by Sarah Piper
You did this to me, witch.
You.
You did this.
To me.
You.
“Gray? You okay?”
“Huh?”
“What’s going on? Really?”
“I… Nothing.”
The silence that fell between us was so complete, I could hear the tea steeping. The tension made my insides itch.
“Sophie, seriously. I’m cool.” I grabbed our mugs and sat down across from her. “I’m just—”
“Full of shit, like I said.” At least she was smiling again. “Where’s Ronan?”
The sound of his name sent a shiver down my spine. The good kind.
“Haven’t seen him in a few days.”
“God, I hate when he does that.” Sophie sighed. “Are you planning to tell him about this?”
“No. And neither are you.” The last thing I needed was an overprotective demon trailing me on my deliveries. It was bad enough he made me spar with him once a week, just to keep my reflexes and fighting skills sharp. If he saw me like this, I’d never hear the end of it.
“He’ll find out. He always does.”
“Not from you.”
She blew across the top of her mug, steam curling up around her face. “Speaking of your sex life—”
“Nice transition, and no, we aren’t speaking of it.”
“Exactly my point.” Sophie's eyes lingered on the cut above my eyebrow. “You do realize that you’ve been in more fights in the last month than you’ve gotten laid in, like, years?”
“Really? I’d totally forgotten about my pathetically lonely nights and desperately unfulfilled longings! Thank God my best friend is keeping track for me!” I nodded at the Tarot cards stacked between us, eager to get back on neutral ground. “Draw your card before I fall asleep. I'm beat.”
“Classic Gray Desario redirect.” Sophie smirked and pulled a card for herself, setting it face up between us.
Her smile vanished.
I glanced down at the card—Seven of Pentacles. The image showed an apprentice witch using a rusty nail to draw blood from a tree. Seven silver pentacles bloomed on the otherwise barren branches.
I knew right away what it meant… And it wasn’t about me.
“Sophie,” I whispered, “you’re practicing magic again.” It wasn’t a question, just the first thing that popped into my mind. As soon as the words were out, I knew they were spot on.
Using magic was dangerous. It left a signature, and if enough witches left enough signatures, it could create a hotspot—one of the primary ways Hunters tracked us. How they’d been tracking us… for millennia. The last time they decided to rally a few decades back, they wiped out thousands of witches and drove the remaining covens underground.
These days, most witches were firmly in the broom closet, if they even admitted their magical heritage at all. Sure, other witches and supernaturals could ID them, but humans? Hunters? No way. Not without the magic.
“I guess I have a confession,” Sophie said.
“About the magic, or the fact that you’ve been keeping it secret?”
She met my gaze across the table, unwavering. “Both.”
I felt it then; something shift between us. A crack in the once solid foundation of our friendship, just wide enough for a secret to slip inside.
Seven years ago, in this city of the lost and the damned, Sophie and I had found each other, young and scared, both looking for a safe place to anchor, a safe place to stash our secrets. It was our identity as witches—as outcasts—that brought us together, made us instant friends and perfect roommates. And now, the thing that had so powerfully bound us was the very thing I wanted to shove into a box and lock away.
I’d always thought that's what she wanted, too.
“Hear me out,” she said.
I sipped my tea, reigning in my anger. “I’m listening.”
“No, you’re judging. That’s not—”
“I’m listening, Sophie.” Trying to, anyway, which was all I could promise.
She nodded, eyeing me over the rim of her mug. Then, in a soft voice laced with guilt, “I’ve been meeting with Bay Coven.”
“With… I don’t…” Damn it. I knew she was friends with some of the Bay Coven witches—a few of them hung out at Illuminae, and I’d even gone with Sophie once to a dinner at the leader’s house—but I had no idea she was actually involved with the local underground.
Practicing magic.
And keeping it from me.
“Why?” I struggled to keep the sting of betrayal from my voice.
“They need me. The witches are strong, but Norah keeps everyone on a leash. If there were more of us, we could—”
“Us?” My head was spinning. I didn’t even know Sophie wanted to do magic again, let alone with other people. “Where is this coming from?”
Sophie shrugged, her rainbow braids lighting up as they brushed her shoulders. “I want to know who I am, Gray. What I can do.”
“What you can do is get yourself killed.”
“We’re witches,” she said plainly. “Hiding our magic doesn't change that.”
“No, it just makes it a hell of a lot harder for the Hunters to find us.”
“You’re doing that thing,” she said, pointing at my chest. “Putting on your tough bitch act, hoping you can fake it till you make it.”
“Whatever it takes.”
“Stop shutting me out.”
“I'm not the one keeping secrets."
"Bullshit." Sophie grabbed my hand again, thumb skating across the bandage on my palm. “This wasn’t some random fight. There’s something inside you, Gray. I can feel it. What happened?”
Heat flickered in my gut, like embers from a fire not quite finished. I closed my eyes and sucked in a cool breath, willing it to settle. To go away.
“Whatever it is,” she said, “we’ll deal with it.”
I opened my eyes and met her gaze across the table, but I still couldn’t bring myself to tell her.
