by Erin Hayes
Alec stood at the entrance of a dilapidated building, plum in hand. The gift of tracking was the only permanent gift bestowed on the Witch Hunters by the Regent. It was the only magic they had from within. Once a witch had used magic—once they had left their mark on an object—the Witch Hunters could use that object to track the witch down.
In this case, the witch was Adira.
He was just glad she hadn’t attempted to block him. He would have hated to use the raidō mark he’d left on her. That would be…painful. For her.
Alec’s ability to find her was a reminder of the importance of his life and role within the Sector. Regent Dvorak had sacrificed a great deal of magic to pass this tracking ability on to each Witch Hunter, and should Alec die or fail, the Regent would have to find someone to take his place. That meant wasting more magic, which meant Dvorak would run out of magic sooner.
Which meant…the death of everyone in Sector One.
Unacceptable.
He’d promised her thirteen days, and he would honor that, but damned if he wouldn’t do his part to increase the odds that she would succeed against the Ravager.
With one hand gripping the plum so firmly that his fingers dug into the flesh, his other hand banged against the old wooden door.
When the door swung open, no one was there.
Something tugged at Alec’s pants. “Hello, mister.”
His gaze tracked down until he settled on a small girl standing before him. “Oh, hey,” he said, trying to soften himself as not to scare the child. “I’m looking for someone. Perhaps you can help.”
The girl looked up at him with big, round green eyes. “That depends. Are you good, or are you bad?”
Alec pressed his lips together. Good question.
There was a time he could answer that without hesitating, but right now, faced with this child, he had to admit that his role was subjective. To the girl, a man who had come to take someone from her home and bring them to the Guard and into a possibly deadly situation was surely not a good guy.
But Alec’s reasons were noble, his cause just.
“Good,” he said, his voice unwavering. “Are there any adults here I can speak to?”
No sooner had he spoken the words than the old woman came up behind the girl, resting her palms on the child’s shoulders. “Aye, come already?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow. “I suppose you’re looking for Adira?”
The little girl tipped her head back to stare up at the old woman. “Why is he looking for Adira?”
The old woman rubbed her hand down the girl’s arm and smiled. “Don’t worry, Anastazie. Just get along to your chores. Those floors won’t sweep themselves, you know. I’ll take care of our guest.”
The little girl bounded with amazing energy down the hall and around a corner to a room unseen.
“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.” The old woman held out her hand, drawing Alec’s attention back to her. “I’m Miss Balek.”
Alec took her hand and dipped his head in a small bow. “Alec, ma’am. Nice to meet you. Formally, that is.”
Miss Balek stood back and motioned for Alec to come inside. “Adira’s upstairs. Turn right at the landing, last door on the right.”
“Thank you,” he said, ducking a little as he stepped in. These old building weren’t made for people like him. “I’ll show myself out when I’m done here.”
“I’m sure you will,” Miss Balek said before shuffling away down the hall.
Alec took a moment to absorb his surroundings. There was definitely…something…going on here, but he couldn’t quite place it. And yet, the old woman had invited him and left him unattended, as if she had nothing to hide.
Brushing off his unease, he started up the steps. Some creaked, but it was the one’s that made a splintering sound that worried him.
A strong wind could blow this place over.
He hurried up the stairs as gently as a man his size could, then turned down a hall so narrow his shoulders bumped the walls a few times on the way to Adira’s room. When he reached the end, he turned to the door on the right and knocked with more force than he intended.
“Adira?” he said through the wood.
No answer.
Oh, no. Now it made sense. How could he be so easily fooled by such an old trick? While he was winding his way through this maze of a building, Miss Balek was surely sneaking Adira out the back. He knew something was off.
He pulled at the board blocking the window in the hall in an attempt to see what might be going on outside, but the board wouldn’t budge.
Ridiculous!
He pulled again, harder this time, but nothing.
Fury swelling in his gut, he punched the door and cursed under his breath. “When I find her—”
The door swung open. “When you find me, what?”
Adira stood before him in a white slip of a dress, her hair falling in loose waves just past her shoulders.
“You,” he said, scowling at her.
“Me?” she asked. “You’re the one who almost took the door down because you couldn’t wait two seconds for me to finish getting dressed!”
Alec stepped into the room and slammed the door behind him. “I thought—”
“I don’t care what you thought!” she said. “This house can’t take that kind of abuse.”
“No kidding,” he mumbled, looking back at the door behind him. Normally his fist would’ve gone straight through. “At least most of it. Apparently some parts have held up better than others…”
When he turned back to Adira, she was grinning.
“I thought I had thirteen days,” she said. “Or are you just that in love with me?”
With an irritated grunt, Alec reached behind him and pulled out the book he’d taken from the Regent, then pushed it toward her. “Here.”
“Oh,” she said, her expression falling as she assessed the book. “What is it?”
“Spell book. I thought it might help you prepare.”
“Ohhh,” she said again, the utterance even more deflated than the first time.
“You are working to prepare?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. “Aren’t you?”
