There was no hawk here, no one to help her. The feeling of being closed in wrapped around her chest and throat and squeezed. She picked up the stool and raised it once more. Screw the lock, she'd bash the door until it splintered and she could escape. She raised it over her head …
A woman's voice yelled through the door. “Darcy! Stop! I'm opening the door.”
Darcy backed up but held the stool. Her only weapon. Could she hit whoever it was and run? Her heart pounded in her ears as the door swung open.
Eve stood there. Behind her stood the little girl.
Darcy set the stool down. No way in hell could she hit a woman while her daughter watched. Nor could she risk hurting the child.
“Come out,” Eve said. “There's a little kitchen down the hall. Come on, we'll make some tea.”
Was it a trick? “Where is he?”
“Axel's not here.” Eve walked into the room, and took Darcy's hand. Her mouth went flat and when she looked up, her brown eyes were sincere with regret. “I saw you on the cameras, but I didn't get down here soon enough. Your hand is swelling. Come on, I'll get you some ice.”
The ice on her hand eased the pain. Eve heated water on a hot plate and poured three cups; two cups of tea and one of warm milk with just a little tea for Hannah.
Darcy sat in a chair pulled up to a table barely bigger than a dinner plate, and considered her options. Eve said Axel wasn't here, could she get away from Eve and make a run for it?
But she didn't know where she was. She'd tried to watch where Axel drove her, but it was like her mind had been fogged. All she remembered was the wilderness surrounding the house. Then there were the two men who'd tried to kill her. Were more really out there looking for her?
“Do you like tea parties?” Hannah sat on her knees in the chair next to her at the small table. The little girl clearly felt better than when Darcy had arrived at the house.
The child watched her with huge brown eyes so she answered, “When I was a little girl.” She had played tea party with her dolls and the voices in her head.
Eve put a mug of tea in front of her then sat down. The three of them barely fit around the table. “Darcy, I promise, we're not going to hurt you. We're desperate and we need you.” She glanced left to her daughter. “For Hannah.”
She could clearly see the worry in the lines around Eve's eyes and mouth. Oddly, she could relate. “My mom got sick a lot when I was growing up.”
Eve's eyes filled with sympathy. “That must have been hard.”
She shrugged. “It just was. She had lupus all my life.” What she didn't tell them was that her dad blamed her when her mom got really sick. Either Darcy had tired her out, or she brought on flare-ups with her freakish-ness. When Eileen was confined to bed or in the hospital, Darcy would be so scared and lonely. She'd sneak out into the moonlight, lie down on the grass, and talk to the voices. If her dad found her, he'd go ballistic. He'd tell her to stop that crazy shit and lock her in the hallway closet. Terrified, she'd cry herself sick. That's when her hawk would come, his big warm wings settling around her, making her feel safe again so she could sleep.
Darcy realized Hannah was talking.
“Axel's mad when I get sick. The spot on my head makes him really mad.” She lifted her cup with both hands and sipped, then said, “Axel plays tea party with me and Minnie.”
Darcy stared at the little girl and tried to picture it. The huge, overbearing man who'd killed two men at the mortuary, then snatched her, played tea party with his little sister and her doll.
Hannah rose up on her knees to lean her elbows on the table. “Do you want to see my room?”
“Maybe tomorrow, Hannah.” Eve moved Hannah's mug back.
Hannah ignored her and kept chattering to Darcy. “It's not really my room, ‘cause my room is at home. Axel says we have to stay here ‘cause it's safer. But Axel moved some of my toys for me. But not my swing set. Do you like to swing? When Axel pushes me, I can touch the clouds.”
Darcy tried to follow the twists and turns of Hannah's conversation. She was obviously a bright kid, very articulate, and she adored her brother.
“Do you?”
She looked down at the child's questioning face. “What?”
Hannah frowned, like Darcy might be a little slow. “Like to swing?”
