At once Miranda was beside Rafe, her hand going around his bicep so she could help haul him to his feet. “Come on,” she said in a fierce whisper, and began to tug him toward the door.
“Not so fast,” came Simon’s voice from behind them.
It was as if they’d walked into a wall of glass. Now it was Rafe’s turn to make a grunt of surprised pain — as if he wasn’t already hurting enough from that tumble he’d taken over the arm of the couch.
“You think I’m going to let you take her from me?” Simon asked, his voice taut with anger. “After everything I’ve done to get her here, to get her to see what I could offer her? You don’t deserve her, Castillo. You never thought about her, thought about what she felt, what she needed. You only thought about what you wanted.”
Rafe wanted to shout out his denial, but as much as he despised the Escobar warlock, he knew there was some truth in the other man’s words. He turned slowly, meeting Simon’s black glare. “Maybe so. But what about what Miranda wants? From what I saw when I walked in here a minute ago, she didn’t look too happy about being with you.”
“No, I wasn’t,” she said. Her eyes might as well have been pools of green fire, they were so filled with fury. “I don’t want you, Simon. You lied to me over and over again. You’ve hurt people — good people who didn’t deserve what you did to them.”
He stepped closer, hands knotted into fists at his side. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Miranda. You just need to let me have some time with you so I can show you — ”
“Show me what? How to use black magic to get what I want? I’m not that kind of witch, Simon. I’ve told you that already.”
Looking at Miranda then, at the way she stood there like a queen, head high despite her disheveled hair and smeared makeup, Rafe knew he loved her, knew that he probably didn’t deserve her but would do whatever he could to make her happy.
First, though, they had to get the hell out of here.
And he knew what he had to do.
“I don’t need black magic,” Simon snapped. “My powers are strong enough that I can get what I want all on my own.”
“Then what’s with the shed? The candles? The bowl? If you’re so powerful, why all the gimmicks?”
Miranda was playing a very dangerous game by confronting Simon like that, but the worry that coursed through Rafe wasn’t enough to prevent him from focusing on his own plan. As far as he could tell, Simon wasn’t even paying attention to him, had his gaze fixed entirely on the woman who stood before him, as if he thought that he could bend her to his will merely by staring at her.
Maybe he could. Rafe still didn’t know how Simon had managed to make him say those terrible words at the cathedral. So far, it seemed as if Miranda was immune to that kind of mind control, but who knew how long she could hang on?
Transforming inside his clothes was uncomfortable, but he could do it if he had to. Luckily, his power allowed him to shift instantaneously. It wasn’t like the movies, where werewolves always seemed to have these long, painful transitions. One second he was a man; the next, a large Mexican gray wolf burst forth from within his discarded clothing and leapt for Simon’s throat.
The warlock put up both hands to defend himself. All that gesture accomplished, however, was to allow him to get knocked off balance and topple to the floor, his head missing the coffee table by mere inches.
Too bad. If he’d managed to brain himself, it would have been much better for everyone involved.
Rafe’s teeth sank into one of Simon’s forearms. The taste of the dark warlock’s blood made Rafe want to gag, for it was just as tainted as the rest of him, black and foul, more like the ichor of an insect than the blood of a true human. Still, that wasn’t enough to make him back off. Instead, his teeth sank in even more deeply as Simon let out a groan of pain.
But then — then the warlock was lifting his free hand, making the same odd circular gesture he’d performed a few minutes earlier. In the next instant, Rafe was torn away from Simon’s arm and thrown through the air, landing a few yards away with a painful thud on the brick floor. Whimpering, he forced himself to his feet and began to limp back toward his adversary.
He didn’t get very far before Miranda came to him and sank her fingers into the thick fur at his neck. “Don’t do it,” she whispered. “He’ll kill you.”
“I’m glad to see you’re coming to your senses,” Simon remarked. He was standing again, ignoring the blood that coursed from the gash in his forearm and dripped onto the expensive rug beneath his feet. “Step away from that creature, Miranda. Step away, and come to me.”
