Sunroper (Goddesses Rising) Read online

  “Where the hell are you going?” Anson asked. “He’s in the other direction.”

  “I know. I’m following a lead.” She said the words, but her steps slowed. She doubted these guys knew anything real, and trying to get information from them would risk her greater mission. They weren’t her target right now, and following them was unlikely to take her to Gashface. She watched them for another couple of seconds, uncertain, but decided to let them go.

  First things first. She’d finish the job she was here to do, then figure out what Delwhip was planning and stop it.

  She was about to pivot when another guy came through the cascade of crystals covering the doorway to the entrance. He paused to look around, and their eyes met, locking for a second. A zing shot through Marley’s center in a way it hadn’t for…well, years.

  He was tall, wearing straight-leg jeans and a golden-brown, distressed leather jacket over a navy T-shirt, all as expensive as the custom-made boots on his feet. He had dark blond hair, cut just long enough to brush the bottom of his neck. Its well-formed waves told her a professional stylist got her hands in it on a regular basis. The color looked natural, too, just a sun-bleached shade lighter than his eyebrows. Lashes long enough for her to see from twelve feet away framed silvery-blue eyes that practically sparked with electricity. Damn.

  The eyes did it to her more than anything. Their intensity struck hard, interest flaring there as they fixed on her own odd-colored eyes. The leeching had drained most of their nearly violet color, leaving them almost white. People usually looked away half a second after seeing them. But his eyes were bright and deep, almost beckoning as they stared into hers. He wasn’t unnerved.

  Her body trembled a little, and she turned away, draining her glass for a second time. It was far more full this time, the burn more potent. Fire flashed through her torso and out to her limbs. She took a deep breath and slid into the crowd. She needed bodies behind her, insulation from the gaze she could still feel on her skin.

  She knew that guy. She’d never met Gage Samargo, businessman-adventurer, CEO of GS Consulting, but she’d researched him—and a lot of men like him—in the last several weeks. Not only was he Numina, he was massively rich and powerful in his own right. His company was a hybrid, combining traditional business with innovation and philanthropy. He worked with start-ups whose central technology could help people or make someone rich, and he found a way for them to do both.

  She’d read an in-depth article series by a reporter who’d gone with him to Africa two years ago. Gage Samargo worked with aid agencies, getting down in the dirt and blood, passing out food, teaching farming methods, and assisting doctors in the field. He routinely met with the lowest-paid government workers as well as high-level officials, and made sure to learn all about the politics of the region so the companies coming in could navigate properly.

  It all sounded too good to be true, but nothing Marley had read about him had mentioned clubbing. He wasn’t a playboy, and he didn’t invest in the kinds of excess found in places like this. He was, however, descended from gods, and that made him a person of interest.

  With enough distance to have regained her wits, she turned back and sought Gage, who now stood at the bar. The crowd bunched on either side of him, and both bartenders stood smiling in front of him. He gestured at the shelves and said something to a couple of the patrons watching him. They laughed, and he grinned back.

  There went the zing again, right up her spine to the base of her skull, leaving tingles in its wake—and in parts of her that should be permanently dormant. She raised her hand to her neck, trying to smooth away the goose bumps. Even with his jacket on, his physical strength was apparent in the controlled grace of his movements, the ripple of muscle when he turned sideways and reached into his pocket for his wallet. She couldn’t stop staring, noticing things like the shape of his wrist and the golden skin in the V of his T-shirt.

  Gage shifted and their eyes met again. He stilled, hand in the air with a black card held between two fingers. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes now that he was in deeper shadow. In fact, she shouldn’t have been able to see it when he first came in, but there was no mistaking it: the brilliance was burned into her brain.

  Another man’s glowing blue eyes—gleaming with exultation as he leeched her of all her power—popped into her head. A skitter of panic overwhelmed the pleasurable tingles. Marley spun and took off toward the restrooms.

