“What were you three doing that you set a toaster on fire?” Carl asked, smiling. He walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of juice.
“Oh, nothing. Except that Sunday is joining our book club,” Sammy chimed lightly. She threw an arm around Sunday’s waist and pulled her closer. Sunday bit back the urge to push her friend away. The punctuation of her words made Carl raise an incredulous eyebrow. Kayla clapped her hands and squealed with delight.
“Your book club.” He shot a humorous gaze between his wife and Sunday. “Sounds exciting.” Popping open the can, he took a sip and shrugged before walking out of the kitchen. From the other room, he called out back to them, “Watch out for the microwave when we all decide to go to Disney World.”
As soon as he stepped out, Kayla slapped Sunday’s arm. Had Sunday not been chiding herself for losing control of her ability, she might have reciprocated the playful gesture. Instead, the best she managed was a weak grin and a shrug. These were her friends. This was the life she’d chosen for herself—the one she’d wanted so desperately to work. That’s how the Incarnate’s arm was twisted into tagging along to some half-assed, wannabe esbat.
“Don’t be such a bitch about it, Sunny,” Sammy teased. “Eunice is going to be there, too. You like her, don’t you? I don’t think you know anyone else there.”
“You know, because you’re essentially antisocial,” Kayla cut in.
“Except for you two, right?” Sunday answered with a forced smirk.
“Exactly. But like I was saying, at least you’ll know Eunice, and you actually like her so there’s that.”
Eunice was a casual acquaintance of Sunday’s. At their initial meeting, Sunday instantly made Eunice for a witch. It wasn’t something she did or something she said. Eunice’s palpable caretaker aura was as clear to Sunday as the woman’s salt-and-pepper hair. What the coven lacked in Sammy and Kayla utter and complete mundane-ness, it made up for in spades with Eunice. The magic swam around her. Sunday read Eunice’s aura like a book. No doubt about it, Eunice was a witch, a powerful one at that, as caretakers often were.
Having identified Eunice, Sunday carefully investigated her. She even stalked Eunice to ensure that, with her guard down, the caretaker didn’t suddenly change dispositions. Manufacturing a caretaker spirit was tough, and even a skilled witch could only hold the façade for so long before the veil dropped. If Eunice was faking, she was the best imitation that Sunday had ever seen. In truth, it would have made Sunday admire her just a bit for being able to pull it off.
“That makes me feel better,” Sunday confessed. She might not tell them how, but it did. It was a comfort to know that Eunice would be among the coven.
“So, where are we meeting?” Her friends answered with broad smiles.
The more information she had, the better. If she was going to join them, then Sunday needed to take the proper precautions before attending. For Sunday, worst-case scenarios were high on a scale of probability, particularly where witches were concerned. Though doubtful that Kayla and Sammy would ever be invited to join a coven even the slightest bit threatening, there was a chance that Sunday would be waltzing into a veritable lion’s den. As much as she tried to avoid it, Fate did have the tendency to put her right where she least wanted to be.
“We always meet at Vicky’s house,” Kayla answered. “She lives with her grandma, who is kind of our leader, I guess. She’s been practicing since she was a teenager, so, like, decades.”
“And decades,” Sammy joked.
“I’m going to need the address,” Sunday stated flatly. And that was that. Old habits died hard. Sunday was back at the task of sussing out threats within covens, acting the judge, jury, and executioner. Hopefully, it stopped short this time, though.
The ride to Vicky’s later that night was easy. Through mostly residential streets, the late night traffic proved to work in Sunday’s favor. She rode around the block one more time, keeping her eye out for any neighboring houses with the lights still on and potential late nighters and insomniacs. Any one of the neighbors might consider a woman riding around on a bicycle well after two a.m. on a weeknight, suspicious.
More often than not, Sunday planned escape routes from places that she frequented. Staying off the radar meant knowing the quickest routes out of town and securing drop boxes with essentials in case of a quick escape. She couldn’t be sure that she was being stalked, but it was a possibility. During her reign as the Incarnate, Sunday had done some terrible things. If recognized, someone might sound the alarm, and then vampires would crawl out of the woodwork and put her head on a stake in retribution. Given Kayla and Sammy’s overwhelming mundaneness, however, their coven was likely no more than a glorified suburban book club.
