“Did you ask her about a reversal spell?” Fiona asked.
I shook my head and paced behind Gwen and Fiona’s chairs, annoyed that Gwen’s recovery was being halted by jurisdiction rules. I didn’t trust the NAWC one little bit and doubted they would treat this as a high priority. Look how long it took them to convict Holly. Incompetent bureaucrats.
“That’s the thing,” Micah said, and I knew he was about to piss me off even more. “Ms. Willow doesn’t know what went wrong with the spell in the first place, so she doesn’t know how to fix it. She did inform me that memory spells are dangerous and have to be handled with careful precision.”
And there it was, the final nail in the small box that held my patience. My temper flared to life, and I stopped pacing. My fingers flexed at my thighs, and my eyes shot to the window that overlooked the main floor. Somewhere in this building, Ms. Willow was being held, and I intended to do a little questioning of my own.
“MS. OZLAND MIGHT know how to fix it,” Fiona supplied. “She’s the best spell caster in Flora.”
Micah nodded. “You may be right. The NAWC knows what has happened, but who knows when they’ll send someone to fix Gwen. After you leave here, why don’t you give her a call?” Fiona nodded enthusiastically while I remained quiet because I had no clue who Ms. Ozland was and trusted Micah and Fiona when they said she was the best.
“Now on to the other problem I wanted to discuss with you,” Micah said. “Actually, this is more up your alley, Dorian.”
I noticed Dorian had started pacing like a caged lion behind our chairs a few minutes ago. While Fiona and Micah talked, I concentrated on the rustle of his jeans as his thighs glided together. I kept stealing glances of him from my peripheral, itching to jump out of my chair to grab his hand and stop him from pacing. All it took was for someone to say his name. He stopped just behind my chair, his large hands curling around the back as he waited for Micah to explain what he meant.
“That man out there,” Micah started, motioning with his head toward the interior window of his office. “He came in just before sunrise claiming that his boyfriend ripped his heart out. At the time, we didn’t know he meant it literally—until he took his coat off and showed us. The blow should have killed him on the spot, but as you can see, he’s still walking and talking. And that’s not the only bizarre thing I’ve had to deal with this morning.” Micah released a heavy breath through his nose and scrubbed a hand over his stubble-lined jaw.
“I received a call from the hospital stating that they haven’t had any deaths in the past week.”
I pursed my lips. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“It would be if they meant they haven’t had any life threatening cases. They claim that no matter the injury, nobody is dying. They had a woman come in after a spell exploded in her face. The doctor I spoke to assured me that there was no possible way the woman should have survived it, yet she did. Word is slowly getting out that…” Micah’s lips snapped shut, and he looked between the three of us. His mouth opened and then closed again like a fish gasping out of water.
“What?” I asked at the same time Dorian barked the same question.
“It seems,” Micah started, “people cannot die.” His eyes shot up to where Dorian stood behind me. “You know anything about this?”
“We need to go,” Dorian said, his voice sharp with authority.
I twisted at the waist to look up at him. “Why? What’s going on, Dorian?”
He stared down at me and wordlessly reached out his hand to me. Should I trust Dorian and go with him, or should I stay and discuss what was going on with Micah and Fiona? By his reaction, I knew he had an idea as to what was happening. If I wanted answers, I wasn’t going to get them from Micah or Fiona.
I reached up and slid my hand along Dorian’s palm. His fingers curled around mine and pulled me up out of my seat and into his chest. The front of my body pressed against his, and he wrapped an arm around my waist so that his hand settled on the small of my back. Being this close to him awakened those pesky butterflies. They swooped, twirling their electric wings through my stomach, and sent little shockwaves to every one of my nerve endings.
“Where are you going?” Micah asked, standing behind his desk. “If you know something, I need to know.”
Dorian said something, but I stopped paying attention when his scent invaded my nostrils. My eyes drifted closed on a long blink, and I memorized the smell of leather and some earthy type cologne with a hint of spice. It was intoxicating my brain and drawing me closer to his body.
