To Seduce a Witch's Heart

by Nadine Mutas

  Merle opened the gate in the cast-iron fence surrounding the mausoleum and unlocked the heavy metal door to the crypt. Gingerly, he followed her inside.

  The resounding hum of the departed witches’ trace energy enveloped his senses. The bite of hostility underneath the power pricked at his skin, as if the late witches knew of the demon who had set foot in their final resting place—again. Funny, to be back here once more, with Merle.

  When he’d left the mausoleum the other night—it seemed like so much longer ago—he’d been in a hurry, driven by instinct and hunger, and in dire need to get his thoughts in order. Now, though, as he swept the dark chamber with his gaze, he took his time absorbing the details. While Merle collected her supplies that were still strewn across the stone floor, he studied the coffin slabs shelved into the walls.

  The long line of MacKenna witches and their husbands, names that rang out to him here and there. He’d known some of them at some point, fleetingly, as one should be aware of potential enemies. One name, though, stood out among them all, as had its bearer when she’d been alive.

  He raised his hand and traced the letters of Rowan’s name and life dates with his fingers. Something tugged deep inside him, a long-buried hurt unfurling, whispering through him. She’d died six years ago, fourteen years after she’d banished him into the Shadows. Time. It was a distant concept in the darkness.

  “You cared for her, didn’t you?”

  He blinked at Merle’s soft question, and dropped his hand, turning to face her. She’d bagged her tools and now watched him, her eyes alight with quiet curiosity, as well as something else he couldn’t quite name.

  “You didn’t just work with her, right? Who was she to you—really?”

  “My best mistake.”

  She frowned, tilted her head, and stepped closer. The light spilling in from the door cast the lines of her face in stark relief. “Why that?”

  “Did she tell you how we met?”

  Merle shook her head.

  He scoffed. “Figures. I imagine she’d rather have bitten off her own tongue than to admit she owed her life to a demon.”

  She gasped. “You saved her life?”

  Shrugging, he turned away, averting his gaze from Merle’s probing eyes. “She was younger than you are now, barely out of her teens, and she’d overestimated her own power. Thought she could take on two demons. I dragged her out from under them, made sure she got out safe. Like I said, my best mistake.” He looked back at what remained of the vibrant witch he’d once known—stone, bones, and irredeemable silence. “Must be a special kind of irony of Fate that I saved the life of the very witch who would one day bind me in the Shadows, don’t you think?”

  Merle didn’t answer. He glanced at her, curious despite himself to see her reaction. She regarded him quietly, her face inscrutable, her aura so controlled he wanted to strip her of her mental defenses to peer inside her, see what she was feeling.

  When she spoke, it was a whisper. “Did you love her?”

  He blinked, taken aback. Love? He’d liked Rowan, had been drawn to her exuberance, but love… “No.” For whatever reason he felt the visceral need to explain this, he just did. “I cared about her, as a friend. I was never interested in pursuing her for more. We worked together, and I considered her someone to trust. As you can see, she didn’t quite return the sentiment.”

  “What happened? Why did she bind you in the Shadows?”

  Bloodstained walls, the tang of copper drenching the air, hunger eating him alive. The limbs on the floor, too many to count. He never even registered the screams, not until they died away, replaced by sounds of tearing flesh and the gush of blood. So much blood.

  “Rhun?”

  He yanked himself back to the present, away from a room breathing death. Giving her a sardonic smile, he said blithely, “I had one too many drinks.”

  The lighthearted tone in which he’d said it masked the dark truth behind his words, if only for a few seconds—then Merle apparently realized the meaning.

  Her eyes widened and she took a step back, her aura quivering. “You fell into bloodlust.”

  He didn’t dispute it. Why bother? It made no difference anyway, not like Merle would care for details. For what it was worth, Rowan hadn’t been interested in finding out what really happened, and she’d known him for decades. It hadn’t done him much good in the end…

  “Well?” he asked, his wry smile still in place. “Did I live up to my reputation then, little witch?” Maybe she’d kick him back into the Shadows now, figuring it was too dangerous to work with him after all.

