“Caden,” she chided. “Leave work at the office. Any time alone we spend should be about us. I’ve just spent the night with a man I want to know better. If this isn’t a one-off, shouldn’t we be getting to know each other? Tell me something about you.”

I’m going to be magical soon, and I’m fairly certain that if I kissed you I would issue you a Mating Call that would shock you to your pretty toes. How do you feel about being a wizard’s mate and living a thousand years?

Caden cleared his throat. If he said too much . . . it would only connect them further. Their eventual separation would hurt more later. “I want to move back to Texas. I miss Mexican food.”

A reluctant smile spread across her face. “We Brits don’t make it well?”

“I’ve seen dog food with more appeal.”

Sydney laughed. “That’s harsh.”

“The truth often is.”

Some of the uncertainty left her eyes, and he saw that flash of the Sydney he knew. “That’s not personal. You’ve never spoken of your parents, while you know all about mine.”

“As I said, my parents are elderly and frail. They live outside of York.”

“Are they able to come visit Lucan?”

“They don’t know about his condition.” That was another thing that made him feel like shit. “I don’t dare tell them. I fear them knowing their elder son is . . . unwell would be too much to bear at their age.”

She nodded sympathetically. “What will you do if the worst happens?”

“Lucan is receiving good care from experts. He’s strong, and I’m by his side. I must believe he will pull through.”

“Thank you for sharing that. I’m sorry about your brother. What can you tell me about his condition?”

Nothing. Some part of him wanted to open up to Sydney, share his burden with her. The urge was nearly as compelling as his need to make love to her last night. Damn, that was a dangerous sign, especially since that sort of sharing would only lead to heartbreak—on both sides.

Finally, Caden said, “His disorder is mental. He’s a danger to himself and others now.”

“Oh my God.” Empathy softened her dark eyes.

“Certainly you see why I didn’t want to admit something like that the day we met.”

“I’m sorry. I have a nasty habit of prying. The curse of being a reporter.”

“I understand.”

“While I’m prying, I wonder if you’d answer another question for me.”

He stiffened. Already he’d said more than he should. With Sydney, he was walking a tightrope. He had to seem engaged, but not invest so much that he couldn’t leave later. It was already going to hurt like hell. Using her left a bad taste in his mouth, but staying by her side until he got the information needed to get his brother’s life back was critical. Adoring her as he wanted would only mean a broken promise later.

“I’ll try.”

Sydney seemed to sense the change in his tone and bit her lip. “Why move to the States? Why leave for so long if your parents are elderly? Why join the U.S. Marines? Why—”

“One at a time.” He held up a hand to stay her with an indulgent glance. “I moved away at eighteen. Went to school for a bit, met some Marines and decided I wanted to join them. I obtained a green card, quit school, went to basic.” He shrugged. “My parents and I . . . didn’t see eye-to-eye about my future, and a decade ago, putting distance between us seemed like a good idea.”

A huge understatement. Caden’s mother, once a gifted seer like many women in her line, kept insisting that Caden would someday embrace his considerable magic and distinguish himself as a champion. Rubbish!

By the time she’d started making such predictions, Westin was dead, and Caden wanted nothing to do with magic, especially not hers. After leaving home, he’d judiciously avoided magickind, lurking in the States and lived among humans, seen life through their eyes—and he’d never wanted life another way since.

“So you moved to another country?”

Put like that, it sounded extreme. “They had Lucan to carry on the family traditions. I wasn’t interested.”

“A family business?”

“Ah, something like that,” he hedged. “Anyway, I joined the Marines because it was far, far from home, and I wanted to fight—something my parents had always been against.” At least in the human sense. “I made some great friends.”

With the Marines, he’d fit in for the first time in his life. Sure, his platoon had ribbed him about being British and having a teacup up his ass and the like. He missed them like hell.

