And Aria was part of it along with this world of air and danger.
“What’s the Congress doing about the witch murders?” Jasmine asked cutting into her reverie.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “My mother isn’t sharing.” Juliet turned her gaze out the window. “Are the aurai going to work with the witches to prevent the dark breeds from ruining the Joint Congress?”
“I don’t really know that much about it, but we’ll learn,” Jasmine replied. “And we’ll do what we can to prevent an imbalance of power.”
“Does that mean you’re going to ally with the witches again?” Juliet asked carefully.
“That hasn’t been decided yet, and it’s not your woman’s decision. It’s Storme’s,” Jasmine replied. “But we won’t allow the information in your great-grandmother’s grimoire or the BOS to fall into the wrong hands now that we know who has it.”
Juliet supposed that meant her book was being, or had been, sanitized of all the information that could be used to hurt the aurai.
“I didn’t know the information was there,” she said quietly.
“Your family retrieved it from, what I understand, the dark breed who managed to get it,” Jasmine told her. “He tricked an aurai, made her believe she was in love with him, but he was killed right after he gained her bracelet and one of the guardian families, as we’ve called them, took it. At the time, we believed they were keeping it to use later, but rumor circulated that the aurai had taken it.”
“That intensified the war?” She glanced at Jasmine and found her face a mask of anger.
“Yes, and it led to the slaughter of two prominent demon families later. “
“What about the other marked women? Are they part of the guardian families?” Juliet asked.
“At least two of them are,” Jasmine replied. “And we’re trying to find them now so we can bring them in and protect them before the demons find them.” Jasmine glanced into the review mirror.
Juliet looked out of her own window, but she didn’t know what she was looking for. Jasmine turned suddenly and horns blared.
****
Tucker had assembled his small team and split into groups. One of them was watching the office while he waited for Juliet to come home.
Instead of retrieval, a kill order had been put on her. The only thing Voltaire wanted was her grimoire. He knew the book had some information of value, but this was a big risk for a book of good witch’s magick.
“What if we don’t get it,” the woman seated next to him in the truck demanded sullenly.
“Necron and Voltaire are going to kill us,” he told her.
“Did you ever think why the change?” she asked.
“Enough.” He had wondered, but he assumed it was because they were regrouping, planning on securing another aurai-marked’s stones.
“I’ll tell you why,” she said. “At the end of the day, the grimoire is even more important than the stones.”
“How do you figure?” he asked carefully.
“This grimoire will give us the inside track on aurai as well as earth, fire, and water nymphs. It’ll tell us how to steal their powers as well as how to make them mortal. The stones are just a bonus.”
That knowledge would be gold—power to the person who owned it. That information could get him and the dark breeds like him from under Kryto’s thumb.
He could just keep the book. The spells in the books would bestow a whole other kind of power on him. The magick would be useful against others of his kind. It would take a little more to take down Necron, but he imagined there was something in the book on the blue berserker demon, too.
But could he use that power before Voltaire and Necron found him?
“I don’t think Voltaire has our best interest at heart,” his partner said.
“Careful what you say,” he warned. “Words might get you killed.” He’d kill her once he had Juliet. He didn’t trust her any further than he could throw her.
“The woman Juliet was with last night,” she mused and he watched Brees stride toward the complex.
Juliet didn’t strike him as the lesbian type let alone the late morning booty call type.
“They looked cozy last night,” she said. “Maybe she’s come to take the aurai home which means she’s aurai, and we won’t stand a chance of getting her now.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Juliet climbed out of the car and glanced over her shoulder to see Jasmine slamming her car door. She headed toward her apartment and her mother’s words replayed in her mind.
It was up to her to convince the aurai to work with the witches. But how could she? Aria might see any of what she said or did as subterfuge to gain the aurai’s trust.
Her apartment door opened for her the moment she reached it. She looked back for Jasmine and found she’d vanished.
“Juliet?”
She closed the door and leaned back against it. Her gaze met the gray stare filled with white clouds. The curls were tamed back in a single braid unlike this morning.
“Did you know how important my grimoire and BOS were?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I didn’t want to scare you.”
“Were you going to tell me or just take the information?”
“I never planned to take anything,” Aria replied coolly. “I thought you’d give it too willingly once you realized how dangerous it was for that kind of knowledge to be lying around in print.”
“And if I didn’t?”
“Then, later I’d take it,” she admitted and there wasn’t a remorseful look in her eyes. “Witches betrayed us and they will no doubt do it again once they use us to clear up this current mess.”
“We aren’t all bad,” Juliet snapped. “My family—”
“Your family was part of the initial hunt against us, Juli,” she said softly. “They realized their mistake when demons began hunting them. They information can’t stay in the guardians hands.”
“Which is to say you don’t trust me!”
“We’re mates, you’d never betray me,” Aria told her matter of fact. “Not now or ever, but that information could be stolen by someone who’d betray you.”
Juliet sighed roughly and averted her gaze as happiness cycled through her. Her chest expanded in happiness, but it was constricted by her next thought. Her visions were real and Aria was that demi goddess from the past who’d stolen her heart.