She sat on the edge of the bed, the book resting in her lap. “I am. Well, I’m trying to.”
“There is no try. There is do or don’t do.”
Adira rolled her eyes. “Thanks for that.”
Alec crouched in front of her on the balls of his feet, resting his elbows against his knees. “What is it?” he asked. “You are strong. You are fast. You are smart. And if the device the Regent created is any indication, you’re also extremely powerful.”
“Forget it,” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t get it.”
She went to move away, but he grabbed her wrists and held her firm. “Then make me understand,” he said, his voice quieter but still commanding.
“You’re sending me to my death,” she cut out, her tone bitter and scathing. She snatched away from his grasp. “Do you really think that is noble?”
Alec clenched his jaw. “Do you think this is easy for me?” he asked. “If I could save everyone, I would. But what do you suggest I do? Sacrifice the entire Sector to save one woman? And then what? You die anyway.”
“You don’t know that,” she challenged. “What good is it saving these people if their lives are worth nothing individually anyway?”
A pain bubbled in Alec’s throat at the memory of his sister, and he swallowed it down.
“See,” she said, waving him off. “You don’t know what it’s like. Not until you lose someone you love.”
Alec thought to tell her the better of it. He damn well knew what it was like, probably more than she ever would.
“And who did you lose?” he asked instead.
“My parents,” she whispered. Her gaze slowly lifted to his, the pain in her eyes like burning coals. “To a witch hunter.”
Her words sliced into him, and he sat back, taking them in. Of course he knew this. Of cou
rse he knew that every person he brought in was someone’s mother, or daughter, or sister, or friend. But he hated to think about it.
“And it was my fault,” she said, staring down at her hands now, picking at the edges of the book cover. “The witch hunter tracked magic to my home. They sensed it. My mother said it was her. But she was just protecting me. And I didn’t say anything.”
Alec reached out and stilled one of her hands. “You were a kid. You can’t blame yourself for that. Your mother made a sacrifice, the same as we all must at some point.”
Adira shook her head. She looked down at the marking he left on her wrist and traced it with her delicate fingers. “The Displays aren’t sacrifices, Alec. They are murder. A Ravager shredded my mother, and the heartache killed my father. I grew up alone with no guidance other than the lingering memory of my parents telling me to never, ever use magic. And now look where I am.”
Alec slid a hand down the side of his face. Was he broken? Was there something wrong with him that he hadn’t grieved for his sister the way this woman grieved for the loss of her loved ones?
What if he hadn’t done the right thing by letting his sister die?
He shook his head. No, he’d done exactly what needed to be done to save them all from dying, the same as he would have to do with Adira, no matter how badly he wanted to protect her from her fate.
“I’m sorry,” Alec said.
Adira nodded. “But?”
He raised his eyebrows. “But the Regent can’t protect the Sector alone. He needs someone like you to—”
She pushed him hard enough to make him waver back a fraction as she stood. “Don’t you get it?” she asked. “The Regent probably can’t even have kids!”
Alec rose to his feet now, too, towering a good foot taller than her. “The Regent has done everything to protect this Sector!”
“Oh, like the woman he killed when he had a device that could’ve given him the same answer.”
Alec’s fists curled into balls at his side. “He had good reason for that.”
Adira strode over to him, standing inches away, unflinching. “What good reason, Alec? What reason could possibly be good enough to kill an innocent woman who moments before had pled she wasn’t a witch?”
Alec grimaced. He’d forgotten that part. Regent Dvorak had been so angered by his questions, that Alec had shut down. Stopped asking. His mouth opened to defend the Regent, to make sense of his reasoning and present it to Adira in a way that still fit the situation, but no words would form.
“That’s what I thought,” she said, turning away. “You can go now. I believe I still have twelve days.”
“If you run—”
“I’m not running,” she said.
And he could hear it in her voice. The one thing that had never broken him before but that could break him now, with her.
Tears.
Inexplicably, despite feeling like he could never face her again after being such an insensitive asshole the day before, Alec found himself at her door again the very next day.
This time, she did not greet him with her usual vibrancy and sarcasm. She just stared at him for a long moment until he was certain he could not handle another second of it. He grabbed her hand and pulled her body against him, bringing his mouth to hers and tasting her sugary lips.
She softened in his embrace, slowly at first, as if resisting what they both wanted. Both needed. He deepened the kiss as she moaned as her hands ran over his shoulders, up his neck, raked through the back of his hair.
He kicked the door shut behind him and lifted her from the floor. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he laid her down on the bed, his body over hers as she passionately kissed him, moving her lips from his mouth to his jaw, his neck, his shoulder.
Nothing else existed. For this one moment in time, everything was as it should be.
She pushed on his shoulder, rolling him underneath her and straddling his hips. Peeling off her dress, she revealed the swell of her breast and her small pink nipples.
When she leaned forward to kiss him again, his reached up and cupped her breast, rubbing a thumb against her nipple until her hips started to grind against him. His cock hardened, throbbing beneath her pussy, separated only by his pants and her underwear.
