His Witch To Keep (Keepers of the Veil)

by Zoe Forward

  Serenity waited by the door but wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  For a solitary moment he glanced at the bodies, wondering if that was what her evasion was about or if it had to do with the orgasm. He wished the killings mattered to him, that it bothered him, but he’d walled off that emotion too long ago to resurrect guilt now. Killing on a mission, a contract kill, or for Hades was just a job. He had a code that he could live with in his world of violence. He never killed at random. He only targeted the most evil and protected the innocent as best he could.

  “Come,” he ordered, taking her hand and leading her out and toward the service elevator. As the elevator ascended from the subbasement, a surge of images flooded his brain. His next hit, courtesy of Hades. Damn it. Couldn’t he have a few minutes of freedom? His next target’s blue eyes were far too familiar. Exactly like Serenity’s, but not hers. The woman’s hair was light brown, not red or dyed black. Yet, he recognized the woman. Please. Don’t make me kill her sister, he thought to Hades. This had to be punishment, or a test.

  The images continued, as well as the standard dossier—evil and malicious acts of the disgusting and shocking kind were generally the norm for most of Hades’s targets. This time, the info just couldn’t be true. These were lies designed to punish him for years of following Serenity. He’d briefly researched her sister several years ago when he realized how much the sisters fought and had found no indication that Liz was capable of any of the foul images Hades had just provided.

  He glanced down. Serenity’s dark lashes hid her eyes. A light splatter of freckles peeked through her makeup across her nose. The freckles were so like her. She hid behind a tough exterior designed to obscure the fragile woman beneath. She fought for independence out of terror over losing those closest to her. He couldn’t rip away her only sibling. It would destroy her. This had to be a mistake. He just needed to prove it to Hades.

  Optimistic bullshit. He’d tried once before to avoid a hit, disbelieving the intel. That led to months of head pain while he accumulated his own information and concluded Hades had been right.

  This would destroy Serenity.

  In silence he led them to a housekeeping room on the basement level. He pulled at the door handle, but it didn’t budge. “Crap.”

  “Unexpected?” she asked.

  “I left a change of clothes for us in here. It should be open.”

  She touched the knob. “Locked. This isn’t an easy one to pick since it’s card access only.” She squinted to examine between the door and frame. “And dead bolted. What’s plan B?”

  “I don’t need a plan B. Plan A always works.” He gazed up and down the hallway. At least they were alone in this maintenance corridor, but given the time of day it’d soon be shift change. “We’ve got to move. We need new clothes.”

  He stalked up the hall but halted when he realized she didn’t follow. He waved at her to get in motion.

  She shook him off and giggled. Had she blown a mental fuse?

  She lounged against the wall and snort laughed.

  “What is wrong with you?” he asked, stalking back toward her, fully intent on tossing her over his shoulder if needed.

  “It’s just so bloody fantastic to see you screw up. You’re so perfect all the time.”

  “I’m not perfect.” Irritation crested. “If I was perfect, I would have walked away from your self-destructive ass a long time ago.”

  She doubled over, laughing, and wiped at tears. Fucking tears.

  He gritted out, “What is funny about this? We must leave right now.”

  She held up a hand and then wiped away the moisture from her eyes. “Sorry. This is just a moment I want to remember.”

  “We are leaving. Now.” He grabbed her hand and tried to pull her, but she didn’t budge. “Come,” he ordered.

  She grinned up at him. “Unpredictable makes you prickly.” She sobered up and actively suppressed laughing, but a few snorts escaped.

  His hands shook with agitation to leave. “We are not popping back to that other place…that dimension again. No.”

  “I didn’t offer. That’s only for emergencies. I have a suggestion.”

  He dropped her hand and crossed his arms. “I do not want to use your invisibility to walk out of here. With my luck you will lose focus and then we will flicker in and out, making us a YouTube sensation.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but no. If we want to use invisibility in the future, then it needs a bit more practice first. Did you check into a room?”

  He nodded. That was basic hotel op one-oh-one.

