Narrowing her eyes, she met his gaze in the mirror and held it, her hatred oozing from her pores. She held his gaze and watched as the arrogance started to fade—she held it until his eyes fell away.
Then she settled down and looped her arm around her knee. It was time to plan.
With a bone-deep knowledge, she knew she could outrun him, outwit him, escape and melt into the background as he searched for her. Outwit, outrun…hide, she could do that, she was certain.
What she wasn’t so certain about was killing him—no matter how bravely she made herself act as she faced him down. And if she escaped, it would leave him free to finish the promise he had made, and that wasn’t to be allowed.
He would have to die, and if that meant she would had to try to kill him, then so be it.
Of course, I can always hope Ben beats me to it, she thought sardonically.
When he woke up alone, Ben had a gut-deep feeling that something was wrong.
The bed next to him was cold, and Shadoe wasn’t in the house. He couldn’t smell the soft fragrance of her skin, nor could he hear the telltale beating of her heart.
Rising, he paced the small room, uneasy, as time passed.
He had pushed too much on her lately, made her accept too much.
And then there was what had happened earlier. She’d gone from virgin to…whoa. Ben couldn’t even explain what had happened earlier, even as some part of him longed for more. None of that, though. He wouldn’t share his woman again.
But damn it, where in the hell was she?
When he finally wandered out of his room, he resumed his pacing in the living room. His hair was disarrayed from all the times he had run his hands through it, and his scowl grew darker and darker as more time passed.
Finally, after four hours of her not walking through the door, his patience snapped. Stalking to the bathroom, he grabbed a comb.
Not a damn hair on it.
Not one strand on the sink.
Not on the towel, nor in the shower drain.
All that long, thick hair and not one bloody strand.
He stepped on top of the toilet and looked on top of the shelving unit, his eyes gleaming when he saw the brush sitting there amid a light film of dust, a few hair bands, and a box of tampons.
A few strands were woven through the rough bristles. Gently, he tugged them free and smoothed them straight before he laid the strands in his cupped palm. Heat flooded the room, centered over his palm, gaining in strength, light starting to swirl.
When the golden ball lifted from his palm, it glowed translucent as it spun. But it wasn’t Shadoe’s face it showed. It was a child’s, tear-stained, peaceful in sleep. As Ben watched, a woman’s hand stroked over the sleeping child’s cheek and the focus shifted.
Now he was watching from a point beyond the girl’s shoulder and he could see a woman, the woman who had been caressing the girl’s cheek. Her mama, most likely. The facial structure was the same and both had a rather unique shade of hair, true platinum blonde and thick with curls.
Her mouth opened but Ben knew he’d hear no sounds.
However, he did see something almost as enlightening. Two policemen.
The mother gestured wildly, her eyes tear-filled, frustration in every line of her face, every move of her body.
The cops exchanged glances as the woman lowered her head into her hands and started to sob. The younger one moved over and sat down beside her, rubbing her shoulder, making gentle hushing sounds by the looks of it. After a moment, she calmed and the cop moved his hands, spread them wide as if to say, help me out here…
Pulling a notebook out of his pocket, he listened and nodded, jotting down a few more notes as the woman spoke.
Ben saw some of the scrawl. And a growl trickled loose as he read pretty lady with “glowy” eyes.
He would kill Marcus.
Ben raced on, keeping to the outskirts of town. He couldn’t find her scent.
He should be able to find something.
It was almost as if something had erased her scent. A town of less than a few thousand, she was here somewhere. But even if she had been taken out of town, he should still be able to catch the scent from her presence over the past few days.
But the whole damn town was wiped clean.
Even her own home.
Shadoe watched through the vision orb Ben had been teaching her to use. It hovered above her palm and she felt tears sting her eyes as it tracked Ben’s dark furry hide as he ran in wolf form throughout town, pausing from time to time to lift his head and scent the air.
Her scent was nowhere to be found.
