Broken Pentacle

by Eden Rivers

  “Sky, stand down! They’re friends! There’s no threat ‑‑ never was.” Rushing toward the crazed-looking witch with tangled brown hair, several days of razor stubble, and a good-sized gash on his jaw, Zach called out his own spell to steady the walls where long, gaping cracks riddled the drywall.

  As if a breeze rushed through the room, Zach’s silky black hair rippled when his aura crackled to life, green and brimming with power. He moved with surprising grace for someone so muscular. With a shiver of fear, Sky sensed he’d do anything to protect the scraggly witch who’d invaded their safe house. Even from her.

  Zach dove and pinned her against the wall, holding on so tight, she felt as if her ribs would crack. Murmuring words she only half registered, he attempted to soothe her. But her power burned through her brain, wild and fierce, as she called it home. Despite the June heat, she shivered as goose bumps broke out across her shower-drenched skin. She pressed herself against Zach’s chest, seeking warmth and comfort.

  Her stomach clenched against the pain of calling back her broken magic. Zach steadied her as she swayed on her feet. A last clump of plaster hit the floor as the red-headed woman in beige pants and a green shirt touched the wild man’s jaw, summoning healing power to close the bloody gash. Shaking, Sky watched uneasily. Fuck, her back would still be a mass of scars if it weren’t for the work of a witch healer, and seeing one in action stirred up a heap of emotions.

  “We’ve got to leave. I don’t know how Jaimis’s people tracked us this fast, but three men ‑‑ human paramilitary types ‑‑ found our base camp. They had maps with the route to this place highlighted.” The healer frowned and gestured impatiently toward the open door.

  Zach grabbed a jacket from the mudroom and threw it over Sky’s shoulders. “Move! Follow Laura, and if all hell breaks loose, stay low and out of sight.” He marched her out into the night as the other two darted outside ahead of them.

  As night air hit her wet skin, she shivered even more violently and clutched the oversized jacket tighter around her, chilled and longing for the dry heat of Mexico. Why in the hell had she come back here? She should have stayed down South ‑‑ where she was safe. Sky picked her way across the stone path, limping as she hurried toward the black SUV. She stumbled when a sharp stone poked her heel, and the tall, ragged-looking witch next to her reached out to cup his hand under her elbow.

  With that small contact, she read him despite her shields, and recognition rocked through her with the force of an explosion. She gasped. “Sweet goddess, Alec!”

  Her throat tightened, and a tide of remorse threatened to sweep her under. When she pulled up short, Laura gave her a not-so-gentle shove. “Reunion later. Fleeing for your life. Now. You’ll both be going with Zach. I’ll stay to shut up the house, make contact with Sorren, and lead anyone else Jaimis sends out tonight on a wild-goose chase. Won’t do to let Jaimis’s thugs catch you before we draw the rogue witch himself out of hiding.”

  Shaken by the woman’s brusque manner, Sky wondered if her life had much value beyond her role as bait. Not a question she wanted to devote much thought to, with Jaimis’s dogs already nipping at their heels. When Sky stumbled again, Alec wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her close to the heat of his chest as they made their way to Zach’s SUV. As Zach started the engine, Alec half tossed her onto the back seat, then climbed in after her and slammed the door.

  “Both of you, down on the floor,” Zach commanded as he pulled out with a spray of gravel. He glanced at them in the rearview mirror. “My best guess is the only way Jaimis could have tracked you this soon, Alec, is if he’s got one of our people working for him. A fucking spy. Just what we need. Hell, we knew the dark witch would send people after you ‑‑ hopefully come after you himself, if we play our cards right ‑‑ but the bastard must be mighty thirsty for revenge to move this damn fast.”

  Naked except for the old jacket Zach handed her back at the house, Sky crouched on the floor between the seats and resisted the urge to be sick. Only her determination to help catch Jaimis before he initiated any more dark lords into the art of blood rites kept her from insisting Zach drive to the airport and put her on the first plane back to Mexico. Alec crept forward until his cheek pressed against hers, and with a murmur of encouragement, he reached out to stroke her wet hair.

