Vivi Andrews - Naughty Karma

“I do.” She had a coven of witches on retainer, but they were unpredictable and not her favorite recourse. Karma focused on her center, refusing to be annoyed by the fact that Prometheus’s task was coming to involve a cast of thousands.

By the time he was done, he would know the ins and outs of her entire organization.

Karma went still, not with premonition, with doubt. What if that was his real goal? What if everything he’d told her was a ruse to get close to her? Why had she let him into her office? What did she really know about him?

Keeping her breathing steady to avoid revealing her flash of panic, Karma angled her head to eye Prometheus casually. “You know, now that I think of it, there is something we can do today to start moving forward with your reformation.”

“Oh?” He smiled, clearly feeling like he was still in charge. Karma resisted the urge to gloat. He spread his hands in a patently false gesture of willingness. “I’m at your disposal.”

“Leave.” She held up a hand when he opened his mouth to protest. “Give me a couple hours to get things in order. Say, nine?”

“Why do I have the feeling you’re calling in an executioner?”

You aren’t far off. “No assassins. Scout’s honor. But you can hardly expect me to be prepared to utilize your unique skills at the crack of dawn on a Sunday.”

“Is that a smile? Now I know you’re setting me up.” He folded his arms, ropey muscles shifting under his tan. “Lucky for you, I’m dying to see who you call for air support. Nine o’clock?”

“On the dot.”

He caught her hand and swept her a bow over it that wouldn’t have looked out of place coming from an eighteenth century courtier, and yet somehow it worked for him. “I’ll count the seconds until I am once again in your presence.”

She refused to give him the satisfaction of jerking her hand out of his grip. “You can count whatever you want. Just try to stay out of trouble.”

“My lady.” One long finger stroked the inside of her wrist as he lifted her hand. She thought he would brush a kiss across her knuckles, was braced for it, but he turned her hand at the last moment and his lips caught her unprepared on the soft, exposed skin of her inner wrist. Tingling awareness shot up her arm, but she kept her gaze steady on him, fighting to appear unmoved—an exercise in futility when he could feel her pulse racing against his lips.

“Good bye , Prometheus.”

He smiled as he released her, black eyes twinkling with pure devilry. “Karma.”

She listened for the sound of the outer door opening and closing. When she heard the click, she pulled out her laptop and brought up the building’s security feed, watching through the exterior cameras as Prometheus took his time putting on a black helmet and leather jacket, throwing one long, spidery leg over the seat of a black motorcycle and finally roaring out of the parking lot.

One eye still watching the cameras, not entirely trusting the man to stay gone, she plucked the handset from her desk phone and dialed from memory. It was still ungodly early on a Sunday morning, but she would beg for forgiveness later.

Her touch-reader, an infallible human lie-detector with a weakness for carnivals, answered on the fifth ring with a groggy, “‘lo?”

“Ronna. It’s Karma. I’m sorry to disturb you so early, but can you come into the office today?”

“Karma? Whassat? Come in? Yeah, I… What time is it?”

“It’s early. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. Could you make it in by nine?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. I’ll just…yeah. Nine.” A male voice rumbled in the background. “D’you want Matt too?”

“Please. And Ronna, if you would, have him bring his gun.”

Prometheus wasn’t surprised Karma had caught on to his annoy-her-into-cooperation plan. He hadn’t exactly been subtle, arriving at the crack of dawn on a Sunday morning. Unfortunately, she’d been ready for him and seemed to have reservoirs of teeth-gritted tolerance beyond anyone he’d previously encountered.

Curiosity, always his Achilles’ heel, goaded him to play along and go quietly, if only so he could see what she would mount as a counterattack. He pointed his motorcycle up the coast and drove, considering the enigma that was Karma from every angle, biding his time until nine o’clock—or a vague approximation thereof; he’d never been a stickler for punctuality. When he returned and let himself into Karma’s inner sanctum for the second time that day—knocking was so overrated—he saw that her reinforcements had beaten him there.

The couple didn’t look like anything to strike fear into the heart of a fearless warlock. The girl, a fair-skinned African-American with reddish-brown curls, gave off a pleasant, low-level buzz of power, enough wattage to power a microwave, but hardly impressive when she was standing next to Karma, who could have single-handedly lit Manhattan if she let herself go. The man appeared to the naked eye to be more of a threat, a buzz-cut Caucasian with a bad attitude. Cop or criminal, he had to be one or the other—but he barely gave off enough energy for a static shock, so Prometheus dismissed him with a glance, turning his attention to Karma.

She looked smug. What advantage did she think these two gave her?

“Prometheus. So nice of you to join us.” Karma stood in front of her desk, propped against the edge. She unfolded her hands and gestured to the pair to her left. “I’d like to introduce Officer Matthew Holloway, one of my security consultants—”

Cop, then. No surprise there. Karma did like the white hats.

Holloway nodded to acknowledge the introduction and deliberately shoved his hands into his front pockets, pushing back the edges of his jacket to reveal the awkward bulge of a shoulder holster.

Prometheus almost smiled. If a guy with a gun was supposed to scare him into obedience, Karma was going to be disappointed. A man with less than three months left on the clock felt a certain reckless disregard for bullets—at least Prometheus did. He’d never really developed a healthy respect for his own mortality to begin with.

And pointing a gun at a telekinetic was just plain stupid. There were a thousand different ways to jam a firearm and Prometheus knew them all.

“—and Ronna Mitchell. My lie detector.”

Tension jerked the muscles in his shoulders up before he could control the reaction. A touch reader. He’d known Karma had one on staff, but he hadn’t seen this play coming. She’d warned him, but he’d thought he could sweet talk his way out of being put to this test.

Karma had the grace not to smile at his reaction, acknowledging his discomfort with an inquisitive tilt of her head. “You don’t mind if I ask you a few questions, do you, Prometheus?”

She wanted to test his intentions. That much was clear. She would have been stupid to trust him outright, but Prometheus found himself equal parts annoyed that she so obviously didn’t and uneasy at the idea of letting the touch reader put her hands on him. He wasn’t sure what she would see, how deep she would be able to go. Hell, the reader herself probably didn’t know. Everything he’d read indicated that particular gift was unpredictable, reacting to others with talents in unexpected ways.

Would he be shielded? Was it possible he could even lie to her? Or would his every secret be laid raw? He’d never been comfortable being vulnerable to anyone. Why else would he have given away his beating heart for power?

“You can say no,” Karma offered when he didn’t answer her question.

He could. He could refuse. But the subtext was clear. She wouldn’t trust him. She wouldn’t do beyond the bare minimum to help him. He would lose her as an ally. An ally he couldn’t afford to alienate. Karma was the key.