by Anya Bast
From her left, a man approached her. “Isabelle,” he said gently. “He’s the scum of the earth, but he didn’t kill your sister.”
Her face contorted, her eyes filling with tears. “He did. He’s the head of the Duskoff. Without the Duskoff, the demon wouldn’t exist.”
“I’m asking you for the last time. Stop.”
This revenge, once a red-hot, pulsing, living thing in her heart and mind, now tasted bitter and cold.
Still…Angela.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t stop.”
The man threw himself at her, breaking her hold on Stefan. Pain cut up her spine and down her legs, making her cry out, but she still fought the heavy weight on top of her. He pinned her down, struggling to gain control of her limbs. Exhaustion and her back injury forced her to go passive. Her magick sparked and died in her chest, spent like a candle burned too long. She made a choking sound of grief.
He stared down at her, his face shadowed by a long fall of blue black hair. Thomas Monahan, head of the Coven. The hair branded him. She didn’t even need to see his face.
She winced and let out a small sob. “It’s because of him, because of the Duskoff, that my sister is dead.”
“He won’t get away with what he’s done, Isabelle,” came his low voice. “But his punishment can’t be like this.”
“How do you know my name?”
Behind them she could hear witches subduing Stefan. The limo rocked with the motion. “You said you’re Angela’s sister. I can only assume you mean Angela Novak, the water witch who was killed by a demon a couple of months ago. That makes you Isabelle. We’re on the same side. If I let you up, will you be good?”
Her mouth snapped shut and she nodded.
He moved away from her, Monahan’s face — set in handsome, brutal lines — finally coming into view. She glanced around the limo’s interior, seeing Adam Tyrell and Jack McAllister, both fire witches she was well acquainted with. The two men restrained the injured Stefan, who wasn’t fighting anymore. He knelt with his hands between his legs, looking like the only battle he could wage was against unconsciousness.
“We are not on the same side,” she growled at Thomas. “You are preventing me from—”
“Taking your revenge. I know.”
“I didn’t kill her sister,” spat Stefan.
Thomas cast a look at Stefan that reminded Isabelle of how a cat might regard a worm, beneath his bother but something interesting to play with. “In general I’d prefer Stefan dead,” he drawled, “but we need him.”
Cradling her injured hand, Isabelle only glowered at him through her hair in response. She sought Monahan’s emotions, but got nothing more than a flicker. Either she was too tired to sense them or he was hellishly repressed.
“Ah, Isabelle? Not that I mind the view, but…” Adam looked at her pointedly, helping her remember her state of undress.
She glanced down, registering her lack of clothing. In her rage, that little detail had been lost. Hell. Could anything more go wrong?
Making sure Jack had ahold of Stefan, Adam tossed her dress to her and she gingerly slid it over her head, wincing at the pain in her back.
Thomas jerked his head at Stefan. “Incapacitate him for transportation.”
Jack stared down at Stefan — his expression dangerously dark. For a moment Isabelle wondered what he’d do. The warlock had tried to kill Jack’s girlfriend last winter.
Jack glanced pointedly at Stefan’s privates. “You should see a doctor about that.” Then he punched him — hard. Stefan slumped to the floor of the limo, unconscious.
“You could’ve just drugged him,” said Thomas with a twist to his lips.
Jack glared down at Stefan. “That was one option.”
“You could’ve just let me kill him, too,” Isabelle added. “That would have been much less trouble for everyone. I know I would have been far happier.”
Thomas turned and regarded her with eyes that seemed blacker than obsidian. They were unsettling, yet beautiful, and they matched the hair that swirled around his shoulders. The man truly did look like a witch — a very, very wicked one. “Really? That would have made you happy, Isabelle? Tell the truth.”
She glanced away from him, suddenly feeling far more naked under his gaze than when she’d been undressed.
