by Mari Freeman
Hot, Hard & Hexing
Mari Freeman
Book two in the Hot, Hard series.
When magic is attracted to magic, it’s impossible to ignore…
Sonja Ambercroft’s homebody existence is about to change. Drastically. A Dreamstalker has kidnapped her cousin in exchange for a powerful talisman, and Sonja soon finds herself doing things she’d never imagined. Stealing the talisman from her sister? Check. Grappling with Gremlins? Check. Enjoying ridiculously hot visions about a scruffy, sexy mountain man doing untold things to her naked body? Che—
Wait…what? As if she needs that kind of distraction right now! Especially when the stranger’s magic stirs her inner Dragon. Not good. A childhood tragedy has made shifting too dangerous. Sonja can’t risk letting her Dragon loose, but as the erotic visions transform into real-life fantasies, the beast becomes harder to contain.
Sonja’s dangerous adventure will require help from her reclusive mountain man, a Fairy and no less than two queens—one Voodoo, one drag. But ultimately she’ll have to trust her other self, let her inner Dragon roar, if she hopes to bring her cousin back alive.
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Hot, Hard & Hexing
ISBN 9781419937422
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Hot, Hard & Hexing Copyright © 2011 Mari Freeman
Edited by Kelli Collins
Photography and cover design by Syneca
Models: Nick and Lisa
Electronic book publication November 2011
The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.
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Hot, Hard & Hexing
Mari Freeman
Dedication
To the ladies and gentlemen of the Heart of Carolina Romance Writers. Because of this special group, the world will get to discover talented authors and read an abundance of well-crafted romance novels. You guys are amazing.
Chapter One
When one is breaking into a house with a Werewolf sleeping upstairs, sound is an issue. The lock had been noisy enough. The darn sliding glass door made what seemed to be a howling screech as Sonja pried it open, inch by inch, even though she knew it was actually more like the sound of paper tearing. She gritted her teeth. God, she hoped Nell and her shifter boyfriend were sleeping, and not up screwing at this hour of the night.
She slipped into the kitchen and stood for a few seconds with her back to the wall, hands pressed to her sides and eyes darting about the darkened space. This was the craziest— No, maybe the stupidest thing she’d ever done. But she was doing it.
Spooked by her own conscience, Sonja calmly waited, expecting Nell or Trent to barge in and confront her about being there in the middle of the night. She’d never be able to explain without putting Kara in danger. And her internal sense of right and wrong was warring with her fear and the urgency of the situation. No matter the circumstances, stealing was wrong.
Stealing from her sister was wrong on a whole other level.
Stealing from the Council… Well, that was likely to get her in a stinking heap of trouble Sonja didn’t even want to contemplate.
The puzzle box, Sonja knew, was locked in the antique writing desk. She quickly reached for the skeleton key. Her father had less-than-cleverly thought Sonja and her sisters would never find it hanging from a tack on the backside.
Evidently Nell didn’t think that was safe enough. The key was gone.
Sonja chewed her thumbnail as she scanned the kitchen. Her eyes landed on the freezer door and she pried it open as quietly as possible. A cold, fear-laden drop of sweat rolled down her face as she shifted the open bags of peas and two freezer-burned packages of ground beef. There it was—the old plastic bank envelope. Inside were several hundred-dollar bills their father had hidden away for emergencies over a decade ago. Sonja wasn’t surprised to find the money. Nell, ever nostalgic, hadn’t changed a thing in the house since recently moving in. But as she rummaged inside the bad, Sonja felt something else—the small skeleton key.
She replaced the bag and scurried back to the desk, positive she sounded like a pack of noisy Gremlins, and glanced around again to make sure Trent wasn’t sneaking up behind her. Sonja took a second to calm her racing heart and remind herself why she was doing this.
She unlocked the desk as quietly as she could and pulled open the biggest drawer.
There it was. The strange wooden box.
Nell had almost been killed over the thing, and the dark-magic necklace it contained. It looked like a simple puzzle box, but Sonja had no desire to touch it. It was creepy and evil and evidently worth a fortune, if every cretin in the paranormal realm was after it.
What the hell was she thinking?
She was thinking they’d left her no choice, that’s what. They had her cousin Kara, and Sonja was going to follow the ransom instructions to a T.
Nell’s Werewolf was the Prime for the region, and telling him anything about the note or Kara would certainly qualify as notifying or involving the authorities. Primes were preternatural cops, employed by the Council. The kidnappers were serious. Sonja knew it. She felt it. Nell and Trent wouldn’t trust her intuition any more than they would her visions, so she had to do this on her own. She straightened her spine.
Maybe this business wouldn’t be so bad. She’d take the box, drive to Asheville as instructed and get her cousin back. No biggie.
