She moaned, giving him that evidence of her desire. One hand slid down to grip his neck. Heat emanated from his skin, scorching her fingers and instilling a need to have the rest of his flesh pressed against her nakedness.
Shade gripped her hips, lifting her and pulling her into him. His lips released her temporarily as they slid across her jaw and down her neck to the place where her pulse rapidly beat. He nipped her lightly and licked away the small sting with his hot tongue.
Though he moaned something that sounded like “hope,” Torrey was on fire. She wanted him to throw her into his truck and rip away her clothes so he could do that to the rest of her body. The outside world fell away. Gasps and moans escaped as she writhed in his arms, trying to close the scant space between them.
After far too long, Shade granted the request she made with her straining body. He pushed aside her jacket. His heat penetrated the cotton of her shirt, setting tremors racing from everywhere his body touched hers. Torrey wanted the fabric gone, but he didn’t leave enough space between them to allow her room to maneuver.
She whimpered as his knee nudged her thighs apart. He pressed his powerful leg against her core, his heat rising through the denim of their jeans. She ground her pussy against it, wanting even more than the friction he offered.
One large palm grasped her head, holding her still as he stole her breath with another searing kiss. The other traced a light caress down her side and along her hip. She felt both treasured and consumed, mastered by this stranger who seemed more familiar than anyone she’d ever known.
Shade’s growl rumbled against her breasts. “Did you come for a show, old man?”
Startled by his words and by his unexpected release of her body, Torrey blinked into the darkness. It took her a moment to realize a third person had joined them.
“Miss, are you all right?” The shadow wore the bartender’s concerned voice.
“I’m fine,” Torrey said. Her voice came out extra-throaty, so she tried again. “Thank you for your concern, but he’s quite harmless.” She didn’t need to turn her head to see the amusement on Shade’s face. Likely, no one had ever referred to him as harmless.
Reaching behind her, Shade opened the door to his truck. The cab light threw a soft glow on them all. He nudged her hip with a quick tap. “Get in.”
“Where are you taking me?” Torrey made no move to follow his order.
A grin curled his lips. “You sound worried. I’m harmless. Remember?”
Her head bobbed up and down slowly. “Harmless. Right.” She raised a hand to the bartender in a farewell gesture and climbed into Shade’s truck.
He wasn’t far behind, helping her to the passenger side with a proprietary hand on her ass.
The weathered bartender disappeared from the side-view mirror as the truck exited the parking lot and merged onto the two-lane mountain highway. Torrey studied Shade with undisguised curiosity.
Finally, she broke the silence. “So where are you taking me?”
“It’s where you’re taking me,” he corrected. “You said a wolf took your sister. I want to see the place where this happened.”
The road on which they drove headed straight into the mountains and the middle of nowhere. “Then you’re going to have to turn around. My apartment is about four hours in the other direction.”
Shade started, glancing sharply at Torrey. “It’s unusual for wolves to be found in the Midwest, little witch.”
“Torrey,” she supplied. “My name is Torrey.”
He slowed, pulling to the shoulder to execute a U-turn. “Likely story, little witch.”
No witch voluntarily shared her birth name. Often, only one member of the family knew the true name. That person was usually the witch from whom the child inherited the gene. “Still, I answer to it.”
Settling back for the ride, Torrey related the entire story to Shade, beginning when she first met Seth in the waiting room at the hospital and ending when she met the shadowy man. Shade listened without interrupting. Though she watched him in the pale green glow of the dashboard lights and the occasional headlights of an oncoming car, she was unable to discern anything he might have been thinking.
When she finished, he frowned. “I don’t know anyone named Seth.”
Torrey laughed. “I wasn’t under the impression all wolves knew each other. Besides, he wouldn’t have told me his true name, not yet.”
Shade nodded. “With his birth name, you could fashion a spell to stop him or to find him.”
