Captivating the Witch

by Michele Hauf

“Do demons possess a form of bewitchment?”

  He quirked an odd look on her. “Not that I know of. You feeling bewitched, little witch?”

  She nodded and then caught herself. “Course not.” She took another sip of wine. “Oh, goddess, yes. I’m not much for avoiding the truth. There’s something so compelling about you.”

  “It’s your voracious need to learn what I am, to peel back my skin and study my innards.”

  “Oh, I don’t do innards. Can’t even manage most spells that require viscera or organs. Gross. It’s your outsides and what’s in here that interest me most.” She tapped his temple below the horn nub. “Can I see your horns? They must extend out, yes?”

  “They do, and I will not bring them out.”

  “A sex thing?”

  “No, more like I’m not willing to display myself like that for you to preen over. Besides, they react more with my anger than anything.”

  “Oh, well, then I’m all for keeping you happy. But you did say something about having your horns touched making you horny.”

  “Tamatha, I can handle the questions. Even flirtation. But whether or not you realize it, your fascination is ribald.”

  “Really? What if it’s genuine curiosity?”

  He clasped her hand and squeezed it. “I’m trying not to push you down and kiss you right now. Is your intent to spoil my focus?”

  Yes, yes and yes! “Wouldn’t want to unsettle you.”

  “Now you’re teasing.”

  “I won’t deny that. What would you say to my research involving trying some spells on you?”

  “No more binding. That hurt like hell. Much worse than lightning stinging in my veins.”

  “I promise I won’t use such a dangerous spell again. Nor would I try to cast you out or eviscerate you.”

  “I appreciate your thoughtfulness. So I must subject myself to lab experiments now?”

  “Would you?” she eagerly asked. “I might like to try a spell or two to connect with the sigils on your skin. See if I can divine—”

  “You are entirely too excited about stuff you should not be.”

  Her lips formed a moue.

  And he noticed her waning enthusiasm. “But I like that about you. You are uncommon. And I suppose being the most powerful witch in the city, I should expect as much from you. Always eager to learn and try new things?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I can’t agree to be your lab rat. I admit, I’m protective of myself. Don’t want anyone messing around...inside me, with magic or otherwise. But I will consider things not requiring evisceration if you give me some time to...”

  “Trust me?”

  He nodded. “Exactly. And now it’s my turn to do a little research.” He tugged her hand, bringing her closer to him, and nudged his nose against her neck. “Lemons. Delicious.”

  A pleasurable shiver traced her skin as his explorations moved him slowly along her neck and up toward her ear, where he kissed the lobe, then nibbled it softly. She clasped his hand tighter, wishing he were not wearing the half glove but knowing it was for her protection. His warm fingers twined within hers, and that was enough.

  “Have you any witch marks?” he said after a kiss to the underside of her jaw.

  “Why? Are you suddenly on a hunt?”

  “No, just curious. You got to ask your questions, so I thought it fair to ask a few myself. Let me take a closer look at this tattoo on your arm.” He slid down her dress sleeve, exposing her shoulder and bra strap, and traced the tattoo with a finger. “Looks like a rose, but bell-shaped.”

  “You got it on your first guess.” His touch rubbed against her skin. All parts of her softened, luxuriating in the sensation. Tamatha wanted to fall forward, crushing her breasts against his chest, but she cautioned her eager need for the sensual connection. “That’s the Bellerose family crest.”

  “Is it a magical tattoo?”

  “No, just pretty.”

  “What do the words mean? Is it a spell?”

  “Amor Modum Saepe. It’s Latin for ‘love often.’ It’s the family motto.” But she wouldn’t tell him the unspoken part. No man deserved such cruel knowledge of his future.

  “So have you loved often?”

  “I’ve loved my fair share for a woman who has been on this earth for nearly a century. What about you?”

  He shrugged and leaned back against the sofa. She sensed she was losing him to his intense need to keep his personal stuff private.

  So she quickly said, “And so you know, I’ve not any witch marks. At least, not that I’ve seen. Though when I was little I wanted to have a beauty mark at the corner of my mouth like a glamorous movie star. I used to put a dab of chocolate there after lunch.”

  He leaned closer again, his eyes dancing over her mouth. “Too bad you don’t still do that. I’d love to lick it off.”

  He kissed her and Tamatha sighed into him. The man had switched from business to pleasure and she wasn’t going to point that out to him.

  The kiss wasn’t like most. It wasn’t greedy. It didn’t try to command. Instead, it was more tentative and perhaps a little cautious. Even when he traced her teeth with his tongue and pressed a hand across her back to draw her closer, she felt he wasn’t quite relaxing into her. The man had a healthy fear of witches. So perhaps kissing her was more daring than satisfying.

  Still, his mouth on hers felt marvelous. And she could allow him the slow exploration because that would only grow the trust between them. Her fingers glided along his neck and she felt the feather sigil flutter. As if a bird beneath her touch, ready to take flight. The energy was incredible, the power. And yet it never took off. And she remembered his mention of being drained from the shifting.

  Suddenly his mouth left hers, and Ed stood.

