by Hazel Hunter
“Let me tell you a story,” he blurted out, and she tilted her head to him.
She didn't look any less wary, but she nodded. Her clothes were on, but barefoot, she went to sit on the bed next to him. It ached that she wouldn't let him any closer, but at this point he would take what he could get. He took a deep breath and got started.
“About four years ago, my mentor Matteo Salvestro was on a mission. I don't know what. He has this toy that Stephan gave him, which helps him figure out when a witch or warlock is awakening in the area. He loves it, says it's way better than what he used to do, which was go around keeping an eye out for witch burnings.
“Anyway, he's in Phoenix, Arizona, and the thing lights up like fireworks. So he goes looking, because anyone who awakened that hard needs help, you know? They might have set a fire. They might have turned into a wolf. They might have turned invisible.”
Sophia flinched, and though he had been right, it gave Dominic no pleasure.
“He goes looking for that person, and he comes to a normal little apartment, just a small place not far from downtown. But when he arrives, there's trouble, a lot of it. There's a dead man, and there's a Templar knight there.” He paused for effect. “Templars, they're bad news. Some Wiccans think that they descended from the Spanish Inquisition, but it's never mattered to me. They hate Wiccans. They hunt us down. And their best chance for killing one is right after he or she has awakened. Stephan's little toy for detecting Wiccans who are awakening has saved lives, believe me.” Sophia made a small noise. “Yeah, the daggers that you saw—they've saved my life more than once. Anything that a gun can do, I can do with electricity and I can do it better, but sometimes, when you want to keep things quiet, the daggers are best.”
Dominic shook his head, shaking away some of the old, bad memories.
“Salvestro shows up, and there's this Templar knight there. They fight, and Salvestro drives him off. However, after the Templar leaves, all that's left is a poor dead guy on the bed. He thinks that the guy might be the Wiccan who awakened, except...”
“Except...”
“Except for a split second, he thinks he sees a dark-haired girl reflected in the mirror behind him. He turns, he calls, and there's no one there. No one that he can see anyway. So he went home, made his report, and tried not to think about it for four years.”
Sophia blinked twice, hard and fast. There were tears in her eyes, and Dominic gave in to the urge to reach for her. When she jerked away, he thought his heart was going to break.
“Then what happened?” she said in a small voice. “What changed?”
“Salvestro is feeling his age. He says he remembers a time when people didn't know how to write, and whether that's true or not, he's lived a long, long while. He says he wants to do something else, maybe lie around on a beach or something, but he also wants closure. He's always thought that the witch from Phoenix was still out there. He convinced me to take the job. Imagine our surprise when Stephan's toy thought that you were alive and findable.”
“That's not me.”
“Yes, it is,” Dominic said patiently. “It is you. Stop denying it.”
Sophia's face crumpled, and she staggered to her feet. Though Dominic went to her, she shoved him away, glaring at him as if he were responsible for everything that had happened.
“My life ended that day,” she hissed, and he could hear four years of pain in her voice. “Do you understand? That guy who died, he was my best friend, and we... we... I was so tired of being a virgin. We cared about each other, and it got him killed!” The trembling of her lips matched the quaver in her voice. “That horrible man broke down the door, and he killed Jason, and he would have killed me too.” Tears had sprung to her eyes. “I don't know why he didn't, he was looking right where I was standing, and then he started calling for me. I knew he wanted to kill me too, and I knew that the second man who came in wanted to kill me as well.”
She was nearly sobbing from the pent-up emotion. Dominic’s chest tightened and felt like it could burst. He reached out a hand, desperate to calm her.
“We did our best, we knew that you were afraid, we wanted to find you–”
“Knew I was afraid? Ha! Try terrified!” she nearly yelled. “I was invisible for four weeks! I couldn't go to work. They fired me eventually. I could steal what I wanted, but I hated it. I thought I was going to live the rest of my life without anyone touching me, without anyone seeing me! I thought about killing myself, Dominic!”
“Oh sweetheart...”
She yanked herself back from him.
“And now here you are, and you have knives, and you have orders, and you tell me that you're going to protect me? Who the hell are you, anyway?”
The words stung him as if she’d used her hand.
“I'm exactly the man who stood before you ten minutes ago,” Dominic said softly. “I'm the man who loves you. I'm the man who wants to protect you with everything I have. I'm the man who wants to spend eternity with you, and now... now we can.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Awakening's just the first part of your life as a Wiccan. After that comes initiation.”
He paused. It was all going too fast, too much to take in.
“Are you going to tell me what that is?” she demanded.
Dominic bit his lip. He didn't want to. Things were charged enough without bringing sex into it, but she was not going to take any excuses or half-truths. Hhe didn't want to offer her any.
“An initiation is when a Wiccan has unprotected sex with another Wiccan for the first time. When that happens, well, you become immortal, like I am, like Stephan is, like Salvestro is. Some Wiccans choose to forgo it. Eternity is a long time, after all. But, Sophia, if we have sex without those condoms, we really could be together forever..”
Eyes dazed, Sophia shook her head, but Dominic couldn't stop himself.
