by Lauren Dane
“So I talked with Nell earlier today.”
She nodded. “Yeah, me too.” In the time since they’d learned about Gloria Ochoa’s existence, Meriel had come to believe that the only way to exorcise her from Dominic’s mind and heart was to find her and get rid of her. Nell had suggested, and Meriel agreed, that Gloria would probably be amenable to a cash inducement. But the next in line and the part of her that was Dominic’s woman was pretty sure there was only one way to deal with Gloria. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but it if did, Gloria would deserve it. Besides, Nell was only tossing that out because Meriel had demanded some nonlethal remedies as well as the numerous violence-filled ones.
Nell had found someone who might just be Gloria. She’d been living in Canada for several years, but had recently shown up in Michigan. Coincidentally, they’d recently gotten a report of a witch in Detroit who’d been attacked and drained. Someone had approached mid-attack and they’d left the witch for dead. It was a silly thing, but Meriel was totally sure Gloria also had something to do with the recent attacks in Seattle.
“You think she’s part of the attack.” He said it flatly, totally able to read her.
“Yes. I do. And the ones here as well. I have no reason to believe anything else. Given her history, it’s clear to me that if she’s in the same place as an attack against a witch or the site of some sort of ugly ritual, she’s part of it. I’m sorry for that. But I can’t pretend it’s not true. Even to make you happy.”
He was quiet awhile as he drove. “I don’t want to write her off entirely.”
She was quiet, just listening to him process as the miles passed.
“Simon didn’t actually punch me in the face. He just threatened to,” he said suddenly.
“I know. He told me.” She didn’t want to keep that communication between them secret. Dominic needed to know that he had people around him who cared enough to make him upset if that’s what it took to get him to face the truth.
“He was right. You’re right.”
She took his hand and he squeezed. “I’m sorry I’m right. I wish I wasn’t.”
“Yeah well, me too. Nell yelled at me.”
That was a surprise. Nell hadn’t mentioned it. “She did? I didn’t know.”
“She told me I made you cry.”
“She had no right.”
“Don’t get mad. She was right to make me see what a dick I was being. I just wanted to believe she wanted me. Not Nell,” he added quickly, “my mother.”
Meriel wanted to laugh at that, but he was so sad. “I want you. Tom wants you. Edwina is charmed silly by you. My dad thinks you’re wonderful. If Nell yelled at you, it means she likes you, just sayin’. I know this is hard. But this is about what she’s missing. Not what you’re lacking. She had a gorgeous little boy and she hurt you. What she is repudiates all of what we are. What we stand for. And that people like her are joining with humans who want to erase us from the face of the earth makes it even worse. She’s a threat to me and mine. You’re mine. I won’t let her hurt you again. Are we clear on that?”
He sighed. “I don’t know how you manage to always say what I need to hear, but thank you. However, I don’t want you going to meet her on your own. If this is her and you manage to track her down, let Nell and her people take care of this.”
Meriel said nothing.
This was personal. This woman had used and abused Dominic. She’d left a swath of pain in her wake and that had to be answered. Meriel wanted this bitch to understand just what she was dealing with and that was best done face-to-face.
“Meriel, I can hear the gears turning in your head.”
“Dominic, I need to confess something to you.”
“Do you? Crap, Meriel, are you going to tell me you have to? I really think you don’t need to go there.”
She raised one brow and waited until he got himself calm again. “I’m aware that many believe I’m too mellow to run a clan. I’m efficient, yes; they trust my brain and even my magick. But they don’t know if I’m tough enough. Mainly because really, unless I started going Godzilla and tearing cities apart, how can I outdo my mother in that department?”
He laughed.
“In any case, in general, I prefer to avoid conflict when I can. Not because I’m afraid of it or because I’m too weak to fight back. But because conflict eats up your time. It is exhaustive in terms of energy you have to expend to be involved in it. More if you mean to win, and I’d never do it if I didn’t mean to win. I’d rather spend my time on other things and in general, most people aren’t worth that much of my time and energy.
“But sometimes, well, sometimes we need to show and not tell. If you get my meaning. This woman has harmed the people I love. The people I’m honor bound to protect. I will be involved in whatever it takes to eradicate any threat she may pose.”
He was silent a long time as they approached her building.
“I agree, that we are honor bound to protect Owen witches.” He touched her face. “And each other.”
“I can hear the unspoken but at the end of that sentence.” He took her bags and escorted her upstairs.
“Before we continue this discussion, let’s try something. I learned something in San Francisco. Use your othersight.” She took his hand and opened her own. “You can see how everything here has an energy signature. Plants look a certain way, inanimate things like benches or walls have that flat, opaque feel.”
He nodded.
“Just beneath that there’s another kind of signature. But I didn’t know what to even look for until one of the witches I met day before yesterday showed me something.”
Meriel drew the sigils in the air. This sort of magick was older than spoken spellwork and varied all across the world. The witch in San Francisco had learned it while she’d been in Tibet.
“Do you see how it all works together?” she asked Dominic, indicating the symbols she’d drawn in the air.
