by Vivi Anna
“I’m had the worst week of my life, Todd, you really don’t want to piss me off.”
The sorcerer must’ve seen something in Quinn’s eyes, because he stayed in his chair. “What do you want?”
“I want you to stop summoning demons to do your dirty work.”
At the word demon, the entire group of ladies at the table got up and left.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the sorcerer sniveled.
Quinn slapped him across the face, hard. “Don’t be an idiot, Todd. Confession is good for the soul. You do worry about your soul, don’t you?”
Todd swallowed. “I’m leaving the Cabal. I’m not practicing anymore.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. Ever since Richter...you know?” Todd eyed Quinn warily. Obviously he’d heard of the Cabal leader’s demise and at whose hand. “I don’t want to be involved anymore. It’s getting too dangerous.”
“You’ve hurt a lot of people, Todd. You can’t walk away from that.”
He hung his head. “I know. I’m willing to pay for that.”
“Okay.”
His head came up, surprise furrowing his brow. “Okay? You’re going to let me go?”
“No, I’m going to drop you off at the police station and you’re going to confess to hurting those women. And you’re going to go to jail and do your time.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’m going to kill you, Todd. Right here, right now.”
Todd looked around, maybe questioning whether he could get away or not, then he looked back at Quinn. He rubbed a hand over his mouth and leaned back in the chair, sighing. “Fine.”
Quinn stood, and pulled Todd to his feet. He escorted the sorcerer out to his car, opened the door and shoved him into the passenger side.
On the way to the police station, Quinn watched Todd out of the corner of eye. “Let me ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“You’ve done a lot of demon summoning. Have you ever bound one to the Earth and to yourself?”
Todd nodded. “Once.”
“What happened to the demon? Did you send it back?”
Todd looked at him. “No. I was in love. I wanted to be with her forever.”
Quinn nodded for him to continue.
“She passed through to the other side, then I released her.”
Quinn nearly swerved the car. “What do you mean she passed? She died, right?”
“In a way. They don’t die and go back to hell, but sort of stay in a limbo.”
“She came back to you? You saw her again?”
The sorcerer nodded, a small smile on his face. “Oh, yeah, after I did the releasing ceremony she came back, all right.”
Quinn’s heart was racing. He could still find Daeva. There was the hope he was searching for. She wasn’t lost to him forever.
Todd turned his head to show Quinn the scar along his neck. “Yup, she came back, nearly ripped my throat out and took off. I haven’t seen her since. Some demons are just not meant to be released, I guess.”
Quinn pulled up to the curb in front of the station. “We’re here. Go do the right thing.”
Todd nodded. “Thanks for the reprieve, I guess.” He opened the door and slid out. He hesitated on the sidewalk for a moment, then trudged up the steps to the front doors.
Quinn pulled away from the station; Todd was on his own. Quinn had more important things to do. He had the woman he loved to save.
Chapter 31
The second he reached his house, Quinn bolted through the front door and ran down the steps to the basement, nearly tripping on the way.
He grabbed the book on the floor and flipped through it. There had to be a release ceremony in there somewhere. After several minutes of flipping pages and checking the index, he found the ritual he was looking for. It had been there the whole time and he hadn’t seen it. Or maybe he hadn’t been looking for it.
But he found it, and that was all that mattered right now.
After reading the ritual repeatedly, he set the book down. Grabbing his broom he swept away the initial pentagram. He had to construct a new one, with different symbols in the corners.
On his hands and knees, he drew a pentagram with his blessed chalk. He put the appropriate symbols in the corners. The usual two for a regular summoning, then one for portal, one for travel, and the last for freedom. When he was finished, he stood, took out his blessed blade and slid it across his palm. He squeezed his hand into a fist. Blood dribbled down his wrist. He held his fist over each of the symbols and spoke the words.
“I call you, Daeva, Seductress of the Shadows. I call you to me. I call you to this realm. I call you forth.” He waited a few seconds, then closing his eyes, he breathed a sigh. “I call you so I can release you. I call you because I love you.”
He waited and watched the pentagram, expecting any moment for the wild red-haired woman to burst into existence. He listened for the telltale popping noise, lifted his nose for the hint of cinnamon that she always carried with her on her skin.
Seconds went by, then minutes. After thirty minutes, Quinn sat down on the cement floor, crossing his legs for comfort. He sat like that, head in hand, staring at the pentagram for another hour.
It didn’t work. She wasn’t coming back.
He stood, went up the stairs, flicked off the light and slammed the door shut. He walked into the kitchen, opened the cupboard and took out the three-quarters-full bottle of Scotch. Hooking the bottle between his fingers, he went into the living room and sat on the sofa.
Unscrewing the top, he took a long pull. He forewent a glass because the fact of the matter was he didn’t plan on regulating his drinking. He planned on getting drunk. So drunk that he would be numb.
His heart and soul throbbed in agony. He never wanted to feel this much pain again. And if he could anesthetize himself, even for a little while, it would be enough. He just couldn’t handle it right now. It was too much. Too real. Too intense.
He took another long drink. Soon, though, he wouldn’t be feeling a thing.