She stared out the window, but there was nothing to see. “I don’t know how to do any of that stuff. You said I was powerful. I can feel the power, but I don’t know how to use it.”
“Surely one of your parents was your mentor? Witches guard their powers and their offspring, zealously.”
The shake of her head was silent, but she knew he heard it anyway. “I never met my father. He left before I was born. Riley’s dad is my stepfather. He has some powers, but nothing significant.”
“He didn’t mentor you,” Shade guessed. “He resented what you represent.”
Torrey’s laugh lacked mirth. “My mother’s infidelity.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said after a short silence. “You are more powerful than him. You represent what he isn’t. He’s jealous of you. It’s likely Seth’s actions stem from jealousy as well.”
Jealousy. Torrey crossed her arms over her chest protectively and rubbed her hands up and down her arms to comfort herself. Was Frank Quinn jealous of Torrey? Did it matter anymore? Her voice was small when she resumed the conversation, and her eyes remained fixed on the part of the road illuminated by the headlights. “Can you really smell my power?”
Shade grunted. “You reek with it. In almost two hundred years, I can remember only ever encountering one witch with as much power as you. What you have is a rare gift, and you will spend the rest of your life dealing with others who want your power.”
Torrey nodded absently. “And you want my power.”
Another grunt. “I have some power of my own. I’m surprised you can’t sense it.”
She felt little sparks jumping from him to her, but she chalked that up to attraction. While she had met men who were more handsome, she had never met one with quite Shade’s combination of looks and attitude. It made for an inherent sexiness that far exceeded words that labeled physical appearance.
Silence marked the next hundred miles. Torrey pondered the ramifications of jealousy and the question of whether she was misinterpreting the signals emanating from Shade. The rhythm of the road lulled her into a semiconscious state. The darkness and the pavement disappeared.
Visions swam before her eyes. She saw Seth bringing dinner to Riley and trying to cheer her up. She saw him sharing a laugh with Shade. Nothing registered anywhere except in her subconscious.
As she drifted along the stream of semiconsciousness, she met her father. He wasn’t very father-like. Absent the grey and wrinkles of someone his age and floating along in a sea of clouds, he didn’t appear to be much older than she. He was handsome. His brown hair and eyes and the shape of his face were the same as hers, but more vibrant and alive. At that moment, she realized he wasn’t alive.
“Daughter of Circe, you are finally awakened.” His lips didn’t move, but she heard the words in her head. His voice was familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
“You’re Caiden.” Her voice was silent as well. She had only to think the words, and they were fact.
“Yes.” He smiled without smiling.
“I’m dreaming.”
“Sort of,” he said, coming closer. He floated instead of walking. “You’re unaware of how you’re using your powers. Your beast has awakened you, but he hasn’t shown you control. When you use them now, it is accidental. Even you are unaware of the extent to which you affect other beings. You have yet to discover who you are, what you were meant to be.”
“Caiden”—she didn’t feel comfortable calling him “Father,
” but she wanted to say his name—“I have no guide, no mentor, nobody to show me how to use my powers.”
“The beast will help you, Torrey. You must trust him. This is predestined.”
“He’s a wolf. He knows little of magic.” The image on the edge of her subconscious moved dead center. Shade laughing companionably with Seth. “Shade knows the man who took Riley.”
The mist and clouds faded, and Caiden with them.
Torrey jerked awake, blinking into the darkness, simultaneously alert and disoriented. How could Shade both know Seth and help her? Wouldn’t the association compromise his loyalties?
“Disturbing vision?”
Stiff-spined, she turned toward him. Why would he use that term? “Vision?”
“The smell of magic coming from you spiked,” he said. “I assumed you were having a vision or whatever it is you witches do in lieu of sleep.”
“I sleep,” she said. It was an effort to divert his attention.
“If the vision had to do with Riley, you need to share it with me.” He was firm, unapologetic.
Boldly, she dropped her bomb. “You know the wolf who took Riley.”
