“Read it.” Gerard’s strong but whispered words gave me the courage to rip open the envelope.
My breath sucked in as I saw my mother’s handwriting sprawled across the page. It had always been a tad messy. She’d written me short stories as a child, telling me to keep my imagination alive. I still had them somewhere in my apartment.
“What does it say?”
The strength of his presence made me take a deep breath and read the letter out loud.
“Devon, I know it’s been a long time, and for that, I’m deeply sorry. I cannot explain everything now, but I know you need our help. For too long witches have been kidnapped, and I can no longer stay in hiding. Your father and I wanted to protect you, so we left. It’s a decision I will always regret. You see, we were in danger. We knew all about the witch slave trade, and we were working to bring the leader down. However, we could never quite catch up to them. When word got out about our extracurricular activities, we were targeted. I can’t go into too much detail, but we wanted to protect you, so we gave up our investigation and fled.
It’s ironic that my contacts have told me that you’re now working the same case. I’m proud of you, Devon. I never imaged my sensitive little girl would become an agent. We have much to discuss. I will be in contact again soon. Just know that you’re not alone. You never were. I love you, Mum.”
Chapter Twelve
“Sensitive little girl?” Gerard scoffed as we jumped into a cab.
It was the night after the wolf incident, and we were on our way home from work. Justina had managed to pull some interesting contacts from the address book I had found. We were getting closer and closer to the big dog.
Laughing, I punched his arm as the door shut behind him. “Yeah, life has a habit of kicking that sensitivity out of you.”
“Nah…” Gerard dug out his phone as it started to ring. “…there’s still some sensitivity in there somewhere. I see it sometimes.”
I was about to reply when my phone also burst into the stripper film theme tune. Justina.
“Looks like we have a job,” Gerard said as he answered Kurt’s call.
Swiping the green button, I greeted Justina. “What do you need?”
“Just had a phone call from your friend, Maxwell. He’s uncovered a secret meeting happening tonight at a club in the East End. I’ll text you the details and meet you there in an hour.”
She hung up before I could reply. It was technically clocking off time, but we were never really free from our job. We had too much shit to uncover.
Gerard leant over and changed the address with the taxi driver. There was no point in rushing. We had an hour to get across town.
“Maxwell Maddocks. Seems he’s finally on our side.” Gerard lounged back in his seat.
My gaze roamed over his bare arms, the black and grey tattoos once again reminding me of his dark past.
“Seems that way,” I muttered, leaning forward when I spotted something out of the ordinary.
Grabbing his strong forearm, I bent down for a closer look.
“Woah, Devon, I didn’t think we were going there.”
I bit my tongue as I glared up at him. Okay, so my head might have almost been in his lap, but his mind had taken it somewhere I had not been going. Although, now I was down here…
“What’s this?”
I pointed at the small tattoo, tucked between the numbers. It was a distorted love heart with a crack down the middle. In fact, if I studied the tiny gaps between the bigger tattoos, there were several smaller ones. An infinity tattoo. A candle. Even two hands with fingers that were intertwined.
Gerard tried to tug his arm away, but I held firm. I wasn’t going to let him get away with not telling me about these hidden tattoos. Everything on his body had meaning to him, he had made that clear.
“What are these?” I asked more gently as my finger traced the infinity pattern.
His breath sucked in as I glanced up at him through the hair that had fallen over my face. His eyes were wide, staring at me as if I’d asked him the most personal question in the world. There was no Mac-anything in him right now, he was just purely Gerard. Open, vulnerable.
“Has no one ever noticed them before?”
He shook his head, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed. My tongue flicked out to wet my dry lips. For some reason, his answer was important to me. I needed to know. And, yet, my insides churned at the idea of him opening up to me.
“No, you’re the first to see them.”
He tried to shift in his seat, but he didn’t pull away. I looked down to see if there were more, to give him time to answer if he wanted to. My eyes spotted a star when his other hand reached out, the fingers gently holding my chin and turning my head to look at him.