*
Something woke Quinn. A noise. From downstairs.
He rolled over on his bed and put his feet on the floor. He rubbed at his eyes and mouth. He smacked his lips. He had the worst taste in his mouth. After drinking the entire bottle of Scotch, he’d crawled up the stairs, puked in the bathroom and then crawled into the bedroom.
He didn’t even know what time it was. It was still dark. He glanced at his watch. Three in the morning. The witching hour.
Thud.
There it was again. Quinn reached under his pillow and slid out his knife. If it was the Cabal again, he wasn’t going to be nice this time.
He stood, wobbled once, nearly fell, but righted himself. It was possible he was still a bit drunk.
Gripping his blade defensively, he made it to the door and opened it. He paused in the door frame listening for any more sounds and heard a clinking. Sounded like glass.
He padded to the stairwell, stared down it, looking for any movement. Nothing came. He started down the stairs as silently as possible. At the bottom, he looked toward the living room. There was no movement or sound from there. He turned toward the kitchen. A shadow moved on the floor.
He slid against the wall, keeping his back tight to the kitchen. Quickly, he peered around the corner. Someone was definitely in there. The refrigerator was hanging open.
Keeping low, he crept into the kitchen, his knife hand out. There was someone there, in front of him, doing something on one of the counters. In the dark, he could see the outline of a person. A person his height, with a very curvy figure...
“Daeva?”
The shape turned, and in the beam of moonlight that cascaded through the kitchen window he could see her face. Her beautiful pale face.
He dropped his knife. “Daeva?”
She smiled around the chicken leg she’d been tearing into. “Hey, baby
. I’m sorry I was just so hungry.”
He crossed the room in two strides and had her in his arms. The chicken leg dropped as she wrapped her hands in his hair, and held on for dear life while he claimed her mouth with his.
He kissed her hard, like a drowning man in desperate need of oxygen. She tasted of everything he remembered, everything he ever wanted or needed in life.
He broke away from her lips and, cupping her cheeks with his hands, just looked at her. Making sure she was real and not a figment of his inebriated imagination.
“Are you real?” he asked, his voice strained with emotion.
She nodded and smiled. “You bet I am. I’m as real as I’m ever going to get. And that’s saying something.”
“My summoning worked?”
“Yeah. It did. Sorry I’m late, though. I had a little something I needed to take care of first.”
“You saw Leanne?” he guessed. It made sense. Daeva had a bond with the Cree woman.
She nodded. “I made sure the curse was gone. I figure I owed her that.”
“You saved her life.”
“I know. But she saved mine, as well. She was there in the abyss, she guided me home. To you.”
He kissed her forehead, drinking her in, inhaling her scent, imprinting it into his psyche. “I thought you died.”
“So did I.” She shrugged. “Turns out it was just a pit stop before this.” She gestured with her hands to the kitchen. “I’m here now. For good. For as long as you want me.”
“Is forever long enough?”
She nodded. “It’s a start.”
He wrapped his hands around her rear end, and picked her up to set her down on the counter. He settled himself in between her legs, his hands running through the long fall of her red hair. It was like silk on his skin.
“I’ve missed you,” he murmured into the side of her neck.
She let her head fall back, exposing more of her throat to him. “Prove it,” she teased.
He nibbled at her skin. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving it.”
“Sounds good to me.” She wrapped her legs around his waist and tugged him closer. “Now get busy. I’m still hungry.”
Quinn claimed her mouth once more, eager to show her just how much he missed her. And just how much he was willing to do to prove to her that she was his everything and more.
*
Can a werewolf with deadly secrets reclaim a future with the witch he never stopped loving?
Read on for a sneak peek at the next installment of Rhyannon Byrd’s Bloodrunners series,
BLOOD WOLF DAWNING
Only from Mills & Boon® Nocturne
“Cian, please,” she said as carefully as she could manage, praying her voice wouldn’t tremble. “Say whatever you came to say and then leave. I honestly don’t want you here. It isn’t...it isn’t good for me.”
She watched his throat work as he swallowed, his voice low and rough in a way that had never failed to make her shiver from the inside out. “There’s a lot I need to explain. I know that, Sayre. But we don’t have the time. We need to leave this place.”
“Not a chance,” she tossed back, wondering if he’d been hit over his gorgeous head with a crazy stick. “We don’t need to do anything. I live here; you don’t. Whatever you want from me is nothing but a waste of your time. I don’t give second chances.”
Frustration shot through his narrowed eyes, making them as dark as smoke. “You never even really gave me a first chance, much less a second one.”
Amazed by those quiet, almost bitter words, she slowly shook her head, then pulled her shoulders back and glared. “Don’t make it sound like you even wanted one. You made my life hell!”
He came another step closer. “Right back at you, Sayre.”
“Then why are you even here?” she shouted, watching his eyes get wider as he slowly looked her over again. Oh...hell. Her power had just slipped free of her hold with the galvanic rise of her temper, skittering around her body in a fine spray of tiny golden sparks.
Instead of commenting, he cleared his throat and looked her right in the eye as he said, “There isn’t time to explain, but you can’t stay here, Sayre. I’m taking you back to the Alley, where you belong.”
