Bounty Hunters and Black Magic

by Kristen Banet

  They were nearly at the table when the blond stood up, smiling at her. It was a small, mysterious little smile. Up close, she could see that his eyes were blue like sapphires, and glittered just like when they caught the light.

  “I’m Easton.” He bowed to her. “This is Remy.” He motioned to the one with orange eyes, who hadn’t moved.

  Remy looked her over, making his intentions clear. There was a heat to the stare that made her feel desirable and even more nervous. He used a foot to pull a chair out from the table, then flicked his gaze down to it then back to her. He gave her a taunting smirk that made his harsh face more attractive by the second. She slid into the chair, liking his roguishness. He was the furthest thing from William, who had always been a perfect gentleman, she could get. The furthest thing she could get from any man in her life, actually.

  “What are you boys doing in my town?” she asked. “Liking Redstone so far?”

  “We’ve never been through, but it seems like a nice place. This might be the only Supe-exclusive town we’ve ever come through.” Easton pulled out a seat for Cassi and she sat down, smiling brightly at the blond like he’d given her jewels, which he ignored. He sat down last, taking a swallow of his drink before continuing. “We’re just a couple of roamers. We normally stay more north of this area, but some business brought us south.”

  “Well, I hope you enjoy your time here. We see a lot of people passing through—interesting ones.”

  “I bet you do,” the other said, nearly like a growl. She glanced at him, pulling her eyes off the blond. Remy was leaning back in his seat, his eyes locked on hers. “Would you like to dance, witch?”

  “Adalyn,” she told him. At her name, they seemed to perk up just a little. Remy’s eyes glittered like fire, heating up.“My apologies, I should have introduced myself.”

  “Well, that’s all right. You’re probably used to everyone knowing everyone around here.” He stood up, offering her a hand. “Come on. We can leave these two to whatever they plan.”

  She took his hand and went to the dance floor with him. A slow song came on and she glanced at Valen, who wore a sly grin. He knew what she was planning, and knowing him, he was rooting her on. Next to him, Maxwell slammed his glass down to get the big man’s attention.

  She looked away and up into the orange eyes as Remy’s large hand went to her lower back. He was an okay dancer, but she wasn’t interested in his dancing skills. She stepped closer to remove the space between them, which encouraged him to hold her a bit tighter, a bit more possessively.

  “He’s not going to get with your friend,” he whispered to her, leaning down to say it in her ear. He wasn’t more then five or six inches taller than her five foot five, she guessed—a bit on the short side compared to other male Supes. He made up for it with how wide his shoulders were. Those were well built and strong underneath her hands.

  “Why’s that?” she asked, curious to why Cassi wasn’t going to get her mark. Cassi never missed a mark.

  “He doesn’t like immortals.”

  Yeah, that would do it. If a guy wasn’t into vampires, Cassi surely wasn’t going to change his mind. She felt a small pang of sympathy for the girl, seeing her still flirt with Easton, who watched her and Remy dancing.

  “Poor girl. She really likes him. He’s got that model sort of look. He’d make a lot of money back East with that sort of face.” She said it absentmindedly, practically forgetting that she was supposed to be trying to have sex with her current dance partner, not the haunting sapphire eyes across the bar.

  “And me?” he asked, still smiling as if she hadn’t just complimented his friend.

  “You seem dangerous, and that’s exactly why I’m dancing with you,” she admitted, a small smile taking over her face.

  They kept dancing as he chuckled at her response, the heat building between them. She’d missed this. She missed dancing with a man with strong hands and a solid lead. He touched her like he owned her, every time letting his hand linger longer than it was supposed to. It was also possessive, grabbing just a little too hard.

  Adalyn was already nearly wet from it. She watched his nostrils flare for a moment when they were pressed together.

  “Tell me…” He led her through a spin then yanked her close again, hard enough that she gasped airily and a little too girly. “Can I go home with you tonight?”

  “A little forward, aren’t you?” She blinked in surprise. Never had a man propositioned her so quickly.