As she came around the corner again, Sunday hopped off her bike and dropped it behind a tree. If she was going to enter a coven’s den, she had to do a bit of homework beforehand. Picking locks was easy. Years of breaking into empty houses for a night’s sleep and stealing cars made her a veritable pro, but that wasn’t a skill she needed to use tonight. She crept closer to the house and peered into the windows.
Nothing jumped out of the shadows with a neon sign blaring,
Evil Witches,
and likely, it wouldn’t. If Sunday were going to learn anything about what went on in Vicky and her grandmother’s house, then she would have to use the extrasensory gifts in her arsenal. All energy left a stain. It lived and breathed in the world, seeping from people’s pores and swarming in the air between them. Magic fragranced the air with its residue, and Sunday’s unique gift was her ability to sense and manipulate it. She couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t know how to do this, and given a lifetime of practice, she had developed quite the skill. Whatever weaknesses she had, she’d learned to discover and manage, and her strengths had blossomed in the process.
Softly, Sunday flattened her palms on the cool kitchen window and took a slow, deep breath to relax. She closed her eyes and created a blank canvas in her mind. Sweat beaded on her forehead as her grip around her psychic shields loosed. Instantly, millions of thoughts, feelings, and expressions pummeled her consciousness. The initial onslaught always seemed the worst part of the ordeal. Suddenly opening herself up to the energy around her meant it all barreled in at once. Like a boulder dropped into a fast-running river, the waters crashed over her, and if she didn’t catch her breath quickly, she’d drown.
Jaw clenched and squeezing her eyes tightly, she braced herself and breathed.
In. Out. In. Out.
Battening down the hatches wouldn’t work. If Sunday wanted to gather information, accessing the psychic memory of the space was essential. She had to open herself up and let the energy flow through her. Like the pro that she had once been, Sunday needed to be the conduit
and
the conductor. She visualized the stream breaking around her. The rapid current tore past her too quickly for her to make sense of what she was seeing. She needed to pull herself together if she wanted to take a reading of the house.
Her fingers cramped, and Sunday pressed her hand against the glass again, firm in her resolve.
“Show me,” she whispered. “I’m looking for a threat. Show me the history of this place.”
CHAPTER TWO
The bartender held the photograph in his hand, carefully scanning it for details that could spark some recollection. After a minute, he laid it on the bar and pushed it back to the barrel-chested man who had handed it to him in the first place. Crow’s-feet crinkled the corner of Cyrus’ eyes as he glared at the bartender.
“She’s hot, and I’d like to think I’d remember a good looking girl like that. Truth is, man, she can be any one of these chicks.” He fanned over the space around them.
A muscle in Cyrus’ jaw popped, and he slammed his hand onto the countertop and pushed the picture back to the bartender.
“She’s changed a bit. Check again,” he challenged.
The bartender’s fingers trembled as they flitted with the edge of the photograph. After another long look, he shook his head.
“Sorry. I wish I could help you, but I can’t. What makes you think this chick would be here anyway? Where’d you say she was from?”
“I didn’t.” Cyrus rubbed his beard and breathed out a hard sigh.
“She your girl?”
“Nope. She’s no one’s girl.”
He snatched the photograph back, sneaking a quick glance at it before shoving it into his chest pocket. He scanned the bottles on the shelf behind the bartender.
“Get me a whiskey. Make it a double.” Through the mirror behind them, he saw Angel chatting it up with a pair of lounge flies. He jutted his chin at the mirror. “And whatever the Hell those girls are having, get them a round.”
In the last few years, Cyrus had visited more cities than he had in his whole life prior. Each time, a lead took him somewhere, and then a new one led him somewhere else. The search for the Incarnate had gone on far too long, and it was wearing thin. Intermittently, he came across some new intel, but just as soon as he’d follow the lead, the trail would go cold. This latest photograph was a recent acquisition. Outside of the photographs he’d been collecting, Cyrus hadn’t laid eyes on the target for almost ten years.
