Ghostwalker 03 - Night Game

display. “I’m still feelin’ the effects and I knew your song, your voice , was a weapon.”

    Her color deepened. “It’s never been that strong before. That was your fault. You were amplifying my power.”

    “I was not. Don’ you go blamin’ me for that little exhibition. You were deliberately drawing men to you and you were very effective.”

    “I’m telling you, it wasn’t all me. I can keep everyone…” she hesitated, searching for the right word. “Enthralled. I can soothe people and I can draw them to me, but it’s never been like that before. You were amplifying me.”

    “I’m not an amplifier,” he denied.

    “How would you know? Are there others like us? With the same talents? You stopped the guard dogs from barking. You’re just as capable of manipulating sound as I am. You let Whitney make a freak out of you when you had a family. A home. People who love you.” She stepped close to him, itching to slap his face, fury building so that the water churned around the airboat. “You threw it all away. What did he promise you? Money?
    Power? What did he give in return for your family, Raoul?”

    Gator guided the boat into the middle of the canal and cut the engine. There were only the sounds of the bayou, the hum of insects, and the splash of water. “Tell me what you were doing in the club tonight and I’ll tell you why I volunteered to be a genuine psychic guinea pig.”

    “Why does it matter so much to you what I was doing?” Flame regarded him uneasily.

    “It just does. You were deliberately stirring the men up. You wanted them obsessed with you. Why?”

    “I don’t trust you.”

    “You don’t have to trust me. We’re out here all alone. Search me if you think I’m recording this. If I wanted you dead, you’d be buried in the swamp.” He swung away from her, an abrupt, angry movement, unlike his usual grace.

    “Why are you so angry with me?” It shouldn’t have bothered her. She didn’t care if he was upset with her—he was nothing to her—but it did. She could tell his inclination was to shake her. The sexual web between them was strong. She’d never experienced such a thing before and their antagonism toward each other only seemed to add fuel to the fire.

    “What the hell were you doing in the club tonight?”

    Flame waited until he turned back toward her, until his dark, angry, turbulent gaze met hers. He was smoldering with temper, his fist opening and closing, his easy charm obviously wearing thin.

    “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you in there? Do you want men to be so obsessed they can’t control themselves?” He took an aggressive step to ward her.

    She stood her ground, one hand steadying herself on the seat of the boat, refusing to be intimidated. She was never intimidated. She could easily protect herself whether he had her knife or not. His eyes glittered at her with a kind of fury she found intriguing rather than terrifying. Raoul Fontenot was a man who liked to portray himself as easygoing but beneath the veneer was a man of intense passions, of dark secrets, a man he kept hidden from the rest of the world.

    “I absolutely did not expect that to happen. Obviously you were affected and it’s upset you. Did you think you’d be exempt from the effects? Have you checked out the weapons they have now or are in the process of developing? They actually have everything now, from acoustic beams and blast waves to my personal favorite, the acoustic bullet, high-powered, very low-frequency waves emitted from one to two meter antenna dishes that result in blunt-force trauma, affecting anything from discomfort to death. Surprise, Raoul, even the shooters can be affected if they aren’t behind the device used to produce the sound. You and I, we’re basically human acoustic bullets. We can get into and out of places fast and without being seen and we don’t need an antenna.” Her eyes widened.
    “You were created after me, weren’t you? And you amplify my talent, don’t you?”

    “Don’t you look at me like that.”

    “Like what?”

    “Like you suspect me of some conspiracy.” He swore in Cajun, a blast of words so fast she was hard put to keep with him.

    Flame remained silent, intrigued by the way he looked when his ancestry came out. He was a good-looking man, rough around the edges with his blue-shadowed jaw, but the thick black wavy hair and ready smile provided the killer charm. “It simply occurred to me