Witch Heart

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It rained. Not just an ordinary rain; but the cold kind you get in the winter. Constant drizzle with periods of actual rain. Frigid wet damp just on the verge of freezing. At times when they drove the rain obscured their vision and made all of them a little cranky.

Of course, Adam was cranky for other reasons. He couldn't keep his mind off Claire. He'd given into his libido the night before. Given in and done exactly what he swore he wouldn't do.

Not since he'd first met his wife had he been so emotionally drawn to a woman. Giving in to that draw had dishonored Eliza's memory when Adam owed that memory his life.

At the time, Adam had thought perhaps giving in to temptation just once would eliminate it. He'd scratch his itch and give Claire what she wanted, too — one of the many fundamental human experiences she'd been missing out on. No harm, no foul.

In the back of his mind, Adam had known it wouldn't work that way. His attraction was too strong for such a simple solution. All the rules of engagement were different with this woman. He'd known, way deep inside, that he was just using it as an excuse to touch her.

He'd touched her all right. Thoroughly. Repeatedly.

And in the morning, he'd only wanted to touch her more.

After she'd gone into the bathroom, invitation in the lilt of her voice and the sway of her hips — Claire was fast learning to leverage her feminine allure — he'd stood beyond the door and fought with himself for a full five seconds before following her.

It really hadn't been much of a fight.

All his encounters since his wife had died had lacked a deeper connection, one that was alive and well with Claire. That deeper connection made sex so much fuller and satisfying — just like how it had been with Eliza.

But it also made the low throbbing bite of grief he was so familiar with flare back to life — a dog worrying his heart like it was a juicy bone. After their encounter in the bathroom, the grief had intensified to pain.

Adam didn't know what his attraction was to Claire. Pheromones? Some unfathomable biological undercurrent? A metaphysical connection? Adam had no idea; he just wished it would fucking stop.

He wished he could get away from her for a while, try to break it. Yet the thought of being away from her made something hard, hot, and unpleasant flare in his chest.

Gods, he was so unbelievably screwed.

And he wanted a cigarette, godsdamn it. Or a drink.

They drove through the rainy morning, heading south. Adam and Theo had decided to do a wide circle around Chicago. Every day they'd move somewhere else, but close enough to the Coven so that if they had to get back they could do it in under ten hours. The Charger was up to the task — sleek, muscled, and fast, it rumbled beneath them, tires sure on the slick, uncertain roadway.

In the afternoon they stopped at a restaurant in a small town past the border of Missouri. While Theo went next door to a bookstore to buy a newspaper, Adam followed Claire inside and sat down in a booth.

She studied the menu in front of her, long lashes dark against her peaches-and-cream skin. A curl, caught on the fabric of her sweater, sprung free. She wore no makeup and styled her hair completely naturally. Claire was honest and clean, in appearance and personality. What you saw was what you got.

Claire was not his type. Not at all like Eliza, who'd been polished to perfection at all times and far out of his blue-collar, lifelong working-class league.

And yet Adam still held the scent of Claire in his nose — that beguiling alien flower that clung to her hair and skin. He still had the ghost touch of her on his fingertips, against his body, around his cock.

He wanted more.

The thrill for Adam had always been in the chase. Not that many of the women he pursued he'd had to chase very far. He made sure the women he picked wanted to be caught… and let go. Even so, normally, when he'd had them once, his infatuation ended. It was like that old saying: you always want what you can't have. Once he'd had it, that was it. The allure was gone.

Isabelle would have said it was brutal of him, and maybe it was. He always tried his best not to hurt a woman's heart. He was always careful to choose women who were looking for the same thing that he was in a relationship — sex, companionship for a short time, friendship. Love was never on the table. Strings were strictly forbidden. Real relationships? Totally out of the question.

The Adam he had been before Eliza's death would never have wanted any of that casual bullshit. He and his wife had been able to finish each other's sentences. They had laughed together every single day of their lives. Shared all. Eliza had been his other half.

