“Does it hurt?” he asked in a rough voice.
“No. I’m good.”
He jerked her back around to face him. “Dammit! You could have died.”
She could practically hear his teeth grinding together over the words. She managed a weak smile. “Just another day in paradise.”
That had been their catchphrase for those seriously fucked-up days on the job, both well aware there was no other place they’d rather be.
“Shit, Kayla.” He stared down at her with an intent expression she couldn’t read, but it sent a horde of crickets jumping and popping around in her stomach.
Abruptly he pulled her against his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around her, his face pressing into the crook of her neck.
“You scared the ever-loving shit out of me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know those creatures could hurt me that way. I didn’t know I was—” She stumbled and made a face. “You know.”
“A god?” He lifted his head to look at her but didn’t loosen his grip on her.
She flushed and looked away. “Yeah.” She started to push out of his grip.
His arms tightened. “Don’t.”
She went still, looking back at him. The ferocity of his gaze pinned her in place.
“I—”
Her voice faded to nothing. She had no idea what she wanted to say. Her tongue seemed to be paralyzed. All she could do was feel. And she felt glorious.
Being held by Ray sent little explosions of excitement and desire through her. She was all too aware of his bare skin beneath her hands. She fought the urge to fan her fingers over the ridges and valleys of his muscles and stroke down the elegant curve of his back.
Then she realized he was shaking. As in, emotional overload.
“I’m okay,” she managed by way of reassurance.
He shook his head; she could see him putting walls around his emotions, shutting them down. “You’re killing me, Smalls,” he groaned.
“Did you just quote The Sandlot at me? That movie is older than dirt.”
“It’s a classic, and anyway, you’ve seen it plenty of times, too, so you can just keep your insults to yourself, Miss Kettle.”
The intensity of his look had not diminished, though he clearly sought to lighten the mood.
“So, I’ve been wondering . . . how the hell could you let those beasts own you like that?” His mouth twisted in what might have been an attempt at a smile. Or it might have been a snarl. Hard to tell. “I mean—you’re five times the size of them with knives at the ends of all your fingers. You should have wiped the floor with them. I thought you were better than that.”
She pinched him. “If I’d known they could bite through my scales, I’d have fought differently. Nothing ever has bit through before.”
“Rookie move, making assumptions.” He shook his head in a show of sorrow. “You’ve lost your touch.”
At a loss for a witty comeback, Kayla resorted to sticking her tongue out at him. His gaze dropped to her mouth, his arms tightening a fraction. Her heart lurched. Did he—? Was that—?
Before she could let herself go more than a few steps down that tempting and very forbidden trail of thought, Ray dropped his arms and backed away.
“Where are my clothes?”
“Try the dresser. That’s where they stashed mine,” Kayla suggested. “You been working out?” she asked, because the quiet was too much for her.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Maybe. See anything you like?” He swished his sheet-shrouded butt from side to side.
Kayla snorted and laughed. “In your dreams.” And in hers, but that was a secret he really didn’t need to know.
“You wound me. Now unless you want to see the rest of the goods, you’d best turn yourself around.”
As much as she wouldn’t have minded getting another good look, she turned, listening to the rustle of his clothes as he dressed.
“Have you been dating? Or maybe you got married?” Kayla asked suddenly. She hadn’t seen a wedding ring, but that didn’t mean anything. Ray wasn’t exactly a jewelry kind of guy.
Why did the possibility deflate her completely?
“Not married, not dating anybody at the moment,” Ray said after a moment. “I’ve kept pretty busy.”
“What about—?” Kayla dug through her memory for the name of the woman he’d been seeing just before Magicfall. That one had been more serious than his normal pattern of short-term affairs. She’d been an ophthalmologist. She and Ray had been going out for a couple months at that point, which counted as a long relationship for him.
“Audrey?” he said, finishing her question. “She disappeared.”
Like a lot of others who’d been transformed into something else or died during Magicfall or the war. “I’m sorry. That had to be rough.” Wow. Impressive. Talk about the lamest offering of condolences ever.
She turned around when Ray didn’t say anything. Dressed now, he leaned back against the dresser and eyed her broodingly.
“It pissed me off,” he said finally, then shook his head. “Audrey and I had already figured out we weren’t going anywhere romantically, but . . .” His mouth twisted. “I looked for her. She was a good woman—a good person. She deserved a lot better than to just . . . disappear.” His jaw muscles flexed. “That damned magic hurt so many people.”
From what Kayla understood, it had also returned life to a lot of magical beings as well. Beings who had been slowly suffocating in the human world. So, did they deserve to die so humans could own the world? Or did the humans who’d overrun their world deserve it?
She didn’t have any good answers. She sighed and ran her hands over her head. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help. I should have been.” Should have found a way to be there for him. Should have figured out how to deal with shifting without abandoning him and her job. Should have just sucked it up and told him about herself and dealt with the fallout instead of running away.
