In the Company of Witches (33 page)

Raina knew that tone Mikhael used. No-nonsense, requiring a truthful and direct answer, but Mikhael added something to it. A gentle note. He was still aware of his goal here. Always focused, she reminded herself.

“Just tell me,” he said. “I’m not going to be offended.”

“You can’t know that until you hear what I say.” Min was young but no fool. Raina was amused and proud at once.

“If I’m offended, I promise not to grow three heads and eat everyone in the room.”

She tittered, covering her mouth with a slim hand. She wore several rings with garnet stones on them. “All right, then. But remember, you promised.”

“If I break the promise, you’ll be chewed up and swallowed so fast, you won’t feel a thing.”

She giggled again but looked down at the card. “Eight of Fire. Most see you as a means to an end, taking them where they want to go. You arrive in the nick of time so often, it’s kind of mysterious how you do that, like you’re an EMT or firefighter. You’re seen as a…rescuer.”

Raina saw myriad reactions to that, ranging from
boy, was that one way off
in Saul and Luke’s exchanged look, to Min and Ana’s more pensive consideration. The girls were evaluating the way he’d acted this past hour, how Raina herself acted toward him. What he’d done upstairs with the gunman. They were probably realizing, as she had, there was far more to him than it seemed.

He nodded, glanced at the clock. “All right. Your next clients come in soon, and I don’t want to get you in trouble with your boss.”

Min smiled at that, but she shook her head. “You need one more question for the reading to be complete.”

“All right, you choose, then. Quickly.”

“Okay. This is one…I think this would be a good one to ask. Why do you want to be remembered?”

Mikhael grimaced. Raina already knew being remembered wasn’t a priority to him, but he shrugged, humoring Min. “Go ahead. See what comes up.”

Raina moved closer. She now stood at the back of Min’s chair, drawing close to Luke, who’d shifted over there as well. Mikhael’s gaze rose, touched her, as Min turned the card.

“Wow. Explorer of Fire.”

Raina looked down at a masked man walking through a winding ribbon of fire. Like a man walking through the Underworld.

“This suggests you want to be remembered as the Knight of Fire. You don’t hesitate to move into danger, but you don’t endanger others. Your work is very important to you.” Min cleared her throat, glanced up. “You strive for perfection in ways that may not be sane, but this isn’t the card of someone who cares about sanity. You reach into fire to pluck out the steel. You want to be remembered as one who created your passion and guarded your loved ones.”

Knight of Fire…Raina knew he never took himself that seriously, because he didn’t really think about things that way. He was a Dark Guardian. That was what he did.

Thinking about what she’d learned about him in the past few short days, she realized the tarot did bring it all together. Knight of Fire…Valuing happiness in unexpected places. A man who needed to make love a greater priority, so he didn’t die without giving himself that experience. A man who might be facing that choice even now.

She didn’t dare let herself think beyond that. It was past time to go to work.

S
HE RETURNED TO HER DOWNSTAIRS OFFICE, FOCUSED
on the practical. She shuffled appointments for Li and Gina, because she was giving Li the night off, no matter what he said. He would work with Aiden on one client, a female who wanted to be taken by two males, and he could get his energy from that session. Aiden would rein back his appetite for Li, give him the lion’s share, because Li would need it due to the trauma.

That accomplished, she sat back. Thinking about the reading, her thoughts went to Isaac. Rising, she took the garden exit, moving toward the guesthouse. To her enhanced senses, the newly erected perimeter barrier hummed like a high-voltage electrical fence. She was sure Isaac could hear it, feel the reminder, but she passed through it safely. He was sitting on the porch, staring off into the woods morosely, probably waiting for Death to step out. He knew he was out of options.

Taking a seat on the top step, she pulled an apple out of the sack she’d brought and polished it on her skirt before beginning to work on the skin with her paring knife. She didn’t speak for a while, but he watched what she was doing.

