by Nadine Mutas
She couldn’t stifle a groan of pure delight at the sensation. Her head flopped down face-first on his chest, her body went limp with relaxation—and her damn toes curled.
“Sneaky bastard,” she muttered into his T-shirt.
“Feisty little witch.”
Fingers like that should be illegal.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Rhun still massaged her. “I’m thinking of having them patented. Could make a fortune with that. Rhun’s Magic Fingers.” He chuckled.
Oh gods, she’d actually voiced that thought. Where was her mind? Well, let me see—turning to mush under a sinfully skilled demon hand?
“Did you know,” he said after a moment, “that there is a pixie colony living in your attic?”
“There is? Never noticed.” Her face remained plastered to his chest, and she inhaled a good nose-full of his male scent, trying not to purr. “How d’you know?”
“I can smell them. Want me to take care of them? They can be a bunch of pesky critters.”
She considered it for a moment. The tiny fairy creatures were generally benign, but known for having unpredictable bouts of mischief, and while they sometimes helped with small tasks if they felt like it, they could also wreak havoc if they were crossed. “Um, I’m not—”
A racket loud enough to wake the dead shook the house.
She jerked and lifted her head, glancing around. “What is that?”
Rhun cocked his head to the side and listened to the thumps and screeches. “That would be the sound of a pixie colony hightailing it out of here.” He glanced back at her and shrugged. “I guess they didn’t like the idea of me taking care of them.”
She shot him a dark look. “What did you do to them?”
He gasped, his expression the epitome of genuine indignation. “I didn’t do a damn thing. Those pixies have acute ears, you know. And if they decide to cheese it out of here just because I suggested I’d kick them out, that’s their problem.”
“Uh-huh,” she said with a disbelieving snort, but she couldn’t keep the grin off her face.
He smirked back at her, his hand on her lower back stroking her spine, and she felt the brush of his power over her mental senses, a dark, seductive force and yet—strangely reassuring. She studied his face, those clear-cut features that could turn disarmingly gorgeous when he laughed, the dark brows over eyes so piercing and bright, they seemed to take in everything with a single look. His smirk grew into a full, open smile warming his gaze as he regarded her, and her heart made a cute little somersault.
She froze.
No. This was not happening.
She could find him attractive and mouthwatering and even allow herself to enjoy feeding him. But. She. Would. Not. Like. Him.
He was cocky, pushy, sarcastic to the point of being rude, and a general pain in her ass. There. Those were some unlikable characteristics. If only his sarcasm wasn’t so funny and his cockiness didn’t have a strange appeal in its own right… Even though—or maybe because?—he annoyed her enough to become homicidal, he had a way of taking her mind off her sorrows, and he kept her on her toes with his charmingly disrespectful behavior—she could never guess what he might do or say next. He knew exactly how to push her buttons, and he pushed them all, the good and the bad.
No, no, no!
She brought her derailed train of thoughts back on track. He was a demon with violent instincts and a dark past, and he’d turn on her first chance he’d get. The bond leashing him to her had changed yet again, another faint shift of power between them, and it wasn’t hard to conclude it was directly linked to what Rhun had done to her…with her. Whatever she was starting to feel for him would put her at risk not just emotionally.
So she had to refocus on why she’d unbound him, had to remind herself that he was an instrument to achieve her goal. She needed his assistance in finding Maeve, that was all, and she’d bind him again in the Shadows afterwards. She couldn’t afford to feel any sympathy or…affection toward him. The shift in the leashing bond notwithstanding, she quite simply didn’t want to like someone whom she needed to send back into painful darkness…
He’d studied her face after she’d tensed in his arms, and now cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking her skin. “What’s wrong?”
Dammit, why did he have to be so caring now? Where was his biting sarcasm when she needed it?
“Nothing,” she snapped with deliberate sharpness, bringing her unruly emotions back under control. Scrambling off him, she added, “I just think that now that you’re all fed and happy, you need to get a move on and search for that bastard who took my sister.”