The head of the Coven was better looking in person than he was in his pictures, like some beautiful fallen angel, although the rough-hewn lines of his face saved him from the more perfect type of male prettiness. His sensual, lush mouth seemed at odds with the rest of him, set with deep lines on either side. He had a powerfully built body, long of leg and broad of shoulder. Every inch of that massive body had been pressed against her and it had hurt. Her back twinged with the memory and she grimaced.
“So how’s it going, Isabelle? Long time, no see,” said Adam as though they’d met up by chance at Starbucks or something.
Her lips turned up in a smile. Grinning at Adam Tyrell was something you had to do because of his charm, especially if you were female. Even under these circumstances, she couldn’t help it. “Not too great, Adam.”
“Get him out of here,” Thomas growled at Adam. He turned to Jack. “Can you heal her back and hand?”
“Isabelle’s hand and back, yes. Stefan’s dick, no. My hands aren’t going anywhere near that.”
“We’ll let Stefan heal on his own, I think. It’s the least he deserves.”
Adam heaved Stefan out of the limo and Thomas followed, casting one piercing look at her over his shoulder before he went. “I want to talk to you. Don’t disappear.”
She narrowed her eyes at his back. Asshole! He had no right to order her around. She’d left the Coven. Hell, what she’d just done made her a flat-out warlock. Thomas Monahan held no power over her.
“Give me your hand,” said Jack.
She unlocked her jaw and raised her hand, shifting gingerly on the floor of the limo and snagging the heel of her shoe in the carpet.
He took her hand between his palms. Jack was a fire witch and, therefore, could heal. She’d always found it odd that the power resided in such a destructive element. Her hand grew warm, tingled, and the pain receded. When he released her, the skin was pink and healing quickly. He jerked his chin at the seat. “Sit down with your back to me.”
Carefully, she pushed up and slid onto the seat. Ripples of pain shot through her back and down her legs. She blew out a careful breath as nausea swamped her.
Jack sat behind her and placed his palms along her spine, one above the other. His hands, completely businesslike on her back, grew warm. Her twisted back improved immediately. “I don’t remember your hair being this dark a shade of red or your eyes being green, Isabelle.”
“I colored my hair and I’m wearing contacts.”
“All the better to stalk your prey, hmm?”
“I guess. Stefan prefers redheads.”
“Good disguise. None of us recognized you in the tabloids. We didn’t know who you were, or that you were even a witch. It wasn’t until tonight, when we saw you up close, that we realized your identity. All we knew was that this evening Stefan’s flavor-of-the-month had finally convinced him to shed his bodyguards for sex.”
She let out a small laugh. “You guys were piggybacking my seduction as a way to take Stefan hostage?”
“Yep. We were watching, waiting for an opportunity. You gave us a surprise when we opened the limo door. Never saw that one coming.” He paused. “I’m sorry about your sister. I understand why you went after Stefan.”
She had a million questions, but they all caught in her throat. They were questions for the head of the Coven, anyway, not Jack McAllister, Thomas’s right-hand man. “I hunted the demon for a month and couldn’t find it.”
“We’ve been hunting it, too, without any luck.”
“I went after the cause for the demon’s existence instead.” She swallowed hard. “I just…needed to do something, and Stefan can’t be allowed
to bring any more of those creatures into our world.”
Jack slid away and she turned toward him on the seat. Her back still ached, but the worst of the pain had faded.
“Isabelle, I get that. I do. But you should have come to us instead of playing vigilante. We’d always planned to take down Stefan and we’re going after the demon.” Jack shook his head and tch tched. “Bad, bad girl.”
“So what’s new?” she muttered in response. Angela had always been the good one. Isabelle had always been the one getting into trouble.
He must’ve known she wasn’t asking what was new with him, but he answered that way all the same. “I’m going to be a father.” The words were spoken with such pride that she smiled.
She fussed with the hem of her skirt, happy to change the subject. “I heard that. Knocked up that little air witch of yours.”
“Mira.”
Lady, the look in his eyes when he said her name. Such love. Such devotion. A man had never looked that way while speaking her name, at least not that she knew of, and Isabelle had to admit that a part of her regretted it.
