Warrior Enchanted

by Addison Fox

  “That’s not what we’re about.”

  “To you, maybe.” Or to me, she added silently to herself. “But you don’t know what goes on behind closed doors.”

  “Last time I checked, you weren’t secretly plotting to bring down my family.”

  “I’ll give you that, but I still don’t think it’s as black and white as you seem to want to make it.” The image of Rogan’s face as he told them about the alarm on the front door—the sheer agony that rode his cheekbones as he admitted his failure—wasn’t made up. “And it’s not like he tried to hide his relationship with her or anything.”

  “He’s been hiding it for a long time now.”

  The “subject closed” sign blinked in bright neon and she knew she wasn’t going to get any further this evening. She’d let him process it for a while—would think through it herself—before she brought it up again. “Just think about it.”

  They spent a few more minutes in silence before he turned toward her. “Why here? This farm?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know or don’t want to tell me?”

  Emerson thought about it for a moment. They’d come a long way in the last few days. Maybe it was just the inevitability of what had been building between them for the past year, but she found she didn’t want to hide her thoughts.

  “I like it up here. I feel…comfortable here. Like I fit.”

  “You don’t feel that way in the city?”

  “I love the city and I love living there, but that’s my life. Which means it includes all the shitty moments and the things I don’t necessarily want to remember, along with all the things I do love and want to remember. But up here…”

  She stared out the window at the passing scenery. The traffic-filled streets and well-traveled highways had given way to back roads and long stretches of fields that made it hard to believe Manhattan was less than an hour away.

  “I can also access my tools. I’m a decent hand at scrying and I’d like to try to get a handle on Magnus while I’m here. I prefer to do it in the presence of another.”

  “There are risks?”

  She’d never been able to define it, but she’d never quite shaken the fear of getting lost in the images in the mirror. “I just like knowing there’s someone watching my back.”

  “Then I’m your guy.” After a moment, he added, “Is there any other reason you picked this place?”

  “I have good memories up here. Good memories of my family and good memories of who I am.”

  “Tell me one of them.”

  “The summer I was eight.” The image filled her mind’s eye, so vivid and crisp she could still hear the June bugs as their noise filled the evening sky. “We’d gone to a nearby dairy for ice cream and Magnus, Veronica and I were sitting there licking cones and trying to keep them from dripping.”

  “What flavor did you get?”

  “What?” She broke out of the memory to look at him, bemused by the question. “What flavor did I get?”

  “Sure. They say ice cream flavor has a lot to say about a person. I’m a fudge ripple man, myself.”

  “Mint chocolate chip. I’ve always liked the color. Wicked-witch green.”

  His bark of laughter was contagious, and she couldn’t hide her own giggles. “Is that some sort of personal statement on your chosen profession?”

  “Nah. I’d call it a delicious coincidence.”

  “Fair enough. So you were eating your very green ice cream. Then what happened?”

  “Magnus’s chocolate started to drip, and Veronica laughed that he wasn’t eating it fast enough. And then she froze a drop from his cone, midair.”

  “With magic?”

  “Yep. She was twelve at the time and hadn’t yet developed her loathing for the practice of magic. Instead, she laughed and laughed as this bead of chocolate floated between the bottom of his cone and the ground.”

  Emerson could still remember the moment. The carefree laughter between all three of them as they sat there on a picnic bench beside the barn. She saw the fireflies that winked in the night air and felt the light summer breeze that floated over her skin.

  “Your parents didn’t mind you practicing magic where someone might see?”

  “There are quite a few practicing witches in this area, so there wasn’t the need for such secrecy. And we’ve always been careful. I didn’t fully understand it when I was younger, but my mother did. She encouraged us to practice in safe spaces, as she called them, and know when it wasn’t appropriate to let loose with our gifts.”

  Drake nodded, his voice gentle when he spoke. “It sounds like a nice memory.”

  “It gets better.” She smiled and shifted in her seat so she could look at him more closely. “So there’s this drop of chocolate hovering there and we’re pointing and laughing at it and, out of nowhere, I got the urge to melt it.”

  “Your talent manifested itself that early?”

  “Yep. I felt the fire come right out of my stomach and course through my body. For the briefest moment I thought I’d eaten too much and was going to be sick, but then it just…happened.”

  “Fire?”

  “A small stream of it. More than enough to melt the cold chocolate.”

  “What did Magnus and Veronica do?”

  “They were surprised at first. Veronica hadn’t had her abilities for very long and she was still learning the ins and outs. She certainly hadn’t had any indication of what she could do at eight.”

  “But you did.”

  “Yep. So after we all stared at the chocolate drip on the ground, we got over it and went back to laughing and carrying on. And Veronica and I spent the rest of the time trying to freeze and melt each other’s ice cream.”

  “What about Magnus?”

  “He just sat and watched and ate the rest of his cone.”

  Magnus could still feel the heat washing over his shoulders as he pouted on the stiff wooden bench. The park had been in his mind’s eye as he ported out of the Warriors’ house and he’d been sitting there for hours.