A light chuckle greeted her not-so-subtle challenge. “It’s likely,” he said. “I know most wolves who live east of the Mississippi and many who don’t.”
He found this amusing! Torrey’s fists clenched with fury and futility. She was at his mercy. He knew the wolf who took Riley. Other than the promise of her power, what was there to keep him honest? How could she trust him? What if she bequeathed her power to him while on her deathbed, and then he turned around and killed Riley anyway?
She needed to alter the plan. She couldn’t release her powers until Riley was safe. Shade would help her out of greed. He wanted her power. He had to be loyal to her until he got it.
Caiden said she should trust the beast, and he meant Shade. But she didn’t know Caiden. Swallowing her trepidation, which settled somewhere south of her stomach, she said, “He said I should trust you. He said you would help me, but I didn’t get the feeling he was talking about finding Riley.”
“He?”
She wasn’t going to tell him more. “We’re almost to my apartment. Will you be able to catch Seth’s scent after all this time? It’s been more than a day since he was there.”
The look he gave her was the stoic equivalent of an eye-roll. “Was the Shadow Man in your vision, Torrey?”
It didn’t escape her notice that he used her name. It sent a shot of warmth through her body that headed straight for her core. She didn’t know what to make of his kiss or of the feelings he engendered in her, and she didn’t want to analyze it. There was no time for her to fall for anyone, much less a werewolf.
She shuddered against a sudden wave of grief. “No.” It had been her father in the vision, but not quite her father. What was a daughter of Circe? Wasn’t she the witch who charmed Odysseus and turned all his men to pigs, or so Homer claimed?
Her apartment was on the sixth floor of a nondescript eight-story brown building that rose from the grey pavement in the heart of the city. Shade parked on the street.
Midnight hadn’t yet come. People loitered on the sidewalk, and loud bursts came as doors to cafés and restaurants opened. Shade joined her on the pavement. He waited while she tried to fit her key into the slot on the door. Her hands shook so much, he took the key from her to do the deed himself. It clicked, and he held the door open.
She led him through the hallway maze to the rickety elevator in the back of the building. Her flat was small. The front door opened into a living room that ran the width of the rectangle that made up her apartment. A single open doorway led to a narrow kitchenette. The short hallway opposite led to a moderate-sized bedroom with a micro closet and a small bathroom.
Torrey watched Shade. She was sure he caught the scent immediately. His massive frame filled the space in her apartment every bit as much as Seth’s had. This was a man who needed the high ceilings and wide-open spaces not offered by her apartment.
Shade’s attention moved through the living room, settling on the window from which Seth had escaped. He crossed the room and reached out a hand to touch the painted woodwork framing the open window.
“Do you always leave your windows open?” His question reverberated through the silent room, filling the space.
The old hot-water radiator either emitted too much heat or not enough. An open window kept her apartment from becoming stuffy. Torrey nodded. “He came and left through there. The fire escape isn’t on that side of the building.”
Shade leaned out the screenless window. “You aren’t that far from the ground. A powerful wolf could leap the distance or climb the building.”
A powerful wolf. Torrey’s heart sank at the way Shade said the phrase. If the wolf was more powerful than Shade, then it was likely he’d never leave enough of a trail to follow.
Before she could blink, Shade was gone. Torrey ran to the window, crossing the short distance in five long strides. Hanging her head outside, she saw Shade disappear around the corner of a building several blocks away. At least he wasted no time getting to work.
Chapter 4
Shade wandered through the deserted streets. The name of the small Ohio city escaped his memory. It didn’t matter anyway. It was unlikely he would ever return. It was unlikely Torrey would return, either.
Procrastination wasn’t a pastime in which Shade often engaged. He didn’t relish returning to Torrey’s tiny apartment to reveal information he knew the moment he walked in that front door. Her wolf’s name wasn’t Seth, though she knew that already. What the hell was Soren thinking, kidnapping a human like that?