But obviously, Aria didn’t want to revisit their shared past.
“When were you going to tell me this?”
“I wanted to take things slow and get to know you,” Aria answered.
“How can we? We were on a collision course with falling in love the day our eyes met in the deli. I can’t help getting aroused when I see you or wanting more of your touch or your breezes blowing over me.”
“I’m not unaffected, Juliet,” she said. “I—” Aria swallowed tightly. “I crave you and the thought of getting too close too fast scares me.”
Juliet pushed away from the door and went to her. She caught Aria’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
Aria squeezed her hand back. “Juliet.”
“Just go ahead and let go, fall because I’ll be here to catch you.” She cupped Aria’s face with her free hand and went up on tip toe to kiss her. “Let me into that place in your heart no one has ever been.”
Aria told her softly and kissed her softly. “If you’re just saying this to get me to ally with your coven, it’s working—a little bit.”
Juliet laughed and rubbed her nose against Aria’s. “I wouldn’t dare try to seduce you around to my way of thinking.”
“Not like you haven’t tried,” she murmured and curved an arm around Juliet’s waist to pull her tighter against her.
“Was it working?”
“Uh, no,” she said and chuckled. “But it might now.” Aria kissed her again and Juliet wrapped her arms around Aria’s neck.
“I love the way you feel against me,” she said against Aria’
s lips. “So solid and firm, yet soft. We’re a perfect fit.”
“Maybe,” Aria murmured and kissed her top lip. “I haven’t told the others what your mother said, but I’m going to have to. They need help finding the mole, and I think we can do that, but don’t mention us to anyone.”
“I won’t,” Juliet assured her. “I’ll work with Alice. We’ll find a way to handle things without implicating aurai.”
Aria nodded. “You’ll have to be the liaison, and you can’t trust anyone outside the aurai.”
“Alice—”
“Is as far as you go once your mother is gone,” Aria said.
She backed out of Aria’s arms. “I won’t tell Callie,” she said with a frown. “My mother’s right. I have to handle things with Callie with kid gloves. If she betrayed me and caused you to be hurt, I’d kill her.”
Aria gave her a rueful look. “You don’t know how true that is, Juli,” she said. “The bond between aurai sisters is strong, but the link between aurai mates is titanium.”
“Good,” she said. “I don’t want to ever lose you.”
“You can’t,” Aria told her. “I don’t want you taking anything from here. Dark breeds are notorious for using trackers.”
“Tracker spells?”
“As it is I found one listening spell embedded in the wall in here. I didn’t need to take it out since it was easy to create enough wind interference around it to prevent the listener from hearing anything.”
Juliet studied her for a moment. “I’ll need to go shopping then.”
“Not a problem. I’ll have a controlled magical burn done here to get rid of everything.”
“I guess it’s a good thing I’ve already taken the most important things and I hadn’t gotten around to putting up all of my new pictures yet.” She looked around the room, only one wall had a picture on it. The shot was of her and Callie.
She had the same picture on her phone still.
“You’ll have to get a new phone, too. I’ve already broken the old one. There was a tracking spell attached to it that I couldn’t dislodge.”
Juliet shrugged. “I was due for an upgrade.” She’d been putting it off because she liked the old phone. “I need to get my phone more than I need to shop and then I have to get back to work. I have a few meetings this afternoon.”
“Okay, let’s get going.”
The door opened, and they both turned to it. Jasmine stepped inside. “My contact just got back to me with info on Tucker,” she said. “I did check her out, but it could still be a risk using the intel.”
“Why?” Juliet asked with a frown.
“She’s a practitioner working inside Whiteall’s law firm, as Tucker’s paralegal, and she’s buddies with Voltaire’s secretary. We know Voltaire’s a demon. He could be using her to get on good enough terms with us to infiltrate as a student of ours.”
“We’ll discuss it later,” Aria said. “For now we need to leave.”
“Aria,” Juliet chastised, giving her a dark look.
“She’s right. She’s part of this now, so she has a right to know,” Jasmine said. “We have definitive proof that he is part of Dark Hollow. I have a file of his record as a tracker and killer. He usually works with a female named Hammer. When she’s not available, he works with Malefic, a shadow demon.”
“Dark witches call on him,” Juliet said. “For murders.”
“He’s one of Kryto’s top assassins,” Jasmine told them. “So, Tucker’s working directly with the leader of the underworld or on his orders.”
“I guess my mom’s suspicions are right,” Juliet said. “Kryto never intended to go through with the Joint Congress. He’ll make it look like someone’s trying to undermine him.”
“This confusion will give him breathing room while he get his enemies off his ass.”
“His people will have time to turn good witches too,” Jasmine said. “This could end up being even worse than before.”
“How does Dark Hollow figure into this? Are they his pets, too?” Aria asked.
“Some of them like Necron and V who share leadership of the organization,” Jasmine said. “My contact agreed to try to find out if Voltaire is involved with Dark Hollow and to what extent.”