  “Marley? Marley! What the—You know we’ll lose signal in there. Marl—”

  Anson’s voice cut off when Marley pushed through the door of the ladies’ room. Thank god there wasn’t a line. Only one stall door was open, and she hurried into it as the main door opened behind her and the voices of about half-a-dozen women filled the room.

  Marley spun the lock and set her purse on the toilet-paper holder, pressing her palms against the chilled metal of the door and inhaling deeply, slowly. It was too much at once, throwing her not just off balance, but into a completely discombobulated state. She needed to pull herself together.

  Gage Samargo might be Numina, but he’s not a leech. He has no reason to be one. And he’d be no threat to you even if he was.

  Marley took another deep breath. He might not be that kind of threat, but her body told her he wasn’t harmless. Her knees were still a little shaky. Even though she couldn’t be leeched again, physical damage hadn’t been all her ex had done. She doubted she’d ever be able to trust a man again. Worse, she wouldn’t be able to trust herself.

  Focus, Marley, she told herself. Think about the facts. Gage wasn’t just Numina, he was the son of the damned secret society’s leader. His presence here couldn’t be coincidence, but he didn’t even come close to fitting the profile of the Deimons.

  Goddess abilities manifested in physical ways, but Numina influence was a special kind of intelligence, a way of looking at the world, seeing paths and making connections others might not, as well as an aura of charisma and charm. These were the men who were considered “natural leaders.” They held audiences mesmerized and made everyone love them and want to be near them, even when they were assholes. That got them whatever they wanted and could lead to huge levels of success in business, government, and other arenas of power.

  But there were interrupted lines of descent, some families were weaker than others, and sometimes greed and corruption led to scandal and loss of status. Splinter groups had formed, like the one Delwhip ran, and the one that had abducted Quinn and Riley. That’s when the Society got wind of their existence and intentions.

  Quinn, president of the Society, was now in careful, delicate negotiations with the Numina leadership—Gage’s father, in particular—to set up a summit so they could form a mutually beneficial relationship and decide how to deal with the splinters. Delwhip and others like him had been trying to undermine their progress toward the summit for months. And from what Marley had just heard in the club, he’d grown tired of throwing wrenches into the works and was going for a big play, using Gashface as a tool. She had to stop it.

  But she had to finish what she was doing here, first. She couldn’t leave here without nullifying Josh. Marley was determined to keep the fluxed Deimons under control and off the leadership’s radar so they couldn’t do more damage than the splinter groups had already done.

  A high-pitched, furious voice penetrated Marley’s reverie. “Did you see how drunk she was? How can he be into that?”

  Marley glanced at her watch, stunned at how long she’d been hiding. She was surprised Anson hadn’t stormed the castle, ready to shit a brick. She picked up her purse and pulled out her phone. He’d texted her, and she hadn’t heard it. She tapped out a quick reply that she was on her way out and stepped out of the stall. The two women at the sink gave her dirty looks, and as she strode out the door, she heard something about not flushing the toilet.

  Oh well. She’d been less concerned about pretense than she had about regaining her composure. She pulled it around herself n
ow, setting aside everything but the reason she was here.

  Pausing at the end of the hall, she scanned the club instinctively. No sign of Gage Samargo anymore. Josh, however, stood a couple dozen yards away in a pseudo-VIP area filled with plush couches and chairs. He had one hand braced on a pillar, all the better to lean over the young woman pressed against it. His mouth moved rapidly, as if he was trying to talk her into something, and the woman looked a little freaked. Her eyes darted around, and she kept easing sideways. Josh moved with her, keeping her in place.

  Marley tensed all over, her free hand curling into a fist. She needed to get this done without anyone noticing, and that was going to be hard the way things were set up. She only needed one touch, but between her and Josh were a long sofa, a couple of tables, and a couple dozen people.

  “Servers heading your way,” Anson told her through the comm, sounding disgruntled. “What the hell were you doing?”