“No,” she said.
A flash of irritation crossed Simon’s lean features. “Stop acting like an idiot, Miranda. You’re strong, but you’re not strong enough to defeat me. You couldn’t even get away from me a few minutes ago when you tried.”
“You’re right,” she replied. “I couldn’t then. But I thought about it, and I figured out what you were doing. So I can teleport now.”
In the next instant, she had dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Rafe’s neck. Before he could even blink, the coolly elegant room and the infuriated warlock standing in it had disappeared, and then Rafe whirled through darkness for an infinitely long split second before they reappeared, crouched on the floor in his own living room. He blinked at her in surprise.
“Can you turn back into yourself now?” Miranda asked, and got wearily to her feet. “I think we need to talk.”
19
Darker Paths
Miranda
As I watched, the wolf turned back into Rafe — a very naked Rafe. True, he was sort of crouched down, so I couldn’t see everything, but….
It was hard to say who was more embarrassed, Rafe or me. Even as hot blood flooded my cheeks, he muttered, “Um, give me a minute,” and fled for the stairs. However, his haste didn’t prevent me from getting a very good look at his muscular bare ass as he ran down the hall.
Well, then.
I ran a hand through my hair and sort of stumbled over to the couch so I could sit down. Everything had happened so fast, it was hard for me to register the fact that I was now sitting in Rafe’s living room. I’d managed to flee from Simon before he could stop me.
I was safe. More than that, Rafe was safe, too…because I’d used my powers to get us both way from Simon. As frightened as I’d been — as I still was — I couldn’t quite prevent a flush of happiness from filling me at that realization.
Well, we were safe for now, anyway. I wasn’t about to fool myself into thinking that he couldn’t track me down; with all the research Simon had done on me and the Castillos, I figured it was a pretty sure bet that he knew exactly where Rafe lived. True, he might not have guessed that we’d come here first, might have thought we’d go straight to Genoveva’s place, but I couldn’t count on him looking elsewhere before he turned his attention to Rafe’s home.
I needed to do something.
Like so many spells or powers or whatever you wanted to call the magic I’d begun to practice, I’d never tried this one before. However, I knew it existed, because it was the talent that my cousin Caitlin’s husband Alex had been born with.
Closing my eyes, I imagined an invisible bubble of protection encasing the house, securing everything within against magical attack. Or rather, this bubble was supposed to protect against any kind of assault, magical or not, but I sort of doubted that we had to worry about being assailed by the local SWAT team or whatever. Once it was in place, I felt as though I could breathe a little more easily. I didn’t know for sure whether Simon could get through the shield I’d created or not — he was so very strong — but it was better than sitting here and doing nothing.
Rafe come down the stairs then, barefoot, dressed in a pair of faded jeans and an army-green henley shirt. He was so amazingly handsome — and so reassuringly not Simon — that I wanted to go and throw myself into his arms. But I hesitated, not sure what I should do. He’d been
horrible to me at the chapel, so why had he suddenly come running to my rescue? Guilt? I couldn’t think of any other reason why he would go to so much effort to save me.
Before I could do or say anything, he’d come over to the couch and sank down next to me, his hands reaching for mine. They were warm and strong, and I never wanted him to let go.
“I am so sorry, Miranda,” he said, sincerity ringing through every syllable. “At the chapel — that wasn’t me. That was Simon’s words coming out of my mouth, the words he wanted me to say so you would go running to him. I would never say anything like that to you because it would all be lies. I did want to get married — I do want to get married.”
Of course. I should have known that Rafe’s rejection had only been another one of Simon’s maneuverings. The relief that rushed over me was so intense, tears sprang to my eyes and began to flow down my cheeks.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered. “Don’t cry, Miranda — it’s all going to be okay.”