  He knew his sister had power. He’d always known it. But what she’d wielded tonight?

  It was awesome.

  It was also some scary shit that his little sister could fry things with her fingers.

  She’d always been gifted. From a very early age they’d all intuitively understood that Emerson was different. But this? This was off the charts.

  How hadn’t he realized it before?

  Hell, if he’d known she had this much power, maybe he could have avoided his stupid deal with Eris altogether. Emerson could have taught him how to do what she did. He’d be powerful in his own right.

  The snake curled over his back, the continued healing ensuring it stayed in constant motion. The unceasing movement was also a reminder of exactly what he’d agreed to when he’d thrown his lot in with Eris.

  Although it had seemed like an outrageously good idea at the time, he’d spent the ensuing months trying to remember what he’d hoped to gain. Buyer’s remorse? Or just a complete inability to remember why it had seemed like such a good idea at the time?

  He knew he’d made an easy mark of himself, hanging with a group of people he had no business knowing. It was always easy to find the drug dealers in a city and the gang that ran Budapest had been no different. He’d found them within days of arriving in the city and had started with a few odd jobs, working his way up.

  He’d intended only to drift for a while. Make a bit of money and get his life back in order. More than three years later he’d still been there, managing one of the city’s largest networks.

  And then everything had changed the night Eris showed up.

  Long and lean, she wore a leather halter top that showed off a spectacular pair of breasts and leather pants sculpted to fit her ass.

  He’d been hooked, as had the rest of them.

  She was mesmerizing and it wasn’t just her outrageous body.

  They’d gotten in a huge
shipment and were divvying it up for selling. Eris had just appeared in the flop where they were hiding, cutting up the stash.

  Without anyone realizing why or how, she just took over.

  Three months later she’d turned him into this.

  The air grew heavy without even a hint of a warning, and then she was sitting next to him, her nails digging into his thigh. The overwhelming urge to try and outrun her filled his muscles, but he sat still.

  Unmoving.

  Which was more than he could say for the fucking snake on his shoulders. Damn it, but the thing just would not stop moving. Endlessly moving, never stopping.

  “So, Chuckles. Miss me?”

  “I always miss you.”

  “You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

  He opted to stay silent. Eris knew everything—somewhere deep inside he’d known it all along—and any lies he told to avoid detection would only be revisited back upon him.

  “You’ve had quite a run the last twenty-four hours. Attacking your sister. Stealing my personal property. Invading the Warriors’ home.”

  “I—”

  She cut him off with a finger to the lips. “Save it.”

  Fine. If that’s how she wanted to play it, he’d keep his mouth shut and take his lumps.

  “Do you know why I picked you? Why you were the one, out of all those fuckwits in Budapest, who I decided to turn?”

  He didn’t know the answer, but now that he had an opportunity to find out, he was strangely curious. Sitting up taller, he shook his head. “No.”

  “Because you’ve got something inside of you, Magnus. Something untapped. You’ve got potential.”

  “Is there a reason I feel like Marlon Brando right now? Am I a contender or something?”

  The slap cracked across his face before he could even gather himself. “Do you think I have any interest in surrounding myself with inept idiots?”

  “Of course not.”

  “They why do you insist on acting like one?”

  “I’m not—”

  “Look. I’m not interested in excuses. Nor do I care about what came before. Your sister’s boyfriend took something from me. And after you left my diary out in plain sight, he took something else. Now you’re going to help me get both of them back.”

  “You think I don’t want to get that diary back? That’s why I went over there in the first place.”

  “Like you could battle a house full of Warriors who have numbers and familiar surroundings on their side.”

  He rolled his shoulders. “The snake gives me an advantage.”

  “Yes, it does, but it doesn’t give you that big an advantage. You played this one for shit.”

  “You think I don’t know that? You don’t think if I could go back and change it, I would?”

  “I’ve invested too much in you to give up yet. So I’m going to give you another chance.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Emerson rolled over into a very large, very broad chest and couldn’t stop the small sigh that welled up in her throat. Her gaze traveled down over the washboard abs and the morning erection that tented his fitted briefs and felt an answering curl in her belly.

  Good Lord, he was magnificent.

  On the outside as well as in.

  Their conversation the night before replayed in her mind. Her heart gave a little tug as she remembered the sweet expression on his face when he asked her what flavor ice cream she liked. There was a beautiful simplicity about him. Like he knew exactly who he was, no matter what happened to the world around him.

  Drake shifted again, throwing an arm over his head, unaware of her scrutiny as he slept. They’d made it to the cabin a little after midnight, dragged themselves into the bedroom and fallen facedown in the sleep of the dead. Based on the angle of the sun streaming in through the window, it had to be almost noon.

  She pushed at him slightly as her body hung perilously close to the edge of the bed, but he only grunted, never moving from where he lay sprawled on his back.

  Since she made it a policy to never stay through the night, waking up next to him was an entirely new experience. Somehow she’d just never envisioned him as a bed hog.

