by Carmen Caine
The instant Lucian saw it, he gave a gargling sort of cry and, returning to the window, struck it with such force that I thought it would shatter. He began to swear a crescendo of violence before finally throwing his head back to shout at the ceiling, “How could you let this happen?”
That was enough for Tabitha. Tossing the keychain at him, she poofed into her lizard form, a tiny white one this time, and skittered across the floor to disappear behind the bookcase.
Whirling to catch the keychain before it splatted on the floor, Lucian turned his ire on Heath. “How? Where’s the third? What happened?” he raged, stalking forward to tower menacingly over the werewolf. “How could you let this happen? Why aren’t you after him right now?”
I’ll say one thing for Heath. He was definitely brave. Standing up to Lucian in that intimidating state wasn’t an easy thing to do.
“Needed to check in on the home-front first, man,” Heath answered, unruffled. “Had to make sure you were A-OK, man. I tried calling, texting, but I couldn’t chance it with you going dark like that. Had to come back and make sure they hadn’t already gotten to you two.”
The look Lucian sent me was one of the utmost chilling, accusatory kind. Not something I was about to take. “Hey, not my fault your phone was spelled,” I said in my own defense.
He didn’t like it, but he knew the truth when he heard it. Grinding his jaw, he shifted his dark mood back to Heath and asked just one word, “How?”
“It was Culpepper,” Heath answered at once. “I mean, it was the spiders. Radical, man. I went to check on Tabitha and she was out cold. Solid cold. The Templar was out too, and then spiders started crawling right out of his nose. Went straight for the trolls in her pocket. Before I could get there, they’d already unleashed the blue-haired one.” The expression on his tanned face was an earnest one. “We’ll get him back, Lucian. Just had to make sure you were safe first.”
Spiders? I couldn’t suppress a shiver. Spiders weren’t exactly my favorite thing.
Closing his eyes, Lucian took a very deep, very long breath. He held it, an extraordinarily long time before finally exhaling. At last, he lifted his lashes, revealing iridescent silver eyes glowing with rage, but a cold, unsettling rage far deadlier than the passionate outburst of moments before.
“And Culpepper?” he whispered in the softest of voices.
“Escaped,” Heath squared his shoulders and shook his blond head. “Along with the spiders. I secured the remaining trolls first, man. And Culpepper must’ve come to, and they all took that chance to escape. Culpepper must’ve fallen under some kind of spell. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Looks like the Terzi used him as bait to get the trolls.
Lucian didn’t respond.
That was the end of the bad news. It was already more than enough, anyway. Shifting back into a great gray wolf, Heath padded over to the bookcase and, crouching down on all four paws, smooshed his nose against the crack running between the bottom shelf and the floor. “It’ll be ok, Tabitha,” he promised. “Come out and help. We’ll find it. It’s good. It’s all good.”
That was Heath. Ever the peacemaker.
A tense silence blanketed the apartment as Lucian just stood there in the center of it all, lost in his own world.
And as the silence lengthened, my attention wandered to the troll keychain dangling from his hand, wondering why all the hubbub over such ugly dolls. There was something fascinating about them. Yeah, I knew Lucian cursed people by turning them into marionettes. But it would seem that his body of work featured all manner of dolls. And apparently, these repulsive troll dolls were VIP. Or VICC. Very important Charmed creatures. I squinted at them, swinging from the ring by their braided hair, wondering what they’d done to deserve their fate of having to sport goofy smiles and whacked-out do’s. The dolls were exquisitely crafted. Remarkably lifelike. Lucian had outdone himself with this curse. I leaned even closer.
One of them blinked.
I jumped, startled.
They weren’t inanimate dolls at all—they were conscious.
With a frown, Lucian’s pale eyes zeroed in on me. “Smell anything?” he asked, shaking the keychain in front of my nose.
“Smell?” I repeated, slightly unnerved at the repulsive creatures.
He jingled the ring at me again and even more impatiently. The trolls danced. One of them giggled.
I was about to tell him I couldn’t smell a thing when I caught a faint whiff of something delicious, even delectable. A fragrance I’d missed. But it wasn’t coming from the trolls.
