My traitorous phone buzzed. Grant again. I stepped into the den as I took the call, my eyes searching for and finding Lex braced rigidly with his hands curled into the back of the couch. Whatever Gideon had wanted to talk to him about, it obviously hadn’t been pleasant.
I sighed, hoping against all hope it hadn’t really been anything to do with me. I seriously didn’t want to be some wedge between them.
Grant answered with, “Is Haley with you?”
“No, I haven’t seen her since the Grill yesterday.” I remembered the missed call and my heart skipped a beat. “Is everything okay?”
“She’s not taking my calls,” he muttered angrily.
“Maybe she’s sleeping.”
“It’s past nine, Sage. Have you ever known—”
“I get it,” I spoke over him. Haley was a morning person, one of those annoying creatures who chirped out of bed with the dawning sun. “She’s probably in the shower and what did your text mean? Do I know about what?”
“If you don’t know then obviously you don’t,” he said. “Listen, can you please get hold of her and tell her to call me! It’s important.”
I shrugged at the enquiring look Lex was giving me. “What’s important?”
“Nothing,” he ground out. “It’s probably nothing. I have to go. Tell Haley to call me,” he repeated and hung up.
“Everything okay?” asked Lex.
“I’m not sure,” I told him as I brought up Haley’s contact. She answered on the second ring. “Why are you ignoring Grant?”
“Good morning to you, too,” she said dryly. “And I’m not ignoring Grant.”
Lex took my hand, leading me back to the kitchen as we spoke. “Then why does he think you are?”
“He’s pissed at me.”
“He sounded more anxious than pissed, Haley. Just call him, immediately, then call me straight back and tell me why you think he’s pissed at you.”
@hawk
Haley had it right. All my friends are acting like nutcases.
Somewhere between Lex making a round of coffees and me snatching a buttery croissant from the brown bag of goodies, I landed up on the kitchen counter with Lex standing between my thighs.
He was sipping on his coffee, looking into my eyes. I was munching my croissant, basking in the endless depths of his tawny gaze. There was nothing overly sexual or heated about the moment, but it felt like a whole new level of intimacy. I’d never felt this close to anyone, so wrapped in warmth.
“What do you want to do today?” he asked between sips.
“I have to work,” I said around my last bite and picked up the mug he’d set down for me.
“Call in sick.”
“Tempting,” I laughed, not seriously considering it. “But if you book me in advance, I could take some shifts off my load.”
Lex grinned. “How about you clear your shifts for the next two weeks?”
“That could be arranged, and what about you? What would you have to re-arrange to spend every minute…” I hooked my ankles around him, drawing him a fraction closer “…of every day and night for the next two weeks with me?”
“I’m my own boss.” He tipped forward to brush a kiss across my lips. “And I’ve just cleared my schedule. Indefinitely.”
“That reminds me,” I jabbed a finger to his chest. “You promised to show me around your studio.”
“Right now?”
“Well, let me first finish my coffee!” I lifted the mug, mock frowning at him. “Egomaniac artists, always thinking they’re the most important thing in any room.”
A chuckle rumbled from the base of his throat, a very male, very attractive sound. Every bone in my body softened.
His gaze had just started a slow drift to my mouth when Gideon swung through the double doors with Haley and a drawled, “Look what I found loitering on the welcome mat.”
Lex turned around and out from between my thighs with a sigh.
“You don’t have a welcome mat,” Haley shot back and rolled her eyes toward me. “Is he always this charming or is it just me?”
“Always,” Lex and I agreed in tandem.
I gave her a knowing look. Now she gets it, the Gideon effect: great on the eyes, lousy on the mood.
“I wasn’t loitering, I was texting you,” Haley explained as she came deeper inside, a questioning brow raised at me. “I didn’t see your car out front.”
“It’s at home.”
“You’re living here and your car’s at home.” She pinned me with a look that felt uncomfortably judgmental.
Or maybe it was pity.