  “They didn’t tell me you’d signed on to try to draw Jaimis out of hiding.” Concern vibrated through Alec’s hoarse whisper.

  Sweet goddess, she’d never known more than the reassuring touch of his hand to hers as they lay healing together, recuperating enough so they could travel to a safer location. But the sound of his voice captured her attention like that of a lover, and she fought the irrational urge to throw herself into his arms. Nothing more than a survivors’ bond. Big fucking deal. Recognize it for what it was, and then move on. Except logic did nothing to abate the shimmers of enthusiasm that rippled through her when Alec stroked his thumb along her cheekbone.

  “Hell, I’d sell my soul to see the dark witch dead. And no doubt Jaimis will come after me himself at some point, seeking revenge for the scars I painted across his chest when we escaped. But Sky, if I knew Sorren planned to drag you into this ‑‑”

  “No one dragged me into anything.” Despite herself, Sky pressed closer to the reassuring heat of his shoulder. “It’s not just about Jaimis anymore. The witches he’s recruited present an even greater threat. Five witches dead at the hands of Jaimis’s dark lords in the past few months, and Jaimis’s power base keeps growing. I played a part in creating this mess ‑‑ no matter how naïve I was at the time ‑‑ and damn it, I’m going to help ‑‑”

  With a gasp, she swallowed her words as Alec kissed her, long and deep, desperate and searching, as if she stood between him and something too dark to name. Heat flushed her skin, driving away the chill of the night air, and despite herself, she pressed into the kiss. Hungry. Shaken. Eager to taste more of him. Fuck, the chord that trembled deep inside her insisted that whatever ties she felt with Alec had nothing to do with shared history ‑‑ and everything to do with the wild, wanton wail of two souls slamming up against each other in the night. Then he pulled away, creeping halfway up onto the seat to rummage around in the back, and she struggled to catch her breath.

  “Here’s a blanket. Cover up.” Settling close to her on the floor, Alec helped her spread a scratchy wool blanket over her bare legs.

  They huddled together, jostled and rattled by every bump as Zach traveled the rural roads at breakneck speed, and she tried to make sense of how Alec had gotten under her skin in a matter of moments. When she rested her head on her folded knees, he wrapped his arms around her and held on so tight she almost believed he could piece both of them back together through sheer force of will.

  Never mind logic, or the fact that she was so off balance being back in the States, she might as well be out of her mind ‑‑ nothing explained her reaction to the feel of his embrace. Zach’s hug on the plane earlier had fairly screamed sex, heady and irresistible, but Alec’s conveyed something deeper. If she tried to give the elusive, irrational quality of his touch a name, Sky suspected she’d end up one step shy of sane and a few leaps beyond confused.

  Any witch worth her spells knew attraction and links between witches followed a chemistry all their own. Trying to decipher the formula would only distract her from the task at hand. With the dark lords on their trail, mistakes could well prove fatal.

  * * * * *

  While Sky struggled to come up with something to ease the awkward silence between them, Alec settled in the armchair at the foot of her bed. Well, someone’s bed. Zach said the second safe house belonged to witches who were on a PR trip to Canada, trying to ensure that Jaimis’s following of dark lords ‑‑ a misnomer, since he’d recruited as many female as male witches ‑‑ wouldn’t spread north.

  Alec shifted awkwardly, as if he were trying to decide what to do with his hands. “You look good.”

  “Not being cut up to t
he consistency of hamburger suits me.”

  Alec winced, and she regretted her cheeky reply. You’d think after everything that happened she could learn to control her mouth. Some time past midnight but a long time shy of dawn ‑‑ and still shaken by the evidence that Jaimis knew she and Alec were back in the States ‑‑ her self-control seemed limited at best.

  “Sorry. It’s just strange…seeing you again.” If anyone had written an etiquette book on reuniting with fellow trauma victims, she had yet to read it. “I don’t know what to say to you ‑‑ where to start.”

  The dizzying pull toward him flared hot again, ripping through her until she clenched her nails into her palms to fight the urge to reach out and run her hands along his chest. After what Jaimis had done to her, she’d thought she’d lost the ability to feel intense arousal, her lust as broken as her magic.