He watched her get dressed with eyes that were too discerning. “I still need pain.”
She finished pulling on her sweater, tugged it into place. “Fine. We’ll go…find someone. I’m not letting you go hunting on your own. I have to pick up my tools and the grimoire from the cemetery anyway. After that, we restart the search, you locate the other…” She stopped short as she glanced at him and saw his expression.
With focused attention, he stared at a spot somewhere behind her. Holding up a finger to indicate her to wait a moment, he rose from the couch, his eyes still fixed on that something behind her shoulder. Turning, she watched him walk over to the bookshelf on the wall next to the door, where he rearranged the order of three books—the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
With a sigh of utter relief after he was done, he faced her. “Sorry, what were you saying?”
“What was that about?” She gestured at the books.
He glanced at the shelf and back at her, and shrugged. “They were not in the correct order. The Fellowship of the Ring was in the middle, The Two Towers to the right and The Return of the King to the left.”
“So you just had to rearrange them.”
He grimaced. “It was so painful to look at.”
“Somehow,” she muttered under her breath, “that is even more disturbing than the fact that you’re a demon.” She waved at the trilogy. “If you got hung up on that, you definitely shouldn’t look at my Harry Potter shelf.”
“Harry who?”
“Ah, never mind.” She shook her head and walked away in search of her cell phone.
She found it in her small purse on a side table where she’d dumped it after they’d come back from Maeve’s apartment. Flipping it open, she skimmed the list of missed calls. As she’d expected, Lily and Basil had called half a dozen times, mostly before they’d shown up this afternoon, but Lily had apparently called again three times after they’d left. A text message informed her she also had a new voice mail. Frowning, she dialed and listened to the message.
“Merle, dammit, turn your fucking phone on loud!” Lily sounded not as royally pissed as her wording suggested. In fact, her voice shook with—fear? “What do you have a fucking cell phone for if you keep it on mute the whole time? Shit.” A small pause. Lily softly inhaled. “Listen, you need to get out of the house and disappear ASAP. Isabel—she knows.”
A tremor ran through her.
“I’m sorry,” Lily went on. “I didn’t mean to, I tried to avoid her and keep my mouth shut, but she knew we’d checked on you and she wanted to know if you were all right, and she fucking knew right away we were hiding something. She’s got that creepy spidey sense for sniffing out secrets and…you know how she is. If she grills someone for info, she gets it.”
Lily sounded so miserable Merle had the intense urge to hug her through the phone. Yes, she knew Isabel, and that’s why she couldn’t even blame Lily for breaking in front of her aunt. The head of the Murray family and member of the Elders was a strong, loving woman, a powerful witch—and she was intimidating at the best of times. Merle’s grip tightened on the phone.
“She’s informed the other Elders, Merle. They’re on their way. You need to get out now and find some place to lie low for a while. I’ll call you later to check on you. Please be careful.” A pause, heavy with concern. “I’m so sorry.”
The message
ended and she stared at the display. The voice mail had been recorded half an hour ago. For a moment, she stood in numb paralysis, until the knowledge sank in.
The shit had just hit the fan.
Cursing, she ran, her heart pounding against her ribs. “Rhun!”
She skidded to a stop in front of him in the living room, the hardwood floor squeaking underneath her feet.
Rhun was rearranging her CDs in some OCD-compliant order and shot her a sideways glance, as relaxed as a Zen master. “What’s up, little witch? You look agitated.”
“We need to leave. Now. The Elders know about you and are on their way over here. If they catch us…”
“…we’re in deep shit.” His attention now fully focused on her, his eyes alert, even though he seemed a gazillion times calmer than she felt right now.
“Yep.” She grabbed a hold of his T-shirt, dragging him toward the foyer. “Up shit creek without a paddle. Now, let’s go!”