Necromancy? No one fucked with that shit. And no matter how desperately Sophie wanted me to open up, I wouldn’t lay that on her. She was one of the good ones. If she was smart, she’d turn me in to the Fae Council—those were the rules we lived by. The ones that kept our supernatural communities secret.
Putting her in that position, well… maybe one day it would come down to friendship or morals.
And maybe I didn’t want to see which one she’d choose.
I pulled out of her grasp, wrapping my hands around my mug to keep from fidgeting. “How long have you been using magic?”
She glared at me a moment longer, then relented. “A few weeks. A month? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I wanted to feel it out first.”
“With the coven?"
Sophie’s smile brightened. “Haley—you remember her from the dinner, right? She's teaching me blood magic and helping me reconnect with my earth energy. It’s amazing, Gray. It’s—”
“Dangerous and stupid."
She frowned. “If and when the time comes, we shouldn’t have to fight alone.”
“We shouldn’t have to fight at all. That's the point of not using magic."
“Is that so?” She glared at my chest as if she could see the darkness swirling there. “It's destroying you. The more you hold back, the more you repress and deny your true nature, the worse—”
"I said I'm fine."
True nature? No way. This morning was a freak accident, that's all. It wouldn’t happen again. Period.
I whipped the next card off the top of the Tarot deck and tossed it down in front of me, hoping for a cheery Three of Cups, maybe The Sun.
Nope.
On the face of the card, a mother stepped on a small child as he tried to climb back into her pregnant womb. Both figures had sleek, ebony bodies, but their heads were bare skulls, elongated like wild horses. A doomed ship sank into the depths of the oil-black sea behind them.
Trump th
irteen. Death.
“See? See!” Sophie pointed at my chest again, her mouth stretched into a smug grin. “You are so not fine. Even the universe agrees.”
“The universe is obviously drunk.” I picked up the card for a closer look, suppressing a shiver. Tarot wasn’t magic—it was intuitive. The moment I drew a card, no matter how distracted I was, I always got an immediate message.
But that was just it—there was no message now.
I sensed nothing. Oblivion. A great yawning blankness that stretched on endlessly, devoid of warmth or hope.
Sophie's eyes widened. “Gray…”
“It just means… a transition.” I tossed the card back onto the pile, reciting the Death card’s standard book definition. “Big shakeup. Probably the job thing. I need to figure something else out—something safer. Maybe even something with health insurance…”
I was babbling, but Sophie let it slide.
“That’s something the universe and I agree on,” she said. “Pretty sure Ronan does, too.”
“All three of you are overprotective.” I stood up and stretched my arms over my head, forcing a yawn. I needed to get out of there, away from the card and the lingering tension. “I’m exhausted. See you for dinner? Maybe we could try the new Thai place on Fourteenth? I got paid today—my treat.”
It was my peace offering. I held my breath, waiting for Sophie to take it.
Please say yes…
“I can't tonight.” She glanced at the fox clock, her shoulders slumping. “Everyone’s meeting at Norah’s before my shift.”
“Of course. Great.”
“I know they’d love to see you there. And maybe they can help you figure out—”
“I don’t need their help.”
“Okay, fine,” Sophie huffed. “You don’t need their help. But maybe I need yours.” Her next words were barely a whisper. “Please, Gray. Something’s going on with them. I can’t put my finger on it, but I—”
“Sophie, it’s not—”
“God, you're so stubborn!” Her multi-colored hair pulsed brighter. “Will you at least think about coming before you shoot me down?”
I didn’t have to think about it. Any desire I’d had to belong to something bigger, to learn about my origins and my magic, to be a witch… that was taken from me nine years ago, burnt to ash in a house 3,000 miles from here.
My life in Blackmoon Bay was far from perfect. But it was just that—a life. A chance at normalcy—at least at what passed for a witch’s normalcy—and I wasn’t about to wreck it by delving back into the very thing that had nearly destroyed me.
Not even for Sophie.
The girl in the alley was a wake-up call. Didn’t matter how comforting and familiar my magic place had felt, or how much I’d missed the touch of that warm, blue light. I needed to stick to the plan, stay as far away as possible from all things magical.
Permanently.
“Sure, Soph.” The lie left a bitter taste on my tongue, even as it brought a smile to Sophie’s face. “I’ll sleep on it.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you! You’re the best!” She stood up from the chair and came around to my side of the table, squishing me in a strawberry-scented hug.
The stack of cards slid across the table, burying Death from view. But I still felt its icy finger trailing down my spine, teasing the darkness inside me to life.
Five
Gray
As far as I was concerned, Death could go to hell.
I’d slept the day away, and now that the moon had risen again, and I had work to do.
Starting with Bean.
My mind kept insisting on the most logical explanation—that it simply hadn’t happened. She’d hit her head, but hadn’t actually died. She passed out, and after my little trip down magical memory lane, she’d woken up and staggered on home.
Not bad as far as theories went. If I couldn’t locate her in the warehouse district or pick up on any murmurings of wandering undead, logic would win out, and I could close the book on the whole ordeal.
