Witch Interrupted Read online

  “Your father and Tonya chose to participate,” he conceded after a tear trickled down her cheek. “Your being convex undoubtedly made it worse on your accomplices.”

  Vulnerable, almost pitiful, she drew her knees to her chest. Her short, glossy hair cowlicked in all directions, and she hugged her legs. “I agree. This is my fault. What’s our next move?”

  “I told you. I’m going to conduct experiments. You’re going to facilitate them.”

  “What, right now?” she asked, startled. “With the patrol tomorrow, and whoever else is after you, don’t we have other things to worry about?” Katie’s lips pursed obstinately even as her gaze skittered away from his. “I guess we can get it over with.”

  She might want to sleep with him, but she seemed unhappy to do so on his terms. Perhaps he should have dosed her with the calming mix as well.

  Except, did he want her pliant? It would be satisfying to boss her around when she was fighting him. That was his wolf talking—and for a change, he didn’t care. He was done being respectful, done battling his urges. She’d had her chance to treat him as an equal and blown it.

  “The fact is, most of the experiments will involve your magic, not your body.”

  “Oh.” She pleated the hem of his T-shirt between her fingers. “Well…good.”

  He wondered if she realized how disappointed she sounded. This woman confused him more than anyone he’d ever met. “Can you read chi?”

  “I know the basics from Tonya.”

  With someone as powerful as Katie, innate skill mattered less than it did for other witches. “Should be enough. I can access chi and the lattice from that.” Comparing her chi and lattice graphs to the ones from his and his lady friend’s coitus should be informative.

  She dropped her gaze to the pale coverlet. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I tried to poppy you. I wanted to be done with that type of work. Done with the keepers.”

  She smelled sincere, but he didn’t budge. How many of her responses was she able to fake? Her lust—was it real? Her regret? Was this one of the reasons she’d been such a deadly opponent? Wolves had no reason to disbelieve what their noses told them.

  He couldn’t trust her words or her scent. He couldn’t trust the way she’d clung to him, the way she’d parted her thighs for him. He couldn’t trust the slippery, hot memory of her pussy beneath his fingers and the sweetness of her skin between his teeth.

  He might not be able to trust himself.

  “I need to set some rules.” He crossed his arms. “When I make decisions, they aren’t suggestions. They’re orders. It’s unproductive to argue all the time.” It made it harder for him to concentrate on the science, when his wolf rose to her constant challenges.

  Her countenance switched from vulnerable to stony in an instant. Ah, there was the Chang Cai of legend. Back again, like the split personality from hell. “I agreed to cooperate with your experiments. I didn’t agree to be treated like I have no rights.”

  “Do you want my help with your father and Tonya?” She twitched. He continued. “Or do you want me to leave you to stew in your own mess?”

  “I could avoid the patrol.”

  “But can you safeguard your father and Tonya alone?”

  “You think you’ve got me, don’t you?” she said, eyes glittering. “Keep in mind, Marcus, that sooner or later, I’m not going to need your help anymore.”

  “Sooner or later isn’t now.” He required her presence after her full strength returned if some of his theories were going to be tested. Could he handle her then? Monkshood antidote or no monkshood antidote, he couldn’t protect against everything. He wouldn’t have the advantage when she had power…unless he found a sterile environment to keep her in.

  Or another hold over her.

  “You can’t life wipe me alone,” he told her. “And just like you could make one phone call to ruin me, I could make that phone call too. I could ruin you and your family.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Soon enough,” he said, unable to keep from stooping to her level. “I’m looking forward to it. Are you?”

  She sighed, her spine bending, and rested her chin on her knees. Vulnerable again. Which Chang Cai was the true face? “I’m not going to answer that.”

  “It doesn’t have to be unpleasant. I’ll just require detailed reports.” Even now, her scent was faintly layered by interest. He wished there was a test to discover whether that, at least, was authentic.

  “What do you want me to say? That I find you attractive?” She slipped off the bed and picked up the pieces of her ripped T-shirt. “Is that in question after what happened?”

