Sinful Magic (3 page)

No! Dear Ancestors, her body was trying to call to him.

“Roxy,” Mack put his hand on her shoulder.

It felt like sandpaper on her skin. She didn’t want his touch, not Mack. She jerked away, and, unwillingly, she turned back to Kieran. When their eyes met, she started to move, lifting a foot to walk toward him.

He started toward her, weaving through the crowd with a feral grace. Coming for her. He’d touch her, and she’d lose control.

No!

She turned, slapped the wineglass on the bar. Suddenly the room was too hot and the walls were closing in. She felt sluggish, almost ill. A headache was taking root behind her eyes. Something was wrong

but she had to leave, get away from her Awakening, from Kieran. She took a step, then another, focusing on the door.

The atrium. Get out there, then go to her room. Away from Kieran, away from Mack. She kept walking, faster and faster.

“Roxy, wait!”

Risking a look back, she saw Mack following her. She frowned at him. “Leave me alone!”

Then she looked over to Kieran.

He was following her, too.

She stumbled, caught the back of a chair. The flashing lights made her dizzier, her vision was getting fuzzy. Panic dumped adrenaline into her system and she shoved off the chair. She was half running and made it out into the atrium, then she looked around to get her bearings.

She couldn’t focus, the room began to spin, her stomach heaved. Tried to make it to a bench along the wall. Couldn’t, and suddenly, she was falling.

Two arms slid beneath her. Strong, warm, safe. Roxy struggled to focus. Kieran’s face appeared. He lifted her off her feet and held her easily. “Feel sick. Something’s wrong.” Her words were slurred. Did he understand? She couldn’t hold on.

“I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

She slipped into blackness.

Key caught her just as she passed out. With so much happening, he couldn’t sort it all out, but he knew the woman in his arms must be connected to Liam. His brother was really alive—

“Who the hell are you? Give her to me. She’s my wife. Drunk. Can’t hold her liquor. I’ll take her.”

Key shifted his gaze. It was the man from the bar. He stood at five eight, dark hair and eyes, wore a blazer over a T-shirt in the Hollywood-poser fashion. He’d distinctly heard the woman tell this guy to leave her alone. Fierce protective anger surged in Key, but he maintained his control. “Beat it.”

“Hey! I said—”

The jackass looked right at him with a challenging stare. That gave Key the opportunity to use his hunter ability to shift memories by traveling through optic nerves to the other man’s short-term memory. After two seconds, Key felt the sponginess in the nerves and knew he wasn’t the first witch hunter to memory-shift this guy. It had been more than a coincidence that Liam had picked tonight to show himself to Key. This guy was his brother’s mortal flunky. They were working together.

Christ, things just kept getting weirder. The woman’s scent of honey-almond curled around him, but he could also smell sour sickness taking hold. She wasn’t drunk, he didn’t smell enough alcohol on her to make her sick. He felt pinpricks of witch power, but it was faint. What the hell was going on?

“What’s the problem here?”

Key glanced at the man in the suit fitted with a lapel mike and he had an earpiece. Hotel security. He thought fast, worried about the clammy feel of the woman in his arms. Staring into the man’s eyes, Key said, “Diabetic. I have her medicine in my room.”

“Need a doctor?” he asked.

The man who’d been insisting the woman was his wife began edging away. His eyes dilated in fear and his hands twitched. Key had to make a choice, follow him and hope that trail led to Liam, or help the woman. He could hand her over and

He couldn’t. His muscles wouldn’t do it. He knew that if the security guard called a doctor and they gave her synthetic medications, it could kill her. Resigning himself to tracking the mortal man later, he said, “I’ll let you know. Usually she’s fine a few minutes after a shot of insulin.” He had no idea if that was true of diabetics, but it got the security guy off his back. He strode to the elevators, got on an empty one, shot up to his floor and hurried to his room. Once inside, he hustled toward the bed and gently laid her down.

As soon as he let go and stepped back, flickers of bloodlust licked at his veins. This close, he could tell she was a witch, but her power was almost flat. Sort of like when he found a dead witch drained of blood by rogues.

As if her power was dying or dead.