But no one in his platoon had known about his magical family or had expectations of him becoming any sort of wand-waving Superman. He was great with automatic weapons, could wipe the floor with most in hand-to-hand, and was without peer in explosives. He’d been happy to help Bram and the Doomsday Brethren learn some of those skills. But lending his magic . . . hell, he didn’t have any. Nor did he want to.

“Are you still friends today?”

Caden sucked a fresh breath of pain. “Most all are gone. Many died in Iraq. Some committed suicide after coming home. Another went to prison. One is missing. I’m one of the few left standing.”

She was the first person he’d told. No one else had asked or cared. Sharing his sorrow with her was dangerous, but felt good. Sydney threw her arms around him, as if she knew exactly how much pain it had cost him to lose friends like Walt, who everyone called T-Rex because he’d been huge and his footsteps lumbering. Or Brian, the prankster with the weird tattoos. Damn hard to believe that Brian went missing under mysterious circumstances two months ago and was presumed dead.

“I’m sorry,” Sydney murmured. “I never meant to bring up something painful.”

Gently, Caden pulled away—though he desperately wanted to stay. For a brief moment in her arms, the hurt of the past and the worries about tomorrow had been absent. He’d simply lived in the peaceful moment. But now it was time for reality.

“I won’t ask if that satisfies your curiosity, since I know better. But I should get going,” he said, unable to resist filtering his fingers through her soft hair one last time. His fingers trailed away with regret.

Sydney grabbed his wrist. “Kiss me. We never got to that last night.”

So tempting. He craved her taste, but the increasing sweats, sex drive, and tingles told him that he’d soon be a wizard. Like any wizard, he’d have the ability to sense his mate by taste—if he didn’t already have that “gift.” Unless he wanted to tie himself to Sydney forever, kissing her was forbidden. And mating aside, if he kissed her when he had no intention of staying, it would be more cruel, not less.

He put a hand over his mouth. “Not before I find a toothbrush. You’ll thank me later.”

A frown wrinkled her brow. “You say the right things, but why do I get the feeling that once you walk out the door, you’ll never be like this with me again?”

Caden tried like hell to keep his expression neutral, but when she stared back in distress, he guessed he’d failed Subterfuge 101. How the hell could he answer her?

“It’s . . . um, a complicated time in my life now, with my brother, my parents, and there’s more. If it weren’t for all that, everything between us would be different. I would choose to be with you and never let you go.”

He forcibly pressed his mouth shut. Stop. There. Now. The canned response he should have given her about being interested and taking it one day at a time? Not in his vocabulary at that moment. What had possessed him to be so honest?

Despite not lying—or perhaps because of it—she looked ready to cry. She clutched the sheet tight against her breasts. “Are you turning away because I won’t give up my source? Did you hope to shag it out of me?”

Regret sliced him to the bone. “No, but mixing business and pleasure wasn’t wise.”

“Then go. We’ll forget last night ever happened.”

Impossible.

Her expression was a kick to the heart. He was heartily sick of playing this wretched game with her. “Sydney, later, if my life becomes less complicated . . .”

Sydney shut her eyes and shook her head. “Just go.”

Reluctantly, he turned and left her bedroom with a last glance over his shoulder at her pale curves barely concealed in the white sheet, surrounded by a halo of that fiery hair. He nearly couldn’t find the fortitude to leave, knowing his chances of ever holding her again were slim.

But he forced himself to put one foot in front of the other and disappear down her hall.

Halfway to the door, he heard her murmur, “We both know there’s no ‘later’ for us.”

The truth was like an upper cut to his abdomen. Caden braced himself against the wall and, fists clenched, fought the urge to return to her.

Damn it! Leaving was for the best. Still, if he’d wanted to escape with his heart intact, he was about twelve hours too late.

Sydney sat behind her desk that morning, struggling to focus. At the moment, weak sunlight barely leaked through her office windows, and it was an ungodly seven in the morning. But it wouldn’t be long before Caden arrived, and she had to look at him. Work with him. Not touch him.

