satisfying wariness. Ha. That would teach the arrogant ass. “I have stopped, querida, release the bonds.”
“Do you promise to stop pushing and hauling me around whenever you want me to do something?”
“I…” He hissed in obvious pain. “Anna, you must release your power. My ribs are already fractured.”
Her smug pleasure at having bested the vampire evaporated beneath his agonized gaze. Oh…shit. She had been so busy showing off that she hadn’t really considered the consequences.
Just how long was it until dawn?
“I’m not sure I can,” she at last confessed. “I don’t exactly know how I do it.”
Half expecting him to shake her senseless, or at least flash those fangs he kept so carefully hidden, Anna was caught off guard when he did no more than gaze deep into her eyes.
“Just concentrate,” he murmured.
“Concentrate on what?”
“Relax your mind.” His head lowered so he could whisper directly into her ear. “Shhh…just relax. Just let it all go. That’s it, Anna.”
His soft words poured through her body like warm honey, easing her fears and making her feel as if she were floating. She allowed her senses to seek out the invisible bonds, attempting to make them form in her mind. For a moment there was nothing and then, without warning, they appeared like steel bands in her imagination. Cezar gave another pained groan as they ruthlessly crushed his body. Crap. With a surge of panic she forced herself to shatter them with her thoughts.
There was a soft groan before she found herself being set roughly onto her feet. About her, the early spring breeze returned to whipping happily down the street, seemingly as delighted as Cezar to be released from her control.
Gaining her balance, Anna watched as Cezar pressed a hand to his chest.
She bit her lip. “Are you badly hurt?”
“I’ll recover.”
“I told you to stop.”
“So you did.” With a grimace Cezar lowered his hand. “Styx warned me that a woman coming into her powers is a dangerous thing. Next time I’ll pay more attention to him. What did you do?”
She gave an awkward shrug. “I told you, I don’t really know.”
A dark brow arched. “Anna.”
She met the piercing black gaze. She even managed to meet it squarely for several long, awkward moments before she blew out a resigned sigh.
Dammit, why wouldn’t he let it be? She felt enough like a weirdo without confessing her I Dream of Jeannie routine.
“I just…” She gave a shake of her head. “God, it sounds so stupid when I say it out loud, but sometimes if I focus hard enough I can control the things around me.”
He looked more intrigued than horrified. “What sort of things?”
She gave a wave of her hands. “The air. I can make it warmer or colder.”
“Or squeeze the hell out of a vampire?”
“Bonus.”
His lips twitched. “What else can you do?”
“A few months ago the drains in my condo backed up and water was filling my basement. I freaked out when I saw the damage and suddenly the water was pouring back down the drains and the basement was completely dry.”
He touched her cheek with an oddly reverent motion. “An elemental.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
Her mouth went dry. “What the hell is that?”
The slender fingers slid down the line of her jaw creating all sorts of unwelcome havoc.
“I’m afraid that I’m not the one to ask for explanations. I’ve only heard rumors of such creatures.”
She stepped back. Conde Cezar might be the most arrogant, aggravating pain in the butt she had ever met, but his touch could still turn her mind to mush.
“I’m not a creature.” She sent him a telling glance. “At least not until I met you.”
“Anna, the one thing I do know is that elementals are born, not created. I had nothing to do with your powers.” He studied her skeptical expression before giving a shake of his head. “We can’t linger here in the open.”
She stubbornly stood her ground. It had been stupid to rush to Chicago and confront Cezar. She wasn’t about to make it worse by happily skipping off in the dark with a self-confessed vampire.
Her bizarro talents weren’t nearly dependable enough for that.
“What makes you think someone is trying to kill me?” she demanded.
“Would there be any other reason for a fire to be started outside your door?”
“It could have been an accident.”
He looked at her as if her elevator couldn’t possibly be going all the way to the top.
And maybe it wasn’t.
“Do you truly believe that?”
“I don’t know.” She rubbed her aching temples. How long had it been since she had slept? Or ate? She couldn’t even remember. “Christ, I’ve gone way past my crazy threshold. This day couldn’t get any worse.”
“Never tempt fate, querida,” he warned softly. “It’s a lesson that I learned at my peril.”
She snorted as her gaze skimmed over his dark, knee-buckling beauty. His bronzed features were just as elegant, just as exquisitely carved as they had been two centuries ago. There wasn’t even a strand of gray in the thick black hair to mar his perfection.
“You don’t look as if you’ve suffered over the years.”
Something dangerous flashed through his dark eyes. Dangerous enough to make her take a hasty step backward.
“You have no idea, sweet Anna,” he said coldly. “But for now I’m more interested in discovering who’s trying to kill you and why. Do you have any enemies?”
She licked her dry lips, realizing she had touched a nerve that was best left alone. What she knew about vampires might fit into a thimble, but it seemed an overall good policy not to provoke one. Not when they were standing alone on a dark street.
“I’m a lawyer who battles the world’s most powerful corporations on a daily basis,” she admitted. “I have an endless list of enemies.”
“Any who want you dead?”
“No, of course not. That’s ridiculous.”
“You’ve lived over two centuries,” he pointed out. “You were bound to piss off a few people.”
Anna grimaced as she thought of the endless years she had lived in near solitude, taking menial jobs to survive, and constantly moving from one town to another to avoid notice.
“Until the past few years I’ve lived very quietly. It’s not easy to explain why I don’t age while everyone else around me grows old.”
The coldness faded from the black eyes. “Yes, I’m somewhat familiar with the problem.”
Oh, right. He would be. Anna briefly wondered just how old Cezar was. A few hundred years? A few thousand?
She shoved away the thought. It made her head spin. After all these years immortality still seemed like a strange, absurd dream.
“At last I decided I was tired of hiding,” she continued. “If I’m going to live forever I should at least do something to make the world a better place.”
The