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Alarm jolts through me, replacing the sexual pull.
I try to rip my arm back, but his grip only tightens.
“Who are you?” My heart hammers, rabbit-fast, under my shirt. “What are you? And what the hell were you doing in my yard?”
The man blinks a few times, appearing to gather his senses. He stares around the room, then releases my wrist. I jerk away as if I’ve been stung, shuffling back on my haunches until I reach what I hope is a safe distance.
He half-sits up, leaning on his elbows, looking at me through a tumble of dark fringe. “Easy. I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Yeah, that is not an answer.” I’m still reeling from his sudden return to consciousness, even though I’m the one who helped it happen. Pull it together, Topaz. He doesn’t reach for me again, but I continue to watch him warily.
“What happened out there?” I nod toward the back door. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Kyan.” He glances sideways at me and then down at himself, running a broad hand over the gauze on his ribs before plucking at my coat, still lying over his hips.
My face heats even more, especially when he lifts the coat to peer beneath.
Is he checking to make sure he’s all still in one very large and...err...impressive piece? I clear my throat, even though there’s no way he can discern my wayward thoughts.
“Wow, you’re quite the nurse.”
“Kyan who?” My snappy tone leaves no doubt about my current mood.
His mouth twitches, but he sobers up the instant he meets my eyes. “Just Kyan. I was sent to find and protect you.”
The fear that has lain dormant for months rears up again, like ice shards in my chest. I feel it threatening to choke me. I have to take a couple of deep, calming breaths before I can speak.
“Protect me from what? Or who?” I’m proud of myself for keeping my voice so steady.
“I don’t know,” he says, spearing me with those arresting eyes.
He sits up properly then, taking a slow look around my kitchen before wincing and rubbing his injured side. “Someone didn’t want me to get here alive, that’s for sure.”
“Did you see who attacked you?” Other than my ward. Nervous tension slips into my voice.
He raises one of his eyebrows, before he nods. “I’d just picked the lock on your back gate when two guys jumped me.”
I ignore the bit about picking the lock. For now. “Were they...human?”
“Yeah. I should have made easy work of them, only, I ran into your yard to have space to deal with them and then... boom. Nothing. Till I woke up here in your kitchen.”
Definitely hit my ward. At least I know it works.
“Okay, well...” I hear the huskiness in my voice, and his gaze snaps back to me. “Put some clothes on.”
I shove the pile I called from upstairs into his lap. I glower as a smirk appears on his face.
He clambers to his feet and pulls on a black t-shirt and a pair of dark trousers, then slides his feet into a pair of sturdy boots. As he does so, I stare determinedly at the floor. When he’s done, he holds out his hands as if to say, better?
Begrudgingly, I have to admit that it is. Now that he’s clothed, there is less awkwardness when I study his impressive physique. His broad shoulders stretch out the shirt a little more than they should, and the trousers are a touch short in the leg, but the boots seem to fit, and I can bear to look him in the eye now, at least.
I get right down to questions. “What do you mean you don’t know what you’re supposed to protect me from? Who sent you here?”
“My Alpha.”
So, I was right. He’s definitely a shifter. Not that there is room for much doubt under the bright kitchen lighting. The intensity of his stare and the sheer animal magnetism of the man telegraphs his true nature.
Everything about him makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, though I’m not sure if the reaction stems from wariness, or attraction.
“What would a shifter pack want with me?” I demand. “Your kind hate witches and magic.”
He gives me a one-shouldered shrug. “Orders are orders.”
That is an understatement. From what I know of shifters, which admittedly isn’t a lot, they operate under a strict hierarchy. The pack mentality—the drive to follow pack orders—is literally embedded into their genetic code.
We end up standing a few feet apart, eyeing each other up and down. Kyan doesn’t make any move to come closer, but I can’t fight the urge to fold my arms protectively across my middle.
“You can’t just leave it there. You’re going to have to do better than that.” I jiggle from one foot to the other, unable to stay still. I tilt my chin up at him, my voice hardening. “Or I’m calling the cops. The supes.”
Maewen Jones works at the Supernatural Division of the Federal Police, and she has always said she—or one of her team members—is only a phone call away.
“SUDAP?” Slowly, Kyan raises his hands, spreading them out. “No need to call them. I’m no threat to you, Topaz, I swear.”
A tingle of something not altogether unpleasant runs through me as he says my name.
Wait a minute. I don’t remember telling him my name.
“I’ll explain,” he adds, hands still spread in a placatory gesture. I can tell he’s keeping his voice low, like he’s trying not to startle me.
My lips tighten and I narrow my eyes at him.
“Last night, my Alpha sensed a... disturbance. A power surge beyond the ether. He called me in and told me your name and address, and said I was under strict orders to find you and protect you. He said something is going on and you’re likely to be a target. And he said we can’t risk losing you.”
I frowned. “Who’s your Alpha?”
“His name is Burley.”
The name doesn’t ring any bells. “I don’t think I know your Alpha. Why can’t he risk losing me? That doesn’t even make sense.”
