vampires mage 02 - witch hunter

by crawford, c n

  The girl frowned. “The human’s clothes are torn and filthy. I brought some better ones. I don’t like the thought of you with beggar women. Perhaps she should bathe.”

  Rosalind raised a hand. “Still here.”

  “You did beautifully, Kaila,” Caine said. “I won’t forget it.”

  Kaila narrowed her eyes. “Is she the Hunter I’ve heard about? Are you safe?”

  Caine glanced at Rosalind. “I think I’ll be able to handle her.”

  Rosalind crossed her arms. “I hate the Hunters more than anyone now.”

  Caine turned back to Kaila. “Please send someone up with a dinner. She gets cranky when she’s hungry.”

  Kaila stepped out of the room, and Rosalind’s stomach rumbled. “I actually am starving. Thank you for dinner, and thank you for taking me here.” She stretched her arms over her head. “How long do I need to sleep before we can try the powerful scrying spell?”

  “You’ll sleep as long as you need. If you perform powerful magic while you’re weak, you’ll lose your mind, and you may not get it back.” His raven fluttered into the window, perching on the edge of the bath. The bird cocked her head. Caine flicked his wrist, and the starry constellations above brightened, illuminating the space with a pearly glow. Was he controlling the stars, or was that just an illusion?

  Caine leaned against his dining room table, studying her. “You’re covered in several different kinds of filth. Demon blood, your blood, and a thick layer of dirt.”

  She glanced down at herself, at the mud encrusting her gown. Caine, on the other hand, was completely pristine.

  “Don’t you have a spell to clean it off?” she asked.

  He ran his thumb over his lower lip thoughtfully. “Is a refusal to bathe part of your atonement, too? It might help you release some of that tension you’re carrying in your shoulders, you know. And it will help you get some real sleep.”

  Her muscles screamed, and a bath sounded amazing. “Fine. A bath, food, sleep, and then the scrying spell. And then we rescue Tammi.”

  “Primarily Miranda, and perhaps Tammi.” He crossed to the bath, turning on a faucet. It began to fill, and steam rose from the stone tub, curling into the air like ghostly magic.

  Rosalind plopped down in a chair, pulled up her hem to unzip her boots, and slid them off. Caine sat at the edge of the tub, watching her. Under the starry midnight dome, his skin was a perfect pale gold against his dark hair, his eyes an arctic blue. He wore a black cotton T-shirt, so thin she could just make out his muscled form below the fabric, and she had the strongest temptation to cross the room and brush her fingers along his upper arms. I really need some sleep before I lose the final remnants of my impulse control.

  Caine turned off the faucet. “It’s ready.”

  “Right.” She stood, folding her arms. “Um, you’re not going to watch me. Humans aren’t normally naked in front of each other.”

  His cheekbones looked razor-sharp in the glowing light. “I’m not human.”

  “But I am.”

  He sighed, standing. “I’ll turn the other way if it makes you happy, though it’s frankly a shame to let a beautiful body go unseen.” He crossed the room to pour himself a glass of whiskey.

  While Caine carried his drink to a deep blue armchair, facing away from her, she inhaled the steamy air and breathed in the mint and lavender scent. She leaned down, pulling off her filthy dress, and let it fall to the stone floor, then stood shivering in the night breeze.

  Caine’s raven fluttered to the back of his armchair, watching as she pulled off her underwear. Being naked in a room with Caine felt very different than being naked alone, even if he wasn’t watching, and she felt acutely aware of every inch of her exposed skin, and the cool breeze that whispered over it, raising goosebumps.

  She untangled the pearly crown from her hair, setting it down on the bath’s edge.

  “The lavender and mint will help with your nightmares,” Caine said.

  She walked up the stone steps to the bath’s edge, eying Lilu. The raven seemed awfully intent on watching her bathe. “A bath can help with my nightmares?”

  “I’m kin to the god of sleep. I know about these things.”

  As she dipped her leg into the hot water, her muscles began to relax a little. Instantly, it soothed her burning calf. She stepped further in, letting the steaming water envelop her skin up to her neck.

