“Leprechauns were a new one for me. I’m glad you liked it.” He smiled, knowing the look didn’t reach his eyes. All the times he’d thought of revenge, of what he’d say when he had her alone, and now that she was with him none of those words or ideas mattered. Those same feelings he’d had the night they met flowed forward, demanding to be felt. “So Wisconsin. I never took you for a nature girl. I seem to remember you liked the bright lights of the city or was it the fine dining, expensive parties, and easy marks you enjoyed?”
“It’s nice here. Peaceful,” she admitted, giving a humorless laugh. “Mostly.”
“I thought…” His words trailed off. Watching her pluck a pepperoni off a slice and place it in her mouth caused his body to tighten. Her lips closed over her finger and then her thumb, licking the digits clean. “Uh, I thought I’d find you some place like New York or New Orleans in the French Quarter with lots of drunken frat boys on vacation that you could take advantage of and feed off of.”
“I’d rather feed off nature. Sex only leads to trouble.” She again licked a finger. “Here we have an entire forest to feast upon, not needing to kill a single tree to refuel our powers.”
He barely heard what she was talking about. Dar only assumed she knew how seductive she was being. How could she not? Everything about her was made to draw a man in. She repeated the slow pepperoni eating process several times as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
“Just eat it like a normal person,” he snapped.
Malina arched a brow and lifted the slice to her lips. She bit into with gusto, shaking her head like a wild dog before laughing. With a full mouth, she questioned, “Better?”
No. No, it wasn’t better at all. He needed to stop staring at her mouth, and the smear of delicious sauce along the corner of her lips. One lick and he…
“Fucking hell,” he swore.
“Date night not going how you planned?” She took another bite, this time it was a little more ladylike. “What is your plan, anyway, Dar? Kidnap me? Torture me? Kill me? Make my luck so bad I want to kill myself?”
“From where I’m sitting, I only see one murderer in this room, and it isn’t me.” He resumed his place on the chair and reached for the whiskey. He twisted the top and took a drink of the liquor. “You’re right about one thing. This is rotgut.” He set the bottle down. The fire it sent to his belly made the substandard taste worth it. He would suffer through anything to calm his nerves.
“Attempted murderer,” Malina corrected. “You’re still here. And can you call it murder when it involves driving a demon into the fires of hell?”
“Do you know what hell is? It’s a fire realm. My people are not even from there. I told you when we first met that I was born near the Cliffs of Moher. If you want to send me to whence I came, buy me a plane ticket to Dublin.”
“That’s pretty vague. There are miles of cliffs in Ireland.”
“Would you rather I use the name of a village you’ve never heard of?” he offered. “Sending a demi-demon back to the fires of hell from which we supposedly sprang makes about as much sense as me sending a warlock there. And for what? Spreading around luck in the city of sin? Were you that pissed off that I didn’t tell you what I was? I’d like to remind you, you didn’t tell me either. It’s not like we did a lot of talking when we met.”
Her eyes dipped, and for a moment her strong demeanor wavered. “Did it hurt?”
“Yes.” Though a trip to the fire realm was nothing compared to the pain of her betrayal.
“Fine. If not a murderer, what do you call yourself? Death dealer? That’s semantics, and you know it. You don’t pull the trigger, but you load the gun and help aim it.”
“What are you talking about, guns and aiming?” Dar frowned.
“Deny it all you want, but you take luck from people. You turn their gambling sour. You take away a win. You make them miss an important meeting, or a bus, or a chance encounter that would have led to something more. You drain them of their will to live. That is the gun you load. You might not pull the trigger, but you sure as fuck supply the reason. Not to mention the people you send out into the world with such a bad turn they get hit by the busses or robbed or any number of horrible things.”
Her assessment of his character was so sure, so succinct in its accusations that he wasn’t sure he could ever change her opinion of him. “That’s what you think I do?”