I wasn’t sure if I was the perp or the victim in her eyes.
“I’m not living here,” I informed her coolly. “I’m only crashing for a few days. And I’ll fetch my car when I need it.”
“I see.”
“So do I.” My chin came up. “I’m starting to see how you may have pissed Grant off.”
She grilled me with that stare for another breath, then the hard expression on her face collapsed. “What the hell is wrong with me? I feel like I’m walking a damn high wire and every little thing is trying to poke me off it.”
Lex stepped in, pulling out a chair for her and dragging the bag of pastries over. “Sit. Eat something. How do you drink your coffee?”
“Latte,” I answered for him, hopping down from the counter. Gideon had disappeared, I noticed as I slipped into a chair across from her. “What’s going on?”
She bit her lip. “I did something terrible. I don’t think Grant will ever forgive me.”
“Have you met Grant?” I smiled at her, but I wasn’t really feeling it. Not because of Grant. It was Haley. She looked utterly distraught. “He’s a teddy bear.”
“I snapped yesterday.” She planted an elbow on the table and sank her cheek into a palm. “I saw Grant and Kenzie—”
“I saw a picture of Kenzie swimming rather cozily with someone else.”
“Exactly,” Haley said. “Her and Grant were seriously getting it on in the woods, then an hour later she was in the water with Bradley Mackenzie and Grant had his tongue down Callie’s throat. I totally lost it.”
“What did you do?”
“I gave Grant an ultimatum. Choose one, or at least tell Callie what’s going on, or I’d do it for him.” Haley fell back in her chair, sagging low. “Honestly? At this point, I don’t even give a fuck. Everyone can do as they want. They can have a damn orgy in the town square for all I care. But if Callie’s part of some free for all, she should at least know. I know she can be a real bitch at times, but she deserves better than that.”
My jaw dropped open. “You told her?”
“No, of course not, you know I wouldn’t.” Her eyes lifted to Lex as he brought her coffee over. “Thanks,” she said quietly.
He hesitated, looking from her to me. “I’ll leave the two of you to talk.”
“You don’t have to go,” Haley said. “Frankly, no one could think worse of me than I do, not even you.”
“So…” I shrugged. “You gave Grant an ultimatum.”
“He broke it off with Callie,” she said. “Well, I think he did. They got into a fight at the party and she left early.”
“Good.” I leant in to take her hand, blowing out a sigh of relief. That’s all? The way Haley was beating herself up, I’d expected to hear someone had gone after someone with a fire axe. “If that’s why he’s being trying to call you all morning, to blame you for his—”
“It isn’t,” she cut in. “He wanted to know what I’d said to Callie, or if I’d seen her since last night.”
“But you didn’t say anything to her.”
“I didn’t.” Haley chewed on her inner cheek, looking at me. “And maybe he didn’t break up with her. God, I don’t know, but he’s worried about Callie. Her mom called him this morning, wondering if Callie was with him.”
“She never went home last night?”
“She sent her mom a text to say she was spending
the night at a friend, but she’s not with Libby or Jama,” Haley said, mentioning Callie’s closest school friends. “And now I’m worried. What if Grant did break up with her because of me and she’s gone and done something stupid?”
“Callie doesn’t do stupid, she does revenge,” I scoffed. “She probably went home with some guy just to show Grant.”
Haley’s eyes lit up. “I did see her chatting up this guy right after the fight.”
“Who?”
“No one we know, but if he was there…” She plucked out her phone “…he’ll be in here somewhere.”
Lex braced a hand on my shoulder, leaning in from behind to speak near my ear, “I’ll be in the den.”
I craned my neck around to look up at him and mouthed, I’ll make it up to you, later.
“I’ll hold you to that,” he murmured, dropping a kiss on my forehead.
“Here!” Haley shoved her phone under my nose. “Look at the body language. They’re flirting, right?”