It was Lucian’s mana.
My eyes widened and my senses reeled. I was like a creature possessed. I wanted a nip. The tiniest of nips. But before I could outright drool, the appetizing fragrance melted away.
Lucian hadn’t missed a millisecond of my reaction. Cursing under his breath, he grated, “It’s happening already.” Jiggling the trolls again, he expounded, “These trolls are my vessels, recipients of my household sorcery. These are my wards. Our protection.”
“Wards?” I repeated, surprised. I couldn’t help it.
The keychain trolls were his wards? When I thought of wards, beautifully mysterious runes or colored crystals sprang to mind … not grotesque troll dolls invented in Denmark that people sometimes hang from their rearview mirror. I eyeballed the ugly things, intrigued. What was Lucian’s fascination with dolls?
“It’s no light matter,” Lucian cut into my thoughts. “The Terzi nearly destroyed us tonight. Even now, with my triad of wards broken, our protection will shatter. It’ll only take a few weeks before we’ll be naked to the Charmed World. We’ve got to find my ward and find it now before the Terzi can do more harm. They’re clearly after my collection.”
“How can you be so sure?” I probed, curious.
He sent me a patronizing look. “They’re always after it. But this time, they’re getting too close, which means we must go on the offensive. It’s time to get to work, spellfinder.”
Spellfinder. I recoiled, unexpectedly allergic to the word.
It wasn’t the kind of thing Lucian would miss. “Oh, you’ll help, Spellfinder,” he repeated, stressing the title again. With a frosty undercurrent lacing his baritone, he added, “You had a hand in creating this mess. You’re certainly going to help in the fixing of it.”
My mouth clamped shut. Crud. He was right. I’d smelled Culpepper’s disturbing scent. I was too green. In hindsight, I should’ve recognized the Templar had probably been spelled when the scent disappeared from his companions. At the very least, I should have told Lucian about it at the time. “Maybe, just this once,” I agreed, a tad reluctantly.
I don’t think he even heard me. Stuffing his remaining wards into his pocket, he reached for his jacket when a sudden current of air carried a new wave of his scent directly into my nostrils. I clenched my fingers. Cripes. The mana came off of his lean body in visible waves, like the heat waves on a desert road. He was incredibly powerful. And just too delicious for me to ignore. Irresistible. I latched my greedy eyes onto his heart chakra, my fangs lengthening in the equivalent of a drool.
Catching the movement, he shrank back in alarm.
To my relief, the waves and the scent vanished at once. I turned away. It was already hard enough to work with Lucian. If I had to smell him, it was going to be pure hell.
“We attack at once,” Lucian said, addressing Heath. “Order your pack to execute Code Radillo and then inform the water witches it’s time for a stealth run. Let the Black Pixies know I’m headed their way. Oh, and tell the Perimancers to wake up the Stones. We’re casting this net, wide and deep.”
As he issued a series of crisp orders, all of which sounded like some twisted fairy tale battle plan, I escaped to the kitchen to just get a moment’s breather.
It was then that I smelled it. The feeblest thread of the evil scent.
Startled, I searched for the source, zeroing in on Lucian’s smashed phone and, leaning close, subjected it t
o a deep inspection. Yes, it was there. Very faint.
Dimly, I heard Heath growling behind me. “He’s coming.”
I didn’t really pay much attention to him. I was focused on the phone’s broken display. Something was moving inside it. Something tiny. Hardly bigger than a flea. Multiple legs, but only two that functioned. My eyes widened in surprise. It was a spider. Barely alive.
“Perfect,” I whispered under my breath. Maybe I could track the sucker and get out of my spellfinding obligations in short order. “Hey, guys!” I began when two things happened.
First, I felt Lucian’s hot breath on the back of my neck.
“You’re exhausted,” his deep voice thrummed sensually. “Sleep.”
I was about to protest quite the opposite when my body grew unexpectedly heavy. My eyelids closed on their own. As I liquefied into a limp noodle and melted into his arms, I smelled a distinctly familiar scent. One that I’d encountered in Venice just months before.