  I look good, but I don’t look that good.

  Another part of her was saying that yeah, she did look that good. She put a lot of time into her look just for this reason.

  “I have a feeling you like it,” he said with a growl and a grin. He had a wonderful smile, one that made her melt.

  “Maybe,” she whispered, their faces too close together. He smelled earthy, and it reminded her of her favorite smell, the wilds and wolves. Such a wonderful smell.

  She was going home with this man, certainly. She was going to make him work a little harder for it, but she’d been without a man for far too long, and she loved that he was so unlike other men in the town, men she saw all the time, and knew her a little too well.

  A hand grabbed her and pulled her back from Remy. Spinning, she saw Maxwell glaring over her at the unknown. The music shifted into something else at the same time, ending the slow song well before it was over, meaning Valen was in on this.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered, glancing down to meet her glare. She resisted the urge to spit on his face.

  “You are not my husband or my guardian, Maxwell Donahue. I’m going to go flirt-”

  “You are not going to flirt with the bounty hunters who are here looking for you,” he whispered angrily in her ear, yanking her hard against his body. It was protective and a bit angry, like it always was with him. She wished she’d brought her gun, just to threaten him. “Under no circumstances am I going to let that happen.”

  Oh. Fuck me.

  That knocked her right out of her drunken haze for a moment. She looked back at Remy, who was glaring at Donahue, his nostrils flaring. Smoke came out of them, like it did from Dark Prince on occasion.

  And it smelled like sulfur, like it did with Dark Prince. He was Hell-Touched. Remy with the orange eyes was a Hell-Touched bounty hunter looking for her.

  “I should go,” she mumbled, stepping away from both men.

  “I’ll walk you home,” the marshal said, moving her arm to go in his. She didn’t even fight it, realizing she had bigger problems. “And explain why I’m here.”

  “Please.” Her night was officially ruined. The man she had wanted to fuck was there looking for her, which wasn’t hard. Everyone in the town knew who she was. She didn’t look back at Remy or spare a glance at Easton as she walked quickly out of the saloon. They knew exactly who she was. What bothered her was that she didn’t know why they were looking for her and what their intentions were.

  With a Hell-Touched, the likelihood they had good intentions was very small. And she nearly had taken said Hell-Touched home.

  Added to all of that, she was now stuck with Maxwell Donahue, glued to her side for the walk home and he seemed to have the answers she needed. Joy.

  When they got outside and began walking back to her property, she stumbled, and he held her up. “I had too much to drink, it seems,” she said, groaning. “Talk, Maxwell. I’m obviously out of the loop.”

  “They are looking for you because you so wonderfully announced that you took out a bounty they were after. What in the gods’ names were you thinking, Adalyn?”

  “I was thinking I needed to test a spell—but how did they get here so fast? I said that in Fort Lackey, and only got back myself last night. How did you get here so fast?”

  “They rode in at the same time as I did. They were near Fort Lackey and rode hard, curious as to how their mark got taken out from underneath their nose. Me…” He leaned down, holding her close to his side. “I saw the site
where you banished him, probably only half a day after you did it, then headed straight here, since I was also tracking those demons. You and I are going to have a long talk.”

  Damn it.

  She let him into her house when they arrived and quietly went to her kitchen, getting a glass of water for each of them. She watched Maxwell look at pictures on the wall. They were expensive to get, but every time a cameraman came through Redstone, she forced William to sit down with her. Sometimes, they got friends involved. The marshal was even in one or two of them.

  “Do the demons know where I am?” she asked, falling into a chair at her kitchen table. Shit. This was all sorts of bad. She shouldn’t have let her temper get the better of her with that banker. She had never intended to give away her name, for this exact reason. Word in the West spread like wildfire, and a witch like Adalyn claiming a bounty? That was news, especially since it was her.

