Witch Fury

TWENTY-SEVEN

SARAFINA SLAMMED THE PLASTIC BOTTLE OF WINDOW cleaner down on Theo’s kitchen counter and tossed the rag she’d been using after it. She stared at the stove for a moment, almost blinded by its polish.

Theo’s apartment was cleaner than it had probably ever been. She’d spent the whole day scrubbing, wiping, polishing, and spraying everything in sight. She’d even cleaned the upholstery on the couches. Grosset had wisely parked himself on the freshly vacuumed sofa and was staying out of her way.

Theo was still in the apartment, of course, because he was guarding her body. Doing other things to it, too, while he repeatedly slammed her heart against the floor. He was especially good at that last part.

So he remained in close proximity, but not too close, lest she decided to take her broom to his head. Whenever she entered a room, he left it. It had made for an interesting day, her cleaning his apartment to hell and back and chasing him from room to room.

Now she was exhausted, but she felt better. Sarafina wasn’t totally sure why she felt compelled to clean when she was upset, but it always did the trick. Perhaps cleaning the house made her feel like she was in control. With her two hands and a little effort, she could change her environment to suit her.

She sure as hell couldn’t control or change Theo, that was for sure.

Sensing the man in question was standing behind her, she stiffened. He was silent as a cat, but she still knew he was there. Sarafina could feel the touch of his gaze on her as though he brushed her with his hand.

She turned toward him. “You know, Theo, you’re all big and bad and ride a Harley and wield a sword”—she gestured widely with her arms—“and maybe all the demons quake in their demon boots when you approach, but you’re still the biggest coward I ever met.” She pushed past him into the living room, where she meant to stop, but instead she kept on going, right out the door.

If Bai wanted to come for her, so be it.

“Sarafina,” said Theo from the doorway. “You can’t be alone. You can’t just walk away from me.” “Ha!” she threw over her shoulder. “Watch me.” She took a page from his book and kept walking away without another word. With every single fiber of her being, she needed to be away from him right now. Sarafina would even risk Bai to get peace.

The sound of Grosset’s jangling collar met her ears and soon he was trotting at her heels. At least she still had the love of her dog.

She found her way to the Conservatory. At this time of the evening, the place was dark but for burning torches and accent lights decorating the pathways. There were only a few people enjoying the tranquil surroundings.

That’s what she needed. Tranquility. Just for a few minutes. Then she would go back to the apartment and Theo’s brutal stoicism.

Sarafina found a bench tucked between a tree and a huge flowering bush. She collapsed onto it with a heavy sigh. Grosset jumped up beside her and laid his head in her lap.

“Sarafina?”

She looked up to see a petite woman with a pixie cut looking at her from a nearby pathway. She had a book tucked against her body. “Hi, Annie.” “Are you all right?”

She smiled. “I’m okay. Just looking for a little solitude this evening.” “Me, too.” Annie glanced down at her book. “This is a good place to read. How’s the birth control working out for you?” “Good.” Not that she’d be needing it anymore. “Thanks again for your help.” Annie nodded. “Hope you find a little tranquility.” She walked away.

Yeah, so did Sarafina.

She’d been in many relationships in her life. Since she’d been sixteen she’d gone only short times in between steady boyfriends. She was not inexperienced when it came to the opposite sex. Yet Theo stymied her. By the way he looked at her, the way he touched her, she knew, knew he had feelings for her.

And she had feelings for him like she’d never had in her life. What she felt for Theo blew all her other relationships out of the water.

So this was love.

All the country-western singers wrote songs about how much it hurt.

Boy, they were right.

THEO STOOD A SMALL DISTANCE AWAY FROM WHERE Sarafina sat in the Conservatory, concealed by trees and bushes. He understood she needed to be away from him, but he couldn’t let her out of his sight. . for more reasons than one.

She had her eyes closed, her head resting on the trunk of the tree growing behind the bench she sat on. Her hands were sunk deep into Grosset’s fur, and her facial muscles appeared tight. He allowed his gaze to trace the lines of her chin and travel down the slope of her neck.

He loved her so much.

His hands fisted at his sides. Never in his life had he wanted a woman like he wanted her. The problem was that he wasn’t built for love. His life had twisted him in a way that made it impossible for him to hold on to anything beautiful or precious.

In a way, he was like the Atrika, built for battle, for conflict, for revenge and killing. He was a monster, not fit to hold an angel like Sarafina in his hands. She was too precious to this world. He would only crush her.

Why couldn’t she see that?

Once he’d dreamed of finding a woman like her, of settling down and having children, giving those children the kind of life he’d never had — full of love and stability. Now that he’d met Sarafina he realized how impossible something like that would be for a man like him.

Theo had always worried his father’s brutal heart beat within his chest. It did to some extent, although it was the warlocks who suffered his wrath, not a wife. One thing Theo knew was that he would never raise a hand to anyone he loved. That was one part of his father he’d been lucky enough not to inherit.

