Goddess bless, I was a mess.
“I’m glad.” He pressed his thumb against my racing pulse. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
“You’re sure rejecting the gift isn’t the same as rejecting you?”
“I’m sure.” He continued his slow caress up the inside of my arm. “How about I remove it while we’re on this case? I can put it back on you, or not, when it’s over. Your choice. No pressure. Take the next several days to decide how you feel about wearing it.” He hesitated. “And if you want to continue to do so.”
Without letting me overthink my decision, he unfastened the bracelet and dropped it into his pocket.
Immediately, my wrist felt naked.
After spending his absence griping about it, picking at it, itching under it, there was no sudden relief.
There was…an emptiness that spread like crackling ice through my chest until my heart stuttered once.
“Are you sure removing the bracelet isn’t the same as you rejecting me?”
“This is not a rejection.” He brought my bare wrist to his mouth, kissed the raw spot, and chills skated up my arm. “This is how I should have done it on Halloween, but I let the idea of spending weeks or months apart excuse me for a selfish act.”
As much as I wanted to blame the sudden flare of separation anxiety setting my pulse hammering on the bracelet, I wasn’t wearing it.
A cold sweat broke down my spine. “Does removing the bracelet cause any side effects?”
Magic could spark allergic reactions, withdrawal, nausea, itchiness, and tons of other fun symptoms.
A troubled line marred his forehead. “Your heart is racing.”
“Yeah.” I pressed a palm to my chest. “It’s going for Olympic gold in there.”
“This shouldn’t be possible,” he murmured, examining me with a deepening frown.
Afraid I might start blubbering at any moment, I pushed out the words. “What?”
“Are you sure your father was a witch?” He leaned closer, breathing me in. “He couldn’t have been…?”
“…a half daemon?” I wanted to laugh. “There’s no way.” I tried to picture it. “I know my grandfather.”
Though my grandmother had never been so much as a whisper in our family. No big surprise there, since my grandfather hadn’t claimed me publicly and never spoke of my father. His son. I wasn’t family to him. I was…a well of potential he was content to dip his hands into when his throat went dry, but that was all.
“I know my mother,” he countered, “and yet, I’m not fae.”
“That’s not…” I got tongue-tied realizing I had mentioned Grandfather. “He would have called my dad an abomination and aborted him for the crime of polluting the purity of the bloodline.” The words tumbled out before I considered my audience. “I didn’t mean… I don’t see you as…” I rubbed a hand over my face like it would help with the verbal diarrhea. “Bloodlines are everything to witches. Most of them are bred for greater power, not made with acts of love. They don’t tolerate difference. Grandfather in particular.”
One of the reasons he kept our relationship secret was my mixed heritage, and that was two pure witch bloodlines.
“A black witch father and a daemon mother would have given your father incredible power.”
The idea I might be even more of an outcast overrode my earlier panic and left me numb to the notion.
“Hold on.” I folded my arms across my stomach. “Why did we jump to that being the problem?”
“Only those with daemon blood suffer malaise after a potential mate removes their token.”
Meaning he hadn’t lied to me. I couldn’t hold it against him. He just hadn’t known…
No.
A daemon grandparent?
There was no way under the sun or the moon Grandfather would have ever…
No, no, no.
Just no.
It must be my mixed blood reacting to his mixed blood and mixing magical signals.
“Maybe I’m just a wimp,” I argued, grasping at straws, “and my feelings get hurt easily?”
“We can test my theory.” He stuck his hand in his pocket. “Are you up for an experiment?”
“Depends.” I cinched my arms tighter around my middle. “What do you have in mind?”
Withdrawing the bracelet, he held it out to me. “Do you accept my fascination with you?”
“Yes,” I breathed, fidgety with the nerves I lacked the first time now that I fully understood him.
Just as before, Asa secured the bracelet, and the knot vanished until there was no break in the design.
The weight on my chest, the heaviness in my bones, the sting of my nerves, eased within seconds.
“How do you feel?” He withdrew to give me a moment to settle into wearing it again. “Better?”
“Much.” I drew in a deep breath, let it fill my lungs, and exhaled my tension. “The anxiety is gone.”
Asa stepped into me, tucked me against his chest, and I breathed in his comforting scents.
Sweet-burning smoke from rich tobacco and the bite of ripe green apples.
“I wouldn’t have removed it had I known…” He slid a hand into my hair, his warm palm cupping my skull, and held me tighter than I would have allowed another. “But then, I wouldn’t have put it on you either.”
“I can’t be a quarter daemon.” I fisted my hands in the back of his shirt. “I would know, wouldn’t I?”
The possibility cast our connection in a new light, a glaring one, and illuminated my peculiar behavior.
Fascinated was a good word for my boundless curiosity when it came to him, but was it real? Had I been as intrigued by him as he appeared to be by me? Or were two sets of rogue daemon hormones at fault?
“There’s sympathetic magic between black witches and daemons. It’s how they can summon us.”
On our first case, he told me the pungent scent of my dark magic reminded him of home.