“He gives the orders and trusts me to follow them through. So here I am. Ready to protect.” A quick grin lights up his face, transforming the intensity into something far more delicious.
I frown, ignoring the butterflies that start up in my belly. “And I’m—what? Just supposed to roll over and play ball?”
His grin disappears at the doggy reference. “Of course. Why wouldn’t you accept my help?”
Arrogant son of a bitch.
A thousand cutting retorts crowd the tip of my tongue, but even as I say, “Because I don’t know anything about you and your Alpha,” there’s another flicker of doubt as I consider the full import of his words.
A disturbance beyond the ether.
It’s almost exactly what Amethyst said, earlier.
The gateways between the realms are stable. The Fae Winter Court might have given everyone a little wobble there for a while, with the previous King Tryppton losing his mind and his evil queen, Rhodri’s mother Rhiannon, threatening the Accord Agreement that keeps all supernatural beings and magic users safe and responsible here in the human world.
But the new King Rhodri, and his half-human, half-banshee detective bride, Maewen, are at the helm of the Winter Court now. Even though Mae spends half her time here in the city working as a senior inspector in SUDAP, things have become remarkably calm.
The thirty-year old Accord Agreement between humans and magical beings is secure, the world I live in is safe, and there’s no reason to believe any of that has changed, whatever my cousin thought she felt while scrying.
Kyan’s Alpha felt the same thing.
It can’t be possible. It can’t be.
A wave of dread rushes through me, turning my knees wobbly. If Ammie—and now a random shifter pack—suddenly think I’m a target, that can mean only one thing.
Luthor’s back. And he’s coming for me.
The tree outside my window shivers as if in portent, and its bare branches trail and tap against the glass.
Part of me always knew this day would come. Now that it might actually be here, I feel like I’m dreaming, like at any second everything—the brightly lit kitchen, the weirdly attractive shifter Kyan, and all these portents coming left, right, and center—will dissolve away, and I’ll wake up in my own bed with the morning sunlight streaming in through the window.
“Topaz?”
The sharpness of Kyan’s tone startles me out of my stupor. He stares at me with something resembling concern.
“You okay?” His voice is gruff. For the first time, he seems unsure of himself.
I manage a shaky nod. “I’m fine.”
The raised eyebrow confirms he doesn’t believe me for a second.
He doesn’t push the issue further, though. Instead, he drops into one of the chairs at my small dining table, sprawling out his long legs and crossing them at the ankle.
“Make yourself at home,” I mutter, but my sarcastic tone doesn’t seem to phase him.
He merely stares at me with those bewitching green eyes as I cross the room toward the door.
“I need to go check my wards.”
I feel his eyes burning into my back all the way outside.
***
Kyan
The witch is jittery, but to her credit she’s trying not to show it. I follow her outside, watching as she checks every square inch of her garden’s perimeter. She uses some kind of luminosity magic to send all the shadows retreating away.
Impressive.
So was the level of power contained in that damn ward. I pride myself on my inner strength and yet, the second I hit that barrier of hers, I was knocked on my ass as if I were a tiny pup who hadn’t yet come into his shifter abilities.
I’m lucky those Otherworld minions didn’t follow me in and finish me off while I was lying there in the garden, out of it. I suspect Topaz may have been able to take them on and win, even without me by her side, though.
She isn’t what I was expecting when Burley sent me on this mission.
I know why he wants to protect her—the whole pack knows that story by heart—but even so, I thought I’d find a naïve little spell-wielding show pony here at the house, someone who only knows how to infuse a love charm into a bracelet for her customers. Instead, I found a full-strength mage who clearly practises some kind of blood magic, if that red glow surrounding her when I woke up was anything to go by.
Topaz is a mystery, on many levels. She is also one hot-ass woman, with her long dark hair falling casually down past her shoulders, her luscious curves that she doesn’t seem to be aware of, and those sea-green eyes that spear me with cool disdain.
Her cool-as-a-cucumber attitude is a front, I’m sure of it. Every so often, I catch a glimpse of more in her features—when she tilts her head a certain way, or when her wide mouth parts and the tip of her tongue creeps out to moisten her lips, or when I catch her checking out my body and trying to hide her response.
She can’t hide the scent of desire from one such as me. It is good that she handed me those clothes to dress in, otherwise I may not have been able to hide my body’s response to her closeness.
I am not here for pleasure. Not tonight.
Topaz clearly finds nothing of concern in the garden. She re-locks her back gate, waving a hand over the latch in an intricate pattern that I assume means she has just enhanced the security. Then she retraces her steps until she reaches the soft indent in the grass that must mark the spot where I fell.
She squats and places her hand palm-down into the grass. Is that where her big-gun wards begin?
My mouth twists as I realize I must have simply run like a stupid fool straight into them. That accounts for my blackout, though not for how I ended up inside.
She rakes aside the grass with her fingers, exposing a stone marker.
I grunt, and she turns her head to stare at me.
“There’s a whole row of these,” she says softly. “I buried them when I moved here. If you had arrived with evil intent, the wards would have inflicted far more damage, likely killing you.”
