Vivi Anna - Releasing the Hunter

But neither voice belonged to Ronan. Just Quinn and another guy, Pete, she thought, sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee, by the delectable smell.

Quinn smiled when he saw her. “Good morning. Well, afternoon.” He got up and went to the stove. “Need some coffee?” He poured it into a cup and handed it to her.

She took it absentmindedly. “Where’s Ronan?”

Quinn shrugged. “Thought he was still sleeping with you.”

“No, he must’ve gotten up early.”

Pete looked at her over the rim of his coffee. “I’ve been up for hours and I haven’t seen him.”

“Okay, thanks.” She took her coffee with her as she went back to the little room where they had stowed their stuff. With one hand trembling, she opened the door. Her stomach was churning and she licked her lips to keep from getting sick.

Her duffel bag was on the floor just where she’d put it, closed and looking untouched. But Ronan’s gear was gone. Instead, on the floor was a white envelope with her name scrawled across it.

She bent over and picked it up. She turned it over in her fingers, afraid to open it. Afraid of what was inside. No matter what words he put there, it wouldn’t fix the withering agony inside her. It was quickly filling her to the brim.

With the envelope pinched between her trembling fingers, she shuffled back into the kitchen.

Quinn frowned at her. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s gone.”

Her brother didn’t say anything for a minute, just looked at her. “Maybe he had something to take care of. Did you read the letter?”

She shook her head, then put a hand up to her chest where her heart pounded so hard it felt like it was going to burst out from between her ribs and fall to the floor, ripped up and torn into shreds.

Then Quinn’s frown deepened and he pushed to his feet. “Ivy? Where’s your necklace?”

She looked down and ran a hand over her shirt, the pain in both her gut and her heart doubling. The necklace she never took off. The one she’d been wearing to bed. It was gone. Ronan had taken the key.

Ronan paced the shoreline of the bay, waiting for Reginald and his cabal goons to show. The fog swirled around his boots like gray smoke. He’d told the sorcerer to come alone, but he knew that would never happen. Reginald was too much of a coward to come by himself. A coward. Ha, he should talk.

He’d snuck out of the farmhouse in Sumner like a thief in the night. Which was exactly what he was. He’d stolen the key, Ivy’s precious necklace, from around her neck while she’d been sleeping. He’d quietly slipped from the bed, dressed, grabbed his gear, with the cross in it, and snuck out of the house. He’d hoofed it down to Main Street and hot-wired a car, speeding down the highway back to San Francisco.

Now he held the key in his hand, fisted tight, while he waited for the man who’d paid him to acquire it.

Not for the first time, he had to swallow down the lump of guilt that kept coming up. His gut was constantly churning. He’d never felt this kind of remorse before. It was damn near killing him.

He’d almost not done it. He’d been lying there beside her, listening to her breathe, taking in her smell and the heat of her body next to him and he nearly just rolled over and forgot about the key and what it meant to him. He’d almost forgotten how many years he’d been searching for a cure. Almost.

Ivy meant a lot to him. He loved her. But the demon blood that ran through his veins would always come between them. It would be a constant bone of contention for them.

The irony of the fact that he had to steal the key from her, thereby ruining any chance of them being together anyway, wasn’t lost on him. He understood the risks when he’d slipped the chain off her and slid it into his jacket pocket.

He just didn’t realize it would hurt him so much to betray her.

Ronan stopped pacing and listened to the sounds around him. The lapping of the water against the shore calmed his nerves a little. He’d always felt safe around water. The sounds and smell centered him, gave him a sense of peace. Something he was in desperate need of. He’d chosen this spot along the bay for that reason, and also because water dampened magic. He wasn’t sure why; something about the living ions in water molecules. All he knew was it would prove to be difficult for old Reggie to zap him with some sinister spell so close to the water. That was a good enough explanation for him.

He pulled out his cell phone from his pocket and checked his messages for the tenth time since arriving back in the city. Still nothing from Ivy. This shouldn’t have surprised him. What did he expect? Her declarations of love and anger over what he’d done to her? He should’ve expected silence from her. He’d just betrayed her in the worst way.

But he was hoping for a message, one that said she was coming to find him and kill him. He could handle that, maybe even would have pleasure in the fact that she cared enough to look for him. The silence ate at him. The silence was telling.

He shoved the phone back into his pocket just as he felt something stirring in the air. It wasn’t the same sense he got when a demon was near, but it was close. Reginald Watson had arrived.

The sorcerer stepped out of the darkness and into a pool of moonlight. He gestured to the surroundings. “Interesting choice for a meeting.”

“I like the water.”

Reggie just smiled, but it wasn’t one of friendliness; it held traces of arrogance and malevolence. The sorcerer knew exactly why he’d chosen this spot. The grin gave Ronan the creeps. He should’ve never gotten involved with the cabal. They were bad news.

Out of the corner of Ronan’s eye, he spied two other sorcerers hiding in the shadows, one on either side. It was obvious Reggie didn’t trust him, or in fact might just try and kill him when the transaction was done instead of giving him the cure.

“Do you have the key?”

Ronan nodded.

“Let me see it.”

“I will, but first I want to know what you plan on doing with it.”

Reggie frowned. “Why does that matter? You didn’t care when you took the job.”

“It matters now.”

He stepped toward Ronan, his hands folded in front. “What do you think we’re going to do with it, Ronan?”

“Open the Chest of Sorrows and take Solomon’s grimoire to release the demons.”

Reggie chuckled. “You’ve been doing your homework.” He pointed at Ronan. “Let me guess? Quianna Lang?”

Ronan didn’t say anything.

The sorcerer shook his head. “She’s always been meddlesome. Doesn’t know her place.”

“You can’t control them,” Ronan said.

“Of course we can. The cabal’s power is limitless.”

“I imagine Solomon thought that, too.”

“Yes, well, he was one man. We are many. And we have been training for this for centuries. Now is the time to fulfill our destinies.”

“You’re delusional, Reggie. No one can control that many demons. Not even if there were one hundred of you. Which I know for a fact, there aren’t.”

He moved a little closer to Ronan. “There are enough of us not to be trifled with.” He held out his hand. “Now, give me the key.”

“I just have a few more conditions first.”

“You’re changing our arrangement.”

“Yes, I am.”

Reggie shook his head. “I don’t like changes, Ronan. I really don’t.”

“First off, I want you to make a pact that you won’t ever harm Quianna Lang. Or Ivy and Quinn Strom.”

The sorcerer clapped his hands together and laughed. “Oh, dear boy. That’s what this is about? Ivy Strom? You fell for that bitch. I can’t believe it.”