Naughty Karma

Chapter Seven Which Lie Did I Tell?

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.

He forced his shoulders to relax and spread his hands in a magician’s nothing-to-hide gesture, drawing their attention to his hands so they wouldn’t see the nervous tightness in his face. “I’m yours to interrogate. Do your worst.”

Karma did smile then, a close-lipped curve. “Hopefully my worst won’t be necessary. Have a seat.”

She waved to one of the straight-backed chairs in front of her desk, but Prometheus crossed to the couch on the far wall and tossed himself onto it. If he was going to do this, he was going to be comfortable. Holloway dragged over one of the straight-backed chairs for the reader, Ronna, who perched on the edge and gave him a tentative smile.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she assured him.

He stopped himself before he snorted out, Yeah, maybe not physically. The reaction would have been too defensive. Revealed too much. So instead, he lolled back on the couch, draping his hand over the arm to put it within her reach. “Don’t be gentle, sweetheart. I’m into the rough stuff.”

Holloway, hovering over Ronna’s shoulder, folded his arms so one hand rested against the butt of his gun. His fingers stroked it slowly, like he was fantasizing about all the holes he would like to put in Prometheus.

Karma moved to stand a few feet away, feet braced in her high heels, arms folded tight. It was a power posture, but with her arms bound around her, she also looked like she was holding herself inside, the picture of intense restraint. “Don’t try anything or I’ll have Matt shoot you.”

Prometheus raised a lazy brow. “Noted.”

Karma nodded to Ronna. The touch reader licked her lips, returned the nod, seeming to psych herself up, then reached for his hand. Prometheus slammed up his mental shields, pouring every scrap of will-driven power he had into his defenses.

At the first touch, her power jacked into his and Ronna gave a startled yelp, jerking her hand back.

Holloway lunged forward, the gun clearing the holster, but Karma didn’t even blink.

“Ronna?” she asked, the low rasp of her voice giving nothing away.

“I’m fine.” The touch reader brushed a hand across her forehead, huffing out a breath. “He’s a doozie. I wasn’t quite prepared for it.” She put a hand on Holloway’s arm, giving a little shake until he lowered the gun he didn’t seem to realize he’d been pointing at Prometheus. “It’s okay. I’m good now.”

During the millisecond their skin touched, colors had flashed in Prometheus’s mind like a kaleidoscope on speed, images beyond his control. He didn’t want to think about what she might have seen.

“Are you all right to continue?” Karma asked.

Prometheus almost said no before he realized she was speaking to her reader.

“Yeah,” Ronna assured her. “Yeah, we’re good to go.”

He would have objected that no, they most certainly were not, but Ronna had already grabbed his hand again, gripping it between both of her small, soft ones. This time there was no crazy kaleidoscope crash through his brain. Just a hum beneath his thoughts, a tingle where her fingertips brushed his skin.

“Ask,” Ronna intoned in a voice devoid of emotion.

“Have you ever knowingly or directly harmed any of my people?” Karma’s voice cracked out, aggression in every syllable.

He wanted to lie—tempted to see if he could fool the reader—but he didn’t have the balls to test Karma on this one. “No. Never. I don’t intentionally harm anyone. That isn’t what I do.”

It was the bald truth—though not due to any virtue lying dormant in his soul. Magic was a vengeful mistress. If he abused her, used her to harm anyone, that harm would come back on him threefold. In spite of what he’d said to Ronna about liking it rough, he wasn’t that masochistic.

He didn’t cast curses. He created them, packaged and sold them, but he didn’t need the universe to bitch-slap his ass to know that actually casting bad juju was the mother of all dumb ideas.

“Truth.” Ronna’s single word seemed to hang in the room.

He felt Karma’s energy shift, the tension draining from her even though her posture didn’t change a single millimeter.

“Do you have any plan, intention or desire to harm any of my people?”

“None.”

“Truth.”

Another near invisible easing shifted the air around Karma. “Have you lied about any aspect of what you want me and my people to do for you?”

Time to test the reader. Prometheus pumped energy into his shields and projected honesty for all he was worth. “No.”

“Lie.”

Shit. Prometheus’s internal flinch stayed internal. All Karma and her gun-toting guard dog saw was a cocky smile and a can-you-blame-me shrug. “It’s what I do.”

Again Karma didn’t move a muscle, but he sensed…disappointment? He’d expected anger or even a smug self-satisfaction that she’d been right about him, not this feeling that she’d hoped for better from him, even as she expected the worst.

“What do you really want from me?”

“Your help reclaiming my heart. I didn’t lie about that.”

“Truth.”

“What kind of help specifically?”

“Locating my heart, summoning Deuma and breaking her ties to me so I live to see November.”

“Truth.”

Come on, Karma, he silently urged. Be satisfied. Don’t push it.

“Is that all you want from me?”

“Yes.”

“Lie.”

Damn it. He couldn’t get anything past the damn reader.

Karma gave him a long, exasperated look before asking, “What else are you trying to get from me?” with the air of a woman who wouldn’t stop asking until she had wrung every last drop of the truth from him.

He couldn’t let her get that far. There were pieces of the truth he didn’t want her to see. Like the fact that she could strip him of his powers without killing him, leaving him disgustingly normal for the rest of his all-too-natural life. Or the fact that in the last couple months he’d set in motion a few other get-her-attention disasters that could blow up in her face at any moment.

But how did you make the queen of the universe back the fuck off? What else did he want from her? Truthfully?

“Sex.”

Karma made a sharp, choked noise.

“Truth.”