  “I had to go to the bathroom,” Marley murmured, looking for a dark spot where she could wait for the right moment. She eased behind one large group of clubbers and then slipped between two threesomes who were too busy to notice. That put her next to a tall potted fern, of all the convenient clichés, where she could wait for the servers to finish doling out drinks and for the group to refocus. She cast out mental feelers to make sure Josh was the only fluxed Deimon in the bunch. She detected three other guys who were Numina but no more flux. Josh remained her only target.

  Most goddesses could sense life and even differentiate between energy signatures, recognizing goddesses versus regular humans in an instant. Riley had also been able to tell when someone was Numina, a seemingly rare gift. Before Marley was leeched, detection of any kind hadn’t been one of her greater abilities. Now, she had it in spades.

  Maybe she always had it, she just didn’t know, but the day she had accidentally nullified Sam, everything clicked into place.

  Her displaced power had gone toxic inside Quinn, unable to return to its proper host, and they’d used Sam as a filter to save Quinn’s life. It had been horrible watching Sam take in the poison. The screaming, the torment none of them could do anything about. Desperate, knowing she was ultimately responsible for Sam’s pain, Marley had touched him, helpless to do anything but offer comfort. But then it stopped. The toxic energy disappeared—she’d felt it happen and so had Sam.

  With the action came an awareness that she’d never had before, and she’d understood for the first time the extent of what Anson’s leeching her to nothing had done. He’d taken away her power, but he’d also created something new. He’d carved an emptiness into her that wasn’t static as they had thought—it had a purpose, its own power.

  She had become a null. A black hole. She could remove power, energy, ability from someone who wasn’t supposed to have it. Someone like Sam. Or like Josh, the Numina kid a few yards away trying to get in the pants of a woman who clearly didn’t want him to.

  Josh shoved the woman’s shirt up to her rib cage and stuck his hand under it. She pushed his hand away, but he didn’t let her go. Furious, Marley moved out from behind the plant.

  His Numina signature was a faint hum on a singular frequency shared by three other guys in the vicinity. This close, the blue shine of flux that Marley could detect with her brain rather than her eyes almost stung her with its intensity. When the young woman tried to shove Josh away again, Marley’s sense of the flux changed. It felt similar to touching a live wire, jagged and uncomfortable.

  A handful of people headed toward the dance floor. This was Marley’s best chance, and she should do it now, before Josh got more aggressive. She swept the area again, not seeing Gage or anyone else of importance.

  “I’m going in,” she told Anson in a low voice.

  “Roger that.”

  She moved smoothly, careful not to bump anyone or draw attention by walking too quickly. Within a few steps she was behind Josh. His hands in the air, he’d somehow hauled the woman against his body without touching her. A faint, airy scream escaped her, but Josh bent toward her neck as if he were a vampire.

  Marley kept moving, brushing a hand against his elbow as she passed. She felt the flux disappear as somewhere deep inside a brief, sharp pain throbbed. She stifled a gasp and faltered before moving toward the back door. Behind her, Josh gave a low moan.

  The room seemed to dim, even more than it already was, the lights going faintly green. She squeezed her eyes closed for a second, trying to clear the haze. Another blink and it was gone.

  “Meet me out back,” she managed to whisper to Anson. She didn’t want to linger in the back alley waiting for him. She should have said it sooner, but the unprecedented pain had distracted her.

  “Already on my way,” he assured her.

  With her hand on the door’s crash bar, Marley turned back. Josh was on his knees, his face in his hands. A couple of his friends stood over him. One looked around, scowling. At least the young woman Josh had been leaning over was on the other side of the room, huddling with her friends and casting a look at Josh that was both disgusted and worried.

  Marley had to get out of there. She pushed at the door, but a new figure loomed in front of her. This time she couldn’t hold in her gasp.

  “I think that door’s alarmed,” said Gage Samargo, gesturing at a sign. “If you’re going to yack, the bathroom’s that way. Or you can use that plant.” This time he pointed to the fern she’d hidden next to earlier.

  Marley’s heart thundered. Had he been watching her? Why?

