It would never end.
First he had to save Hannah, then … he didn't know.
The tattoo on his back warmed. A reminder? Or his imagination? Or had Darcy done something to him?
He handed his empty beer bottle to Ram. “Keep an eye on the rogues.” He strode toward the dance floor, his eyes on a tall blonde. He needed to get relief, then he could think. An unwanted memory surfaced, the one of him walking into that building with his dad and seeing that witch tied down, bleeding from multiple cuts and terrified. He had been horrified, felt pity for the witch …
And then the lust. Bloodlust. It had shocked him, blasting through his system and making him want dark ugly things.
He would never forget the screams as his father cut the young witch. Or his father taking his wrist and slamming his hand down onto the bleeding wound.
“Axel Locke.”
The sharp male voice shoved out his memories. He turned and sized up the man; he was mortal, topping six feet with tightly packed muscle and a steady confidence. Even in the throbbing strobe lights, Axel could see the deep blue of his eyes. “Yeah?”
The man's jaw tightened. “I want to see Darcy. She swears she's fine, but I want to see for myself.”
Rage arced up like a massive snake coiling to strike. He knew the man was a mortal, so he wasn't after Darcy's blood. But the need to strike remained. Tightly, he asked, “Who are you?” Did Darcy have a boyfriend? The idea of this man touching the witch had him clenching his fists to keep from grabbing his knife and killing him on the spot.
Unflinching, the man answered, “Joe MacAlister. Darcy's my cousin.”
MacAlister only raised his voice loud enough to be heard over the voices and music. He wasn't threatening or blustering, merely stating a fact. But the fact that MacAlister had found him and connected him to Darcy meant one thing: The little witch had contacted him somehow. Clever. Or maybe she got Crone to do it for her.
But now he had a problem.
He had to get rid of the cousin and keep him out of the way. Fixing his eyes on the man, he mentally reached through the optic nerves to short-term memory to shift his memory. “Darcy went on a business trip. She'll be back in a couple weeks. She's never heard of me and neither have you.” To do it right, it took a good eight seconds of forcing the subject's brain to concentrate on the new information. It was going to screw with the guy's head because the facts wouldn't add up, and memory holes would cause intense frustration. But MacAlister's mental health wasn't his problem.
Joe stepped closer to him. “Cut the shit. I—”
A scream tore through the nightclub.
Axel stepped away to get clearance, whipped out his knife, and searched the place. He noted that Joe had a gun in his hand, fast for a human but not really a threat to him or any of the hunters. The scream came from the dance floor. Looking that way, he saw that two of the rogues had each grabbed a woman and had their blades at the women's throats.
He shifted his gaze back to the fire pit and saw the same scene; two rogues with blades to two female's throats.
Axel didn't have to look for his men to know they were on the move. The rogues making a stand using his club patrons sent fury pounding through him. Women, always the women that the rogues deemed easy pickings.
The music died and the club went silent, except for the crying from the terrified women. The red and purple strobe lights suddenly looked obscene and more hellish than ever.
As he took it all in, a fifth rogue slid out of the shadows. Recognition hit Axel in his solar plexus. Holden Mackenzie. The boy Axel had grown up with.
Holden stared at Axel and ordered, “Kill the first one.”
“Nooo—” The female's piercing plea turned into a gurgle. Several women fainted, thumping down onto the acrylic dance floor under the pulsing colored lights.
Rage, deep and personal, blasted through Axel. What the hell happened to the kid who used to love playing hero? Now he was capable of ordering the slaughter of an innocent mortal woman to make a point.
In his club.
Axel hated that they had come to this, but he would not let anyone, not his father and not an old friend, murder in cold blood. Every nerve in his body went taut as he watched Holden, wearing a long suede coat, stride up to him.
