Chapter Nine
“I told you Sophie called and said she was running late. Why do you keep pacing?” Morgan asked petulantly.
“We had a misunderstanding yesterday. I need to talk to her.” Michael didn’t add that he had gotten her voicemail several times last night.
Morgan gave an exasperated sigh. “That’s no surprise. The woman is as unemotional as Mr. Spock.”
If Michael hadn’t been so tense, he might have laughed. Sophie’s response in the dream they’d shared had been anything but unemotional. Gut-level passion and desire burned in her and he’d wager anything he’d owned in his long existence that she’d truly be a wild thing in bed with him, as well.
But the dream should never have been allowed to enter Sophie’s mind. He tightly controlled his fantasies. He knew Sophie had been hurt and didn’t trust men. The last thing he would want her to think was that he just wanted casual—albeit it blazingly hot—sex with her.
He hadn’t counted on Tanio hanging around after the full-moon ritual, but that was probably because Pendragon had awakened. They had worked closely when forging Excalibur. Still, to invade his dreams—it was something the trickster, Loki, might have done.
“Are you listening to me?”
Michael focused his attention on Morgan. Her full lower lip was protruding in a pout so he must have missed something. “Sorry. What did you say?”
Another sigh came from her. “I said she’s not one of us.”
As if Morgan would know. Michael hadn’t sensed that Sophie was a witch, but she did have some sort of special powers. Protective powers, maybe, since she had instinctively used them to save the puppies from being stepped on.
The counterpoint to “demons from hell” was “angels from heaven”—the way the modern world thought of it anyway.
And Avalon, shrouded in the mists of Time, was probably closer to a concept of “heaven” these days than it had been when it was an island guarded by the Lady of the Lake.
Nonetheless, its priestesses had been protectors of animal and human life and its male sector, the druids, protectors of earth as well.
But, Michael supposed, it didn’t really matter much what names were put to the ancient battle of good versus evil.
“There are relatively few witches still alive,” Michael replied.
“I don’t mean that. Sophie isn’t like us.” Morgan slanted a look at him through her lashes.
He grew wary. “Like us?”
“We feel. We lust for life…to experience pleasure. We’re not afraid to take sex when and where we can.” Morgan got up from her desk and moved toward him, her usually sultry sway somewhat stiff, although her mouth was curved in a silky smile.
“From the way you’re walking, I think you may have been indulging in that activity fairly recently.”
Her smile faltered for a moment, but then she placed a hand on his arm. “Why don’t you let me work some of that tension out of you?”
“I’ll be fine once I’ve talked to Sophie.” He withdrew his arm.
“Well, that may be a while.”
“How late is she running?”
Morgan shrugged. “I think maybe she might have said she had to talk to her husband—”
“Ex-husband,” Michael said and tried not to grit his teeth.
“Whatever. He sure calls here a lot though.”
Michael stared at her. He had felt confident that Sophie harbored no remnants of love for her former husband, but after last night—what had she said?
That he, Michael, was worse than that man.
Michael cringed inwardly. Sophie thought he had betrayed her.
Worse, she thought he could control her emotions, which he couldn’t unless he used black magic, and he was a sworn protector of the Light. Goddess, he had hurt Sophie!
Like a wounded animal, would she seek shelter in the arms of someone familiar?
Would she give Robert another chance? From the conversations Michael had endured with the man, as well as the long list of rogues and rakes he’d dealt with over the centuries, Michael knew his type.
Those men loved the hunt. They sweet-talked women into believing they cared.
They lavished compliments and gifts and attention until they had their quarry cornered as deftly as the proverbial deer-in-the-headlights.
Once the conquest had been achieved, they moved on to other prey.
Michael had seen it, thousands of times.
Unfortunately, it worked only too often since the women they targeted were innocent, if not na?ve, of such motives.
Morgan’s fingers trailed up his arm again, her hand resting lightly on his chest, palm flattening against his nipple. “Why don’t you forget about her and let me make you feel good?”
Her touch, inadvertently, was close to his heart and a chakra pathway opened for him. Morgan had her psychic shields down, concentrating on trying to seduce him, and he probed her other thoughts. The image of the man who drifted on the periphery of her mind surprised him.
