Sizzle and Burn

survive more than a few days at most.”
    He was suddenly flooded with relief, shaking with reaction. He sank down onto a bench and forced himself to breathe slowly. The bitch would soon be dead. That was worth a lot.
    As badly as he wanted to obtain the information Lawrence Quinn had promised to get from Vella Tallentyre, it had become clear in the course of the operation that Cassidy Cutler was a serious threat. The great fear that had been eating at his guts for the past few weeks at last began to subside.
    “What about the Tallentyre data?” he asked, concealing any hint of emotion with an effort of will. “Does it exist or was Quinn wrong?”
    There was a short, ominous silence before the voice on the other end of the connection spoke again.
    “We don’t know yet. J&J still has a man on the ground in Oriana so we must assume that if the data does exist, it is now or soon will be in the Society’s hands.”
    The entire room turned a bloody shade of red. He lurched to his feet, picked up the nearest object, a shoe, and hurled it at a locker.
    “What’s that noise?” the person on the other end asked uneasily….
    …Stupid, stupid, stupid. You can’t lose control …
    “Nothing,” he said, recovering his flat tone. “A shoe fell out of a locker.”
    “Is there someone else there, listening to this call?” Alarm flashed in the formerly cold voice.
    “No, of course not. Forget it. You do realize what this means, don’t you? If the Society has the Tallentyre information and if Quinn was right about its potential, we have a problem.”
    “Yes,” the voice said.
    He was suddenly sweating. This wasn’t just a minor setback or even a simple failure. It could prove to be a full-blown disaster.
    “I’ll be in touch,” he said.
    He ended the call and stood, fighting to control his rage and panic. It would be okay. Cassidy Cutler had maneuvered hard to take the credit for the Oriana project. So be it. He would make damn sure all the blame fell on her. Luckily he had analyzed the risks involved ahead of time and taken care to keep his distance. He had planned to wait until success was assured before he claimed the victory.
    He’d had a very close call.
    One good thing had come of the mess, he reminded himself. At least he was rid of that very scary bitch.

Fifty-five
    S he was rinsing her hair under a hot, steamy shower, contemplating the simple pleasure of breakfast with Zack, when a cold draft warned her she was not alone in the bathroom.
    “I sense another presence in this room,” she intoned in dark, theatrical tones. “An unseen being has entered. Speak, oh, unseen being.”
    “You’re right,” Zack said from the other side of the shower curtain. “I am going to take the Master’s Chair.”
    She went very cold beneath the hot water. Her chest suddenly felt tight. She thrust her face under the torrent to wash away the incipient tears. She had known this was coming, she reminded herself. This was the way things had to be. It was the right way. The Society needed him. She would live in the present as long as possible and not think about the future. An affair with Zack might last a very long time. Months. Years.
    Who was she kidding? Sooner or later he would marry and that would be the end of their relationship.
    “That’s good,” she managed. “You’ll make a terrific Master.”
    He pulled the curtain aside. She saw that he was wearing trousers but nothing else. She was very conscious of her own nudity.
    “Now I want to know what you’re going to do about us,” he said.
    Automatically she held the small washcloth in front of her breasts while she tried to come to grips with his question.
    “I don’t understand,” she said, going blank.
    “Yesterday afternoon when you were in danger, I knew it. The other night when the illusion talent attacked me, you were aware that I was in trouble.”
    “Weird, huh?”
    “There’s some kind of psychic bond between us and it’s getting stronger. Don’t know about you, but it sure as hell hasn’t ever been like that for me before. Not with anyone else.”
    She blinked. “Not even with Jenna?”
    “Not even close with Jenna. What about you?”
    “No,” she whispered. “Not with anyone.”
    “So, what are you going to do about it?” he asked softly.
    She needed to think, to get her act together, and she couldn’t do that standing there, naked, in front of him.
    “Uh, could we talk about this later?” she asked without much hope.