“I'm going with you, Axel.”
He walked back out and stared her down. “No, you're not. It's too dangerous. I killed a man who was once a friend to keep you safe from rogues. I'm not jeopardizing your safety now.”
“I'm going.” She folded her arms across her chest.
Without a word, he walked to his nightstand, picked up his knife holster, and put it on. He wasn't going to argue with her. He could smell her scent, the citrus with the dark underlying spice. He reached for his knife.
It skittered across the nightstand and landed on his rumpled bed.
The scent of rich spices got stronger. The scent of her power, so enticing; it made the blood rushing under his skin burn. “Cut it out,” he warned her, then reached again for his knife.
It somersaulted down the length of the bed to the very bottom.
The witch was toying with him. He could grab the knife and be on her before she thought of her next move, but that didn't scare Darcy. Not his witch. Struggling between amusement and staying in control of the curse, he turned and said, “Quit screwing around.”
She looked at him, then shifted her gaze to his knife and held out her hand.
The knife flew across the room and landed in her hand. She held it up. “Looking for this?”
His stomach turned over. If she hadn't been accurate, that knife would have sliced right through her hand. “You're getting better with your powers.”
She smiled.
Even with the pain of the curse cramping his intestines, he was struck by how beautiful she was when she smiled like that, her skin glowing with power.
“You want your knife, take me with you.”
He knew he should get out of the room, get some distance from the scent of her, the call of her rich, power-laced blood. He told himself to walk out of the room.
Instead he walked to her. Strode up to her and reached out to touch her face.
The feel of her warm skin raced through his fingertips and straight to his groin. But it cooled the burn of the curse. “I won't chance taking you, Darcy. The rogues know where you live, and they will watch your apartment. I'm going to slip by them and get the tapestry. But I won't risk you. I won't let them get you.”
Her joy dimmed. “It was worth a shot.”
He took his hand off her face and moved at high speed. He had the knife in his hand before she could react.
“Hey!”
He smiled. “I could have gotten it anytime. But you were having too much fun tormenting me.” Even if it hurt him, ignited the curse, he found the joy she was taking in her new power intoxicating.
Axel wasn't surprised to find Joe MacAlister waiting for him in Darcy's apartment. He'd tried to follow Axel home last night, and he'd finally called Sutton and Ram to cut MacAlister off. The man had some skills, and Axel had recognized in him a bone-deep protectiveness for his cousin. Like a brother, like Axel felt for Hannah.
Darcy had probably called and told Joe that Axel was going for the tapestry at her apartment.
No, MacAlister didn't surprise him, but the woman with him did. She was huddled on Darcy's couch in a jacket too big for her, facing the fireplace where the tapestry hung.
He heard a distinct hiss from the auburn cat sitting on the silver box in the tapestry. Cutting his gaze to the picture, he noticed the cat's color nearly matched Darcy's hair, and that the threads clearly shimmered with magic. How had he missed that the first night he came to the apartment to get clothes and shit for Darcy? Neither Joe nor the woman seemed to notice the feral hiss. For now, he ignored it. He strode into the apartment and shut the door. Directing his attention to Darcy's cousin, he said, “Darcy told you I was coming here?”
Joe stood with his back to the couch and fireplace, his hands loose at his sides while his eyes watched Axel. “Yes. Morgan is sick.”
“Morgan?” He looked at the woman. Her scent was sour with fear and illness.
The woman surprised him by standing up. “I'm Morgan Reed.”
He figured it was MacAlister's jacket that she wore. “I need to know if my husband is—” She gritted her teeth but went on, “one of you.”
What had Darcy told Joe?”What do you think I am?”
“She can't say it,” Joe said softly. “Something's wrong with her, whenever she tries to remember, she gets headaches and nausea.”
It sounded like a witch hunter had been repeatedly shifting and manipulating her memories. Axel moved around the couch toward Morgan. She stood taller than Darcy, about five eight, and she was too damned thin. Her cheeks were hollow; her eyes sunken.