As Rhun picked up his leather jacket from where he’d neatly hung it on the coat rack earlier, she wiggled into her shoes and snatched her purse and coat. Her mind already raced ahead, analyzing her situation—a clear case of FUBAR—and sorting options of how to best proceed. She was about to open to the door, when Rhun’s voice broke through her thoughts.
“Merle,” he said quietly, but his tone held such sharpness, it made her pause. Shrugging into the leather jacket, he jerked his head at the door. “We’ve got company.”
She stilled and listened. Sure enough, now she heard it, too. Footsteps, coming up the stairs to the veranda. A moment of utter silence as the footsteps stopped, along with her breathing, and she knew, knew without a doubt, who was on the other side of that door.
The bell rang, and everything in her jumped back to life, including her hammering heart. She grabbed Rhun’s hand, indicated him to stay silent—which earned her a duh-look from him—and led him to the back of the house as fast as was quietly possible. The kitchen had a door onto the porch, and from there they could sneak into the backyard, make their way toward the rear of the property, and escape over the fence. Her neighbors surely wouldn’t mind them crossing their yards in the dark.
They were a few feet from the back door when the air shook as if the pressure wave of a bomb hit. She gasped, tripped, and Rhun tightened his hold on her hand to steady her. The lights flickered.
He glanced around the room. “What the fuck was that?”
“The wards,” she whispered. “The Elders are breaking them down.”
If she’d had any illusions that the Elders might be lenient with her for unleashing Rhun, she was now sobered. They were here to enforce the laws of the witch community, which she’d violated by unbinding a demon from the Shadows without their approval, and they meant to punish her for it. Eminently powerful as the wards were, they not only kept out evil spirits, they were also designed to block the entry of anyone who meant harm to the residents of the MacKenna house. The fact that the Elders had to disable the wards first before being able to enter spoke of the nature of the intended punishment…
Straightening her spine, she moved forward. She didn’t fear what they would do to her. Gods knew, she’d probably suffered worse in the past by keeping the balance. No, that wasn’t what made her knees tremble and her hands fist, her fingers digging painfully into her palms. It was the sure knowledge they would force her to send Rhun back into the Shadows right away—force her to give up her only chance of finding Maeve.
Another tremor hit the air, and she could feel the magic oscillating, the wards shaking. Failing.
Her hand was on the doorknob. She neither had the time nor the energy to keep reinforcing the wards, so they had to sneak out now before—
“Merle.”
She froze at the voice coming from the other side of the door. It was Juneau, head of the Laroche family line and most powerful member of the Elders. Merle remembered how she’d used to sit on her lap as a little girl, awed into silence by the intimidating force of the older witch’s energy, while Rowan and Juneau talked over coffee.
She also remembered, all too well, how the Elder’s eyes had held both compassion and unshakable resolve when she turned down Merle’s appeal for help in finding Maeve. Her words rang in her mind, had dug deeply into her heart.
“I’m sorry, child,” Juneau said. “We cannot risk unleashing a convicted killer, not even to find one of our own.”
“And you don’t even know for sure that she was abducted by a demon,” Elder witch Isabel Murray cut in, regarding her with sympathetic sorrow.
“But I do. I saw it.”
“In a vision.” Isabel pressed her lips together, heaved a breath. “You don’t have concrete proof. For all we know, Maeve could have just run away.”
“Why would she—”
“She did move out of your house,” Juneau said thoughtfully. “Left her family’s home…” She shook her head, obviously saddened by an action that was the equivalent of a slap in the face for a witch family.
Merle swallowed, her heart pierced. No matter how dead set Maeve had been on moving out and having her own place to live, she would never have run away. And Merle knew what she’d seen. It might not be enough for the Elders, but it was for her. She turned to leave.
She had a demon to unbind.
“Merle. I know you’re there.”
Juneau’s voice called her back to the present, and she let go of the brass doorknob as if it was on fire.
