Hella stretched and grinned, feeling wonderful from head to toe. It was amazing how fantastic sex could improve your mood. She rolled onto her left side and frowned when she found the spot beside her empty.
Where was Kin?
Maybe he was taking a shower.
Her blood warmed at the thought of joining him and she tossed the dark covers off her, rolled to her other side and out of bed. She padded barefoot around it, picking her way through the pieces of wood and glass that were still scattered around the floor, her smile growing a little wider as she spotted one of her stockings draped over the remains of a drawer.
Kin had removed them in the most delicious way when she had woken him in the early hours, unable to resist the need that had built inside her as she had watched him sleeping. He had smoothed her stockings down her legs, kissing the skin he revealed as he went, sensitising it and bringing her entire body alive. He had tortured her mercilessly with his tongue for what had felt like hours before he had finally listened to her plea to give her what she really needed from him.
They had worn each other out, fooling around until dawn, and she had drifted off in his arms again.
She had never experienced such an incredible, blissful night with a man, and she didn’t want to experience anything like it again if Kin wasn’t the one sharing it with her.
Mother earth, she was smitten with him.
More than smitten.
She pushed the bathroom door open and frowned when she saw it was empty. Where was he?
Had he gone down for breakfast?
She found her carpet bag, pulled out a black empire-line dress and fresh underwear. She dressed quickly, shoved her feet back into her boots and hurried to the door, finger-combing her blue hair as she went. She paused and looked back at her bag. Rushed back to it and sifted through the contents, looking for a potion.
When she found the small, violet teardrop-shaped glass vial, she checked the label she always liked to put on the potion to make sure it was the right one.
Drink me.
She intended to do just that, using the spell to transport not just her this time. She wanted to take Kin to the nearby fae town to see if they could find the witch who had cursed him and get her to remove it. Travelling via the potion was faster than taking a taxi.
Hella slipped it into the pocket in her dress and left the room, all but ran downstairs to the dining room. She was sure Kin would be there, filling his stomach and replacing the calories they had burned last night. Maybe she could refuel him in another, more wicked way before they hit the fae town. He did need to keep his strength up after all and she worried the curse was probably already draining him again.
She stopped at the entrance to the dining room and stared at the occupants seated around the table.
Tiny stood and ran a trembling hand over his scruffy sandy hair. “Would you like some breakfast?”
She waved him away. “Have you seen Kin?”
He shook his head.
Deep voices rolled along the corridor behind her and she looked over her shoulder at Mort and Rane.
“Where should we start with the research now Fenix has gone back to stalking his mate?” Mort said and Rane shrugged, rolling his shoulders beneath his black T-shirt. “He’s going to want leads or at least some answers when he gets back.”
“Have you seen Kin?” she said.
Rane muttered, “No.”
Mort glanced at the wall to his left. “Saw the wolf running this morning.”
“Around the grounds?” She supposed she had kept him cooped up most of yesterday.
The blond incubus shook his head, his hazel eyes serious as he pointed to a spot behind her. “Over the mountain.”
Her stomach dropped, an uneasy feeling flowing through her as her heart stung. “He’s gone?”
Mort gave her a disinterested look and pushed past her. “Guess so.”
“And you didn’t think to… I don’t know… maybe wake me up and tell me?” she snapped as she turned to keep her eyes locked on his back, anger spiking her blood to chase out the hurt. Her fingertips tingled as her magic raced to them, clearly feeling she needed protection.
She wasn’t the one who needed protection right now.
“You limp dicked bastard,” she bit out as she glared at Mort, aware he hadn’t told her on purpose, that he had wanted MacKinnon gone for some reason. Because he fancied his chances with her if her wolf was out of the picture? Like hell she would ever stoop to sleeping with Mort. Kin was the only one she wanted. She spat, “Enjoy the next two weeks of not being able to get it up!”
