Caged Magic

by Jennifer Lyon

  Caged Magic: A Wing Slayer Hunter Novel

  Copyright © 2015 Jennifer Apodaca

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Design: Patricia Schmitt (Pickyme)

  Editor: Sashaknighteditor.com

  Formatted by: Author E.M.S.

  Proofreader: devilinthedetailsediting.com

  Wing Slayer Hunter Logo Design: Jaycee DeLorenzo of Sweet ‘N Spicy Designs

  Published by JenniferLyonBooks

  www.jenniferlyonbooks.com

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locals or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-9887923-5-7

  ~ 1 ~

  Linc Dillinger swiped the blood from his eyes and blinked to clear his vision. Damned cut on his forehead bled like a son of a bitch. It didn’t seem to matter how rich he got or how many lives he saved, he kept ending back up in a damned cage fight deathmatch.

  Because women are your weakness, dumbass.

  Oh yeah, that. Show him a woman in trouble, and he went all witch-hunter-in-shining-armor on the attacker’s ass.

  Linc eyed the rogue circling him. Damn, he hated the weak-willed bastards for giving in to the bloodlust they all endured, killing innocent witches to harvest the power in their blood. Yeah, their death amounted to justice.

  He just hated doing it in a cage. Too many memories…

  Movement snapped him out of his thoughts as three hundred pounds of enraged male dropped his shoulder and barreled toward him.

  Time to end this. Linc spun and slammed his foot into the flank of the man’s knee. Heard the satisfying crack of bone and cartilage, followed by the man’s pained bellow as he fell back against the side of the cage.

  Linc calculated how to kill this man with the too-smooth face—a side effect of absorbing so much witch blood. He had to cut into the man’s heart to make sure he died. Hard to do without a weapon.

  Much as he hated rogues, he didn’t underestimate them. The power kick from witch blood meant this bastard could probably bench-press a fire truck.

  The man lashed out with hammer fists.

  Linc ducked and shoved in beneath the blows to wrap his arms around the rogue’s waist, planning to get him on the mat and punch through his chest. Messy but effective.

  He sensed movement on the other side of the cage, behind the man. Warnings flickered down his spine. Linc jerked back just as a silver blade flashed in the rogue’s fist.

  Fucking cheaters. His friends had passed him a blade. The same friends who’d kidnapped and beat up a woman to engineer this deathmatch.

  “I’m going to cut out your eyes, you—”

  Linc snapped his foot out, hitting the rogue’s wrist. The knife flew from his grip. Tracking the weapon, Linc leapt into the air, snatched it, and drove the blade deep into the rogue’s massive chest.

  Blood spurted out as the other man’s heart pumped a few more seconds. Ignoring the warm liquid gushing over his bare chest, Linc twisted the blade until he was certain the rogue wouldn’t take another breath.

  Dropping the body to the mat, Linc stood while gripping the bloody knife. The need to get out of the cage clawed at him. He stormed to the door, ripped it open and stalked out.

  Huge men, both witch hunters and rogues, scrambled to get out of his way.

  A hand landed on his shoulder.

  Linc whirled, the knife up and ready. He lifted his gaze to Baron Frank’s light eyes set deep in a haggard face and old rage spewed up. The leader of the witch hunters here in Las Vegas was the last person Linc wanted to see right now. “Don’t. I came. I did the job to rescue your girl. Get the fuck away from me.”

  “Las Vegas is where you belong. This is our town, Dillinger. You need to be here helping us deal with the growing rogue problem. Not in California.”

  “Hand. Off.” Fury and the sick craving for blood had him wired to a hair trigger. Add in the constant need for sexual release, and he was as stable as a live grenade being used as a hockey puck.

  Baron raised an eyebrow but moved his hand, causing his leather vest to creak. “Your crew in Cali know what you’re doing? Divided loyalties and all?”