Then he was kissing me, mouth pressed against mine with all the passion and tenderness I’d remembered but had thought must only be a cruel dream. This was the real Rafe, the man I’d allowed myself to fall in love with.
I wanted nothing more than to be there with him forever, his arms around me, every touch, every kiss helping to erase the darkness in which Simon had tried to drown me. Deep down, though, I knew this was only a pleasant interlude. I knew the man who had tried to steal my heart would not let it go this easily.
“Rafe,” I said at last, once I was able to regain my breath. “We really do need to talk.”
He pulled away from me, but with clear reluctance. “I know. It’s just — I thought I had lost you. We couldn’t find any trace of you, and nothing we tried worked. Even Marco — ” He stopped then, face going very still, as though he was struggling with emotions he didn’t quite want to face.
“I know,” I said quietly. “Simon told me.”
“He told — ” The words broke off as Rafe stared at me, terrible comprehension flaring in his warm brown eyes, so different from Simon’s cold black ones. “Simon killed Marco to keep him from telling us where you were.”
“Yes. That is,” I went on, “he says he didn’t mean to kill him. He sent the stroke that put him in the coma, but the heart attack came from Marco struggling to get you the information you needed. Not that it makes any real difference, as far as I’m concerned. I’m so sorry, Rafe. I feel like this is all my fault.”
“Your fault?” he repeated, with some incredulity. “How can any of this possibly be your fault, except that you had the bad luck to attract the attention of a psychopath like Simon Escobar?”
“Wasn’t that enough?” I replied, guilt twisting within me. “If it hadn’t been for me — ”
“You can stop that right now.” His tone was firm, and he reached out to touch my cheek briefly, the tenderness of even that soft brush of his fingers against my skin enough to send a ripple of warmth all through my body. “Because I could say, well, if it hadn’t been for my mother insisting on having you come here, then Simon Escobar would have had no reason to hurt Marco, would he? How far back do you want to cast blame? There’s no point, because the only person responsible for all this is Simon. Full stop. Understand?”
“Yes,” I said meekly, and Rafe actually chuckled.
“Meekness doesn’t really suit you, sweetheart.” He leaned over and kissed me, a soft and gentle kiss that was still somehow a promise of much more. “You were pretty impressive back there, you know. What was that thing you did with your hands to push Simon away?”
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah, that.”
“I don’t know, exactly,” I said. “That is, my magic seems to work differently from most people’s. I just sort of have to think of something, and I can make it happen. When I saw Simon attack you, I knew I could probably do something similar. It was sort of like this toy my parents gave me when I was a kid — it looked like a plastic cone, and it had a plastic bladder inside and some elastic you pulled. When you let go of the elastic, it created a sort of air bomb. I mean, it pushed the air so that you could actually feel it hit you. I just imagined the same sort of thing, only a lot harder. And it seemed to have worked.”
Rafe was shaking his head. “You’re amazing.”
“Not as much as you might think.” I took a breath, then went on, “I wouldn’t be able to use any of these powers if Simon hadn’t showed me how to access them. That doesn’t mean I forgive him, but….” I let the words trail off, not sure what I was trying to say. Rafe watched me with understanding in his eyes, and he waited patiently for me to continue. Rubbing my damp palms on the knees of my jeans, I said, “Even with all that, even with finally being able to tap into my powers, I still couldn’t get away from Simon on the first try. Before you even got there, I tried to teleport away from him, and it was as if he’d blocked my powers. It was terrible. I’d never felt so helpless.”
Spots of anger burned on Rafe’s high cheekbones. “When I see him again, I’m going to kill him.”
As angry as I was, I didn’t know whether that was the solution. Also, even through my love for Rafe, I knew he wasn’t strong enough to take Simon down. He’d gotten lucky back there at the house and had caught him off guard, but I couldn’t count on that happening a second time.
“We’ll worry about that later,” I said.
He let out an angry breath, but at least he didn’t try to argue. “If he was blocking you from teleporting, how were you able to do it that last time when you got us out of there?”