  “Your responses were genuine?” Damn, that sounded insecure. “Authenticity is critical. Data fabrication will only hinder research that could benefit all of us.”

  She huffed. “Data fabrication. Wow. I can’t fake certain things any more than you can.”

  Spells could create lust, but she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to doctor herself. Granted, she was Chang Cai. Would it be wise to put anything past her or reveal anything about himself she could manipulate?

  Such as how close he’d come to pleasuring her before setting his environmental protocols, his charts and the digital recording device to log responses. He’d almost taken her because he wanted to, to hell with research. He couldn’t be led by the wolf with science on the line.

  When the memory of his sister was on the line. He’d never missed Elisa more than he had in the long, lonely year since he’d turned wolf. With a cure for cancer, a way to deactivate the need for keepers, what had happened to her would never happen to any witch again.

  “I’ll accept your physical reaction for now,” he said, “but I’ll need to investigate it later. Step by step.”

  “I already said yes.”

  He remembered her halting gasp when he’d stroked her and the feel of her lips against his face. He remembered her fingers squeezing his. How many times would he need to melt her to believe it was real? “But you didn’t say please.”

  She reddened again. “I realize you’re enjoying this, but it serves no purpose.”

  “I disagree. It all factors in to my computations.” One had to understand how and why witches succumbed to the wolf before one could reverse the process. Witches beat the wolf in their teens. Why did they fail to beat the wolf later? Why was sex the trigger? Why did alphas remain witches? He had theories but had only partly confirmed them. Marcus had wondered whether he could withstand the wolf using knowledge as his guide, but clearly he hadn’t.

  Witch magic and wolf magic were practically identical. Only the lattice—the metaphysical reservoir—changed. Logic said the transformation should go both ways. Witch could become wolf. Wolf could become witch. It should only be a matter of expertise and focus. He needed a test subject.

  He needed Katie.

  “Right now we both want the same thing.” After rubbing her eyes, she used the T-shirt scraps to sweep the herbal residue on the floor into a pile. “To stay hidden. Let’s worry about the rest later.”

  “I want more than that,” he said softly. “But we’ll postpone phase one until I calculate the experiment variables.” Or he could try. The sight of her on the floor, at his feet, his shirt gaping around her neck…

  He hadn’t been this stupidly horny since he was a teenager. Visualizing the periodic table wasn’t righting him like it should, so he turned away to fetch a dustpan.

  “You’re the expert.” She gathered the last of the dust in a pile and rested on her knees.

  “Technically, I’ve only engaged in witch and wolf intercourse once.”

  She licked her lips. “What is it you do hope to prove?”

  “That wolves and witches are interchangeable.” He waved his dustpan. “I want my magic back, my longevity, my discipline. But I want the wolf too. I want the strength and these senses, to be able to heal from wounds and diseases. I want protection from ever being at the keepers’ beck and call again. Pr
otection for everyone from the keepers and their methods. We’ve no need of them if we can shift between forms at will, Katie. And I want…”

  He wanted to go back in time and stop his sister. She’d been so desperate to stay alive for her baby she’d done the unthinkable. Then he’d done it himself. If it couldn’t be undone, it was possible he’d wasted his life and hers. “I want to know everything.”

  “Lofty, but there’s no animal inside me.” She patted her chest, swallowed up by his T-shirt. “It’s gone. One hundred percent witch, no wolf.”

  “She’s there. As much a part of you as your magic. Why wouldn’t you want access to that power? You’re only half of yourself as a witch.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Did you feel like an animal before you screwed up, Marcus?”

  “I didn’t screw up,” he said, disappointed in her. Why would she understand what it meant to lose one’s family? Her father was still alive. “And I’m not an animal. I dated a nice young lady for several weeks before I accepted her offer to stay overnight. At that time I carefully analyzed the process by which—”

  “You did it on purpose.” She shook her head, bemused. “I knew you were unique, but now I know you’re nuts. Maybe there was a wolf inside you, but there’s not one inside me.”