His brows winged down and he straightened, taking two swift strides to stand in front of her. “Don’t do that.”
Kayla tried to smile and failed. She felt tired, as if she weighed a thousand pounds. “Don’t do what?”
“Audrey wasn’t your fault.”
“Didn’t say she was.”
“Yeah, but you’re thinking it.”
“You read minds now? That’s got to make getting women into bed easier.” She started to turn away. This was not a conversation she wanted to have. “We should go.”
Ray caught her wrist. “Dammit, Kayla. Hold still a minute, would you?”
“We don’t have time—”
“We’ll make time. Just listen to me for a minute.”
She sighed. Suck it up, Reese, she told herself. Whatever he has to say, just deal with it. Stop running, stop hiding.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked, making herself meet his gaze.
That intensity had returned. Her stomach tightened. This was not going to be good.
Chapter 20
Ray
NOW HE SHOULD tell her he was a witch. Tell her that she hadn’t been the only one to undergo a transformation. The words stuck like chicken bones in his throat. What a hypocrite he was. Kayla clearly didn’t have any issues with witches, but he’d made such an ass of himself over her not trusting him with her secret, how would she feel when she found out he’d done the same thing?
He’d been so damned angry after Magicfall. Angry at the magic, angry at becoming a witch, angry at the world going to hell. He dumped it all on Kayla when she left until all of it became the same thing and it was all her fault. Four years later he hadn’t dealt with any of it. In fact, it had only gotten worse the more he thought about her, and the more he missed her.
If he d
idn’t fix things with her soon, if he didn’t tell her he was a witch, he could lose her again. And she’d be right to walk away. He’d made her the scapegoat of all that had happened to him, when he’d been the one to drive her away with his assholery.
She had a wary look like a dog expecting to get kicked and standing there bravely waiting for it to happen. He despised himself for putting that expression on her face. He despised himself for a whole lot of things. The past couple of days had gone a long way toward clarifying his priorities. No, these last days had revealed his priorities. Hell, he disobeyed his captain and ditched Dix, not because of the job, but because of Kayla.
Right now, she was the most important thing in his life. His job was a close second, but it definitely was second after her. That scared the shit out of him. He could control his job, but he couldn’t control her. The one thing he knew for sure was that he couldn’t afford to screw up with her again.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Her brows furrowed. “Come again?”
“Laying all the blame on you. If I hadn’t been such an asshole, you might have told me what happened to you. Instead you had to do this all alone. I wanted you there for me, but I wasn’t there for you.”
About halfway through his speech she started shaking her head. “No, I was too afraid, and it was too new, too awful. I wouldn’t have told you.”
He could tell she was just trying to make him feel better which only pissed him off. Mostly because he deserved the opposite. She ought to be pissed as hell at him for acting like such a douche.
His hand on her arm tightened, and he forced himself to relax it, absently rubbing his thumb on the inside of her wrist. He felt her pulse jumping, and scowled. Was she scared of him? God but he’d fucked up more than he’d known.
His mind flashed to a few minutes earlier when he’d held her in his arms. It had taken every scrap of willpower he’d had not to kiss her and peel off her clothes. His dick had gone as hard as a crowbar. Luckily she hadn’t noticed.
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. I acted like a spoiled brat. I made it impossible for you to talk to me.” And did without her in his life for four years because of it. Jackass. No wonder none of his relationships worked. He’d been pining for Kayla. And if he wanted to keep her in his life, he’d keep on pining, he told himself firmly. Do not fuck this second chance up.
She started to say something else.
“Look, just let me finish, okay?” He had to tell her about being a witch.
Before he could say anything, Raven appeared in the doorway, looking grim. “There’s news. You should come.”
“It can’t wait?” he asked Raven.
The witch shook her head.
Kayla looked almost relieved. “We’ll make time later, okay? Tell me then.”
Ray reluctantly let go of Kayla, and they followed Raven into the living room. He’d tell her later. As soon as he had another opening.
Waiting for them in the living room were two other witches. He recognized Jerry from the night before, but he didn’t recall the woman. She was short, maybe 5’3” with broad shoulders and muscular arms, as if she lifted weights. Her red hair was shaved above the ears and spiked up a couple inches on her head. Her skin looked like it hadn’t seen the sun her whole life, but what caught his attention was the odd clash of excitement and concern on her expression.
“You remember Jerry?” Raven asked.
Ray nodded and shook the witch’s hand. “I take it I have you to thank for the nap?”
Jerry nodded unrepentantly. “You were getting underfoot.”
“This is Laina Requa,” Raven said, introducing the redheaded witch. “She’s been doing some research for us.”
“What kind of research?” Kayla asked.
“Come. Let’s sit down.” Raven gestured to the kitchen table, and they took seats around it.
Jerry poured coffee, and he’d already set out cream and sugar along with raspberry muffins and butter.