I squinted down at the picture around the bonfire, opening it up a little with two fingers to zoom in on Callie and suspect number one. He seemed a little old for the crowd, late twenties maybe, but he did have a pleasant face, hair cropped short, a decent set of broad shoulders. Callie had a smile tipped up, leaning in slightly.
Lex’s fingers tensed, digging into my shoulder.
I shifted in my seat and glanced up at him.
His gaze snapped from the picture to me. The death grip on my shoulder relaxed. “Sorry, I’ll…” He stepped back, the line of his mouth reshaping into something less grim. “Like I said, I’ll be in the den.”
12
LEX
Gideon was pacing the den, phone pressed to his ear. He put a finger to his lips when he saw me. “No, I haven’t heard from him and I’m not worried. He could be drunk-walking the wall of China or dune racing in the Sahara for all I care.”
That was my cover story when Gideon sent me here. I’d supposedly gone off travelling the world for a year, sowing my wild oats. He must be speaking to his father.
I leant a shoulder against the arched entrance, listening to Gideon’s side of the conversation.
“He hasn’t run off, he asked us to give him a year and—”
“He asked me and I thought it was a damn good idea.”
“I’m well aware I’m not head of the coven yet, and I wasn’t acting in that capacity. I was being a friend.”
“I can’t track him. He left his phone in his bedroom and it would take thousands of Moons thousands of days to scour the globe.”
“I have no idea. I would tell you, I swear.”
Outright lying to the head of the coven.
To his father.
It still shocked me, even now when I knew the full truth of why Gideon had sent me here. Not for a respite from the pressure on me to invoke, but for the Holy fucking Grail. When it came to the discovery of an Eclipse, all rule and law flew out the window. An Eclipse was how new coven leaders were made. If any Moon or Sun caught a whiff of Sage Daniels, they’d descend on Shadow Horn and turn it into a battleground.
Gideon pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have to go.”
“No, nothing serious, I’m following some unpromising leads.”
I waited until he ended the call before I pushed away from the arch. “Is it always like that?”
“Only when we speak.” He studied me. “I can handle my father. You, on the other hand, look like you’ve gone ten rounds with Callum Crest and lost. What’s the matter?”
“Rolling Stones popped up at a bonfire party last night,” I told him. “He was seen talking to a girl…Callie. This morning, there’s a possibility she may be missing.”
“A friend of Sage’s?”
“Close enough,” I said. “If Sage has her number and presumably Callie has her phone with her. We could trace it. It may lead us to him.”
Gideon thought that through with a shaking head. “We let Rolling Stones make his move.”
“Callie is an innocent.” And if anything happened to her, it was my fault. “I’m not leaving her to be your bait.”
“If he took her last night,” Gideon remarked callously, “either she’s already dead or he has a plan that requires her alive.”
“Forget it,” I crunched out, my jaw tight. Gideon always played the ‘greater good’ card. What the fuck would be different today? “I don’t need your help.”
“Of course you need my help. If by some remarkable fortune this leads to the demon, you’re screwed.”
My eyes narrowed on him. “I’ll take the chance.”
“But I won’t.” He sighed heavily, making sure I heard. “Okay, we trace the number and see where this goes.”
“Gideon.” I slapped a hand out to stop him before he could stalk out. “There’s something else.”
“It can’t wait?” he smirked. “I thought you were in a hurry to go die a hero’s death.”
“This is about the demon,” I said, ignoring the attitude. “You suspect this one’s different, that he has some form of protection.”
That caught his attention. “Like a cloaking spell, yeah. But no Moon or Sun would help a demon and natural witches don’t have that kind of power. What do you know?”
“Maybe nothing,” I warned him. “It’s just something Haley said.”
“And Haley is?”
“The girl you let into the house five minutes ago. Next time, try introductions before hurling abuse.”
He folded his arms, tapped a foot. “Well, what did the tigress with the sharp claws have to say?”
“It’s not just what she said.” I had to backtrack to make sense of this niggling feeling. “The day before you arrived, there was a suicide in the woods. That same night, there was a party at the creek nearby. It was Sage’s birthday and she was there with her friends. The way Haley was talking just now, some of their friends have been displaying unusual behavior.”