  “Not yet, I bet, but they will soon enough. Damn it, Adalyn. I’ve been trusting Redstone to run itself for a little while. You all haven’t even gotten a new sheriff in town and you’re out banishing demons now? How long has this been going on? Gods, I know you have no one looking out for you right now, and I’m willing-”

  “You. Are. Not. My. Husband.” She growled out every word. “And he was the first one. The demon. Whatever his name was. Larz. I only wanted to test a spell, that’s all.”

  “Yes. The spell. I could feel the magic you did there. I knew it was yours immediately. What I don’t know is how you pulled off a banishing without anyone there to assist you. Banishing requires a full circle.”

  She kept her mouth shut at that. Don’t say black magic, Adalyn Lovett, or he will never leave Redstone, because he’ll think you need someone looking out for you. Next thing you’ll know, there will be proposals because he thinks it’ll be necessary for propriety, and that’s not in the plan. Plus, who would ever marry Maxwell Donahue?

  “Not going to admit to anything? No one helped you, but I can’t remember anything about a solo spell to banish and I’m thoroughly trained in banishing for my job. You’ve left me a bit professionally curious on this.” Maxwell sat down at that, glaring at her.

  She wasn’t willing to satisfy his curiosity. If he hadn’t figured out she used black magic to do it, she wasn’t going to tell him. Warlocks and witches were the exact same thing, just a different word for the men and women. She and the marshal had once had a lot in common. They would pore over spells while William listened in, smiling at them like it was a normal Sunday afternoon, even though they were talking about the spells that could blow up the barn, or even half the town. Spells that could grow boils or cure them, depending a simple pronunciation. Things of that nature.

  She lived in a world where that friendship ended when he hadn’t come to aid Redstone when Beelzebub showed up. He obviously lived in the same one, based on the hard look on his face.

  “Why are the bounty hunters here? Tell me more about them.”

  “Of course you would change the subject.” He snorted, looking away for a moment. “Remy Coldwell and Easton Black. They’re unknowns to the MD. No one knows exactly what they are or wants to talk about it. I know they are crossbreeds of some sort, but I’ve never been able to identify what sort of half-breeds. The Society of Magic doesn’t know either. They’ve never heard of Remy’s attributes before, not in any human forms, anyway. I’ve been hearing of them for more than a few years from marshals in the northern regions.”

  He rambled on about the bounty hunters and she just watched, some of it going over her head because she was just too drunk to take it all in. She finished her water and rubbed her forehead.

  “You brought this on yourself. They’re here to scope out a professional rival. They’re known for killing those so they don’t have competition. Plus, you took a two hundred dollar bounty out from underneath their noses.”

  “One hundred,” she corrected petulantly. “The damned bank the funder used would only pay me half for not having a body. All the hard work and only half the pay.”

  She heard him take a long breath and tried not to smile. She was making him upset, and actually felt a bit better for it.

  “I’m here to make sure they don’t kill you. As long as I’m in town, they won’t. They aren’t stupid. And then there’s the demons. Who knows how bad this is going to get?”

  “Well, you can leave town and take them with you. How about that? Arrest them for killing other people or something. Demons and bounty hunters. Take ‘em.” Get them out of my hair, like a good little marshal, and then don’t come back. I can’t have you here in my business.

  “We only have rumors, not evidence, on the bounty hunters,” he explained. “So I can’t just arrest them and move on or I would. The demons, I need a plan, and fast, to deal with them.”

  Of course he would. Move on, that was. He was good at up and leaving, if he was even around at all.

  “I thought you said you were riding out tomorrow.” She hadn’t forgotten. She had planned to ignore him the next morning and hope he left without bothering her.

  “I lied. I’ll be staying in one of your guest rooms until this is cleared up.” He stood up, finishing the water, then left the room. She didn’t bother telling him that he couldn’t or that it wasn’t clean. She learned a long time ago that telling Maxwell Donahue to do anything like that was a waste of time. Once he focused on a case, he was relentless.

  Plus, the entire damn town would be on his side anyway, if he told them what was going on.

  She was horny and mad, alone in the house with a man she hated.