For the first time tonight, she almost smiled. She couldn't help it, this kid was a charmer. “I love to. It's like flying.” She remembered her mom or Joe pushing her as high as she could go and feeling like she was free.
Hannah sat back on her heels and bounced on the chair. “Sometimes my mom pushes me, I jump out and Axel catches me.”
“He also gives you cookies when you two think I'm not looking,” Eve said. Then she said to Darcy, “I should have stopped Axel from locking you in.” She reached across the table and took Darcy's uninjured hand. “I'll do anything you want, but please help us. Help Hannah.”
Darcy felt Eve's powerful love and fear for Hannah sink into her skin and touch her heart. If she did have the means to help this little girl, how could she walk away?
TUESDAY: DAY FOUR OF THE DEATH MARK
The sound of footsteps jerked Darcy awake. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. God she was sore.
Axel walked in wearing a dark tee and jeans, holding a steaming cup in one hand and a large paper bag with handles in the other. He dropped the bag on the desk and headed toward her. “Drink this. My mom made it to help with the soreness from your cuts and to keep your hands busy so you leave my furniture alone.”
She sat up in the bed, frowning at him.”Your concern is so touching.” She glared at the mug he held out to her.
“It's just tea with herbs.”
“Like I'd trust you.” She was too sore and tired to fight. She just wanted to go home. Her right hand hurt like she'd put it in a shredder. She opened and closed her fingers to try and work out the tenderness.
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, while dropping down on his haunches to look at her hand. He set the tea on the floor.
She tried to snatch the hand back but he kept his grip firm, not painful.
Frowning harder, he said, “Not broken, but you bruised the hell out of it.”
“Yeah, well, I thought I'd give the witchcraft thing a try to unlock the door. Those two that attacked me last night swore I was holding the mortuary door closed with witchcraft, so I tried to summon the same, I don't know, intensity I guess and unlock the door. It didn't work.” It was a little insulting to be forced to acknowledge being something other than mortal, then to fail at that when she really needed the help.
Lifting his gaze, he said, “The locks are specially designed. Even if you had tripped one lock with your powers, a second lock would automatically engage. It's designed to do the same thing with physical force like smashing it with a bar stool.”
She measured him with a stare. “I'm not going to be locked up.” She would never stop trying to escape.
He stroked her wrist with his thumb. “I got that.”
His touch eased the pain in her wrist. It made her nervous that she responded to him unlike she had to any other man. Was it the pheromones? “I want to go home.”
He kept his hold on her, gently stroking her tender skin. “Can't. Make no mistake, the rogues are after you. I ran into two of them last night at your apartment. You're safer here where I can protect you.”
She struggled to take it all in. “You went to my apartment?” She was still catching up.
He kept gently stroking her wrist. “I got you some clothes and stuff you might need. You were perfectly safe. My mom is a crack shot if it came down to it.”
“She didn't have a gun with her last night when she let me out of the room.” Eve had had on sweatpants and a T-shirt; she hadn't had anywhere to hide a gun.
“The gun is to protect you, not hurt you. We just want to save Hannah's life. Mom was worried about you and wanted to reassure you.” With his free hand, he picked up the cup of
tea, holding it out to her so she could grasp the handle. “Drink it.”
She took the tea. He didn't want her dead, at least not until she uncursed his sister, so she figured the tea was safe. “What about the rogues at my apartment?” It was creepy to think of them there, looking through her stuff.
His mouth flattened. “They're dead.”
She almost choked on the tea. “What …”
He let go of her hand. “They attacked me, I killed them.”
She blinked in the fog of her thoughts. He was kind to his baby sister, played with her, loved his mom, but killed that easily. Who was he?
“Drink your tea, take a hot shower, then come into my office across the hall. We'll figure out what to do next.”
She sorted through that, glanced up at the two cameras mounted in opposite corners. “Are there cameras in the bathroom?”