God, he wanted to fuck her. But not like this. Not under these circumstances.
Circumstances that would never change.
He groaned as he pushed her off of him and stood, leaving her sitting along on the bed.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
She tilted up her chin. “Why not? Because eventually I’m to sleep with your boss? Is it wrong for me to sleep with someone I want to, but not with a man I despise?”
“It’s not like that,” he mumbled.
“Then what’s it like?”
He lifted her dress from the floor and threw it toward her, then turned away.
“Sacrifice,” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure anymore who was sacrificing what.
“And what have you sacrificed?” she asked.
His chest constricted. He turned toward her, relieved to find her dressed, as though clothing somehow made her less vulnerable. Somehow made him less weak.
“Why are you even doing this, Alec? This isn’t you. You’re not like the others.”
“You don’t know me,” he snapped. “And I am like the others. I’m like them but stronger. Better.”
“Huh,” Adira said, the concern draining from her voice. “What a horrible thing to be the best at.”
“I’ve lost people, too,” he said finally. “A sister. So don’t talk to me about what is wrong and what is horrible. I will never regret trying to create the kind of Sector that would have saved her life.”
She opened her mouth, but just as quickly closed it. Her face twitched as thought trying to keep her expression angry, but the lines in her forehead and around her eyes were already softening.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know. That must have been hard.”
He pressed his lips together, his gaze trailing slowly up to Adira’s eyes. “Not as hard as it’s going to be losing you.”
Chapter Eleven
Ten days left.
Adira had barely slept last night. She’d been up for the second time scouring the pages of the book Alec had brought to her, trying to make sense of what she was reading.
All of her life, she’d been raised to believe there was no new magic. There was only the magic that already existed, and that was what limited the Regent.
But if what this book said was true, and if the Regent had only recently conjured the witch tester device, then Dvorak had channeled a new source of magic.
Of course, no one who didn’t know magic would read it that way. It also didn’t make sense. What would Dvorak have to gain from lying about something like that? If he admitted to finding a new source of magic, he would be the single-handed hero of Sector One. He wouldn’t need a bride or an heir. Just someone—any high ranking male witch would do—to take his place.
It didn’t make sense.
A knock on Adira’s door made her jump. She slammed the book shut and shoved it under her pillow.
Miss Balek walked in. “Oh, come, you know I know about the book,” she said, tapping her temple. “I’m not going to take it from you. I will, however, warn you that you don’t have time to get swept away in the whys and why nots. You have work to do, and not much time left to do it.”
Adira sighed, sliding her palms over her thighs. “I just thought I should read more first.”
“No,” Miss Balek said, taking Adira’s hands and pulling her to her feet. “You’re afraid to use magic. You only use it when you feel you absolutely must. Defensively. That, and that alone, is your problem. Fear.”
Adira shook her head. “I’ve never had a fearful thought.”
“Oh, I’m not saying this because you thought it, dear,” she said. “I’m saying it because I know it whe
n I see it, and you don’t need to know it to feel it.”
Adira squeezed the old woman’s hands before letting them go. “Okay, but I should tend the hydroponics first, or Izabela will have nothing to work with for dinner.”
Miss Balek wagged her finger. “Uh-uh. You’re avoiding. Kveta will take over for you today, and you can cover her dish duty after dinner. Let’s go.”
The old woman didn’t give Adira a chance to argue. She left the room, forcing Adira to follow unless she wanted to be rude, and she certainly wasn’t about to be rude to the closest person she’d had to family in a long time, even if they’d only know each other a few short days.
Miss Balek led Adira downstairs and into a big room in the far corner of the building. Inside, the concrete floor was chalk-marked with several circles, a pair of witches sparring magically in each one. Shouts, laughter, and banter all flooded through the room, stirring up an unfamiliar excitement in Adira.
“You’ll start with Anastazie,” Miss Balek said.
Adira balked. “You can’t expect me to fight a child. I might hurt her.”
Miss Balek chuckled. “Heavens, no.” She shook her head. “It’s not the size of the fighter, Adira. It’s the size of the fight within them.”
Great. More riddles.
Adira strode over to Anastazie, who stood facing a long table with a number of seemingly random objects laid across.
Anastazie looked up at her. “Miss Balek says you use magic like a child.”
“Hmm,” Adira said. “Maybe that’s why she paired me with you.”
“Don’t worry. We won’t be fighting today. Miss Balek doesn’t want you to get hurt.” The little girl giggled, then motioned toward the objects on the table. “Everyone starts here. Reanimation. These objects were once enchanted, but aren’t anymore. We have to make them work again.”
“Is that all?”
Anastazie smirked. “All right. You go first.”
“But I don’t even know what to do,” Adira said, narrowing her eyes at the girl.
“Then stop talking and start listening.” She lifted a radio first. “This was how the Sectors originally communicated with each other. As far as we know, ours was the last one still working, but it’s since died. If other sectors have re-enchanted theirs, and we re-enchant ours, then we can find out if there are others out there.”