Morgan stepped back, edging around the couch toward Joe.
Axel stopped, recognizing the deep fear in her light blue eyes. He had seen other women like her. They appeared to be addicts; confused, desperate, and paranoid. But they weren't on drugs, they were victims of rogues messing with their heads. Many of them committed suicide to escape the damage. What he rarely saw was a woman fighting back so strongly. Gently, he said, “Morgan, do you want to know?”
“Yes.” She clutched the jacket tighter. Clearly MacAlister's jacket made her feel safer. “What do I need to do?”
“I'm going to come closer and you're going to look me in the eyes.” He wasn't going to give her reassurances that he wouldn't hurt her. Why the hell would she believe him?
She sucked in her lips and took a step toward him.
Surprised, Axel stood still, letting her come to him. The woman's courage was evident in her forced steps. It brought home to him a truth he'd been avoiding—that mortals, not just witches, had been suffering from the actions of the rogues. He had done his best in the last years to not get involved. At all. And while he knocked back beers and screwed women in his club, people like Morgan suffered. She reached him, leaving a foot of space between them, then lifted her gaze to his and said, “Do it.”
Looking into her eyes, he reached across her optic nerves for her short-term memory. Then pulled back, disgusted to find craters and scarring from repeated invasions by a hunter. He could smell the copper scent left on her from the rogue. Judging by the damage in her brain, he took a guess and said, “He cut you. Repeatedly.” It was a brutal way to screw with someone's head, essentially causing a pain-memory reaction. Every time Morgan tried to remember what the rogue didn't want her to, the pain he had inflicted on her with his knife would flash in her brain.
Her face went tight and clammy. “No …” She backed up.
Black rage swelled in him. This woman was broken by a rogue witch hunter, the copper scent was definitely rogue. He couldn't even help her by softening her memories, there was too much damage. He looked over at Joe. “I need to see the cuts.”
Joe strode to Morgan, taking hold of her shoulders and lowering his face to hers. “I won't let him hurt you, but we want to know, don't we?”
After a long second, she nodded.
Joe let go of her shoulders and eased his jacket off of her. “The cuts are on her stomach and breasts. She believes she cut herself.”
“Show me her stomach.” Axel knew that if he did this, if he touched those cuts and felt the heat of a rogue hunter's blade, he was going to have to start making choices. He'd been avoiding choices; he'd only been trying to keep his soul while protecting his mom and sister. How had that worked out? Yet, this young woman struggled to be strong in the face of serious damage that would destroy most people. Her courage outstripped his and that shamed him.
Joe lifted her shirt. Axel saw his face yank into tight lines of white-hot anger when he looked at the pale scars left from the healed cuts.
Axel blocked out Joe's reaction, and dropped his gaze to Morgan's belly. The cuts were straight lines, two columns of six rows. To distract her as he walked toward her, he said “Morgan, tell me something. Anything. Just talk to me about something pleasant.”
She blinked in confusion.
Joe jumped in, “Tell him how we met back in high school. How cute you were in that cheerleader outfit.”
> A cheerleader, Axel thought. Just a normal mortal. Axel had only gone to elementary school. After that hunters were homeschooled. The curse kicked in around puberty, and they didn't want a witch-hunter kid killing a student who happened to be a witch in school. That would be hard to explain.
In a thin voice, Morgan said, “Joe liked all the girls. He was a big flirt. But he sure was cute with all that black hair, those blue eyes, and that take-on-the-world self-confidence.”
While she talked, Axel reached out and laid his hand across the healed cuts.
She flinched.
Joe put his hand on her shoulder. “You used to walk by me ten times a day in your little cheerleader skirt. God, I wanted you. But you wouldn't have me.”
Tightly, she said, “I was playing hard to get.”
Axel felt the distinct heat in the cuts. The copper scent was stronger, too. She'd definitely been tortured. He lifted his hand, noticing that for a thin woman she had a slight curve to her belly.
Joe smoothed her shirt down. “Darcy told me that you were playing hard to get,” he said softly.