His green eyes flared for a second as he rose to his feet. “No. Not in any bathroom in the house. The rest of the house is wired with cameras and different security devices.”
“How do I know you're telling the truth?” She wasn't going to strip naked for his viewing pleasure.
He looked down at her. “I don't need cameras if I want to spy on you, Darcy.”
She almost dropped her tea when he literally faded from view. Then materialized again. “What was that?”
“Witch hunters can shield their presence and they can be deadly silent. We're predators.”
Her skin prickled while her heart hammered with the memory. “That's why I didn't see those two last night. But I knew something was there.” She shivered and wrapped both hands around her steaming cup.
Anger pulsed in his voice. “You saw them when they wanted you to see them. Your terror drops adrenaline into your blood, giving them more power as they bleed you.”
Axel, and those men who had attacked her, really were something other than human. “Can you teleport?” He'd driven his truck to find her though …
“No. But we can hide behind a shield so we're invisible. And we're fast.”
She opened her mouth, wanting to know more.
He cut her off. “You'll have complete privacy in the bathroom. Your clothes are in the bag there.” He gestured to the desk. “Get moving, we have less than a week for you to heal Hannah. Come across the hall when you're finished.” He turned and left.
She felt the struggle in the air around her ease. She knew what it was because he'd told her. Axel was fighting not to become what those two rogues were.
She finished the tea and took a hot shower.
Fifteen minutes later, she walked across the hallway wearing her own jeans, T-shirt, and sandals. The fact that Axel got into her apartment and looked through her underwear drawer was unsettling, but not creepy like knowing the rogues had been there. That made her blood run cold. But having her own clothes to wear made her feel a little bit better, more in control.
The door to her room was open and she looked across the hall to see Axel behind a huge desk, holding a cup of something steamy.
He turned his head, his green eyes taking her in, sweeping over her from her damp hair to her shoes. She paused in the middle of the hallway. He looked massive sitting there, his shoulders spanning more than half the desk. His T-shirt stretched enough to show the ridges of ripped muscles. The size of his bicep nearly matched her thigh. Even his hand wrapped around the cup was huge, as if it were a child's teacup, not a full-size mug.
If he wanted her blood, what could she do to stop him? He had her isolated, out in the middle of nowhere. After seeing his disappearing act, she suspected he'd somehow shielded her from being able to track where he was taking her.
She didn't trust him.
But she was drawn to him, especially to the hawk. When she touched the hawk on his skin, she'd felt safe. And more, as if there was more inside of her and the hawk could show her.
Maybe she really was crazy.
“There's more tea in that thermos. My mom will bring down some breakfast for you in a little bit.” Axel gestured to the carafe on the desk. “And coffee down the hall in the kitchen.” His voice hardened. “Don't run, Darcy. Do not run from me.”
She had started to look to her left toward the kitchen, but his last words caught her attention. “Yeah, yeah, big bad hunter, I get it.”
He lowered his chin and glared at her. “You look like hell. Black eye, split lip, and too little sleep.”
Annoyed, she stalked into the room. “Thanks. I'm trying a new look called Kidnapped and Pissed.” The desk took up half of the office, the rest held a couch, side table, light, and bookshelves. One wall had a massive flat-screen TV. Turning back to the desk, she picked up the thermos and filled her cup with the fragrant tea. Until Axel opened his big mouth, she had felt much better. The herbs in the tea had reduced the pain and swelling.
She heard a snort. It didn't come from Axel. Darcy looked around. “Where'd that come from? Who else is here?” She remembered the way Axel had disappeared. Was someone else in the room?
Axel set his coffee down, hit a button on his computer keyboard and said, “Look behind you.”
She turned to glance over her shoulder and almost dropped her tea. “Holy cow!” The TV came to life and a face materialized on the screen. Close-shaved head, piercing blue eyes, hard jaw … like some super-hot athlete, but his bulk looked real not steroid-grown. He was huge. The image was so clear, she could see the gold eagle pierced through one ear. “Where is he?”