“If anyone is going to help Gwen, it’s going to be me.”
My eyes snapped open upon hearing my name, and I stared straight at Dorian’s chest. My hand had somehow found its way to his left pectoral. Embarrassed by my forwardness, I dropped my arm and took a step away from him, but he tightened his grip around my waist and drew me into him again. Risking a glance up at him, I found the corner of his mouth lifted so slightly that I wasn’t sure if I imagined it or not.
“Fiona,” Dorian said, “would you please contact Ms. Ozland and see if she can help?”
“Sure.” Fiona’s face didn’t look as confident as her bubbly voice. “What are you guys going to be doing?”
“Official Death/Spirit Walker business,” he said with a smirk. Bringing his attention to Micah, he added, “It’s out of your jurisdiction, Detective.”
“So are you going to tell me what we’re doing?” I finally asked. Dorian and I walked down a long hallway in the FPDs building wordlessly. My mind was too focused on the fact that our fingers were intertwined and how I reacted to being pressed against Dorian’s body in Micah’s office. I wondered if my response toward the angel of Death was some lingering memory working its way to the surface. I hoped so. Along with my life, I actually wanted to remember Dorian. I wanted to put meaning behind my reaction toward him. There was something very erotic about us being close enough that I could just push myself up on my tiptoes and kiss him whenever I wanted. I wanted that familiarity with him, I realized.
“I’m going to ask Ms. Willow my own questions,” Dorian said. “I think she’s lying out of her ass.”
“You think she has something to do with all these strange occurrences?” Dorian was quiet for so long I thought he might not have heard me.
“No.”
I waited a couple seconds for him to elaborate, but when he remained quiet, I knew he didn’t have any plans to. He told Micah that this was our jurisdiction, which meant I had a right to know what he knew, memory loss or not.
“Who’s responsible then?” We stopped at a junction in the hallway. The clacking of heels echoed down the intersecting hall, coming toward us. Dorian stepped closer to me so that my back hit the wall and our fronts meshed. Slowly, he raised an arm to rest beside my head, caging me in, and leaned down so that our faces were close—too close.
The reflective surface of his sunglasses displayed my wide eyes and startled features. I worked to calm myself and relax my face. We stared at one another while the footsteps came closer, me with bated breath and Dorian with that frustrating grin.
“I liked you touching me in Micah’s office,” he said with a low, seductive voice that affected me more than it should. I dipped my chin to break our contact, but Dorian shifted closer and drew me back to him. My eyes shot upward and locked onto his face. He was another inch closer, our lungs breathing the same air. Something about that was too intimate. My eyes trailed a path down his face and settled on his lips, appreciating the fullness of the bottom one.
“I think you liked touching me, too.” With his free hand, Dorian gripped my chin while his thumb caressed a path along my bottom lip. My mouth parted beneath his touch.
“What are you doing?”
“Showing a great deal of restraint,” he replied, but leaned even closer to me. The weight of his chest pressed against my front and caused what little air was in my lungs to lodge in my throat. This was restraint for him? It felt very calcu
lated and well-practiced to me.
The woman that the footsteps belonged to rounded the corner and continued down the hall in the direction we’d just come from. Dorian didn’t move or acknowledge that the threat was gone. His body was a wall of steel in front of me, his influence a living breathing thing overpowering my senses. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t like his nearness. I liked it—a lot. I knew he was going to kiss me, or at least he wanted to. My subconscious screamed for him to close the last little gap between our mouths and put me out of my misery. When he withdrew from my body, I silently screamed for his teasing and my wanting. I shouldn’t want him to kiss me, shouldn’t like his body against mine, shouldn’t wonder what his lips taste like or if my dream did the real Dorian justice.
I scrubbed my hands over my face and through my hair as I tried to clear my head of all things Dorian. Why didn’t he kiss me? My subconscious whispered, and I told it to shut up.
“You okay, cupcake?”
I looked up to find Dorian standing in the entrance of the new hall waiting for me to collect myself. He was calm and collected already. Jerk.
