Darker Paths (The Witches of Canyon Road Book 2)

by Christine Pope

  He held the kiss for a long time, so long that I wondered in some despair what he would do if I began to gag, since I could feel my entire body beginning to recoil, desperately trying to get some kind of space between us. At last, though, he lifted his mouth from mine. “You feel it, Miranda?” he asked. “This is why I came here to be with you. I knew you had powers that were the match of mine. And that’s exactly what we should be — a perfect match, a prima and primus, just like your parents, just like mine. Together, we can do anything, be anything.”

  “I’m not a prima,” I protested, my voice shaky. I had to pray he thought its unsteadiness was only due to the effect of his kiss, and not because I was using every amount of will I possessed to prevent myself from either throwing up or fleeing the room. “I’m only a witch.”

  He reached over to push a lock of hair away from my cheek. How could his touch be so tender when I knew the soul within had to be black as night? “No, Miranda, you are not only a witch. You’re a witch that the world has never seen before. Don’t you understand? My father proved that it’s easy enough to take a clan for your own, and he was only one man. You and I working together — we would be unstoppable.”

  “Oh, no.” I couldn’t bear to be sitting next to him for one second longer. Ignoring the possible consequences, I got to my feet and went to stand over by the fireplace. “You can’t think I would ever do something like that, Simon.”

  “Why not?” He rose as well and came toward me, thus rendering my minor retreat basically not a retreat at all. “Look at those asshole Castillos. They treated you like crap, especially Genoveva. Wouldn’t you like to see her begging for your forgiveness, cowering in front of you? That could happen. It would be easy for the two of us.”

  “I-I’m not that person,” I said, wishing my protest didn’t sound so pathetic and weak. “I mean, I would be the first person to admit that I’m not a fan of Genoveva Castillo. But that doesn’t mean I want to grind her under my boot heel. And there are people in the clan who are really nice — Rafe’s sister Cat, and his cousin Tony, and the girls who were supposed to be my bridesmaids. I couldn’t possibly hurt any of them.”

  For a moment, Simon didn’t reply. He just stood there and watched me, his expression almost unreadable. Then, to my surprise, he smiled. “And this is why I love you, Miranda. You’re a good person. I gave up being a good person a long time ago, mostly because everyone expected the worst of me. Maybe I wouldn’t do that to the Castillos…if you asked nicely.”

  “Then please don’t,” I said. My voice was almost a whisper. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to them.”

  “Well….”

  From the way he stopped after that one syllable, I knew he’d already done something terrible. My gut clenched, but I made myself ask the question. “What did you do, Simon?”

  His gaze slid away from me. One hand tapped against the heavy plaster of the mantelpiece. “I’ve done a lot of things, Miranda. Most of them were to make sure I survived. Lately, it’s been to make sure that you and I would be together. Like the cat.”

  “‘The cat’?” I echoed, then stared at him, eyes narrowing with suspicion. “You sent that cat when I was staying in Genoveva’s casita?”

  “I was the cat,” Simon said, pride clear in his voice. “Unlike your former fiancé, I don’t have any size limitations when it comes to shapeshifting. It was an easy way to keep an eye on you — or to make sure you didn’t have any contacts I didn’t want you to have. Why do you think I scared you into dropping your phone? You were about to call your parents and possibly blow the whole thing.”

  There hadn’t been many times in my life when I was rendered speechless, but as I looked at Simon, I couldn’t think of any coherent way to respond. I’d let that damn cat wander all over the casita. Had it ever seen me when I was getting out of the shower? I didn’t think so — I was fairly sure I’d always kept the bathroom door closed — but just the mere suspicion that Simon might have already seen me naked was enough to make me feel nauseated all over again. Then I realized his last sentence didn’t even make sense. “If you didn’t want me contacting my parents, then why that whole production of taking me to Walmart so I could buy a new phone? My mother and I have been talking and texting just fine for the past few days!”