“I was listening to Min do a tarot reading,” she said at last. “She thinks the purpose of the cards isn’t to deliver answers, but to give you guidance to determine your own destiny, make the best choices. Maybe I should send her out here and let her read for you. Would you like her company? I’ll send Saul with her, but I expect you aren’t going to hurt her, are you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t hurt…others like us. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“You did mean to do it. But you didn’t want to. I get the difference.” She finished the skin, offered it to him. He took it, playing with it, wrapping the winding around his wrist and then tearing off a piece to eat. “You’ve been taught that kindness and compassion are weakness, Isaac. You take advantage of people who offer them, because they’re not to be trusted. If that kindness is tested, they’ll cut and run, sell you out, won’t they?”

He didn’t answer. “It doesn’t matter how long we live,” she continued. “There’s always room to learn something unexpected. You’ve had a rough go of it. In order to change that, you have to have a certain nobility of character. I don’t know if you have that. I can’t see it in you, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there, buried under all the shit you’ve been covered in for far too long.”

He looked away, blinked. “Don’t waste fake emotions on me, Isaac,” she said gently. “Tears, false remorse…What matters now is what you truly are, not how well you pre-
tend.”

He nodded, averted his face farther. She could feel the misery coming off him, the resignation and hopelessness. Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“Come here,” she ordered. “Come sit with me.”

He rose from the couch, knuckling at his eyes in that embarrassed male way that said the tears had been real, uninvited. She lifted her arms, let him lie down on the porch boards and put his head against her breast, his arms loosely around her waist. She rocked him like a large child, smoothing her hand over his brow, down his upper arm.

“I don’t think I can change. But I wish I could.”

“Well, wishing is always a start. A nap is a good start as well. I’m going to wrap you up in a sleep spell now.”

He stiffened, sat up. “No.”

“When was the last time you slept? Really slept?”

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t.”

“Inside the boundaries of my property, you’re safe, Isaac. I could put you to sleep without your consent, but I want you to give it. You’re exhausted, and it only increases your fear and desperation. Sleep will help you feel more in control of your destiny.” She feathered her hand over his brow. “It will be a true, deep sleep, no nightmares or fears. Wouldn’t you like to be unafraid for a little while, see what that’s like?”

“She was like this at first,” he said abruptly. “Motherly, kind. Then, when I told her I didn’t want to do what she wanted, she hurt me. Hurt me until all I knew was fear, until I flinched when she blinked, and that made her laugh. She had a terrible laugh. She killed Tara, like she was nothing. She
was
nothing to her.”

That woke some dark memories, for certain. Raina kept her fingers loose and open, though something furled up in her chest like a dying flower. “The way we feed on sexual energy?” she said carefully. “That’s the way some creatures feed on fear. She used you for a purpose, but her ultimate purpose was pain and suffering. I can’t prove to you I’m not like that. You have to use your own judgment, trust where you’ve never been able to trust before.”

It turned her mind to Mikhael. On a certain level, she was asking Isaac to do what she refused to do. She hadn’t given him that full surrender he sought. He could coerce it from her, tapping into her deepest cravings, but he’d held back, waiting. True victory for them both was when she trusted enough to give him everything willingly. It was too soon for that, maybe. But then again, in an incredibly short time he’d opened up things she’d never given a male. She was sitting here, contemplating giving him the rest sooner than later, right? Case in point.

She trusted her intuition in so many ways. Though everyone else might tell her she was crazy, it was possible Mikhael was one of those rare people she could trust.

Isaac withdrew to the porch swing. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He combed back his blond hair, a casually sexy gesture, innate to being an incubus, not calculated. She could see the tension, feel his rabbit instincts readying him for flight.

“All right.” She nodded. “You can’t consent, then. But I am going to make you sleep, Isaac. It’s what you need. Though you won’t believe it, you’ll be safe while dreaming. You’ll wake up safe, and here.”

“No.” He scrambled off the swing, but, of course, there was nowhere to run. “Please don’t.”

She lifted one hand, gently twirling it in the air, a modified royal wave. Like shades rolling down, his lids drooped, then closed. She was swift enough she caught him before he hit the porch boards. He was heavier than she’d expected, but incubi were lean muscle, after all. Lowering him to a supine position, she considered the best way to get him to the bed. The guests hadn’t yet arrived, and even if they had, if they were gazing out the window rather than absorbed in their chosen companion, she needed to do some retraining. She would levitate him, get him inside that way.