“Peachy,” I deadpanned.
He chuckled and motioned for me to follow him. This time I kept my distance, choosing to walk on the other side of the hall to keep him from touching me. Our walk was much shorter this time. We stopped outside of a door that had a sign announcing the holding cell above it.
“I don’t think we should be doing this,” I told him when he gripped the handle and swung the door open. I didn’t want to end up in the cell next to the woman who cast a spell on me.
“Don’t worry, no one is going to catch us,” Dorian consoled. “And if they do, I can handle them.”
If that last part was supposed to put me at ease, it didn’t. Still, that didn’t stop me from walking through the door. The answers weren’t going to deliver themselves to us, so we had to hunt them down. If anyone could get them, I knew it was Dorian. The man was scary when he wanted to be.
The door softly clicked closed behind us. Rows of cells lined either side of the small hall, all empty except for the one at the end. I looked down when I felt Dorian slide his hand into mine. With reluctance, I pulled my hand away and started walking. I couldn’t let Dorian fog what little was left of my head. I was still fighting through the haze from his earlier act of teasing. Dorian was an enigma to me, harder to figure out than a rubix cube while blindfolded. One minute he was seething in silence and the next he was he flirting and teasing me. He made my head spin.
“Oh my gosh,” Ms. Willow gasped when we stopped outside of her cell. She wore a powder blue dress that had a high waist and cinched bodice. Her sandy brown hair was pinned back at the sides.
“She said you would come,” Ms. Willow confessed. “She said that you would threaten my life, possibly take it.” Her voice shook as her eyes pleaded for mercy.
Dorian took a step toward the cell, his face hardened and serious. Tilting his head to the side, he asked, “Who?” The deathly calm of his voice sent chills to even my arms.
Ms. Willow’s head began to shake from side to side and she wrung her dress between her trembling hands. I knew I shouldn’t feel sorry for this woman, but I found myself worried for her safety. Dorian had been like a caged animal in Micah’s office and now he stared at his prey.
“I can’t tell you,” she told Dorian, and then looked over at me. “I’m sorry. I did what had to be done.”
I took a step closer to the cell. “What do you mean? You…you stole my memories on purpose, like you knew I would come in and had it all planned out?” None of it made sense, and it pissed me off that I couldn’t even remember losing the memories in the first place. I could sense the missing information like static noise swirling through my brain, but couldn’t connect with it. It was maddening.
Ms. Willow nodded. “It had to be done,” she repeated. “You’re not right.”
My jaw dropped at her ominous words. Dorian slammed his hand against the silver bars. The sound reverberated through the small space and caused me to flinch.
“Tell us who ordered you,” he snapped.
“I cannot, and if you take my life, you lose all hope of ever finding out.”
“Will it wear off?” I asked, ignoring the shaking of my hands. “Will I remember?”
She shook her head slowly, apology in her hazel eyes. “No, dear, you will not. Your life will not come to you until it is taken.”
“What does that even mean?” I wanted to reach through the bars, grab a hold of her shoulders, and shake her until the words falling out of her mouth made sense. I wanted to scream in frustration and punch something. Maybe Dorian was rubbing off on me.
“You were cursed before I came into the picture,” Ms. Willow said in explanation, which only made me want to shake her more. I looked up at Dorian for answers, but I knew that he didn’t hold any. The realization that I may never remember my life, my friends—Dorian, was too much.
You’re not right, twisted its way through my head, pin-balling around my empty skull. I didn’t know why I put so much stock in those three little words, but they struck a chord with me more so than anything else she said.
“Hey,” a deep voice said from down the hall. “What are you doing in here?” Dorian and I both turned our heads to see an officer standing by the door, his hand perched above his gun. I threw my hands up in surrender and looked to Dorian to make sure he wasn’t about to do something stupid. A sinister smile curled one side of his mouth up, and I had an oh shit moment right before his arm snapped out and wound around my waist. He pulled me into his chest and then everything disappeared.