Smug satisfaction rolled through his walk, and made his feminine face ugly. Drawing out his perceived power, he waited a beat before saying, “I want the wit—”
Before the man finished his word, Axel threw his knife, burying the blade dead center in Holden's heart. Because they healed so quickly, the surest way to kill a witch hunter was a direct hit to the heart. He yanked his knife free before the dead hunter hit the ground.
This was what they had become. He just killed a man he'd once called a friend. Cold with rage, he quickly scanned the club to assess the situation.
The other four rogues were just as dead as Holden. Phoenix, Ram, and Sutton were cleaning off their knives.
Key knelt by the woman who had been cut. He looked up at Axel with his gray eyes. “Dead.”
Fucking bastards. The woman's blue shiny top was soaked in blood, her mouth frozen open and her eyes staring blankly.
She had died as a message to him.
Patrons started to rumble and talk. They had all seen it. Axel had to control the situation. No time for regrets, he thought, as he glanced once more at Holden's body. His men gathered around, waiting for him to issue orders. “Ram, you're the best at shifting memories, try and shift the memories of what they saw into a jealous boyfriend cutting her throat.” He had to force back the boiling anger, the absolute fury that an innocent was murdered in his club. It was done, now he had to deal with the fallout. There were probably a half dozen non-rogue witch hunters in the club. “Sutton, talk to the hunters, get their cooperation or tell them to get lost. Ram, call the police as soon as Phoenix gets rid of the dead rogues.”
“Where to?” Phoenix asked.
Axel moved his mouth in a parody of a smile. “Dump them in front of my dad's house.” Holden had been his dad's man, so Myles had probably been behind this stunt. The rogues could clean up their mess. And it'd be a message—don't fuck with him or his.
“What have you done with Darcy? Where is she?”
Damn it, the cousin. He stood loose, his gun in his hand by his thigh, his blue eyes hard and determined. Not a flash of shock, fear, or horror. He wasn't the average mortal.
Key stood behind Joe's left shoulder. “A, what do you want done with him?”
Axel considered the options. “What did Darcy tell you?”
Joe met his gaze. “She thinks she's a witch.”
“She is, and she's in danger. She's safe where I have her.”
“I have no reason to believe you. If she's in danger, I'll protect her.”
Axel had two choices left to him: Kill MacAlister or tell him the truth. “She'll be dead within an hour if I let her go.” He indicated the bodies being dragged out. “They came here to find Darcy.”
Joe holstered his gun, folded his arms, and said, “I'm not leaving until I see and talk to Darcy.”
The problems just kept piling up.
WEDNESDAY: DAY FIVE OF THE DEATH MARK
“How did you do it?”
Jarred out of sleep, the old panic hit Darcy full force. Her heart rate went from resting to run-like-hell. She jerked upright and slammed herself back against the wall and out of reach. “I'm sorry! I won't …”
“Too late, you already did.”
His voice penetrated her jumbled panic. “Axel?” It all came back to her. It wasn't her dad dragging her out of bed to tell her he wouldn't raise a devil-spawn, it was Axel. Anger overrode her weak fear. “What are you bellowing about?”
“Your cousin came to the club tonight.”
“Joe? What club?” She fought to orient herself. She'd worked deep into the night, getting all four chakras to open, but control was another matter. She set off the smoke alarm twice with fires, accidentally sp
awned a mini-tornado and then she tried to focus her powers and move some of the crystals, but instead she'd melted them into a big mess.
Axel's words finally sank in. Throwing her legs over the bed, she stood up quickly. “Joe's here?”
Axel grabbed her arm. “Not here, at my club. How did you contact him?”
She turned to look at him. In the light from the hallway, she saw his feathery black hair, his green eyes, and the shadows under his eyes, which made him look tired. His hand was gentle on her arm, very different from the harshness of his face. Something tugged inside of her. “Email. I used my powers to send him an email.”
“You're going to get him killed.”
Her breath caught, tangling up in her throat. She swallowed and said, “What did you do to him?” Her first chakra whooshed open. Followed by the second; so quickly that she was stunned. It felt like an elevator suddenly dropping.
