That’s right. He had told her what to do and she hadn’t listened. So he’d leave. That’s how it worked. People only wanted her when she did as they wished. The wings had left her and now she truly was alone. She lifted her chin. “So which is it? Are you drowning in all that dark, angsty guilt that you carry around, or is it all my fault? Why don’t you go draw your pretty pictures until you figure it out.” She turned toward the couch, then looked back over her shoulder. “Oh, and FYI, I’m going to fight to live, so deal with it.” Kieran was right, it was her fault, but she was angry, hurt, scared, and so alone it felt as if she were going to fall into an endless hole of thick, choking darkness.
The silence made her want to run like a coward. Axel, Darcy, Carla, and Ailish, they belonged to Kieran, not her. She just stood there, not knowing what to do. Leave? But where would she go? Would Liam still hunt her? She stared at the back of the leather couch. Then she remembered the phone Sutton had given her. She reached down and picked it up. “I’ll call my mother and go stay—”
Key snatched the phone from her hand. “The hell you are! Liam will have you within minutes. He’ll cut that Tear out of you.”
She shuddered.
“Roxy, damn it, I can’t touch you.” Blue mist flared in his eyes. “I don’t dare touch you because I don’t trust the dragon not to hurt you. But I want to. I know you’re scared, upset, and I want to … I’m sorry.”
Yeah, and she’d made him feel worse. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” She sank down on the couch. “Carla, if Dyfyr doesn’t hate me, then what happened?” She hoped the witches would still help her after that special little outburst. Although Kieran made a good point, the Tear was in her, and they had to keep it out of Liam’s hands. Exhaustion spread through her.
“I don’t know. We’re missing something, a piece somewhere.” On the screen, Carla pushed her long blond hair back. “How many chakras did you open tonight?”
“Five.”
“If you can open your third eye in your sixth chakra, you might be able to see Dyfyr and ask him. That’s what the Ancestors suggested.”
She thought about that. “I’d need more power than I have yet …”
Darcy leaned forward. “It builds as you and your soul mirror strengthen your connection.”
She looked up to Key, knowing she’d need him. Her magic was based in sex and …
“I don’t trust the dragon,” he said.
So he wouldn’t touch her, help her.
“Key.” Roxy saw Ailish fill the screen. “You can try to touch Roxy and see what Dyfyr does. You have to try. Roxy’s going to need more power. And her time is limited.”
Time. Her life was draining. She hadn’t thought to ask. Roxy turned to the witch. “How long?”
Ailish’s silvery eyes darted around, revealing her distress. “From what we saw in our third eye, not long, maybe two months. I’d say you have to work fast, you have a week or two before you start losing strength.”
Two months. Two months to live, two months to find the answer. Once Key calmed down, she’d get him to help her try to open her third eye and talk to Dyfyr. Then—
“Roxy,” Carla flashed back on the screen. “You said your mother is a fertility witch, too. Talk to her, see if she has any ideas. I really feel like we’re missing some vital part of the puzzle. Fertility witches are so secretive, she might know what we’re missing.”
Her mother. Another wave of guilt snapped through her, causing her heart to hammer. “I should have told you this sooner.” Her voice was as heavy as her heart. Each beat was painful.
Darcy laid her hand on Roxy’s thigh. “What?”
Her mouth went dry. “My mother’s name is Gwen Banfield, but on the Circle Witches, she goes by Silver.”
The other witch jerked her hand back. “Silver. The witch who accused Carla of misusing her power?”
Roxy felt the bite of Darcy’s anger in her voice. She reached up and rubbed her temple. “Yes. My mother started the Circle Witches and she’s bitterly jealous of you three coming in and pushing her aside. Carla being chosen as Moon Witch Advisor by the Ancestors infuriated her. She’s power hungry.” She dropped her hand and added, “All my life, she refused to tell me the secrets of fertility witches until I had Awakened. She pushed me even when she found out my Awakening was a witch hunter, and my power releasing might inflame his bloodlust. All because she knew I had the full goddess mark, and I might be able to wake the dragon. But she never told me that, she just pushed and pushed.” She stopped talking.
