by Nadine Mutas
Busted, Rhun stopped midway in his ascent up the secondary staircase, chuckled and waited in the foyer instead.
Merle came back down the stairs a few minutes later, now sporting a wide sweatshirt that did a good job of hiding her scrumptious curves. He nodded approvingly. For now, that would do. He’d peel it off later.
“Okay,” she said, her face all business and tense concern. “How do you track that bastard?”
He snapped into serious mode as well. “I need a starting point, somewhere he’s been so I can pick up his signature.”
Her brows drew together. “Signature?”
“His energy pattern. We all leave traces of it behind when we use our powers, similar to a scent trail. But since it fades over time, the fresher the track is, the better I can profile him.”
“And then? Do you follow his trail?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m not a dog.”
“Obviously not,” she muttered. “Dogs have manners.”
“For someone who needs my help,” he drawled, his brows raised, “you sure are treating me a bit rudely.”
She studied him for a moment, her features twitching with some restrained reaction. “Sorry,” she ground out. “Didn’t mean to be snappy. You just…rub me the wrong way.”
“Well, that’s better than not rubbing you at all.”
The following nervous tick of her eye delighted him to no end.
“Anyway,” Rhun said, “to get back to the problem at hand—no, the sparks of power we emit don’t work like a scent trail. We don’t leave a continuous energy trace behind, only parts of it when we tap our innate magic. But all bluotezzer demons share some form of connection on a psychic level, and once I know his signature, I can narrow my focus on him. It’ll give me a rough idea of where to go to find him, a sense of direction and distance.”
She nodded, grim and pensive.
Crossing his arms in front of his chest again, he asked, “So, do you have a starting point?”
Again she nodded, her face shadowed by so much pain, her voice quiet. “Maeve’s apartment. He snatched her from there.”
For a moment he was silent, studying her, frowning as he felt something tense inside him, an unpleasant, inexplicable sensation. Shaking it off, he refocused. “How do you know he took her from there?”
Sky-colored eyes met his, startling in their clarity. “I saw it.”
Something in the way she said it, a twist in her voice, made him understand. “A vision.” He regarded her with newly sparked interest. “You have the second sight. Like Rowan.”
She lowered her eyes. “It’s not nearly as powerful as hers was. I rarely ever see and I don’t have much control over it.” Her gaze found his again, and there was steel in it, forged in pain. “But every one of the visions I have had was correct to the smallest detail, and I saw that demon take her. I even saw his power, his aura. I felt it as if I’d been there.”
He held her gaze. “How do you even know he’s a bluotezzer demon?” But even as he finished the question, the answer came to him. The flicker in her aura gave it away. “You saw him drink from Maeve. In your vision.” And there was only one demon species who fed off human blood—and looked human itself.
She blinked, slowly, and it was the only emotional reaction she showed, the rest of her face a stark mask of motionlessness, her aura tightly controlled. “Can you work from her apartment?”
Gritting his teeth, he nodded. He didn’t like this look on her face, this tone of her voice—this much hurt in her eyes. It made him want to stoke that fire inside her again. Not that he cared about how she felt—after all, she was a means to an end, the key to his freedom. Still, he didn’t like seeing her sad, it made him…uncomfortable. “Let’s go.”
Merle grabbed her keys and they went out to her car, their footsteps on the paved driveway the only sounds in the quiet of predawn. It was still dark, probably an hour before sunrise, and the air was crisp, the night at its coldest. Rhun took a deep breath, inhaled the scent of early spring, of the impending morning, of nature and life. It had been so long, he’d almost forgotten what it was like.
This had always been his favorite time of the night, despite his own energy and powers waning due to his demon nature. The world around him was just about to be newly born, fresh, untainted, imbued with innocence so profound nothing could touch it. It always seemed life stood still at this hour, as if taking a breath and holding it, shortly, before moving on to another day with the first light of dawn.
The sound of the car door opening brought his attention back to Merle, who slid into the driver’s seat. In some way, he should probably feel grateful toward her. If she hadn’t unbound him, he’d still be confined to suffocating darkness, plagued by insatiable hunger and pain.
But even as the thought crossed his mind, something inside him bristled against it. What she’d done wasn’t for his benefit, and all foolish feelings of gratitude would be misplaced and wasted. After all, she was not only the one who’d freed him, but would also be the very one to kick him back into his dungeon of darkness once he’d served his purpose.
Which was exactly why he wouldn’t allow himself to feel anything else for her than lust—certainly not gratitude. He was past caring for anyone or anything else. It was a weakness he couldn’t afford, not with the Shadows waiting to take him back.
He got in the car next to Merle as she started the engine. While she backed out of the driveway, he studied the interior, inhaling the enticing aroma of her that had condensed in the small space, and his eyes locked onto something lying on the console between the seats. He picked up the small piece and examined it closely.
“If this is a vibrator,” he said after a moment, “they surely have taken the whole notion of making electronic devices smaller a bit too far.”
Merle winced and the car veered to the left. “Say what?” Her voice sounded slightly higher than usual.