  She strolled to the elevator and punched the up button. “What name is it under?”

  “Moore.”

  “All right, Mr. Moore, let’s get out of here.” The elevator opened, and she stepped inside.

  He didn’t move. “That is not the plan. I planted firebombs. Then we escape in the commotion.”

  “All the chaos. So many lives disrupted. Quite unnecessary.” She smoothed her dress. “How’s my lipstick? Do I look too kissed?”

  “You look well-fucked. It’s fine.”

  Her cheeks flushed. She held the door-open button.

  He smiled.

  “Get in the damn elevator, Mr. Moore. You’ve got a woman on your team now. Haven’t you ever worked with a woman?”

  Her condescending tone escalated his frustration. He shook his head. As of right now he deemed working with a woman elevated the unpredictable factor to unacceptable.

  She smiled. “Brilliant. How about a little trust? I promise I’ll get us out of here. Just be British and act…exactly like you are. It’s perfect.”

  “For what is it perfect? I need to know your exact plan.”

  She punched the button for the lobby, one floor up.

  Before he could hit the emergency stop button and demand she communicate what the hell she planned, she was out of elevator. Into the main lobby. The fucking main lobby. Nightmare. This was not low-key. This guaranteed they’d be recorded, possibly remembered. He was too distracted by her sexy hip swagger to even attempt to future scan.

  He trailed behind her, furious, as she stormed to the concierge desk. His eyes involuntarily trailed from her tapered ankles up to the flare of her hips outlined perfectly in that sexy black sheath.

  She leaned into the counter with her butt in the air and flashed more cleavage than the twenty-something concierge deserved to glimpse. “So, my husband wants Italian. But I want sushi.”

  “Bloody hell,” Alexi grumbled in a perfect British accent.

  She shot him an irritated glare. “This is a city of fantastic restaurants. Do you have one that can do both?”

  The concierge glanced uncertainly between the two of them. “There’s a sushi restaurant in Little Italy.”

  “No. I need one that does both.”

  The concierge paled while staring at Alexi. His expression froze, and a slow dawning of fear transformed his face. That sixth sense was kicking in. This wasn’t going to go well. He crossed his arms and looked at her.

  She wagged a forefinger at his keyboard and leaned in farther.

  The guy focused on her breasts, which looked to be a few millimeters from spilling out of the top of her dress. Alexi bit back a jealous growl and contemplated six ways to silently kill the twenty-something kid, and no one else would even notice until they were long gone.

  She said softly, “Just clickety click and find one for us. Please.” She smiled seductively.

  The guy punched some keys on his computer. “I don’t know…sushi and Italian?”

  “For God’s sake, leave him alone. This is ridiculous. We shall just do what you want. Sushi,” he declared.

  She snapped upright, rested her hand on her cocked hip, and shot him a brilliant smile that was all about angry tolerance for male bullshit. Lust shot straight to his balls. She said, “Give the gentleman a chance, darling.”

  “Well, I’ll be…” The concierge cleared his throat. “There is one. It’s
new and you’re dressed appropriately. Would you like for me to make a reservation?”

  She shot Alexi a triumphant smirk. “Yes, please. We’re the Moores. Would you also be so kind as to call us a car?”

  “Do you want a cab or a limo?” the guy asked.

  “I can drive,” Alexi said.

  “It took us four hours to get from the airport to here in the rental.” She rolled her eyes and clucked, demanding sympathy from the concierge. “That should have been a thirty-minute drive. And that was with the GPS turned on. He didn’t trust the darn thing.”

  Alexi said, “She kept saying recalculating. The bloody American voice drove me insane with her nasal whine.”

  “Cab, please.” She smiled at the concierge. “You’ve been wonderful. We shall wait in the foyer.” She raised her eyebrows at Alexi. “Just give the man a twenty and then…out front.” She sauntered toward the entry. A doorman hurried to open it for her.

  “Won’t she be cold?” the guy asked Alexi, gazing at her ass in the cocktail dress.