  Tammi was missing, but at least she had a plan now—a chink of light in the darkness. She and Caine would find out where her friend had been taken.

  Rosalind lay back against the smooth stone surface, looking up at the night sky through the dome. The stars seemed to burn brighter here, away from all the streetlights. “I love it here,” she said. The thought was a surprise to her, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew they were true.

  “In my bedroom?”

  “It’s an extraordinary bedroom.”

  “In that case, I’ll have to find a way for you to spend more time in it.” He stretched his arms over his head. “Let me know if you need any help in the bath.”

  “Let me guess. Bathing is among your many talents.”

  “My hands are very skilled.”

  “Of course. Being a demigod and all. But I think I’ll manage just fine, even with my slothful human ways.” She dunked her head under the water, coming up again to reach for the soap. She worked it into a lather over her skin, washing the dried blood and dirt from her neck and chest.

  After she rested, she’d have to use some serious magical power if she wanted to rescue Tammi. Erish had said she’d been expecting someone epic, and that Rosalind didn’t fit the bill. Maybe she was right about that—Rosalind wasn’t legendary.

  Yet. She scrubbed the mud off her neck. But I will be epic—even if it takes me to my death.

  She splashed water over her throat, washing off the suds. “Caine, I want to learn how to use my magic properly. Not just the scrying spell, but everything that Cleo knows how to do.”

  “This is an interesting change of heart. I thought you were scared of losing your mind?”

  She lathered the jasmine-scented soap over her legs. “I am scared. But I can’t let fear rule me. I’m not immortal like you. I’ve only got one human life, and I want it to count for something. If someone is coming for me and my friends, I want to be strong enough to destroy them. And I think I can handle the magic better now. When we were together in the woods weeks ago, you told me to condense Cleo’s aura down to a tiny sphere. I think I know how to do it, now. It’s how I got through the keres’ attack in Cambridge, when all those auras were flooding my mind.” She sat up, warming to this idea. “The forces that we’re up against are too powerful for me to fight with conventional weapons. I want to take on whoever stole Tammi, and whoever caused the keres massacre. I want to be able to defend myself against demons like Erish. And I need to fix what I did to Miranda.”

  “What you did?”

  “I mean, what the Brotherhood did. They tortured her into being a total maniac.”

  “I have a feeling she lost her mind long ago,” Caine said.

  She rubbed the soap under her armpits. “What makes you say that?”

  “It’s the curse your parents gave us. A human body was never meant to hold two souls.”

  And perhaps that’s why you’ll have to kill me or Miranda someday. “Then why have you been so eager for me to take the ring off and use magic, if I’m just going to turn insane?”

  “I’m here to help you. I can tell you, for example, not to use a powerful spell when your body is tired. Miranda was just a girl, and she had no one. She wouldn’t have known what was happening to her. She would have had no idea how to control it.”

  Rosalind rinsed the suds off her skin. “So who helped you control it?”

  “No one.”

  “You don’t seem insane.”

  “Not anymore,” he said darkly.

  “Are you ever going to tell me what happened?” Soapy
water swirled around her. “You said that after my parents saw what happened to you, they sent Miranda and me away. You’ve just never told me what happened.”

  A cold silence enshrouded the room, and the night breeze rushed in, slamming the window shut. Something seemed to shift in the shadows, darkening. “That’s not exactly how it happened,” Caine said. “It’s a little more complicated than that, and this is not the time to discuss it. It has nothing to do with our task.” He stood, but didn’t face her as he drained the last of his drink. “Your dinner will be here soon.”

  She bristled. It was hard to make decisions when she only had glimmers of the facts. Why did Caine get to decide what was relevant? “At least tell me about my parents. Drew seemed really weird about them when I asked.” She frowned. “I feel like everyone is hiding something from me.”

  The light in the room dimmed for a few moments, as if the very stars in the sky were flickering, and Rosalind pushed up onto her knees, the warm water dripping down her skin.

  “I thought you were focused on finding your friend?” Caine said in a low voice, snatching a bottle of wine and a corkscrew. “Dredging up old, irrelevant history will only take your mind off what we need to do.”