Yet Theo had never managed to successfully maintain a relationship in his life. His mother had fled, and Colleen and Ingrid had been killed. Theo knew he wasn’t responsible for any of that — not really — but it still made for a hell of a bad track record.

Sarafina was too precious to gamble with. Theo couldn’t bear the thought of investing all of his heart in her and then losing her.

Gods, it would kill him.

And of course he would lose her. He simply wasn’t equipped to do anything but fumble a relationship with a woman like her.

She deserved someone like Darren or even Eric. Someone who had lived a normal life, who hadn’t had the love and compassion tortured and beaten out of him. His scars went deeper than his flesh and they weren’t easily healed. Sarafina had to realize that.

He was just trying to keep her from being hurt.

He might love her and she might love him — there was little question of that — but sometimes love just wasn’t enough.

Theo indulged himself a moment longer, gazing at her silhouette through the foliage, then melted back into the shadows to keep watch over her until she decided to return to the apartment.

When she finally stepped though the door, he was moments behind her.

She rounded on him in the living room as Grosset trotted into the kitchen to look for food. “Did you follow me?” Theo shut the door behind him. “Of course I did.” “Why? Why do you even care, Theo?”

“Sarafina.” He walked to stand directly in front of her. “Of course I care.” “I thought I was just sex to you.”

“Fuck,” he murmured under his breath. “We’re not right together, you and I. I’m not the best man for you. You need someone who can make you laugh, who can—” She made a hand gesture to cut off his words. “Stop right there. I can’t listen to these lies you’re telling yourself a moment longer. I’m going to bed.” Theo watched her stalk to her room.

She turned in the doorway. “I need you, Theo. I want. . need the intensity of your love and your protectiveness. It’s true we’re different enough that most people wouldn’t think we’d fit together, but sometimes jagged edges fit just right, puzzle pieces falling into place. That’s how I feel about us.” He shook his head. “You don’t understand, Sarafina.” “I understand more than you think I do. In fact, I understand even more than you do.” She paused, looking sad. “And you need me, too, Theo. More than you realize.”

SARAFINA WASN’T GOING TO THINK ABOUT THEO. She’d decided that right after their conversation the previous night. He didn’t want her, so she shouldn’t want him.

If only it were that easy.

Instead, after uneasily falling into a fitful sleep, she’d awoken to find Theo in the armchair in the corner of her bedroom, slumped over in an uncomfortable drowse. He’d watched over her all night long. Grosset was snoring in his lap, the traitor.

Her gut reaction had been to go to Theo and help him into bed, so he could get at least a couple hours of worthwhile rest, but she’d stopped herself. The stubborn man. She wasn’t going to show him how much she cared for him.

Not when he was being such a slave to his fears.

Anyway, she’d opened her heart to him once and he’d made it bleed. She certainly wasn’t going for a twofer.

Now it was midmorning and she wasn’t going to worry about him and how tired he looked, standing up against one of the library walls, away from the group as usual, while Thomas conducted a meeting.

She wasn’t going to think about Theo at all, let alone care about him.

Yeah, right.

It seemed that Theo wasn’t the only one good at lying to himself.

Sarafina pulled herself back from the quagmire of her own mind and emotions and tried to concentrate on what Thomas and the others were saying.

“We’re organizing another raid, this time on Duskoff International.” Whoa, now Thomas had her full attention.

“We’ll leave in the morning. Darren is already there, preparing. Once the workday is done, the warlocks remain. That’s when we’ll enter.” “What about the wards on the thirteenth floor?” asked Sarafina. They were of daaeman make, according to Mira. They couldn’t break them.

“That’s still a problem.”

“Are you sure all the non-magickals will be out of the building?” asked Mira.

Thomas hesitated, then shrugged. “No.” “What are we going—”

“Je suis arrive!” The voice came from beyond the open door of the library, from roughly the area of the Coven’s foyer.

Sarafina froze in her chair. It was one of the voices that haunted her dreams and stole all the sweetness away. She knew that voice well.

“What the—” Adam bounded to his feet across from Sarafina.

“Maybe we don’t have to raid Duskoff International, after all,” said Theo. He’d taken about three steps toward her from his place across the room. “Maybe the raid has come to us.” Thomas bolted from behind his desk toward the door. “How did he get through the wards? The daaeman would be able to get through, but Stefan should be barred.” “The Atrika probably just broke the wards so he could get in,” answered Claire. “That would be nothing but child’s play to them.” Sarafina stood, a cold, hard knot of tension in the middle of her stomach. If Stefan was here, that meant Atrika were here. If Atrika were here, that meant Bai was probably here, too.

Theo caught her hand. She wanted to pull away from him, even as she pulled him closer. Right now Sarafina was so hurt by him that even the touch of his skin on hers made her want to cry. At the same time, there was no one else in the world she wanted at her side right now, no one she felt safer with. How ironic.

“You don’t leave my side, got it?” he said. It wasn’t really a question.

Together they followed the rest of the witches who’d been gathered in the library for the briefing out into the foyer. The other inhabitants of the Coven had begun to filter here as well. Word of Stefan’s arrival had spread through the building quickly.