“This.” He held out the tiny piece of electronic…something to her. “Don’t tell me this actually gets you off. I mean, with certain things, size does matter.”
The car swerved once more on the road as she snatched the lame excuse for a sex toy from him and stuffed it back into the console. “It’s not a—why would I have a vibrator in my car?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. For when you get horny on your way to work?”
“I don’t—”
“Ah,” he went on, interrupting her flustered exclamation, “now there’s a nice mental image of you.”
“Rhun!”
A glance at her told him she had a lovely red face again. A bit rosy this time. Interesting. He filed that information under the newly opened section of Merle’s Various Shades of Blushing.
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel until her knuckles flashed white. “Before you get any other inappropriate ideas—it’s an MP3 player.”
“What does MP3 stand for? Merle’s Private Porn Panorama?”
Now the car almost crashed into a street sign. Taking a shaky breath and steadying her hands on the steering wheel again, she said with visibly forced calm, “It’s a device to store and play music.”
“Oh. So no vibrating then?”
“No.”
He regarded the piece again. “You know, if they made it bigger and let it vibrate in sync with the rhythm of the music it plays, they could make one hell of a fortune with it.”
She shot him a sideways glance, her eyes narrowed.
“Well, just think of all the women out there who could climax to the tunes they love. Moan along to your favorite song.”
“Rhun!”
Laughing, he looked out the window. Teasing her was just so much fun. And, as a nice side effect, he’d changed her mood from sad and uncomfortably pained to…well, angry and embarrassed. Which was still better than the consuming grief she’d been drenched in before, as far as he was concerned. He knew some other ways to make her flustered out of her mind, but he’d save those for later, since they were be
st executed on a comfy mattress. Or maybe in a shower. He sighed. How he longed to take a shower.
About half an hour later, Merle parked the car in front of an apartment complex in a rather decrepit neighborhood in East Portland. They’d crossed the whole city to get here—this place was probably as far away as one could get from the MacKenna family house without leaving Portland proper.
They got out of the car, and Rhun frowned at the eyesore of a building in front of him, puzzled at Maeve’s choice to move here. He’d seen the old MacKenna Victorian, knew there were more than enough rooms in it to accommodate the two sisters. It wasn’t uncommon for witch families to have several generations living under one roof—the bonds of blood and magic were tight, and most families took care to keep it that way. All the more strange that Maeve should have chosen to move away from her sister.
He followed Merle up to the graffiti-adorned entrance. “Why did Maeve live here?”
“She didn’t want to stay with me anymore.” Suppressed emotions echoed in her calm voice.
“How come?”
Opening the door and stepping inside, she threw a cold glance at him over her shoulder. “What does it matter to you?”
He shrugged and followed her upstairs, the stench of garbage and mold assaulting his nose. “Just curious as to what would drive two witch sisters apart.” Mindful not to touch the grimy handrail of the stairs or the wall covered with what looked like maybe a biological weapon, he steered around pieces of trash. Shower. He really wanted a shower now.
Merle was silent for such a long moment, he almost thought she’d abandoned the conversation. With measured, quiet steps she took the stairs, her movements laced with graceful grief. “Maeve is not exactly a witch,” she said without looking at him.
He paused on the steps for a second. “She’s a MacKenna.” Born of a long line of witches, each of them endowed with an innate spark of magic.
“She never had any powers to speak of, or at least not to my knowledge. If she did, my grandmother would have nurtured them, even if they were weak.”
Yes, Rhun thought, Rowan would have fostered her granddaughter’s powers if there had been any. Still, a descendant of a witch line—by nature all of them were female—who did not inherit the family’s magic was unheard of. But the lack of any powers on Maeve’s part explained at least something else.
“She had no means of defense against him,” Rhun observed.
Since Merle walked in front of him, her face turned away, her aura under cold control again, the only reaction he saw was an almost imperceptible stiffening of her spine. “No.” Her voice had that pained edge again, the one that cut something inside him. “No more than any human would have.”
In other words—none.
They had reached the third floor landing and Merle approached and unlocked the door to the apartment on the right. Hesitating for a moment before stepping inside after her, Rhun tilted his head and frowned.
“No wards?”
Merle let out a breath, a soft sound close to a sigh, and shut the door behind him. “Not anymore. I put some in place when Maeve insisted on staying here, but…” She rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes briefly. “I don’t know what happened. They just…vanished.”
He sensed her unspoken words in the tense silence that followed. “You think they failed because you didn’t make them strong enough.” It was a statement, not a question, and he didn’t need her answer. He could read it clearly in the guilt shadowing her face.
He only noticed he’d inched closer to her when Merle flinched, her head tilted up, eyes wide and locked on his. Unperturbed, with a quiet calm belying his inner agitation, he raised his hand to capture a strand of her ginger hair, softly twirled it between his fingers. “Why would you think that?”
It took her a moment to answer, her gaze glued to the movement of his fingers. “I’m not as strong as my grandmother was.”
