her to her work.
The wolf turned out to be more right than she would have guessed. After another hour and a half of fiddling, she reengaged the security system in Mac’s penthouse and walked down the hall. By the time she reached the main room, she’d deliberately tripped the silent alarm, triggering the counter measures she’d programmed to deal with an intruder—human or immortal.
The whisper of shadow that crossed her peripheral vision was real enough to stir the predatory cat half of her. She fought the instinctive urge to drop into a crouch and shift.
The bright glow of the Las Vegas strip lit up the night sky beyond the wall of windows, making it easy enough to track the shadowy figure. Moving closer, its claws emerged from the phantom shape that had the cat snarling in her head.
Everything about the glamour looked and felt real as she watched, motionless, tracking the eerie glide that carried it toward her.
Leaving her wide-open to be jumped from behind.
Knocked sideways, the incredible force behind the unexpected attack threw her to her knees. Her claws burst through her fingertips, scraping the floor in an effort to maintain her balance.
Another blur of shadows materialized next to her. Only the silky kiss of awareness that teased across the back of her neck kept her animal half from pushing all the way to the surface.
Lucan.
She raised her head, watching the former knight face the menacing glamour bearing down on them. Only the top half of him seemed solid, the lower part of his muscular frame lost to the same shadowy webs of blackness that licked along the floor toward them like something out of a nightmare.
“It’s okay.” She pushed herself to her feet just as Lucan positioned himself between her and the wraith-like glamour now close enough to strike.
The system was programmed not to attack a human who could be injured simply by believing that what it was seeing was actually real. With immortals, however, the system was meant to be more aggressive. It wouldn’t take long for Lucan to realize his opponent wasn’t any more real than the Easter Bunny, but he could still be injured in the meantime.
“Lucan,” she tried again.
The rest of him seemed to evaporate on the air, and the temperature in the room plummeted.
“Disengage.”
The room brightened at the termination of the security program just as Lucan lunged forward. The phantom glamour vanished between one breath and the next, and thrown by the unexpected change, Lucan hit the floor, solid once more. The wisps of shadows surrounding him retreated, and Briana found herself staring down at the blond knight dressed in an Aerosmith T-shirt and faded jeans.
“What the hell was that?” Penetrating, green eyes locked on hers.
“Work.”
Back on his feet, he stood opposite her, searching her face. All at once she felt herself surrounded by his scent. A faint hint of iron lingered beneath the raw, dark pull of him that reminded her of the forest at night.
She allowed her gaze a moment to track down his chest and the hard wall of muscle that she spent way too much time thinking about touching, and then her control slipped back into place.
She took a step back to gain more space between them only to lose it when he countered with a step forward. She frowned at the inscrutable look on his face. “I was just testing out the modifications I made to Mac’s security system. If you hadn’t jumped me without a word, I could have told you that.”
His frown deepened and he glanced over his shoulder like he wasn’t quite sure the imitation wraith was gone. “A glamour?”
Nodding, she tried again to get a little distance between them, knowing it wouldn’t do a damn thing to soften the scent that tugged at her. It haunted her even in her dreams.
Lucan ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “I thought you stuck with human stuff. Like Dobermans.”
She shrugged. “I like to experiment now and then.” Innovating kept her immortal cliental coming back for more. A security system might not prevent an immortal from losing their head—which, along with fire and the rare mystical weapon, was the only way to kill someone like her or Lucan—but worked well as an early warning system for most.
“Experimenting? With a wraith? How dangerous was that thing?”
“Not as dangerous as you.” The real thing, she silently added, preferring not to voice where the inspiration for the glamour came from. “Might have given you a scratch or two. That’s all.”
Lucan scoffed. “It’s not me it would have scratched.”
She arched a brow at the same overly protective tone she frequently got from her brothers. Turning on her heel, she retraced her steps to Mac’s office. “I’m not the one who ended up eating the floor, unless you count when you shoved me.”
“You were just standing there.” There wasn’t a trace of apology on his face.