“Like I said, he’d let his guard down. He was in a lot of pain from your attack, I think.” I stopped, remembering that horrible moment, remembering also how the magic had flowed through me, strong and sure. “And I sort of felt how he was managing to block me, and I maneuvered around the block. That’s all.”
“As I said, you’re amazing.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Oh, shit.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked, concern flooding through me. “Are you hurt after all?”
“No, I’m fine.” A rueful glance down at the clothes he was wearing, and he added, “It’s just that I left my clothes on the floor of Simon’s living room. And I left Cat’s SUV sitting on the side of the road by the front gate to the property. She’s going to fucking kill me.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “It’s just a car. I’m sure she’d be much more worried about your well-being.”
“Maybe. Still, I hate to think that Simon can get at it. I mean, the key fob was in my goddamn jeans pocket.”
Which meant Simon could happily drive the SUV right off a cliff if he felt like it. However, I wasn’t sure he would do something like that — not because he had a problem with destruction, but because the Mercedes would have been sitting out there long enough that someone might have noticed. I thought it far more likely that he would call the sheriff’s department and complain about someone abandoning their vehicle on his property. That way he could maintain the law-abiding façade he’d worked so hard to establish.
However, since Rafe had left his clothes behind, that meant he’d also left his wallet, the keys to his house, his phone…everything. “What does your wallet look like?” I asked.
“What?”
“Your wallet. Describe it.”
“There isn’t much to describe — ” he began, then broke off, comprehension spreading over his features. “You’re going to try to get it back?”
“If I can,” I replied. This flexing of my powers was still very new to me, and I still didn’t have a clear grasp of what I could and couldn’t do. Still, I could teleport myself and another person at the same time. Moving a small object like a wallet didn’t seem like that big a deal. “The car is one thing. But your identity is in that wallet, and I have a feeling we’re going to have enough to deal with in the very near future without having to get you a new driver’s license and credit cards and all that.”
“You have a point. Well
, it’s brown leather, a simple double fold about yay big.” He described the wallet’s rough dimensions by making a square with this thumbs and forefingers. “The edges were starting to get worn, the dye rubbing off. I don’t carry cash, so it just had my I.D. and a couple of credit cards in it, which means it was pretty thin.”
“Thanks, Rafe.” I sent him what I hoped was a confident smile, although I didn’t feel all that confident. But I had to try. I visualized his jeans lying on the floor of the living room at the house in Tesuque, and realized the easiest thing to do would be to bring them here, rather than just the wallet. That way, I could recover his wallet, house keys, phone — and the key fob for Cat’s Mercedes.
Assuming, of course, that Simon hadn’t pounced and begun rifling through the discarded pants as soon as we’d disappeared. I hoped his anger and his frustration would vent themselves in other ways, though.
Another breath. Okay, Rafe’s jeans, faded Levi’s that had started to go a bit ragged at the hem. For all the Castillo wealth, he obviously tended to wear his clothes until they began to fall apart, probably because he couldn’t be bothered to go shopping.
And instead of them lying on the floor of the house Simon had borrowed or stolen or cajoled out of the property management company — I still wasn’t sure which — suddenly those jeans were draped over Rafe’s lap. He gave a start of surprise, then flashed me a grin that had both relief and admiration in it.
“Wow,” he said, running a hand over the faded material before he reached into the back pocket and pulled out a wallet that exactly matched the description he had provided just a minute earlier. “I’m going to have to find a different adjective than ‘amazing’ to describe you, Miranda. The powers you’ve developed over the past few days — I’ve never seen anything like it. And here” — he set the wallet down on the coffee table and fished around for something in one of the jeans’ front pockets — “here’s the fob for Cat’s Mercedes. I’ll text her and tell her to send the auto club to tow it back to the house. I doubt Simon will interfere with them if he’s as concerned about his public image as you seem to think he is.”
The Witches of Canyon Road, Books 1-3 Page 49