Last night had been, in a word, incredible. Passionate, giving her one jolt of pleasure after another, keeping her trembling and needy, Caden had been the lover she’d always wanted and never had. Well, except for the fact he hadn’t kissed her. Odd, that. Then again, they’d been so busy doing other amazingly luscious things.

But they were done now, she feared. And the sense of rightness that had sparked last night was gone. Whatever was going on with his brother, in his life, he was letting it come between them.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe last night had only happened because she’d wished it into reality, a byproduct of the fact she’d written her fantasy about him in that damned red book. Right down to the connection that had made her heart leap. If that was true, how ridiculous and pathetic. She deserved her heartache.

Penning her wish in the book and having it come true seemed fantastic, but then, she wrote of such things all day. And believed more than a few. She’d never imagined something amazing would happen to her, but maybe this had.

Sydney covered her face and tried to fight tears. Damn it, even knowing he had some hidden agenda, she had still written of her desire for him, then succumbed to his touch completely. Stupid! And no matter what he said, her refusal to give up the name of her source played a role in his abrupt departure. Every part of their conversation this morning— except the brief moments he’d discussed his brother and his platoon—had felt off somehow.

Work. She had to focus on that. Her fling with Caden had been brief, perhaps even manufactured. Just because they’d clicked surprisingly well didn’t mean it was some spectacular affair of the heart. They’d shagged. She’d never allowed any man to break her heart, and he wouldn’t earn that distinction after a single night.

Launching her e-mail, Sydney vowed to focus. She perked up right away when she received an e-mail from her informant at the Coroner’s Office, a friend from her uni days. The woman finally had news regarding the bodies of the partially decomposed soldiers in the tunnel discovered just over two weeks ago. The e-mail simply read Call me before nine.

Heart pounding, palms sweating, Sydney rang Chloe’s mobile phone.

“ ’lo,” answered a groggy man.

“Is Chloe there? Sorry to ring so early.”

After a moment of shuffling and a giggle, Chloe answered, “Syd?”

Chloe had been happily married for nearly four years to a handsome devil named Blake. Sydney would be jealous if she hadn’t always regarded Blake as the big brother she’d never had.

“What’s your news?” Sydney asked, dispensing with pleasantries.

“Good morning to you, too.” Chloe laughed. “Very unofficially, here’s what I know about the bodies discovered in the tunnel.”

“Following the November fourteenth skirmish I’ve been writing about? The magic thing?”

“Exactly,” Chloe confirmed. “Tests have identified all the bodies. Are you sitting?”

“Yes. On with it, you tease!”

“You know me too well.” Chloe shot back, then sobered. “All the bodies were of servicemen—from all over the world, including seven of the eight American soldiers who mysteriously disappeared on September nineteenth from a training exercise at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. They were all part of the Marines Special Operations Command.”

Sydney’s jaw dropped. As the surreal words sunk in, she muttered, “Bugger! Special Forces . . . I remember hearing about the disappearance of those soldiers!”

“The higher-ups at the office are all being very hush-hush. But that in itself says something. Next of kin are being notified now, but their identities aren’t being released to the media yet, so I can’t give you that or my boss would be suspicious.”

Chloe had already delivered more than expected. She owed her old friend a pint or two at least. “Of course. Anything else you can give me?”

“You know from our previous conversation that the bodies were decomposed weeks beyond what their battle wounds suggested. Your grainy photos showed that several were decapitated, a few others shot or stabbed. But they bled as profusely as if they were alive. And they bled black.”

“Black?”

“Indeed. It’s a complete mystery. There’s no blood type. Everyone was identified by fingerprints, distinguishing marks, or dental records.”

Sydney paused. What would cause such a thing? New disease? Black blood sounded crazy, but working at Out of This Realm, she’d quickly learned that nothing was impossible. “Odd.”

“Very,” Chloe agreed. “Assuming your story is real, do you have any theories about which side the poor bastards fought for?”