  Rosalind frowned. Despite what Caine said, she couldn’t escape the feeling that whatever had happened in the past was somehow connected to the present.

  A knock at the door interrupted the quiet.

  Caine turned, and for just a moment his eyes flicked to her soapy breasts, then glanced away. “Why don’t you get dressed before I open the door. If I remember correctly, humans don’t like to appear naked in front of strangers for some absurd reason.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Lilu, get her a towel and some clothes.”

  The bird flapped across the room, picked up a deep blue towel from a folded pile of linens on a shelf, then carried it over to Rosalind in her beak. Rosalind stood, the water dripping down her skin. She stepped out of the bath and dried herself off with the soft towel.

  Caine faced the door, his shoulders completely rigid with tension as he uncorked the wine.

  As Rosalind toweled off her hair, Lilu returned with a silver bra and underwear in her beak, followed by a thin blue gown that shimmered like a starry sky. Rosalind slipped into the underwear. How did demons always guess her exact bra size? It was unnerving.

  She pulled the gown over her head, and the dress’s smooth silk caressed her thighs as she slipped into it. “I’m dressed.”

  Caine turned to her, his eyes slowly sliding down her body, taking in the skin exposed by her low neckline. “It suits you.”

  He poured the wine into two glasses on the dining room table.

  Another knock sounded at the door, and Caine crossed to open it. A blond male vampire stood in the door, wearing jogging pants and sandals. Apparently, not all vampires were glamorous. He lifted a domed silver tray. “Your dinner.”

  Caine took it from him. “Thank you, Andre.”

  Rosalind’s stomach sank as she remembered what vampire food tasted like.

  Andre slipped out of the room, closing the door, and Caine slid the tray across the table while Rosalind took a seat. The last time she’d eaten something prepared by a vamp, it had involved candy hearts glued to meatloaf with stale grape jelly.

  Caine sat across from her, watching her over his drink. “For the love of Nyxobas, eat something. I need you at full strength. Plus, it would be a shame if you turned into a skeleton.”

  “If I recall correctly, vampires can’t cook.”

  He quirked a smile. “You didn’t enjoy your frozen waffle with meatloaf?”

  “It was like there was a party in my mouth, and everyone was being arrested for war crimes.”

  “I have a Fae chef. It’s a complete different eating experience.”

  She pulled the silver dome off the tray, and her mouth instantly began watering. Laid out before her was a leg of lamb seasoned with rosemary and mint jelly, and cherry relish on the side. She stared at a heap of roasted potatoes, and a bowl of steaming bread pudding. Her stomach rumbled, and she rubbed her belly. “Wow. The Fae seriously know how to cook.”

  “They are deeply hedonistic. It’s why I get along with them.”

  She cut into the lamb, cooked rare, and took a bite. The meat practically melted in her mouth. In an instant, she was hit with the full force of her appetite, as if it had been suppressed until her first bite of delicious food. Her stomach growling, she alternated bites of lamb with potatoes, then demolished the bread pudding, scraping the last remnants of rich custard from the side of the bowl. She licked the spoon, wishing there was more.

  Leaning back in her chair, she exhaled. Caine was staring at her.

  “Sorry,” she asked. “Did you want some?”

  “No. I just forgot how you eat. It’s somehow sexy and deeply disturbing at the same time.”

  “Sexy and disturbing. Like a clown doing a strip tease.”

  “That’s basically what I envision when I think of you.”

  She leaned back in the chair, her belly full. For the first time in weeks, she was starting to feel more like herself again. She was ready to sleep for days. She glanced at his bed. Her eyes were practically drifting closed, and never had a piece of furniture seemed more appealing. She would have sold her soul to Nyxobas to sleep in that bad.

  Assuming she wasn’t going to dream about being crucified again.

  “Go to sleep,” Caine said, stretching his arms over his head. “When you wake, at full strength, we do the scrying spell, and all will be well again.”

  “Where will you sleep?”

  “In my bed, the same as you.”