Michael looked down at her. “Tell me,” he said a low voice that was deadly calm, “how do you know Adam Caldwell?”
****
Sophie stopped just short of the doorway to her office staring at Michael and Morgan. Morgan was running her hand seductively over his chest, and practically purring at the man. He said something to her, too low for Sophie to hear, but Morgan just gave him a coy look and a sultry smile.
Well, if Sophie needed any affirmation in not trusting a warlock, this was it. All that supposed sincerity of his—and dear God, she had actually thought him to be sincere and maybe even honest—was just a scam.
“Am I interrupting something?” she asked as she entered the room.
Michael jerked away from Morgan as if burned by a flame. No doubt Morgan, with her long, blue-black hair and alabaster skin, was a hot number in his eyes. The tight, low-cut blouse she wore practically had her boobs popping out. Why had Sophie not noticed before how provocatively Morgan dressed?
“You aren’t interrupting anything,” Michael answered. “It seems that Morgan knows Alan Caldwell, and I was wondering how they met.” He looked back at Morgan, waiting for an answer.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” She flounced over to Sophie’s desk, straightening some paperwork. “I went to Mr. Smith’s a few months ago looking for Sara, and Alan was there. We met a couple of times for drinks. Why?”
“It seems that Caldwell knew I was a warlock. Did you tell him?”
Morgan cast her eyes at Sophie and then back to Michael. “I might have.”
“You know we don’t make that information public, Morgan. Too many people get the wrong idea or want magical help.”
“Alan didn’t seem to care that I was a witch,” Morgan replied and glanced at Sophie again. “Is that what your little misunderstanding was about?”
Sophie glared at Michael. “I didn’t realize I was a subject for public discussion. Perhaps you should leave.”
“Not until you’ve heard me out, Sophie.” He turned to Morgan. “Close the door on your way out.”
She pouted and then tossed her head. “Just remember what I said.”
“I’m not even going to ask,” Sophie said as she sat down stiffly behind her desk. “However, if you think I’m still going to go hunting some mythical Sword with you, forget it. Use your magic to find it.”
“I would, if that were all that is necessary,” Michael said mildly and pulled a straight-back chair close to the side of Sophie’s desk, “but Pendragon’s appearance tells me you are needed to come with me.”
Sophie studied him. “Dragons don’t exist. I came to the conclusion last night that he is an illusion. You somehow sent it so that I’d buy this whole story.”
“He’s real, Sophie. You’ve seen the scorch marks on your grass.”
“You could have put those there too,” she said stubbornly.
“But I didn’t.” Michael leaned closer and she caught that unique woodsy scent of him. “I don’t know what I can do to convince you, but I did not send you that dream.”
She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Well, I certainly didn’t enter your mind.”
“No. Tanio did it.”
“Oh, yeah. The fire-god guy. I’ll admit, you are really good with illusions. You almost had me convinced all this stuff was real.”
“It is all real. Why do you think the media has camped out all this time?”
Sophie stared into space. “Maybe it’s some kind of group hallucination. Stage magicians do it all the time.”
A shadow crossed Michael’s face. “Sleight-of-hand and hypnotic suggestions are not magic.” He sighed.
“My guess is that Tanio tapped into my head—without my permission, but gods never think they need it—and decided to show you an extra benefit that could be had.” He held up a hand before she could protest. “I’ll admit it was my fantasy, and I suppose I should apologize for fantasizing about you, but I swear, I don’t make any moves unless they’re welcomed. I’ve told you that before.”
She turned back to look at him. “You admit you fantasize about me and yet you expect me to travel with you? Spend nights in hotel rooms next to each other?”
He smiled, showing his dimple. “I guess you mean in separate rooms next to each other?”
Sophie felt her face heat at the implication of what she had said.
God, how Freudian could she get? “Definitely separate rooms—that is, if I were going with you, which I’m not.
Dragons and fire gods? Not to mention horned demons.
You almost had me believing it, but then I remembered how fanatical Mr. Smith is when he’s onto something.
He’s a real medieval aficionado and he’s wealthy enough to indulge himself.
So my guess is that when his assistant came back from London with that manuscript, he decided to sponsor an expensive scavenger hunt.
He’s told me over and over that I need a little adventure in my life.
How much did he pay you to arrange all this? ”