He groaned. “Sorry,” he told Daleyza. “A little warning next time, Midas, before you patch people in.”
“Oops.” Yeah. He didn’t sound very apologetic to her.
“I kind of liked being publicly claimed,” she teased.
Now he rolled his eyes at her. “Dios Mío.” He switched to Spanish. “Siempre te amaré, belleza. Hasta que mi corazón deje de latir y me falte el aliento.”
“Sabes que algunas de ellas hablan español, ¿verdad?”
“Hey!” Nemo chimed in. “Remember, some of us need subtitles!”
They laughed. “Pero Nemo no lo hace. Y me encanta fastidiarlo más que casi cualquier otra cosa en la vida.”
“Casi todo, ¿eh?”
“Sí.”
“Not to interrupt the Spanish soap opera here,” Midas said, “but get ready for the click-click-boom.”
Two seconds later, a soft boom sounded as if it came from a long way away. “Oops. There went the motor pool,” Midas informed them.
“You boys say ‘oops’ a lot,” Daleyza said.
“You have no idea,” Ildefanso told her.
From behind the garage door, an emergency klaxon went off. “Workers are scattering,” reported Midas. “Start the skimmer.”
Ildefanso pressed the button, and they waited impatiently for the password to encode. Well, she waited impatiently. He stood still as a statue, no expression on his face, registering no reaction with each number or letter that clicked in place. When all but the last were there, he raised his gun into a high-ready cover position. Daleyza immediately matched him in low ready.
The skimmer beeped, and the door began to rise. When it did so slowly, both ducked to the side, flattening themselves against the wall. All they heard was the emergency system trilling like a fire alarm and a computerized voice giving calm, even instructions to exit the warehouse and proceed to their assigned safe positions.
When the door was at its full open position, he popped the skimmer off and tossed it to her. Once pocketed, they both swung out into their cover positions.
“The warehouse appears to be empty.”
“Good. Stay put for a couple of minutes. I’m looping the feeds. Demon is headed your way. Should be there in less than two minutes.”
“I thought he was waiting under Gem and Nemo,” she said to Ildefanso.
“They must be done and over the top of the cliff, on to the next step of their job,” he replied.
“Why is he coming here?”
“Because when we find Waters and Ka-Bar, they’re likely to be in pretty bad shape. As our medic, he’ll be able to assess them quickly and determine how to move them with minimal damage. Besides, I can’t carry both of them, and you won’t be able to carry either of them.”
She hadn’t thought of that.
A soft echo of padded feet came from down the hallway, and both turned to see Demon moving as lightly and speedily as possible. His lean swimmer’s body was all grace and flow as he ran, and Daleyza would have been hard-pressed to deny his dangerous attractiveness.
When he stopped beside her, she could smell the fresh lake water, the clean winter night, and a hint of his darkness. Even without knowing his story, it was easy to cast this man as a fallen angel, the servant of a dark lord.
But where he was the gray shadow that walked through the night, Ildefanso lived in the shadows he created—reveling in them. He was the devil other men served, and they were proud to do so. Eager to follow him. Begging to do his bidding. Willing to sacrifice themselves for him.
While it should have frightened her, it never did. And why? Because he had never turned that darkness on her. Instead, he kepther outside his world, living in the light. Free to sparkle in the sunshine and burn radiantly, brightening the edges of the prison he dwelled within. Allowing her to draw him out of the abyss, at least long enough to retain some of his humanity.
It wasn’t that she didn’t have darkness within her. She did. But she had fought her way out of it because her nature didn’t allow her to live in it. He, however, had been forced there against his will and conditioned to it. Unable to escape.
Just as she drew him to the light, he drew her to the darkness. Both sides held power, but where the light was all that was courtship and tenderness, the dark was seduction and passion. A constant push and pull between their two natures is what made them so volatile.