But then she'd gone and died. It had been his fault. And everything had changed.

So how was it that this woman, Claire, had gotten under his skin? She was like some sweet addiction that, once sampled, he needed regular infusions of. Adam had been with many women, and yet Claire's responses in bed — so honest, so gently surprised, and so very, very erotic — were arousing beyond belief.

And it wasn't just her sexual responses that drew him. He loved the way she opened like a flower to this world. How, at first, she'd been so unsure and cold, but every day she blossomed to the possibilities around her. Found her place on Earth, even under these circumstances.

Every day she became the human being she partly was, yet had been taught to suppress her whole life.

He liked the way she laughed. He wanted her to do it more often. Adam wanted to be the one to make her laugh, wanted to be the one she looked at — eyes sparkling — while her mirth flowed.

He loved the way her curls moved over her shoulders, too, inky dark against her pale skin. It fascinated him, made him want to plunge his hands into her hair and pull her toward him for a kiss. Her teeth, a little bit crooked in front, he thought were charming. He wanted to trace that little bit of imperfection with the tip of his tongue. His fingers curled to stroke her soft skin whenever he saw large amounts of it exposed, and he loved to run his lips over it.

In fact right now, as she tipped her head to the side and her hair fell away, exposing the long line of her throat… his cock hardened. He studied that vulnerable expanse of flesh, thinking about how soft it was under his teeth, wanted to give it the lightest and barest of nips.

She looked up. "Adam?"

"Hmm?"

"You're looking at me that way again."

"What way is that?"

"Your eyes are all heavy-lidded and you're staring at me like you want to eat me."

He leaned forward. "That's because I do."

She shivered a little and he hid the pleasure zinging through his body at her response. Claire glanced at the menu. "Know what you're going to order?"

"No. I was too busy staring at you to look."

She glanced up at him, smiled a little. Blushing, she studied the menu ferociously.

Theo showed up with a thick paper in his hand. He slid in beside Claire, set it aside, and scanned the menu.

The waitress showed up and they ordered. Then Theo sat back and opened the paper in front of him. The three of them read through it in silence while they waited for their food to arrive — a silence of dread, like a vigil.

They found nothing. There were plenty of murders, some massive fires, lots of robberies, and even more corruption, some of it not even political, but no mention of a mass killing of ten individuals that could be marked as a demon slaying.

They each closed their sections of the paper with marked relief and yet… where were they? If they'd escaped, the ten witches sent to intercept them should have checked in by now. That fact tainted Adam's mind with the edge of dread. It was only a matter of time before they learned what had befallen the Coven witches. It would not be anything rosy and sweet.

The food came and Adam had the pleasure of watching Claire have her first cheeseburger and french fries which, clearly from the look of rapture on her face, was a sensual experience for her. At some point they'd have to talk about cholesterol, but for the time being he intended to let her enjoy all the culinary delights on Earth that she wanted to try.

"So, Adam tells me you were once kidnapped by the Duskoff," Claire mentioned to Theo between bites.

Adam almost choked on his burger. She hadn't learned much about social nuances and reading people's body language. That topic, thrown in Theo's lap, was the equivalent of a grenade with its pin pulled.

Theo laid his sandwich on his plate and shot a dark, glowering look at Adam before glancing at Claire. "When I was a teenager, yes, they got me for a time."

She set her half-finished burger on her plate and studied him. "They thought they could… enslave you?" Her eyes glittered with undisguised interest.

"They've done it before. They had an air witch for a while. His name was Marcus. They got him young and since he wasn't all that strong, they were able to control him. They kept him drugged most the time. Air witches are a hot commodity, even weak ones, because they can overhear things at a long distance. The Duskoff try and take them all the time."

"But you're an earth witch. Those are a dime a dozen, right?"

"An earth witch," Adam broke in, "yes, but you can feel how strong Theo's power is, right?"