“Define unusual.”
“Fucking without conscience,” I paraphrased from our scripts. “No remorse. No guilt at what they’re doing. Oblivious to whom they may be hurting. Not bothering to hide their actions. Which may be normal for some people, but it sounds like this is out of character and the change came on suddenly. Should I go on?”
The one time I wanted Gideon to dismiss my concern with a smirk or snarky comments, he had nothing. He stared at me—through me—processing what I’d just dropped on him.
It wasn’t just me, then.
This was bad.
And impossible.
What I’d described resembled a demon crossing. The initial energy transfer damaged the human body, weakened it too much to hold the demon spirit for long and the only way a demon could jump into a fresh body was to kill the old one. Suicide was always the first indication that a demon had recently crossed.
The jump from one body to another leaked demon energy into the surroundings and contaminated everyone caught up in the radius. That was the second indication. Our scripts referred to it as ‘a frenzy of desire’. Mindless, uncontrollable impulses that fixated on your current desires, and they weren’t always sexual in nature. If you hated someone enough to wish them dead, you went out and murdered them. If you wanted fame, you took it any which way you could and the tainted demon energy didn’t differentiate between fame and infamy. The frenzy didn’t last long, anything from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. The consequences lasted far longer, in some cases a lifetime.
But in order to cross, demons needed a ley line to ride and that’s the one thing that didn’t add up.
“There are no ley lines anywhere near here,” I said unnecessarily.
“The suicide and frenzy of desire may be coincidence, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t. If the demon crossed somewhere else, what brought him here? And why the hell hasn’t he already gotten the hell out of dodge? Demons prefer big cities. More souls to feed on. Easier to hide.” Gideon got moving again, long, measured strides that to
ok him out the den. “There’s more going on here with this demon than I can fucking see.”
I followed, digesting that admission. Gideon was worried. Seriously worried. The ramifications sucker-punched me in the gut. He couldn’t call in help with an Eclipse running loose. If we didn’t find and vanquish this demon soon, whatever timeline Gideon had set for me and Sage had just been upped.
“Haley, you need to leave now,” Gideon commanded with no more than a fleeting glance her way as we walked into the kitchen.
Name compulsion. Hearing your name captured your attention with a focus that was similar to an eye connection, deep awareness that established a link—if the compelling voice was driven by enough power.
“Gideon!” Sage exclaimed, her eyes rounding on him.
“No, he’s right.” Haley promptly stood, not the least offended. “I have loads of errands to run before my shift. I’ll see you at the Grill?” she added and hurried out the kitchen with a general wave goodbye to all of us.
Sage shoved to her feet, palms slammed to the table. “That was insufferably rude.”
“It was effective,” Gideon said dismissively and held a hand out. “May I see your phone?”
She glared daggers at him, her chin notched high. She looked ready to knee him in the groin if he made one wrong step toward her. She looked fucking gorgeous.
And clearly my plan to nurture their relationship needed some work.
“Sage.” I walked around the table and placed a calming hand on her shoulder. “He didn’t mean to be abrupt. We’re just worried about that friend of yours who may be missing.”
“Callie?” She shrugged my hand from her shoulder, turning to me. “You think she is missing?”
“We’re not sure.” I cupped her face in my hands, my thumbs grazing the corners of her mouth. “That guy in the picture, the one taken with Callie. We’ve had dealings with him before and he’s not a pleasant character.”
“What kind of dealings?” Her eyes filled with worry. “You think he might hurt her?”
“Probably not,” I lied. I wished I could protect her from all this, take her far from here. A part of me wouldn’t think twice about doing exactly that, but wherever I went, Gideon would follow. And if I stayed behind, who would protect her? “I’d feel better once we find your friend. We can trace her cell number. Do you have it?”
Torment: Dark Paranormal Romance (Eclipse Warlocks Book 1) Page 12