The hallway lights flickered. The ruined, melted crystals on the worktable thunked together, while all the pieces of metal and rocks in the plastic drawers clattered.
Axel glanced around, then back at her. “Witch karma,” he warned her.
“Do you think I'd care? If you killed Joe—”
“He's alive. I didn't touch him. But he was there when some rogues decided to take hostages in my club. To get to you, by the way. They wanted me to trade you for the four women they seized with a knife to each of their throats.”
She felt the room tilt, her powers spun in a crazy-eight pattern up and down her spine. She hadn't had enough sleep and the shocks kept coming. “You're trading me? Giving me to the rogues?” She remembered the terror of facing the two at the mortuary, remembered the feel of his knife cutting her while he whispered ugly things to her about wanting her blood. Furious, she jerked her arm, trying to get free of Axel. “You dragged me out of bed to trade me!”
He let go of her arm. “Don't be stupid. We killed the rogues.”
She sank down on the edge of the bed, trying to sort out what the hell was going on. “What is it you want from me?”
“Tell your cousin to back off. Do you have any idea what the rogues will do to him if they figure out he's your cousin? They will use him to get to you.” He crossed his arms over his chest, emphasizing his hulking muscles, and stared down at her.
Oh, God. She should do it. If Axel was telling the truth, Joe could get killed. “How do I know you're not lying? What club are you talking about?”
“Axel of Evil; it's a nightclub. Mostly hunters hang out there.” Walking with confidence in the semi-darkness, he went to her worktable, picked up the laptop, and brought it back to her. “Open it.”
She took the machine, opened it, and turned it on. In seconds, she was watching a video feed in full color with sound. A nightclub that looked dark and hellish. The scene split to show Axel talking to Joe on one side of the screen, the second side showed two men each grab a woman off the dance floor and jam knives against their throats.
She watched in horror as the scene played out. A man in a suede coat slid out of the shadows and gave the order to kill.
In sick horror, she saw the woman's throat cut, her blood gushing out on the dance floor.
Darcy slapped her hand over her mouth. “They killed her!” She half rose, holding the computer in one hand. “You let them murder that woman.”
Roughly, he said, “Keep watching.”
She couldn't watch, couldn't see this. Who were these monsters? How could Axel … She sank back onto the bed, her eyes involuntarily drawn back to the screen. She had to see what happened. The man in the suede coat said, “I want the wit—”
He never finished his sentence. Axel threw his knife in a movement so fast she could barely track it. The man went rigid when the knife struck, then boneless as death took him. He collapsed to the ground. She looked up. “You killed him.”
“Yes.”
Gooseflesh pebbled her bare skin. She wrapped her arms around herself to rub her cold arms. She saw the rest play out, including Joe walking out alive. But her thoughts went back to Axel, to his face when he'd thrown the knife. Cold and hard … except she'd seen a flicker of something … regret? Grief? “Did you know him? That man you killed?”
“Yes.”
She heard it, the tight regret he was trying not to feel. Looking up, she felt caught in his green eyes. “Who was he?”
He clenched his massive hands into fists at his side. “I was friends with him until we were fourteen. Now I killed him. To protect you.”
His turmoil and anger licked at her exposed skin like rough sandpaper. She could feel how much he hated what he'd had to do, but he'd done it. At the same time, he was struggling against his own craving. For witch blood, her blood. “Why are the rogues hounding you?”
“They've been quietly organizing for a while, but now they are stepping up their game. Their goal is to wipe out witches completely, and they will do anything to achieve it. They know I'm protecting you, and they want us both dead.” He steadied himself. “We're running out time.”
“It's only been three days!” She'd been trying!
“Five days since Hannah was cursed on Saturday night. That leaves you five more days to uncurse Hannah before the waxing gibbous moon. Once that moon passes, Hannah's only hope lies in the demon witch being killed before the full moon. She's already tired, unusually crabby, and feverish.” He turned and stalked away from her toward the door, then back, as if the room couldn't contain him. “I don't need your cousin getting in my way, Darcy.”