A creak came from behind her and Sonja froze. Her heart was immediately pounding. Her bladder complained of a sudden need for attention. God, she was terrified and she was just standing in her sister’s kitchen. How would she act when it came time to face the kidnappers? She suddenly giggled to herself. The rush of adrenaline was kind of a turn on. Who knew?
But the seriousness of the consequences sobered her quickly. If she fucked up… She momentarily fought the overwhelming urge to cry out and have the Prime take care of finding and rescuing Kara. But the letter had been clear—any involvement with police or para-authorities would get Kara killed in a very slow and painful way.
Now or never. She bit her lip, took one last glance around to make sure she was alone then snatched the box from the old desk.
She darted back through the open sliding glass door, screaming silently as she stubbed her toe on the metal lip running along the bottom of the doorframe. Like a muted cartoon character with a giant pulsing toe, s
he did a one-footed hop out onto the back deck, exaggerating her movements, doing her best not to screech in pain or stomp on the wooden deck planks hard enough to rouse the wolf. She slid the door closed and hobbled back into the woods.
It wouldn’t take Trent and Nell long to figure out Sonja had the box. The wolf’s supernatural sniffer would likely suss out her scent. She was running on short time if she wanted to get it to Asheville by three tomorrow.
She gave a low whistle as she imagined how mad Trent was going to be when he couldn’t turn the box over to the Council in the morning as he’d promised. Just a couple of days ago, Nell had rescued it from some slimy Sorcerer in New Orleans, and the Council wanted the powerful talisman it contained.
Guilt rushed over her. Sonja was the good girl. The one everybody counted on. She was always on time and well prepared.
Too bad. Her cousin Kara was counting on her now. Poor girl must be terrified.
Sonja could feel the blood magic from the necklace inside the puzzle box. It was strong and she swore the thing was calling out to her on a molecular level. From what she understood, some Voodoo queen had quieted the evil call. She shivered at the thought of what it would feel like blasting her at full power.
Maybe Miss Always Prepared should have considered better shoes than the flimsy ballet flats for her night of larceny. The soft shoes were tripping her up as she navigated her way through the woods. Every twig made its presence know under her feet. She was only a mile or so from her house, but this trip felt as if it were taking an eternity. Still, she grinned when she realized she was kind of proud of herself for even getting this far.
When she could see her porch light, she decided she’d better be a little cautious. She slowed her pace, then stopped and pressed her back against the trunk of huge pine tree. She surreptitiously leaned around to get a glimpse of her house. Very spy-like. It wasn’t likely Trent or Nell had woken up and figured anything out this quick, but better safe than stupider, Sonja thought. She couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her. Paranoid much?
She opened up to see if a vision would come to her. Also a long shot, but she relaxed and visualized that little road she traveled in her mind when attempting to See things.
She felt a hint of Kara’s presence right away; saw a blurry vision of her cousin sitting alone. A feeling of fear rained down on Sonja like a bucket of water poured over her head. It covered her, felt as if the emotion was dripping from her shoulders. It had to be real. The feelings were so strong. Her psychic abilities weren’t normally this good.
The bit of Kara’s essence and the fear slipped away as fast as it had appeared. Sonja was shocked. She’d never really been able to sense something that intense. The whole vision thing had been vague all her life. The Halfling curse. She and her two sisters all had the same problem. Half-Demon meant half powers. Half reliable and half irritating. Nell’s telekinesis and her younger sister’s fire-starting powers were just as flaky as Sonja’s visions. But a faulty vision didn’t start a fire, so she’d always considered herself lucky.
Sonja had never found a way to get better at Seeing. No matter what she tried or whom she studied with, it was like singing in the shower. She loved to sing. She practiced all the time. But there was no way her job description would change to country music star. Irritatingly vague visions were just part of being half-Demon.
The wooden box in her hands was starting to feel very icky—magically icky, anyway. The necklace inside was strong mojo that supposedly boosted magical powers. That’s why someone had tried to kill Nell and Trent to get it. That’s why it was worth kidnapping Kara now.
Sonja silently slipped from the woods and into her car, checking to make sure she had put her bag on the back seat. It was there. All was ready.
Except her keys. Crap.
She rushed to the front door. Locked. Crap!
Her spare key was hanging in a funky set of wind chimes on the back deck. She’d made the chimes herself. There were beautiful pieces of stained glass, the remains of an old set of measuring spoons and two hollow brass balls she didn’t remember acquiring. In the breeze, the combination made for a hypnotic melody. Now the thing clanked, rang and bonged as the odds and ends danced while she tried to untie the key from its hiding place.