Emilio.
A Catnip Surprise
I was caught in an uneasy dream. Dorian. I’d never dreamt of him before. Not like this. It felt real. Dorian stood on a castle parapet with the highlands of Scotland rolling over the horizon behind him. Tall, viral, devastatingly handsome with his green kilt whipping in the wind, the perfect shade of plaid that matched his emerald eyes laughing down at me.
I sat bolt upright, gasping for breath and looked around in a sort of woozy confusion. I’d been dreaming of a … castle? I frowned. My head felt like it had been hit by a truck. With my dream already fading away, I began an inspection of my surroundings, taking a mental inventory of the room to scavenge for clues of how I’d gotten there.
I sat on a king-size bed covered with a gray suede comforter. The room itself was bare in a classy, designer-sort of way. Minimalist style. A white shag carpet on the floor. A huge, thinner-than-paper TV on the wall. Modern art, muted tones. Small bedside tables with an expensive gray-and-black splotched pottery lamp resting on each. The late afternoon sun streaming through the plate glass windows to my left provided a greenhouse effect, rendering the room uncomfortably warm.
I recognized it then. Lucian’s bedroom. I could see down into the living room below.
Crud. Inventory was done. Yeah, I knew where I was now, but I still couldn’t recall just exactly how I’d ended up on his bed. With a frown, I began swinging my legs over the edge when I heard a distinct hiss.
I froze.
It took me a moment to see Tabitha’s lizard form curled around the base of the lamp perched on the bedside table. She’d camouflaged herself to match the gray-and-black mottled pattern perfectly.
“Lucian’s my possession.” Her tiny pink tongue flickered out in warning.
I raised a brow. “Possession?” My fangs came out of their own accord as I experienced an odd pang of jealousy mixed with anger. Was he a two-timer on top of everything else? “Are you his girlfriend?”
The instant I asked, my gut told me that it didn’t fit. And judging by her blank expression, it certainly appeared as if the question really didn’t compute in her tiny lizard brain either. If anything, it only seemed to tick her off.
“Lucian’s mine. He’s always been mine. My possession,” she repeated with an icy finality, as if that explained it.
“OOOkaaayy.” I snorted in response. “Whatever that means.” Yeah. It was as clear as mud. But I didn’t really care. I’d only kissed the dude. And while that had been extraordinarily fun, I wasn’t planning on making it a long term thing.
She said something else, but I didn’t hear it.
I’d just realized that the sun streaming through the window was of the late afternoon kind.
And that meant I was missing a hefty chunk of time.
“Stay away,” Tabitha’s tiny voice intruded in on my surprise. She’d curled her tail up like a scorpion. “This is not advice. It's a warning.”
“Whatever,” I growled under my breath. She’d never liked me to begin with. It was becoming mutual now. “I’m not looking for a relationship.” Leaning over, I dropped my nose close to hers to sell the point and added, “Not my thing. Really.”
That settled it in my books. Straightening, I prepared to heave myself off the bed when a black shape at the foot startled me.
Esmeralda.
Where had she come from? Thin air? She sat there sporting a garnet-studded collar. Her ears were practically horizontal with immense displeasure and the tip of her tail thrummed against the comforter in a rhythmic warning.
“Good morning … errr afternoon, Esmeralda,” I muttered uneasily. “Can I help you?”
I waved my hand in an open invitation but caught a lungful of my own body odor. The pungent fumes of garlic and sweat made me gag. Crud. I was still wearing my garlic-scented catsuit. Not my perfume of choice.
A look of utter disdain flickered in Esmeralda’s green eyes. But I couldn’t tell if it was my offensive stench or the fact that she considered anything coming out of my mouth as even worse. Irritated on either account, I showed her a fang of my own and for the third time, moved to slide off the bed.
In a flash, she was at my side, resting a paw on my knee to ever so slightly extend one claw. Just one. I didn’t know cats commanded such fine motor control.
“So, I gather you’ve got orders to keep me here,” I growled. I was on the fence about adding “Well, just try!” Judging by the needle-sharpness of that one claw, I didn’t relish the idea of being on the receiving end of the rest, not to mention an unknown number of sharp, pointy teeth.