  “No,” she said, her voice calm and collected.

  He stopped short and stared at her.

  Her brows furrowed, she studied him with eyes that laid him bare. “I don’t think it was bloodlust.” She shook her head. “If it had been, you’d still be insane with it. It’s irrevocable, right? Once seized by it, you can’t shake it off?”

  He nodded, too stunned to speak.

  “So even after twenty years of starving in the Shadows,” she went on slowly, “which should have made it worse, if anything, you were sane when I unleashed you. If you’d been seized by bloodlust before, you’d have killed me here in the mausoleum.”

  His mouth went dry as he stared at her.

  “But you didn’t. You’re in control. You’re sane.”

  He swallowed. It felt like scraping sandpaper down his throat. “Rowan didn’t think so.”

  “What happened really?”

  Shaking his head, he turned away, his chest painfully tight. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

  “Try me.”

  He glanced back at her. Her jaw was set in a tight line, her eyes daring, curious—and warm. Such a stubborn little witch. Stubborn and too damn caring for her own good.

  “Let’s go,” he said, walking out of the mausoleum. “I need pain.” Badly.

  A few seconds passed before she fell into step beside him, and it wasn’t until they’d reached the cemetery gate that she spoke again.

  “I guess I owe you some thanks.”

  “For being the awesomest me I can possibly be?”

  “For making that mistake.” She stopped and opened the gate. “I wouldn’t even exist if you hadn’t saved her life when she was barely more than a teen.” Her eyes glowed with warmth as she regarded him for a moment, then stepped outside.

  He watched her walk toward the car, and for the first time in decades, he felt like he’d done something right in his life.

  Chapter 10

  “Gateway Transit Center?” Merle slanted a skeptical look at Rhun as he pulled the car to a stop in the deserted parking lot across from the MAX rail station.

  His shrug made the leather jacket creak. “It’s a good hunting ground.”

  At that, she silently raised an eyebrow to emphasize her glare.

  “You want me to take pain from someone who deserves it—this is the venue for it. Lots of lowlifes milling about.” Shutting off the engine, he leaned back in the seat and regarded her for a moment, shadows playing about his eyes. “You’ll wait here in the car.”

  “Like hell I will. I’m not letting you loose to hunt on your own.”

  His aura whispered of darkness barely contained. “You don’t want to see this.”

  She bristled, even though a trail of goose bumps appeared on her arms. “Last I checked, you were not a psychic, so you’re in no position to tell me what I want or don’t want.”

  “All right, let me rephrase it then. I don’t want you to see this, Merle.”

  Holding his piercing gaze, she willed her breathing to slow down. It had the annoying habit of speeding up whenever he spoke her name, what with the way he turned it into a seductive murmur that entwined itself around her core. “This is not up for discussion,” she said and got out of the car.

  Rhun followed after a moment and locked the door with a mental command, an ability that still made her hot with env
y. Walking past her, he gave her a scowl as dark as the night around them. She graciously ignored that and followed him down the shady-looking street past the station.

  At this late hour, the wide space around the platforms was all but deserted, the few people hanging around clearly belonging to the less-than-fortunate part of the population. Merle gingerly side-stepped the sleeping arrangements of a bum, while casting a sinister look at the fidgety group of men in hoodies and low-slung pants a few feet away. Not that she needed to fend them off—as soon as they spotted Rhun, they quickly sidled off to the other end of the station.

  “How do you know where to go?” she asked her demon guard.

  “Evil has a tendency to draw our attention.” His eyes were trained on the shadows unfurling between trees and dark buildings. “Same as pure innocence. It’s like a scent trail luring us, much like the aroma of your favorite food would draw you closer.”

  Merle was about to ask another question when her phone rang. It was Lily’s number. For a second, she hesitated, then answered it. Simply picking up the phone wouldn’t compromise their position.