He could hear her faint, shallow breaths, and there, underneath that creamy skin on her neck, beat her pulse, enticing, inviting. It had quickened as he’d stepped closer, just as her breathing had sped up, and he couldn’t help brushing a finger over the heartbeat at her neck, feel the rush of her blood beneath the skin, the power coursing through her body.
“When Rowan was your age,” he said quietly, his eyes fixed on the graceful curve of her throat that he wanted to trace with his tongue, “she wasn’t half as strong as you are now.”
Merle softly sucked in a breath, which drew his attention to her mouth and those lush lips of hers. “You don’t need to lie to me.” Her voice was low but steady.
He wrenched his gaze away from her tempting mouth and instead met her eyes. “You’re right.”
Something flickered in the blue that bound him.
“I don’t need to lie,” he went on, his finger stroking over her pulse in the rhythm of his own heartbeat, “because it’s true.”
It really was. Why he told her that, though, he didn’t know.
His hand now curved around her nape, his fingers playing with locks of her hair, hair that seemed to have sprung from fire. “I’ve known Rowan since long before you were born, and though she was always a powerful witch, her strength grew over time. You’re comparing yourself to a witch in the zenith of her life, when you’ve only just started tapping your own potential.”
And it was great, he could tell, undeveloped powers coiling deep inside her core, waiting to be nurtured. If she opened her mind to him, he could even better assess the strength of her magical abilities. Well, he could do much more if she ever did open up to him like that. The mere thought of connecting that intimately with her, of tangling with that pure, potent energy, made his pulse speed up, his own power hum with anticipation and hunger. A very male, very primal hunger.
Merle studied his face for a long, silent moment, and he wasn’t sure whether she was aware that she slightly leaned into his hand on her nape. “How old are you?”
His lips curved up. “Take a guess, little witch of mine.”
He could almost see her mind working inside that pretty head of hers, as she apparently put together what information she had on him and his species. “A century?”
His smile widened. “Close enough.”
The air between them was charged with energy, parts of hers, parts of his, colliding a thousandfold in the space separating their bodies. Jerking with sudden awareness, Merle pulled back, out of his hold, and took several flustered steps away from him.
“The demon,” she said, clearing her throat, “attacked her in here.” And with that she walked into the living room.
Ten measured breaths were necessary for Rhun to tamp down the overwhelming urge to grab a hold of Merle and pull her closer again, to feel the vibrancy of her power meshing with his own, her body pressed to his. Once he was convinced he could follow her without charging her like a horny incubus, he stepped into the living room as well.
The space was small but clean and well-tended, the furniture simple and scarce, though there were little feminine touches scattered about. An ornate candle here, a delicate figurine there. He picked up one of the numerous colorful picture frames decorating the room, and studied the laughing faces in the photo. Three little girls with flaming hair, hugging each other tight.
“Moira,” he said, tapping the eldest of the sisters. She’d been ten when he’d been bound in the Shadows, but he remembered her too, remembered the fleeting glimpses he’d caught of the designated heir of the MacKenna line, a young witch raised to lead and inherit the full power of the family. Her absence in Merle’s struggle to save Maeve was a statement in itself, but even so, he asked. “Where is she?”
The air in the room stood as still as Merle. Silently, slowly, as if afraid to break herself, she crossed her arms and looked away.
“Such pain,” he muttered, setting the picture frame back on the wide top of the TV.
“The trace?” Merle prompted, her voice so soft he barely heard it. “Can you pick it up?”
<
br /> “Tell me what happened to Moira.”
“Pick up the trace.”
“I will, after you tell me what happened.”
She swallowed, still not looking at him. “She died.”
“I got that much. How?”
For a moment, she was silent. “It was an accident. A spell gone awry. It killed her.”
There was such hurt in her voice, such devastating grief about her, it whispered of a loss even deeper than the one she had just acknowledged. A suspicion crept up on him, and as he looked back at the picture frames, the snapshots of the people that had been loved by Maeve, he saw one face appear again and again, a face he’d known in passing before the Shadows—and it was frozen in time.
There was not a single picture showing Emily MacKenna older than her mid-thirties.
He looked back at Merle. “It killed your mother, too.”
“This,” she said, her lips trembling, “is not about them.” Finally she faced him, and instead of the fragile vulnerability he’d expected to see, there was strength in her eyes, quiet and pained, but strength all the same. “Let’s concentrate on finding the one that’s still alive.”
Rhun nodded. “Yes.” And for the first time, he felt like he should mean it.
Expanding his senses, he mentally scanned the room, sampled the different traces of energy that lingered between the layers of the world, tasted their essence. There was Merle’s power, curling in the air in the finest tendrils, some old, some new, all of them as alluring as her scent. Amidst it all was a much more delicate, faint force—so faint, in fact, that he would have almost missed it. It was intriguing, strange, but he let it go, since it wasn’t the one he was looking for.
There, suspended in the air like mist permeating the substance of the atmosphere, was the trace of a power akin to Rhun’s—dark, menacing, and consuming in its hunger. He homed in on the particularities of the signature, studied the intricacies of its design, and memorized the defining elements.
