Luck was with me for once in this shitty life. There was a door at the end with a flickering light over it. I started for it like that was my destination, trying not to slow too much. I made it halfway there, watching the wall beside me out the corner of my eye.
One second my shadow was alone. The next, there was a second one behind it.
I pulled my hand out of my pocket and reached up to pull the lid off my coffee.
The shadow behind me paused.
I leaned forward like I was inhaling the scent of my coffee and hummed happily when I saw them creep forward.
Then I pivoted.
One hand thrust out to throw the hot coffee on whoever was behind me.
The second came up to swing a strong left hook on what I hoped was a head.
The coffee stopped midair. A masculine hiss of pain registered right before my fist contacted with something hard.
A man blinked into existence, wearing said hot coffee as my punch to his jaw sent him reeling. I registered that he wore dark clothes. Nothing that would help distinguish him.
Before he could recover from the hit, I slid my foot back and then aimed a low roundhouse kick for his thigh.
My mystery man let out a howl, his leg buckling. He teetered sideways and then dropped onto his injured side. Now that he was kneeling and no taller than my chest, this was getting fun.
Part of me was a little disappointed that someone who had gone through great lengths to track me wasn’t skilled enough to handle me even without my magic or guns.
I stepped forward and aimed a knee shot directly into his chest. I could have aimed for the jaw, but I needed him conscious. The chest, however, worked to my advantage. Air left his lungs in a strangled exhale that sent him backwards. His back hit the ground, and he wheezed hard, giving me the first decent look of his face.
Dark hair. Blue eyes. Red marks lining the left side of his chiseled jaw in the shape of my knuckles. He might have been pretty if not for that.
Such a shame. Or maybe not.
The pretty ones often liked to stay that way.
I dropped down on top of him, planting one knee on his chest. I used my free leg to pin his left arm to the ground, my foot crushing his wrist. My right hand came down on the other, holding it down next to his face.
I leaned close, the scent of coffee and cologne washing over me.
“Now that we’ve got that unpleasantness out of the way—”
He reared back and then his mouth jutted forward. A wet glob of spit smacked me in the face. My eyes hardened.
Using my free arm, I brought my elbow down on his jaw in the same place I’d punched him, eliciting a sound of pain. Then I followed it up by pressing my forearm into his neck, cutting off his air supply.
“Buddy, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. How messed up you are when I walk out of the alley is all on you.”
He glared back, cheeks turning a deep shade of crimson.
“I don’t have forever, and I’m not dumb enough to wait around for whatever backup you have. I’m going to ask you a question. You get one shot at answering before I stick my thumbs through your eyes and blind you. Hopefully. May kill you if I’m not careful enough—and let’s be honest, I haven’t done this all that often. It’s been a while since the last one, so it’s really in your best interest if you want to keep your vision. Got it?”
His glare sharpened, but he nodded once, just the slightest dip of his chin in acknowledgement.
“Good,” I said, easing off his throat just enough to let him speak. “Who the fuck are you, and why are you tracking me?”
5
He started to speak.
“I’m just the—”
His words cut off in a pained cry. He seized upwards, as if pulled by an invisible string. His eyes rolled back in his head. Then his skin started to burn.
It turned red splotchy, steadily darkening until embers formed and ate away at the flesh. The edges glowed hot and the burning spread, melting his skin from his bones in seconds.
I jumped back before the fire could catch on me or my clothes, and I watched as some magically induced curse killed him. There was nothing I could do. No magic I possessed to save him. No action I could have taken to prevent his death.
When the screaming stopped, there was nothing left but a pile of ashen bones and flakes of skin in the wind. Whoever he was, he wasn’t the mastermind. That curse was meant to prevent him from talking.
I pressed my lips together, lost in thought as I turned over what I just witnessed.
I didn’t notice the air around me. I didn’t sense the thickening of power or brush of dark magic over my skin.
I didn’t know he was here until he stepped out of the shadows.
Ronan’s eyes flashed, and thunder clapped overhead. The winds stirred, lifting my hair from the nape of my neck.
I glowered.
“What are you doing here?”
“Powerful magic,” he said, eyes scanning the alley then landing on the blacked spot of cracked pavement. “Not your magic,” he added, “but powerful all the same.” He leaned down and swiped two fingers over the dead man’s ashes. Black soot stained the tips as he lifted them back to his face and sniffed once.
His nostrils flared.
Magic pulsed once in warning.
He stood, wiping the remains on his tailored black pants.
“What did you learn?” I asked him, slightly begrudging I had to ask to begin with.
“I’m not sure,” he mused. “I’ll let you know once I follow up.”
Ronan-speak for I’m not telling you.
My lips thinned.
“Or you could tell me,” I said pointedly, not letting it drop. He smirked once, eyes raking over my body. I wasn’t wearing anything particularly attractive or revealing, but you wouldn’t know it with the way he perused, as if he owned every square inch of it.
Although, I suppose in his mind, he did.
Asshole.
“What happened to staying in the apartment?” he said, voice condemning even if his gaze seemed more interested in undressing me. I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I never agreed to that. You ordered it.”
“For your safety,” he said, steel-gray eyes coming back to my face. Some of the heat drained in place of frustration. “I assumed you were smart enough to leave this be until I figured it out. You ignored my order to stay in your apartment and then went the opposite way on your morning walk. Almost like you were . . .” His eyes flicked down to the blacked patch and hardened further.
“You’re not the only one capable of tailing me, Ronan. I took a gamble that whoever our mysterious attacker was might be as well. Looks like I was right.”
The muscles in his jaw clenched. “The curse that killed him wasn’t some weak witch. You could have been hurt—”
“Yet, I’m not,” I pointed out.
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not even carrying this morning.”
“Obviously,” I said. “Having a gun strapped to my side wasn’t going to lend to my attacker being sloppy.”
“You used yourself as bait,” he said softly. Anger permeated his expression and flashed in his eyes. “That was—”
“Smart.”
“Stupid.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “You underestimate me. This conversation is getting old.”
He chuckled, deep and dark and sinfully attractive. “I don’t underestimate you. Yes, you were fine this time. You didn’t end up needing your guns. But what about last night? You were thrown from the boat and almost drowned. What if it had been more than one man? What if the curse was meant to target you as well?”
He took a step closer and my hackles rose. I hated it when he tried to intimidate me.
“I hate to break it to you, but my guns aren’t my only weapon.”
He lifted a hand to cup my cheek, and then roughly changed his grip to grab my chin and tilt it up. “Yes. Your other weapon. The one you detest, yet al
so rely on to get you out of a pinch. The one that’s slowly robbing you of time and eating away at your psyche.”
I wrenched my chin away and took another step back, only to hit the wall. Ronan crowded me. He braced both hands against the wall on either side of my head, leaning close to fill me with his intoxicatingly disgusting scent—
“Stop being a prick,” I snapped. “Like it or not, you can’t control me. I went out for answers since you clearly won’t give me any. If you don’t like it, you only have yourself to blame.”
Black fire flashed in his eyes. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me, Piper, how is it my fault that every time you use your magic, your body can’t handle the power, so it crashes and goes into stasis? Tell me how it’s my fault that you haven’t stabilized, and every waking minute you’re a ticking time bomb waiting to blow? Tell me how—”
“Bree,” I said. “You have Bree. You won’t give her back. You won’t tell me what’s wrong with her. For my sister, I’ll do anything. That’s why you took her, you arrogant sack of shit.” I pushed forward, away from the wall, and the distance between our bodies was only a breath away.
“Did it ever occur to you, I did that for you?” he breathed, anger lacing his voice like the sweetest of poisons.
I blinked. “That’s—”
“Think about it, Piper. You were hauling her around the city like a sack of potatoes. I didn’t have to break into the cabin. I walked right in. There were no defenses. Nothing to stop me. Anyone could have taken her.”
His scent was too much. His words too much.
“But it wasn’t anyone,” I said, holding onto my reasoning. “It was you.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Me. The one person in this city that would not hurt you.”
“Taking her hurt me,” I argued. “And besides that, she wasn’t yours to take. She’s mine.”
He grinned, and I wanted to punch him in the face.
“She is yours, but you are mine. I’m simply keeping her safe. Consider that you haven’t been able to find her, not even searching with magic. I know you’ve tried.” I pressed my lips together, but my silence confirmed it. He was right. We had tried, multiple times. I had Nathalie scry, and when that didn’t yield anything, we went to Barry. No matter how many times, though, we couldn't find her. “If you can’t find her, no one else can. Which means no one can use her against you.”
“Except you.”
He smiled cruelly. “Except me.” That he didn’t even try to deny that point . . .
I shook my head. Arguing with him was doing my head in.
“You don’t even see what’s wrong with this, do you?”
Ronan tilted his head. “Wrong? Right? They are all relative. I chased you. I hunted you. That didn’t work. Now I don’t have to chase. You come willingly.”
“Because you stole her.”
He shrugged. “I used what was available to me. I told you, Piper, I have every intention of claiming you. For now, that means I need her. One day I won’t.”
I snorted derisively. “I wouldn’t sound so sure if I were you.”
He smirked, completely unfazed. “I have no doubts. You’ll find that I’m a patient man. I’ve waited thousands of years for you. I can wait a little longer.”
I stood, frozen to the spot.
Thousands?
I couldn’t truly comprehend that time, or that he’d actually waited that long for an atma. It was sad, in a way. All that time waiting, and he was rewarded with me.
I guess I wasn’t the only one fate liked to fuck over on occasion.
I fell back against the wall, letting my head tilt up as I started to laugh. It wasn’t a pretty sound or amusing in the slightest. It was desperate and edged with emotions I didn’t want to feel, and it was as cruel as his smile.
Ronan frowned. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because,” I said, wiping the dampness from my eyes, “you waited thousands of years for me. A human who hates magic. I suppose it makes sense why you’re not so picky now. After that long, willing or not, it doesn’t particularly matter to you—”
Lips crashed into mine. Hard. Demanding. He moved with a sensual grace and savage need that decimated my carefully crafted walls. His tongue parted the seam of my mouth, kissing me even when I wouldn't kiss back.
My hands shook, and I clenched them into fists to keep from grabbing him.
I wasn’t sure if I would pull him closer or push him away.
That scared me.
His tongue didn’t brush against mine. It wasn’t soft or gentle or hesitant in any way. It took mine. Demanded mine. He claimed my mouth the same way he wanted to claim my body and soul and mind.
I held tight to my sanity. My beliefs. My self-control.
It took everything I had not to kiss him back.
And then the fucker bit me.
“Don’t insult yourself or make this out to be something it isn’t. You’re my atma, and you’re not a fucking disappointment.”
Blood coated my lips, and he licked it greedily. My breath hitched. My heartbeat sped up. A groan escaped from somewhere deep inside me, and I crumbled.
He pressed me into the wall, and I arched away. Our mouths met in a clash of passion, desire, and in my case—hate.
I could regret my actions later. Hell, I was certain I regretted it now—but it didn’t stop me.
I might lie in bed with self-loathing for company, but in that moment, I was fire—and I was unleashing on him.
He gripped my hips, pulling them into him. I twined my arms around his shoulders and grabbed at his hair. My nails raked his scalp as I pulled it taut, uncaring for the pain I delivered on him.
For what he was taking from me, he could handle a little pain.
Ronan broke away first, but he didn’t release me.
He lifted me off the ground, hands wrapped around my thighs as he pressed himself in between them. I hooked my legs around his waist, crossing my ankles behind his back. He pressed his thickness into me, lighting my nerve endings aflame.
I gasped.
His lips trailed down my neck, suckling and biting along the way.
I pulled on his hair, but Ronan didn’t move an inch. He groaned into my shoulder, pressing another hot kiss to my neck and then biting hard.
I knew without a doubt he’d drawn blood.
His tongue lapped at it, sucking the wound as he rubbed against me. His cock brushing against my sweatpants sent delicious friction over my clit. And without any warning whatsoever, I detonated.
It was quick and hard and blinding. I threw my head back, slamming it into the wall. A crack echoed through the alley, or perhaps that was just in my mind because stars blinded me.
Fire swept through my veins as my entire body seized with desire and then released. The warmth between my legs pulsed, and I pressed into him, driven by that itch I had to scratch.
I shuddered and shook like it was my first time.
It wasn’t, but given the way Ronan froze, he might have thought it was.
As the aftershocks stopped and my orgasm faded into languidness, my own unsettling reality closed in on me.
“Put me down.”
“No.”
I kicked my legs and pulled his hair. “Goddamnit, Ronan. I said—”
One of his hands released my thigh to come under my ass and grab a handful. The other came up to wrap around my neck. He didn’t squeeze, but he held tight. Possessive. Owning. I stared at him, letting him see my hate.
“You’re upset,” he said, his own eyes filled with desire.
“How observant.”
The muscle in his jaw tensed, but he didn’t release me. “You’re upset with yourself. You acted without thinking it through. For a second, you forgot who I was. Now you want to run away and forget it.”
All the heat that had filled my body faded into ice because he saw me. He saw the truth. I could have denied it, but what was the point? We both knew it would be
a lie.
But there was something he did say that was wrong. Something I wasn’t going to correct.
He said I forgot who he was.
The problem was I didn’t.
I knew exactly who it was that bit my neck and kissed me senseless. I never lost sight of him when I came.
And I hated myself for it more.
It would have been easier to lie to myself had I replaced him with some nameless, faceless entity.
But I hadn’t.
I came to his touch.
To him grinding against me.
To his hands grabbing and squeezing and stroking.
To his lips as they unraveled me.
I came for him, and while I might regret it, part of me wanted to again.
“It means nothing,” I said scathingly. “I had an itch, and used you to scratch it,” I added, thinking back on Nathalie’s words from the night before.
He grinned cruelly. “Lie to me all you want, Piper. Your body sings for me. It begs for me—”
“You’re laying it on a little thick there,” I said through clenched teeth. “It’s been a while. Stop making this out to be something it isn’t.”
“How long has it been?” he asked, taunting. His head tilted to the side, and I sensed a slight shift.
Over a year. I didn’t say that. Instead, I simply repeated, “A while.”
“Good,” he said slowly. “I won’t share you. Every part of you will be mine.” He leaned forward to brush his lips against mine. “Your secrets. Your pleasure. Your fury.” He smiled at the last one. I scowled.
“You really don’t know how to take a hint, do you?”
“I’m simply not scared away by your pain. That’s what this is—this running, this chasing—you’ve been hurt. Not by a man, but by your world. You wear that pain like armor to keep anyone away that might get close enough to hurt you. You won’t allow that, so you push them away. I won’t be pushed away. Fight me. Fuck me. Run or hide—it won’t matter.” He tightened his hold on my neck for a moment, pulling me forward so that I saw my face reflecting in the black fire raging in his eyes. “I always get what I want, and by the time I take you, Piper, you’ll want me too. You already do.”
It took everything I had not to shudder as he peeled me apart like the layers of an onion. Nat was right. He saw me. He saw too much.
Haunted by Shadows: Magic Wars: Demons of New Chicago Book Two Page 4
