new life in America. The picture in her mind quickly turned to a fledgling medical student alone in a strange country. Why, she didn’t know a single solitary soul in Boston. A chill went through her, and then the longing for him returned. She had hungered for him before they were intimate, but not with this kind of intensity. At times it seemed as though she had yearned for him since . . .
Forever.
She had weighed her choices over and over these past weeks. If she stayed here in London, her life would be nothing short of a living torture. To live with a man she loved, who did not wish to be her husband or lover—but her guardian.
Mia shivered.
“Would you like a warmer dressing gown, Miss—the quilted one perhaps?” The upstairs maid drew her from unhappy thoughts.
“I’m fine. Good night, Violet.” The little maid padded out of the room. Absently, Mia heard the soft click as the door shut. She exhaled a sigh—more of a soft moan, wrenched from deep within her body. Dear God, how she would miss him.
Certainly, the young woman who returned her gaze in the mirror appeared older and wiser, or was that because she wanted to believe it so? Mia reached up to unpin her hair. “I would like to help you with that—if you would allow me.”
She had thought the dark silhouette a mere shadow in the window. In the blink of an eye, he moved from her bedchamber to her dressing room. Mia stared at his reflection. “Good evening, Prospero.”
“Mia.” Their gaze met in the mirror. After every pin had been removed from her looped chignon, a mane of hair fell down her back, Gentle hands reached out and swept loose waves off her neck. Reverently, he bent and kissed her shoulder. “If I believed for a moment you could be mine, I would not hesitate to love you.”
Her heart palpitated rapidly, not in the way it did for Exeter, but there was no denying the attraction. Something dark inside her—the cat in her, presumably—sparked to him. “How could you know?”
“I know only what I sense from your heart—” Prospero’s breath drifted over her ear. “And your body. I have wanted you for some time now, Mia—to plunge deep inside you—feel those long legs wrapped around my waist.”
Mia spun around and slapped his face. “Get out. Exeter will be here any minute.”
The strangely handsome wizard stared—almost amused. Piercing silver black eyes squinted slightly as he evaluated her words. “He has not been in your bedchamber in weeks, why would he come tonight?”
She could feel him probe around in her thoughts, but he could only go so deep. To know her innermost feelings, he would have to allow her into his mind, something he would never do.
Mia breathed a sigh of relief. She had left Exeter’s study out of sorts and needlessly aroused. She had gone directly to her room, undressed, and waited for him to advise her on the finer points of pleasuring herself—not that she couldn’t muddle her way through on her own—but if this was the only way to get him into her bedchamber it would have to do.
Whether he wished to admit it to himself or not, Exeter had become aroused in his study and was almost embarrassed by it. Frankly, that infuriated her more than anything. And now—here was Prospero, ready to make love to her. The wizard brushed his lips over the edge of her ear and nibbled.
Mia moistened her lips. She entertained a dangerous thought. According to her friend Phoebe, there were times when men needed to be jostled out of a stupor of indifference and taught a lesson.
Prospero met her gaze in the mirror. “As I said earlier, I would like to help you with that—if you would allow it.” Mia wondered if she grasped his meaning—he understood her heartache and was willing help her.
“And what do you ask in return for such a favor?”
“You must convince Exeter to let me go free.”
“But”—she looked him up and down—“you are here; you are free.”
Prospero almost smiled. “A very persistent illusion.”
She searched his face. So open and honest tonight. As though he had laid himself bare. “Why do they fear you so? What did you do to them that makes them so fearful of you?”
“It is not what I did to them. It is what they did to my people. They fear my retaliation.”
“So you didn’t create those Outremer dregs—Reapers, Grubbers . . . and the Skeezicks?”
“I had to survive. Oakley and his gang of corporate thugs sabotaged all my efforts to repair the unraveling. He even convinced Victor to blow up the aether plants. And now they have in their possession the temperamental Moonstone.” He laced his gravely soft voice with an extra bit of irony. “It’s almost amusing.”
“Exeter mentioned problems.” Her head whirled. She had not been privy to much information about these alternate-world moguls, apart from their great struggle for power.
Prospero suddenly swept her into his arms and carried her into the bedchamber. “He is coming.”
He sat her on the bed and opened her dressing gown. She suffered an unexpected wave of modesty when he took a moment to admire her. “You’ve already seen me naked.”
“Yes, I have.” Prospero kissed her almost tenderly. “Forgive me, but I have to make this look good.” He slapped her across the face and she cried out.
“Whatever happens, don’t let the cat out,” he whispered. “Trust me, please.” He wrapped his fingers around her neck.
“Take your hands off her.”
Mia glimpsed Exeter’s tall silhouette enter the room. When she began to choke, Prospero lifted her up and flung himself behind her. “I go free and the girl goes free.”
Mia nodded, the fear in her eyes just as real as it looked. As this was no doubt part of this scheming wizard’s plan, she needed to be convincing. “Please, Exeter—he has promised to let me go.”
“Oh, he will let you go, all right.” Exeter fired a ball of violet-blue force much more powerful than he had used against Prospero in Paris, but then his energy had been drastically depleted by the explosion and cave-in. This time Exeter’s blast hit Prospero squarely in the chest and sent him flying across the room.
Mia tugged her wrap back on and hid behind the open door of the armoire. What seemed endless was probably over in less than half an hour. The two men traded salvos of potent energy back and forth until they were both exhausted. Once the aether dust settled, a glance about the room revealed the devastation. Furniture broken, windows shattered, shards of glass strewn about the floor from the bank of French doors. Tentatively, she ventured out from behind the safety of the wardrobe.
The Outremer wizard was the first to speak. “Cover your feet, Mia.”
Exeter frowned. “You do not have the privilege of saying protective things to her—not after you hit her.”
Prospero smiled this time. “I had to get you mad—fighting mad, deplete your energy so that you would have nothing left to force me back. You may have fooled everyone around you for years, Doctor Exeter—but you are a wizard. As powerful as I have ever seen and twice as intelligent. That is why I’m hoping you’ll hear me out.”
“But—” Exeter looked as though he might lunge at the man. “You were about to rape her.”
Mia slipped on satin slippers. “Pish-posh, I’m perfectly fine.”
She looked them over carefully. Both men had suffered bruises and scrapes but otherwise appeared relatively unharmed. She had to do something before one of them hurt the other, badly. “Hear him out, Exeter.” She opened her bedroom door, and was surprised to see it didn’t fall off its hinges. Mia tightened her wrapper. “Come along, gentlemen, I would like a cup of sweet spicy tea—and you both could use a relaxer.”
The Outremer wizard raised both hands in surrender.
Exeter’s glared softened. “No more games,” he warned.
They picked up his medical kit on the way to the kitchen. Prospero sat quietly while Exeter examined him. “You need not worry about me. This”—Prospero pinched the torn flesh on his forearm—“is my double—a virtual copy.”
“Do you self-repair? Or will you need someone over there to attend to your wounds?”
“Someone is already taking care of me. They scrutinize my every move; for the past hour they’ve been observing the original equipment get flung around the cell I’m locked in. They’ve already sent a team over to find out what I’m up to. We’ll only have a few minutes to talk.” Exeter removed his shirt and Mia dabbed tincture and bandaged cuts without too many hisses and yelps.
Prospero talked fast, starting with the story of an ancient struggle between two powerful families—vying