  Perfect. Great way to start out this new chapter of my life.

  5

  Maxwell

  The most infuriating woman Maxwell had ever met. That was Adalyn Lovett. Infuriating, aggravating, wild, and…

  Stunning.

  A witch in her prime, refusing to bow down for anything less than a tornado. Even then, she would curse at it as she found shelter.

  He groaned, falling to the chair at the desk in the guest room. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out his case files. He’d been keeping them on him when he went out to investigate the disappearance of one of the Anzu Gang: six demons that still followed the bigger, badder demon, Anzu, who was banished a long time ago.

  Well, no one ever said demons were very original.

  One had wandered off without telling his friends. Maxwell had planned to pick him off, but ran into a spot of magic where a demon should have been. It had reeked of Addy’s magic, the wild lightning she left in the air when she did a large spell. Her wild magic always felt like a thunderstorm. It had reminded him that he had left things very unresolved in Redstone and offered him an opportunity to come back and see her.

  And she hadn’t been happy to see him.

  The sex kitten act had hit him in a way he hadn’t wanted it to, but that was clearly her intention. A year, and he’d been hoping to forget the last mistake he’d made that caused him to disappear from the town like his ass was on fire. Kissing a crying widow the night after the funeral was a terrible idea. She’d been drunk, a grief-stricken mess, and he’d been right there with her. She’d slapped him for it when she came to her senses, which he hadn’t blamed her for, not one bit. He apologized for it and so many other things, then ran for the door.

  Good job, dick. Real good idea, that one. Because that’s how you needed to fuck up one of the last friendships you had, trying to sleep with one after the other died.

  He’d regretted it every day since.

  Oh, but he wanted to do it again, even with her anger there. He’d wanted Adalyn Lovett for years, even though she’d been a happily married woman.

  First, he needed to handle the demons and bounty hunters. He’d been over-exaggerating the rumors of Easton and Remy. They only had one confirmed kill of another bounty hunter, who had tried to kill them for the cash they had just earned. It had been years ago, at that, but they had a reputation now, and he wanted her far awa
y from them. They might not have been the brutal killers he tried to make them out to be, but they were still bounty hunters, and those were only a step away from bandits and outlaws.

  He couldn’t stand seeing her dance like that with one of them. Not that he had a problem with witch sexuality. He was a warlock. He knew better than most that witches didn’t enjoy or want to live like society told women they should. Witches naturally were free and enjoyed themselves. Plus, being a wild magic witch, Addy was even more inclined to relishing in the pleasures of the flesh.

  He groaned harder, leaning over his notes. Easton and Remy weren’t that much of a problem, not really. He needed to keep her safe from the other half of the issue. The Anzu Gang wasn’t going to appreciate her tricking and killing off the youngest, stupidest one of the group. They weren’t the most dangerous gang of demons out there, but they were demons, and there were six of them.

  No. Five. She banished that one. Somehow. He wasn’t sure how yet.

  That brought him to another thought. He pulled out a blank sheet of paper, a quill, and a jar of ink. He wrote a quick note, describing what he knew happened at that tree that night. He folded it and slid it into a free envelope. Then he whispered an incantation and the letter began to blaze in an eerie green, burning up until it was nothing but ash. It was a small surge, but he still relished the rush of power. He didn’t get the same sexual high he knew Adalyn did, but he still felt more alive after using a spell, like any witch or warlock.

  With that sent, he stood up and began whispering another incantation, calling magic to ward the property from those who might do her harm. She had never been one to ward her home, thinking it was rude in a town full of Supes. She wouldn’t notice them. They would be invisible to anyone they didn’t affect. He couldn’t do some things, like the shifters or the wereanimals, since they were her neighbors, friends, and clients, but he could deal with some real issues, like Hell-Touched—which covered everything from demons to someone who made a pact with a demon. Like Remy Coldwell, who was obviously Hell-Touched. Gave himself away with the smoke and sulfur act in the saloon, even if it didn’t help Maxwell put together what the man was.