Marcus had told her to wipe the town clean of it, and when she had said she didn’t know how, he had backhanded her again. Tonguing her lip, she winced as the pain bloomed afresh in her busted lip.
After that, he ignored her, taking his bitch to his room, and she could hear them as they fucked. Marcus made damn sure of that, leaving her in the room right next door, leaving the door open.
He was going to pay for this. Holy hell was he going to pay.
An hour later, he shoved the woman out of his room, and Shadoe winced at the look on Rachel’s face, like that of a puppy dog, full of worship and the desire to please…and shame.
She saw Shadoe looking at her and tossed her hair, trying vainly to give a pleased smile—but she failed and her face crumpled. As she whirled and left the room, still naked, Shadoe felt the smallest trickle of pity well in her.
“Get your skinny ass moving and stop moping around,” Marcus growled as he stalked into the room. “You placed yourself in my hands. Be mad at yourself for being such a weak little bitch.”
The ball he couldn’t see glimmered out, fading away, leaving darting sparkles lingering in its place. “What in the hell do you want?”
Marcus smiled. A nasty, evil smile. “I’ve never had a witch under my hands before. You are going to come in very handy. Starting now.” He started to pace around her in a slow circle as he continued, “The bank in town… You can use your magic to slide in and out without the cameras seeing you. I know quite a bit about witches. When you unleash a burst of power, it tends to fry the more complex equipment, cameras, security alarms, motion sensors… You’re going to go into the Grand National Bank and relieve them of some of their money.”
“I never agreed to become a thief,” she ground out.
“Ah, but you did. Whatever I want, so long as it doesn’t harm another. This won’t harm anybody. So get ready,” he ordered, trailing one hand down her face, her neck, circling his finger around her nipple.
Her skin started to crawl.
But she couldn’t figure out if it was from his touch or the fact that she was going to break the law.
Jerking back, she said, “If I have to break the law, then I need to concentrate. I can’t do it with you touching me.” The bravado was pretty impressive, even with the trembling voice.
Firm up, Shadoe… Tiffany would be trembling and incoherent with fear. You’re more than that now. Angling her chin, she held firm when he moved closer, close enough for her to feel his body heat. Her skin crawled. Disgust and nausea roiled through her, yet she kept her face impassive when he moved close enough for her to feel the rock-hard, furnace-like heat of his body, then the pulse of his cock through his trousers.
He was horny.
Turned on like never before. All over terrorizing her, threatening her. His eyes narrowed as she failed to react to his threatening body language. “You went and grew some balls, didn’t you? What did that bastard lead you to believe, Tiffany? You aren’t invincible. You’re less than nothing, nothing.”
At his words, she felt the anger inside expand until it eclipsed everything else…even the fear that had held her almost numb.
Nothing? she thought, enraged. I’ll show him nothing. Lifting her hand, she couldn’t stop the small, cool smile that spread over her lips as heat flared from her hand and jumped from her to him, knocking him ten feet back, scaldin
g his flesh, singeing his clothes. “Nothing?” she asked coldly.
Like most shape-shifters, Marcus had a deadly fear of fire. Fire was one of the few things that could kill him. Eyes wide with panic, he pounded at his chest as he swore and Shadoe laughed. “You’re not on fire, idiot,” she said, turning around and sauntering away. “But I will remember how much it scared you.”
Damn it, he was…just pathetic, she realized. Why hadn’t she seen that before?
“Bitch!” Marcus seethed, his shirt hanging in charred tatters around his shoulders, his chest beneath red and blistering. He started to charge her and Shadoe whipped around, flinging her hand out. The words whispered into her as though from somewhere else, bringing her a knowledge she hadn’t before known.
“Incindiaire,” she whispered, the unfamiliar word falling awkwardly from her lips.
When a ring of fire surrounded her, separating her from Marcus, she yelped instinctively. Wide-eyed, she stared around her at the barrier of fire. “Wow,” she murmured. Then, unable to stop the cocky smile on her face, she met the shape-shifter’s eyes insolently.