“I love you, I feel like I've been waiting five hundred years to find you. I know that. But more than that, I want to protect you. I need to keep you safe, and I need to bring you somewhere where you can learn about yourself and your gift.”
“My curse!”
Dominic flinched. It was how Templars talked about the Wiccans.
“It's a gift, I swear. You can use it to help people who were in the same position that you were in. You can help get them to safety, you can meet other people like you.”
“I don't want to meet anyone! Dominic, this destroyed my life! I can't believe you're a part of it.”
“Being Wiccan is all of me,” he said trying to hang on to his calm. “This is me. It has been me for a very long time. I look after my own, and Sophia, even if we never touch each other again, that includes you. Please, please stay with me. I can bring you to meet people who can explain it better than I can, we can help you”
“No!” Sophia raising her hands in front of her. “I don't want your help! I don't want anything from you!”
“Sophia, listen please–”
“No, you listen!” Her face was flushed with fury, and she stepped toward him so angrily that he took a step back. “I have been on my own for four years now. I was driven away from my life. My best friend was killed because he tried to do me a favor, and I thought I was going to die. Maybe if you had found me then, it would be different. But that’s now what happened. I’ve been living on my own for four years now. For four long years, I have been doing just fine. Sure, I was lonely, and sure, I was afraid, but I didn't need anyone!”
Pain and rage mixed in her voice, so deep and sharp that Dominic had to suck in a breath. As she stalked to the door, he could only watch her. But when her hand landed on the knob, he finally found his voice.
“Sophia,” he said lowly. “Please, don’t.”
“Leave me alone,” she said, not turning, her voice barely more than a whisper. “You and the Corps and whatever, just leave me alone.”
He tried to swallow past the lump in his throat, tried to find words—any words�
��that would make her stay. But in moments she was out the door. Though he sprang to the closing door, catching it before it latched, she was gone. The hallway was empty, and the crystal in his hand went completely opaque once more.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SOPHIA WALKED FOR almost four blocks before she realized that she had left her shoes at Dominic's penthouse. She passed by an all-night drug store, and though the clerk looked up when the revolving doors swung with no cause, she quickly fell back into an old routine. Sophia picked up a pair of flip-flops, slipped them on, and left as quietly as she had come.
How easily it all came back, Sophia thought.
She had stolen a lot during those first few weeks. Then, after she was on the run, it had been a matter of survival. She had been aware of people tracking her, of the two men who had come into poor Jason's home, and then the weeks and months of simply not knowing what was going on. She had learned a lot in those months, and among the things she had learned was that there was no one to count on except herself.
Except that wasn't true, was it?
There was Brent, who had come out of nowhere to give her a job that she desperately needed. It was strange that despite her gifts, she had never been tempted to turn to anything but the most petty and pedestrian crime. She had sometimes thought of robbing places that would never have been the wiser, but she knew that payback was always coming, always waiting. Brent had saved her from that.
Dominic had saved her from something else, and when she thought about his gaze, steady and sad, her heart tore. The idea of living with him for years, perhaps even centuries, pulled at her like the tide of an ocean. She could imagine it all too well. A big part of her wanted to give in to it, to let him take her. But his world was dark, and it terrified her. More than that, she finally realized she’d been scared for a very long time, and the thought was exhausting. Even living her life as it is was was frightening. The idea of entering into a secret society of witches and warlocks, with a life that stretched on forever, it made her shiver.
It took her almost an hour to get back to her apartment. Several times, she clung to the walls to avoid people who were walking on the streets, and when she made it back home, she could have collapsed with relief.
Zora met her at the door with a nearly silent mew, and she picked up her cat for a quick cuddle. As if sensing her mistress's distress, Zora chirped comfortingly and butted her head under Sophia's chin. With a sigh, Sophia went to lie down on the bed, her cat by her side. Though she’d been worried about tossing and turning for hours, exhaustion quickly grabbed her and pulled her under.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“SOPHIA?”
SOPHIA AWOKE with a start, and kicked her blankets off in a panic. She looked around wildly, and the voice calling her name came again.
It was Dominic's voice, and to her shock, she realized it was coming from her doorway. At a glance, she could ell that she hadn't locked her door last night, and it had drifted open. She lay very still on the bed, and she watched in silence as Dominic came inside, carefully closing the door behind him. He had the crystal in his hand, and she was gratified to see that even when it was held just ten feet away from her, it remained stubbornly dark.
“Sophia, I’m sorry. I don't know if you're here or not. I hope you are. Your door was open, I wouldn't have come in if it wasn't... I don't know what I'm trying to say.”
Dominic shook his head in a manner that she would have thought of as adorable if he hadn't looked so dejected. He sat down on the bed, and as quietly as she could, Sophia moved back. He was close enough that she could reach out and touch him if she wanted to, but she found that she couldn't. She already missed his hands on her, but she couldn't bring herself to bridge the gap between them.