  “Put your shoes on.” He tugged her up from the couch and waited for her to slip into her shoes, then pulled her down the hallway. “It’s stopped raining. Let’s go to the park.”

  “Why? We were doing fine...”

  “Because if we’re out in public then I won’t be able to ravage you.”

  She tugged him to a stop at the front door.

  Ed bowed to study her face. “You’re thinking about getting ravaged, aren’t you?”

  She nodded and her smile burst.

  He slid his hands up her arms and pinned her wrists above her head. He kissed her there against the wall and she felt his erection nudge her hip. And then he pulled her down the stairs and into the safety of the public courtyard.

  He wanted her. And she wanted him. But he was ever cautious.

  She couldn’t think of a single reason why someone would fear her so much. “I thought we were going out?”

  “We were—are. I need to ask you something but I’m not sure how.”

  “It must be really bad if you can’t bring yourself to ask me. Don’t you think I’m a big enough girl to handle it?”

  “I think you’re a powerful witch who might have the answers I require. And I also think you need to trust me more before that happens. And I need to trust you.”

  Tamatha sighed. “Fine. But I’m not a very patient woman. I’ll keep bugging you about this. And you’ve no one to blame but yourself. You did bring it up.”

  “That I did. I’ll just have to distract you.” The phone in his pocket rang and he kissed her instead of answering it. Points for ignoring the technology.

  But after five rings, a pause and a renewed set of rings, she pulled from the kiss. “Answer it.”

  “It’s one of my...” He checked the phone and smirked.

  “Minions?” she provided. “You know how weird that is, to lay claim to having minions?”

  “I prefer to call them field assistants.”

  “I distinctly heard you
call them minions when I was at your office.”

  “Fine. I am Edamite Thrash, the evil overlord of the demon sect in Paris. Are you happy?” He turned from her to talk to the caller.

  “Edamite Thrash?” she whispered. That was the first time she’d learned his whole name. Well, it didn’t include his middle name, so she still couldn’t control him with a spell. Not that she wanted to. Or needed to.

  The name was indeed of the evil-overlord persuasion. Yikes.

  “I’ve some details regarding an urgent matter I need to attend to,” he said, tucking his phone away.

  “Once again rescued by the phone call,” she said.

  “That’s not fair.”

  “I count three times you’ve been whisked away from kissing me by that blasted thing.”

  “I’m sorry. Evil-overlord stuff.”

  She blew out a breath. That title was not as funny as he apparently had hoped it would sound.

  “To make it up to you I promise if you’ll meet me tomorrow night I’ll turn off my phone.”

  “Can we talk then? Will you reveal the evil overlord’s ultimate plan to take over the world?”

  He smirked. “I should have never said that.”

  “I know you’re kidding.”

  “Do you?” He kissed her on the cheek and then opened the front door of the building. “Tomorrow, then. Thanks for the wine and kisses.”

  “Don’t ever thank me for a kiss,” she said. “Just spending the night missing me will suffice.”

  “I can do that.” He winked and closed the door behind him.

  And Tamatha blew out a breath. “I don’t know what is up with him. He’s cold and then hot for me, and then right back to business. Maybe I should look into a love spell? At least then I could have him all to myself for more than an hour here and there.”

  Edamite Thrash?

  She sucked in her lower lip. She’d have to look up that name at work tomorrow. Just for research’s sake. Not because she suspected he was the evil overlord he jokingly claimed to be.

  On the other hand, she didn’t know him at all.

  Chapter 7

  After cleaning the knife Inego had found at the cemetery and applying a bit of demonic magic to the blade to lift the engraving, the sigil was then easily matched in a database Ed kept on the local demon denizens. It was Laurent’s Libre denizen, and the second victim had been a friend of Laurent’s whom Ed knew, but not well. That was why the sigil had seemed familiar to him.

  Pacing beside his desk as he racked his brain on what to do next, he suddenly noticed...something. Like a darkness humming above his head, yet it wasn’t something he could see, only feel. It was odd, and it lingered.

  He stretched his arm up and tapped at the air. He didn’t feel anything tangible, but instinctively it felt intrusive.

  “Dark magic? I thought she’d cleansed this office?”

  He cast a glance toward the genie bottle displayed on his wall. That thing was always lit from within, and at times it would roil with an angry redness that wanted out. He’d never let the genie out, no matter the three wishes he should earn. Because after a man had been granted those wishes? The genie was granted freedom.

  The city of Paris would never be prepared for the wrath of a genie who had been contained within a tiny bottle for millennia.

  Blowing out a breath and shaking his head, he dismissed the odd feeling as angry genie vibes. Or it could be nerves after everything that had happened lately. A demon had a right to be on edge after the things he’d seen in the cemetery.

  “Zombie freakin’ witches. Whoda thought?”

  He couldn’t erase the memory of watching Laurent being torn asunder. Had the same happened to the demon who had owned the bowie knife?

  The Libre denizen traced back centuries, which was how Ed knew Laurent. Their respective grandfathers had founded the denizen together, choosing the name Libre, which meant free, to signify their escape from the domination of their witchy owners who had originally summoned them to this realm. So the sigil on the knife had also been Ed’s grandfather’s sigil. And while Laurent currently oversaw the Libre denizen—or had when he’d been alive—Ed had never any desire to join them. He stood on his own. No one told him what to do.