  But in a handful of hours, two men had woken something raw and hot from its year-long slumber. Goddess help her, she didn’t want to think about what might happen if the beast came out to play. Sky the Dom had died in Jaimis’s basement dungeon, and she had neither the will nor the energy to reinvent herself with the one person who knew exactly what she’d suffered at the rogue’s hand. Now Zach…that held possibilities. But Alec, goddess, how could she even hold him without sinking back into the horrors?

  Alec moved from the chair to the end of the bed, careful not to crowd her but obviously seeking contact. With a shaky breath, Sky reached out and touched his hand. Although her shields held at full force, thoughts and images leaped across at the contact. Mostly she saw fragments from the time he’d spent convalescing in Sweden. Go figure. The senator managed to end up at a mountain resort, and she got a year with a bunch of goats in Mexico. Guess it was a fitting punishment.

  When Alec winced, she knew he’d picked up that last bit. Whatever fragile connection stretched between them, her psychic abilities latched onto the link and refused to let go.

  “Senator Kouklakis died ‑‑ I got a new identity to go with the Swedish vacation. Alec Brennan, eccentric drifter.”

  “You miss it? Political life?” Images of him wheeling and dealing on the Senate floor flooded her head. Of course he missed it. “Hey, I’ve got my shields up a mile high. Stay out of my head.”

  “Not trying to get in it. I’m shielded, too.” He hesitated, then reached up to push a mass of wavy brown hair away from his face. “And I miss politics less than I thought. What’s happening now, dealing with Jaimis, this is more important.”

  Sky watched in fascination as he worried strands of hair between his thumb and forefinger. With his hair wild around his shoulders, he looked fierce and untamed. Golden skin stretched across lean, runner’s muscles, interrupted only by his jade green boxer shorts.

  Those first few weeks they’d spent healing at Sorren’s estate, Alec had clung to the trappings of civilization, wrapping himself in designer suits, regardless of his raw back and battered psyche. But gone were the two-hundred-dollar haircut, blond highlights, and butter-soft shoes that probably cost more than her house. Strike that ‑‑ her former house, long since consigned to ashes by a bunch of anti-witch vigilantes.

  “The wild man image suits you.” Despite herself, she inched closer, drawn by the musky male scent mingled with traces of soap and shampoo. She hesitated, then rested her palm over his wrist. A riot of heat rose from her belly and spread upward toward her breasts.

  “I missed you, after Sorren moved us out of the country to safer ground.” Something about him plucked an emotional chord deep inside her.

  The man was almost old enough to be her father ‑‑ never mind the deceptive youthfulness characteristic of witches. Hell, she was closer in age to his son, Matt, than she was to Alec. And yet, the pull between them was unmistakable.

  Feeling vulnerable in the face of emotions she couldn’t understand, Sky wrapped the terrycloth robe tighter around her, a thin shield between her and disappointment. Alec regarded her, his clear, brown eyes flecked with amber, and when the silence stretched between them, she looked down at her legs crossed yoga-style on the blue bedspread.

  “Your hair’s longer. I like it that way, like a black waterfall down your back.” Alec swallowed audibly. “You don’t wear it long to hide ‑‑ I mean, you don’t still have…”

  The pain in his voice spurred her into action. “No. Here, see?” She untied the loosely knotted belt of her borrowed robe, let the folds of terrycloth drop around her waist, turned, and lifted her hair clear of her back. “The witch healers did their jobs well.”

  Bending forward, she let him study the unmarred expanse of skin. She shivered when he trailed his fingers along her spine and explored smooth flesh where she knew he remembered a mess of healing lacerations. Relaxing under his gentle exploration, she let her face rest on her arms and enjoyed the liquid fire that followed his touch along her skin.

  “Only one lash was too deep to erase the scar.” Never mind the million scars on the inside. She sat up and lifted the soft terrycloth clear of her left thigh, guiding Alec’s hand over the crescent moon-shaped scar no longer than her thumb.

  “Mine’s here.” Alec eased the boxers down on his right side, revealing a jagged scar a hand span long across his hip. “The rest healed clean.”

