Ilona Andrews - White Hot

My magic crept forward. I asked a question, he offered an answer, each exchange reinforcing the pattern, and with each answer I claimed a little more of him, until he was completely shrouded in my power.

“Paragraph V, ‘financially labeled.’ What does that mean?”

“Where?” Augustine scrolled on his tablet.

“Here.” I offered him a piece of paper and let my magic spread a little more. The more I distracted him, the better.

He focused on the paragraph, his lips moving silently. “It’s a typo. It should say financially liable.” He grimaced. “My apologies.”

“No problem.” I corrected the right paragraph.

“I detest sloppiness. I’ve stressed it before that a spell check is no substitute for human attention. The more eyes reviewing the contract the better.”

He was volunteering information he didn’t have to disclose. He was ready and I couldn’t keep him here indefinitely. Now or never.

“How will I be compensated for my services?”

Augustine opened his mouth.

I gave him a slight nudge.

“By direct deposit into your bank account.”

“What bank would that transfer be coming from?”

“First House.”

“Could you tell me the routing and account number?”

This was a gamble. If he needed to look that up, he might pause. But Augustine was almost pedantic in his attention to detail.

“Certainly.” He named the two strings of numbers. I wrote them down.

“Do you access that account online?”

“Yes.”

“What is your username and banking password?”

“JulienMont. LoT45B9!n.”

“Who is Julien?”

“I am. It’s my middle name. I quite detest it.”

“Paragraph XII, line three guarantees me three weeks of paid leave. Can I take them at once or separately?”

“Whatever way you choose.”

I began pulling my magic back. Two more questions, and I released him completely. Augustine was frowning. He must’ve felt something, but couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“I believe that covers everything,” he said finally. “All that remains is your signature.”

I leaned back. “I won’t be signing the contract, Augustine.”

He stared at me. “That’s a mistake. Did Rogan make a better offer?”

I shook my head. “No. This has nothing to do with Rogan. We both know what you’re offering me is a disproportionately small compensation to my ability to aid your House. I understand where you’re coming from. Having a vassal Prime would be a great asset to House Montgomery.”

His eyes narrowed. “You believe you’re a Prime?”

“It would save some time for the purposes of this discussion if you treated me like one.” Maybe he would listen to me. Maybe I could convince him and then I would take my camera and he would never have to confront what was on it.

A condescending smile played on his lips. “I’ll humor you. Go on.”

“Tomorrow Victoria Tremaine will walk into your office. She’ll crack your mind like a walnut. There is nothing you can do to stop it. If she chooses to be subtle, she’ll leave you with the capacity to reason. If she doesn’t like the way you look, the cut of your suit, or the color of your office walls, she’ll lobotomize you.”

Augustine’s eyes narrowed. He took off his glasses. “This is adorable.”

Nope. We’d have to do this the hard way.

“I was attempting to be magnanimous in my offer. Thus far, I have been exceedingly patient,” he continued. “You did show me the error of my ways, so let me give you this last bit of advice free. You spent some time in Rogan’s and my own company, and you believe you know how things between Houses operate, so you presume to take it upon yourself to explain it to me as if our roles were reversed and I was an ignorant dilettante.”

Here we go.

“You may or may not be a Prime. Your powers and abilities are open to debate. You’re an amateur with an inflated evaluation of your own abilities and importance. I have been a Prime all my life. I’m the head of a robust House with four living Primes, I run a multimillion-dollar international enterprise, and I have impeccable standing in the community. Victoria Tremaine is an old hag whose House is in decline.”

Okay, he’d moved from fact to complete exaggeration. I really made him mad.

“If I don’t feel like entertaining her presence, I won’t see her. If I do choose to allow her that courtesy, she’ll mind her manners and will do absolutely nothing to jeopardize her safety or I’ll have her ejected onto the street.”

I flipped the top piece of paper on the contract stack and pushed it toward him.

“The very idea that she would walk in here and I’ll simply tell her the contents of my mind is preposterous. Your presence in my office is preposterous. I have had enough.”

“Look down.”

Augustine glared at me, then at the paper. On it in neat numbers I had written out the routing and account numbers followed by his username and password.

“How did you get this?” he snarled.

“You told me.”

Augustine grabbed the camera, rewound the recording, and watched himself recite his password. His face lost all color. He held the rewind button and listened to himself again.

He dropped the camera and lunged across the table. I had no time to move. His hands clamped my shoulders and he jerked me to my feet. A furious grimace distorted his face and his features rippled as if the illusion threatened to slide off his face. “What else?”

“I took nothing else. Except your middle name, Julien. Feel free to check the record. I would let go if I were you. I have shocker implants and I don’t want to use them.”

He released me.

I sat back into the chair. “Dealing with Primes is new to me. I did manage to learn some things, including that Primes never divulge the full extent of our talents. Truthseekers are among the rarest of Primes. What most people believe to be our primary talent—determining if someone lies to us—is in fact a passive field talent. It’s a side-effect of being a truthseeker, something that we do casually with very little effort.”

Augustine was staring at me. Anger and worry warred in his eyes.

“Do you know how Rogan realized I was a Prime? Someone had tried to kill my grandmother. I thought it was him and so I locked him with my will and I forced him to answer my questions.”

I could only maintain that hold for a few seconds, because bending Rogan’s will was like trying to contain a tsunami, but for those few vital seconds I’d broken him.

I had never before seen a man’s mouth literally hang open. It was deeply satisfying.

“You’re right. I’m a new Prime. But Victoria Tremaine isn’t. I’m here to tell you that everything you heard about her is true. Every horror story and ugly rumor you’ve caught—assume she can do it. She hates my family and she’ll go to any length to hurt us and she is capable of horrible things.”

That conveniently skirted the full truth but wasn’t exactly a lie.

“If you refuse to see her, she’ll wait until an opportunity to be within earshot of you presents itself and destroy your mind. If you tell her everything you know, she’ll rummage in your head anyway looking for more. She doesn’t care about your Prime status, your connections, or the size of your business. She goes after what she wants and she gets it.”

Augustine finally closed his mouth. His eyes turned dark. “Why are you here?”

“Because I want to shield your mind.”

“You want to hex me?” He clenched his teeth. “Hexes take weeks.”

“No. I want to create the appearance of a hex. When I opened Mr. Emmens’ mind to find out what Adam Pierce was after, I got a good look at how it was structured. The hex forms barriers within your mind, tapping into the very essence of your magic, and then wraps it all in a hard shell, rooted deeply in your psyche. If you use brute force to smash the shell, you will kill the mind that fuels it. You can only peer under it, carefully and slowly, guessing at the contents. The stronger the magic user, the harder it is to break the hex. If you let me, I’ll imitate this shell in your mind. You’re a Prime with a huge magic reserve and the shell will appear to be impenetrable. If Victoria Tremaine probes your mind, she’ll encounter the shell. Breaking it wouldn’t be an option—you would die and take your secrets with you. Probing further would require too much time and preparation, likely a magic circle and some knowledge of the answer to the question she is asking. She’s looking for my identity, which is a very specific piece of information. She can’t just sit and pick at your brain indefinitely. You would feel it. She’ll realize that it’s out of her reach.”