  His crew, as Baron called them, was a group of witch hunters who had recommitted to their god, Wing Slayer. But Linc wasn’t getting into that same old debate with Baron about whether or not Wing Slayer had abandoned the witch hunters more than three decades ago after the demon witches cast a blood and sex curse. Linc had chosen his path, and if that pissed off Baron, tough shit. The man had more or less mentored Linc, but he didn’t own him.

  Done with the conversation, he slammed into the locker room and heaved the knife against the wall. It ricocheted off, hit the metal lockers, clipped a bench and clattered to the floor. All the noise did nothing to release the ugliness brewing inside him.

  Fucking cage fights.

  Retrieving the knife, he cleaned it, wrapped it in a towel and heaved it into a locker. After striding to the shower, he turned the water to boiling, stripped and stood beneath the spray, trying to wash his self-disgust away.

  But nothing washed away his past. Every time he went into a cage and heard that door clang shut, it reminded him that he’d spent six years locked in a cage, forced to fight like a dog that had been brutally trained to kill. Physically he’d escaped eleven years ago, but mentally? He slapped his hands against the cool tile, shoving his head into the water. In his mind, that cage was always there. Just like the brand on his back.

  Feral.

  No matter that his falcon tattoo covered the reviled word, it remained permanently burned into his skin. Into his very essence. Reminding him that in the end, he was an animal. The things he’d been forced to do…

  An odd itch on his back cut into his thoughts. It seemed to be in his tat. What the hell? Turning, he let the water cascade over the irritated skin.

  Still itched.

  It’d been over a year since he’d gotten inked as a symbol of his commitment to Wing Slayer. He hadn’t felt a tingle of pain or itching in all that time. It was weird and more annoying than the cuts and bruises from the fight.

  Enough. He had to get out of here. After shutting off the shower, he dried and began dressing, pulling on the identity he’d created, the façade of a charming, successful gambler, right down to his Berluti loafers and Rolex watch. The cuts on his face would be healed by the time he hit the clubs. Spoiling a woman, winning her smile then finding relief in her body fed a deep need in him. Soothed the constant haunting guilt of the things he’d been forced to do in captivity.

  Reaching for his knife holster, he started to strap it on when the door swung open. Linc whipped around while unsheathing his knife. Friends of the man he’d just killed might be popping in for a little revenge.

  Ramsy Virtos strode in. “Cage fights. Deathmatches. This is where you run off to, Dillinger?”

  Jesus, he just couldn’t get a break. Ever since Linc had been soaked in witch blood by rogues trying to force him to turn rogue, Ram had been up his ass, making sure he didn’t cave into the violent need for more witch blood. Never. He’d cut out his own heart before he’d hurt a woman, either mortal or witch. Too many memories of women he hadn’t been able to help lived in his mind.

  “Something wrong with your hearing? Get your bell rung in that cage?” Ram straddled the bench running down the center of twin rows of lockers.

  That didn’t deserve an answ
er. Linc holstered his knife and leaned back against the metal cabinets. “When did you turn into a fretting old grandma following me around?”

  Ram’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t make me kick your ass.”

  “You must not have been watching my fight if you think that’s possible.”

  “I was there. I stayed invisible, but I had your back if something went south. Like when those asswipes handed your opponent a knife. What the hell are you doing getting into a cage with a rogue?”

  “Better than getting into a bath of witch blood, don’t you think?” Might as well get it out there. All the Wing Slayer Hunters knew Linc was losing the battle against the curse. Rogues had jumped him, chained him up and doused him in witch blood. Jesus, even months later an internal shudder wracked him at the memory of the incredible high that ripped into him. If the hunters hadn’t gotten there to rescue him, Linc would have killed a witch to get more of her blood.

  “Bullshit.” Dogged determination settled over the other man’s features. “I was there when the witches used sex magic to bring you back. They overlaid the craving for blood with a need for sex. Since you didn’t screw the rogue in the cage—and fuck, I did not need that mental image—you had another reason for that asinine stunt.”