Mort pivoted towards her, his eyes wide as horror flashed across his face. She didn’t hang around to hear his complaints or pointless pleas for her to undo the spell she had cast on him. She raced from the mansion, not even slowing when she reached the gravel that covered the driveway, her eyes fixed on the mountains that surrounded the grey granite house.
She knew where Kin was going.
He wasn’t going home.
He was heading to the fae town. He was going to find the witch, and gods, Hella hoped she was wrong about the reason he was looking for her. Her heart ached, cold at the thought she might not be, that everything that had happened over the last few days might have been a lie.
That it all might have been a lie.
She reached the perimeter stone wall and scrambled over it, and stilled on the other side, awareness drumming inside her. Running would get her nowhere. Kin was faster than she was. She would never catch up with him before he reached the fae town. Her only hope was beating him there and stopping him, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to do that.
Part of her wanted to know the truth and see what his plan had been.
The rest of her couldn’t bear the thought of discovering none of it had been real for him.
Hella pulled the potion from her pocket, her hand shaking and heart swaying back and forth as she stared at it. It couldn’t be a lie. Everything they had shared last night had to have been real. She had never opened up to anyone like that, and deep in her heart she felt Kin was the same. He had never opened up to someone like he had with her. This thing happening between them had to be real.
It had to mean something.
She flicked the lid off the vial and swallowed the contents, and focused on a spot in the fae town where she had always lingered during her visits to take everything in.
Someone gasped as she appeared next to the best café in the town, one at the start of the witches’ district. She glanced at the black-clad women and scattering of men who occupied the circular tables that spilled out onto the cobbled road, singling out the one who had been shocked by her arrival.
“Have you seen a wolf shifter come through here? About this tall. Dark hair. Silver eyes. Possibly wearing a long-sleeved top and black jeans and looking a bit frantic?” She willed the witch to say that she had, but the mousy-haired woman shook her head.
Damn.
Hella looked both ways along the wide curving street, unsure where to start. Kin could be in any one of the white buildings that hugged the road, their jewel-coloured canopies reaching towards the middle of it and complementing the shiny green, violet and blue tiles that formed the undulating roofs that had always reminded her of dragons. She looked at the upper floors of several of the buildings, wondering if he was up there.
Maybe she had gotten lucky and he hadn’t arrived yet.
She cast a glance over her right shoulder, up at the ochre wall of the cavern where the tunnel to the surface exited and met the stairs that wound down into the town.
“I saw someone matching that description.”
She whipped back around to face the owner of that voice, a witch with short violet hair and a white pinafore over her black dress. The woman removed several cups of coffee from her tray and placed them on the table occupied by three men, not noticing the way one of them gazed at her.
Kin had looked at her like that once, with a mixture of desire and adoration in his eyes.
“Which way did he go?” Hella looked both ways along the street again, unable to focus on the witch in case she missed catching a glimpse of Kin in the crowd. The witches’ district was busy as always, the road packed with people out for a stroll or looking for a potion.
“That way.” She pointed to a narrow alley between two buildings on the other side of the road. “He was hauling arse.”
“Thank you.” Hella turned in that direction and chanted an incantation in her mind as magic swirled down to her fingertips. Now that she knew where he had gone, it was easier for her to track him with a spell. She wouldn’t need to cast one that could split and search in several directions, saving her strength.
She had the feeling she was going to need it.
She turned her right hand upwards and brought it before her as she neared the end of the incantation and a small golden orb formed above her palm.
The second she had finished the spell, the orb flashed and shot away from her.
Hella hurried after it, her boots pounding the cobbles as she sprinted down the alley. The orb shot right and she skidded as she turned to follow it, and ran faster as it began to accelerate, moving away from her. Not good. She tracked it down another alley and then another, watching it get further and further away from her no matter how fast she ran, and just as she was sure she was going to lose it, it stopped.
Hovered in the air in front of a door.
Kin was in there?
She looked up at the height of the grey three-storey building, an unusual choice for a witch. Normally fae and other immortals lived in these houses in the centre of the town, and the shifters, witches and demons stuck to their districts.