  His mouth curved into a smirk. “Have you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You thought you were calling your mother’s number. In reality, all your calls and texts were going straight to my phone. I was the one responding, not your mother.”

  This revelation was so astonishing that again I could only stare at him, flabbergasted and outraged at the same time. “But — ”

  “But nothing. It was a simple little spell, really, even the times when I had to disguise my voice to fool you into thinking you were talking to your mother. I needed to make sure your parents wouldn’t come here to Santa Fe and stir up any trouble. If you’d really been in contact with your mother and told her what you told me, you know she and your father would have been here in a heartbeat — literally, since of course they don’t have to wait to take a plane like most people would.”

  This was all insane. Or rather, Simon had to be insane. I wouldn’t argue that the Santiagos had done a piss-poor job of managing the cuckoo that had been dumped in their nest, but on the other hand, no sane person would have gone to all these machinations just to get close to one particular woman, no matter how powerful her magic might be. All this plotting and planning, all to make sure I would be his. Unfortunately, in all that scheming, he’d left out the most important part of the equation.

  Me.

  Only a crazy person could have believed I would go along with all of this. Simon might have done everything he could to learn about me, about my background, but he sure as hell had never figured out that I wasn’t the sort of person who would ever think it was okay to lie and cheat and scheme, all to achieve some terrible end of world domination, or at least domination of whatever corner of the witch world he thought he could seize for himself.

  “Yes, you’ve been very clever,” I said, my tone hinting that I wasn’t nearly as impressed with his cleverness as he wanted me to be. “Any other revelations you’d care to share?”

  His mouth tightened, irritation clear in every line of his face. Then he said, “Just one, I think. A minute ago, you were saying you didn’t want anything to happen to the Castillos. I don’t really understand your loyalty to a clan that only looked at you as a bargaining piece, not a person, but — ”

  “Tell me.”

  That awful smirk returned. “The Castillos had a man whose gift was locating missing items or people. Marco. The first time Rafe and his sister asked him to help find you when you disappeared, I was able to keep you blocked so he couldn’t track you down. After this last time, though, when you teleported away from the wedding ceremony, I could tell he was trying harder than ever, was going to break through my defenses if I wasn’t careful. So I gave him a little stroke to keep him off my back.”

  “You what?” Now I really did feel like I was going to be sick. Shaking my head in horror, I began to back away from Simon — only to bump into the coffee table and stumble and nearly fall. He caught my arm before I took a tumble, though, and continued to hold on to me, his grip like a band of iron around my bicep.

  Tone as casual as though he was discussing the weather, that terrible smile still playing around the corners of his mouth, he said, “I gave him a stroke. It was easy enough. I figured he’d just be in a coma long enough for the two of us to finish our work here, and then we would disappear and we’d be too far away for him to find us. Problem was, I hadn’t really counted on how goddamn stubborn he was. Even in a coma, he was fighting me, trying to tell someone where they could find you. The strain was too much, and his heart gave out.”

  “You killed him!” I twisted in Simon’s grip, then realized I didn’t need to fight him at all. I could teleport the hell out of here, go to the Castillos, te
ll them where to find the dark warlock who’d taken shelter so near them. All I had to do was imagine myself standing in the chilly living room of Genoveva’s house, and then —

  And then…nothing. I was still trying to pull myself from Simon’s grasp, still standing a few feet away from the coldly elegant fireplace of the house he’d taken for his use.

  “Oh, no, Miranda,” Simon said. “Did you really think it would be that easy? Your powers are strong, but I can still block them if I have to. The last thing I want is you disappearing on me. As for Marco, well, I didn’t really kill him. Yes, I made him have a stroke, but if he hadn’t struggled so hard, hadn’t tried to get the word out about where you were, then he wouldn’t have had the heart attack that killed him. It was just a terrible accident.”