“I see you’re awake,” Lucian’s deep voice startled me. “At last.”
I jerked. He stood at the top of the spiral staircase, wearing jeans and no shirt as he towel-dried his dark wet hair. He’d evidently just stepped out of the shower.
My breath caught. I’d thought him yummy in a white shirt. He was even yummier without one.
He was watching me closely. Intensely. But there was no sensual attraction in his gaze this time. He was looking at me in that leery way, as if half-expecting me to explode. After a moment, he casually added, “Ah. I see you don’t recall.”
That was puzzling. “Recall?” I repeated, arching a brow. But then the realization struck me that I was in his bed, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
Lucian followed my thoughts. “Hardly,” he said, nipping my blossoming concern in the bud. He crooked his lip in dry amusement. “I don’t find the scent of garlic a turn on. Not my thing. Really.”
I recognized my own words. And the garlic comment … well, trust Lucian to insult a girl’s pride. But before I could respond, I was struck by the feeling that I’d forgotten something. Something important … but what?
“You’re sensitive to spells,” Lucian continued, rubbing his head vigorously with the towel.
The way his muscles interplayed on his abs threatened to kick-start my breathing. Why didn’t the man put on a shirt? How did he expect me to listen?
I tried glaring at him.
He didn’t notice.
“Extraordinarily sensitive,” he was saying in his slightly British-accented baritone. Tossing his towel over his broad shoulder with a slap, he stalked my way. “I should’ve known. You’ve an unusual flow of mana running through your system since you live off the stuff. It’s your Achilles Heel. I’d wager that even a first-year witchling could render you incapacitated. And with my wards as weak as they are, you should exercise extreme caution. When they go down, you’re basically exposed. Helpless. Worse than an infant. Anyone thinking of even practicing a curse just might spell you for life.”
Images flashed across my mind. Something about a blue-haired troll. I remembered smashing his phone. Oh, the Templars. Tabitha looking pretty upset. Was there something else?
“Your memory will return shortly,” Lucian said, reading my confusion. He glanced down at his watch. “That spell I set on you should’ve only lasted five minutes, not the sixteen hours that it has. You’ve slept the night and mos
t of the day away, but we made fair progress without you. The Terzi are already on the run. We’ll have them cornered soon. But it’s your turn now. The Black Pixies have found something we need to investigate, after we run a few errands.”
I wasn’t really listening. I was caught on the word spell. “You spelled me?” I sputtered, outraged.
He just shrugged as if it were no big deal. Bending down, he picked up a shopping bag from the floor and dropped it onto the bed. “I had Heath pick you up some clothes. Shower and change.”
I eyed the shopping bag. Heath? I didn’t think so. I wasn’t about to don a Hawaiian muumuu, but more importantly, I wanted to know what Lucian had done to me. “How can I trust you if you can spell me any ol’ time you please?” I scowled.
“I did it to protect you, my dear. Now, get ready. You have ten minutes. You’re on the clock.”
Protect me? From what? I was about to protest more when a flash of memory surfaced. Culpepper, the Knight Templar. He’d escaped. I should’ve told Lucian that the Templar had likely been spelled, given that awful mana scent about him. Spiders had broken Lucian’s protection had captured one of his wards, and we’d all suffer grave danger if we didn’t find it soon. We had to defend ourselves.
So, I was beginning to remember.
Lucian moved to the bedside table and opened a drawer. Picking up a small silver jewelry box, he tossed it into my lap. It bounced off my thigh and landed on the bed, the lid popping open.
“Take care of your problem imp,” he ordered caustically. “I’ve had enough of him.”
Ricky.
I hadn’t seen him since he’d let Lucian into my apartment a few weeks ago. I grabbed the box and slammed the lid shut as fast as I could, but it didn’t matter. The thing was already empty. There was no sign of the little miscreant. Not even the faintest wisp of black smoke.
Lucian swore under his breath.
In spite of the serious situation, I couldn’t help but crack my lips in amusement.