Anya Bast - Witch Heart

He went for the final shot, cutting upward with his blade and lightly touching Thomas in the stomach with the edge of the shiny copper weapon.

Death blow.

Panting, Thomas dropped his sword to his side in defeat.

Out of breath, Adam dropped his sword, too. "Sorry, boss." He shrugged and grinned.

Thomas regarded him through obsidian eyes and leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees. "I'm really glad you're on our side, Adam."

Jack bounced out into the middle of the sparring mat, obviously relishing being rested and refreshed while Thomas was panting and exerted. "Okay, my turn."

"I don't think so," answered Isabelle, who'd just entered the room. She came to stand near her husband and reached up to finger the short bunch of hair at his nape. "My mom is here for a visit. Thomas said he'd have lunch with us."

Catalina, Isabelle's mother, had been trying to develop a relationship with her daughter after she'd subjected Isabelle to a pretty bumpy childhood. Isabelle seemed happy to finally have a mom she could count on.

"Anyway," Isabelle continued, "Mira needs Jack to help her with Eva."

Eva was Jack and Mira's new baby, a rare and very protected little air witch. Mira was the most powerful air witch around and likely her daughter would be every bit as strong.

"That's married life for you." Adam grinned.

Mira had been involved with a real gem of an asshole during her first marriage and had vowed to never marry again. It had taken Jack a while to wash the taste of that first bad marriage from her mouth, but he'd managed to do it. He and Mira had finally tied the knot after Eva had been born.

"I love it, man," Jack answered with a grin.

Yeah, so had Adam.

"Eva's still fussy, I bet," Jack answered Isabelle. "Mira and Eva — we believe — heard something disturbing last night. It was a cry for help, but it was brief and without detail. We don't know who it was from or where she is. All we know was that it was a female air witch who sent it."

Thomas grabbed a towel and wiped his face and neck. "Mira told me about that this morning. If they hear anything else, let me know right away."

"We will."

Isabelle wrinkled her nose. "In any case, Thomas and Adam both need showers pronto."

"I guess training can wait," answered Jack, dropping his sword. "It's not like there are any Atrika loose on Earth this very second."

The Atrika were the freight train of the demon breeds, and none of the breeds were exactly fluffy bunnies.

Adam threw his sword to the mat. "Man, don't say that. Every time someone says something like that, it's proved wrong." He shook his head, remembering what they'd gone through with Erasmus Boyle. "I really don't want that proved wrong."

Jack held up a hand. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'm out of here, anyway. My family is calling." He walked over to the wall to stow his weapon.

Family, The word squeezed Adam's chest every time, but he'd never let these guys know. He picked up his sword and walked over to put it away. "I'm out, too. I'll be in my room if anyone needs me."

"Got a date tonight?" called Isabelle.

Adam threw a careless glance over his shoulder. "What night don't I have a date?"

Isabelle just grinned and shook her head, leaning against Thomas and wrapping her arms around his waist, sweat and all. Now that was true love. Adam was happy that Thomas and Isabelle had found it together. Jack and Mira, too.

Adam knew his shot at it had already blown by and disappeared on super-charged roller skates. He'd just sat there and waved at its retreating ass. There, then gone. Like some kind of really bad — or tragic — practical joke.

"Womanizer." she shot at him.

"Is that supposed to be an insult?"

Isabelle grinned. "You're incorrigible."

He spread his hands and shrugged. His tendency to serial date was a familiar, playful issue between them. "I can't help it if I'm popular with the ladies."

"Uh huh. If you disappeared from the Earth tomorrow, all womankind would mourn and break out their vibrators in your memory."

He shot her a grin and a wink. "Damn straight."

Isabelle shifted and rolled her eyes. Her shirt gaped a bit, showing one of the tats that Theo had inked her with. Isabelle wasn't an earth witch, able to use tattoos to store spell energy, but she had been scarred in places by the Atrika demon they'd fought last year — Erasmus Boyle. At Isabelle's request, Theo had created a few designs around her scars to cover them, or, in Isabelle's words, celebrate them. She'd survived the ordeal by the skin of her teeth.

Adam grabbed a towel and headed up to the room he kept at the Coven.

Women did like him. They always had, even before he'd joined the Coven as primary muscle to the boss and jack-of-all-trades fire witch. His face wasn't handsome in the classical sense and he'd broken his nose twice, which made it crooked, but he was still apparently attractive enough to women. His body was fit, not because he had an ego but because he needed to be in shape for his job.

Their primary enemy, though they'd acquired another recently, were the Duskoff, a warlock cabal run by one bad dude, Stefan Faucheux.

Warlocks were witches gone bad, ones that turned their back on the Coven and betrayed the values it held dear, which meant they were powerful enough to be truly dangerous. The members of the Duskoff broke the covenant of harm thee none all the time and used their magick for their own gain, no matter who it hurt.

Normally, the Duskoff kept the Coven on its toes, but they'd gone eerily silent over the last year. Stefan Faucheux had turned up once after the Atrika incident, then disappeared. All agreed that didn't bode well. Stefan wasn't exactly the shy and retiring type.

A quiet Duskoff was a Duskoff up to no good.

So even though the last year had been calm, the Coven witches trained — fast, hard, and unrelenting. They could expect trouble to pop up anytime. If not from their new friends, the demons, then from the Duskoff.

Once inside his room, Adam found a slender redhead reclining on his couch. She was dressed in a skimpy black lace nightgown, her long curling hair cascading over the arm of the sofa.

He pulled the key out of the lock. "Whoa, Jess. I thought we weren't supposed to meet until eight."

She rolled off the couch and sauntered toward him. He and Jessica, a water witch, had been having a nice little affair for the last couple of weeks. She was just coming off a bad divorce and looking to play a little in her newfound freedom. Jess didn't view him as relationship material, just fucking material. That was fine with him. She wanted to sow some post-divorce wild oats and he was reaping the harvest.

Normally water and fire, as far as witchy relationships went, didn't work well. Water and earth had an affinity. So did fire and air, but the Coven could count all the known air witches on two hands and most of them, with exception of Jack's wife, Mira, weren't very powerful. In his and Jessica's case, since it was all about sex, it really didn't matter.

Adam loved it when it was all about sex. In fact, it was the only kind of relationship he did.

She brought her lips — ruby red, glossy — an inch from his. Her gaze flicked out the window. "It's very chilly tonight. I thought instead of going out." — her hand strayed between his thighs to cup his cock against her palm—"we could just stay in, order some food, have it delivered. We can… keep each other warm."

He put his hands on her shoulders and pressed his body against her. "Honey, I need a shower."

"Oh," she pouted. "I need your hands on me now." She caressed him and he tipped his head back on a groan. His cock was swelling under the stroke of her fingers. She bit her lower lip. "I'll wash you later and make it worth the wait."