His Witch To Keep (Keepers of the Veil)

by Zoe Forward

  The moment she arrived, she made herself invisible. She wobbled, but managed to stay upright while dizziness spun her brain. Her stomach tightened with a pre-puke clench. Not the time for self-indulgence. No vomiting.

  The air reeked of burned hair, blood, sweaty body odor, and musty sweltering heat—the distinctive odors of torture, familiar from years in MI6. Dread settled in her stomach. She counted slowly through the long seconds of shift blindness while listening to her surroundings. The subtle shifting of feet signaled more than two hostiles. Heavy. Likely male.

  “Perkelti į kairę.” Move to your left, Alexi ordered in Lithuanian.

  She stumbled left.

  An unfamiliar male with a heavy Russian accent asked very close by, “Why the fuck should I move left?” Then a grunt, probably Alexi.

  She squinted into the dimly lit, relatively furniture-free room. Her retinas burned. The pain was unimportant. Given the exposed overhead piping, she assumed this to be a basement.

  Alexi gazed at her from where his arms had been wrenched tight above him by a chain tossed over piping. A zip tie bound his ankles. His bloodied button-down hung loosely from his shoulders, exposing numerous lacerations through the beautiful stylized tattooed letters across his chest. To his credit he stood straight, but blood and swelling highlighted his face. His dilated, slightly unfocused gaze suggested he’d been drugged.

  How could someone get to him?

  A man dressed in a suit moved in front of her. The guy adjusted the wire frames across his nose. He untied his red tie and deposited it onto a side table that housed various metal torture devices. Old-school. With a twirl he picked up a scalpel handle missing its blade. “For once, I’m a step ahead of the legendary Shadow. Tell me how to contact her.” He strolled toward Alexi.

  The Russian snapped the blade onto the scalpel handle. “Why would this single devuska who is an agent of the enemy make you so careless?” He laughed low and menacing. “You must be fucking her.”

  Were they talking about her? Or was there some other agent Alexi was fucking? Her gaze snapped to Alexi. Jealousy seized her mind and took her to a vicious place.

  The Russian closed in on Alexi.

  Serenity targeted the Russian with her Glock.

  Subtly, Alexi shook his head. She scowled refusal. What if the Russian tired of this game and swiped somewhere lethal with that blade?

  The Russian teased the blade over the stylized letters on Alexi’s chest. “If you don’t tell me how to find her, I’ll carve you into little pieces.”

  Alexi double blinked as if processing everything slowly. He slurred, “If I do tell you about her, you will do it anyway.” He smiled coldly. “You really aren’t good at this. Let me show you how it’s done. I’m going to kill your men at the door, Lebedev, then I will put a bullet into every painful zone in your body until you give me the name of the other agent you contracted and the name of who ordered the hit.”

  “With what?” Lebedev twirled around with his arms wide to his sides. He bellowed out a laugh. “You are fucking that Serenity bitch, aren’t you?” He lunged forward and swiped the blade through Alexi’s cheek.

  A hiss escaped Alexi.

  No one messed with her family.

  He wasn’t family.

  He might as well be. She’d known him almost half her life. And, oh, God, what this bastard had just done to him…

  She shot the four men at the door while maintaining her invisibility.

  Alexi said, “Men dead. Nice forehead shots, wouldn’t you say? Name the other contract agent or I’ll shoot you.”

  Lebedev spun to glare into all the corners of the seemingly empty room. “How did you do that?”

  She quietly moved beside Alexi to have a better front sight on the Russian while remaining invisible. She put a hand against Alexi’s arm. Although his face remained stoic, his body trembled. That broke her heart and escalated her anger.

  Alexi demanded, “The names?”

  “Go to hell,” Lebedev replied.

  “Knee it is.” His gaze locked with hers.

  She shot Lebedev in the knee.

  He dropped.

  “Who is the other contract?” Alexi asked. “Or I will put a bullet in the other knee.”

  Lebedev held up a hand. “Stop. I don’t know how you’re doing this, but stop. It’s Nikolai. The other agent is Nikolai.”

  Alexi asked, “Who authorized this hit?”

