resilience astounded him. She should have died in that fire. Did she know that? Even if she hadn’t figured it out, she must be experiencing a profound sense of shock, yet her courage shone through. When he first saw her, Torque had been drawn to her because of her looks. Seconds later, he had taken the whole never-meant-to-be, fated-mates hit. Now her spirit and strength attracted him just as powerfully as her physical characteristics.
Overcoming a fierce desire to pull her into his arms, he left her alone. But the urge to protect her remained strong. Torque never slept well. The same sorceress who had stolen his liberty and wiped out his clan had once cursed him with her trademark insomnia spell.
Yeah, Teine, the fire sorceress...what a charmer she had turned out to be.
Taking up a position just outside Hollie’s bedroom window, he sat on the grass with his back against the wall and his long legs drawn up so he could rest his forearms on his bent knees. From this angle, he could make sure she was safe and watch the sun rise over the bay. Not that he was in any mood to admire the beauty of his surroundings. His mind was wholly occupied with Hollie and what had just happened.
Being a rock star brought many privileges Torque’s way. This beautiful house with its sweeping grounds and its dramatic views, his island, his fast cars and faster motorbikes...any material thing he wanted was his for the asking. But there was a dark undercurrent to his fame, one at which he had already hinted to Hollie. There were always a few fans whose admiration spilled over into obsession. Enthusiasts who thought they owned him because they knew his face and read every article and interview about him.
Even among a band of big characters, Torque attracted more than his fair share of obsessive fans. Ged, his manager, put it down to Torque’s fiery onstage personality. “They see you as Beast’s torchbearer. Even though Khan is the ultimate showman and Diablo has the dark, brooding looks of a Hollywood leading man, you stand out because the photographers love to catch you surrounded by fire.”
Ged knew who Torque was, of course. The man who had rescued him from the centuries-deep spell cast by Teine was also the man who had given him a new lease on life as a musician. It was a strange life choice, but one that worked. Torque was the only dragon-shifter in the band, but he was among equals. Tiger, jaguar, snow leopard, wolf...his bandmates were all shifters who had been rescued by Ged. Their manager was a businessman by day, a were-bear who saved damaged or endangered shifters by night.
No matter how knowledgeable Ged was, Torque wasn’t sure he bought into the torchbearer theory. It wasn’t just that he got more contact from obsessed fans than his bandmates. The contact he did get was on a crazier level. Ged called it stalking, but Torque wasn’t sure letters and emails fitted that definition. No physical contact was made—he had never even gotten a disturbing phone call—no harm had ever been done to him or his property. And being a shifter in a human world, he found it difficult to know what to do about that. Determined to maintain their anonymity, shifters steered clear of the mortal forces of law and order. Since Torque’s obsessive fans had, so far, limited their activities to strange confessions and occasional threats, he had done his best to ignore them.
Until now. He had a feeling tonight represented a crossed line. Because some of the confessions were very specific. Torque was the person who played a burning guitar. He walked through a wall of flame. He raised a hand and, like the conductor of an orchestra, coordinated a series of perfectly timed explosions along the edge of the stage. And he attracted a small group of people who were unashamed and fanatical about their love of fire. People who looked up to Torque because they sensed something in him that appealed to their fixation. For those very few, it was an infatuation that bordered on worship. They believed he was a fire-god and they offered him their devotion...whether he wanted it or not.
Not. His expression twisted into a grimace of distaste as he tossed a pebble toward the shimmering water.
Being a shifter meant that two parts of him lived in harmony inside one body. His inner dragon didn’t just need fire, it defined him. Sizzling through his bloodstream alongside his mortal DNA. But he was also part human, and that side of him reined in his fiery self. He knew what flames could do. He didn’t worship fire, he respected it. While it excited him, it didn’t arouse him. He could play with its force without pressing the destruct button.
Some of the messages he got suggested his followers—he used the word even though he disliked it—were unable to display the same restraint.
“If anyone gets hurt, I won’t be able to stay quiet.” That had been his ultimatum to Ged when the tributes first started coming. “That’s my deal breaker.”
“You think it isn’t mine?” Ged’s reply had reassured him. “If we find out any of these crazies has actually gone beyond the letter-writing stage, we’ll do something about it.”
As far as they could see, the madness had stayed on paper. It was wild and disturbing, but harmless. Tonight had been far from benign. Tonight, Hollie had almost died. And no matter how hard he tried, Torque couldn’t separate that event from his obsessive fan mail.
His intuition about the fire at the Pleasant Bay Bar scared him. For several reasons, it filled him with more fear than anything he had ever known. First, it meant he was being watched. It was a possibility he had never considered. He wanted to be more intuitive, to be able to say with absolute certainty that he would know if a malignant presence was tracking him. But he didn’t. He was a creature of legend and mysticism, but hunches and premonitions evaded him. His dragon instincts were all sizzling energy and action. He left the finer detail to others.
All he had was an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach that Hollie had been targeted. She was the change, the common denominator. From the moment he first set eyes on her, Torque had been in free fall, as if he had given up control of his emotions. They no longer belonged to him; they were the property of a woman he barely knew.
If he was right, someone else knew what had happened to him in that instant. Someone else was aware of the profound effect Hollie had on him. That person had witnessed their meeting in the Pleasant Bay Bar...and he, or she, clearly didn’t like it. It shook him to consider that an observer could have known the impact Hollie had on him. It had been devastating to Torque himself, but he had fooled himself he had hidden it well. It seemed his acting abilities weren’t as good as he believed.
Even so, no matter how many times he reviewed that scene, Torque couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary about it. Apart from Doug, there had been only a few regulars in the bar. While he didn’t know any of them well, he couldn’t picture any of them as a demented pyromaniac or a jealous stalker.
His thoughts turned to Teine, the sorceress who had fallen in love with him. When Torque didn’t return her feelings—because, let’s face it, she was evil as well as crazy—she had destroyed his clan and imprisoned Torque in an enchanted cave. He would be there now if it wasn’t for Ged. But Teine couldn’t be the person responsible for the fire. She was dead.
Dawn had sneaked up on him and the rising sun was a huge golden disk in the cloudless sky hovering over the silhouette of the trees. Torque knew from centuries of experience that darkness wasn’t the enemy. Nightfall merely provided a cloak for evil deeds. Even so, daylight offered a return to normality. Stretching, he got to his feet.
Within his nighttime reflections, he had been skirting around the central issue. When Hollie awoke, she would want to discuss the fire and Torque would need to make a decision. How much was he prepared to share with her? About his suspicions...but also about his feelings?
* * *
Hollie opened her eyes slowly, leaving her dreaming world behind. The images had been
