Witch Interrupted Page 20

  His lying, cheating, car-jacking, distrustful, sexy, infuriating pain in the ass.

  What if he couldn’t find her in time?

  Antsy as hell, Marcus emerged from the neighborhood he and Katie had escaped through yesterday. It was tempting to sprint to the shop, but he made himself check every approach. He behaved as doggishly as possible. While wolves, coven members and humans who spotted him would think nothing, keepers might be suspicious of random dogs poking around their base of action. The wolf sympathizers’ use of animal masks to conceal their clients was known to keepers.

  On the road that intersected the street to the tattoo parlor, he plopped down on the shoulder and scratched himself. Then he ducked his head between his legs and pretended to lick his balls, something true shifters rarely did, for obvious reasons.

  Instead he checked for spoor on the ground.

  Yes. There.

  Faint whiffs of spell-grade monkshood, loosestrife and hops combined with guns. Coven witches wouldn’t smell like monkshood. Cops would smell like guns but not herbs. That left keepers.

  From his vantage point, the back of the store and Dumpster looked normal. All spoor was from yesterday. Marcus looped around the tattoo parlor and concealed himself behind a clump of bushes. The only vehicles were Katie’s and her father’s. His truck and the Smart car were gone. The front window glass was still busted out. No crime scene tape. No unusual sounds. Not much traffic.

  He felt no urge to leave the vicinity, which meant no aversion wards had been set to chase off onlookers. From here, he could identify the herbal components from the berserker bomb on a shattered pneumatic gun. The mixture made his skin twitch with memories. Definitely his work. If Katie hadn’t been with him when Lars had released the spell, he’d have gone as mad as the Birmingham packers. He analyzed the scent and committed it to memory for later study.

  After a sneeze that cleared his sinuses, he caught vestiges of humans and wolves. Blood spatter marked the street in several places, but he didn’t smell any fresh blood.

  The wind blew gently toward him, and he did smell fresh Katie.

  She’d been here. Recently.

  The upstairs curtains fluffed in the breeze. Except the breeze was coming from the opposite direction.

  She was still here.

  Silent and swift, Marcus crossed the road. He slowed as he neared the window to leap gingerly into the building. Broken glass had been swept haphazardly to the side of the room.

  The scents of people and wolves thronged in the small space. Many shifters, many components, a few humans, but no pressure in his ears to indicate a spell being cast. Behind the counter, books splayed on the floor, with papers flung everywhere. He had no doubt everyone who’d entered had tossed the place. The keepers in hopes of finding Katie, Vernon or him. The cops, packers or elders in hopes of discovering what had happened.

  Was it possible no one had gotten what they’d wanted?

  Marcus slipped between the beaded curtains. The second room bore similar evidence of a search. Tattoo ink splashed the walls, and an autoclave lay in pieces on the floor. Other paraphernalia had received similarly rough treatment. The bathroom door canted off its hinges and the door to the upstairs was cracked open.

  He rushed up the stairs. In wolf form, he was dark gray, almost black, and rangy. He placed his paws lightly so his claws wouldn’t tic. If Katie spotted him, she’d see a black dog, not a wolf, but he doubted that would fool her for an instant.

  Logically he knew if she’d wanted to escape him, she wouldn’t have come here. Escape wasn’t her goal. He entered the apartment and spotted her on the couch. Just sitting there, unmoving. Her spine was curved, her head bowed. She held a leather bag he recognized as Zhang Li’s tattoo kit in her lap.

  Relief rushed through him, but it didn’t displace his other emotions. He barked once, sharp and angry. He wasn’t sure if he was pissed as hell at her for leaving or glad to see her alive.

  She glanced up, her expression guarded. “Oh, look, a stray dog. Whoever could it be?”

  She smelled of resignation and unhappiness. Because he’d recaptured her? Marcus focused his magic inward, shifting into his accustomed body. In under a minute, he stood before her, clothed, armed with supplies and highly annoyed.

  Time to let her know in no uncertain terms that she’d regret conning him.