“That’s right, her name is Mira,” Isabelle answered. “Everyone’s hoping she’ll turn up with a baby air witch of her own.” Of all the elemental witches, air was by far the rarest and most powerful. “What do you think, air or fire?”
“I think she’ll take after her mom and be an air witch. We’re going to name her Eva, for Mira’s mom if it’s a girl. David, for her dad if it’s a boy.”
Eva Hoskins, maiden name Monahan. She had been the air witch who’d been sacrificed in the circle that had brought the demon into existence over twenty-five years ago. Four witches — one for each of the elements — had been killed to bring in the demon who had murdered Angela. How poetic one of their names should be spoken on this night.
She patted him on his shoulder. “Good luck to you both.” She scooped up her purse from the floor of the limo and exited the vehicle.
Isabelle found herself on a darkened side street in a commercial part of town. The front of the limo had been rammed in by a Hummer. Behind the limo was another car crash, a tangle of metal where sedan had met heavy SUV. The sedan had been the vehicle carrying Stefan’s muscle.
She cast a glance at Stefan, whom they were lifting into the back of Thomas’s car. Thomas stood nearby. He stared at her across the distance, his black-as-sin hair spread over his shoulders, his expression intent. Then he crooked a finger.
Oh, no. Hell would freeze over first.
Isabelle gave him a little wave and walked away.
“Isabelle,” he called after her. “I need to talk to you.”
Ignoring him, she turned a corner and pulled on her remaining magickal reserves, scraping the very bottom of her capacity. Isabelle gathered water molecules from the air, condensing them around dust particles and cloaking herself in the resulting thick fog. By the time she heard his footsteps behind her, she’d disappeared, leaving him standing in zero visibility.
Thomas swore loudly and Isabelle smiled. She needed to talk to him, but she wasn’t about to do it on his terms.
THREE
SHE LOOKED BETTER AS A BLONDE.
Thomas stepped into the Coven library, a room that also served as his office and took stock of the woman sitting on his desk, one of her long legs swinging. He’d been expecting Isabelle Novak to show up sometime.
In order to figure out how no one had recognized her while she’d been beguiling Stefan, he’d had Jack show him pictures of her when she wasn’t all glossy and polished for Stefan’s liking. Now she looked more like herself. She’d changed her hair back to its natural color, a strawberry blond, and wore a pair of faded jeans, a black knit top and a pair of scuffed black boots.
Normally she wasn’t this gaunt. Thomas suspected she’d purposely lost weight in order to insinuate herself into Stefan’s world. Or perhaps grief had shaved some pounds off her. In his opinion, she looked better with a little more weight on her.
Her hair was long and glossy, framing an oval face with porcelain skin and large brown eyes. Her mouth was full, expressive. She wore nearly no makeup and did little to her hair beyond brush it. She had a natural type of beauty that required little embellishment and seemed to care nothing for fashion. Yet she possessed a manner that screamed self-confidence.
Not only was she gorgeous, she looked innocent. Yet Thomas knew better. Miss Isabelle Novak had a reputation for trouble. The research he’d done on her had revealed that right away. From even her earliest days in grade school, Isabelle had left a trail of trouble behind her — getting into fights, talking back to teachers. Her older years revealed a passionate, impulsive woman who couldn’t stay in one place, couldn’t hold a steady job, couldn’t form relationships.
She was also a strong water witch. Thomas could sense the strength in her from across the room. Ripples of volatile emotion, the ebb and flow of psychic power — they were the hallmarks of the water witch and they were impressively palpable in Isabelle Novak.
He closed the door and spoke as he turned toward her. “Violence is an easy way to mourn someone you’ve lost. Don’t you think it’s better to save a life in order to honor a life lost?”
She stood, pressed her hands together, and bowed. “Buddha, I’m pleasured to make your acquaintance.” She straightened and put a hand to her hip. “I didn’t come here for a lecture.”
She was pretty. Too bad she was such a pain in the ass.