And if it had happened? If she was out there somewhere in half-resurrected form? I needed to find her. She was the key to unlocking the mystery of this strange, dark power inside me. And unlocking that mystery was the only way to shut it down—preferably before anyone else found out about it.
Before anyone else got hurt.
Back at the scene of the crime, blood stained the alley, a sick reminder that I hadn’t imagined the fight. The sound of her head hitting the pavement echoed in my memory.
Grape jelly grape…
“Miss Desario. I might have guessed you had something to do with this."
I jumped at the voice, though I recognized the delicious British accent immediately.
Slowly, I turned to face him, stake in hand.
Darius Beaumont was beautiful. Elegant, tall, and lean, he was dressed in an impeccably tailored black suit that probably cost more than I made in a year. Wavy, chin-length brown hair and a perfectly stubbled jaw stood out starkly against a crisp white dress shirt, the top two buttons undone.
His golden-honey eyes sparked with possibility.
Or hunger.
Dangerous? You bet. But good God, he was sexy. The liquid caress of his voice, the intensity in his eyes, the sheer power locked away in those lean muscles…
In a blur of motion, he yanked the stake from my hand and threw it against the bricks so hard it splintered.
“Now that we’ve taken care of that nasty business. Care to explain the rest?” he asked.
I lowered my eyes in a sign of respect, but I didn't back away or bow or submit to him in any way. Technically, vampires weren’t allowed to feed on us without consent, but the Council tended to look the other way for all but the most heinous infractions. My policy with vamps was simple: don’t give them a reason to infract.
“Explain?” I asked.
“Your involvement in this.” He stepped toward me, looming so close that if he were human, I would've felt his breath on my cheeks. His imposing shadow fell across my face, making me blink as I met his gaze.
Despite the fact that he could end my life with a single touch, everything about him made my mouth water.
One of the many reasons I usually avoided him.
“What makes you think I was involved?" I asked.
“Just after closing this morning, I emerged to find my delivery abandoned here and an alley full of human blood. Your scent was…” Darius picked up a lock of my hair and pressed it to his lips, closing his eyes. “Everywhere.”
He knows my scent?
A shiver crept down my back, but I couldn’t tell whether the idea was terrifying… or a complete turn-on. “Yeah, I… Sorry about your order. I got… distracted.”
“I see.” Darius released my hair. With a light, cool touch, he traced my bruised cheek bone, his eyes dimming. “And this… distraction. Was he responsible for this?”
“I…” God, I love the way he’s touching me…
The erotic caress of a vampire was a dangerous lure. Witches could defend against the mind control vamps used on humans, but it took a lot of energy—something I was running severely low on. And the longer I stared at his mouth, at the way his lips curved at the edges, hinting at a soft smile behind his cool exterior, the more I wanted to give in.
But that was a terrible idea.
“To be fair,” I said, dragging my gaze away from his lips, “you should see the other guy.”
“I suppose that’s his blood all over my alley?”
I nodded, toeing the pavement with my boot. “His teeth are around here somewhere, too. Unless he came back for them.”
A cool smirk slid across his face. “Quite the little brawler, aren’t you?”
I shrugged and forced a confident smile. “Well, nice seeing you again, Mr. Beaumont. I should probably let you get back to your guests.”
“Probably.” Darius’s fingers trailed down from my face to my neck, his touch turning icy as it sl
id over my pulse points. “So that’s all you have to say on the matter?”
I nodded, hoping he couldn’t sense the tremble inside me.
“Lying to me is unwise, necromancer.”
Necromancer…
More than his touch, the word made me stiffen. Every hair on my neck stood on end.
“Excluding you,” he said calmly, his smile vanishing, “two humans bled in my alley this morning. One of them died. Moments later, I sensed her rise. Explain.”
My heart sunk.
My so-called logical theory was falling apart. Vampires could sense human life force—it's how they figured out who was worth eating, and who had already gone cold. So if he sensed Bean die, then rise…
You did this to me, witch…
“You’re right—there’s more. I… I can’t explain it. I don’t know…” Tears pricked my eyes. In a whisper only a vampire could hear, I said, “Nothing like that ever happened before. I swear. I—”
“Miss Desario.” The warning tone in Darius’s voice stopped me cold. I swallowed hard and met his gaze, realizing how weak I must look. Like a scared little girl. Like prey.
His eyes blazed suddenly with red-hot desire. If Darius had been a younger vampire, one with less control over his predatory instincts, I’d already be dead.
He wanted me to know it. And he was giving me about five seconds to do something about it.
I hated the bullshit power games, but not as much as I’d hate being dead.
With all the confidence I could muster, I gritted my teeth, jerking free of his hold. “Message received, vampire. Back off.”
After a beat, Darius stepped backward and turned away from me, putting some much-needed distance between my throat and his fangs.
Get your shit together, Desario.
Standing up straight again, I took a deep breath and forced the tremble out of my limbs. Scared and snackable? Definitely not a good look for me.