“It’s like calculus. Holy shit, this is beautiful and really old.” He looked at it and added something and then adjusted a symbol earlier on in the spell. Their intent made it real and suddenly the hallway to her apartment exploded into a wash of colors. Of ebbs and flows of the kinds of energies lining the place.
“How did you know how to do that?” Whatever he’d done to adjust the spell, it made everything else fade into the background, enabling her to focus on these energy swirls.
“I aced calculus.” He shrugged. “You told me to let my gut have its say. It seemed right to fix it the way I did.”
“That was awesome.”
Surprise washed over his face. He dipped to kiss her. “Thank you.”
“So you can get a general idea of what this hallway looks like. Lots of that sort of soft wash of blue there. Humans obviously. But you can see deeper now. Now you can see the sorts of energies they expel. Weres have that vibrant green, but it’s got this sort of verdant feel on this level. Vampires are red, obviously. But you can see if they’re using darker energies and hurting people. With witches …” She paused and saw it.
“Witches are the brilliant blue. You can see a lot of it near my door. But mages, or anyone who uses unnatural energies has a sort of sickly gray smudge.” Just like the one in the hallway ahead.
His mouth flattened into a hard line and he grabbed her upper arm, marching her back toward the elevators. “We’re leaving.”
“No, we’re not. You can see that it didn’t get close to my door. My wards are holding just fine. We just know someone who’s doing something bad has been here. We don’t know enough to panic.”
She moved to her front door and unlocked it.
He went inside first and she followed closing up behind herself. “We’re fine in here. No one has been inside since I left. I need to tell Nell, but this doesn’t necessarily mean they know where I am.”
“Oh, so a random mage was just walking down your hallway and stopped near your door. Just because.”
She called
Nell, who gave a similar lecture.
“Go stay at Dominic’s or come here, but you need to move to a place where you’re defended better.”
“I’m just fine here.”
“Shut up. Put Dominic on the phone.”
“No.”
“I can hear the entire conversation anyway, Meriel. I already had an appointment for us to look at an apartment in my building and one across the street. I planned to grovel and then suggest it. This obviously pushes my timeline forward. Let’s get some of your bags. We can come back tomorrow and get more.”
“Pushy much?”
“You know it. Don’t test me on this. I’ll bring this to the quorum if I have to. You should let me keep you safe. Plus my building is close to the office and it’s close to Heart of Darkness. We can be together and you can be taken care of.”
“How do you know I’m safer anywhere else?”
“What I know,” Nell barked into her ear, “is that you’ve got a mage lurking around your hallway. If Dominic doesn’t have one, that makes his place safer. Plus you’ll draw even better being so close to the font. You won’t win this one so let it go. Anyway, his place is closer to mine.”
“She’s right.” Dominic raised a brow as he shoved her clothes into a bag.
“Hey! You’re going to wrinkle that.”
“Yell at me later. I want up and out of here. I have a bad feeling.”
Chapter 22
HE stalked her as she walked through his place. She sent him the side-eye but he wasn’t deterred. He liked having her in his apartment. Which was sort of funny given that he’d never, ever seriously considered living with a woman. Now though? This woman? He wanted her with him all the time.
She would be safer, no doubt. He’d be around. She’d be closer to her job and he wouldn’t have to run back and forth across the lake to see her.
“You’re making me nervous.”
“No, I’m not. Very little makes you nervous.” He smiled and she huffed and went back to putting her clothes away.
“I missed you when you were gone.”
She must have gotten a pedicure when she was in San Francisco. Her toes were different. A deep, dark red. Like every other part of her, her feet were sexy.
She looked up at him, suspicion on her face. “Mmm-hmm.”
“Why you gotta be this way?” He added a little bit of a purr, just for her.
“What way is that?”
“How was San Francisco?”
“Useful.”
“Are you going to remain prickly so that I have no other choice but to seduce a good mood back into you?”
“You’re pretty bold for a guy who’s still in the doghouse.”
He stood and moved to her. “But you know my general feelings about being challenged.”
She held a hand out, trying not to smile but failing. “Stop that. I have to unpack and do laundry.”
He shook his head. “Your clothes are already in the washing machine. Laundry — check. Your stuff is hanging in the closet — check.”
“Are you in charge of my schedule now?”
“Or maybe you need your own stress relief. Orgasms are good for you. And maybe, maybe I’ll do it just because I can.” He got closer and she moved around the bed.
“Maybe you’ll be bloody by the end.”
He shook his head. “Maybe. But that’s part of the fun of fucking you, Meriel Owen. A man needs to be kept on his toes. You never let me slack.”
Her smile broke free and she threw a pillow at him. “I have stuff to do.”
“Yes, yes, you do.”
He pounced, bringing her to the bed with him. Laughing, he rained small, sweet kisses across her forehead and the bridge of her nose. “How can I want you so much?”
“Because I’m fabulous?”
“Well, yes. Certainly your body is fabulous. You’re gorgeous. You’re tight and hot and wet every time I get near you.” He slid his palm down her belly, stopping to cup her sex.