“WHAT WAS THAT?” Gwen shrieked once the air dissipated and we materialized in her bedroom. Her eyes shot around the space and finally landed on me.
“We needed a quick escape,” I told her.
“You can teleport?” Her eyebrows scrunched together, and her lips pursed. “Why can I identify strange things like teleporting, but I can’t remember my own middle name?”
“I suspect the spell constraining your memories was designed to only hide things that pertain to you specifically. Since teleportation doesn’t, you remember it.”
I walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. Though Ms. Willow hadn’t divulged a cure for Gwen’s memories, she had said enough to make me worry even more. Her mistake was saying Gwen wasn’t right. I had a sneaking suspicion I knew what that meant, but would hold my tongue until I was absolutely sure. No need to worry Gwen even more.
“So we got our answers,” Gwen said, coming to sit beside me. “They weren’t the answers we were looking for but…”
I looked over at her to find her staring at her reflection through the mirrored closet doors. Her eyes had that glazed over, zoned-out look. Maybe she wasn’t seeing herself at all but lost to the thoughts taking up space in her head.
“She’s the one who hexed you,” I told her. “Do you really think she would tell us the truth?” I didn’t believe what I was saying, but I felt the need to say it for Gwen’s benefit. If she still had hope then she would continue to search for a solution, and I desperately needed her to keep fighting. I worried that she would just accept that she would never retrieve her memories and just stop trying to put the puzzle pieces together. Having just won her over, I wasn’t ready to let her forget about me, which only contradicted my plans to keep my distance. Detaching from her wasn’t possible. Every time I thought I had things under control, I would take a step in the wrong direction, and it always led me back to her, like that little stunt in the hall at the FPD. I was an addict, and she was my vice. Did they have meetings for idiots like me? Hi, my name is Dorian Hade and I’m an addict.
“She said I wasn’t right,” Gwen said, her eyes blinking as she refocused on the present. Her head swung toward me. “What did she mean by that?”
My left hand curled into a fist as the coldness within me froze every bone in my body. I had never felt guilty about anything in my life before, but as I looked
at Gwen’s questioning eyes, it smacked me right in the chest. All of this was my fault.
“I don’t know,” I lied. “She’s crazy, Gwen. Don’t listen to her.” Everything started clicking into place for me: the unbalanced energy, the pixies, the guy with the hole in his chest, the hospital’s claims. I shot up from the bed and rubbed a hand over my face.
“What’s wrong?”
I stared down at Gwen, and the past replayed through my head, the moment I made my biggest mistake. A rogue had just attacked Gwen at her shop. By the time I made it to Broomsticks, he had already knocked her around quite a bit. She had lost a lot of blood and had trouble focusing. I remember the rage that consumed me when I saw her so helpless, not to mention the anger I felt towards her for not defending herself better. By the time I killed the rogue, Gwen’s life was already slipping from this world. I laid her on the counter, her body broken beneath my hands. When her spirit emerged from her body, my world stopped turning. Everything ceased to exist in that moment. In my very long existence, I had claimed millions of souls but this one was different, this one meant something to me. I forgot about my job. I forgot about what was right. I forgot about what was best for Gwen. In that moment, selfishness reared its ugly head and controlled my actions. I couldn’t send her to the hereafter. I couldn’t accept losing her. And I didn’t. Instead of guiding her to the realm of the dead, I placed her soul back in her body. My number one rule, and I had broken it for her, or maybe for me. I just could not let her go.
An inexplicable feeling overcame me as I realized that everything that was happening was my fault. I knew that whoever paid Ms. Willow to hex Gwen did so because of what I had done. When she said Gwen wasn’t right, she meant that Gwen’s soul was already expired and not meant for this world. I didn’t know if those were her words or her employers, but I intended to find out. Who knew what I had done, and what did this mean for Gwen’s life?
“Dorian?” Gwen’s voice brought me back to the present. She stood and closed the space between us. “What is going through your head? Did you figure something out?”
Hexed (The Gwen Sparks Series Book 4) Page 5