“My mother,” Juliet said, fear in her voice.
“I’ll get Storme to assign someone to protect her,” Aria said. “If he finds out she’s betrayed him, if she has betrayed him, we can’t let her die for helping us. But if she’s leading us into a trap, you’ll have the job of killing her.”
“My mother wouldn’t turn on me,” Juliet snapped.
“We’ll see. For now, we should head out.”
“I need to use the bathroom first,” Juliet murmured. “You mind if we grab a small bite after I get my phone? I’m starving.”
“No. I’m going to have a tail on you the rest of the day,” Aria said as Juliet headed to her bedroom. “Dark Hollow might attempt to get to you while you’re alone.”
“It probably won’t be that easy at the office,” Juliet said. “You heard what my mother said. I get the feeling this is something she’s been exploring for a while. She and Declan.”
“I still don’t want to take the risk,” Aria replied.
“I think my mother’s boyfriend Patrick has something to do with this somehow. He wanted her to get the stones from me.”
“What’s he do?” Aria asked.
“He’s a lawyer and he works with Voltaire, but oddly Patrick’s not a member of Whiteall.”
“Why oddly?”
“He and Voltaire are close.” She opened the bathroom door and stepped inside unbuttoning her pants and unzipping them. “Voltaire’s been to my mom’s home a few times.”
“We can check him out but it doesn’t mean we’ll find anything,” Aria said. “If he’s being that careful, even the wind might not tell you anything about him.”
“That won’t stop me from being suspicious.” Juliet rolled off toilet paper and wiped. “Patrick is always nice to me, so I could be reaching.” She got up and pulled up her panties and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
“If your instincts are screaming something, don’t let your guard down,” Aria warned.
Juliet looked around the mid-size room painted white with a simple tub shower combo. The pink and white curtain Callie had helped her hang was closed, hiding the clean tub and plastic white corner caddy.
She frowned and turned on the faucet to wash her hands and air whispered down her back sending a cold chill down her spine. Gibberish, snaked around the room, the voice low and ominous.
Juliet quickly dried her hands on a hand towel hanging on a silver bar even as she looked around the room trying to locate something that felt out of place.
She backed away from the bar as the sound of creaking and tearing started to her left near the tub. “Aria?”
Energy rippled to her right, and she smelled the stink of sulfur faint though it was. Turning her head, Juliet stared as the wallpaper peeled away leaving the wall white and a face appeared.
The eyes were soulless black and cracked dry lips peeled back in a smile that revealed pointed white teeth. The hair was golden and the face boasted a scar across the left cheek.
“I believe you have something I want.” The voice was deep, dark, and full of amusement.
Juliet screamed and bolted from the room to the tune of a loud crash. “Aria!”
“You have problems of your own.” He was there, muscular and ombre red, filling her bedroom doorway big and muscled.
Juliet let out a scream and tried to put on the brakes, but tumbled headlong into him. He pushed his fingers into her hair and jerked her head back.
“Tucker was right, you are pretty, and you feel a little strange.”
“What?” Her heart pumped harder, her palms were damp as fear traced a zigzag path through her.
“Dark Hollow wants the grimoire the witches hid the secrets of aurai in.” He said “aurai” with so much conte
mpt it sounded like an ugly word.
“W-who are you?”
“Malefic, a good friend of Tucker’s, and if you don’t tell me where those books are, you and I are going to become very good friends, too.”
She wanted to scream, but the sound died in her throat and hot wind blew around the room. He laughed. “You’re a freshman, nothing you can do will hurt me, little girl. But I can hurt you in all kinds of ways.” He shoved her backward, and she stumbled, falling back into the side of her bed.
He was there striking her across the face, and she gasped as shards of pain burst through her cheekbone and eye.
He drew his hand down in the air and jagged nails raked through her blouse, tearing fabric to cut into soft skin.
Juliet screamed, and he picked her up and threw her across the room into the nearest wall. She groaned as she sank to the floor, pain sluicing through her shoulder and radiating down her arm.
She looked up and he towered over her with a grin and malice in his eyes. “I can do this all day.” He drew back his hand, and she shoved energy out of her.
The fiery wind blew him back. He laughed, a full-bellied laugh.
“Is that the best you got?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Aria threw the woman toward the door and she crashed into it with a dull cry. She threw a ball of dark air at her. The center of it opened to trap the woman against the wood. When she moved, the blackness burst, becoming a waterfall of air pouring down on her.
Tucker hit Aria with a spell that bowed her back and sent a nauseating wave of pain coursing through her. Aria whipped around and he gasped. She was still in her human form, but she was nothing more than air personified. She knew her face was a spiral of twisting air and her eyes were black holes filled with lightning.
She drove her fist into Tucker’s stomach and he coughed, eyes widening. “What are you doing?” she whispered. “Do you really think you can take me on? I’m stronger than you half-breed.” She closed her fingers around his throat and his eyes darkened and a hint of sulfur came off him.
Taken by the Wind Page 15