Morgan jerked her head to look at Joe. “She told you that? Even when I didn't really stand up for her like I should have?”
Axel snapped up to his full height, something fierce and protective unfurling inside him. “What do you mean?”
Morgan shifted her gaze to him. “We were just kids, all of us. Darcy was so strange that the kids were mean to her. I tried to stop them when they called her Dark Mac, or did stuff to her, but they just couldn't leave her be. There was something so vulnerable about her and they'd do crap like invite her to a nonexistent party.”
It made Axel's chest ache to think of Darcy trying so hard to fit in, and never understanding why she didn't. Wanting so much to be accepted.
Joe said, “You told me when you found out about that. You were upset about it, and even went with me to find her.”
Morgan said, “But Darcy was hurt by that creep with the knife! I should have told those kids off and stopped hanging out with them.” She stopped, her face drawing in. “Something about that night … I keep thinking that's the reason Darcy will believe me … but I can't remember what I want to tell her.”
Axel saw the connection. “Morgan, you were there when Darcy was cut? Did you see what happened?”
She rubbed her forehead. “Joe and I got there in time to see the knife fly out of the man's hand and stab his arm. Then Darcy's arm burst open, blood was everywhere. The man froze like he'd seen a ghost. He looked right at us and said, ‘Help her.’ Then he just faded away, like he hadn't even been there.”
Joe put the jacket back around Morgan. “Is it important?”
Axel nodded. “Morgan, that night, you had to realize then, on some level, that Darcy wasn't mortal. You saw her use her powers to cut that man with his own knife, then suffer the consequences of witch karma. And you must know what that man was by now. Then when the strange stuff started happening to you, you realized Darcy would at least believe you, and maybe be able to help you. That's why you sought her out.” The man who cut Darcy had been a witch hunter, but Axel didn't think he'd been rogue, or at least not then. If he had been rogue, two mortal teenagers wouldn't have been able to stop him and Darcy would be dead. Then Axel wouldn't have her and that was a thought he couldn't tolerate.
Morgan lifted her head, taking in a deep breath. “That does make sense. I'm not crazy.”
Joe wrapped his arm around her shoulders and said, “Tell us what you found from touching Morgan's cuts.”
Axel looked at Morgan. “You're not crazy, you didn't cut yourself. Your memory has been tampered with using a brutal method. The person that did it cut you repeatedly and simultaneously forced commands into your brain so that every time you try to remember certain things, you feel pain. Extreme pain.”
Morgan sank down to the couch. “Is it like hypnosis?”
“It's similar, but far more powerful. Any hunter can do it—we literally travel the optic nerve to the short-term memory and force a new memory over an old one, like a sheet over a mattress. It leaves the person feeling confused and frustrated, but if done only once or twice, it's pretty harmless.”
Her thin shoulders stiffened. “But over and over?”
He sighed. “Brain damage.”
“Why? Why would someone do this?”
Axel sucked in a breath. “Control, most likely. You said you are married?”
“I am, or was, I ran away. I can't remember why …” She squeezed her eyes shut, her mouth thinning with pain.
Axel cut her off. He had his answer. “Don't try. You won't be able to do it. What you need to do is find a witch who can help you. Mortal doctors can't do this.”
“Maybe Darcy can help her,” Joe said.
“She's just learning to control her powers. Something like this would take someone with more experience in brain damage.”
Joe's frustration spilled out. “Where the hell do we find that?”
Axel walked to the fireplace and reached for the tapestry while saying, “Darcy is in contact with a witch helping her, I'll have her track down … shit!”
The cat hissed, spit, and dug a needle-sharp claw into his hand.
Axel yanked his arm back, looking down in disbelief as rivers of blood welled up along three cuts from the base of his index finger to just above his wrist.
“What happened? Did that cat move?” Morgan said in a shrill voice.
Axel glared at the cat. It hissed back at him, showing its sharp teeth.
“What the hell?” Joe demanded.