But she was alive, breathing fine but lying very still. Given the way that asshole with her acted, Key had a feeling he’d slipped something into her drink. Witches were highly evolved creatures, and synthetic drugs made them sick. On the upside, it looked as if she’d drunk less than half her wine, so she’d live.

As long as Liam didn’t get ahold of her. That thought jolted him with a hot reminder of what it had felt like to desecrate her picture with cuts and blood. He looked at the picture still on the wall where he’d drawn it, seeing the dozen gruesome wounds gushing blood.

His brother would do it if he got her.

Key yanked out his phone, scrolled for the name, and hit call.

“Talk to me, comic boy,” Phoenix Torq answered.

“Liam is alive.”

“You’re doing that frenzied drawing shit again?” the other hunter demanded.

“I saw him. Here in the hotel.”

“It’s been eleven years, Key. He’s dead. You just saw a rogue—”

Key snarled, “For once in your life, shut up and listen!” Then he explained exactly what happened. “He’s alive, and if he’s alive he wants the Dragon Tear.” It’s all any of his family ever wanted.

Phoenix swore, then asked, “Where’s he been all this time? Why now?”

He felt dread wrap around his spine. “I cut out part of his heart, he should be dead. But I know it was him, and he was luring me away from this witch.” He took a breath. “Maybe it takes that long to rise from the dead.” He didn’t know if he was serious or not.

“This isn’t one of your freakazoid comic books. The dead don’t rise.”

He hoped not. “He didn’t come after the Tear or me in all those years, so he must have been unable to. Nothing else would stop him. Nothing.” Key knew it like he knew his own name. “You don’t want to believe me, fine. But that Dragon Tear cannot be discovered. Ever. You are the only other person who knows about it.” Key had told Phoenix so he would understand—if Key went rogue, Phoenix had to kill him before Key got to the Dragon Tear.

“Ailish and I will be there in a couple hours. Hang tight.” He disconnected.

Stowing his phone, he dropped his gaze to the woman on his bed. He was pretty sure the slumber was so her weak magic could clear out the toxins of whatever shit was in her drink. Even semiconscious, she was incredibly alluring with lush, female curves. The way she’d felt in his arms, somehow instinctively trusting him, made him even more protective.

What did his brother want with her? How had this witch with the flat power caught Liam’s attention? Where the hell had Liam been all this time? There was no time to waste; he had to find out how she’d crossed paths with Liam so he could protect her.

Then he had to kill his brother and make sure he stayed dead this time.

He needed her awake. Now.

He went into the bathroom and turned on the faucets in the tub. Returning to the room, he took off the witch’s shoes, then scooped her into his arms. “Time to wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”

Roxy jerked awake when she landed in ice-cold water. Her heart slammed against her chest, adrenaline rushed, and her head pounded. Bile rose up the back of her throat. Thrashing around, trying to escape the freezing wetness, she realized she was in a bathtub.

A large one made of marble.

Still wearing her clothes.

Her stomach churned as she shoved up to her feet and clambered out of the tub. What the hell had happened? Sleepwalking? But this wasn’t her room in the hotel, none of her lotions or cosmetics or her curling iron sat on the counter.

She looked for a towel, caught sight of the huge man and went still. Her heart knocked hard enough to crack a rib. There, leaning against the closed bathroom door was Kieran DeMicca.

The one man in the entire world she wanted to avoid.

Her skin was ice-cold everywhere except on her mark. Needle-sharp heat prickled there. Throbbed. Hurt. “What the hell are you doing?” she tried to yell, but her teeth were chattering too much, and movement hurt her head. Tentatively, she reached for a towel off the stack and used it to dry her hair. Even that hurt her poor head. “What am I doing here?”

“You passed out in my arms. I’m pretty sure your drinking buddy in the bar put something in your wine.”

She jerked her head up and then had to drop the towel and grab the counter to keep from falling. The bathroom spun. Bending over at the waist she concentrated on breathing and not vomiting all over the pretty veined marble on the floor. She imagined cooked skunk pelt tasted better than her mouth. Think! It was coming back to her that she’d met Mack in the bar. He drugged her? Why? Finally, she stood up, dripping cold water and fury. “I’ll kill him.”

He dragged his gaze from her wet hair, down her dripping top, second-skin pants all the way to her waterlogged toes. His expression was tight. “You might want to dry off first.”