Thomas squelched his annoyance and walked toward her. “You need to look at the big picture. He can help us—”
“Help us? When does that man start helping anyone but himself? When does he do anything that’s not in his own best interests? And when does he pay for his crimes, Mr. Monahan? When?”
“Call me Thomas.”
“Mr. Monahan, Thomas, whatever.” She waved her hand, dismissing his overture. “Are we going to wait for Stefan to die of old age, then? Should we let him get away with everything he’s done?”
“Of course not.”
“Really? The non-magickals aren’t going to touch him, so it falls to us to do it, his peers. Yet I haven’t seen the Coven or the Council acting to take care of it. Wasn’t that one of the reasons why the Coven and Council were created to begin with? Aren’t you guys supposed to be handling the warlocks and punishing crimes?” She slammed her hand down on the desk. “He doesn’t deserve to live his life any way he sees fit, Thomas.”
“If you’re finished ranting, can you sit down and listen? I have things to explain. Do you want a drink? I have just about anything you can order in a bar and you look like you could use one.”
She shook her head, whirled, and paced to the far floor-to-ceiling window and the high bookshelves that framed it. “I wasted a month of my life preparing to make Stefan pay for what he did to Angela and you come rushing in and snatch it all away from me.”
He took his gamble, remembering the quiver of hesitation he’d sensed in her that night and the apprehensive look on her face. She’d been pissed as hell, but unsure about actually killing Stefan. “How did it feel, almost taking his life?”
She turned without a moment’s uncertainty. “Horrible! It felt horrible. Cold and empty and not at all like I thought.”
Of course. Isabelle might want justice for her sister, but she was no murderer. “You hunted the demon, Jack tells me.”
“I hunted the demon for over a month after I f-found Angela.” She shook her head and hugged herself. “I could find no trace of it anywhere.”
“So you went after the person you perceived to be responsible for the demon’s existence.”
She nodded.
“Please sit down, Isabelle.” He nodded at one of the soft leather chairs in front of his desk.
She hesitated a moment, her eyes flashing and probably a few sharp words poised on her tongue. It was clear she didn’t like authority and perceived him as such. Still, she swallowed what she was about to say, walked across the room and sank into the chair.
Thomas sat on the edge of the desk in front of her. “It is our intention to catch and kill this demon, Isabelle. The Council has had a directive to apprehend Stefan ever since the incident last winter. We’ve been watching him for a long time, waiting for him to relax and let his guard down. You helped us to finally get him. He’s in Gribben now, in prison. We’re not going to let him out. Ever.”
“Jack told me, but—”
“But Stefan needs to stay alive. At least for now. He can help us apprehend the demon by providing information. The Duskoff are the people who have had the most interaction with demons. They’ve studied them in order to understand the creatures they’re using. After he’s helped us, he’ll stand trial for his crimes, along with the thirteen other warlocks who participated in the circle last winter at Duskoff International. They will be tried and punished. That means either life imprisonment or death.”
She snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
He sighed. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re the only one who wants to see Stefan pay. And don’t think you’re the only one who wants that demon dead.”
“What did Stefan do to you?”
“Well, he tried to kill my cousin last winter for starters.”
“Mira Hoskins.”
He nodded. “And the first witch the demon killed, Melina, she was someone I knew.” He paused. She had been an old lover. It had been a long time ago, but Melina had been special to him. “She was a good friend. She had kids, a husband.”
Isabelle was silent a long moment before she spoke. “Do you think the demon picked her on purpose? It’s a strange coincidence she should be an old friend of the leader of the Coven.”
“That’s exactly why we need all the information from Stefan that we can gather. We don’t know how or why the demon is picking his victims at this point. We don’t know much of anything beyond the fact that the demon is killing witches.”
She chewed her lower lip, deep in thought. “Usually the demons the Duskoff raise have their fun and go home. They don’t stick around for twenty-five years hiding, then all of a sudden pop up and start killing off witches.”