  “Merle, are you okay?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry.”

  Rhun had stopped to look at her, his brows drawn together. It’s okay, Merle mouthed, and waved him on.

  “I won’t ask you where you guys are,” Lily continued, “and don’t tell me—it’s obviously better if I don’t know…”

  “Yeah, I think so, too.”

  Rhun turned and walked on, with Merle following a few paces behind.

  “Listen, I’m really, really sorry about—”

  “Lil,” Merle interrupted gently, “don’t. I’m not blaming you. It was bound to happen anyway.” She skirted around trash. “I’d just hoped not quite so soon…”

  “I know.” Lily sounded heartbreakingly contrite. “Okay, just to give you the heads up about what’s happening on this side of crazy—the Elders have virtually torn your house apart looking for clues on where you might have gone, so I suggest wherever you guys are planning to lie low, it better be a place that’s not linked to you somehow. I’d pull some strings with friends of mine to get you hooked up, but same thing goes for me—they’ll check all the places I know as well.”

  Merle listlessly kicked at a newspaper on the sidewalk. “Yeah, I kinda figured something like that.” She pressed her lips together, her chest tight. “Is the house still standing?” The thought of the old Victorian reduced to rubble made her heart ache. The worn house was as much a part of her family as the people who had dwelt within its walls, and to lose it would be like the loss of yet another dear relative.

  “Well,” Lily said, “from the outside, yes. But you might want to hire an interior designer once all this blows over…”

  Merle stopped and covered her eyes with her other hand. Once all this blows over… Would it ever? And then what? If the situation hadn’t been FUBAR before, it certainly was now. Not only was she not one step closer to saving her sister from the clutches of a sociopathic demon, she still had another demon leashed to her who was well on the way to turning the tables on her. And in addition to the initial fuck-up of unbinding Rhun without the consent of the Elders, she had now officially gone past the point of no return when she’d defied the Elders’ request to turn herself in. Even if she did manage to save Maeve and bind Rhun in the Shadows again—and no, no, no, her heart had no business cringing at that thought—there would be hell to pay with the Elders.

  For a moment, for just a tiny moment, Merle allowed herself to feel like crawling into a dark hole to cry.

  Listening to Lily’s account of the damages done to her home, she peered after Rhun, who had disappeared into a gloomy multistory parking garage at the end of the street. Following him in, she rounded the corner behind which he’d vanished—and there she came to a stumbling halt, her eyes widening at the sight in front of her.

  “Lil,” she said flatly, still staring ahead, “I gotta go.”

  She didn’t wait for Lily’s response, just ended the call and watched in shock as Rhun yanked a man off a crying young woman on the ground between two cars.

  “What the fuck!” the man yelled.

  He didn’t get to say anything more.

  The next second Rhun slammed the man’s back against the wall, his hand around the guy’s throat, and all further protests subsided in a gagging sound.

  The woman on the ground scrambled to her feet, and Merle gasped as she took in her appearance. Her face was tear-streaked, rivulets of smeared mascara running down her cheeks, and there was blood on her mouth from where a punch had obviously busted her lower lip. Merle’s hands clenched to fists. Son of a… The woman’s hands shook as she fumbled to pull down her torn skirt, and she staggered against one of the cars in her attempt to get away from Rhun and the man.

  Merle started toward her. “Do you need help?”

  Wide-eyed, the woman stared at her, face white as chalk. She shook her head, and stumbled away. Falling into a mad dash, she threw one more terrified glance at her attacker—and at the monster that now attacked him.

  “Wait!” Merle made to go after her. “I can help you. If you need assis—”

  A loud thump made Merle stop and turn on her heels. Rhun had hurled the man to the ground again and now crouched on top of him, one knee pressed into the man’s chest. Rhun’s energy rippled, like the surface of a lake disturbed by a stone.