  Ram knew too damned much. Including that Linc had to constantly feed the sex magic to keep the bloodlust manageable. Unless he wanted to kill the other hunter to shut him up, he might as well tell him. After digging his phone out, he thumbed through the pics and showed him the one Baron had sent him of a woman with a bloody, swollen face.

  “Ah.” Ram glanced up. “You know her? She a witch? Someone important to you?”

  He returned his phone to his pocket. “Not a witch, hookup or close friend, just a woman I’ve seen around a few times.” Didn’t matter to Linc. He didn’t like women used and hurt, period. “She works for a friend of mine, was taken by rogues, and they demanded a cage fight to get her back alive. Baron—”

  “The older guy you were arguing with after the fight?”

  He nodded. “He figured they had a ringer and some point to make. So he called me in to do the wetwork.” Much as Linc hated cage fights, he didn’t lose.

  Anger flashed in Ram’s gaze. “You got a death wish? What stopped the rogues from an all-out attack?”

  “Don’t need a lecture, grandma.”

  “You need my boot up your ass.”

  “Kinky and violent. Don’t want to hurt your feelings, but that’s not my thing.”

  Ram growled, low and frustrated.

  The damned tat on Linc’s back itched, beginning to feel like a mosquito party let loose in his ink. He rubbed the annoyed skin against the corner of the lockers. Thinking about his irritated tat meant he didn’t have to think about Vegas and how much rogues gaining a foothold in this town pissed him off. “Ease up, dude. The rogues are making a statement, putting Baron and his M.C. on notice by showing they could snatch one of Baron’s girls. Power play.”

  “Motorcycle Club?” Amusement tinged his voice. “A witch-hunter one?”

  Linc shrugged. “Why not? We don’t fit anywhere else, do we?”

  Nothing changed in Ram’s face, but his fingers rained blue sparks. “Fitting in gets a little tougher now that I’ve become a witch-hunter firecracker. Everyone back in California is constantly watching me, waiting for the day this shit ignites and kills me.”

  Worry gnawed at Linc. Ram was on borrowed time just like him. “That the real reason you decided to follow me? Needed to get away?” Linc got it. Four of their friends had found their mates, soul mirrors—the one witch who had the other half of their souls and could break the curse through mating. While he, Ram and another hunter, Eli Stone, struggled every damned day, fighting the sick urge to hunt and kill a witch to absorb the power in her blood.

  Ram dropped his hands. “We’re not talking about me.” A frown drew down his eyebrows. “Why are you rubbing up against the lockers like a cat in heat?” Shit. He’d been razing his back against the corner trying to get relief. “Tat itches.”

  Ram stilled, suddenly intense. “No shit? When did that start?”

  “Noticed it after the fight, I guess.”

  “Dude, that could be a sign your soul mirror’s close by. Your falcon feels her and is waking.”

  Soul mirror. It twanged through Linc, sparking hope—his one shot at getting rid of the curse and living to do the job he loved, being a Wing Slayer Hunter. But that hope was shadowed with a bone-deep fear he’d never admit to. The soul-mirror couples he’d seen had bonded so profoundly, they could hear each other’s thoughts. The hunter’s winged tattoo became the witch’s familiar, helping her with her high magic. That took trust.

  Much as Linc liked women, he didn’t trust them, at least not like that. Oh, he’d find his soul mirror, but he planned to offer her a deal, one they’d both benefit from. “So how do I find her?”

  Ram opened his mouth to answer when his cell rang. Pulling out the device, he glanced at the screen. “It’s Axel.”

  “Better take it.” They didn’t ignore calls from the leader of the Wing Slayer Hunters. Linc pushed off the locker to see the phone better.

  Ram hit a button, and Axel Locke appeared on the screen, his green eyes troubled. “Axel, Linc’s here with me,” Ram said. “What’s up?”

  The man on the screen nodded. “Good. The soul-mirror witches feel something big happening in the ley lines. They’ve traced it to Vegas. It’s some kind of demon magic.”

  Linc scowled. “From Asmodeus, or is this something his demon witches are doing? The ley lines are the demon’s link to his witches, right?”