  Or as a furnace.

  The covers were kicked down around their feet and she didn’t even miss them, he was putting off so much body heat. Of course, waking up next to such a delicious man didn’t exactly leave a woman feeling cold and lonely.

  Emerson let out a small squeak as Drake opened one lazy eye to stare at her. “I can hear your thoughts.”

  Feigning a level of disdain she didn’t truly feel, she stared down her nose at him. “I’m quite sure that’s impossible.”

  “No, not really.” His groggy, sleep-filled voice was extra sexy as he scooted over to give her more room.

  “Okay, Mr. Know-it-all, what am I thinking?”

  He lifted a heavy arm to count off on his fingers. “I hog the bed, we slept in too late and I’ve got quite the morning package, which you’d like to unwrap as soon as humanly possible.”

  “Drake!” She leaped off the bed like a cat who’d been thrown in a tub. “I most certainly did not think those things.”

  “Did too.” His laugh was low and lazy as he grabbed a pillow and stuffed it against the headboard. Propping those impressive arms behind his head, he added, “Come on back and I’ll show you just how right you are.”

  “You’re a horny bastard in the morning.”

  “I’m a horny bastard all the time.” His grin turned positively wicked and those genie’s eyes flashed with promise. “This morning I’m just a man who knows how to take advantage of opportunity.”

  Recognizing a losing battle—and the increasing realization that she wanted to climb straight back into bed—she left the room and headed for the small bag Callie had packed for her, which she’d left in the bathroom. After digging out a toothbrush and toothpaste, she hollered back in his direction, “You’re right about one thing. It is late.”

  If he responded, she didn’t hear anything over the running water. It was only when she lifted her head to look in the mirror that she realized he stood behind her. “Drake! You scared me.”

  With one hand he pulled her close, his mouth unerringly covering her toothpaste-stained lips while with the other he flipped on the taps in the shower. “What are you doing?” she mumbled against his mouth, even as she felt her knees going weak at the sensual assault of his lips.

  “Multitasking.”

  “Multi—” The words died out as his tongue swept the seam of her lips, his teeth following with a playful nip.

  “I’m saving all that time we don’t have,” he whispered back before pulling her fully into his arms. “And letting you unwrap my package.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Finley mentally tallied up the number of meetings she’d missed over the last several days and tried not to wince at the image of her career flushing down the toilet. Every day she spent out of the office and away from her cases was another day lost to someone else in the DA’s office.

  “You doing okay this morning?” Grey padded from her spare bedroom into her kitchen and headed straight for the mug she’d set out next to the coffeepot.

  “Fine.” She tried to keep the amusement out of her voice but knew she hadn’t succeeded when he turned from the pot to give her a look.

  “What?”

  “I just never expected to see you in sweatpants and a T-shirt.”

  “I don’t sleep in a suit, Finley.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  “Actually, I sleep naked. I just put this on before coming into your kitchen.”

  The lethal grin and suggestive words hit her somewhere in the vicinity of her panties. She struggled for something to say and then shut her mouth completely, opting for a sip of coffee instead.

  Grey took the bar stool opposite her and sat down. “So really. How are you doing today?”

  “You mean besides the great colossal mess
my job has become?”

  “Look, I’ve told you. We’ll get this figured out and you can go back to your life. I talked to Drake last night. He and Emerson are trying a few things to dig deeper into Eris’s plans through her brother.”

  “It’s not that simple. Getting back to my life.”

  “Sure it is.”

  “No, Grey, it’s not.” Finley wasn’t sure why she was so upset, but the anger she’d held back over the last few days burst forth. She was grateful for his protection, but the heavy-handed routine had to stop.

  “Most of us aren’t freaking gods who can come and go as they please, live in crazy huge mansions and forget about making a living. I’m a grown woman with a life and a career and people who care about me.” Which was only a small lie. She had people who wondered about her, but cared?

  Worried?

  That might be a stretch.

  “I make a living.”

  “No, you have a hobby,” she shot back.

  “Actually, I do work. I’d never have taken the gig if I was supposed to sit around on my ass.”

  “And what, exactly, is your gig?”

  “We’ll get to that. First, I have to say you’ve asked a surprising lack of questions for a lawyer.”

  Grey’s gaze washed over her, the move a combination of sexy appreciation and an acknowledgment she had an actual brain in her head. Finley couldn’t quite shake the warmth that unfurled in her bloodstream that had nothing to with the hot coffee she was currently gulping like a lifeline.

  “I learned in law school not to ask questions I don’t want the answers to. Besides, I did a fair amount of digging on you before this all started.”

  “You did?” It was his turn to be amused and she could hear the smile that tinged the edges of his deep voice.

  “I did. The complete and absolute lack of information in any and all city systems got me curious, so I started observing.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “A man who puts his waitresses and busboys through college. Pays for day care for their kids so they can work. Ensures they’ve got transportation when they get off shift at four a.m.”

  A small sweep of red crept up his neck at her assessment.

  Score!