She sounds so matter-of-fact. My lips twitch up as I swallow my sudden urge to laugh.
“I am telling you the truth, Topaz. I am here to protect you.”
She stares hard, as if trying to see right through me. I try not to let her know it is rather disconcerting. Instead, I stare back, refusing to drop my gaze.
Eventually, she lowers her chin toward the ground.
Submission.
Desire rises so fast I can’t stop the tiny growl that erupts from my throat.
She shivers and wraps her arms across her front. Though I have known her scant minutes, already I recognize her need for self-protection.
Overhead, heavy, dark clouds roll across the sky with an almost unnatural speed. The air tastes strangely metallic. I raise my chin and sniff the air—there is a sharp scent on the breeze. Earthy, with the promise of rain. In the distance, a grumble of thunder makes itself heard.
Topaz hurries across toward me and we slip back inside just as fat drops of rain begin to speckle the paving of her patio.
“Do you feel that?” Her voice washes over me, low and soft.
“The coming storm? Of course.”
I turn and she is directly behind me. The warmth of her body heats my own. Can she feel this—the thrum of need that fills me when she is so near? The way she takes a step back, ending up right against the now-closed door, tells me she does.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” I blink, distracted by the flare of her pupils as she stares into my eyes.
“Crowd me.”
I want to do more than crowd her. Instead, I do as she asks, and step away to give her more room.
She sidles across to the window, trying for composure. There’s a crackle of something outside—a ripple that permeates the night and lights up the part of my brain that tells me when an Otherworld source is close by.
That isn’t the sound of natural lightning, nor thunder.
“Get away from the window. Now, Topaz.”
She rushes over to stand beside me. Outside, hard rain drums against the ground. A fork of lightning spikes across the sky, flashing sharp light over the garden and revealing a thick fog creeping over the lawn.
“Fog in a storm?” Topaz murmurs, and I fight back the urge to take her into my arms and tell her everything will be okay.
We both know by now it likely won’t be.
“We need to leave, Kyan. Please?”
Before I can answer, there’s another bolt of lightning and a sharp cracking sound before the fog is cleaved in half.
The fog swirls, re-assembling, until a figure solidifies in the middle of the lawn.
The figure takes a couple of steps forward and stops just before the boundary of the ward. Topaz reaches across and flicks the switch to illuminate her outside lighting, and we both get a clear look at the creature.
It isn’t human.
But it is wearing the face of a man. Its skin is pale and bloodless, and its eyes lock onto us through the windowpane. Its expression is devoid of emotion.
Not a vampire.
This creature is one I unfortunately know all too well. The minion of a demon.
Topaz sucks in a deep breath and her fingers scrabble at the charm around her neck. For protection? She closes her hand around it as if drawing comfort from its presence.
Good. We are going to need all the help we can get against this creature.
I reach out to Topaz and draw her in to my side, trying to let her know without words that she is not alone in this.
“You’re so warm,” she murmurs, and somehow her hand fumbles its way into mine, our fingers entwining in a grip that feels both strange, and yet completely natural. A low growl emanates from my throat as Topaz presses closer against me.
It feels so right to have her here beside me, despite the current circumstances.
The creature outside grins, its lips peeling back to reveal unnaturally sharp teeth. Slowly, it raises one arm and points a long, gnarled finger toward us.
“Topaz Redferne.” Although its mouth is moving, I can’t shake the feeling that the voice is coming from all sides.
Topaz trembles against me, and I squeeze her hand, trying to impart a sense of assurance. “I won’t leave you.”
Her laugh is faint and hollow. “You should. If you want to live.”
“Have confidence, little witch. You and I together...”
“We can take on the world?”
She has surprised me, yet again. Even in this moment of terror, she is able to call up her sarcasm.
I match her tone, aiming for humor. “Or just a measly little demon wraith.”
This time her laughter is genuine, albeit brief.
“It has been a long time,” the creature says. “My Master will be pleased to see you, cheater of death.”
The expression on its face twists, distorting, and the demonic master lurking beneath the skin shows his ugly face. There is a flash of recognition in the creature’s eyes as it stares at me, and then the demon is gone and the wraith is back in control. It begins to chant, bringing up its hands and splaying them flat, as if it is pressing against an invisible barrier.
Is it trying to destroy the wards?
“Can it get through?” I ask the question through clenched teeth, my muscles tensing as I ready for whatever is about to happen next.
“Probably.”
Another streak of lightning crackles across the sky, scorching the grass at the demon creature’s feet.
“Leave me alone.” Topaz’s voice is a mere whisper, but the wraith hears her because it shakes its head.
“You escaped my Master once, child.”
The wards light up, reddish-gold, and even as I prepare to fend off an attack, I can’t help but marvel at the intricacy of Topaz’s spell work. So many layers. So detailed and complex.
The lines of magic are burning away, layer by layer, under the efforts of the wraith, until the last protective enchantment fizzles out. She whimpers as the creature takes a step forward, and then another, crossing over the protective perimeter where I became unstuck a short while ago.
The creature laughs with perverse delight when it meets no resistance. “I’m afraid that won’t happen twice.”
