“Nothing yet, huh?” Riley dug her thumbs and fingers into Sam’s shoulders.
“No sign of him.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. She was trying to soothe him, to help ease his tension, but need seeped into him with every stroke of her hands. He’d tried everything he knew to track Anson, to no avail. “Nick call?”
“Not yet.”
“Fuck.” He scoured both hands over his face and left them there, for a few seconds not fighting the comfort and pleasure she gave him. Not giving over to the guilt that permeated everything. Riley felt him give in and sighed, digging deeper, leaning into him so her body pressed against his. And Sam let her, for far longer than he should have.
Every time he closed his eyes, his senses ignited—with the power residue inside him, making itself at home instead of making him sick. With Riley’s power, a beauty that made him ache with longing and more. And with the awful mess of Quinn, asleep in Tanda’s guest room, where she’d been for most of the last three days.
Tanda’s elegant living room told the tale of those days. The cushions of the plum-colored love seat and plush chairs were all askew, half of them covered with old papers and books. The cherry wood coffee table was barely visible under dirty dishes and their pizza box left over from lunch. More books and papers littered the card table where Sam worked, surrounding the laptop that now beeped in annoyance when he tried to enter information into the database search box. The table was set up next to the wide windows and sliding doors that opened to her concrete balcony, which was now saturated with the rain that hadn’t stopped since they arrived.
With rain, Tanda’s source, the conditions for transferring her power back to her couldn’t be more perfect.
Tanda had taken them in without question, and without caring that they couldn’t make her whole again. Yet, Quinn had said. Many times. Except the more time that passed, the more it looked like “yet” meant “never.”
John turning the Numina gang over to the police had been a bold, confusing move. The police had held everyone except Danner and Lilling, experts at self-preservation. They’d thrown the kids under the bus and disappeared. John’s story and the condition of the apartment had meshed, so they’d held the kids while they tried to figure out what had happened. But since Riley and Quinn hadn’t stayed, the stall tactic expired about a day and a half ago.
Quinn hadn’t been fully leeched. In fact, Anson hadn’t taken much at all—Sam and Riley had both confirmed that. But it was enough to leave Quinn too weak to initiate the transfer. Marley had spent the previous three days caring for her sister, and Riley infused Quinn with strength several times a day. Otherwise, Sam was afraid she’d have died under the strain…and taken Nick with her. Sam had never seen the guy like this. He’d always been one to hold everything inside, to keep his most personal emotions locked in a lead box. Now, Sam wasn’t sure at any given moment if Nick would snap at them, blow up, or burst into tears.
Okay, probably not the tears.
But the worst part was Anson. Sam had heeded Nick’s plea not to go after him, and it turned out they needed the asshole anyway. The power he’d taken had included Quinn’s and Marley’s and Tanda’s in one entangled mass. Even though he hadn’t gotten it all, Quinn wouldn’t be able to do a clean transfer until it was all restored. And they couldn’t find him. He’d gone completely off the grid. The Society had their entire security team looking for him, too, and John had shuffled protectors to the closest and most vulnerable goddesses in case Anson went straight for a new source.
Riley stayed by Sam’s side as she’d promised she would, her very presence maintaining his equilibrium, even without much physical contact. But the limbo applied to them, too. His feelings for Riley had become relentless. Everything he’d worried about when he first met her, first started to fall for her, had been rendered insignificant. His real feelings entwined with his energy need until he clung to control with his fingertips. Every night he lay on the floor in the living room, staring at the ceiling, dying to go into the guest room she shared with the other women and lie with her, propriety be damned. But he didn’t want to hurt her, and there were so many ways he could.
“Sam, take a break.” Her soft hands pried his gently off his face, and she sat in the folding chair next to the table. “You haven’t slept in days.”
“No one has.” He pulled his hands away and blinked hard, staring at the computer screen. With a few keystrokes, he set the site back to the initial entry and got it working. Searching… flashed on the monitor. “It’s all right. I just need more coffee.”
“We’re out. Tanda went to get some—and groceries—so we can have a real meal. Marley went with her.” Riley frowned at Sam. “I talked to Quinn about the transfer this morning.”
“Yeah?” The search results filled the screen. Sam skimmed over them. Here’s a promising one. A credit card charge in California. He highlighted, copied, and pasted the data into another search engine.
“Giving Tanda back her ability isn’t going to be enough,” Riley said.
“Yeah, I know… Crap.” Dead end. “I think Anson might have been in Sacramento yesterday, but I can’t find anything to back it up.”
“Beth’s power is almost gone. So she thinks that won’t be a problem.”
“Right,” Sam agreed. “And whatever tiny bit is left can stay in me until it fades naturally, like it has since she died.”
“But Marley’s power can’t stay in Quinn. It’s strangling her.”
He pulled up a folder of bookmarks to see what resources he hadn’t tried yet. Medical care, but Anson hadn’t been hurt in the confrontation. Though… Sam thought about how sick Quinn was. There was a slim possibility the power Anson stole was making him sick, too. He shrugged and clicked a bookmark for a site that he knew was completely illegal.
“Sam!”
He jumped a little at her near shout and turned his attention away from the computer. “What?”
“I don’t want you to do it.” Her hazel eyes were as dark as he’d ever seen them, tired and filled with worry. And something else that set his heart pounding.
“Do what?”
“Take Marley’s power. It can’t go anywhere, and it’s poison. That’s the word you used.”
Sam stretched his arms over his head and winced as his back cracked. “We don’t know how it will affect me.”
“We know how it’s affecting Quinn. Why would you be any different?”
“I can’t leave—” He stopped. He didn’t want to talk about this. He had to take that power from Quinn. He was the only one who could. There were no other options. No point in debating it.
That was the problem. He knew it might leave him completely debilitated. He was willing to accept that, to make that choice. The uncertainty of what would happen kept him from telling Riley how he felt. The last thing he wanted was for her to think she had some obligation to keep taking care of him afterward, even when he had nothing to give her.
“I know, Sam.” She put her hand over his, her voice soft and hurt. “But you can’t keep it. Transfer it to me.”
“What? No!” He lurched to his feet and moved away a couple of paces. “What’s the difference between leaving it in Quinn or putting it in you?” Wow, that hadn’t come out right. “I won’t do that to you, Riley. I won’t deliberately do something to hurt you.” He said it significantly, not looking away from her eyes, hoping she understood.
“But—”
The apartment door slammed open. Riley jumped up and Sam spun, half expecting a battered Marley or Tanda to fall through.
Never in a million years would he have expected Anson.