  “Those ley lines are power grids between Earth and the Underworld, so yes.”

  “It’s definitely demon magic and getting stronger.” Darcy MacAlister came into view next to Axel. “All of us soul-mirror witches feel it and think Asmodeus is directly involved in some way. We feel the power collecting, getting ready to erupt.”

  “Shit, that can’t be good,” Ram said.

  Linc rubbed the back of his neck, wishing he could reach that nagging itch in his tattoo. “Do you know where?”

  Darcy nodded, concern tightening her face. “The energy is manifesting right down the center of Las Vegas Boulevard.”

  “The Strip.” Ram’s gaze snapped to Linc’s.

  Linc dropped his hand from his neck. “Maybe the demon witches are summoning Asmodeus through the ley lines there.” Far as he knew, the demon witches needed a host body to summon the demon into, but they’d done it before.

  Axel’s grim face filled the phone screen. “Sutton’s in the air, on his way to Vegas. He’ll be there in less than an hour.”

  Linc nodded. Of the four mated hunters who had real wings, Sutton flew the fastest. “We’re a few blocks away from the Strip. We’ll go check it out and report back.”

  There was no time to screw around. No way was he letting that demon and his witches get a foothold in Vegas.

  * * *

  Risa Faden drove the small rental car down Las Vegas Boulevard. At close to midnight, the Strip glowed with lights from the towering hotels, and people swarmed the sidewalks and spilled into the streets. Sharp laughter and loud voices mixed with throbbing music that bled from the clubs.

  It was a stark contrast to the sluggish heaviness in her first four chakras, from her pelvis to her heart. The strange pull in her magic made her uneasy. What was that?

  Maybe this is what it feels like when your mind finally breaks and your magic begins to die.

  No, God, don’t even think that. Risa clamped her jaw, determined to hold on to her sanity and do the right thing.

  “Do you think Archer knows we’re here?”

  Risa glanced in the mirror to meet the eyes of her best friend from childhood, Blythe Fredrick. The woman in the back seat had one hand on the chubby arm of her sleeping baby, Kendall. “I don’t know.”

  Blythe chewed on her lower lip, strain and fatigue adding years to her face. “He inte
nded to kill me last night. I couldn’t believe it when he broke in with two armed thugs. If you hadn’t been home—”

  “But I was,” Risa cut her off, unwilling to think about losing her only real friend and Kendall.

  “What is he? That’s not the same man I dated. He’s…something else now.”

  Squeezing the steering wheel, Risa tried to puzzle it out. “I thought he was mortal, but last night an inhuman oiliness slicked into his aura. I’d say a demon witch, except men can’t be witches.”

  Blythe rubbed her baby’s arm. “What about Kendall? He’s her father.”

  Yeah, that worried Risa too. “She appears as mortal as you.” But was she? Didn’t matter, Kendall totally owned Risa’s heart regardless of her heritage.

  “None of this makes sense. What kind of creature spawns?”

  The last thing Archer had screamed at them before Risa, Blythe and Kendall escaped was, “Once I spawn, you won’t be able to run fast or far enough.” What did that mean? “Frogs and fish, otherwise…” She didn’t know, damn it. But Risa sure as hell didn’t want to be around when it happened with Archer.

  “God, Risa. I can’t guess why he wants Kendall. When I got pregnant, he paid me to keep him off the birth certificate. He wasn’t there when she was born.”

  “I noticed.” Of course she had, she’d been there coaching Blythe and saw her goddaughter come into the world. Even though Risa had left Vegas after her father’s murder conviction, she’d stayed friends with Blythe. “Whatever Archer wants, it’s not what’s good for Kendall.” If he cared about his child, he wouldn’t have had thugs try to kidnap her or allowed them to use weapons in the process. In desperation, Risa had cast her shield around the three of them to escape. But what if she wasn’t fast enough next time? They would have killed her and Blythe to get Kendall.

  “I don’t care what he is, I wouldn’t change anything. Kendall’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I love her more than I thought possible.”