  Marcus smiled at her, feeling predatory. She was so confident, so certain that she was better than him, yet they were the same.

  He couldn’t wait to prove it.

  He was going to make her lose control. Maybe that would help him recapture his.

  “Let’s go back to your shop after I…” Tie you to the bed. Taste every inch of your body. Take you until your wolf makes you howl. “…pack as many supplies as I can.” Many spell-grade components were available from limited sources, expensive or perishable. They should load up on what Katie already had on hand. “I assume you have standard protection wards on your building?”

  “Yes.” Standard protections would keep their essences, masks or no masks, concealed from wolves or witches outside the apartment.

  Marcus positioned the dustpan near the pile she’d collected and handed her a whisk broom. “What time does the patrol usually hit your street?”

  “Midmorning. Not much around for them to check.” She guided the residue into the dustpan. “I won’t be able to renew the protections. I have enough primed disguise spells to get us through two days, but that’s it. Will you need a disguise?”

  He preferred to stay out of the patrol’s sensing range, not rely on his masks. It was tricky, as a wolf, to get his hands on more. “Yes and no. We should avoid the patrol.”

  “We can do that.”

  “When do you predict you’ll be restored?” And when would he have to start keeping her away from organic substances that could be used to incapacitate or kill him? As sly as she’d been with the lavender, it was conceivable daily strip searches might be required.

  Such hardship.

  “Don’t know. Four days? Five? I don’t mend fast when I’m out of practice.”

  Most witches didn’t bounce back quickly from a comprehensive drain, and if Katie were alpha, she’d have that much further to go. Her combat bonus, where a convex witch’s refill rate accelerated in a crisis, wouldn’t kick in immediately. And a witch who didn’t have enough power to cast a spell in the first place couldn’t access cayenne for a boost. “What about for less costly spells, like the true eye?”

  “A day.” She finally looked at him, squatted on the floor beside her. “If I waste my energy on small magic, it will be that much longer before I top off. Unless…I could drain myself repeatedly. Might be smart to trigger my combat bonus.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She’d be easier to manage with limited magic. Monkshood took a lot of energy. “I’ll hide you…as long as you keep me happy.”

  * * *

  They spent a restless night in Katie’s apartment, he and Katie in her bedroom, Zhang Li in his and Tonya in hers. Marcus had to redose Zhang Li at the six-hour mark, though Tonya showed no signs of becoming a problem. As for Katie, she’d cooperated with a watchful stillness that did nothing to hide the fact she was probably plotting, every second, how she was going to escape him.

  He’d gotten tired of the staring and popped her with a sleep spell. Neither of them was going to rest otherwise. Her bed was big enough that they didn’t have to come into physical contact. To his wolf, that didn’t matter. He could smell her and feel every wiggle of her body on the mattress. It was enough to keep him, and his cock, alert.

  Luckily wolves didn’t need as much sleep as witches who’d been drained.

  The sun barely peeked through the window in Katie’s bedroom. He turned to look at her. In sleep, she lost her frown, her wariness, her flashes of guilt and doom. They resonated with him, so similar to the guilt he felt over his failure to protect his sister and the doom he felt whenever he considered his mad experiment might come to naught.

  He’d lost his family. She didn’t want to lose hers. They had that in common, but it hadn’t been enough for her to overlook her prejudice against wolves.

  Katie’s cheek pillowed on her fist. He hadn’t secured her to the headboard since the sleep spell would last the night if he didn’t wake her.

  This was probably the only time he’d get away with that. With every sleep, every moment of rest, her power would build, along with her poise. He’d do what he could to keep her from getting her hands on any spell components, but he’d keep a bay capsule on him at all times.

  Marcus had planned his exile for years, plotting wolf territories and patrol schedules, setting up safe houses with labs, memorizing everything he could about keeper operations.