  She straightened, letting her hand drop. She knew the alarm was disabled—Anson had done it when they first got here, and she’d intended to reset it as she went through. But in front of Gage she pretended she hadn’t noticed the sign, or hadn’t cared.

  “I’m not going to yack,” she assured him. “Just need some air.”

  “I bet.” His easygoing demeanor disappeared, though he stood relaxed, hands tucked in his jeans pockets. His navy T-shirt was snug across his chest, looser over his abs but in a way that still showed how taut they were. She was close enough to see the bright blue of his eyes even better than before, silver threads adding a unique shine that she could never confuse with a leech’s glow.

  Marley swallowed—or tried to. Her throat had dried up.

  They stood for several seconds, eyeballing each other. She wondered what he was thinking, since he didn’t have the same look of uneasy curiosity most people wore when they first saw her eyes up close.

  “I’m looking for my brother,” Gage finally said. “Do you know him?”

  Her brow tightened. Why would he ask her that? Did he somehow know her? Even if he did, what connection did he think she had to him?

  She responded the way she would if she had no clue who Gage was. “I don’t know. Who’s your brother?”

  “Sorry. Aiden Samargo?” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a phone. After waking the screen, he showed her a picture.

  Marley kept her face blank as she looked. “Is he missing?” She recognized Aiden and knew the other guy in the photo with him. He was also Numina, though she couldn’t recall his name.

  “In a manner of speaking.” He swiped to another shot. “How about these guys?” He showed her more photos of men, most in their twenties, that Marley had seen before. Their fathers were all involved in the summit negotiations.

  She shook her head. “Sorry.” She didn’t meet his eyes, not wanting him to see that she was skirting the truth. But her gaze landed on his full, unhappy mouth, and she imagined using small, soft kisses to loosen it up until he had no choice but to kiss her back.

  Ugh. Not the time or place for that.

  “Wish I could help you,” she managed, taking a step to go around him. “Good luck.” She hoped she could get past Josh without him spotting her and figuring out what she’d done, but Gage shifted to block her. Her head snapped up, and she braced her feet, ready to deal with him physically if she had to.

  He noticed, judging by the way
his gaze sharpened and his weight moved from his heels to the balls of his feet.

  Marley raised her eyebrows at him. He smirked and stood down, his shoulders relaxing before he turned to the side to let her pass.

  She managed to keep her pace normal as she moved, even throwing an extra sway into her hips because she had no doubt he was watching her leave. She had no idea why he’d even approached her, but a sense of dread told her this wasn’t the last encounter she’d have with him.

  As she left the club and went out into the crisp, smoke-saturated fall air, she admitted it wasn’t all dread.

  Chapter Two

  The man is full of relentless charm, but where his peers may wear it as a surface glamour, Gage Samargo’s runs bone deep. He works tirelessly from predawn to midnight, eagerly taking on any necessary task. In a typical day in central Africa, this might include digging wells, conducting business meetings, assisting a local doctor with field surgery, and playing footie with schoolchildren.

  —Wall Street Journal article series

  I

  nstinct told Gage to just let the woman go, but it also told him she was hiding something. Her hips had swayed as she strode away in her snug dress and impossibly high heels. Her dark red hair was piled tightly on her head, and her movements had a graceful athleticism and strength. She could easily use those feminine wiles to trick any man.

  Gage hesitated. He’d seen her touch Josh before he’d collapsed on the floor, too. He didn’t know what she’d done, but she’d done something. She’d been too fast to use a syringe, though, and he’d have sworn her hand was empty when he’d watched it all go down.

  His skin crawled as another thought struck him. If his theories on the research he’d done for his father were right, then flux was energy based, not a typical street drug. With a single touch, this woman could have just passed Josh some of the drug. Josh’s reaction wasn’t completely unlike an addict’s right after a hit, either. And this woman…well, she was pretty enough, mysterious enough, and confident enough to be a goddess. Just like the one rumored to be dealing the flux.