He blinked fast as I straightened my back. We were close, looking at each other, but the energy flowing through us was more than sexual. It was openness, vulnerability.
“They’re my hope tattoos. Every time something good happens in my life, I add another between the numbers. They balance me out. You see, I’m not all dark. I do believe that life hasn’t given up on me. I just-”
“You need to stop adding the numbers,” I blurted. “No amount of justice earned in this lifetime will save your soul. Only you can.”
He frowned, his gaze turning hard. Before he could turn away from me, I grabbed the top of his very muscly arm and squeezed. “You have to forgive yourself, Gerard. That’s the answer that you’re looking for. If you can’t forgive yourself in this life, you’ll never know peace.”
Clenching his jaw, Gerard stared at me, his eyes glaring into mine. Slowly, they started to soften as his tight jaw relaxed. “Maybe you’re right,” he whispered. “When I killed my best friend, his family blamed me for a while. Eventually, their anger subsided, and they accepted that it had been an awful accident. They forgave me. I still visit them now, once a month. My sister never blamed me. And, yet, I can’t seem to…”
“Forgive yourself?” My soft words finished his dropped sentence.
The cab was taking us through London, but neither of us noticed. I had never seen Gerard quite so open, so willing to talk.
His nod was slow, his eyes looking down at his arms. His tattoos were suddenly sexier than before. The numbers were dark, the small ones in between light. The same contrast I had inside me. My warlock magic was dark, my witch magic was light.
Gerard looked into my eyes as the thought flicked through my mind. A smile came to his face at the same time as one came to mine.
“Will you tell me what some of the hope tattoos represent? Tell me the good things that you’ve experienced.”
The smile fell from his face, but he didn’t look away. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, obviously weighing up whether to give me what I wanted. What I needed. I had never thought about hope. I had never acknowledged when good things happened. It was natural to notice only the bad.
“This…” He looked down as he pointed at the broken heart. “…was my first girlfriend. The one where I was young and love meant something so different to what it really is.”
That made me grin, his confession making my skin warm. His face had blossomed into animation as he remembered his first girlfriend. It was something so very different to what I was used to seeing.
“She broke my heart, but boy, it made me into a man.”
Raising my eyebrows, I laughed when he realised his wording and rolled his eyes. “What about you? Who was your first love?”
The hilarity left me instantly. I sunk back against the seat, tempted not to answer him. But, I couldn’t ignore him. He had just exposed himself to me.
“No one. I… I’ve never been in love, not really.”
Glancing sideways, I tried not to cringe as he quickly changed his look of shock. What would he think of me now that he knew I had never experienced the most basic of human conditions?
“Does that mean you’re a…?”
My mouth dropped o
pen as I turned to glare at him. “Seriously, Nasty Mac-pighead? Is that your first thought? No! I’m not a virgin!”
He raised his hands in defence. “I’m sorry, that was very childish.”
Huffing, I sat back, ignoring him when he chuckled to himself. We brought out different sides to each other often. Namely, me being a little brat, him being immature.
“Anyway, I suppose we better talk about Maxwell and the meeting.”
I glanced at him, smiling gently to myself as he changed the subject. He’d had enough of sharing for one day. I didn’t blame him, he had revealed a lot about himself.
“Yes. It looks like the witches and warlocks who want to create half-breeds are meeting tonight. I wonder if they’re going to… you know.”
I couldn’t help it, my curiosity was burning. Would we walk into an orgy?
“I… erm…” Gerard stuttered. The thought obviously hadn’t crossed his mind.
Trust me to be the one to think dirty this time. Not that he could blame me, he had been talking about my virginity only moments before. However, it was time to switch into professional mode.
“Either way, we need to see how Maxwell wants to handle it. It’s his coven, we have no jurisdiction. He obviously wants our help to deal with it because it’s illegal to inter-breed.” I held up my hand when Gerard went to speak. “Yes, I’m a hypocrite. But, as you’ve seen, there’s a very good reason it’s illegal. I’m flawed.”