She blinked back at him, unable to believe his arrogance.
All the pain she’d tried so hard to bury these past years came rushing back in a surge of emotion. “Cian, just stop,” she said with a derisive snort.
“Sayre.” He said her name on a long, drawn-out sigh, and she felt her fury tip from emotion...right into action. Bathed in a fiery shower of sparks, she reached behind her back and whipped out the gun she always kept tucked against her lower back when she was outside on her own. It felt unbelievably sweet to point the gleaming barrel directly at Cian Hennessey’s no-good heart.
“You know that bullets won’t kill me, Sayre.”
“They might not kill you, but they’ll hurt like a bitch.”
“You really think I could believe that you’d pull the trigger? You’re a healer, not a—”
“Seriously?” she laughed, cutting him off as she unlocked the safety with a practiced flick of her thumb. “You might have watched me grow up, Cian, but don’t for an instant think that you know what I’m capable of as a woman. People change. I’ve changed. So when I pull a gun out, you can bet your ass that I plan to use it.”
His sexy mouth pressed into a hard, irritated, challenging line. “Then do it.”
She aimed for less than an inch from the toe of his right boot and fired a perfect shot.
He worked his jaw for a few seconds, no doubt cursing her to hell and back. Then he calmly turned on his heel and headed back to his. And that made her nervous.
When she called his name out, he looked back at her over his broad shoulder, and she gave him a sharp, icy smile. “If you like your body without any extra holes in it, don’t bother coming back.”
Read on for an extract from THE SHIFTER'S CHOICE by Jenna Kernan.
Chapter 1
Kamakou Preserve, Molokai, Hawaii
Private Sonia Touma’s helicopter touched down on the landing pad at a marine base that didn’t officially exist. Her orders read Oahu, which lay just past Maui, but instead she’d been rerouted here. The copilot slid the door open wide enough to heave her duffel and footlocker to the tarmac then motioned with his thumb that she should get out. The pilot cut the engine. The rotors slowed as she hopped down.
She kept low and moved out of range of the blades, then straightened to glance about. Beyond the landing pad lay a dirt road. Parallel to the road stood a twenty-foot-tall security perimeter fence that stretched as far as she could see in both directions. Keeping folks out or in? she wondered. The cameras and other electronics topping the fence posts indicated in.
The hot, humid air rose from the tarmac and the yellow grass surrounding the landing pad. Sweat already beaded on her brow and she wiped it away with the sleeve of her uniform. October sure was different here than in Yonkers, New York.
Why was she here? It made no sense. She didn’t have one single solitary skill that she could think of that would lift her above her fellow marines for a special assignment, unless you counted a criminal record, hitting people and a proclivity for telling people in authority to fuck off.
Her ears pricked up at the sound of an engine. She stared past the dry grass dotted with monstrous yucca plants until she sighted an approaching Jeep.
She eyed the driver, spotting the captain’s stripes on his arm, and snapped to attention. The Jeep rolled to a stop beside her.
“Private Touma?”
She replied as expected, “Sir. Yes, sir.”
Sonia waited until the captain’s hand touched his forehead below the brim of his hat and then snapped her hand back to her side.
“I’m Captain MacConnelly. You’ll be reporting to me.” He looked her up and down, his brow etched with wrinkles. Whatever he’d been expecting, she had the feeling that
she was not it.
He thumbed at the empty passenger seat. She lifted her duffel.
“Leave it.”
Sonia dropped the heavy bag beside the footlocker and glanced back at the helo. The pilots peered past her to the captain who lifted a hand ordering them to wait. Her skin prickled as she faced the captain. It looked like there was an entrance exam.
“Get in,” he said.
She did. Sonia eyed her new superior officer from the passenger seat. The first thing she noticed was his left hand on the steering wheel and the shiny gold wedding band there, so bright and new it glowed. The second was the tight coil of muscle at his bunching jaw. The captain looked ready to grind nails between his teeth.
Her supervisor cut the engine, shifted in his seat and stared directly at her.
“I believe in getting right to it, Touma,” he narrowed his eyes on her. “I’ve read your file.”
His words sent a chill down her spine that cut through the tropical heat. She glanced at her belongings broiling on the tarmac and then back to the captain.
“Thick file.” He showed her the width with his thumb and index finger. “Mostly just reports of you quitting. You a quitter, Private?”
His summary of her life hit her like a slap. “I finished basic and I’ll finish my service, sir.”
He snorted. “Like you had a choice. Back to the wall, right? Well, just so we understand each other, let me assure you that if you quit this time, you go back to prison.”
And there it was. The reason she was a marine in the first place. Not by choice, but by picking the lesser of two evils, while this man probably enlisted in the Corps. That was obvious by his distaste of her. Right now she needed to get her gear in this Jeep and that meant being whatever he needed her to be.
The captain swept her with his cold blue eyes, his lip curling at what he saw. “Wearing the uniform doesn’t make you a marine. You don’t have the first idea of the code.”
She was not going back to prison. “Duty, honor—”
“Oh, stow it.”
She closed her mouth before saying country.