“What’s going on?” Ray didn’t like the worried looks on their faces, or the tense way Raven looked at Kayla as if she thought Kayla might drop dead at any second.
“In the course of healing you,” Raven said to Kayla, “we drew some blood. Laina used to be a chemistry professor at Reed. She specializes now in potions and magical edibles.”
“Edibles?” Ray knew there was a market for them. As with pot edibles, they came in all sorts of forms from brownies to gummy bears to suckers. The difference was that magical edibles had magical results. You didn’t always know how skilled the witch who made them was, and you couldn’t be sure you were getting what was promised. Nothing was regulated.
“We’ve all got to make a living,” said Laina in a light, musical voice.
“We had her analyze your blood. We wanted to find out more about the poison. We took samples both before healing and after.”
Raven looked at Laina and nodded for the other witch to take over the narrative.
“In the pre-healing sample, we extracted some of the poison to get a better sense of its properties and try to create an antidote,” said the redheaded witch. “With the second sample we wanted to ascertain whether you had any residue in your system that might prove toxic.”
“And?” Kayla prompted when Laina stopped.
“You’ve got a problem,” the witch said bluntly.
She drew a small clear glass vial out of her pocket and set it on the table. Fine silvery-white dust coated the inside. Ray didn’t have to ask to know that it was the dust from the Fountain Square murders.
“You know what this is?” Laina asked.
Kayla nodded, and then shook her head. “That stuff was everywhere when I found the bodies at Keller Fountain,” she said. “Some of it absorbed into my skin. I take it that it’s not as inert as I’d hoped it was?”
“Probably is for most people.”
“But not for me?” Kayla grimaced.
“One of my specialties is figuring out what an unactivated spell will do,” said Laina. “Particularly with edibles and other ingested things. A lot depends on what the edible is made from. Just like with anything else, if you mix this and that and a little more of this, you will get a predictable outcome. Edible magic is that way. If you’ve got a certain combination of herbs, minerals, and other enrichments, you’ll most likely end up with certain kinds of spells. Most of the time I can refine my findings not only to a particular class of spells, but to the actual spell itself. Or at least I can usually make a good guess.”
“So, what am I dealing with?” Kayla asked.
“Well, let’s start with the bad first and move down the list to the worst. I have no idea what is. It’s clearly meant to be inhaled or absorbed through the skin, but other than that, I have no idea.”
Ray scowled, foreboding clutching his heart. “You said there is worse.”
“I was able to extract the poison from the blood sample. It’s really more of a venom. I mixed a little dust with it to see what would happen. Nothing. Then I mixed in a drop of your blood. Still nothing. Then I activated the powder.”
Her expression was irritatingly sympathetic as she looked at Kayla. As though she was about to issue a death sentence, followed by a “nothing we can do,” speech. Ray tensed, like he could somehow protect Kayla from whatever news was coming.
“Spit it out,” Kayla said looking resigned.
“The powder makes the venom ten times as potent, maybe more. Together they would destroy all your red blood cells in under a minute. You’re lucky it hadn’t been activated or you wouldn’t have made it fifty feet before you dropped dead.”
Ray felt as if someone had kicked him in his solar plexus. He struggled to pull in a breath. “Can you get it out of her?”
“I’m afraid not,” Laina said. “To do
it we would have to put you on a bypass machine and run your blood through a filtering system. Even so, we probably wouldn’t get it all. I’m pretty sure it’s left deposits in your organs, as well as your brain and circulatory system. It’s designed to stay in the body.”
“What if we activated it now, when there’s no venom in me anymore?” Kayla asked. “How long would it last before it used up all its strength?”
“We don’t know,” said Jerry. “Only the witch who cast the spell knows.”
“This makes going after those creatures more interesting.” Kayla drummed her fingers on the table as she thought.
“We can give you a shield spell,” Raven said. “But there’s no guarantee it will work against the creatures. Your best bet is to stay as far away from them as you can get.”
“That’s not an option,” Ray said before Kayla could answer.
If he had his way he’d lock Kayla up in a deep mine somewhere until the bloodthirsty creatures were destroyed. But he wasn’t going to get his way. He knew damned well she wasn’t going to give up pursuing them. He wouldn’t have in her shoes. So, if he couldn’t stop her, he’d do his damnedest to help her and keep her safe
Raven nodded as if she’d expected nothing different. “It should only take an hour or two to build one that might protect you.”
“Then you’ll have to deliver it,” Ray said. “If we can figure out their target, then we might be able to get the drop on them. I’d rather be the one setting the trap than the one walking into it.”
“What do you plan to do?” asked Jerry.
“Find someone who can tell us what those symbols mean for starters,” Kayla said. “I don’t suppose any of you recognized the description of those creatures?”
“We have people researching both. A lot of our reference books were lost after Magicfall, and in books we do have, many of the descriptions of beasts and magical creatures don’t match very well with reality. We hope to find something soon.”
The Witchkin Murders Page 28