Or she could rely on manual labor. Lifting her gaze, she discovered Mikhael standing in the front yard. As the tarot reading came back to her, as well as the thoughts she’d just been having, her stomach made a funny hop. Anticipation, anxiety, inevitability.

“Need some help?” he asked.

When she nodded, he came up the steps. She propelled herself into motion with a jerk, a convulsive twitch. She was going to get Isaac’s legs, but Mikhael waved her off. Squatting, he slid his arms under the young male and lifted him. “Where?”

The guesthouse had an open layout that included a bedroom, sitting room and kitchen. As Mikhael laid Isaac on the wide couch, she took the crocheted afghan along the top and draped it over him, smoothing the hair on his brow. For the first time, the feral look was gone, leaving a young man who would be likable if he smiled, if he didn’t carry a scavenger’s scuttling fear in his eyes.

She left him there without a word, moved back onto the porch and down into the yard. When she reached the gate, she turned to Mikhael. Even hearing his footsteps following close behind her, it was still unsettling to find him right in front of her. “Tarot readings?”

“Parlor tricks. It seemed to help them.”

Tarot was far from parlor tricks, but he knew that. It was just the way he was, never taking anything seriously in an obvious way, even while he looked at the whole world without smiling.

Her world was about to fall out from under her, but she made herself take a step toward him. A small one. His brow furrowed at her look. “You’ve gotten pale, Raina.”

“I never break my word.”

“That doesn’t surprise me to hear.” Then his expression sharpened, catching up. “What are you promising me, Raina?”

“Me.” She swallowed. “Tonight, after my client. However you want me. I’ll come to your room and you can do…the things you’ve talked about doing. The things we both want.” The last words were a whisper.

I flinched when she blinked…
Goddess, she knew what that kind of terror felt like. But it didn’t have to touch this. Not if he was worthy of her trust. She was banking everything on the idea that he was.

Mikhael saw it all, felt it all, she was sure. “All right,” he said quietly. No
Are you sure?
No comfort, because he wouldn’t offer that, not right now. It gave her the ability to stay strong, to not back away from it. He compounded it, showing his ruthless streak.

“So promise me. Give me your word.”

“I give you my word. For tonight…I give you myself. Everything.”

That was it. Her courage deserted her. Pivoting, she moved toward the house, ignoring the way her knees wobbled, hoping it didn’t show too badly. She had a client. That was where her mind had to be now. The rest would be for later.

H
E THOUGHT HE’D BE RATIONAL ABOUT IT
. T
HIS WAS A
bordello, and Raina ran the place. She had clients she handled personally, just as she said. She’d told him if he didn’t like it, he could find the door. She’d also told him after she finished tonight, she would be coming to him, giving him something she’d never given another.

The second wave of clients arrived, were escorted to the parlor. He could make out the sounds of foreplay, flirting, pleasure being given, pleasure received. Raina’s throaty laugh as she greeted guests, coordinated their desires. He watched the clock tick toward that eight o’clock hour.

Eventually some were taken to private rooms. Gina and Marisa were entertaining in the bedroom above him; Catalina and Min played a game with someone in the library that involved a lot of suggestive laughter and the occasional sound of a riding crop slapping bare flesh. Luke passed outside his door with his arm around the one named Mark, telling him that he had something very special for him…if he was a good boy.

The parlors got quiet. He tuned in to Isaac periodically, verifying he was still in that deep sleep. Otherwise, Mikhael lay stretched across his mattress, every muscle tight, every sense stretched out for one taste of her. Sexual energy was released through the house, coming through the vents and wafting across his ceiling in colors of blue, purple, gold, shimmering silver…

There. Her specific scent, her arousal. That gold and green like her eyes, tinged with blue and rose, an emotional response as well as a physical one.

Fuck rationality.

There was too much swirling through the air for him to pinpoint her location exactly, unless he focused, and he wasn’t really in the mood for focus. It wasn’t that big of a house. He could go room to room if needed. He started with her room, though even before he turned the latch at the bottom of her stairway he knew she wasn’t there. No matter her feelings for a client, she’d never entertain inside her personal space. He’d been the only one to take her there, to make love to her in that far-too-small bed.