Still holding on to the edge of the counter for support, shivering violently, she remembered Mack in the bar and feeling sick. Then Kieran had caught her in his strong arms. And she’d felt safe. That was crazy! It had to be the schema unleashing hormones to get her to have sex with him. She had to get out of this bathroom and away from him. “What is your game, Mr. DeMicca? Why the hell did you bring me to your room and dump me in ice water? Are you as twisted as your art?”

His eyes widened. “You know who I am?”

She snorted. “I’m not one of your fangirls with a hankering to bang famous, so don’t flex your ego.”

He tilted his head, amusement bringing out the dimple on his left cheek. “Bang famous?”

“Okay, we’re done here.” Time to take control and leave. She forced herself to stand up to her full five foot six inches. The mark on her thigh was almost as irritating as he was.

He dropped his crossed arms, pushed off the door, and stepped toward her. “No, we’re not. What’s your name?”

He was too close! His woodsy and darkly spiced Chianti scent swirled around her, filling her nostrils. She realized she was leaning toward him, a little part of her mind noting how big and solid he was, with bronze colored skin that contrasted with his short blond hair and light eyes. Pulling back, gripping the counter, real fear took root deep in her stomach and bubbled in her chest. She had to snap out of it; she could be in danger! “My father knows I’m here, and that I’m looking at Dyfyr to develop as a series for TV.”

He took another step, crowding her against the counter. “Who are you?”

She tilted her head back to see his face. “Roxy Banfield, executive producer for Spectral Productions.” She could feel his male warmth contrasting sharply with the chill, making her shiver.

Kieran frowned. “Quit standing there freezing; use your power to dry off.”

Shocked, she said, “My

you know?”

“That you’re a witch, yes.”

How the hell could he know that? “Mack! That blackmailing asshole.” He’d told her about the fanatic group looking for witches with her mark. Was Kieran a part of them? Did he pay Mack to drug her and turn her over to him? Forgetting her aching misery of cold and sickness, she said, “How much did you pay him? What do you want?”

He tilted his head, drifting his gaze over her. “This second, I want you to stop suffering, use your power to dry off and get warm.”

She felt a tingle of heat everywhere he looked. He was only one brief step away from her, and she had to fight the urge to move toward him. Feeling his heat

she clamped her jaw against the hormone-induced urges. Roxy couldn’t assess how much danger she was in. Was he some crazy-ass mortal who killed witches who had the schema mark? Or something else? Should she deny she’s a witch even though she’d already tipped her hand? She tried another tactic. Maybe she could convince him she’d reformed. “Can’t, I’m latent.” She lifted her chin and added, “I refuse to be a witch.” That was true. Soon, her chakras would be dead and she’d be gloriously, one-hundred-percent mortal. If she didn’t catch her death standing here in icy wet clothes.

His face hardened, his bones jutting against his tanned skin, but a light shifted in his eyes. “Ah. That explains why I can barely smell your power.”

“Smell my—” Alarm bells banged in her head, brutally intensifying her headache. She wasn’t dealing with a wild-eyed fanatic, but something much more deadly. “Witch hunter,” she whispered, trembling harder.

“Yes.” He had his arms crossed over his chest, the muscles popping and shifting. Finally he held out one hand, palm up. He caught hold of her wrist, tugging it up. “Touch them, they’re real.”

He settled her fingers on his palm. She swept the pads of her fingers over the curving lines, the dips and ridges arcing over his calloused hand and creating a sensual heat deep in her belly. He wasn’t rogue; she could feel and see the evidence of that. When rogues killed an earth witch, they lost their souls and therefore, their lifelines. They also usually smelled like copper, not a rich, red wine like this man.

“Keep touching me like that

”

She jerked her gaze up to his face at the groan in his voice.

His gray eyes had flecks of blue as he finished his sentence, “

and I’ll take those wet clothes off for you.”

Her heart hammered in her chest, her body coiled tight, and she wanted to feel the texture of his palms brushing all over her skin. Shame had her jerk her hand away, breaking all contact.

She was allowing her baser hormones to control her!

He turned and reached for a thick white robe hanging on the back of the door and tossed it on the counter beside her. “Get out of those wet clothes and put this on.” He pulled open the door, slipped out, and closed it.