Once the key was loose, she tried to still the wind chimes. The brass balls persisted in their rhythmic bonging long after the other items settled. After a moment, the night again became its normal symphony of cicadas and green frogs. Sonja let herself in the back door, found her car keys on the counter next to the sink and paused for some deep breaths, trying to calm her brain before going back to the car. She wished she could have gotten a location for Kara from her vision. Sonja thought of the box…thought of the power it contained…
The necklace was a Chiwa talisman. A magnifier, capable of amplifying just about anyone’s magic. What if she used it to help Kara? If she could boost her own power, she could find Kara while not giving up the necklace. She could bring them both back and the Council would still get the Chiwa and Nell wouldn’t be mad at her for the rest of their lives and maybe Trent wouldn’t arrest her.
Sonja tapped her foot and looked around her kitchen, considering. It was dangerous, yes. But she could, for a minute or two, be strong enough to resist the evil of that necklace. Couldn’t she? Famous last thoughts of a fool.
She dragged in a deep breath and let it out as she scratched at the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. They seemed to be dancing with nervous anticipation. At the very least, using the necklace would boost her power enough to have a clear vision. And it would be to her benefit to know more about the situation. Best case, she’d have a killer vision that identified the kidnappers and gave Sonja their whereabouts. Then Trent could go arrest them and rescue Kara.
Easy. Ha!
Right.
* * * * *
Quinton Groves watched as the little Halfling got in her car then ducked down in his seat as she drove past. If she was heading to Asheville with his talisman, she was going in the wrong direction. What the fuck was she up to? Quinton didn’t like it when others deviated from his plan. Even if, as in this case, she had no clue what his plan was.
Sonja Ambercroft should be following his lead. He’d baited her with the ransom note. Sent her Kara’s necklace and a lock of the girl’s hair, proof he wasn’t screwing around. When she’d tried to use her pathetic psychic powers, he’d barged in on her vision and manipulated a bit. The fear he’d injected should have been enough to have her speeding to Asheville.
He let her taillights disappear around the corner before starting the engine and spinning his car around.
She zipped through the curvy back roads of this stinking little mountain town with ease. He was hesitant on the gas, what with all the blind curves and grade changes. He would be glad to get the hell out of this backward-assed town. No decent food, no decent women and an abundance of police and Primes. Either of whom could easily interfere with his plans.
He slowed to make sure he was far enough back that she didn’t notice him following down the dirt road she’d taken. He didn’t like the looks of this dark, empty road. This was not his plan. His plan was to get to New Orleans. Eventually. Sonja thought she was trading the talisman for the girl in Asheville, but that was just a pit stop. Phase one. It was paramount that she had no time to rethink her actions. That she steal the box and be miles away from her support system—and any temptation to involve the Prime—as quickly as possible.
He could have just taken the box himself, but every creepy Vamp and deviant magical creature would try to get close to that thing. In the airport, in every city, they would gravitate toward it—and Quinton would absorb all their disgusting mental images and desires.
No, thank you. The sister made a great mule and a greater patsy.
Public places could be a nightmare for Quinton. As a Dreamstalker, he got all the leftover mental ooze humans and the supernatural left behind as they felt, experienced o
r fantasized. He’d learned to manage. But if he were to attempt traveling with that box, he’d absorb too much of its negative energy, not to mention attract the scum of the supernatural in droves. The thought alone almost made him physically ill.
This way, the Halfling’s mind was the only thing he’d have to get close to and experience. She would buffer the evil until the right time.
Sonja looked every bit the normal small-town woman he’d expected. What sort of traumas could possibly be in her mind? Quinton had been searching, just in case he needed to exploit her weaknesses. He’d been working on her for two days. Searching and influencing her slowly through her dreams. So far today, when he’d entered the girl’s thoughts and manipulated her amusingly inaccurate visions, all he’d found was confusion and fear.
Both to be expected from a young woman thrown into the situation Quinton had pressed upon her just a few hours ago.
* * * * *
One of the dogs growled. Ray Burgess turned his attention from the calling owls to the direction the hound was eyeing. A small white car was making its way up the dirt road that separated his property from the backside of George Hent’s place. He reached down and patted the old dog’s head, quieting his friend.
“What do you suppose would bring someone way out here this hour of night, Art?” Ray asked.
Art whined and shook his head. All the loose skin around his jowls flopped. Lulu didn’t even bother to raise her head from the porch. “That’s what I thought.” He nodded from his rocking chair. “No good. No good a’tall.” The only folks who came out this far, this late, weren’t looking for a moonlight stroll.
He wasn’t in the mood to go chasing after trespassers this time of night. He’d just gotten cleaned up and fed after a good, long hunt.