“Fucked up, more like… in a good way!”
His insistence didn’t help his cause. If he’d been wrong, I would’ve been offended, but he wasn’t. If Becky didn’t come up with a way for me to keep both my witch and warlock side, I would have to choose to be one or the other.
The cab pulled up at the end of a busy road. The nightlife was buzzing, the humans falling over in the street. Ah, the typical British summertime evening. Binge drinking, puking, and shagging whoever happened to be nearby at the time. It had never been my scene.
“Anyway,” I said as we both climbed out. “How can a person be fucked up in a good way?”
Gerard’s focus turned to Kurt’s motorbike as it passed us. I followed his gaze as Justina followed behind on hers.
A deep feeling of excitement ran through me as the engine’s vibration pounded through my body. “I need to get one of those. They’re not sexy enough without me on it.”
Ignoring me, Gerard marched towards where Kurt and Justina turned down an alleyway. I followed, my little legs only just keeping up. I would have to learn a spell to make my legs faster without me having to put too much effort in. My heartrate had not been healthy recently. Especially since all the stuff with my parents.
My footsteps slowed as an image of them came into my mind. They were alive. Or, probably… There was no actual proof. I had given my mother’s letter to Justina but had swiftly tried to put it out of my mind. I had a list of growing things to think about. The ring leader of the witch slave trade, who was a woman, but that was all we knew. My powers, which were currently bubbling under the surface uncomfortably, even though I had drained some of my warlock magic before leaving the agency. The warlock and witch orgy about to go down. And now, my parents. How was I not having a nervous breakdown already?
“Devon, did you hear me?” Gerard asked as I walked straight into him.
“No, sorry.”
Shaking myself, I closed my eyes and cleared my head. It was time to be the agent. Time to stop being distracted.
“I know you don’t have to be told, but remember to keep your personal feelings out of this one.”
The deep breath I took was because I needed to fill my lungs with air, not because I was going to punch Mister Mac-proper in the face. I had just told myself the exact same thing, I didn’t need telling.
“So, if I don’t need to be told, why-?”
“Devon, Gerard,” Kurt luckily interrupted me. “Stop fawning over each other and get down here.”
Our boss came to the rescue. If Kurt hadn’t ordered us to hurry, I didn’t know what would’ve come out of my mouth. Gerard had forgotten that I was speaking the moment Kurt had caught his attention. That was probably a good thing.
Coming out into the small courtyard behind the clubs, I waved at Maxwell who hurried out of the back entrance to one of them.
“Devon,” he greeted, putting his arm around me.
I tried not to stiffen too much. We might have shared a ceremony together, but no touching had been required. It really should be the same now considering I was an agent.
“Okay, we don’t have much time. They don’t realise that I’m here. One of the twins tipped me off. He doesn’t agree with what they’re attempting to do, so he told me about this meeting.”
Glancing at my three colleagues, I noted how each one of them listened to Maxwell intently. They were processing everything he said, waiting for the next bit of information. Not one of them showed any emotion.
“Okay,” I said, taking a leaf out of their book. “Do you know how many are down there? And, the aim of the evening?”
Rubbing a hand over his tanned face, Maxwell cringed to himself. His purple suit stood out, even in the shadows of the courtyard. Whatever he was about to say was uncomfortable for him.
“They’re going to… You know… breed.” The last word was uttered with a shudder.
In any other circumstance, I would laugh at his prudishness, but not today. I knew the consequences of half-breed babies. I was one.
“So, we’re going to stop them?” I asked Justina.
Her short blonde hair was tied up in a small ponytail, her body encased in her tight leathers. She nodded curtly, ready for business. We hadn’t spent much time together recently, so it was good to be in the field with her.