  “Is that your famous incubus seduction technique?”

  “If I wanted to seduce you, you’d be out of that dress and lying across the table right now, begging me to touch you.”

  She could feel her chest flush. She wasn’t sure she’d even be able to fall asleep next to him with that image in her mind. “Maybe you should wait until I’m asleep before you join me.”

  “I will. And when you sleep, I’ll make sure to keep the nightmares away.”

  She swallowed hard. Too bad you’re the worst part of them.

  She crossed to his bed, then crawled in pulling back the covers, slipping between his silky sheets. Caine flicked his wrist, and the movement seemed to dim the twinkling stars above them until only the pearly moonlight lit the room. As she pulled the sheets up around her, she looked at Caine. He pulled a spellbook from a shelf across the room, then crossed to his armchair, settling in with a small sphere of light to illuminate his book.

  Rosalind closed her eyes. Caine’s sheets smelled of him, like thunderstorms and a hint of jasmine. A soft rain began to patter the domed roof, and her eyes drifted shut, her breathing slowing. As she drifted off into a deep sleep, images rose in her mind—a field of juniper trees, and eating cherries under a starry sky, the juices staining her lips and fingers red.

  Her fingers dripped with bright red—not berries anymore—thick blood, pouring from her chest. Is that me on the stake? Her body shook as she watched the scene unfold. She was in the field again, beneath the colored sky, watching as Caine slammed her against a stake—it was her, only older. Caine’s face was contorted with rage—pure beast, more demon than human—and he drove a nail through her heart, pinning her to the stake like an entomologist’s specimen. Her crimson blood flowed down his arm, and he growled like a wild animal.

  She gasped, and a pale silver light, like starlight, burned away the gruesome image. She was in the jasmine-scented bed, dimly aware of a body next to hers—strong, smooth arms that folded her against masculine contours, and enveloped her in a warm embrace.

  Chapter 15

  When she awoke, the sky was a dusky blue. Dawn? She stretched her arms over her head, turning to find that the bed next to her was empty. She had no idea how long she’d been asleep, but she felt amazing for the first time in weeks.

  She pulled off the blankets and rose,
crossing to the dining table. Someone had left out more food for her—cheese, fruit, and bread—and hunger gnawed at her stomach. She picked up a knife and spread some of the creamy cheese on a piece of bread, taking a bite. Within only a few minutes, she had worked her way through most of the bread and fruit.

  Lilu perched on the edge of the bathtub, watching her.

  “Lilu,” said Rosalind. “Any idea where Caine is?” She wanted to get started on the scrying spell as soon as possible.

  The bird cocked her head, and Rosalind frowned. Stupid, talking to a bird, really.

  Just as she was considering searching the tower for Caine, the door opened. Caine stood in the doorway, a newspaper tucked under his arm. “I’ve got some bad news.”

  “What?”

  He handed her the paper. “While you slept—for a day and a half, I might add—the Brotherhood has been spinning a very interesting story.”

  Frowning, she picked up the paper. Caine’s beautiful face stared coldly out from the front page, and the headline read The Ravener Attacks Cambridge.

  “They’re blaming the keres’ attack on you,” she said.

  “Not just me. Turn the page.”

  A chill spread over her skin, and she flipped the page. There—just as large as Caine’s photo—was Tammi, standing in Harvard Square, looking up at the night sky.

  Rosalind’s blood chilled. “What the hell is going on?”

  “According to the Brotherhood, I called up a swarm of keres to attack humankind. And Tammi was there to help me.”

  Rosalind examined the picture, her blood pumping hard. Tammi was holding a small bag from Painted Lady, the makeup store. Rosalind pointed at the photo. “This was the night she snuck out, before the wards went up. She was just buying us makeup.” Rosalind pointed at her own toes. “Rouge Dior, some raspberry lip gloss. This wasn’t the night of the ker attack. But someone was watching her all the same.”

  She shook her head. This was bad news. The Brotherhood could be torturing Tammi to within an inch of her life. “The Brotherhood were watching her, apparently. How could they have put up the wards if they don’t use magic?”