“When Niall told me what you were, I didn’t want to believe him, so I followed you on your errands. I saw you. That night, I saw you. You walked through that casino touching people, and they’d lose. Some of them lost big. Every single one. Some of them weren’t even gambling before you came by. Then you talked to one particular man for several minutes, whispering at him until he became agitated. As you left the building, he grabbed a gun and began shooting. Do you know who he aimed at?”
“Yes.” Dar took another drink before twisting on the bottle’s cap.
“Everyone you touched with your bad luck. Every. Single. Person.”
“And you think I caused that? You think that I wandered down to a casino and thought, ‘Hey, do you know what’s missing in this sea of pull switches and spinning cherries? A massacre.’”
“I know you did. I saw you touch them and I saw what happened when you left the casino. I begged my brother to wait, to give you a chance, and that is what happened. I couldn’t let you live to do it again and again. I…” She averted her eyes and motioned her hand in the air and the pizza box closed. “Just like you turned my family’s luck sour these last several days and tried to kill me.”
“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.” He fingered the bottle again, tempted to down the entire contents and hope for oblivion. How could she think so poorly of him?
“You tried. You sent me to the hospital.”
Dar normally wasn’t one to explain himself or his actions. He felt no remorse for what he’d done with his life. However he couldn’t take the way she was looking at him. “I need luck to live, just as you need energy to fuel your magick. Stupid me, I never did clue into why plants were always dying around you until it was way too late.”
“We kill plants. You kill people.” She slid the pizza box away from her toward the edge of the bed.
He stood and began to pace the room. “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t kill anyone.”
“I saw you manipulate that situation.”
“Did you bother to follow that casino shooting story after you sent me packing to the netherworld? Did anyone die?”
“No thanks to you. They were shot. One can’t walk.”
“Did you ever once consider that I gave those people the good luck to live? And that I gave the shooter the bad luck to not kill his targets? That maybe they lost at the gambling tables because that’s not the luck they needed?”
Her expression answered for her. She’d never even considered the best in him. Her composure wavered as doubts were planted in her surety. “You manipulate. You did it to me. You touched my arm and convinced me I was in love with you. You wanted to get lucky, so you used your good luck power to get you some.”
“Get me some what?”
“Sex, get you some sex,” Malina stated in exasperation. “None of it was real.”
“Me?” He threw back his head and laughed at the very notion. “I have never needed good luck to get laid. That was all you, baby. Besides, you’re one to talk. You cast a spell over me to make me approach you. You bewitched everyone in that club. Don’t deny it.”
“I do deny it. I don’t need spells and magick to get men to want me.” Malina appeared insulted, which quickly turned into a pout. She ran her finger over the floral pattern of the comforter. “Take it back.”
“What, need me to tell you how beautiful you are? Not hearing it enough from other men?” he asked, partly as an insult, partly as a probe.
“Take it back,” she said again, the words soft and teasing. “I’m not just a one-week stand. Tell me you
love me. I know you do.”
How could she see through his hard exterior like that? How could she know the feelings he tried so hard to kill?
“What?” Dar paced a few more times in agitation, stopping to lean over to get a better view of her face. She didn’t meet his eyes.
She stretched slowly over the bed, her side falling to the mattress as she continued to trace her hand over the comforter. “Say it, or I won’t ask you to marry me.”
He felt the words like a punch in the gut. It was decades ago, but he recalled this very conversation. They’d been in a hotel suite, exhausted from hours spent in bed, and he’d been unable to get enough of her. Every movement, every laugh, had captured him until she was all that mattered. “Stop.”
“That’s not fair. This was to be my proposal. You can’t ask me first.” Malina giggled, and her face remained turned as if speaking to a ghost at her side. “I was going to ask you.”
“Malina, stop it,” he demanded, stalking toward the bed. He didn’t like his pain played out for him like a show to be mocked. “This isn’t going to work.”
“There’s something I must tell you first. It’s important. It’s about my fam—” She sat up on the bed and reached her hand out. “Room service? Leave it. They’ll wait. I need to tell you something, Dar.”