Her soft gasp echoed through his system. Pounding at him like the blood in his veins.
“It’s more than that. I can’t quite believe you’re mine.” He eased her shirt open, exposing one of those pretty bras she favored. “And I’m greedy for you.” Deftly, he popped the catch between her breasts and freed them. “For these.”
He pressed a kiss between her breasts as he unbuttoned and unzipped the pants, easing them down.
“You’re astoundingly good at getting my clothes off.”
“It’s my favorite pastime. Well, my second favorite.” He leered and meant it.
“Who am I to stand between a boy and his favorite sport?”
But she gave as good as she got. Rearing up, she pulled his shirt off and kissed over his chest, rubbing her cheek against him like a cat.
And then her hand was down his pants and she was gripping his cock, a definite look of challenge on her face.
“Show me what you got, then.”
His pants were off, followed by his boxers. As much as he loved the way she looked partially clothed and disheveled, he preferred naked. So off came her shirt and bra, the pants and a pair of teeny red panties.
“I’ve got a witch naked in my bed. A pretty flush on her skin. Nipples hard and dark.” To underline this, he bent and licked across one and then the other until she yanked on his hair to get his attention.
“Yes, mistress?” he teased.
She grabbed him again, thrusting a few times to underline her urgency.
They hadn’t been together since Sunday morning. He’d missed this thing between them — the urgency to take her and to feel the trembling of her muscles as he made her come, the easy familiarity they’d had since the first time he touched her.
He’d run from that and it hadn’t worked. He didn’t feel better without her. He missed her and her voice. The way she was so orderly and in charge but once it was just Meriel and Dominic, she’d softened and given herself to him. To them.
Why he’d ever imagined running from her would fix the ache in his heart he didn’t know. She made everything better. Even as she laid him bare and saw him down to the bone, she accepted him.
This intimacy they had drove him to possess her, to touch and kiss every part of her skin he could. The sweetness of her lips drew him back time and again. He wanted to take it slow, give her pleasure for the entire afternoon.
She writhed as he slid himself against her. But before he could get any further, she wrapped her legs around him and rolled over, straddling him. “You’re going too slow. I need you now.”
He didn’t ask where she got the condom she held up. It was one of his; she’d probably found it in his nightstand. It didn’t matter, only that she had it and wanted to use it.
“Will you miss your lady parts buffet now that I’m around and would naturally cut anyone who tried to show you her bits?”
And he put her on her back again, kissing down her belly until he ended up where he wanted. “These are the only bits I want.” He breathed over her, smiling again when she stuttered a breath.
Her taste wended through him. Drove him. He wanted more. Always wanted more. Loved the way her inner-thigh muscles bunched and strained under his palm where he held her open to him. Loved the way she arched to get more. Loved the way she exploded all because of him. He brought her pleasure and she knew who did it.
It made him smug. Made him feel like a king.
Even better, while she was still catching her breath from her orgasm to slide in deep, to catch the surprised gaze as her lids flew open, and then her eyes blurred with pleasure.
MERIEL had zero plans to move. She lay there on his bed, his body wrapped around her as he caught his breath.
“It’s been far too long since I’ve been this tingly and slightly sore.”
She didn’t open her eyes, but she didn’t need to be looking at him to know he laughed.
“I’ve neglected you, terribly. I apologize. For what it’s worth, I’ve been untingly and no
t sore at all since Sunday too. Though I did get a little sore after I worked out this whole week. But that’s not the same.” He pulled the comforter up and over them. “Not that same as having you make me tingly and sore.”
“All right, that’s pretty good.”
She turned and opened her eyes to look at him.
“Tell me about San Francisco.” He kissed her forehead.
“It was dramatic, as it tends to be when we all get together. I have an official report to make tomorrow for the council. This mage issue was one we were not alone in bringing up. Several other clans and covens have had problems. We traded some ideas. We’ll be doing a lot of cross-training over the next year I think. Nell’s already on this with some of the other hunters or lawkeepers for the smaller groups. I learned that nifty othersight trick. I’ll need to send out the changes you made. I think you really amped up the spell and cut out the background interference.”
“I should have gone too. I’m sorry.”
“You have a business to run, Dominic. You can’t come to all these meetings. I have them all the time. It’s part of my job. But I would like it if you’d help with something.”
“You know you only have to ask and I’ll do it.”
“You’re full of shit. I ask you to do all sorts of things and you do your own thing anyway.”
“I love when you’re vulgar. How about this — what I mean is, professionally. Ask and if it’s not something I think is dumb like letting you continue to live in a place the mages know about and have stalked you in — I’ll do it.”
“You already had appointments set up to look at apartments. Don’t pretend you didn’t jump on this to get what you wanted.”
He laughed. “Of course I did. Do you think I’d merit a woman like you if I was easily led or if I didn’t take full advantage of every situation to get my way?” One of his brows rose and she snorted.
“Don’t snort, Meriel, my love. You’re naked in my bed, still mussed from my attentions.” He winked. “Exhibit A.”
“I’m truly afraid of what our children will be like.”