  Lebedev shook his head.

  Alexi raised his eyebrows in threat. “Name.”

  Lebedev shook his head again. “I never got a name. Came from…they threatened my mother. They’re not the home office. All I had to do was initiate the hit. They didn’t care who I hired. Just that it got done.”

  “Kill the išdavikas.”

  She easily translated the Lithuanian word for traitor and pulled the trigger.

  Lebedev collapsed.

  “Is it safe for me to be seen?”

  Alexi’s gaze drifted to the wall directly across from him.

  She trotted to the wall and yanked wires to disconnect the camera.

  “We’ve probably got…” He swallowed. His sluggish gaze slid over her and lingered on her chest. “Twenty to thirty seconds before backup arrives.”

  She dropped her invisibility. “I need the key to get those cuffs off your wrists.”

  Alexi’s eyes darted around, unfocused. He shrugged a no idea.

  She brushed sweaty hair off his face, unconcerned about the blood coating her fingers. His cheek continued to hemorrhage. Blood dripped from his chin. She blinked against her eyes’ burn and focused on the goal of releasing him. “What kind of drug did they use?”

  “Darted me like an animal. Don’t know what. Potent. Maybe lethal. I probably only have…minutes before I pass out.”

  Lethal? Her mind shot right past oh, shit into full-blown panic. Her training kicked in, knocking adrenaline to the curb and replacing it with a rational step-by-step plan. Get the key. Get him out of here.

  She rushed to Lebedev and pawed through his clothes, scoring a key in his pants pocket. After she opened the cuffs, Alexi attempted to stand upright, but his legs caved. He slid toward her, catching himself on his knees. Now what? She’d been warned jumping another person to her alternate dimension could be dangerous, but if they stayed here, then they died.

  No option. She needed to transition them both to the other dimension. Risky, but she’d hope they arrived intact. She hugged him tight and focused on her ancestral house.

  The world dimmed and swirled. The familiar sensation of being compressed on all sides by intense pressure squeezed her body for several seconds. And then stopped, leaving her weak, dizzy and blind.

  Upon arrival, Alexi flailed. A body part connected with her nose. A few tears leaked from her still blind eyes. He twisted away from her, his elbows thrashing. “I’m blind. Whatever they gave me, now I’m blind.”

  “It’s okay. Chill,” she said, elated the jump worked. She had an awful headache, which she suspected wasn’t just from the nose hit. “It’s shift blindness. Give it a minute.” She dabbed at the tears gathering at the corner of her eye but kept her eyes firmly closed. With her opposite hand, she gripped his arm, hoping that might comfort him enough not to flail and hit her again.

  His muscles stiffened. “You didn’t. I can’t be in your other dimension. Take us back.”

  Twenty…twenty-one…twenty-two…twenty-three… Vision. She popped open her lids and ran her gaze over him. “I need a rundown on your injuries right now.”

  He wiped a forearm across his eyes, dragging blood from his cheek laceration across his face and saturating his unbuttoned shirtsleeve. Crusted blood coated most of his chest right down to his dark jeans, which were unbuttoned at the top, suggesting…her mind took her straight to the horror of what could’ve been done to him down there. She swiped moisture from her eyes.

  “You did your magical dimension hop thing with me? I can’t be here. Get us back immediately
.” His eyes wildly darted around. “I can see again.”

  “Calm down. You’re somewhere safe. Focus on that. You just admitted you might be about to die. I need to know your worst injuries.” For good measure, she added, “Please.”

  His words came out slurred. “Stab into lower right abdomen. I’m sure it hit something that’s bleeding. Another into left thigh. Left side, ribs broken. Burns on arms, feet, and other…areas. And drug…”

  Oh, God. She’d seen a lot of agent injuries over the years, especially post-torture. This was beyond bad. He was on the express train to the afterlife. No.

  She smoothed his hair away from his face and leaned over him to look into his dilated eyes. This man was spectacular. He didn’t complain. Not even one moan or whimper. “How’d they get you? I mean, you’re careful. This doesn’t happen to you.”