In his eyes, she saw the knowledge that maybe he had bitten off more than he could chew.
And Shadoe finally started to realize it, as well. He was weaker than she was… As that knowledge flooded her, she lifted her head, staring at him squarely, feeling the chains of fear that had bound her slowly flow away. Holding out her hand, she let it hover above the flames for a moment, before lowering it, palm down to the ground. As her hand moved, the flames died down until they winked out completely. Facing Marcus, she said softly, “The scared little girl you went after years ago is gone, Marcus. Deal with it.”
The fear in his belly made him mean.
He wanted to strike out, to hurt, to maim. But the one he wanted to hurt the most seemed to be out of his reach. For now.
Okay. She wasn’t just a shifter, and that stink of magic had meant something, too. She had a few tricks up her sleeve and she was more of a handful than he’d expected her to be.
Refusing to acknowledge it before now had kept him from having to acknowledge that he had been wrong when he’d thought Ben and the Hunter vampire were the ones with the power.
If he wanted to win this battle, he needed to see it for what it was. He might be a little outmatched. He needed to level the playing field a little, and he needed to do it soon, before the Hunter fucks caught up with him.
Dumas was only spoken of in soft, hushed whispers. Too many people feared him. He moved around like a Gypsy and was harder to track than dust in the wind.
But where there was a will, Marcus told himself.
Finally, by the end of the day, he had something. Not a location, but a contact. And the possibility of money—in exchange for a Hunter’s bitch.
“Fuck the bank, I have a better idea,” he announced to the small group of people.
Tiffany was still on the couch where she had been sitting since earlier that morning. The food he had ordered Rachel to fix for her sat untouched. Narrowing his eyes, he said, “You haven’t eaten. Not once since you came down here.”
“So sorry. The sight of you all makes me lose my appetite… I may never be able to eat again,” she drawled. Her eyes were cold, disdainful.
He wanted to see them bright with fear again. With terror.
The few times fear had broken through with her, she had smashed it. She was laughing at him, silently, mockingly. “Eat the damn food—that’s an order, bitch, otherwise I go grab me a snack,” he spat, shooting across the room and bending over her, fisting his hand in her hair.
Something moved in her eyes for the briefest of seconds. “I’m not hungry,” she said, slowly enunciating as though speaking to an imbecile.
“Hungry or not, eat the damn food. I know using magic will make you burn off your reserves and you have to replenish them. If you think to kill yourself through starvation…think twice. I will make you regret that choice, bitch, believe me.”
Marcus lifted his lip in a cold smile as she reached for the sandwich, her eyes shining with hate.
“Good bitch,” he whispered into her ear before releasing her hair.
Turning his eyes to the werewolves, he ignored Tiffany as she slowly ate. “We’re heading out, going to find us some fresh hunting ground. Be ready to leave as soon as I tell you,” he said, grinning wildly.
Soon…
* * *
Malachi grimaced as Ben plowed his fist into a wall.
Two days.
It had been two days since she had disappeared and there was no fucking sign of her, of Marcus, or the remaining wolves of the old pack. She had disappeared without so much as a fucking trace and Ben had pushed himself to his limits, but without success.
“Call for help,” Malachi finally said, his voice quiet. “You need a witch who is closer to her level. Then maybe we can find her. You’re good, Cross. But she is phenomenal. We need a phenomenal witch to locate her, to power past the roadblocks she has thrown up.”
“Where is she? Why did she hide herself, damn it? Bloody fuck, how did she know how to hide herself?” Ben snarled, whipping around and staring at Malachi across the room.
The muscles in Cross’ face were rippling, and his eyes glittered red with his rage. Malachi had to tamp down his own instinctive emotions that rose in response to such fury.
