by Anna Lowe
“And what about potions?”
She made a face. “Total amateur. I didn’t even know until recently.”
“You didn’t know about your father?”
Her fists tightened on reflex. “I knew he was a cheating ass who left me and my mother when I was three. I guess that’s why my mother never told me about witches. I’m not sure she even believed in them. And anyway, one-eighth witch doesn’t count for much.”
He looked at her with a maybe yes, maybe no expression.
“And Ms. Vedma — Eloise?”
Her eyes widened. Wow. Silas really had been digging into her life.
“I always thought she was just a neighbor. I had no idea she was my father’s sister.” She took a step toward him, bristling. “She was killed by a dragon a few weeks ago. Did you know that?”
To Silas’s credit, he nodded. “I know. I’m sorry.” His voice was pained, as if he knew exactly what it felt like to have someone violently ripped from his life.
Keiki reached up and pawed Silas’s chin, asking why he’d stopped petting her. Silas stroked his fingers over her fur absently.
Cassandra stared at him as an ugly thought crossed her mind. “Did you do it? Did you kill Eloise?”
No self-respecting murderer would come out and admit to his crime, but she’d be able to tell by his expression. Years of working in bars had taught her to spot liars.
He shook his head immediately. “It was Drax. Or rather, one of his henchmen, according to my sources.”
“And where were your sources that night she was attacked?” she all but spat.
He caught her hand, and she stared, surprised to find it winding back to slap him.
“What witches do is not my concern. For centuries, dragons and witches have left each other in peace — an uneasy peace, for sure. But peace all the same.” His voice caught on the word peace before growling out the rest. “My sources were purely focused on Drax and his men. What he was up to, where, and when.”
“Too bad they were too late to help Eloise.”
“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.” He leaned over to put Keiki down and stayed crouched for a moment. Avoiding her? Giving her a moment of reprieve?
Cassandra stepped back, collecting her nerves. Silas really did sound sorry, and she couldn’t stay angry at him no matter how hard she tried.
“Witches and dragons are enemies, then,” she said, slumping against a bookshelf.
He straightened, reminding her how tall he was, and nodded. “For the past five centuries, at least.”
So what does that make us? she nearly asked, though she could guess the answer.
“Why did you bring me here, Silas?” she asked instead. At least she’d get that much into the open.
His shoulders slumped, and his voice grew weary. For a short time, the two of them had escaped reality. Now, the outside world was crushing down on them again.
“As I said. For your own protection from Drax.”
“And the Spirit Stone?” Her voice wavered, taut as a spring.
She waited for his eyes to drift toward the window, avoiding the truth. But those deep, dark eyes stayed focused on hers, tired yet honest.
“I would feel better if I could protect it too. But believe me, I know enough about stolen property to respect what’s yours as yours.”
Her chest warmed, her fists unclenched, and part of her mind strayed. What stolen property was he talking about?
“Do you think Drax will seek out the diamond?” she ventured at last.
An angry red tint shone from the center of his eyes. “I know he will.”
“It’s safe,” she assured him, but damn. How could she be sure? Still, she forced herself to meet his searching eyes.
“I hope so.”
A sea gull cried as it swooped outside, and they both stood in brooding silence.
“So where does that leave us?” Cassandra asked, wishing she could go back to lighter, teasing topics. Wishing they could both loosen up and have some fun. And for one brief second, she saw the same wish in Silas’s eyes. More than a wish, maybe. A desire. His eyes dropped to her lips, and his nostrils flared.
“That leaves us…” He trailed off as if losing track of his own words.
Cassandra was losing track too because, holy cow. Somehow her hand had wandered over to his chest, and she stepped closer, feeling like a marionette. Like someone else had taken over the controls and was walking her over to him.
Silas’s eyes narrowed, and the glow intensified, flaring and swirling like twin bonfires.
Her throat went dry, her mind blank. What was happening?
Destiny, an ancient voice whispered in her mind. Destiny.
A word loaded with meaning for shifters, but one she was only starting to understand. Did destiny have something awful in store for her, or was it showing her the path ahead?
His lips moved, and no sound came out. But sound wasn’t the point, because suddenly, her lips were moving too. Not to speak, but to kiss.
To what? one tiny compartment of her mind protested.
The rest of her felt awash in a sea of bliss. Sure and steady, as if kissing Silas needed to happen. As if the world would end if she failed in that one simple thing.
She sidled closer, heart thumping madly. Her eyelids drooped as she leaned forward, intent on one thing.
Destiny, the voice echoed as her lips met his.
Soft. Warm. Comfy. Her eyelids fluttered. Wait a minute. Since when was Silas any of those things?
Her lips moved, finding more of the same — plus an intensely masculine flavor that made her inner vixen purr. A low, throaty voice rumbled in her mind, and somehow, she wasn’t alarmed.
Mine. You are mine.
She hung on to his body before she started swaying unsteadily. That sounded a hell of a lot like a dragon, and it was in her mind.
I want to love you. Protect you. Honor you to the end of my days.
The words melted her, but the end of my days sounded ominous. How far away did he mean?