  He grasped the right arm of the human, and with a series of seemingly effortless moves, he broke all of the man’s fingers, his wrist, and the bones in his forearm and upper arm. The man convulsed and uttered strangled grunts of agony, but not one single scream came past his lips, almost as if—

  Realization came over Merle with a shudder, as if a dozen spiders crawled down her back. Rhun must have mentally disabled the man’s vocal cords to silence him.

  The human thrashed with his remaining intact limbs, his eyes wide with horror, blood-shot and tear-filled with pain. Unperturbed, with a calm that was even more frightening than the coiling darkness of his aura, Rhun moved on to the other arm of the man, starting at his hand.

  Snap, snap, snap.

  He paused at the ring finger, raising an eyebrow at the golden wedding band that adorned it. Looking the human in the eye, he shook his head and tsked with unconcealed contempt. Then he overstretched the finger until it broke free of the joint, and the only part left holding it to the hand was skin. The man screamed silently, his face wrought with pain he couldn’t voice.

  The air around Rhun pulsed and it seemed as if he was drinking it in with every pore of his body, a dark creature of pain. Merle could only stand and stare, immobile, even though she wanted nothing more than to turn her back and run like hell. And use some brain bleach once she’d stopped trembling. After that, maybe she’d go find that dark hole to crawl into.

  Rhun had gone on to break the man’s legs. The guy didn’t even jerk anymore, he could only pant faster in silent anguish.

  For a moment, Rhun leaned back to regard his work with dark pride shadowing his face. Then he lunged forward in a lightning-fast move and bit the man’s neck. The human convulsed again, uttered pained grunts that didn’t lessen as Rhun continued drinking.

  Merle’s breath caught. So Rhun could control whether his bite was painful—or pleasurable. Automatically, she touched her neck, and a cold shiver ran over her skin like an icy draft. To think, how close she’d let him come, with the danger of his violent nature lurking beneath the surface, with all this dark power that could so easily destroy.

  And yet, he had never hurt her.

  The man’s limbs went slack, his eyes shut. Panic surged through Merle and yanked her out of her paralysis. She couldn’t let Rhun take another life, innocent or not.

  “Rhun, stop! Don’t kill him!”

  He stilled, and even the air around him seemed to hold its breath. Slowly, he raised his head from the man’s neck and looked up at Merle. She almost stumbled back at the feral glint in his eyes
. His pupils were fully dilated, the black swallowing the usual pale green-blue until nothing but darkness remained. His lips were crimson with blood, his fangs extended, exposing him as the predator he was. And in his grip, clutched possessively, was the man, his prey, his kill.

  “Don’t, Rhun. Please,” Merle whispered.

  He blinked, took a deep breath, and leaned down again. She wanted to jump forward, her power humming underneath her skin, a spell on her lips, ready to be hurled at Rhun, but—he merely murmured something in the man’s ear. The human’s eyes flew open, widened with horror, his breathing turned erratic, and he uttered a panicked gurgle.

  Rhun patted the guy’s cheek and rose, stepping off him. “You may scream now,” he said benignly to the man, his fangs flashing in a smile that froze Merle’s bones.

  Apparently he’d enabled the guy’s vocal cords again, for the very next second a wail rose up from the man’s throat, a scream of agony so piercing, it stopped her heart.

  “Let’s go,” Rhun said as he walked past her without deigning to look at the human again. “There’s a hospital nearby. He’ll be found by someone soon if he continues to wail like a banshee.”

  Merle glanced at the screaming, battered figure on the ground and then hurried to follow Rhun.

  “What did you say to him?” she asked after she’d recovered enough to speak again. Her voice was shaky, though, and her insides felt like they’d been mashed.

  “The truth.” Rhun’s eyes were almost back to normal. “That I’m a creature from Hell, that I prey on blood and pain, and that if he ever lays a hand on a female without her consent again, I will hunt him down and become his very own personal demon.” He cracked his knuckles. “Don’t worry about your precious witch law, though. He won’t be able to tell anyone about this. Made sure to leave a block in his mind. Humans are so easily manipulated.”