Hella gathered her strength and approached the door. The golden orb fizzled and disappeared as she reached it and she blew out her breath as she stared at the black wooden door. To knock or not to knock?
She went with not knocking, even when her stomach squirmed at the thought of her sneaking inside and seeing something she didn’t want to witness. She held her nerve, telling herself that what she had with Kin was real and that he wouldn’t betray her with another.
She was his fated one after all.
Or at least he thought she was.
The jury was still out on that one.
The door wasn’t locked. It eased open as she twisted the knob and she stepped inside, refusing to creep or move with stealth. Not because she feared seeing something she didn’t want to see and wanted to disturb them, but because she wasn’t the kind of witch to pussyfoot.
She tipped her chin up and squared her shoulders, but no one was in any of the downstairs rooms she checked and she began to wonder whether her spell was wrong and Kin wasn’t here.
And then someone moved upstairs.
Hella hurried up the twisting wooden staircase to the first floor and spotted an open door at the end of the hall. She gathered her confidence, and her magic, as she strode towards it, sure that Kin was there.
And he wasn’t alone.
“We had a bargain, Grant MacKinnon of clan MacKinnon, and you swore you would fulfil it.”
Hella frowned as that high, feminine voice echoed along the corridor, trying to place it and sure that she knew it.
What kind of deal had Kin struck with this female? He had said the witch had cursed him. That didn’t sound like a deal to her.
“Come, wolf.”
He growled, the sound pure malevolence.
Or hunger.
She rushed into the room, needing to see what was happening.
His broad shoulders tensed beneath his dark Henley as she entered behind him and pain lanced her heart when she spotted the feminine hand on his right shoulder. Polished black nails pressed into his flesh, clutching him as his head bent towards the female before him.
That female leaned to one side, peering past his arm to her.
“Godiva,” Hella breathed as she set eyes on the tall, beautiful redhead.
The witch stepped into view, her hand remaining on Kin’s shoulder, and Hella wanted to rush to him and tear Godiva’s hand away from him. She really wanted to separate them when she noticed the slinky, long black dress Godiva wore, one that had a slit up the right side to flash a lot of leg.
Godiva’s dark eyes brightened as her burgundy lips curled into a smile. Something was different about her. Hella couldn’t quite place it as she stared the witch down, and forgot all about it when she spoke.
“Ah, you did bring her to me as promised!” Godiva cast an adoring look at MacKinnon and then shot Hella a sly smile.
Hella’s ears rang, realisation hitting her like a wrecking ball to shatter her confidence.
And her heart.
It fractured into a thousand pieces, any warmth she had felt and all her feelings for Kin pouring from it to churn in her chest into something raw and hot that had magic racing to her fingertips and set her blood on fire.
The wolf had known how to lift his curse and free himself of it.
And here she was.
Just as he had planned.
She cast a disappointed look at him and knew it came off wounded when Godiva grinned and stroked his shoulder. MacKinnon angled his head towards her, but he didn’t look at her. He kept looking at Godiva.
Hella stepped back from him as anger built inside her, destroying all her softer emotions.
“Was this the plan all along?” she spat and glared at him. “She cursed you so I would see it and would end up trying to help you, and you would get close enough to me to betray me by bringing me here to her? If I had known, I would have slammed the door in your face that day as I damned well should have!”
Instead, she had surrendered to her desire and it had deepened her feelings for him, transforming them from like into something that was now tearing her apart, just as she had feared.
She swore hurt glittered in his eyes but he still didn’t look at her.
She tried to calm her magic, wanting to use it to see whether Godiva was manipulating him, but it refused to settle while her feelings were in disarray, her mind churning at a rapid pace and her heart aching as if he had plunged a knife into her chest.
“Since you have fulfilled your end of the bargain by luring the witch to me as you promised, you may wait for me in the adjoining room for your reward,” Godiva said, her imperious air making Hella want to fly at the bitch and rip her red hair from her head.
But she was too busy staring at the wolf as his eyes changed, the sharp edge of anger they had held melting away into something akin to regret.