  His gaze roamed her face and rested on her lips. “No one is perfect.” His words slurred.

  “What? You come pretty damned close when it comes to situations like this.”

  “I got distracted. The drug in combo with the cuffs…fucked.” His eyelids drooped.

  “How did you call for me? How could you possibly know I’d show up?”

  His drug-dilated eyes slowly opened and roamed her face. “I suspected—”

  “You suspected what?”

  He toppled over.

  She shook him, but he didn’t respond.

  Couldn’t be dead. She shook him, but he remained unconscious. Her chest constricted so tight she panted to move air. She fumbled for his pulse and whooshed out a relieved sigh. His pulse might be weak, but it wasn’t absent. “Just this once, be the stubborn bastard I know. Don’t die.”

  She closed her eyes and prayed to the goddesses to tell her what to do for him. Instinctually, she made circular hand motions over his chest. Tingling started in her own chest and zipped down her arms until her fingertips buzzed. She double blinked as the world spun around her as if they were on a carousel. After he took one deep inhale and slid into sleep, she stopped the circles. The spinning ceased.

  A peek under his shirt revealed his abdominal wound healed. The cut across his cheek and those on his chest were gone. All facial swelling was resolved. Wow. As she traced the Greek lettering that spanned his chest, now surrounded by crusted blood, she was struck as she had been months ago by their mysterious beauty. When she’d asked him their meaning, he’d evaded. Typical Alexi.

  The fact she healed him meant… Shit, shit, and super shit.

  She’d bonded to him.

  He couldn’t be the one for her. Her destined. That one sanctified male fated to be the father of her children, lifetime protector, and lover had to be chosen by her goddess ancestor. They would never choose Alexi. That one magical mate was supposed to be druid, not an assassin with mysterious skills who worked for the Order Lutomaleficum. He knew that group of psychotic witch hunters had tortured her long ago.

  This had to be a mistake. She’d irrationally latched onto him. An accidental bond.

  Shit.

  She had to fix this. Erase it. Maybe the eldest of the seven Pleiades witches knew a trick to reverse an accidental bond. She hoped the reason she couldn’t find her destined druid wasn’t because of this accident. What a mess.

  Her first step was to get Alexi home—to his home—before he woke up. Him awake and at full strength equaled catastrophe. Alone with him in her house…

  She wouldn’t sleep with him again. Now or ever. Ordering herself to be a good girl wouldn’t work. The only thing holding her back, if and when he touched her, was his control.

  Her head spun as she stood. She slumped back to her knees and cradled her pounding head. Damn this energy drain. It felt as if she’d lost a few pints of blood and then had a three-day flu.

  This wasn’t the time for head pain or weakness. With an arm under his shoulders, she focused to shift them back to Alexi’s dimension.

  Nothing happened.

  She tried again but didn’t get even an energy sputter. Not good. Whatever just happened between them had healed him and left her depleted.

  After a few rough tugs, she relocated him onto the nearby sofa. She retrieved scissors and cut the zip tie around his legs. Blood highlighted too many parts of his body. She wet a washcloth in the bathroom and cleaned the blood off his face. A few trips to rinse and wash finally had him acceptably clean. She threw a quilt over him and perched on the edge of the sofa next to him.

  Unable to resist, she moved a few strands of hair off his forehead and traced the new wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He looked thinner than last year, but, wow, the man was beautiful. Chiseled cheekbones, generous lips. Ah, those lips. They knew how to make her scream. Okay, that wasn’t a memory she needed to rehash, not with the two of them alone, trapped in her alternate dimension.

  A lump lodged in her chest. What would it be like to belong to this man? He’d be dominant and fierce, but the raw, demanding passion he offered in the bedroom just might make up for the level of testosterone bullshit she’d have to take.

  With a head shake she pushed away those ridiculous thoughts. He didn’t want her for more than an easy lay and to play psychotic games, like today.

  She massaged her forehead against the dull ache. Being trapped and sapped was a first.

  As soon as she recharged, she’d jump them back. God, let it be before he woke up.