  His first words came out rusty and fast—and weren’t what he meant to say. “You could have been killed.”

  Even as he said it, the truth rang in his head like a fire alarm. Her safety was his primary concern—not the betrayal, the lies or their bargain. Feeling that way about her, though, wouldn’t advance his cause, so he tamped it down.

  She nodded. “I know.”

  “What if this is a trap?” He said it because it was logical, but didn’t entirely believe it. In Lars’s world, a keeper wouldn’t risk herself for family. Keepers learned to be comfortable with collateral damage—and saw no need for self-sacrifice.

  Katie shrugged. “We’re alive. Hence my belief that this is, shockingly, not a trap.”

  She was so certain, so uncaring of her well-being. She hadn’t worn a mask when she’d come here. She had no safeguards at all. Her recklessness was a danger to herself and others. “It was a poor choice to return to the shop.”

  Her jaw flexed; her dark eyes turned hard. “Are you not going to ask what I found? I realize you don’t give a shit about my family, but it’s sort of a big deal to me.”

  He wouldn’t lose his temper. He’d caught her, and that was that. Marcus’s objectives didn’t involve sacrificing himself for quests that weren’t his own. The fact that this made him more like the keepers than, say, Katie, with her willingness to do anything for her family, was uncomfortable but unavoidable. “Tell me about the others.”

  “He has them, of course,” she said simply. “It’s our fault. We shouldn’t have deserted them.”

  “If we’d have stayed, he’d have captured us too. What good would that do?” Marcus considered sitting next to her but remained standing, in a position of authority. She needed to remember he was in charge and his actions had protected her. “How did you find out?”

  “I found Ba’s ink kit in the panic room and a coded note from Vern.” She dug in the bag and extended a wad of paper, her movements listless. “I translated it. Read it and weep.”

  Apparently she had. Faint tear-trails shone on her cheeks, though her nose and eyelids were barely pink. She relaxed—slumped—on the couch, laid her head against the back and closed her eyes.

  Marcus uncrumpled the paper. In bad handwriting was a detailed grocery list. In small, neat handwriting beside it was a translation: Overheard “the whore” escaped. Rampage. Cops spelled away. They’re checking for safe rooms. Will…

  Vernon’s part of the note ended with a jagged scrawl.

  “Do you believe they got away?”

  She shook her head. “Ba couldn’t have outrun the keepers. He has magic-resistant arthritis.” Heal-all wasn’t a cure-all, especially not for deeper human ailments.

  “There are two vehicles missing. They could have driven away.”

  “Vern would have left a sign. Finished the note. Lars has them. I’m sure of it.”

  “You can’t trade yourself.” He wouldn’t be surprised if Lars had immediately murdered Vernon, considering Lars’s feelings about his predecessor and the ills he’d claimed Vernon had continued to inflict on him. Tonya and Zhang Li, however, he might keep around. “He’ll kill you all.”

  “He can try. I think he’d be willing to let them go in order to get his hands on me.”

  “There’s nothing you can do to ensure that.”

  She didn’t open her eyes, just said in a flat voice, “That remains to be seen.”

  “You have to quit working against me, Katie. It’s more important now than ever.” It occurred to him she wasn’t taking his project seriously because she saw no function in it. It provided her no aid, no resolution to her immed
iate problem. “If we break the barrier between witch and wolf, it will be the answer you need.”

  “Sounds self-serving to me.”

  He’d explained this to her already. He’d keep trying until she understood. “Think about it. A huge scientific discovery like the ability to recover transformed wolves or a cure for cancer would entrench us in the coven network. Even you, a convex witch. It’s the safest place to be if the keepers want to kill you.”

  Right now, Marcus and Katie had no respect, little safety and few advantages. His experiments must succeed for them to be free. Otherwise they’d be trapped in hiding for the rest of their lives.

  Though Katie seemed to have accepted that sentence, it had never been Marcus’s plan. He would never quit trying to disable Hiram Lars and the keepers so they couldn’t torture and kill anyone else.