“Why didn’t you say something when I asked about your mother?” Carla inquired.
“Or when you called your mother from my loft?” Key demanded. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
What could she say? “I was afraid.” Afraid Key would reject her, her new friends would reject her. Afraid she’d have to leave, afraid Liam would get her again. She wanted to save Key’s soul by binding their souls. She just wanted to—
“What else are you hiding?” Key asked.
His voice rippled across her skin. She closed her eyes and knew she had to tell them all. “I think my mother was lying about the Tear. That she knows more.” Whipping her head around, she opened her eyes and said, “I believe she was involved in the spell that created you. I felt her magic when I connected with Dyfyr in Phoenix’s gym.”
He stepped back like she’d hit him. His entire body tightened, and a tremor went through him. Then he turned and strode out.
And he was gone.
Key stood atop the highest building in Glassbreakers, Wave Runner Plaza. Years ago he’d painted a mural in the lobby and discovered the roof.
He stood at the three-foot-high wall, looking out. The night was dark and cool, lit by icy stars and the moon. The wind buffeted him, carrying the scents of the ocean and the city. If he leapt off the building, would his wings come out, allowing him to soar the skies? Or would he drop twenty stories, his body as heavy as his heart?
Even the sight of the city lights couldn’t dim the memory of that Tear disappearing into Roxy or the claws coming out on his hands.
Or Roxy in the maze with the moonlight pouring over her, waking the dragon as he was buried inside her body. Or when he’d laid her back on the grass, sliding his body into her heat and watching her eyes shimmer with powerful emotion that echoed in his chest. She’d been his, and he’d felt a part of something special.
Then he’d nearly killed her. Was killing her. For his bellowing at her that she insisted on wearing the necklace, who was the freak of magic that drew the picture of her wearing it? Who took the necklace from its hiding place and settled it over her neck, letting the Tear fall against her breast?
Just like when he’d thrown his knife and hit Vivian in the throat. She’d been so young, pregnant with their child, and he’d killed her.
It never ended, no matter what he did, where he went, violence followed him.
His dry eyes ached.
Key turned from the city, facing the huge expanse of roof. He reached to the small of his back and pulled his knife from its sheath. He’d gladly cut the dragon from his chest if it would save Roxy, but he knew the creature was immortal.
Instead, Key dropped to his knees. Feeling the hard concrete bite into his kneecaps, he slid the blade across his palm. Then he laid the knife on the ground, bowed his head and called, “Wing Slayer.” This had worked for Phoenix when he needed the god to help him save Ailish. Would Wing Slayer do the same for Roxy? Key had only one, single hope.
He could hear each drip of his blood splashing to the concrete as he stayed there, bowing down before his god, hoping for help. The wind rushed, in the distance the waves broke, and second by second, Key’s desolation grew.
Each tick of time that he was away from Roxy was torture. He’d walked out on her. Abandoned her.
He’d had to. Because Dyfyr was enraged when she said she thought her mother had something to do with Key’s creation. Both of them had been furious, but Key wasn’t
angry at Roxy. Not for that. She should have told him. God knows he had told her enough about himself. She should have trusted him.
But it was the Dyfyr’s fury that had made Key leave. Fearing the creature would wait until Key was close enough to her and do something to hurt her.
The dripping of blood slowed and stopped. He healed fast, so Key snatched up his knife and cut again, a deeper, longer line. He returned the knife to the ground, the symbol showing his submission to the god.
Prayed and waited.
Seconds later, he felt the shift in the atmosphere as the air crackled with power. The hair on his arms stood up, his skin pebbled, and a shadow fell over him. “Hunter.”
Key lifted his head. His god hovered inches off the ground, the moonlight illuminating him in all his power. Even his calves were huge, massive thighs, arms wrapped in bronzed bands stamped with wings, a wall of chest, and a face that was indescribably brutal and beautiful. He had gold eyes flecked with red. Spread out behind him were wings woven with gold feathers outlined in bronze. They must have spanned at least fourteen feet. He was too much to take in. “Wing Slayer. Can you save Roxy? Can you grant us immortality to stop the Tear from killing her?”