“It's from Darcy's biological mother. All her spells and witchcraft instructions are stored in this tapestry. I am going to bring it to Darcy.”
Joe said, “It's never done that before.”
“Her mom must have somehow spelled it to protect Darcy from wit—” He'd been planning to say witch hunters, but remembered Morgan, “—people like me.” He studied the tapestry. If he grabbed it by the frame, maybe the cat couldn't reach him. He seized hold of the corners.
The cat went ballistic, spitting and scratching like a Tasmanian devil.
Axel stepped back, looking down at the claw-rips in his shirt over his chest. Blood stained his shirt and seeped down to his stomach. “Fucking feline; I'll kill it.”
The cat growled low in its throat. The threads along the back of its neck stood up.
Joe said, “Darcy needs this?”
“Yes.” And he'd get it to her if he had to stab the cat. Could he kill a cat made of thread and magic? He'd be damned happy to give it his best shot.
“Let me try.” Joe reached up.
The cat bit a chunk out of his thumb.
“Why now?” Joe demanded, while wrapping his shirt around the thumb. “I helped Darcy hang the damned thing, it never so much as meowed.”
“It's reacting to me,” Axel said. “That cat was probably spelled to go after people like me.”
Morgan moved up closer. “Should I try?”
“No!” Axel and Joe said at the same time.
“What if you throw something over it?” Joe said. “A blanket?”
The cat snapped its tail and hissed again. Its whiskers twitched angrily.
Axel figured it was worth a try. He stormed into Darcy's bedroom and ripped the comforter off the bed. Moving at full speed, he hurried back into the living room, spread the comforter open, and grabbed the tapestry off the wall.
The cat fought the comforter, slashing and spitting, moving so damned fast it was like trying to hold on to a Mexican jumping bean. Axel slammed the tapestry to the ground and trapped it with the comforter.
The cat howled its fury. The thing sounded like it was going through a meat grinder.
“How the hell are you going to pick it up and drive with that thing thrashing around?” Joe asked.
He glared up at him. “If I can get it off the frame, I can roll it up and lock it in the toolbox in the bed of my truck.”
Morgan said, “I
t's only going to let Darcy touch it. Once you shift your weight at all, that cat's going to rip you to shreds.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I could hit it with a hammer. Or run it over a few times with my truck.”
“No you won't!” Morgan shouted. “That cat is trying to protect Darcy.”
Axel sighed. He was already dripping blood on the comforter. He had to get the tapestry to Darcy in one piece, and if he tried to put it in the truck with him for the drive, one of them wasn't going to make it.
“Go get Darcy,” Joe said. “She'll be able to move it.”
“Too dangerous.” The risk was too great. There had to be rogues watching the apartment. Axel was not going to let them get her. Ever.
“What other choice do you have?”
He turned to look at MacAlister. “You believe all this stuff pretty easily. You believe Darcy is a witch?”
Determined blue eyes stared back. “I grew up with her. I know Darcy better than anyone else. Hell yeah, I believe it. Just as I believe, and it pisses me off to say this, but I may not be the one who can protect her this time.”
Axel raised his eyebrows.
Calmly, Joe added, “But if you hurt her, nothing will stop me from finding and killing you.”
Axel rose to his feet, ignoring the damned cat's hissing and howling. Joe had been honest with him, so he'd be straight with Joe. “I'm the only thing keeping Darcy alive right now. If the rogues get her, she'll die slowly and painfully. I won't let that happen.” No one was taking her from him.
“Darcy has convinced me she's safe with you for now. I'll accept that. But you have no choice here.” He gestured to the thrashing mound beneath the emerald comforter. “How important is it that Darcy get the tapestry whole and undamaged?”
Hannah's life might depend on it.
Joe added, “I'll stay here and keep an eye out. I'll call the cell phone you gave Darcy if I spot any trouble.”
Axel strode out, thinking that with Darcy, there was always trouble.
“Are you going to make me better today?”
Darcy whirled around. She had found Axel's iPod sitting by his computers and had been looking through his music. She missed her iPod.
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