  He frowned at the scribbled message, wishing Vernon had shared more details. He could only imagine the chaos as the keepers closed in on Vernon and the two amnesiacs. “The note doesn’t mention whether Lars identified me.”

  Katie’s outward appearance was peaceful. She rested her head on the back of the couch, features expressionless. Except for the tear tracks, she could have been meditating. “It’s not always about you. If he did recognize you, Marcus Delgado is just some wolf now. Probably one that whore Chang Cai is fucking.” She raised her head and laughed. “Oh, hell. I guess even psychos like Hiram Lars have to be right sometime.”

  It was true Lars didn’t think of wolves as possessing higher intelligence, even transformed ones. Despite the fact IQs of wolves varied as widely as witches or humans, to Lars, many keepers and some subsets of the coven network, wolves were such primitive throwbacks that it invalidated their rights and their—for lack of a better word—humanity.

  The threat of a scientist turned wolf, even one who used to work for him, would hardly worry Lars. He’d treat Marcus like any other animal, and his primary goal would be capturing Chang Cai.

  He handed Katie the note. “You’re not a whore.”

  Finally, she looked at him, bemusement replacing the bleakness in her expression. “That’s your takeaway from all this?”

  “Do you want another? You endangered us both, not for the first time. You’re hotheaded, mistrustful and underhanded.” He’d seen it in her chi and her actions.

  “You’ve got my number, all right.” She shrugged, her gaze dropping to the paper. “I won’t apologize for leaving. I knew you wouldn’t let me, and I had to know if they were okay. What’s your excuse?”

  He’d had to know if she was okay. He’d hurled himself into a situation that could have been stupid and dangerous, same as she had. However, he’d had a mask, defensive spells in his pouch and a four-legged disguise.

  “I have to protect my interests. We have important work to do.”

  She huffed, without much energy. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

  She wouldn’t be if Lars had caught her. Marcus wouldn’t have known whether she’d run off or been taken, and he’d never have recognized Vernon’s grocery list as a code. “Am I supposed to believe you intended to come back to me?”

  “Believe whatever you want.” She folded the paper in half as if she couldn’t bear to read the text again. “My family comes first, and you’re not my family.”

  For some reason, that made him even angrier. “No shit.”

  Her expression changed yet again as she narrowed her eyes. “Considering what you did for your sister—what you’re still doing—one would think you’d be understanding about my detour.”

  He hadn’t thought of Elisa when he’d rushed out the door this morning. He’d thought only of Katie. “If you present a rescue plan with a measurable chance of success, I’ll consider it,” he conceded. “Until then, can we stick to our original agreement, the one that doesn’t end up with both of us dead?”

  For the briefest moment, he thought she might smile. Or cry again. Instead she said, voice raw, “Did you really think I wasn’t coming back? Where else would I go? I’m not fool enough to think I can tackle Lars alone.”

  “It would instill more confidence in me if you didn’t dupe me every chance you get.”

  “Fine.” But her tone left no doubt in his mind it wasn’t fine.

  Marcus ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. This wasn’t the morning-after conversation he’d envisioned in the wake of last night’s revelation. He’d imagined shared excitement, like sunlight breaking through clouds. He’d imagined cohesion as they expanded their knowledge of how she was using wolf magic—and how he could access his witch.

  He’d imagined a lot of sex.

  Instead, they were completely at odds again and he wasn’t sure, no matter how concerned he was about her welfare, that he could trust her. Ever.

  Whenever he relaxed his guard, she cheated. She lied and tricked and conned. She felt remorse only when circumstances didn’t work out to her liking, if then. She might not be evil, but her nature was fundamentally deceptive.

  But still. What must it be like on the other side of her loyalty? To be part of her family? Would he consider her deceptive if everything she did was for him instead of against him?

  It didn’t matter. She was too hard and too angry and too broken. She’d never let him in.

  And he didn’t need her to. He only needed her magic.