  Without thinking, Sky bent down and kissed the tip of the puckered flesh, then trailed a row of kisses along the length of the scar. Startled, she felt Alec claw his way into her head again, hungry and amazed at her casual acceptance of the ugly mark.

  “What Jaimis did to us, the way he tied our fates together, it’s like he was some sort of dark artist…” Alec’s breath came in short gasps as Sky kissed her way along the length of the raised line of tissue again. “And after a point, he’d shed so much of our blood that it was like mixing paint, blending the colors until he left some of each of us with the other.”

  Fuck. Damned if she’d let him see her cry. “Those six weeks when we were too sick to travel, you could always think of something to make me laugh through the pain.”

  She left the rest unsaid. And you were the only one who could help me cry.

  “That’s what you want? To cry? Or to laugh?” Alec helped her sit up beside him, cradling her chin in his palm, and she leaned forward, seeking a kiss, a caress, anything to ease the thirst she had for him. “Because whatever we do here tonight, I need to understand what you need.”

  “Zach…”

  “Is busy playing guard dog downstairs. He and I go way back, and he’s not going to waste any time developing opinions about how we spend our nights.” Leaning close enough that his chest brushed her bare breasts, Alec cradled his palm at the back of her neck. “No tears tonight. Trust me.”

  Sky’s spine went rigid, and she pulled away. For a moment, she’d almost been able to imagine this unfolding to its logical conclusion, with her easing into his arms and tasting his skin as he helped her rediscover a part of herself she’d left behind. But trust? Thanks to the rogue witch, the word no longer held any meaning for her.

  “Gods, Sky, I can’t believe I said that. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to trust someone again myself, not after what happened.” Anguish tinged his words, and he scowled. He scooted back to give her more space, massaging the back of his neck as his breath escaped in a harsh sigh. “Look, forget trust. Will you just let me hold you?”

  “The part of me that knew how to love, that tasted wild passion, all that died a year ago. I don’t have anything you could possibly want.” Even as she uttered her protest, heat flooded her cheeks at the thought of fantasizing about Zach in the shower earlier ‑‑ and the languid beast waking deep inside her, stretching and yearning to be free.

  Besides, even if she didn’t have anything to offer Alec, he had something she wanted more than life and breath itself.

  Her memories.

  Every scene Jaimis had erased from her mind, the cleaving of her power he’d wrought when he carved away entire sequences of time ‑‑ Alec had witnessed it all. And
the only thing she wanted more than to undermine Jaimis’s ring of dark lords ‑‑ protecting others where she’d failed to save herself ‑‑ was to reclaim her lost memories. She needed those missing pieces to heal her shattered aura and reclaim her magic.

  “I can’t give you what you need,” Alex said, his voice tight. “Jaimis failed when he tried to fuck with my mind, so where you have gaps, I have vivid memories of every agony, every indignity I suffered.”

  Folding in on herself, Sky grabbed her knees, pulled them close to her body, and rocked back and forth, trying to defuse the rising tide of panic.

  “I don’t ever talk about what happened ‑‑ not to anyone. And I can’t…” His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard. When he continued, his words were as gentle as a caress. “I can’t even put into words what he did to you. Please, in the name of the gods, don’t ask me to. When all is said and done, you’re better off with the holes in your memory.”

  As she rocked harder, fighting back despair, Alec moved next to her again and lifted her onto his lap. Too startled to protest, she let him fold his arms around her, lulled by the heat of his body. Maybe it came down to this then ‑‑ the only thing they felt able to give each other. Skin on skin. Simple comfort.

  “Not a chance, witch. You’re worth more than a bit of physical proximity.”

  She caught the echo of his thoughts drifting past her shields ‑‑ We’re worth more than that.

  Then he snorted softly, and before long, the sound blossomed into a laugh. “The joke’s on me, witch. Because for the first time in a year, a quick roll on the sheets holds more appeal than I like to admit. My body’s ready and eager…”

  Sky felt him swell against her bottom, and what had been a natural intimacy became awkward. She squirmed out of his lap.

  “But we’re not going to go there tonight. Not with you thinking a quick roll on the sheets is all we can give each other.” His jaw clenched in a firm line, anger and determination surrounded him and lashed against her psychic defenses.