Closing his eyes, Shade faced the answer. Soren wanted Torrey’s power, just as he had wanted Hope’s. Somehow, somewhere, Torrey had crossed his path. Most wolves would have eased away from the witch, avoiding revealing their presence as much as possible.
Not Soren.
Shade’s compulsion was to make a mess. If he wanted to find an item, he couldn’t control the way he went into a trance and emptied every drawer and cabinet until he found the item he needed. Even if he knew where it was stored, the compulsion to empty everything was irresistible.
It was a testimony to Shade’s strength that he had a compulsion at all.
As bad as a messy living space could be, Shade’s compulsion was merely annoying when compared with Soren’s. His little brother craved power. It was what caused the fight when their parents passed away. It was the reason Shade conceded the castle-like house and control of the pack and the village to his brother.
Soren would have killed for those things, but not because he wanted to. He would do it because he had to. It was the reason Shade could still stand the sight of Soren. It was the reason he would keep Torrey away from Soren at all costs.
Once she crossed Soren’s radar, Torrey hadn’t stood a chance. Shade ran a hand through his shaggy mane. Torrey hadn’t been lying when she said she didn’t know how to use her powers, and she had more now than she had as Hope.
A witch with her power should have been able to stop Soren. It wouldn’t have been easy. Neither of them would have escaped without scratches, but Torrey had enough power to prevent his brother from taking Riley.
When Torrey walked into that dive on Route 2, Shade hadn’t just scented her power. He had scented her. She wasn’t the first witch he’d encountered. Some of his powers—Soren’s, too—were from encounters with witches.
The first encounter happened before Soren’s compulsion kicked in. A witch had captured Shade when he was still a juvenile whose strength and power hadn’t fully manifested. His shape-shifting abilities had only begun to present. The witch who captured Shade also captured a female. The plan was to mate the pair and sell werewolves on the black market.
Soren accompanied their parents on the mission to retrieve Shade. During the rescue, Shade killed his captor. In doing so, he inadvertently took some of the witch’s power. A willing witch could gi
ve it all. His captor hadn’t been willing.
He learned basic scrying and the casting of light charms from books.
Another time, Soren and Shade had taken a trip to see a human settlement. They attracted the notice of a witch who decided to hunt them. Within two hours, Soren had acquired the ability to cast potent charms. The skill proved handy when humans began using radar, and then later when they launched satellites and developed GPS. Soren fashioned charms to keep their village hidden and undetectable.
The government wasn’t an issue. It was easy to manipulate. Tourists were to be avoided at all costs. Most wolves had only stopped eating humans in the last two or three hundred years. Though their flavor had fallen out of favor, they were considered lesser beings, annoying and unwelcome.
All of these memories and facts zinged through Shade’s mind to crash into one truth that would not go away. Torrey was Hope. She didn’t know it, which he found completely baffling. The Daughters of Circe were not only reborn, but they retained memories of their previous incarnations. Torrey should have recognized him, but she hadn’t. She should have known how to use her powers without the aid of a mentor, but she didn’t.
He needed to get into his truck and drive away. He needed to hide Torrey away where Soren wouldn’t find her. He wanted to bury himself in her and never emerge. He wanted Torrey. He’d waited almost fifty years for her, and the wolf in him would not let her go.
Granting her request didn’t present too much of a challenge. Soren’s lust for power would make for an easy negotiation. All he would have to do would be to deliver Torrey to Soren, exchange her for Riley, and see Riley safely home. He could accomplish it in a day.
Shade’s problem was the tightness in his chest at the thought of standing by helplessly as Soren killed the woman he loved yet again. Even if she didn’t know him, something deep inside Torrey’s soul had to recognize him. Yet, he knew her resolve, too. That was the same. She had forced him to let go last time. She had used her powers to stop him from killing Soren.
Zurlo, Michele - Torment [Daughters of Circe 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 4