  The near miss in California had driven him to the southern United States. Some packs’ border patrols were harder to predict, but Birmingham’s alpha was former military and prided himself on discipline. The keepers’ and elders’ efforts centered in West Virginia under the belief Marcus would turn to the Travises.

  He’d cultivated the Travises prior to his transformation but had only pretended to go to them afterward. On one hand, it meant they weren’t a resource. On the other, despite having to redirect his study, he’d made some progress, mastering various aspects of the shift. Retaining tattoos and clothing was the first step in changing what he wanted, how he wanted. It was the first step toward regaining his witch…and his security.

  With Katie, he was about to take giant leaps. He couldn’t deny his excitement. He was mentally stimulated. Physically stimulated. He had a hard-on right now, in brain and body, due to the woman beside him.

  He smoothed a piece of black hair off Katie’s forehead. Should he exclude her from decision-making or attempt to win her over? If his experiments succeeded, it could solve both their problems. The covens would embrace the ability to rescue the transformed and heal cancer and would presumably protect him and Katie from Lars and the council.

  Ultimately, Marcus believed they’d disband the council or redirect it to beneficial tasks instead of death and destruction.

  It would be better to have Katie as a partner, but he’d only known her a day. Better that he keep her dependent. Vulnerable. He couldn’t lose sight of who she really was.

  Today he’d have to protect three people who couldn’t be trusted. Zhang Li and Tonya weren’t trustworthy because they knew nothing. They could wander into trouble easily. Katie wasn’t trustworthy because she knew almost everything.

  Today would be complicated.

  Tonight would be his reward.

  Chapter Nine

  “You don’t get one.” Marcus plucked the pill out of Katie’s hand before she could use it to turn herself into a person no wolf would look twice at. Marcus had woken her an hour ago, at eight, and Katie estimated that the house protections were now gone.

  Was he an idiot? She needed that mask.

  “Give me that.” Katie lunged for it, but he let her bounce off his shoulder. He dropped the pill into the bottle and the bottle into an overnight
bag.

  He caught her chin and tilted her face toward him.

  Patronizer. She slapped his hand. “No touchie, no feelie.”

  “Hold still. That’s an order.” He’d given her several orders this morning, out of her father’s and Tonya’s hearing, and had reminded her what would happen if she didn’t obey.

  So she stood, fists clenched, as he softly drew a fingertip from her forehead to her temple to her chin. He’d been touching her all morning, which he claimed was to convince Tonya and her father of their relationship.

  Her father and Tonya were downstairs right now.

  “No wrinkles,” he said. “You’re young enough to pass. Save the spell.”

  Katie wanted to kiss him. He probably knew it too. But more than that, she wanted to kick him. Thank goodness she hadn’t lost her brain entirely. The Birmingham patrol was due in two hours or less, and Marcus had spent the morning side-eyeing her while joking with Dad and Tonya as if they were his friends. Granted, one had to treat the recently wiped with care, but did he have to treat her like pond scum?

  If he’d just smile at her, she might…

  Throw herself at him.

  She hated him. She needed him. She couldn’t quit thinking about sex with him. Partly because he kept touching her and partly because, well, she wasn’t blind.

  The man was gorgeous.

  Would it be tonight? Would he…would he enjoy it? Or would it be a demeaning, mechanized experience?

  The kitchen clock ticked loudly, emphasizing what was at stake. Katie should be eradicating all evidence witches had ever been here. She knew the process. It shouldn’t take long. She, Dad and Tonya lived in a way that allowed them to mount a quick escape. Yet she’d put off shredding papers, burying simples and pushing Marcus to go, go, go. Instead she’d made everyone eggs and bacon for breakfast.

  Without being ordered to.

  She trailed Marcus into the living room. He hadn’t ordered her to stay in the kitchen, and he hadn’t ordered her to drop the subject.

  “What if we can’t avoid the patrol? I need that mask. We’re talking a twenty-foot radius. At least, that’s how far wolves could sense an unmasked witch when I was a…” Keeper honeypot. “In my prior occupation.”