  Distracted, Alexi tossed a twenty at the kid and trailed after her. “Doubt it. She burns hotter than the sun in the desert.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Did you know about the restaurant?” Alexi asked while maneuvering his car out of the parking garage. They’d been dropped at the restaurant and then backtracked to his car.

  “I read about it online the other day. The juxtaposition of sushi and Italian was so weird that…well, now I’m glad I paused on that story.” She glanced around his car, a different one than the one from the other day. He was so cautious, just like she’d been taught. Always changing vehicles. Always different parking locations.

  “That was pretty good back there,” he said, the reluctance in his tone obvious.

  She gritted her teeth. “That was far more than pretty good. I was bloody fantastic. You’re welcome. It’s nice to be able to save your ass for once.”

  He frowned. “I had my ass under control. It was yours that wouldn’t follow my plan.”

  “Whatever. Get over it. You don’t have to go James Bond every time and explode something just to have an escape plan. Where are we going?” She crossed her arms over her chest and slumped in the seat, snuggling into his tuxedo jacket. It dwarfed her and smelled of him.

  “One of my safe places. It’s another few minutes.” He wove through the congested Friday night streets into Brooklyn. He turned the heat to full blast and flicked on her seat warmer.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled. She squinted against oncoming headlights. They were not sleeping together. She couldn’t live through another fuck-and-run. Him with her was about her getting his help. Nothing more.

  Her mind slid back to the bathroom. Just the memory of how easily he made her body sing and knew all the right buttons to push had her burning on high heat within seconds. She shifted on the now too-warm seat and turned off the warmer. How she wanted to despise the control he had over her, but she liked his touch. And wanted a whole lot more.

  She followed him into the foyer of an aged apartment building that could do with a good power wash inside and out. Cracked, stained plaster walls and dim lighting signaled decades of maintenance delinquency. She expected a bit more glamour given how much she suspected Alexi made off each hit.

  A beefy guy with a has-been body blocked their way. Greasy black hair had been slicked away from his receding widow’s peak. Each ear was lined with hoops, and a large bar pierced his right eyebrow.

  The roadblock crossed his arms and clucked a threatening I don’t think so. “Yuri got dressed up and got himself some pussy for tonight?”

  Alexi dropped his head and stooped his shoulders. In a thick Russian accent he said, “Just going home. Let us by.”

  “You fucking Commies. Trying to destroy the city with your foul Mafia shit.” The guy pushed Alexi backward and brandished a switchblade. Alexi stumbled into the wall with a force that knocked his head against the cracked plaster.

  In Lithuanian Serenity asked, “Kas yra jūsų žaidimas?” What is your game?

  “Jis nėra verta kovoti.” He is not worth the fight, he replied. In accented English he said, “He’s my landlord’s son.”

  “You’s a Commie bitch? Don’t you be speaking that shit. Let me show you what I think of Commies.” He smashed his fist into Alexi’s cheek.

  Oh, hell no. She slammed the side of her palm into the guy’s windpipe, not enough to crush but enough to push him away from Alexi and paralyze him. His blade clattered on the floor. She kicked his nuts and grabbed the knife. As he crouch-clutched his balls, she placed her hand around his larynx, yanking his head backward into her chest, and pressed the knife into his back.

  The guy stiffened.

  She faked a thick Russian accent. “Move and I’ll slice your left kidney. Then you will die a slow and very painful death. You understand? Nod for me.”

  He nodded.

  “If I hear that you so much as enter the same breathing space as Yuri, I will find you and carve little pieces out of your body before I shove this knife into a vital organ and let you bleed slowly until you die. Alone. In pain.” She pressed the dim mak pressure point below his chin over his carotid artery. He slid to the ground, unconscious. With a scowl she stepped away, resisting the feel-good temptation to kick the shit out of his face.

  “I didn’t see that coming…that you’d…” Alexi’s eyes swirled with emotion when they glanced up from the unconscious guy.

  “Do you always see what’s coming?” she asked, motioning for him to lead onward.

