Vivi Andrews - Naughty Karma

“What did they do before they retired?”

“My mother worked at a greenhouse and my father was in law enforcement. Would you be able to exorcise a demon or transcend an unwanted ghost?”

“Easily. You get along well with your brother?”

“Very. Aura reading? Warding?”

“Of course. But curses are my real forte.”

She glowered. “We don’t do curses.”

He shrugged, still strolling, pausing long enough for his slim fingers to trace the lines of her green cloisonné dragon bowl. “Breaking them is as easy as making them, but if I get a choice, I’d prefer to use my good deed time to unlock your abilities.”

“That won’t be necessary.” The very idea was horrifying. She’d spent the better part of her life teaching herself how to effectively box in her unruly powers. The last thing she needed was Prometheus to assign himself the quest of unleashing them. “But your aptitude at breaking curses will be taken under advisement.”

“So you don’t resent your brother for being your father’s real child?”

“You’re trying to be an asshole, but if you want to piss me off, you’ll have to pick something I’m actually sensitive about.”

“That works for me.” His stroll around the room took him behind her and she refused to turn, focusing on the papers in front of her, no matter how the thought of him at her back made her instincts scream in alarm. “Where are you sensitive?”

A feather light touch brushed down the nape of her neck and Karma caught her breath, fighting to keep her eyelids from fluttering. Why did that have to feel so impossibly good? And why did he have to be the one to rev her up with just the brush of a finger?

She set her pen on top of Prometheus’s forms, concentrating on blocking the heated press of his power against her back. “If you were half as smart as you think you are, you’d try not to piss me off since you’re depending on me to save your ass.”

“Is that what I’m doing? Pissing you off?” The words were pure lazy seduction, a caress in their own right. His fingertip traced a pattern into her skin, sending delicious sensation shivering down her limbs. Knowing him, he was probably hexing her, but she’d never suspected a hex could feel like that .

“You don’t want to be on my bad side.” Damn that husky catch in her voice.

“Don’t I?”

His presence rolled over her from behind, a thousand teasing flickers of power assaulting her senses, though the only physical touch was that one fingertip, wreaking havoc on that spot at her nape. She wanted to smack that hand away almost as badly as she wanted to lean into him and give in.

Then the lingering stroke on her neck retreated, leaving in its wake a startling coolness—and the urge to curse.

Testing for weaknesses. That’s all he’d been doing. And he’d found one. The bastard.

“Your sense of honor won’t let you renege and neither will the binding I activated at my shop,” he said, unaffected, as he moved on and reverted to touching her things rather than her, “but if I annoy you enough, you’ll be in more of a hurry to get rid of me.”

Able to breathe again as distance grew between them—how did he do that to her?—Karma cleared her throat and realigned the already perfectly straight folder. “Whether I’m in a hurry or not, my best finder is backlogged—” and possibly drowning later this week “—and my other best finder is on his honeymoon in Bali.”

“Is that the one who married your brother?”

“No, the one on his honeymoon is not the one who married my brother. That was Lucy. She’s a medium.”

“Who’d the finder marry?”

“A scientist. She’d probably love to scan your brain to see how your powers work when she gets back. Not to mention document the fact that you’re still alive without a beating heart.” Mia was a science nerd to her core. She’d probably have a spontaneous orgasm at the thought of dissecting Prometheus—and not solely for scientific reasons. There was no love lost there. “You’ve met them actually. The watch you stole? It was hers.”

“Theft is such an ugly word.”

“Yes. It is. Maybe you shouldn’t steal things, if you don’t want to be called a thief. Put down that box.”

Prometheus raised a brow and the carved wooden box from the display case, rolling it between his hands. “It’s a puzzle box.”

“Yes. I know.”

“What does the famous Karma of Karmic Consultants keep in her puzzle box? The curiosity is killing me.”

“Then maybe I won’t have to wait two and a half months to be rid of you. Put it back.”

He shrugged and set it back on the side table, wandering on, his eyes and fingers touching everything in her space, marking it.

“The watch thing was a misunderstanding. I was told the watch had the power to find the ‘keeper of your heart’. I love a good shortcut, but turned out the watch was just about true love. Such a waste. You’re not really going to make me wait three weeks?”

No. His plan was working. She wanted him gone , and if that meant jumping into Ciara’s high-priority queue or picking Chase and Mia up at the airport after their honeymoon to drive them directly to Prometheus for a find, that’s what Karma would do. But in the meantime, there really was nothing she could do for him.

“Give me a detailed description of the box containing your heart. Anything that makes it unique.” Ciara’s gift was triggered by specifics. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“There is one slight complication.”

“Of course there is.”

“The box isn’t just your average organ-transplant cooler. It’s enchanted.”

“It would have to be to keep your heart functional for twenty years.”

“It’s Bacchus’s vessel.”

Karma folded her hands on her desk, keeping her calm as he continued to walk and touch and walk and touch. As long as he didn’t touch her again, she could handle anything. “So you said. And as I said, the vessel is a myth.”

“So are demons and ghosts and devils.”

“Keep your fingers off that silk,” she snapped. “The oils in your skin are bad for it.”

He stepped away from her hand-painted silk fan and bowed in her direction with mocking obedience. “I think Deuma was a maenad.”

“The handmaidens of Bacchus? How can a devil be a Greek demi-goddess?”

“There aren’t any rules against it that I know. Though I admit I’m not a hundred percent sure she was a devil. I was a kid when I summoned her and I wasn’t very savvy about the finer points of mythology and magic at the time.”

“Wait, so you want my exorcist to summon a devil and we’re not even sure it is a devil? Weren’t the maenads known for going mad when they were filled with Bacchus’s power and ripping the flesh from men with their bare teeth?”

“Beside the point. The point is Bacchus was the god of all sorts of drunken revels, but he was also the god of illusion. His vessel was enchanted to vanish whenever it was closed, hiding itself from sight.”

“I’m familiar with the story. Luckily, my finders don’t rely on their vision. The illusion won’t stop them.”

“But the additional enchantment Deuma placed on it might. When the box is closed, it will continue to hide itself, but as soon as it is opened, my heart will die. And me with it, of course. Even if we find it, we may not be able to hold it and we can’t open it until all the other pieces are in play.”

“I thought you were limited only by stamina and finesse. Can’t you put a binding on the box to stay until we are ready to open it?”

“I can’t perform magic on my own heart. One of your people would have to. If you have someone who can.”