Anya Bast - Witch Heart

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?"