Stefan stood in the middle of the large area, his feet planted comfortably and firmly on the marble floor of their home. He was surrounded by a contingent of Atrika, who guarded him like his own personal force of bodyguards. Warlocks also surrounded him, all looking cocky and pleased with themselves.

Rage at the sight bubbled inside her. She couldn’t imagine what Thomas Monahan must be feeling.

“What are you doing here?” asked Thomas. He sounded controlled and calm, but Sarafina could see his fists were clenched at his sides and rage clearly sat in the stiffness of his shoulders.

“What the hell did you do to Rue?” Claire yelled, lunging toward the ring of Atrika. Adam caught her and held her back, trying to quiet her down.

Stefan laughed. “I let that slip in Gribben, didn’t I? Of course I could hardly hold it back under the circumstances.” He glanced at Thomas. “Thomas holds the Cae of the Ytrayi to task for torturing him on Eudae, yet Thomas tortures as well. That makes Thomas a hypocrite.” “I do what I need to do in order to protect my people.” “As Rue might say, too, yes?” Stefan raised a pale eyebrow. “So I also do what I must to protect my people. I do what I need to do to protect the Duskoff way of life and to improve upon it. Any action I take against the Coven is a step toward that goal, since the Coven seems set against preventing us from living the way we see fit.” “Harm ye none.” Thomas ground the words out. “The Duskoff crushes that principle under its boot heel.” “Harm ye none.” Stefan made a raspberry. “How about to each their own?” “You really care that much about the well-being of your people, Stefan?” Mira shook her head. “I don’t buy it.” “Ah, Mira, just the witch I wanted to see today. I cared about my father, but you ended that for me, didn’t you?” Mira’s mouth snapped closed. Everyone knew that William Crane had been seconds away from sucking all the magick and life from her when she’d retaliated and killed him. Stefan made it sound like she’d done it in cold blood.

Stefan pulled something from his pocket. Sarafina couldn’t see what it was, but it fit in the palm of his hand. “I came to finish the job my father started, although with a slightly different ending.” He motioned to the daaeman surrounding him and gave a careless one-shouldered shrug. “I’ve already pulled through all the demons I could possibly ever have a use for. I have different priorities that are a bit more personal.” Theo’s grip tightened around Sarafina’s hand. The tension in the room ratcheted upward. They’d ambushed Stefan twice, and now he’d ambushed them. No one had their swords. No one but Sarafina even had any syringes. She only had one because of Bai’s interest in her, kept in a special leather sheath on her hip at all times.

All they had on hand to fight the Atrika and whatever Stefan had just pulled from his pocket was their elemental magick and their determination.

Coven witches from all over the building had now converged in the foyer. They stood behind the core group of nine — Mira, Jack, Thomas, Isabelle, Claire, Adam, Sarafina, Theo, and Micah — lining the massive curving staircase that led to the second floor and crowding the corridors leading off from the foyer.

Sarafina had the gut reaction to turn and tell them to go — to run — even though she knew they’d come to fight. They stood there like a bunch of moths drawn to a flame. Whatever Stefan held in his hand had to be deadly.

“Do you remember what it was my father tried to do to you, Mira?” Stefan said with a hard smile. His blue eyes glittered in the light. “Right before you pushed him out the window?” “It’s kind of hard to forget,” Mira responded, her voice edgy and thin sounding.

“He set you in a demon circle and almost squeezed the power from your seat. But my father failed. He underestimated you and underdrugged you. He didn’t take into account the love you shared with Jack McAllister and the fact that nothing could prevent him from coming to your aid.” Stefan paused. “Here’s how I succeed where my father failed.” Stefan’s hand moved.

“Everyone hit the floor,” Thomas yelled.

Theo pulled Sarafina down and covered her body with his. From beneath the protection of his chest, she could see Stefan standing triumphantly in the middle of his bitterest enemy’s lair. A smile had spread across his face — the beaming smile of a man who finally had victory within his grasp.

Stefan threw the small glimmering object up into the air and murmured a few words like an earth witch would.

But this was not elemental magick. This was daaeman magick.

The small ball of alien power crackled and pulsed for a moment, hanging suspended in the air above Stefan’s head, glowing like a tiny blue star. Acridness filled the air, burning their noses, tinged with the scent of both familiar and strange plant life. The very molecules around them seemed to pulse and expand, like the object drew the essence from everything around it, growing pregnant and swollen with power.

And then it exploded.

THE ONLY THING THEO COULD THINK ABOUT WAS keeping Sarafina safe from whatever that blue egg of death had hatched in the air.

A bolt of sizzling light blue magick whizzed past his head and exploded on the floor near him. It did nothing, only evaporated on the marble in a shower of sparks.

Near him one of the bolts hit a brown-haired earth witch Theo thought was named Brian. Brian gasped and hit the floor, grasping fistfuls of his shirt near the center of his chest and curling into the fetal position.

Dragging gulps of air into his throat and his eyes bulging, Brian reached out to Theo with one hand. “My magick, it’s gone. It’s completely gone.”