  He truly believed that. I could see it in what looked like the genuine regret in Simon’s eyes. Of course, it could all be an act, but I didn’t think so. In his mind, he was innocent. It was Marco’s fault that he was dead, since he hadn’t just lain there peacefully in a coma the way he was supposed to.

  “You’re crazy,” I whispered.

  Simon shook his head. “Hmm…no, I don’t think so. It’s easy to call someone crazy just because you don’t like how they do things or because their worldview is different from yours. But I didn’t kill him. I haven’t killed anyone…although I really did want to kill that useless fiancé of yours. He didn’t appreciate you. But I — I appreciate you, Miranda.”

  His eyes glittered, and he pulled me toward him. I knew I could put up a fight, but I wasn’t strong enough to match him physically, and since he was able to block my powers somehow, I couldn’t use them to get away or to hurt him enough that I might have a chance to flee.

  Hands gripping my shoulders, he shoved me over to the couch, the cushions hitting the backs of my legs. I wriggled in his grasp, sure now of what he planned to do. After lying and stealing and committing murder, what was a little rape, after all?

  I had to do something, even if I couldn’t win.

  My knee came up into his groin, but I might as well have ground it into a metal plate for all the good that effort did. Pain lanced up and down my leg, and I let out a gasp.

  “That won’t work, either,” he said. “Give it up, Miranda.” Tone softening, he added, “I don’t want to force you. I want you to want this. You should want this. No one will ever love you the way I love you. No one will ever do for you what I’ve done. I just need you to be mine, Miranda. That’s all. Mine completely.”

  “Never,” I ground out from between clenched teeth. “I’ll never be yours, you sick bastard!”

  “Oh, yes, you will be,” he said, “even if you don’t think so now.”

  And he shoved me down on the sofa, his weight pinning me down, preventing me from getting away.

  No escape. Nothing I could do to stop him.

  Oh, Goddess….

  18

  Transformations

  Rafe

  He barreled down Bishop’s Lodge Road heading out of Santa Fe, the warning light on the dashboard flashing at him, scolding him for using manual control in a restricted area. Rafe knew he was probably picking up a new speeding ticket every time he passed an automated checkpoint, but right then he couldn’t give a rat’s ass. He’d gladly pay the fines, and as for the black marks on his record, well, those could get quietly erased. Just another perk of being a Castillo.

  The name kept dancing in front of his eyes, taunting him, tormenting him.

  Simon Luis Escobar.

  How the hell could Joaquin Escobar have had a son that age? Rafe supposed Simon could have been born outside the United States, just like Escobar’s evil witch daughter, the one who’d been responsible for a trail of bodies in the Tucson and Phoenix area more than twenty years ago. For some reason, though, that explanation didn’t seem to fit, and it definitely didn’t explain why Simon had come after Miranda, unless it was out of some strange need for revenge. If that were the case, though, you’d think he would have tried to strike against her parents, since they were the ones directly responsible for Escobar’s death.

  And, to a lesser extent, Rafe’s own grandmother. If simple revenge was Simon’s only motivation, he could have easily killed Rafe when he had him under that mind-control spell. That didn’t seem to have been what Simon was up to, however. Actually, it appeared that almost everything he’d done had been part of some grand scheme to lure Miranda into his web.

  The thought of her being with Simon Escobar this whole time with no idea of who he truly was didn’t make Rafe’s blood run cold. No, instead he was burning with rage, every muscle tense with the need to strike out, to do whatever he must in order to get Miranda safely away from the dark warlock.

  Easier said than done, unfortunately. Once he was past Santa Fe’s city limits, Rafe slowed infinitesimally, just because the road began to narrow here and also grew gradually more winding. The last thing he needed was to T-bone some poor slob whose only crime was pulling out of their hidden country driveway at the last minute.

