Paranormal Anthology With a TWIST (25 page)

“What?” she asked, raising the dagger over her head and gazing
down on me.

“Would you take care of my plant?”

There are so many people out there who encourage and support me,
this one’s for all of you!

Magen dreams in the world of the supernatural and looks forward to
continuing her Immortal Heart Series and creating worlds for her readers to get
lost in and characters to fall in love with. She loves to read and spends as
much of her free time with family and friends as possible. Believing life is
what you make of it she follows her dreams through anything that would threaten
to hinder her.

Website:
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“So this is her?” Damon looked at the smiling woman depicted in
the photograph. She was beautiful—with long mahogany hair, jade-colored
eyes and a lithe, almost athletic build.

“Yes, she’s in a small town in California.”

Damon looked from the picture to the White Witch standing in front
of him. He didn’t know the Caldwell Witch who’d approached him, but she knew
who he was.

“You say Paige told you about me?” Damon asked, swishing the
deep-amber liquid in his tumbler.

The Witch nodded. “So, will you help my niece?”

Damon took another peek at the picture. “Why does Serna want her?”

The Witch snickered. “Why does the Witch Queen ever want a White
Witch? Ariel is young, but her power already surpasses even my own. In four
years she will be a force to be reckoned with and a match for Serna.”

Serna was a sickness on the magical community, a Dark Witch with a
title she never deserved. Damon knew better than anyone what she was capable
of. It was why he’d spent the last five years hunting her—but she was
slick and was always one step ahead of him. Somehow, always just outside of his
grasp.

“I assume Paige also told you that I have one mission I’m working
towards?”

“You want Serna. Perhaps in saving my niece, you’ll come upon the
Queen.”

Damon smirked. “Perhaps. So what little town has your niece found
herself in?”

“Sebastopol.”

It took Damon no time to make his way to the small
town—flashing was one of many powers he’d inherited from his mother’s
bloodline. He was a warlock, but he saw himself as more of a shield for the
good left in the magical community—or possibly even a hit man. He hunted
those who abused the dark craft and helped White Witches protect their own.

Damon ducked into a local bar on the one-way main street that was
the center of this little town. Ariel’s aunt told him this was where he would
find Ariel. She’d taken a job as a bartender/server. She moved far from her
roots, leaving her coven to hide in a small-town biker bar
.

Damon took a seat on a cracked leather stool and tapped the
lacquer-finished oak bar. Jade eyes lifted from the beer tap to settle on him,
a sultry smile stretched across her pretty face.

“I’ll be right with you, handsome.”

Damon smirked.

“What can I get you?” Ariel asked, grabbing a bar towel and
mopping up the area in front of him.

“Your best whiskey.”

“Ah, a top-shelf kind of man.” She smiled again. “I’ll be right
back.”

Damon watched her glide around the other people behind the bar,
her mahogany ponytail swaying as she moved. It didn’t miss his observation that
her hips and ass were swaying with the same rhythm.

Damon waited for Ariel to finish her shift and watched as she
untied her apron and headed towards the back exit. Damon finished off his drink
and followed quickly behind her into the dark parking lot.

“Should I be nervous that a hit man is following me?” Ariel asked,
twirling to face him.

Damon arched a brow. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean that I know who you are, Damon Payne, and while I’ve
always been told that you protect White Witches, I learned a while back that
you can’t really trust anyone.”

“Your aunt sent me to protect you—said Serna is after you.”

“Was,” Ariel corrected. “I don’t need protecting. I haven’t caught
wind of Serna or her hellhounds in over six months. She either can’t find me or
has given up now that I renounced my cove—”

Ariel and Damon’s heads both whipped towards an alley that ran
alongside the bar, her words cut off by the pounding steps of the
aforementioned hellhounds. Serna’s hounds were nasty-looking demons that she’d
resurrected as her own personal hunting party.

With a flourish of blue mist, Damon pulled a sword out of thin
air. There was only one way to send a hellhound back to its dimension and that
was beheading it with a blessed sword.

With the grace of a true swordsman, Damon glided the sword toward
the closest hellhound. Its head separated from its body with an ear-piercing
howl and the scent of rotting flesh. The hound disappeared into a puff of dark
smoke.

“Well, she found you now,” Damon took the time to remark before
facing off with the next hound.

Each hound that Damon disposed of another seemed to appear in its
place, materializing from the alley. Damon focused on disposing of the
hellhounds, only briefly noticing the night had gone deathly silent aside from
the howls and the fighting.

“Are you doing this?” he called out to Ariel as a splatter of
hellhound blood splashed across his black shirt.

“I’m not a fighter,” Ariel yelled. “I’m a caster, so I figured the
best help I can offer is to hide us.”