“Lower the wards, girl, and let us in freely, and we will hold it in your favor when we assess your case. Do not make this worse than it already is.” Juneau spoke calmly, almost friendly, but there was no discounting the force of her power suffusing the air, even through the wards and the sturdy walls of the old Victorian.
She stepped back from the door and glanced at Rhun. He watched her attentively, his harsh expression enhancing the lethal allure of his features. His aura was palpable, almost visible around him, humming, sizzling waves of energy with enough menace to shake her bone-deep. His gaze flicked to the door and back to her, his eyes holding an unspoken question. She shook her head. She wouldn’t fight fellow witches, least of all her Elders. She had to face the consequences of her actions, atone for her deeds. There was no way around it.
Her chest tight as if bound with a rope, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The scent of herbs, spices, magic, filled her nose, so familiar, so reassuring and heartbreaking at once. Even though the memory of her grandmother and what she’d have to say to all this was a piercing pain deep inside her, it made her stand up straight with defiant pride. She was willing to take whatever punishment awaited her, with her head held high.
But now was not the time.
Turning to Rhun, she took his hand and pinned him with a warning look. “Hold on. Whatever happens, whatever you feel, do not let go.”
He frowned. “What are you—”
“Shut up.”
Something dark flashed in his eyes, even as the corners of his mouth twitched up. “Yes, ma’am.”
She blew out a breath. “Let’s hope this works.”
At those words, Rhun shot her a look that could have been interpreted as panicked, but she ignored it and closed her eyes. There was no point in purifying the space or casting the circle with a demon by her side, so she simply sent a fervent prayer to the Powers That Be to grant her protection for what she was about to do.
“Viribus dati deis…” she murmured in Latin—the ancient language used for many spells—speaking the words that would bend the laws of nature, tapping deep into the magic filling the layers of the world while unleashing the energy coiling inside her, fusing power with power. It curled around her, thickening, humming over her skin.
The air shook again, more violently this time. The last of the wards were crumbling.
She didn’t stop casting the spell even as the magic that had protected the MacKenna house for generations slowly but surely died, taking a piece of her with it.
“…leges naturae dedere voluptatem meam impero…”
Gripping Rhun’s hand tighter, she drew on all her power. She was close, so close.
“…hoc eo, per tempus caelique, locum alium pererramus…”
The air pulsed with the vibrancy of the magic she wove. Just one more intricate threading…
The last ward broke.
The door opened.
Chapter 9
Juneau Laroche’s spell hit Rhun square in the chest just as the magic Merle was weaving fused around them. The air shimmered, charged with power that seeped into his bones and changed the fabric of his being. For the span of a heartbeat lasting an eternity, every fiber in his body, down to the faintest pulse of his energy, merged with the age-old magic this world breathed. If not for the death grip Merle had on his hand, he would have dissolved into the power holding together the layers of time, space, and beyond.
But she never let him go.
When everything around him shifted and the world itself split into a thousand shards of untapped possibilities, Merle’s hand pulled him through, rooted him. The air fused back together, and all around him, the dizzying kaleidoscope of colors, sounds and scents dimmed as one reality took over and solidified.
He only had a brief moment to blink at their new surroundings—a quiet street swathed in half-darkness, well-kept old houses all around, a small patch of sidewalk lined by trees—before the magic settled and the pieces of the here and now fell into place. The next second, a searing bolt of pain shot from his chest to every nerve ending in his body. He convulsed, doubled over and dropped to his knees, gasping for breath.
“Rhun!” Merle’s voice, close by.
He couldn’t see her, his vision darkened by the excruciating, debilitating pain spreading like wildfire. Whatever Juneau had attacked him with, it had turned the blood to acid in his veins. The magic burned him from the inside out. Every heartbeat unleashed a new wave of biting pain.
Merle’s hand on his forehead, so cool against the fire underneath his skin. “Talk to me. What does it feel like? I need to know so I can recognize and break the spell.”