  All right, think. Rafe didn’t know Tesuque like the back of his hand, the way he did Santa Fe, but he guessed that Simon had to be holed up in one of the properties away from Bishop’s Lodge Road, or Tesuque Village Road, the two main arteries that ran through the small settlement. There were a lot of high-end mini-ranches and downright estates out here, mostly because they provided a way to be out of the bustle of downtown Santa Fe but still close enough that you could be in town for a five-star dinner within about ten minutes.

  He adjusted the nav so he could get a top-down view of the entirety of Tesuque, or at least the portion on the east side of Highway 84. For some reason, he thought Simon would have chosen a place here, probably because it was easier to find a property tucked away in the foothills. The other part of the village was a little too exposed.

  Distracted by studying the nav, he almost missed the stop sign at the intersection with Tesuque Village Road and had to slam on the brakes. A cloud of dust and tire smoke rose up around him, and he growled a curse. Luckily, no one else had been at the crossroads, so even if he had blown through the stop, he wouldn’t have suffered any ill effects…except probably another moving violation.

  Then he felt it, or smelled it, even above the scent of burning rubber — that hint of evil, the same dark, oily residue of black magic. It led away from the center of the tiny village, off a secondary route called Griego Hill.

  Thank God. Rafe turned right and followed the road as it wound up into the hills. Here, a good many of the trees still retained their fall foliage, although he spied just as many leaves on the ground as there were on the trees. He couldn’t allow himself to enjoy the beauty of the autumn splendor that surrounded him, however. All his focus had to remain fixed on the faint, terrible trail he was following.

  And then it was gone. He stomped on the brakes and paused there for a moment, idling, his senses reaching out and finding nothing. Damn it. There must have been a driveway or side road he’d missed, a nearly hidden intersection where Simon would have turned off from the main road.

  Cursing under his breath, Rafe wheeled the SUV around and began slowly driving back in the direction from which he’d come. At least this wasn’t a well-traveled road; it wasn’t as though he was preventing anyone from coming through here at a more reasonable rate of speed.

  There. He stopped at a narrow lane, the only entrance into what appeared to be a large property with expensive split-rail fences enclosing the entire substantial piece of land. And there was the gate just a few feet beyond the turn-off, no flimsy wooden thing but a heavy barrier of laser-carved iron. A sign just above the gate proclaimed the place to be Daybreak Ranch.

  Well, shit. Big and sturdy as Cat’s Mercedes SUV might be, there was no way he could drive it through that gate, even if he backed up and tried to break through it at speed. Just as well that he hadn’t bothered to try, because he knew his sister would kill him if he did anything so reckless with her precious ve
hicle.

  Rafe sat there for a moment, studying the gate and the sign above it. As far as he could tell, there didn’t seem to be any security cameras posted here. And the fence wasn’t that high.

  The urgency driving him didn’t allow any room for hesitation. Maybe if he sat here and thought about it for a while, he could come up with a better plan. Then again, maybe not.

  There was a lot to be said for the element of surprise.

  He turned off the engine and shoved the key in his pocket, then got out of the vehicle. A quick glance up and down the road told him there was no one around to witness his trespassing, so he went to the fence and climbed over, then kept moving.

  The lane continued through the property, curving here and there, but more or less heading straight to a cluster of buildings about a quarter-mile away. As he’d thought, this place was big. Although Rafe didn’t track property values the way some of his Castillo cousins did, buying low and selling high, he knew this place had to be insanely expensive, judging by the size of the tract it was situated on. In the grand scheme of things, that didn’t matter so much, but he still had a hard time figuring out how Simon Escobar had managed to get his hands on it. More mind control? Maybe.

  With a grinding anger in his gut, Rafe thought it was just the sort of place Simon would use to try to impress Miranda. They could have been getting pretty cozy here over the past few days.

  No, he didn’t want to think that. She had to have been hurt by the terrible things he’d said, but Rafe had to believe she wouldn’t immediately go into Simon’s arms. But if this wasn’t some kind of a love nest, then what had they been doing here, hidden away from everyone?