Claimed by Shadow Page 0,48
of Dante's?" he demanded. When I nodded, an expression crossed his face that managed to be both puzzled and angry at the same time. "That makes no sense. You took us to the nineteenth century earlier, trying to get away from me!”
"I did not!”
"I was there, if you recall," he retorted angrily. "Your lover almost killed me.”
Unless you counted one out-of-body experience, Mircea and I weren't lovers. And thanks to the geis, I couldn't risk us ever being so. However, I didn't intend to explain that to Pritkin. It wasn't his business, and I was sick of feeling like I was constantly on trial with him as judge, jury and, possibly, executioner.
"I don't care whether you believe this or not," I said, as calmly as I could manage. "But I didn't have anything to do with us ending up at that play. The power just flared-I don't know why. The only thing I did was to get us out of there as quickly as possible.”
“The Pythia controls the power, not the reverse," Pritkin said, calling me a liar.
"Believe what you want," I said, suddenly weary. Fighting with him got old fast because it never seemed to solve anything. "If what you said earlier about us needing every advantage is true, I have a job for Mac.”
Mac glanced up, still looking dazed. "What?”
"My ward," I said, tugging down the back of my tank to show him the top of the pentagram. "Pritkin said the Circle deactivated it. Can you fix it?”
"I did not say 'deactivate.' That would be impossible," Pritkin corrected as Mac moved to take a look. "From a distance, the Circle can only block it, which they almost certainly did for fear that you would use it against them. They would not have closed the connection otherwise-whenever it flared, it gave them an approximation of your location and they want to find you badly." Pritkin suddenly moved forward until he invaded my personal space. "Your explanation of the power's actions makes no sense," he said, his voice harsh. "Not if you truly are Pythia.”
I suppose he was trying to be intimidating, but it didn't work out quite that way. He had stopped about an inch from me with his bare chest right in my line of vision. It was lightly furred over muscles that were hard and sleekly defined, and the inadequate air-conditioning had caused rivulets of sweat to run in fascinating ways through all that hair. The only men I'd ever touched had been smooth, or almost so, and I had the insane desire to run my hands through those damp blond curls to see what patterns I could make with my fingers.
I didn't know why the mage, whom I didn't like in the least, was affecting me like this, but I felt like someone who's been on a starvation diet for weeks and just caught sight of an ice cream sundae. My hands were sweaty and my breath was coming faster, to the point that I'd be panting in a minute. I tore my eyes away from his torso before I lost control, but that didn't help since they only drifted lower, to what was concealed by that infuriating expanse of tight denim. I swallowed and struggled to get a grip before I gave in to the burning desire to rip the jeans off him.
I had almost succeeded in talking myself into stepping back, even if it meant letting him think he'd intimidated me. That would, after all, be better than the truth. But then I made the mistake of looking him in the eyes. I finally figured out why he had always appeared a little odd: his sandy lashes and eyebrows were so close to his skin tone that, from a distance, he didn't appear to have any. This close, I could see that his lashes were actually long and thick, and that they framed clear green eyes-the rare kind with no hint of any other color.
Despite strict orders to the contrary, my hands were on him, tracing the muscles in his chest. His pupils expanded to the point that his eyes turned almost black and a shocked look crossed his face, probably more so than would have been true if I'd slapped him. But he didn't pull away. There was an odd tingle in my hands where they pressed against his pecs, and his skin felt warmer than it should have even with the shop's lousy air-conditioning. Or maybe that was me. I didn't care: