Witch's Secret

by Emma L. Adams

  The city was a shambles, and the guild wasn’t much better. The vampires, once left alone, had taken to searching the rubble for their missing bodies or failing that, just grabbing any they could find. Isabel and Asher had volunteered to help the survivors remove the blood magic runes. Meanwhile, I found myself dragged from one person to another to explain what in hell I’d done to make the giant god go away.

  No sooner had I found a moment to breathe than Ivy and Vance picked their way through the crowd to me.

  “We cleared out the lab,” Vance said. “However, we need a necromancer to destroy the spirit barrier and check there isn’t anything left behind.”

  “It should be fine to bring down the spirit barrier now the Ancient is gone,” I said. “Most of the spirits will probably be able to move on without a fuss without the barrier there, and a necromancer can deal with the rest.”

  Not me, though. For all the praise she’d heaped on me, Lady Montgomery still hadn’t offered me my old job back. Lord Sutherland might be on his way to jail, but the price on my head remained.

  “Good,” said Ivy. “I don’t have the spirit sight, so I didn’t see where the shadow fury went. It’s not in this realm, right?”

  “No, he went through one of the gaps in the spirit line,” I said. “I doubt he’ll come back. He feeds on dead souls, not living ones, and I’m pretty sure he’ll feel more at home wherever the other furies live than on earth.”

  At least, I hoped so.

  “I’m gonna take your word for it on that, Jas,” Lloyd said, picking up a couple of candles from the floor of the lobby. “I still think you’re bonkers.”

  “Hey, it worked,” Ivy said. “She stopped the shadow fury from causing any more damage.”

  “The shadow fury was in chains, metaphorically speaking,” I explained. “Once I got them off, he was happy to leave. Since he eats souls, I’d rather he didn’t come back here, but I can’t even pronounce the word the Mage Lord used to summon him.”

  “He’s lucky he survived,” Ivy said. “Normally, humans can’t speak Invocations without being torn apart by the backlash, but he had another god’s protection. I hope the others are keeping an eye on him.”

  “They are,” Vance said. “He’s chained in his own dungeon.”

  The last I’d seen of Lord Sutherland, his wrists had been bound with the same spells he’d once threatened to put on every witch in the city. Irony is a bitch, isn’t it?

  “Good riddance,” Lloyd and I said at the same time.

  “And the spirit realm?” Ivy asked.

  “It should heal itself,” I said. “If not, Evelyn and I can help, but I can’t promise there won’t be any more furies. They should be less aggressive now I’ve saved their big brother, though.”

  “I think they like you, Jas,” said Lloyd.

  “Hey, I’m the hellhound whisperer, you’re the fury whisperer,” said Ivy.

  What would Cordelia say when she found I’d been making friends with one of the Ancients? A grin crept onto my face at the thought and I laughed until my sides hurt.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Mackie, pausing mid-step.

  “I think she’s finally lost her wits,” Lloyd remarked, shifting to the right as Morgan walked up behind Mackie.

  “At least I’m in good company.” I caught my breath. “I can’t decide if I want a nap or a drink. Or both.”

  “Jas?” Mackie crouched next to me. “Is it true that—he survived? The Soul Collector?”

  “Ah.” My mirth faded. “Yeah, he did. He fled into the other realm, and he won’t be coming back if he thinks the shadow fury is still loose in the city.”

  “He survived?” said Morgan. “Since when?”

  “Since Lord Sutherland made a deal with him,” said Mackie. “Where have you been for the last hour?”

  “Cleaning up the mess you made when you screamed four zombies to pieces all over the stairs.”

  “You did?” I gave her a thumbs-up, deciding not to mention the remarkable similarities between her screaming power and the furies. I’d decide when, or if, to broach that subject later on.

  “So the Mage Lord isn’t actually the Mage Lord any longer?” asked Morgan.

  “He is now,” I said. “I mean, he’ll be removed from his position, but the Soul Collector isn’t controlling him. Unless someone else knows the Ancient’s real name, there’s no summoning him back here. Oh, and he doesn’t have the Ether Converter.”

  “Damn right he doesn’t,” Ilsa said from behind Lloyd. “Jas, the boss is looking for you.”

  I rested my head against the wall. “No rest for the fury whisperer.”

  “Is that your new official title?” Keir caught my hand, pulling me to my feet. At his side stood Aiden, who’d been talking non-stop for the last hour. I didn’t blame him, given the years of silent torment he’d spent in the lab.

  “You’re the real hero of the day,” Aiden said to me.

  “Lucky, more like,” I said, resting my head against Keir’s chest. “I’m just glad it’s over.”

  “To Jas,” said Lloyd, raising his beer glass and clanking it against mine. We’d barely managed to squeeze our entire group onto the pub’s longest table, and I was crammed between Lloyd and Keir. “The fury whisperer.”

  “Please stop calling me that,” I said, half-heartedly. After the whirlwind of the last few hours—Lady Montgomery profusely thanking me and offering me my old position back with a pay raise, mages queuing up to shake my hand, a dizzying stream of thanks from guild members I hadn’t exchanged two words with before—we’d ended up at the Redcap’s Cave. I’d barely managed to keep my eyes open through dinner, but the triumphant atmosphere was infectious. I tipped back my glass, the alcohol buzzing through my system.

  Keir chuckled and tapped his glass against mine, too. “It’s a compliment.”

  Keir seemed different, with his brother. More relaxed. He wore a wide grin and looked like years of stress had disappeared from his shoulders.

  “Sure.” I drained the glass and set it down. On Keir’s other side, Aiden was in the middle of a play-by-play account of his last night out in Edinburgh which had somehow ended in a round of drunken poker with a group of ogres. Drake was hanging onto Aiden’s every word beside an exasperated-looking Vance, an amused-looking Ivy, and even Asher had come along, at Isabel’s insistence. Their voices washed over me, turning to a humming noise in the background.

  I yawned, wondering if it would be bad manners to take a nap on the table.

  “Wakey wakey,” Lloyd poked me in the shoulder. “You can’t fall asleep now. You have to join us for karaoke.”

  “I thought you said never again.”

  “After a few more of these, I will.” He took another sip from his beer glass. “Life’s short.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to ask Morgan to sing with you again?”

  Lloyd choked on his beer and glanced down the table, but Morgan didn’t look up. He was in the middle of yet another recount of the fight to anyone who would listen. So, basically, Mackie. And Wanda, who was too polite to tell him everyone at the table had witnessed the fight and knew perfectly well he hadn’t slain twelve furies single-handedly.

  Keir’s hand squeezed my knee. “Jas, you look tired.”

  I yawned. “I might lie down and take a nap.”

  “I can escort you home.” Keir’s hand brushed my wrist, and the witch mark tingled. I’d forgotten I was wearing it—and I’d also forgotten my plan to undo the binding between us.

  I tilted my head up at him. “Might take you up on that.”

  He leaned in. “Good, because I haven’t thanked you properly yet.” His tone deepened, sending a quiver of need through me and momentarily banishing my sleepiness.

  “Hey, don’t start groping each other at the table,” Lloyd said. “Another round, anyone? I’ll pay.”

  “He’s going to regret that,” I said in an undertone.

  Keir chuckled. “Aiden, Jas and I are going to
head back home before she falls asleep on the table.”

  “Sure.” Aiden stood to give his brother a one-armed hug. He was still a little unsteady on his feet, but after a few beers, everyone else would be, too.

  “Sure thing.” I waved goodbye to the others and walked out hand in hand with Keir. “I still have the guide to ritual magic. I think I know how to unbind your soul from mine, if you want to do it.”

  Keir’s eyes widened in surprise. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to be close to you, but I’d rather the feeding on my soul thing be optional. Just in case I wind up stuck in another realm again.”

  “It bothered you that Evelyn had to step in?” He trailed a hand down my back, his vampire’s touch whispering over my skin. “I like the idea of having you all to myself.”

  “Me too. Want to come to the guild, or to Lady Harper’s place? Your choice.”

  “What about those awful relatives of yours?”

  I stopped walking. “Uh… is it a bad thing that I forgot all about them?” Oops. In fairness, Evelyn had been quiet all night, so maybe she was already with them. Telling Cordelia all about how I’d made friends with the fury.

  Ah.

  “What d’you think?” Keir asked. “Want to get it over with?”

  I released a breath. “I guess so.”

  I’d worried about the state of the spirit line leading to the forest, but the spirit realm was almost free of tears by the time we reached the bridge.

  The instant we crossed over into the Hemlocks’ place, we landed in the cave. Cordelia wasn’t in the mood for ceremony, then. Neither was I, come to that.

  “Jacinda,” said Cordelia, looking down at Keir and me. “What have you done?”

  “Ended the war before it started.” As I’d expected, Evelyn floated in front of Cordelia’s tree, not looking surprised at my appearance. Her eyes narrowed in a manner that made her look startlingly similar to the stony faces carved into the walls. “I got rid of the Ancient with minimal casualties, the former Mage Lord and his associates are in jail, and the spirit realm will heal. Oh, and the furies aren’t our enemies any longer. I’d count that as a win.”

  “You made us all look like fools,” she said. “You made an agreement with our ancient enemies—”

  “The shadow fury was imprisoned and tortured in a lab for years, Cordelia,” I said. “Besides, you know you can’t actually kill the gods. If I’d tried, more people would have needlessly died.”

  “You undid years of our work, Jacinda.”

  “So what?” I threw up my hands. “After years of fighting, what’s wrong with starting a clean slate? Just because your ancestors started a war with the Ancients doesn’t mean we have to repeat the same mistakes.”

  “Jacinda,” she said. “The Ancients are our natural enemies.”

  “No,” I said. “They aren’t. Not if we don’t want them to be.”

  I had no more to say, so I, re-joined Keir at the back of the cave. Before we could get the hell out, Evelyn pounced. “You have some nerve walking away.”

  Her harsh words surprised me. “All I did was undo the damage the Soul Collector and the Mage Lord did. As a bonus, we have an ally the next time we get stuck in the Ancients’ realm. It’s hardly worse than setting a dragon loose in the city, and you can’t solve every problem by breaking everything. If you and Cordelia realised that, you might be a lot happier.”

  This time, when I yanked the cave door open and walked out into the forest, she didn’t follow me.

  “She’s pissed,” Keir said, as we appeared on the hillside outside Lady Harper’s house.

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I’d have thought she’d be angrier about the Soul Collector escaping than the fact that I stopped the Ancient and the other furies from eating holes in the spirit realm. She knows perfectly well you can’t kill a god. What else was I supposed to do?”

  Despite the Ancients’ escape, it was hard to see today’s outcome as anything other than a victory. We’d saved Keir’s brother and ignited the hope that I might bring an end to my coven’s war with the Ancients. And as an added bonus, I held the means of understanding how my soul and Evelyn’s had ended up tethered in my hands. If Cordelia had trusted me enough to tell me her secrets upfront, then perhaps she wouldn’t be as mad at me for getting hold of that information by myself.

  Yawning, I unlocked the door to the house, turning on the living room light. Once I’d discarded my coat and lit the fire, I pulled out the mages’ ritual magic book, which they’d stolen from Asher… who’d also ‘borrowed’ it from the necromancers, or so it seemed.

  Keir sat down on the sofa next to me as I skimmed through the pages. “What do you have to do, drain my spirit essence the same way you did to the shades?”

  “Basically.” I found the right page, reading the text. “Okay, hold out your hand.”

  I took his warm hand in mine, then tapped on my spirit sight. Keir glowed all over, and I shivered when his fingertips traced my palm through the spirit realm.

  “Open the connection,” I said. “I think you have to feed on me first.”

  “Sure.” He reached through, and a heady sensation filled me, as though I was drawing power from him and not the other way around. Then again, I was, in a way. I kept one eye on our hands, seeing the glow around his palm as the energy transferred. Then I took that glow and pulled the energy back into me.

  His eyes flew wide, but he held still. Carefully, I pulled on the power, searching for the link. He exhaled sharply. “Whoa. I think that was it.”

  “Are you sure?” I released his hand, my veins fizzing with energy. “I definitely took something from you, but I think you’ll have to try feeding on someone else to be certain it worked.”

  “It did,” he said. “You know, the last few times I’ve fed on you, you’ve felt… less substantial than usual. Now, I don’t feel that.”

  “Good,” I said. “Maybe I’ll actually catch a break now.”

  He took my hand again. “I can still feel you inside me. It’s… electrifying.”

  His lips moved over mine, and I moaned, revelling in the echo of the spell through our blood. “Keir.”

  “I’ve waited so long,” he whispered, trailing a hand through my hair.

  “Likewise.” I wrapped my arms around his waist, my mouth parting to let him in. His fingertips moved down my shoulders, my arms, tracing my outline as though to memorise every inch. Then his touch went deeper. Cooler, yet somehow more heated. I gasped.

  “Don’t worry,” he murmured. “I’ve got it under control.”

  “Keir.” I moaned as his touch flickered between spirit and real world, skimming my skin and soul until both sides of me were alight with need. His fingers tugged on the edge of my shirt, pulling it over my head. “You don’t need to take my clothes off, you know.”

  “There are some parts of you I can’t appreciate from the spirit realm.” He unclasped my bra and lowered his head to my breast, tugging the tip into his mouth. His hand moved to my waistband, undoing the button on my jeans. I moaned as his mouth moved over the delicate skin of my nipples and then trailed down my stomach. By the time his hands worked off my jeans, my breath came in heavy gasps.

  The carpet was soft against my back, his skin pleasantly cool against mine. He straddled me, pulling his shirt over his head, and I grabbed the waistband of his jeans and slid my hand inside. He was already hard.

  “Fucking hell, Jas.” Keir hissed out a breath as I withdrew my hand and tugged his jeans down his hips. He rocked back off me, removing his jeans, and pressed his mouth to mine again.

  “God, yes,” he breathed, delicately stroking the skin between my legs. I gasped as he flicked my clit with his fingertip. Then he did the same in the spirit realm. I gave a stifled scream, my spine arching. By the time I’d recovered, he’d pulled off his boxers and had a condom on.

  “Do that again,” he murmured, pulling off my underwear with one
hand and using the other to stroke the wet heat between my legs.

  “Encourage me.” I rocked my hips against his fingers, and a smile tugged his mouth.

  “So demanding.” He removed his fingers and lowered himself onto me, sliding inside me with one thrust. For an instant, he was suspended above me, every muscle taut. Then he moved against me with agonising slowness, his pace quickening until we came together, touch on touch, in the spirit realm and otherwise.

  I dug my nails into his shoulders as a second wave of pleasure rocked me from head to toe. He gave one last thrust and gasped as he came. Trailing kisses down my shoulder, he withdrew from me, whispering my name.

  We might be severed, but I’d never felt closer to him as he lay beside me on the soft carpet, his longish hair falling over his face.

  “We should go to bed,” I murmured.

  “Is it more comfortable than here?” He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me tight against him. His hands moved over my ribs. “You’ve lost weight. You should eat more.”

  “Are you offering to buy me breakfast?”

  “Sure, but I’m afraid my brother will be there.”

  “I’ll forgive you if you make tonight worth my while.” I twisted onto my back, grinning up at him.

  “Your wish is my command.” He ran his fingers through my hair, and across my lips. “When did you take the piercing out?”

  “Why are you scrutinising me?”

  “Because you’re sexy as fuck and I want to memorise every inch of you.” He kissed my chin, then my lips.

  “I could say the same to you.” My fingers trailed through his hair. “I’ve never seen you look this happy.”

  “That’s because I’ve got everything I ever wanted, Jas, even what I thought I’d never have again. And it’s thanks to you.”

  “Keep plying me with compliments like that and I might let you stick around all night.”

  He grinned, straddling me. “Challenge accepted.”

  24

  I came back to wakefulness slowly, my mind sluggish. My body felt like it’d been drained ten times over. Rolling over on the guest bed, I found Keir leaning over me, looking concerned.