She glanced at Theo. "So that's why they wanted you? They wanted to manipulate you, bend you into a shape they could use to their advantage." She paused, thinking. "Hone you, like a tool or a weapon."

Theo stared at her for a long while before answering. When he finally did, his tone was as gentle as Adam had ever heard it. "Yes, like you, right, Claire? That's what the Ytrayi did to you."

She clasped her hands in her lap. "Yes, but instead of a tool or a weapon, I was a curiosity, an experiment to them."

Gods, were they making progress? She'd used the past tense and spoken of the Ytrayi for the first time with dread in her voice.

"Maybe the Ytrayi aren't so different from the warlocks. I was just lucky to have the Coven witches to back me up." Theo jerked his chin at Adam. "He wasn't with the Coven back then, but I know he would have come in after me if he had been. It's good to have people in your life you can count on. People you can trust."

It was the most that Adam had ever heard Theo say about his kidnapping.

Claire stared down at her plate for several moments, then excused herself to go to the bathroom. Adam watched her disappear down the hallway. Was she thinking about how she didn't have anyone to back her up, didn't have anyone to trust?

She did, but she didn't know it. Not really. Not yet.

Adam eyed Theo across the table. "You like her."

"Yeah, sure I do." Theo glanced at him and shrugged. "Why do you sound surprised?"

"I didn't think you liked anyone."

"Normally, I don't." Theo took a bite of a fry.

Claire emerged from the bathroom and stopped by a small television mounted behind the restaurant's bar. The volume was down too low for Adam to hear, but whatever it was made her stiffen. She wrapped her arms around her chest.

The waitress came by with a pot of coffee and filled Adam's cup. The older woman shook her head sadly and glanced at Claire who still stood transfixed in front of the television. "You all hear about that horrible tragedy? I never thought I'd live to see something so heinous happen around these parts."

Theo glanced at Adam. "What do you mean?"

She stood with her elbow braced on her waist, balancing the coffeepot. "It started yesterday up in Saint Paul. That's where they found the first body." She shook her head. "Murdered like something out of a horror movie. They found another body this morning just shy of Ames, Iowa, killed just the same way and found on the side of that highway there." She motioned toward the door of the restaurant and, presumably, the road that went past it with her coffeepot." The same one I take to work every day."

"Do they know anything about the victims?" Adam asked. His voice sounded hoarse and a little shaky. His fingers had gone icy, all the fire sapped from them.

"Both from the Chicago area, one man and one woman. The police think it's a serial killer." She shook her head. "You all be careful out there." The waitress walked away.

Theo stared at him, mouth set in a grim expression. Barely banked rage clouded his eyes with magick — turning them a deep, earthy brown. A tornado turning up top soil.

"She said a woman, but we don't know if it's Ingrid or not," said Adam, finally.

"Doesn't matter who it is, they're all friends. Fuck."

It mattered. Adam could see it in Theo's eyes. A normal person didn't sleep with someone and then not flinch when they heard they might be dead. Not even Theo was that cold.

"Is it a message or is it magick?" Theo asked. "Are they using the witches for some kind of tracking spell? Or do they know what direction we took and they're leaving a grisly message to inform us?"

"I have a feeling it's both." Adam pulled his wallet out and threw some bills on the table. "Either way, we'd better get moving." He stood.

Claire walked to them, face pale. "I have to tell—"

"We know." Adam pulled her against him, wanting to protect her against everything coming their way. "The waitress told us. We have to get the fuck out here." He turned and walked toward the door, pulling her behind him.

"No!"

Adam stopped and turned.

She shook her head. "I'm not running anymore. The Atrika are probably using the aeamon for spell-work. That means the others could still be alive. We have to try and get them back."

"Yeah, I suspect the same thing. I'm through running too, Claire."

"It's a trap," said Theo, standing. "They're using them as bait."

Adam rubbed his chin, thinking about a strategic course of action. "I know. It's time we made a stand." He turned on his heel and walked out of the restaurant.