The god’s wings darkened to a deep bronze, and his face lost the beauty to pure rage. “No. The Tear has bound to her life force. The Ancestors and I cannot do the required shift in her life force to make her immortal while the Tear is in her.”
Hope crashed around him. He saw Roxy’s strained face when she whispered, Why does he hate me? “What do I do to help her?”
“Only Dyfyr can save her now. I can’t undo his magic, Kieran. But you and Dyfyr must save her.”
He didn’t know how. “The dragon was going to hurt her. I don’t trust him.”
“Find out why.” The god’s wings brightened, the air thickened with the scent of flowers, a scent much too feminine for the god. “Roxy must live, she’s vital. Guard her at all costs; do not let Liam or any rogue get her.”
His brother. “Liam claims to be blood-born. What does that mean?”
The building beneath him began to shake and sway. The stars in the sky dimmed. A sulfur smell burned Key’s nose. “He is an abomination, a work of Asmodeus! After you stabbed him in the heart, he was dying as he should. The rogues took him to Young, who, under Asmodeus’s orders, did this!”
The roof began to spin, and Key was caught up in a whirling funnel. He had no control over his body. Then suddenly, he was looking at a scene as it played out: Liam lay on a bed, a ragged, fist-sized hole in his chest where Key had cut out a chunk of his heart. On a gurney next to him lay a woman. She was strapped down, helpless, her eyes wide with fear as a big man with dark hair hovered over her. He was familiar; Key tried to place him when he saw the man’s right forearm: the black, shiny, squirming burn mark that was the Immortal Death Dagger.
Quinn Young!
Key watched as he jammed a needle into her vein. Blood filled a small tube, traveling …
To Liam.
He looked back at the witch. She’d been stripped naked, and he saw beneath her breast the half-goddess mark. Fertility witch. As he watched time went by. Days with just his brother lying there in some kind of suspended state. Eventually there was another fertility witch. Then another.
The scene spun away.
Key opened his eyes, kneeling once more before his god. “Blood-born. They regrew his heart with witch blood.”
Wing Slayer’s eyes seared with vicious red. “I’d already taken Liam’s soul and destroyed it. So Asmodeus was able to keep his body going, creating a weapon to find the Tear. It took almost eleven years and the blood of many fertility witches to do it. The demon thinks to make me mortal and kill me.”
“Can Liam die?”
“Yes. The witch blood, as long as he keeps getting it, makes him faster and, if it’s fresh enough, gives him some advantages. Finish the job. Cut out his heart or burn him. He’ll go shade and be gone.”
“And Roxy?”
The smell of flowers swirled on the air, mixing with the strong, masculine, metal scent of the god. “Save her. Before all else, save her.”
Key blinked, and the god vanished.
He reached down and picked up his knife. The smooth handle was engraved with the wings of a dragon. His god had marked his knife. The traditional sign that Wing Slayer had accepted his hunter.
Roxy startled awake when she heard something move in the room. She held her breath and listened. She was in Kieran’s bedroom in the condo—she knew it must be his bedroom because she had found her clothes and laptop in there. She guessed it was close to four A.M. Her heart pounded, but she knew Liam couldn’t get into the condos.
Could he?
She lay frozen, panicked when she realized anyone could see the lights pulsing from the Tear embedded in her chest. She had a black tank top on, but light still leaked out. She pressed her hand over the spot.
“It’s me, Roxy.” Key pulled the covers back and slid into the bed. “Go back to sleep.”
He was getting into bed with her? Dropping her hand, she scooted to the far right and lay there, not sure what to do. It was his condo, his bedroom. The gulf between them ached like a wound. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, trying to reach across that chasm. “I should have told you about my mother.”
He was silent, then said, “I told you … things about what my mother did to create me, about Viv. I thought that’s what a relationship is … showing the other person who you really are and hoping that maybe they could care about you anyway.”