Or perhaps relief.
“Yes, wolf, you fulfilled your end of the bargain,” Hella bit out and he frowned at her now, coming to face her, but he still didn’t step away from Godiva. She knew she was being unreasonable but the thought that he really had betrayed her, that he had orchestrated this whole thing, making her fall for him, hurt so badly that she couldn’t breathe and couldn’t bear the sight of him. “You may leave.”
He growled at her, flashing fangs, and got that look in his eyes, the one that always made her feel as if he was considering putting her over his knee.
She focused on Godiva, shutting him out as she tried to pull herself together and put things into perspective, something that was hard as his presence sucked the air from the room and made her ache with a need to fall into his arms and beg him to tell her that Godiva was lying.
What she really needed to do was beat the living hell out of Godiva.
“You spineless bitch,” she spat and Godiva’s dark eyes widened, and Hella wasn’t buying her apparent shock because she was sure plenty of people had called the witch worse things over the years. “You cursed him to get to me because of Ethyrian and you should have just come at me instead.”
“Oh, but this was more fun. You took something of mine, and I took something of yours.” Godiva smiled slowly and stepped up behind MacKinnon. She stroked her hand over his chest and he didn’t push her away. Hella hated that the witch knew the pain she had caused, that she knew that Hella had recklessly fallen for MacKinnon and now she was paying for it. Godiva slid him a heated look. “You should wait in the other room. I’ll be done in a moment and then we can catch up.”
Hella glared at her, magic swirling around her fingertips now, a maelstrom that lacked direction as she struggled to focus on something other than the way Godiva was running her hands over MacKinnon’s chest and how he was slowly turning his face towards her as his eyes began to glow gold.
She couldn’t watch this. Even if it was a spell making him do this, this betrayal was too real.
Hurt too much.
She raised her hand and unfiltered magic shot from her fingertips as she screamed, struck the air between Godiva and MacKinnon and hurled them apart. Godiva slammed into the wall between two windows and landed with a grunt on the wooden floor. MacKinnon hit a partition wall with such force that he went straight through it.
“I never took anything from you!” Hella barked and tasted the lie on her tongue. She clenched her jaw and reined in her anger, trying to focus her turbulent thoughts and stop her magic from reacting again. “Look, if I had known Ethyrian had gone to that masquerade ball with someone, I would never have left with him. I saw you dance with him a couple of times, but he gave me no indication that you had come together and he never mentioned you once in the time we were together.”
The tips of Godiva’s long red hair fluttered as she picked herself up, her expression blackening as stars lit her dark eyes, and Hella felt like a bitch, which was wrong on so many levels given how much Godiva had just hurt her.
Hella held her hands up by her sides. “But you know what… you win. You can have Ethyrian. Please… take him.”
She hesitated as MacKinnon stepped through the hole in the wall.
Only he looked not at her, but at Godiva.
She focused on him, running through an incantation in her mind, devoting all of her attention to it and shunning her hurt and anger. When she managed to complete it without a hitch, which surprised her given how the wolf was staring at the other witch with heat in his eyes, she waggled her finger in his direction.
And felt nothing.
If he had been under a spell, she would have sensed it.
Which meant his actions were done of his own free will. She kept telling herself that it was possible she was mistaken, but it wouldn’t stick, and in the end the pain became too much and she needed air, needed to get away from him for a moment at the very least.
Forever at most.
This was for the best.
She sucked down a breath, gathered the pieces of her broken heart, and looked into Godiva’s eyes, shutting out the wolf.
“You can have both of them,” Hella growled. “I want nothing to do with either the nymph or this wolf.”
Hella wasn’t sure what she had expected in response to that. Some wild attempt to stop her from MacKinnon? A growl? A howl of rage? A sign that he wasn’t himself. That was what she had wanted. A powerful enough reaction would come to the surface regardless of any spell he was under. The fact that he just stood there, not even looking at her cut her to her soul and told her what he wouldn’t.
It was over.