“She had no choice. Or at least Marcus convinced her of that,” Malachi answered simply. “She’s young, and not a true, trained Hunter either. She doesn’t know that all she had to do was whisper his name to us and he was dead. Chances are, boy, he threatened another child. Offered to release the one he had, and leave others alone in return for her good behavior. We know he’s a lying sack of shit, easily dealt with. She’s still got to figure that out.”
“She could kill him,” Ben snapped, plowing a hand through his hair. “With just a damn thought, she could end his life. With one touch she could kill him.”
Malachi said softly, “I don’t think she’s realized that yet. Give her a break. A month ago, she was just…human. Or she thought she was. She’s adjusting well enough, but we haven’t exactly equipped her to handle everything we’ve thrown at her.” He pushed away from the wall and walked over to Cross, the long coat he had shrugged into flapping around his ankles. His heavy mane of hair was woven into a tight braid and hanging over one broad shoulder in a fiery rope. Catching Ben’s arm, he brought the wolf to a halt and waited until that flashing, heated gaze met his. “Call for help. You need another witch, Cross. Do it. Now. Before it’s too late. She can kill him with a thought, you know that. And soon, he’s going to figure it out. He can’t control her, so he will give her to somebody who can.”
Chapter Eleven
Malachi stood in the corner, a silent, foreboding figure, as Ben trailed a wet hand down a mirror, speaking in some language Malachi suspected only the witches of the Council knew.
He had seen this done enough to know that Ben was placing a summons to another witch. If she was by chance near any reflective surface, she’d feel the summons and touch her hand to the surface and her face would waver into view. If she wasn’t, then a bell would echo the moment she neared, summoning Ben.
Who will he call?
Kelsey? Most likely. Sarel and Lori were powerful things, but Cross would go straight for the most powerful for his woman, one who had all the knowledge age could provide. At least, that was Malachi’s theory. He might even summon Agnes, although she was so very ancient, even for a witch, that she’d not be leaving her native England for anything short of a Doomsday sort of thing.
But the face that slowly came into view wasn’t one that Malachi had been expecting.
Leandra.
From what he could tell, she was in Excelsior. A slow smile spread across Malachi’s face.
Bloody hell. She had done it.
Her eyes met his briefly, and he felt something, a pride he rarely allowed himself, pride in doing something momentous, as she gave him a slow
nod. In her eyes, he saw the beginnings of self-acceptance.
Which meant she was forgiving herself.
“What do you want, Cross?” she asked curiously. One black brow winged up and she cocked her head.
“Your help,” Ben said levelly. His eyes flickered as he looked past her shoulder and saw where she was, the library, unmistakable, vast, full of things of power that were better left alone. “You are at Excelsior.”
She inclined her head. “Somebody opened my eyes.” She glanced around her with blank eyes, but when she looked back at them, both of them could sense the awe that filled her. “I was getting ready to leave, even though that bastard Malachi had said things that made me head spin as I tried to take it in. I was leaving. And they stopped me. I thought at first they were going to do what I’ve been waiting on for years. I thought I was dead. And I was relieved that it was over,” she murmured.
“But they didn’t want me dead. Agnes was with them—she left England for me.” Chuckling, she met Ben’s eyes. “They are afraid of me, many of them. Just like you said. But not her.” Something entered her eyes that Malachi suspected was very foreign. Love, for that old woman. “Not her. She tells me that it is time I face myself. Because I can never be what I was meant to be until I can let go of my own anger. ‘Face yourself’, she told me. ‘And be free.’”
Yearning entered her voice. “I’ve never been free. But I’d like to be.”
Then she sighed and shrugged. “You knew what would happen if I got here, you bastard. You knew.”
“And are you finding that freedom?” Malachi asked.
She glanced past Ben’s shoulder. “I’m working on it.”
The moment passed then, and her old arrogance returned. Crossing her arms over her chest, she said, “You keep summoning me like this, Cross. What you want from me this time?”
The amazing thing about a flier, Ben mused, you could speak with them from thousands of miles away one moment, and then be facing them in the next.
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