One side of her mind floated in the dreamtime of the kiss, while the other exploded with impressions from an unfamiliar scene. There were roars. Bursts of flame. A dark, charred landscape where shadows raced. A life-or-death battle that somehow involved her.
None of it made sense — except the kiss. That warmth, that connection felt exactly right. She clutched his shirt and pressed closer.
Destiny, the ancient voice growled one more time.
What part was destiny? The kiss hinted at timeless love, but the other scene promised desolation and destruction.
Both, the ancient voice declared.
Her hands tightened on Silas’s shirt as she struggled to push the dark images away. One tiny kiss against all that evil — but it worked, because a minute later, the desolate scene was gone, and all that remained was warmth and desire.
Her nerves tingled. Her cheeks flushed. Her soul sang. The way Silas gripped her shoulders made her wonder if it was the same for him.
Then Keiki meowed plaintively, and they eased apart. Cassandra blinked, looking around.
Bookshelves. Arched, bamboo walls. Silas, staring at her. Her eyes went wide. Holy shit.
“Hell of a kiss,” she mumbled, hiding the wobble in her knees, if not the shake in her voice.
Silas looked positively dumbstruck, and she barely heard the one word he uttered.
“Destiny…”
He looked so stricken, she wanted to throw her arms around him and squeeze the worries away. To say, I want to love you. To protect you. To honor you to the end of my days.
But instead of getting closer, they grew farther apart. Silas stepped away, his face creased with concern.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
I’m not, she wanted to say, but somehow, the words wouldn’t come. What had just happened between them? And why did it have to end?
Silas was cold and cool as ever, though his voice was hoarse when he waved around the library, pick
ing up where they’d left off a moment before.
“Use your time here well, Cassandra.”
He sounded so sad, she wondered how soon she would have to leave.
“Read and learn — though you might not want to believe every word. Our ancestors had their own agendas, and their words reflect that.”
Agenda. She was tempted to ask Silas what his was, but then she caught herself. That part of Silas was easy to read. The man had duty and honor stamped all over him. Duty, honor — and self-sacrifice. Even if he did feel what she did — a powerful something she wasn’t entirely ready to examine herself — he’d never, ever let it get in the way of his duty. And doubly so if witches and dragons were sworn enemies.
So where did that leave her?
“You really don’t mind me reading your books?”
He shook his head.
She plucked a book from a shelf and showed it to him, testing again. “None? What about this one?”
He nodded slowly. “Herbs & Healing Spices. As I said, you’re welcome to explore. The books on witches and witchcraft are over there.”
She stepped over and ran a finger along the spines. Did Silas really trust her to that extent? She loved reading, though she rarely found the time. Of course, now that she was confined to a private Hawaiian getaway for an indefinite period, she had lots of time for Highland Hexes — or better yet, Witches & Warlocks.
“Seriously?” she asked, turning back to him.
He nodded. “Of course. You have a right to know about your ancestry, and you might learn a thing or two.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Like spells against dragons?”
He stuck his palms up. “You won’t need them against me. But it wouldn’t hurt to know a spell against…other dragons.”
She filled in the gap. Like Drax.
Silas ran a hand through his hair. “If there even is such a thing. But the more prepared we all are, the better.”
She stared at him, thinking of the battle she’d envisioned. “Prepared for what, exactly?”
“For trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
He sighed and stared out over the sea. “I wish I knew.”
Chapter Eight
Another three days passed, though, to Cassandra, time flew. She spent hours in the library, poring over books. Surreptitiously trying out spells, and when those failed — as they inevitably did — she snuck over to the shifter shelf and indulged herself in a little private investigating of her own.
She started with Dragons of Wales: Noble & Common Lines, impressed to discover just how prominent the Llewellyn clan was. But that was pretty staid reading compared to Weres, Wolves, and Whims, and she thumbed through every page in the shifter glossary, amazed at what she found. Apparently, there weren’t just dragon, bear, wolf, and tiger shifters. There were lions. Boars. Mermaids, even, though those were considered extinct. There was even a mighty feline called a liger — a tiger-lion cross said to possess incredible power, even by shifter standards.
According to the book, most shifters benefitted from accelerated healing powers, which made her wonder about Silas’s burns. Had he recovered fully yet?
She looked in the direction of his office, then ordered herself back to the witchcraft section. But that was frustrating as hell because no matter what she tried, she couldn’t get a single spell to work. Not the levitate-a-candle spell, nor the ignite-a-flame-with-a-snap-of-the-fingers spell.
“Damn it,” she muttered after the twentieth try.
She ended up lighting the damn thing with a match and trying the extinguish spell, but that failed too.
“Damn it all,” she muttered, blowing the candle out like the mere human she was.
She slammed the spells book closed and sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. It was just like her brief lesson with Eloise, in which the old woman had tried everything, only to throw her hands up in frustration.
Can you not cast any spell?
No, she couldn’t.
Cassandra bit her lip. Obviously, she just didn’t have enough witch blood to make a spell — any spell — work. Only enough to make her enjoy playing around with the human version of potions — home remedies and stiff drinks. It was a damn good thing she had sent the diamond to a safe place.