  “That’s settled, then. Did you happen to find your own bag in the Dumpster?” He took the leather satchel of tattoo supplies from the couch. Now that he could maintain tats, one of Katie’s permabrands might be advantageous…if he wanted to let her near him with a tattoo needle.

  “I packed another one.”

  “I’m going to have to search it.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “And I have to search you.”

  “I really don’t care.” She rose, walked stiffly into the kitchen and yanked a duffel off the counter. When he followed her, she pelted it at him. “Want to check for monkshood?”

  Why did she look so offended? She’d mickeyed him several times already. Granted, she hadn’t tried to kill him, but they both knew what she could do. “Later.”

  Next she threw the keys at him as if they were a grenade. “I assume you insist on driving?”

  He did. As it happened, she didn’t care.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Why does this feel so incredibly familiar? Seriously, Marcus, I’m not in the mood.” Aggravated, Katie batted at the wolf when he came to unlock her handcuff. “Give it a rest tonight. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Probably.

  As soon as they’d returned from the tattoo parlor, he’d searched her and her bag. There had been no monkshood, of course. She didn’t know how she felt about Marcus, but his death wasn’t part of the picture.

  Next he’d run a battery of tests involving her alpha ability and her five senses that purportedly measured her access to wolf magic. After that, he’d secured her to the bed and proceeded to ignore her while he mucked around with his computer.

  She didn’t care. And she really, really wasn’t in the mood for sex tests.

  She thought about kicking him, but she wasn’t ready to antagonize him that much yet. He unclasped the handcuffs—still not using the key, she noticed—and helped her unnecessarily off the bed. “Do you really think I want to screw around when I just found out my father, Tonya and Vern are probably dead?”

  Putting it into words for the first time knotted her throat. She’d concentrated on revenge scenarios today, not wanting to blubber in front of Marcus. What would be the most satisfying way to kill Lars? Shooting, magicking, stabbing, poisoning, steamrolling, drowning, woodchoppering—she’d imagined enacting them all and it failed to comfort her.

  Needless to say, she didn’t think there was anything the wolf could do to make her want sex with him.

  Possibly if he told her how he had a foolproof plan to kill Lars. She’d gladly hop into bed with the man who loved her enough to… No, the man who could give her that. I
t had nothing to do with love.

  Marcus regarded her with a frown. “They’re not dead. Or at least your father and Tonya aren’t.”

  “You know this how? Did you contact Lars when I wasn’t listening?” Death and suffering were constant companions for keepers. Taken from their families as soon as their magic emerged—or dumped on the council like trash—their ties to loved ones withered. Keepers never juggled this crippling attachment and grief.

  Katie had grown back into love, inch by inch, as she and her father had come to know one another again. Now their bond was stronger than ever and included Tonya in the tight, devoted circle. As for Vern, he’d been instrumental enough in saving everyone’s life that she felt a significant obligation to him as well.

  “Of course I didn’t contact Lars.” He didn’t blink, just watched her.

  “Then how do you figure Ba and Tonya are alive?”

  “Since you’ve been with them since your disappearance, Lars may assume you developed familial loyalty. He’ll hold off killing Zhang Li and Tonya in case he gets to kill them in front of you.”

  “Now that is a lovely image.” Despite her sarcasm, the knot in her throat eased enough for tears to quit threatening. He was right. There was a good chance they were alive. Marcus had promised to consider rescue schemes. If he weren’t a basically decent person, that wouldn’t be the case. “You’re so romantic. I’m ready for the sex now.”

  “Good. Undress.” He checked the locks and wards on the front door, remaining between her and the exit as if he expected her to bolt. “Showers first.”

  “I was kidding.” She slid her glasses up her nose so she could see his face better. Was he smirking? “I’m not ready and not going to be ready.”

  “Would you prefer I lie to you? Seduce you?”

  “Do you have a diagram for that?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He crossed his arms. “Lying and seducing are your province, not mine. You asked me about your family, and I answered honestly. It would hardly inconvenience Lars to imprison two amnesiac witches. No one but you will be looking for them. In fact, I daresay he might order a few experiments and—”