She’d hurt him and that made her sick. “You’re right. I had all these reasons, but at the very core of it, I was a coward. I suspected my mother when you told me how you were created because she’d once told me that she’d done a spell so incredible it was bigger than the miracle of birth. But I didn’t want to believe it. I just … didn’t. Then in the gym, the feel of my mother’s magic was a faint thread, but so familiar. Why else would I feel that touch of her magic unless she did the spell? Or was part of the spell?” She fisted her hands at her side, her stomach burning with regret and so many other things. “I should have told you then.”
He turned on his side, facing her. “I’m not your father, sweetheart. I’m not going to leave you.”
“But you did.” She looked up to the ceiling, wishing she could call those words back. She had no right—
“Roxy, look at me.”
She shifted onto her left side. There was just enough light floating in to show her his face. “I left because I felt the rage of Dyfyr. When you said you believed your mom was involved, the dragon grew furious. I was so damned afraid I’d lose control of him and he’d hurt you that I left. But it’s killing me, right this second I want to touch you. Need to touch you.”
Her chakras slipped open, reaching for him. Her schema itched, wanting more of him. And her heart just ached. She wanted to comfort him, wanted to ease him. “What if I touch you?” She scooted closer, reaching her hand out and touching his face. The warm contact of his skin against her palm felt like a full breath of sweet air. She rubbed her thumb over the ridge of his cheekbone. His eyes had more blue in the faint light.
“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t understand Dyfyr. Why he would try to hurt you.”
“We have to ask him.” She trailed her hand below his jaw and around the back of his neck. Feeling the tension, she rubbed the muscles.
“I know.” His eyes gleamed. “I saw Wing Slayer.”
As Roxy recovered from surprise, she listened while he described his encounter with his god.
“Blood-born. He was reborn with fertility blood.” Her stomach turned over at the horror.
“Roxy, we’re going to find a way to get the Tear out. I won’t stop until we do. I don’t know how when I’m afraid to touch you, but we’ll do it. Wing Slayer said I must save you above all else.”
“Me?” She dropped her hand to the sheet, close to where his hand rested.
“Yes.
And he marked my knife.”
She forgot about herself at the sheer wonder in Kieran’s voice.
“He impressed dragon wings on the hilt, showing that he’d accepted me as his hunter. He believes in us, Roxy. He can’t give us immortality until we get the Tear out, but he believes we can find the way to free you.” He dropped his gaze to the bed between them and slid his hand until he touched hers. Then he wrapped his fingers around hers, holding her hand with such care. He lifted his gaze. “The dragon’s not angry now. He’s letting me touch you.” He released her fingers and edged toward the curve of her left breast. “I need to touch you, starting here.”
Roxy looked down as his finger skimmed the swell of her breast over the tank top. The Tear pulsed softly, pinks, reds, blues … all the colors sliding over her skin as the lights shifted in a slow easy rhythm. “It looks so strange. I can feel a vibration to it. But I feel the touch of your finger more.” Her magic streamed out and curled around his touch. Tingles rippled through her center, and her schema began to throb.
He skated his finger up to where the V of the chain pierced her skin. “It’s nestled over your heart, mirroring your heartbeat.” He looked up, heat warming his eyes. “Do you trust me? I swear if the dragon tries to hurt you …”
“Yes,” she breathed the word. She had trusted him from the moment he’d seen her schema and walked away when she’d asked him to. He’d respected her choice, her needs, her wants.
He reached down and caught the edge of her shirt, and Roxy lifted her arms as he pulled the shirt off.
Key rose, slid his right arm beneath her shoulders, and pulled her to the shelter of his chest. She quickly realized he was naked and aroused. His skin was hot, his scent filled her lungs. And then he kissed her, his warm mouth covering hers, his tongue easing in, tasting her while he cupped her breast and teased her nipple with his thumb.
Her magic began to race up and down, fluttering around their joined mouths, seeking the heat of his hand, even grazing where her side was pressed into him. Her thoughts broke apart and drifted away, replaced by the feel of Kieran. He kept up the sensual onslaught to her breasts, circling them, petting, soft tugs on her nipples, his kiss growing hotter, deeper. She couldn’t lie still beneath him, shifting her hips, her schema demanding attention and flooding the folds between her thighs.
Sinful Magic: A Wing Slayer Novel Page 22