“Gods, I don't know what I'm doing. At all. I thought I did when I came to this city. I had one mission to take care of for Salvestro. I was going to show up, I was going to find you, and I was going to bring you in from the cold, you know? I was going to bring you back to people who knew how to take care of you.” He nearly looked at her, and she held her breath, but then he lowered his eyes to the bed. “What I guess I didn't realize is that you've been in the cold for a good long time now. I don't know if you like it or not, but I know for damn certain that you are very good at it. I never thought about what that might mean. You have every right to be proud of how far you have gotten, and I hope you know that. You've built a nice life for yourself here. Good job, I guess. Great cat.”
That last was addressed with a wink at Zora, who rewarded his mention by leaping up on his knee. Dominic flinched a little as she dug her tiny claws in, but he rubbed her behind the ears anyway. Soon she was purring and butting her head against his hand for more petting, and he obliged her absentmindedly.
To Sophia's sudden apprehension, she saw Zora eye her from under Dominic's hand. If Dominic had been looking, Zora would have given away her position immediately. The only thing that saved her was the fact that Dominic wasn't really paying attention to the little cat.
“She is a really good cat, though, and I bet you noticed too. That's another thing you should be aware of. Wiccans, especially witches, attract animals. Usually it's animals of a specific type, but whatever it is, it helps them do their work. Sometimes they act as focuses, and sometimes they really are little helpers. Stephan has a snake that crawls around his desk. I used to have a cattle dog. Loved him tons, but unfortunately, just because I live forever doesn't mean he does. I lost him last year. That was hard.”
She almost did it then. She almost reached out to touch his shoulder, but she knew that the world would change if she did. It would change for both of them, forever.
“You probably got Zora when she just wandered up to you and refused to stop following you, right?” She had. “It's pretty common. They say that the Wiccan doesn't choose the animal, the animal chooses the Wiccan. You have a friend for the rest of her life. It speaks very highly of you to have such a devoted companion. There are a lot of things like this that you can't necessarily learn on your own, and I confess it scares the hell out of me. The fact that you've been fine so far is really nothing short of amazing.”
He swallowed a few times, and she realized in astonishment that he was fighting back fear.
“Templar knights, they kill people like you and me,” he whispered. “I've lost friends to them. I've lost men and women I thought of as brothers and sisters. We hold ceremonies for them, and we don't even have their bodies to mourn because the Templars hurt them so badly.”
He stopped, visibly composing himself, and it took all of the strength that she had not to wrap her arms around his broad shoulders and give him the comfort that he needed. But the guards she’d built over the last four years were too strong, and she stayed where she was––despite Zora’s accusing eyes.
“I can't even tell you how to stay safe. The best way I know how to stay safe is to stay together. Younger Wiccans stay with the covens. They learn how to defend themselves. They learn who they can rely on. Internet and smartphones make it easier, but still, we tend to recognize each other based on sight. We know each other. We know who we can trust. I want you to have people to trust.”
He paused, and it was like the last few words were being dragged out of him.
“I want you to trust me. I hoped you trusted me and now, I think that's gone.”
He was silent. Sophia tried to speak, but the words caught in her throat. She couldn't reveal herself like this. She couldn't give herself up, just let go.
As if coming to a decision, Dominic sighed and lifted Zora off of his lap. She mewed in complaint, but he ignored her, rustling in his pocket. He withdrew a white card from it and laid it carefully on her desk. He took a scrap piece of paper and wrote something on it, folding it and laying it next to the card.
“We're here and we are waiting for you, Sophia. I...we want to protect you. We want to give you a place to be yourself and to learn about the gifts that you have been given, because make no
mistake, they truly are gifts. I promise. When you are ready to come find us, when you want us, let us know. I'll come running. I meant what I said about a long life with you. Until then, though, I'll give you all the space you need for however long you need it.”
He looked like he was going to continue, but then he shook his head.
“What a damn fool, huh?”
Sophia's hackles rose, and then she realized that he was talking to Zora about himself, who chirped in agreement.
“She's probably making tracks or getting ready to, huh, Zora?” He reached down to rub her ears gently. “I'm probably just talking to myself.”
He left, shutting the door behind himself. Shakily Sophia got to her feet. On her desk was the small white card, and when she looked closer, she could see that it was a beautiful little business card. It only bore his name, Dominic Berrett, a phone number, and an address in Boston. It was simple enough, but something about it made her fingers tingle when she picked it up. When she picked up the note, it was explained to her.
Sophia-
This card is one of Stephan's toys. Tear it up, and the two closest members of the Corps will know that you are one of ours and that you need help. We take our job seriously. Tear this card, and we'll come running. I'll be around for at least another day or two. I hope I'm the one who gets the call, but if I'm not, you'll still be protected. I promise. That's all I want from you.
-Dominic
She held the card in her hand for an extended period of time, and for a single insane moment, she thought she would rip it, call him back, say 'yes' to everything. But she couldn’t, not just yet. She needed time to think. She picked up her cell phone, opened the case, and slid the card inside.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BACK IN HIS penthouse, Dominic padded from room to room. He had spent most of the day in the hotel gym, lifting weights and curtly refusing the offers of a spotter from the men who came by. He wanted the punishment of the iron. He wanted the weight that pressed down on him. He wanted to exhaust himself until he couldn't think of beautiful women with dark hair and dark eyes.