“Good plan, but they keep coming.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Ariel said, sarcasm bleeding from her tone.

Damon’s sword disappeared as he wrapped his arms around Ariel’s
waist and flashed them back to his hotel a few towns over.

“You want protection now?” Damon asked sardonically.

“If not for you, they wouldn’t have found me,” Ariel said, pushing
a long, loose lock of hair from her face.

Damon scoffed—was she serious? He just saved her life; she
would have been a tasty morsel for those hounds.

“How do you figure?” he questioned her.

“I’ve been safe here for the past six months. Suddenly you show up
and so do the hounds. I can only
figure
you brought them with you. What do you want from me?” Ariel asked, taking an
obvious step back from him.

“I want to protect you. It was dumb luck that I showed up today
and was able to protect you. If I hadn’t, you’d be hound food.”

Ariel studied him, and then took in the room they were now in.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“We're in my room at the Doubletree in Rohnert Park.”

“So we’re in a pretty public place?”

Damon raised a brow at her. “I suppose.”

“Can they follow your flash?”

“No, you’re safe here, Ariel, but the question I have for you
is—what do you want to do now?”

Ariel narrowed her eyes at him before looking down at herself. She
had dark stains covering her jeans and white shirt.

“What I want is a shower; you got hellhound blood on me.”

Damon smirked and couldn’t help but poke at Ariel a little. “I got
hellhound blood on me too—care for some company?”

Ariel’s eyes drifted up and down Damon’s body. The man was built
and had helped her and well…he was
gorgeous
:
close-cut black hair, grey eyes, and a full mouth that looked oh-so kissable.

“No,” Ariel said with a smile as she walked into the bathroom and
locked the door.

Three days had passed with no signs of Serna or her hounds. Damon
had been spending Ariel’s work shifts at the bar with her. He’d admittedly
spent most of that time in a corner booth watching her.

They’d fallen into a simple, flirty repertoire and Damon found his
body wanting more than to just protect Ariel. He wanted her—he wanted to
run his fingers through her silky hair, run his tongue along her soft,
jasmine-scented skin, he wanted to hold her close, and he wanted her to
straddle him in his bed. He was losing himself to the beautiful Witch he was
sent to protect.

Ariel carried an air of mystery around her. He’d caught her
studying him from time to time with a very observant eye, but she held back any
thoughts she had. He knew she hadn’t fully opened up to him, but he intended to
change that tonight. He planned to—at the very least—taste her
sweet, pink lips.

“You ready to go?” Ariel asked as she approached his booth.

Damon smiled… Yes, he was most
definitely
ready to go.

He nodded as he rose from his booth. “Come on, let’s get out of
here.”

Damon placed his hand on the small of Ariel’s back and led her
through the parking lot to the alley, where he flashed them back to his house
this time instead of the hotel.

“Where are we?” Ariel asked, as she did a small circle, taking in
her surroundings. The secluded house was large. From where she stood on the
front lawn she could see nothing but trees surrounding them and the two-story
log home.

“This is my home,” Damon said as he led her forward.

Ariel smirked. “I was wondering if you would ever take me
somewhere other than that cheap hotel.”

Damon scoffed. “That hotel wasn’t cheap.”

Ariel looked up at him through hooded eyes. This was precisely
what she’d been waiting for.

With a sultry move, Ariel ran her fingers down Damon’s hard, broad
chest and locked them behind his back, lifting up on her tiptoes. She pressed
her lips firmly against his. With little coaxing, Damon’s lips parted and Ariel
drove her tongue deep into his mouth. Damon melted into the kiss, their tongues
twisting in a sultry dance.

He never saw it coming.

Ariel’s head dropped as she pulled back from Damon, her fingers
slipping off the hilt of the knife she’d just plunged into his back. Damon’s
grey eyes were wide as they met hers. The beautiful, pale jade of her eyes
swirled, taking on a deep emerald shade, her mahogany hair lightening to a pale
gold as her features morphed into a face he had spent so many wasted hours
searching for.

“Serna,” Damon muttered as he fell to his knees in front of the
Witch Queen.

“That’s right—you finally got your wish.” Serna bent down in
front of him, yanking the dagger from his back. “You found me.”

“How?” Damon asked.

“I sent the Caldwell Witch to find you—she wants her niece
back.” Serna smiled. “At that point I cast a cloaking spell to hide my power
level and a glamour spell to look like the precious Ariel.”

“Is she still alive?” Damon asked through pain-clenched teeth.

Serna laughed. “Of course not; she’s been dead for weeks now. You
know Damon, it’s a shame you’ve wanted to kill me all these years. We could
have been good together.”

With a brief kiss to his lips, Serna plunged the dagger deep into
Damon’s chest.