Dar grabbed her outstretched hand. She blinked several times before turning cloudy eyes toward him. Something was very wrong. She wasn’t teasing him. She was entranced.
A trail of blood came from her nose. She furrowed her brow and whispered, “Tell me you love me. I know you do.”
“Malina?”
“I won’t ask you…”
“Dammit.” Panic filled him as he reached to wipe the blood from her nose as it ran over her lips. “Malina, snap out of it.”
“I don’t believe in luck.”
Dar crossed over to the bathroom and filled a plastic cup with cold water. He dipped his fingers in and flicked water on her face to try to shock her out of her transfixed state. When that didn’t work, he tossed the full contents of the cup. She gasped and her eyes cleared. She swiped her hands on her wet face. She adjusted her position to kneel on the mattress before him.
“You were—” he began, tossing the cup aside.
Malina didn’t let him finish the sentence. Wet, cool lips met his in a savage kiss. Her hands found a hold on his head. Dar couldn’t tell if she was trying to pleasure him or punish him, but he didn’t care. He’d been a fool to think he could go through with any revenge when it came to her. It would seem the decades apart didn’t matter. One kiss and he was hers. Just like the first time.
This would only end badly.
He didn’t care. She could kill him a thousand times and a thousand times he’d come back just for this brief moment in her arms. The ache of being without her would eternally drive him to his own destruction. He understood that now. This crazy warlock was his fate.
He could tell himself he wanted revenge. He could tell himself he wanted her dead. He could say he wanted to rip her apart and make her bleed. But, when it came down to it, he belonged to her.
One kiss. That was all it took. One kiss and he was overcome.
She pulled back, breathing hard. “I had forgotten that. I had Niall block the more painful memories. It’s not all clear, but enough of the past has come back to me. Oh my goodness, how I loved you. Every time you came into my mind I wanted to be with you. To know you didn’t mean it as I did, that was the ultimate cruelty.”
“None of those claims matter. You ended it, not I. You led me to my death. What else is there to remember?” It took everything in him to stay upright.
“What did you expect to happen when my family found out? You targeted a MacGregor, and not just a MacGregor, the only daughter. They treat me like I’m a delicate flower who needs protection from every boot on the planet. Did you think the warlocks would roll over and give a demon protection? Did you think it wouldn’t matter that you tricked me into loving you? Did you think I could be with a man who causes so much death and pain? And I played into your hand so easily. Like a stupid schoolgirl, I believed everything you said to be real. I thought you wanted me for me, not because of who I am and who my family is.”
“Malina, I told you. I didn’t kill those people. I didn’t make the shooter bring a gun to the casino. I didn’t make him crazy. I did all I could. Yes, those people were traumatized, and some of them were hit, but they did live. Do you think I would leave your bed that night to go on a murder spree?”
“You predict the future now?” she said doubtfully.
“No, but I’ve been around long enough to know who needs an infusion of what kind of luck. And if I’m going to feed off someone’s energy, what better place to snack than Vegas?” He shook his head. “You never knew me at all. And I never knew you. Our being together was a mistake. It’s a mistake we’ll both have to pay for.”
“No, please, don’t.” She held up a shaking hand as a tear slipped over her cheek. “I can’t get over you a second time. I didn’t get over you the first time. Do whatever it is you came to do, but get it over with. Don’t draw it out.” She began rubbing her left arm before placing a fist over her chest. “Just leave town before my family finds you. I feel my heart breaking. Your revenge is complete.”
Her eyelids fluttered as she felt limp onto the bed. Her hand rested over her heart as she lay at a strange angle.
Dar rushed to her in a panic. He placed his hand over her heart, barely feeling the beats. He touched her neck to look for a pulse. It too was weak.
“All the good luck I have is yours,” he said, giving her an infusion, even those reserves he used to keep himself protected. He felt the good flowing out of him as he took in all her bad. She coughed violently, and her eyes opened. “I didn’t target you, Malina. I loved you from that first moment. I love you now.”