  Chapter Four

  Alexi popped upright to a sit and massaged his head. He pushed off a quilt and swung his legs over the edge of the sofa. The chords of a vaguely familiar piano concerto drifted in from another room. He closed his eyes to assess his injury tally. Nothing hurt. He couldn’t detect the stab wound or chest cuts, and his ribs no longer hurt. Everything was fine. Was he completely healed? How many days had he been out?

  He retrieved his phone from his tactical pants. Lebedev had been sloppy to leave it on him. The phone confirmed the same date he’d been taken. He’d only been out for an hour? No service. Still in the other dimension.

  What had Serenity done to him? He hadn’t thought her a healer. Maybe she had more tricks in her arsenal than invisibility. Or maybe she’d shifted them back to the real world and called in her druid healer.

  He gaped at his now healed abdomen, stunned.

  Beyond miraculous vanishing injuries, Serenity had shown up at his death-bound altercation with Lebedev. Astonishment gave way to it really happened. He’d been up shit creek without a viable exit plan. First time for that. After Lebedev and his men worked him over for an hour or so, he’d almost accepted calling out to her hadn’t worked. But then she’d appeared like the beautiful, highly trained witch she was. What did he do with the knowledge they were that tightly linked?

  Right now, he expected Hades’s voice to thunder in his brain, to berate him for his behavior. To order him back to work. He waited.

  Where are you?

  Nothing. Hades wasn’t in his brain. Maybe he didn’t function in Serenity’s other dimension.

  He closed his eyes and sighed in relief, enjoying the peace of being alone in his body for the first time in…he couldn’t remember how many decades. He’d been barely thirteen when his uncle died and he’d inherited death reaper duty. After a few seconds, he glanced around what he assumed to be Serenity’s house.

  The house’s craftsmanship and architecture suggested early nineteenth century Western European, but the appliances were modern. The flat-panel TV in the other room confirmed no time travel. Just another world, like good Superman versus alternate universe Superman? A dimension? He’d read about it in the OLM archives but barely believed it possible.

  Everything around him was well maintained and clean. The decor didn’t equate with what he knew of Serenity. He flicked a crocheted doily ornamenting the side table, which sat beneath a copper-foil stained-glass lamp. She never seemed particularly frilly. Efficient, streamlined, and high quality, yes. The ornate fixtures and lavish oil paintings, no.

  The aroma of food drew him
from his musings. He pulled the edges of his shirt together and stood. Only the top button remained from where Lebedev had ripped it open.

  He made it to the bathroom, used the loo, and then stared at himself in the mirror. The Russians had slammed his face numerous times, but not a single bruise remained. Not even a healing laceration where he’d been sliced. He picked at a small crust of blood above his eyebrow. The hand towels were missing in here. She must’ve cleaned him up.

  She kept her back to him when he entered the kitchen, but the stiffening of her spine alerted him she knew he’d arrived. She poured batter into an iron waffle maker. He admired the delicate line of her neck to the spaghetti strap top and downward to the silky PJ pants.

  She pivoted. Her eyebrows shot upward. Her eyes scanned down his body. “Are you…okay?”

  “Better than I expected.”

  Her cheeks colored as she quickly turned back to the waffle maker. He should demand she return them to his dimension now, but she’d healed him, cleaned him up, and now cooked. That intrigued him.

  “Let’s have breakfast. You can go into the sunroom. I’ll be there in a minute.” She pointed at a doorway that led into a glassed-in room. She plopped a finished waffle onto a plate with several others. Although she turned toward him, she didn’t meet his gaze. “Go.”

  He wanted to ask what she’d done to him but noticed her hands trembled, even if her voice was even. Whatever happened had shaken her, whether it was how she’d found him or what happened after.

  Her gaze met his, and her chin notched up with a defiance that had every inch of his body rock hard. He moved toward the glassed-in room, lit by the red hues of dusk.

  She set the plate of waffles on a round table, disappeared into the kitchen, and brought back a plate with silverware and a cup of orange juice for him. She slid a waffle onto the plate and set it in front of him. Without smiling she nudged the butter toward him. “They have the best butter here. There’s this woman up the road that makes her own.”