“Yes, their plan is illegal. The government put Act 301 in place once they became aware of how powerful each supernatural group could become. It’s one of their ways of keeping us under control.”
I wrung my hands together as Kurt’s gaze met mine. The implication that wasn’t spoken rang out without a sound. And, yet, not one of them judged me. Not if their stoic expressions had anything to do with it.
It wasn’t about me anyway. This was about the witches and warlocks about to commit a crime. It was my job to protect the supernatural world.
“Okay, there’s two entrances. Maxwell, if you come with me and Devon, we’ll head down to the basement. That is where they are, isn’t it?”
Tipping his head, he gestured it downwards. I didn’t know the layout of the club, so I would follow Maxwell with Justina.
“Kurt, Gerard, go around the front and enter from that side. Backup has just arrived so take them into the main club area. We can’t have any suspicious activity above or those below will disperse. Once you’ve checked upstairs, join us in the basement.”
Unclipping her gun from her waist belt, Justina nodded to each of us. We understood our mission. We would follow her lead.
Kurt grabbed my arm as the others moved away. “Don’t let personal feelings about this situation cloud your judgement. I know how it feels to be on both sides. This is your biggest test, Devon. Fail it, and you’ll be out of the agency.”
He was about to move away when I stopped him with a hand on his chest. Quickly pulling away when he looked down, I dropped my gaze. “How do you know how it feels?”
It wasn’t exactly the time to be talking about the past, but I needed to know what he meant. If I wanted to pass the test, he had to help me understand.
Raising his hand, he held up a finger. I glanced around to see the others waiting for us. Oh great, had it looked like I was trying to feel him up? Surely they would know that I would never feel up someone else’s man. Or, my boss. Or, Kurt. Eww, it was too weird.
“When Justina found me, I was torn between several groups. My ancestry is obviously based in witchery. But, I was adopted by a mixed coven of supernaturals. I lived among vampires, witches and shapeshifters. In the Australian outback. In a place tha
t was very well hidden from the normal world.”
My gasp was ignored as Kurt stared into the distance, his bright eyes dimming in the shadows. I had always wondered about him, and now I knew a tiny part of his history.
“This isn’t the time to have this conversation, but eventually, the harmony that had reigned for so long, fell apart. And, I had no idea whose side I should have been on. Do you know the one side I didn’t choose? The one side that should have been the most important?”
Shaking my head, I kept staring up at him. It was as if he had become more interesting than I had ever found him before. If he knew how I could disconnect from my emotions enough to do my job, he could help me become a better agent.
“Mine. I forgot about me. So, tonight, don’t think about witches, or warlocks, think about your life, your job. What type of agent do you want to be? Harden yourself to others plights, or go home.”
His last words hung in the air as he left me standing there. He had taken the time to tell me something personal, and yet, he didn’t burst into emotion when he spoke about it. He owned himself. He knew who he was and why he was an agent, fighting the good fight.
Snapping out of my thoughts, I turned to follow Justina and Maxwell. I expected my boss to be angry, but instead she looked indifferent. Ready for action. I had to learn how to switch off enough to be like that.
“Right, let’s go.”
Her sharp words made me grab my dagger from the inside pocket of my jacket. The magic pulsed through me, trying to find its way back inside. Taking a deep breath, I forced it to stay in the dagger. My witch magic needed time to strengthen. I hadn’t been practicing my spells much, so maybe tonight would be a good chance.
“Once we’re down there, I will confront them,” Maxwell said as he yanked open the back entrance door. “If they won’t comply, I will leave it up to you to deal with them.”
“Either way, they’ll be arrested for conspiring to break the law. The government will need to know about this. If word gets out, the other groups might think of doing the same thing.” Justina was matter of fact as Maxwell led us down a dingy corridor. It wasn’t meant to be used as an entrance for guests, the peeling dirty white walls were disgusting.
Hunted Witch Agency Box Set Books 1-3 (Hunted Witch Agency Set) Page 26