  He led up countless flights of wood stairs with flaky paint in silence to a top-floor corner apartment. His fingers flew over his smartphone. The door unlocked. High-tech. Very cool. A small electronic beep as they entered signaled what she suspected was a deactivated alarm.

  The moment the door closed, she asked again. “Do you always see what happens before it happens?”

  He ignored her and punched in a complicated code into the alarm panel on the wall.

  She hit his shoulder at the perfect point she knew would force him to turn to face her. “Stop evading my questions. Tell me.”

  Out of instinct Alexi caught her hand on its arc toward his cheek. He whirled and trapped her against the wall, restraining each of her hands with one of his. Her pulse pounded in her throat, and her eyes dilated.

  Damn it. She was just as turned on by this as he was.

  He said, “You should fear me.” He was death and destruction, capable of annihilating anyone in his path. She ignited that death risk to volatile, which made him triply dangerous to everyone except her. Her only risk from him was that he’d give in to temptation and fuck her senseless. You idiot. Why’d you even let your mind go there?

  He needed to scare her…to push her away before he lost control and devoured her.

  She said, “If you meant to kill me, you would’ve done so long ago. I want to understand how you do what you do. Can you see the future?”

  She wanted him to let her in.

  Silently, he tried to sort through the shock in his brain. He’d thought himself impossible to shock. No one ever had a better plan than him, but she’d proven him wrong. Then she’d stepped up to defend him. He couldn’t remember a time when anyone had done that for him. He didn’t need another’s help. He had expected her to follow his lead with the landlord, using the cover of cowardice to perpetuate invisibility. What she’d done had been unexpected. Beyond his mild irritation at her for jumping in, he was flattered. And goddamn if his heart didn’t split wide-open with forbidden emotion that was best immediately forgotten.

  She was fiercely protective of anyone weaker and anyone she cared for. He’d brooded on this trait in her many times when her actions infuriated him. She would always do whatever was needed to protect. He wasn’t weaker and could barely process the idea she might care for him enough to come to his defense, despite his abysmal treatment of her in the past. The topper on his shock sundae was realizing that he needed so
meone like her to be as fierce for him as she was for those in her family circle. He needed that from her.

  He released her arms. “I can glimpse into the immediate future.” To halt the expected round of twenty questions, he latched his mouth onto hers, cradling her neck firmly with his palm.

  She pulled away from the kiss and looped her delicate arms around his neck. Her blue eyes glittered as if she knew exactly the distraction he’d hoped to cause. She whispered, “Thank you.” She kissed the spot where that bastard’s fist had connected with his cheek.

  Her mouth skimmed along his cheek and landed on his lips. It wasn’t a teaser kiss. It wasn’t gentle. It was open mouth, tongue thrusting, demanding. She nipped his lower lip. Then trailed kisses down his neck while murmuring, “How did you become a death reaper?”

  Awash in the sensation of her mouth’s downward trek as she slowly unbuttoned his dress shirt, he barely processed her question. His uncle’s warning flashed through his brain: Never tell anyone. Telling creates a weak link that will lead to your death. It happened before. Do not. Ever.

  He moaned and slammed his eyes shut when her hands trailed down his abdomen. She unfastened his trousers. One small hand wrapped him. Sparks exploded behind his eyelids. Please, don’t stop.

  But she did. She paused her downward kissing trek to ask, “Are you remembering the feel of my mouth on you?” She freed him completely from his pants. The cool air rushed over his cock.

  Bloody hell. He could withstand torture of any kind without breaking and had almost died more than once from such agony without a chance of talking. But this woman… He’d spew his entire life story after about thirty more seconds of this. But damned if he was stopping her now. He wanted her mouth there.

  She slid down his body, her hand closed around his shaft, and her tongue licked its head.

  “Serenity…”

  Her lips opened and drew him in, her tongue running up the underside of the sensitive head until he groaned. His eyes rolled back. Sweat broke out on his back. She took him deep until he brushed the back of her throat, sucking and licking as she went. His balls tightened. Every rational thought fled his brain.