As his down-turned luck would have it, the door burst open before he could say more. Malina’s family had found them, and he’d given her the luck she needed to be rescued.
Chapter 11
“I told ya I could find her with my shark-like senses,” Raibeart declared, pointing at the bed. Dar’s weight shifted the mattress as he hurried to his feet to defend himself. “Ach, Malina, looks like we made it just in time to protect your virtue. En garde, ya vagabond, ya defiler of women, ya destroyer of houses, ya ghost whisperer!”
Malina blinked heavily, knowing where she was, but still disoriented as she looked from the bed toward Niall and Raibeart. She had a hard time focusing on any one thing for too long. A bruise had begun to form under Niall’s left eye where someone had punched him. The worn buttons on the front of the television looked as if they’d been pressed far too many times. Magick threatened to ignite around Raibeart’s fingers. The comforter stitching was frayed, disrupting the sewn floral pattern.
“What did ya do to her?” Niall demanded, surging forward.
Malina tried to stand but the muscles in her legs didn’t support her weight, and she fell. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a strange croaking noise came out.
Niall’s fist connected with Dar, who endeavored to block the blow but was unsuccessful. Niall hit the man a second time and then a third, a fourth. Dar tried to defend himself, but each block, each punch, each duck was off enough to miss its mark. He had bad luck.
“Get him,” Raibeart cheered. “He smells like an Irishman!”
“No,” Malina managed to eek out. She tried to push up again, this time getting further than before. The numbness was leaving her, and her vision started to clear.
Niall wrapped his hands around Dar’s neck and lifted him off the ground. Dar managed to grab Niall’s wrists. The contact was enough to force her brother to let go. Niall jerked back as if feeling Dar taking from him.
“Niall, stop. You know you can’t touch him.” Malina commanded struggling to her feet as her strength returned. What was wrong with her brother? He didn’t generally appear so mindless and chaot
ic in his actions. Regardless of what was going on, she couldn’t watch them destroy each other. “Dar, stop it.”
“Step away, children,” Raibeart ordered. He lifted his hand, a blue orb of magick forming around his fingers. “Never send a lad to do a man’s job.”
“No, stop it!” Malina threw herself forward to stand between the men. Her magick visibly flared in warning all around her. Dar’s luck was a powerful aid, and she knew this was a conflict she’d win—she just wasn’t sure which side to fight. The hair around her shoulders lifted with a static charge.
Dar leaned against a wall, breathing hard from his beating. Niall was no lightweight when it came to brawling. Blood dripped from Dar’s mouth and he clutched at his stomach. Red droplets stained his white dress shirt. Raibeart and Niall blocked the door. The small hotel room felt crowded.
“Och, Niall, what’s with your sister? Where’d she get that boost from?” Raibeart glanced around before settling his eyes briefly on the liquor bottle as if answering his own question.
“Just stop it. All of you,” she commanded.
“Remind me, laddie, what manner of creature did ya say we are fighting again?” Raibeart whispered a little loudly. “He doesn’t look that fierce. Are we interrupting date night? Am I supposed to scare him or kill him?”
“He’s a demon,” Niall stated loudly. “He’s evil. We kill evil.”
“He’s not evil,” Malina protested. “At least I don’t think…”
“You’re confused,” Niall asserted. “That’s what happens when you’re around him. Ya make bad decisions and mistakes. Ya must not remember, but I do. I need ya to trust me. I’m your blood. I would never lie to ya. We have to do this.”
“I’ve battled demons. He doesn’t look like a demon. Well, a demi-demon maybe but those are hardly demon-demons,” Raibeart observed. He snorted with a barely contained laugh. “Actually, this dandy looks like a lounge lizard.” He lowered his voice and talked out of the side of his mouth. “Is Malina dating a musician from a piano bar? What’s his demon power? Putting people to sleep with elevator music? Fashion crimes?”
Cauldrons and Confessions (Warlocks MacGregor Book 4) Page 9