Cyrus had hardly finished his drink when Angel strode up behind him and shoved a brunette into his face. With his arm around her friend, Angel winked and told him that their dates didn’t intend on spending the night at the bar. All his thinking of the Incarnate had given rise to a dangerous need. An angry erection tugged at his jeans, and it was all he could do to stop from ripping Angel’s offering apart right there at the bar.
The girl ran her hand up his thigh, looking up at him through heavy lashes. Her hand found his bulge, and she licked the lips of her cat-like grin. She leaned into him, her breasts spilling from her cleavage, and placed her lips to his ear.
“You hungry?” she purred.
The brunette’s name was Peaches. It was a fucking joke, but Cyrus didn’t care.
In her friend’s apartment hours later, she laid her head on his sweaty chest and fingered the hair over his heart. An hour of pounding into Peaches’ soft, velvet flesh had done nothing to soothe him. A ball gathered in his chest wound so tight he could burst.
He reached for the photograph in his jacket and stared at it over the mess of damp tresses on his chest. The Incarnate just over a year ago was nothing like the girl he’d left behind at the compound.
When Bernadette put out the first contract on the Incarnate over a decade earlier, every preternatural sect jumped at the proposition. The Alaska pack won out because of Cyrus. He was a storied tracker, and his involvement secured the deal. At the time, Bernadette was the most powerful witch in the country. Later, with the Incarnate at her behest, Bernadette rose as a dictator over the preternatural realm.
Although the witch had never explained why she didn’t acquire possession herself, she put the fear of God in the wolves. They kept reminding each other that they were just scooping up, transporting, and dropping off a kid, but doubts lingered and they’d been ready for any fallout. The Incarnate’s power hadn’t been checked. Bernadette assured them that the clock was ticking to some end that they wouldn’t be looking forward to.
What the werewolf captors encountered in Louisiana was a deceptively average fourteen-year-old girl. The Incarnate rolled her eyes sarcastically and smacked her tongue liberally. When she smiled, her eyes sparkled with naiveté. No battery of unassailable fires of mystical energy battered them when they approached her. No terror-stricken banshee wails pierced their eardrums when she spoke. The greatest danger she seemed to pose came from her off-key singing in the backseat as she rode with them during her abduction.
It was in Albuquerque when Cyrus first laid eyes on the target of their mission. He’d waited at the first spot along the delivery route for Angel and Stephen to bring her to him. Nothing prepared him for what he saw or felt when she arrived. The reaction had been instantaneous. She was a magnet for all the negativity in Cyrus’ world. All the hate. All the anger. All the spite. All the fury. It pointed at
her
.
That girl. That child.
Blackness closed in around them. Inspired to kill her, Cyrus fumed at the instant he first saw her. Meanwhile, she sat unbothered, smacking her bubblegum. Totally ignorant of him. It did nothing but fuel his rage.
But he couldn’t just leave her. The fire that she ignited consumed him. Dizzy with the cataclysm she inspired in him, Cyrus sought Bernadette’s counsel. During that conversation, the witch made him an offer, stay on as the head of her security team, and she would help him manage the effects the girl had on him. So he did. For three years, Cyrus oversaw the daily on-site operations at the estate. Always working in the shadows, Cyrus and the guards were veritable ghosts on the property. Months would go by, and he wouldn’t even see the girl. They would travel with an entourage that he trained while he stayed behind to man the fortress.
For those years and through all that separation, the firestorm in him never abated for even a moment. If anything, knowing she was so close made it impossible for him to function. She was toxic, and the poison’s effects were unassailable. He was in perpetual torture. When it became clear that Bernadette could do nothing to alleviate what ailed him, he resigned his charge and left the witch and her preternatural plaything.
Whatever she was, whatever her purpose, and whatever chaos she was bound to unleash was out of his hands. He returned to his pack in Alaska and reclaimed his position as their lead tracker. When the Pastophori of Iset set a bounty on her head for recapture, the pack Alpha didn’t hesitate to take the lucrative job, nor did Cyrus hesitate to jump at the chance to recapture her. Stephen, his pack Alpha, put the deal in place and gave Cyrus the green light to confront her again. That was over two years ago.
Peaches stirred on his chest and snatched the picture from Cyrus’ hand. Her pert, pink tips stood at attention, and the firm mounds hardly moved as she lay back beside him.