The tension in him was winding tighter and tighter. When he'd first woken her up, her fear had been so instinctive that she'd missed how close to the edge he was. She could see it now. Had killing his friend been the last straw? Would he give in to the curse and kill her? “I'm trying! Five days isn't much time! I'm learning as fast as I can.” She didn't want Hannah to die! But how could she do this in five days?
He reached behind him. To the place where he kept his knife.
Adrenaline exploded inside her. Run, the voices screamed. Darcy jumped off the bed, ignoring the computer that fell to the ground, and raced for the light shining through the open door. Her head replayed the woman's throat being sliced open. She had to reach the door. Get away from Axel, from his knife. Her powers crackled up from her core, but she was afraid she'd hurt herself with witch karma if she used them. Then he'd be on her.
The door was just another step away. Nothing barred her way.
She slammed hard into a rock-solid chest.
Rocking back from the impact, she struggled to keep from falling. Two large hands grabbed her arms, yanking her forward. No one was there—yet someone had a grip on her.
Axel materialized in front of her. “Stop. Damn it to hell, stop!” He was panting, his entire body thrumming. Not shaking, but buzzing as if he couldn't hold all the force bubbling inside of him.
“Let go!” She wasn't going to hold still while he slaughtered her. Her powers escaped in a whoosh, exploding the ceiling lights in the hallway.
Axel reacted in a blur, grabbing hold of her neck and easing her against the wall, then he slammed his body up behind her. The cold wall pressing against her right cheek barely registered, while the warmth of Axel's body shielding her filled up her senses. Even more shocking, she had the sense of powerful wings folding around her. As if his hawk was protecting her along with the man.
That was insane. Axel wasn't protecting her, he was the threat! “I won't let you kill me without hurting you, too.” It was a ridiculous threat, he had her immobilized. Anything she did to him with her powers would hurt her three times worse.
“Won't hurt you.”
She felt each word rasp out of his chest with tremendous effort. She shivered. “But you were reaching for your knife!”
“No. Cell phone.”
“What?” She couldn't move. Damn it, he had her totally pinned. She could see his huge hand flat against the wall, the fingers curling in until his knuckles turned white.
She felt his thick erection slide against her lower back. The heat of his body was reaching her, surrounding her. The sandpaper-scratch sensation from his earlier agi tation faded to something else, something sensual and intimate.
Probably because she was crazy. Her mind had snapped from the stress. Or it could be Stockholm syndrome. Trying to clarify, she said, “You're giving me a cell phone?”
“Yes.”
It didn't make sense. And it was hard to sort out while pressed between him and the wall. “Move back, give me some space.”
He eased back a step.
Darcy turned in the small space between Axel and the wall. “What the hell was that?” Once the words were out, she saw the cell phone in his hand. He hadn't been lying.
“You ran from me. I reacted. I told you, running brings out the predator in me.” He held out the phone. “Call your cousin. I told him I'd have you call him. You two can talk as much as you like, but just tell him to back off and stay out of the way. Assure him you're safe.”
Was she safe? Why had she imagined the wings folding over her, like her dreams when she had been scared and lonely as a child? Maybe it was just seeing his tat that had brought out her old memories. She took the phone, her fingers brushing Axel's. “I thought you were going for your knife.” Clutching the phone, she wrapped her arms around herself, hating the uncertainty. The tension. The stirrings of her body that left her restless and frustrated.
His breath came in heavy rasps. “When I catch your smell, the scent of your power, it makes me burn for your blood. Then I touch you and it's something else altogether. A fierce need to protect you. Using your powers to blow those lights …” He shook his head. “Don't you get it yet? You'd have been cut three times worse than anything I'd have endured. I can't let you get hurt like that.”
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