I just hadn’t realized at the time he meant it literally. Neither had he, if he hadn’t mentioned it sooner.
“You’re responding to me on a wholly different level than I anticipated.” Asa worried one of his earrings, a ruby teardrop. “I thought ours was simple compatibility, but it’s more.”
About to ask for a definition of more, I experienced an epiphany. “Clay knew.”
Asa opened his mouth, probably to defend his partner, but closed it just as fast. “It’s possible.”
Eager to get answers, I dialed Clay and asked him to step outside with us to avoid Colby overhearing.
“We need to eat.” Clay took the path at a clip. “Then we need to rest. The wendigo hunts at midnight. The witching hour, as they say.” His easy pace faltered when he noticed our expressions. “What did I miss?”
Not since the early days had I questioned Clay’s loyalty. It hurt to do so now. Much more than it did back then. He was my friend, but this was too much. “Why are you so against my fascination with Asa?”
“Really?” He thinned his lips. “You called me away from a Thanksgiving dessert competition for this?”
“Answer the question,” Asa said quietly, his burnt-crimson eyes dark and intense.
“I don’t take orders from you, Ace.” Clay rumbled, voice like gravel. “I’m the senior agent here.”
“I thought you were my friend.” I aimed straight for the heart. “I thought you cared about me.”
“I am, and I do.” His jaw flexed as he took in our united front. “What’s really going on here?”
“Asa removed the bracelet.” I watched Clay for his reaction. “It was…an unpleasant experience.”
The temptation to lie was written clear across his face. I knew him well enough to spot it. But right on its heels came a weary resignation that left my gut hollow.
“Rumors, Rue.” He dragged a hand down his face. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“I’ll take them.” I nudged him when he didn’t spit it out. “Tell me.”
A deal with the devil could be construed as a daemon bargain. “Why did I never hear about this?”
“Your grandfather quashed the rumors and made the repercussions clear for repeating them.”
“You must have suspected,” Asa said quietly, “for you to warn us off each other.”
“I wouldn’t put anything past her grandfather.” Clay exhaled. “I wanted to protect her, and that meant it was in her best interest not to find out the hard way if the gossip was founded via a fucking mating bond to a half daemon in line for a fucking throne.”
“A mating what now?” I whipped my head between them. “I thought that wasn’t a thing.”
“Fated mates aren’t a thing,” Asa corrected me. “Daemon and fae can both form mate bonds.”
“Is that what’s wrong with me?” I eyed the bracelet with fresh suspicion. “Are we…mating?”
No amount of emotional laxative could get me over that hump. I wasn’t ready for that. At all.
“The bond is a choice.” Asa rubbed my back. “One we both get to make.”
“Okay.” The twist in my chest relaxed. “That’s good news then.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” Clay dipped his chin. “I honestly thought it was just talk until you met Asa.”
But he believed it enough to warn us off each other when it became obvious we couldn’t stop ourselves.
I had no doubt he thought he was protecting me. It was what he did best. But the earlier conversation with Asa came flooding back, reminding me of Clay’s original purpose. Did he still report to the director? I was sure he did. Did he tell him the truth or what he wanted to hear? I wasn’t as certain about that.
Damn his hide for making me question his motives again after all these years.
“I have a lot to process.” I stepped away from them both. “I’m going to cook dinner.”
Food steadied me, calmed me, and I could use all the Zen I could pan-fry to think this through.
Their eyes bored into my spine as I walked into the cabin, but I didn’t look back.
6
Midnight came two seconds after I shut my eyes. That was how it felt, anyway. Rest proved more elusive than usual, thanks to the possibility of my grandmother being a daemon. No. That wasn’t quite it. What I couldn’t shake was the fact I had never questioned her absence. Never thought to ask who she had been or why she had been erased from our family history.
As a child, living with the director, I assumed she had wronged him or been found unworthy of him. That he refused to so much as give her a name comforted me with the belief someone else been lacking in his estimation. I hadn’t thought of her once since joining Black Hat, like I had forgotten my father must have had a mother until Asa mentioned it. Even now, my thoughts jumbled up if I focused on her for too long.
What if the reason she never crossed my mind was the director made sure of it?
Fear trickled down my spine to think his tea might have done more than erase memories of my parents.
What else was I missing from those early years? What other questions had I never known to ask? Or had they been deleted from my repertoire after being asked one too many times? I didn’t suffer from what a doctor would call repressed memories. They weren’t hidden, they had been obliterated with dark magic.
They were gone. Erased. There was no retrieving them.
Done wallowing, I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed.
To tint the windows and lay the temporary ward around the cabin had left me with a headache the fitful sleep I managed hadn’t cured, but I wanted to avoid pulling on Colby in case we needed firepower later.
The ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump of Asa’s heartbeat, imprinted on my memory, came from the kitchen.
I rubbed the bracelet on my wrist, worried all over again that I had accidentally mated a daemon prince. I bet the director would love that. Then again, if he knocked up a daemoness to produce an heir with untold powers, then he very well might be tickled pink if his granddaughter got crowned the high queen.