  Were the witches in the cemetery going after the demons in one particular denizen? He had no idea if these were the first two deaths or if others had occurred. He’d send Inego out to locate the acting leader of Libre, to ensure all other members were accounted for. It was the only lead he had.

  It was time to get over his mistrust for witches and tell Tamatha what he knew. With the access she had to the Archives, perhaps she could fill in some of the missing spaces for him. Such as more information about Les Douze. What were they about? And were they actually dead or just really old and decrepit?

  “No, have to be dead.”

  He typed Les Douze into the browser search and it brought up a paragraph he’d read earlier detailing the mass burning of a dozen witches in the Place de Grève in the eighteenth century. The article didn’t detail their crimes, save only that a group of men and women had accused the witches of heinous occult activity.

  Of course, hundreds of years ago, a woman merely had to look at a man wrong or even refuse his vulgar advances and he’d accuse her of witchcraft. True witches had managed to avoid capture and ultimately a hideous death. Though, not all. Ed knew well a good fear of a specific breed could cling to a man’s psyche even after he met one who he felt should not be threatening.

  Tamatha could be threatening. She was very powerful, and he had the memory of the binding to prove it. But he didn’t fear her. Not physically. Emotionally? Hell, he didn’t want to answer that one right now. But he did know she could sense his reluctance to simply relax and trust her.

  He was stronger than that. He’d once faced Himself and defeated a nasty crew of wraith demons. He wasn’t going to let one little witch make him shiver.

  He tapped the computer screen. One of the accuser’s names was listed. LaVolliere. He had the same surname as Laurent. A relative? But Laurent was demon. Demons weren’t big on surnames or carrying them through the generations. Ed had always assumed it was a name Laurent had taken to make him fit in with humans.

  And besides the surname, mortal men had accused Les Douze. Maybe. That was according to reports, which had been detailed by a human. Of course, a human would only assume the accusers had also been human. Demons were once expected to appear as creatures, hideous and deformed with tails and hooves.

  Had demons in corporeal form accused the witches? It would serve adequate reason for those things in the cemetery to want revenge against their accusers. But why now after so many centuries? And how had they managed to rise from the grave to achieve such revenge?

  He was missing something. He needed to clear his mind and think about other things. Only then would his distraction allow focus to the fore.

  He picked up the phone and dialed Tamatha. With luck, she would forgive his hasty retreat last night and meet him for dinner. And he’d show her how relaxed and trusting he could be in her company. He could get lost in her eyes. The best distraction he could imagine.

  * * *

  “That place salts even the desserts,” Ed offered as he strolled arm in arm with Tamatha down a narrow street in the 1st arrondissement. He’d asked for her recommendation for a restaurant but she hadn’t any in mind. He wasn’t hungry and neither did she seem to be in a rush to eat. And walking closely as twilight settled the sky in violets and pinks was some kind of all right.

  “The new park layout is pretty,” she commented and veered down the narrow, cobblestoned aisle leading toward the Bourse de Commerce, the old Commerce Exchange, which now housed the Paris Chamber of Commerce. “Let’s check it out.”

  They filed around the domed
structure, past the Medici column and into the recently remodeled gardens of Les Halles, beneath which stretched a massive shopping complex that offered everything, including lattes, music, movies and high-end diamond watches.

  They strolled across a lawn and Tamatha inhaled the scent of flowers and commented on the green texture of the air. Ed had never considered air to have a texture but he had to admit it did. Clear and crisp and, indeed, green. The water feature dribbled over smooth cement forms and he felt the whole experience surreal. He was holding hands with a pretty woman and talking about the scent of flowers. As if normal humans on a date. As if there was nothing whatsoever odd about him—or her, for that matter—and everything was peachy.

  Maybe it was all romance and roses? This feeling of comfort with a witch was new to him. The difficult part was to not rush away from it. To just enjoy. He liked holding hands with the girl. A pretty woman who had chosen to spend time with him. And he felt a sense of pride that she deemed to walk alongside him and no one else. She could be his girl.

  No, she can’t.

  And that, he realized, wasn’t even a witch thing. It was just that he didn’t know how to do the romance thing, and even if he tried, it could never end happily.

  Enough sappy stuff. He veered toward the cobblestoned street that paralleled the Saint Eustache Church and noticed the farmers market. Some stands appeared to be packing up for the night, but a few were still accepting patrons and serving food. The spicy rich saffron, rosemary and sausage carried on the air and wove it into a fiery, yet enticing texture.

  “Paella,” Ed said and tugged Tamatha along.

  He paid for a huge plate, grabbed two plastic forks, and then they found a spot on a concrete step before the park and shared the meal. A trio of dancers had set up a boom box and were busking for tips with some stunning moves.

  “This is delicious,” Tamatha said, her knee touching his as she sat close. “I’ve never tried it before.”

  “Really? I love this mishmash of rice and sausage and veggies. If I had any cooking skills at all, I’d make it once a week. And this is not salted. I know the guy. He’s got a heart condition, so he watches salt as if he were a demon.”