But, shit. The place she’d sent it to wasn’t so remote, after all.
Her eyes drifted to one of the maps hanging on the wall between shelves — a chart of the Hawaiian Islands hand-drawn way back in whaler days. The thing was probably worth a fortune in itself. There was Maui, with Lahaina featuring prominently — a town not far down the coast. Tessa had taken her to a market there. But when Cassandra’s eyes strayed across the Alenuihaha Channel to the Big Island of Hawaii, she grimaced.
“Not far enough,” she murmured then looked around in alarm.
Whew. No one to overhear her because, shit. She could picture the conversation from there. Like Silas, asking, Not far enough for what?
God, what would she say? Too far to visit, I mean. She would have to come up with a lie like, I’ve always wanted to see the Big Island.
She rubbed her eyes. If only there were a spell for stretching distances, but hell. She would probably fail at that too.
Her gaze fell back to the bookshelf. She really ought to look up Spirit Stones. But she desperately needed a break from witchcraft, so she headed to the shifter shelf instead and ran her finger down the row, looking for something new. And there it was — a smaller, newer volume called Shifter Mating Rites.
She blushed just reading it and looked up. What if Silas caught her reading that?
She turned her back to the doorway, peeked inside the book, and read. A moment later, her eyes grew wide, and she snapped the book shut.
Wow. Apparently, there was a shifter equivalent to the Kama Sutra, and the author hadn’t shied away from sordid details — or illustrations. And judging by those, shifters preferred to screw in human form.
She glanced at the empty doorway and opened the book again. Just a crack, because she was only going to peek briefly before putting the book away.
Ten minutes later, she was still reading and holding the book wide open.
Bear shifters are reputed to be gentle lovers, in spite of their size. Males are utterly devoted to their mate’s pleasure, often spending hours…
She turned the page. No wonder Dawn always looked so goddamn radiant.
Wolf shifters, like most shifter species, will let nothing keep them from their destined mates. Unlike their canine relatives, these shifters find satisfaction in a number of different positions, and they are known to couple at any time of day.
So that explained the giggles Cassandra heard drifting out from Nina and Boone’s seaside cottage.
She leafed through the book until she found dragons and took a deep breath. A peek at the doorway showed the coast clear, so she read on.
Dragons are the most passionate, possessive lovers. It takes a strong female, indeed, to express and act on her own desires.
She gulped and looked out the open window. Boy, it was hot in that library.
While some males prefer harems, most dedicate themselves to a single mate, often waiting years for the right woman to come along.
She closed her eyes and listened to the breeze whisper through Silas’s huge, practically empty house.
While dragon courtship may take decades—
Decades? she nearly blurted out loud.
—once a male dragon claims his mate, he dedicates himself to her for the rest of his life. The mating rite consists of intense copulation, at the height of which one dragon claims the other with a bite…
She blanched at the illustration that depicted a woman tipping her head back while her partner leaned over her neck. Wasn’t that for vampires?
Apparently, the bite wasn’t about drinking blood. But when she read about the mating brand — a part of the mating ritual in which a dragon exhaled a puff of searing heat into their partner’s v
eins — she snapped the book shut. She pushed it back into the shelf — far back — not sure if she found that incredibly arousing or an absolute no-go.
For the next few minutes, she stood with her arms wrapped around her middle, chastising herself. She was getting way too far ahead of herself. She ought to stick with witchcraft and—
Her shoulders drooped. And remind herself of all the skills she lacked? Maybe her deadbeat dad was to blame. He was only one quarter-warlock, after all, which made her a mere eighth of a witch. Maybe that was too little to stir any magic.
Magic is everywhere. You only need to learn to harness it, Eloise had said.
Cassandra made a face. She didn’t have the power to harness anything.
There are levitation spells. Fire spells. Spells for invisibility…
Invisibility? Cassandra had shrieked at the time.
Eloise just shrugged. Don’t worry about that one. We’ve been avoiding it ever since cousin Louis…well, never mind. There are weather spells, transformations, lure spells…
Cassandra looked back over to the witchcraft books. She really ought to research the latter. Eloise described the lure spell as weaving a dream and pushing it into someone else’s mind, making them act as if upon their own idea.
An incredibly effective spell if you can master it, Eloise had said. They were once used to lure in unicorns — or draw enemies into a trap. I’ve been working on one myself.
Cassandra wondered what that might have been, and whether it had succeeded.
She sighed and went back to the G-rated book on unicorns.
Unicorn shifters went extinct not long after pure unicorns…
“Damn shame,” she murmured.
For a minute, she allowed sadness to consume her, just as she did every time she read about orangutans losing habitats or dolphins caught in nets. But then again, it was only a few days ago that she’d discovered the world of shifters who lived carefully concealed double lives. Who knew what else might exist?
She looked out the window and sighed. It was getting late, and she was going cross-eyed from reading. Time to go.
She put away the books spread across the table — most of them decoys to cover up the witchcraft books she’d been studying, in case Silas walked in — and clicked off the lights. Then she turned to the remaining candles and hesitantly snapped her fingers.