Ugh.
Of all the men to tempt me, Asa had to come with more strings attached than a spider minding its web.
After dressing in jeans, boots, and a tee, I palmed my athame and strapped on my spell kit.
The spell kit reminded me of a bulky leather fanny pack, except it buckled like a belt at my waist then fastened around my upper thigh to provide extra stability for potion vials. The overall effect was very steampunkish, but it was an heirloom piece, and its weight comforted me.
Given what the night would bring, I slid my wand into the slim pocket in my pant leg and fastened it shut.
With no busy work left, it was time for me to face the music.
The music, aka Asa, stood with his back to me while he coaxed rich coffee from a complicated machine.
No sign of Clay yet, but I heard him stomping around in his room, a sure sign he was still in a mood.
A pale flash announced Colby as she drifted down to land on my head with a wide yawn.
“Your cell may or may not work, depending on the weather,” I reminded her, “but the landline is solid.”
That was the first thing I tested before agreeing to let her stay behind in the cabin while we hunted.
“I know, I know.” Her wings drooped into my eyes. “If I lose internet, I’ll know my cell is dead.”
Forget using the cabin’s Wi-Fi, though I was sure it worked fine. I wanted her laptop tethered to her cell so she would know the second a spell was cast to cut out our ability to communicate. Any blip in streaming her game would notify her trouble was afoot. It was a better system than even the traffic light I’d rigged for her back home.
“And then what will you do?”
“Call for help on the landline if I can.” Her legs twitched. “If I can’t, I run—er—fly away.”
“Good girl.” I patted her butt to keep her from sliding off me altogether. “We’ll be back in six hours.”
Wendigos were nocturnal. Zombies were too. Black witches were diurnal, but it was safe to assume ours would keep the creature or creatures’ schedule. Zombies, if that was what we had, required supervision. Plus, the bad guys loved to work the nightshift. It was this whole thing. We would be home before dawn.
“Okay.” She kicked off my eyebrow to get airborne. “See you later.”
Outside, I breathed in the crisp night air and did my best to get in the right frame of mind.
“Colby will be fine.” Clay halted an arm’s length away, which I appreciated, given I was still hurt. “She’s a smart kid, and we made an emergency exit while you were asleep.”
“You made an emergency exit?” I examined what I could see of the cabin. “What does that mean?”
“The bigger skylights in the loft crank open to let in cool night breezes. I cracked the one in the loft a few inches and popped off the mesh screen so she can fly out if she needs a quick escape.”
“Good thinking.” I kept my tone neutral. “I didn’t know they could do that.”
“The newer ones do.” He cut me a reflexive glance that skated away before I met it. “One of the reasons why I chose this place. I figured she had her pick of exit routes. We just got lucky one was in the loft.”
“Thanks.”
I was fighting hard to hold on to my mad when he was doing what he always did—looking out for me. He might not go about it how I would like, but he was good down to his bones. Or he would be. If he had any. Which he didn’t. Anyway. Not the point. He did his best, but sometimes he got it wrong.
How often had I gott
en it wrong and had him shrug it off with a laugh or a hug?
“Rue,” he said softly, reading me easily. “I really am sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
“We’ll get past this.” I shoved him. “Let me stomp around and grumble under my breath for a little while first.” I set my expression into serious lines. “I can’t let this go. You get that, right? I have to know.”
Hunger to know my parents, even with outlandish rumors, left me ravenous for more scraps of their lives.
“Only one person can tell you.” Clay dipped his chin. “Asking would give him too much power over you.”
As usual, he was right. No one divined the director’s twisted motives better than Clay. Except maybe me.
The old coot would use this breadcrumb trail to lure me deeper into the fold, right back to his side.
Daemon blood might explain my ruthlessness and bloodthirstiness when I was high on black magic. I had no daemon form like Asa, but we shared the same instincts. I had recognized his potential for violence the first time we met, and part of me had liked it. A lot. Enough to swap spit muffins with him.
But was that logic talking, or was I looking for an excuse to get me off the hook for my past crimes? “There must be another way.”
“If you start picking, I don’t know what you’ll unravel, but I guarantee he’ll tie the threads into a noose.”
Too bad I didn’t know someone who had been friends with Mom, who might have overheard the rumors about Dad, a person who was out of the director’s reach. Someone like…
Megara.
As soon as Asa exited the house, Clay grunted to indicate it was time to go, and I put the topic to bed.
Part of me wondered if Asa was regretting his impulsive act, given his suspicions about my heritage.
To slap a hair bracelet on a witch was one thing. To bind a daemoness was another.
As if reading my mind, he took my hand and laced our fingers.
The friction of his palm sliding across mine twisted my stomach into knots I tried hard to ignore.
And if a tiny smile played around his lips as he watched me squirm from the intimacy, I ignored that too.
Before the twenty minutes were up, Clay jerked to a halt and cranked his head toward the brush.
Black Arts, White Craft (Black Hat Bureau Book 2) Page 7