Axel got up and walked around the desk to sit on the edge a few feet from her. “He's at our warehouse. Videoconferencing. Sutton's been looking for ways to link you to other witches. They won't have anything to do with us, but they should respond to you.”
Darcy tore her gaze from the screen to look at Axel. He was three feet away from her, leaning his butt on the desk, his boots crossed at the ankles. “Sutton. He's one of … you?”
“Witch hunter.”
“Rogue?”
“Show her your palm, Sutton.”
The man lifted his palm up. Obviously, he could see and hear them, too.
Axel said, “See the lines?”
Sutton's palm was massive, but yeah, she did. “And?”
“Rogues have no lines on their palms. Once they lose their soul, their lifelines vanish.”
“What does that mean?” Darcy believed in souls. She'd been around the dead all of her life and believed that the soul went on once the body died. So if the soul was gone …
Axel said, “When the rogue dies without his soul, he becomes a shade with no form and no world. He'll roam forever in a vast emptiness between the worlds.”
A shiver went down her spine.
Sutton broke in, “See the screen? These are rogues.”
Darcy looked at the TV. It went to a split screen with Sutton on the left. On the right, two men appeared. They were huge, bulging with muscles, but there was something off. Their faces didn't fit their physique; they almost looked feminine. They had delicate eyebrows and were missing the ruggedness of a beard shadow—as if they didn't have to shave. Dropping her gaze down their arms, she noticed they didn't have the darker smattering of hair most men had. Their skin appeared waxy. “Why do they look almost female in some places and very male in others?”
Sutton answered, “Witch blood is absorbed through the skin. All witches are female, so we assume that's what's causing the change.”
Darcy listened but something bothered her as she stared at the rogues on the screen. They looked like the two that attacked her outside the mortuary but there was something else that kept bothering her. Finally, it hit her. “There was a man at the cemetery on Saturday. He looked like those rogues you showed me. His eyes were green and …”
Axel made a deep noise in his chest. “My father. He assigned me to kill you.”
But he hadn't killed her, he'd rescued her from two other killers. “Your father? He's rogue?”
“Yes. Apparently, he was there to verify that you were a witch
. Believe me, if he'd been there to kill you, you'd be dead.”
What was it like to know your father was some kind of murderer? She had the insane urge to touch him, to try and ease the hardness that lived inside the man. But she ignored the impulse—Axel had kidnapped her and had already told her he could barely control his craving for her blood. He was trying not to become what his father was.
She focused her thoughts. “How did this curse happen?”
“It was about thirty years ago. Three demon witches captured three witch hunters. They planned to curse the hunters with a spell that would bind their souls as familiars, but the curse caught up all the earth witches and witch hunters working together to stop it. It basically turned into one clusterfuck of a curse.”
“So back then, you talked to each other? Got along?”
Axel nodded. “We protected earth witches, and in turn, they cast protection spells over our families so that demon witches couldn't use them as leverage against us. If something like a death curse got through, the witches would heal the victim, then the witch hunters would hunt and kill the demon witch, and they would provide protection for the witch who undid the curse.”
That caught her attention. “The demon witch will go after the one who undoes the curse?” So she was going to have a demon witch coming after her? How would she protect herself? Once Axel got what he wanted from her, she was on her own.
“Darcy,” Sutton said, “you have to do this. Find the spell to break the curse on Hannah. We'll figure out a way to protect you. The only other choice is for Axel to find the demon witch and kill her.”
“Then he'll go rogue,” she said. What choice did she have? She couldn't let that little girl die. She didn't want the responsibility of Axel's soul on her, but she wouldn't walk away. Besides, if she did, the rogues would find her. And they might kill others to get to her, she couldn't endanger people at work, her friends, or Joe.
Oh, God, Joe.
Snapping her head up, she said, “I'd like to call Joe. Just tell him that I'm okay …”
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