Protector (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 5) (3 page)

“No!” she screamed, somehow forcing the syllable past the constriction in her throat, past the strange fuzziness that seemed to have settled on her brain. Roslyn blinked at her, as if puzzled why Caitlin would have a problem with Tomas slicing her open with a knife.

“Calm down,
chica
,” Matías murmured, his breath hot against Caitlin’s neck. “He’s not going to kill her. We just need something from her.”

“You can’t….” She made herself gasp in a breath, hoping the extra oxygen would make her brain begin to work properly. “It’s wrong. We don’t — we don’t do that kind of magic.”

“Maybe you don’t. But we do.” He nodded, and Tomas drew the blade across Roslyn’s arm, a quick, sharp cut, barely more than inch long. Deep crimson blood dripped from the wound onto the circle chalked on the ground.

Faint tendrils of pale gray smoke began to drift upward. At the same time, Caitlin could feel the wrongness of the thing they’d drawn twisting through her, cold, hungry…strong. It was more than chalk on the ground.

It was alive.

“Roslyn!” she screamed. “Run!”

But Roslyn only looked at her with foggy blue eyes, and Danica wasn’t watching at all, had her eyes shut as Jorge kissed her neck and stroked her bare arm. She didn’t seem to have heard Caitlin’s cry, or, worse, was ignoring it.

“I don’t think they mind,
chica
,” Matías said, chuckling into her ear. “And you won’t, either, when your time comes.”

Help. She had to get help. From where or from whom, she didn’t know, because she was in the heart of de la Paz territory, and here were three guys from that clan engaging in the sort of magic that had been forbidden for centuries. But she knew Roslyn and Danica were lost to her for the moment, and so the only thing she could think of to do was to run.

The next part didn’t require thought, only instinct…and the strength to overcome the fog of confusion which had come with that margarita she’d sipped. But she’d only had a little. Besides, damn it — she was a McAllister.

She twisted in Matías’ arms, bringing her knee up into his groin as hard as she could. He grunted, then cursed. Sharp pain flared in her side, and she saw he’d been holding a knife that whole time, had just plunged it into her. Because the angle was off, it barely penetrated more than an inch, but oh, Goddess, it hurt.

Crying out, she brought her elbow up into his chin, connecting squarely. He cursed again, but, more importantly, he let go of her.

That was all she needed. Mentally asking Roslyn and Danica for forgiveness, Caitlin bolted from the room, then ran through the house and out the front door. Without bothering to stop and close it behind her, she pounded down the walkway and back to the sidewalk, retracing her steps, knowing she had to get back out to the thoroughfare where the restaurant was located.

Not that she was sure she could make it that far. The restaurant was blocks from where they’d turned into this residential district, but between here and there, she’d noted there were other businesses, places where people had to be working. Normal people. Ordinary people. They’d see she’d been hurt and call an ambulance. Surely she’d be safe in the hospital, wouldn’t she?

Behind her, she heard running feet, but no shouting. No, that would probably draw too much attention. All she could do was run, glad that she hadn’t worn her flip-flops and instead had on a pair of ballet-style flats.

Don’t look back,
she told herself. The pain in her side was searing, but it seemed to clear her head, get rid of that horrible fuzziness. Or maybe it was just that she’d put enough distance between herself and Matías that whatever spell he’d cast — and it had to be a spell — wasn’t working as well anymore.

And there was the street, and cars whizzing back and forth. She let out a sobbing little breath, thinking she’d never been so glad to see anything in her life. Something wet was dripping on her jeans, and she glanced down and realized the blood from her wound had flowed from her side and had stained all the way to her thigh.

But she couldn’t think about that, think about how much it hurt. Now she had turned on to the sidewalk that paralleled the street, and it seemed harder and harder to keep running. She slowed to a walk, risked a look behind her. Matías stood on the corner, fists balled at his side, but he made no motion to come any closer. She guessed that he couldn’t, not with this many witnesses around. So his powers had some limits.

Just up ahead was a large building, a store of some kind. Her vision was becoming blurry, so she couldn’t see what its sign said. But there were cars in the parking lot, and people coming and going. And she couldn’t walk much farther. Surely someone here would help her.

She pressed her hand against her side, attempting to conceal as much as she could of the blood that stained her clothing. Limping now, she staggered past the parked cars and went into the cool, air-conditioned interior of the building. Around her, she could hear gasps as the shoppers in the store appeared to take in her condition, but she couldn’t focus on any of them. Not really. Just up ahead was a tall young man in a white dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He looked handsome and friendly, with kind dark eyes.

Summoning the last of her strength, Caitlin went to him, grasped his arm. Her hand left bloody prints on his white shirt. His eyes widened, even as he reached out to catch her.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please help me.”

The world went dark.

A
lex Trujillo shoved
the clipboard under his arm and went back to the stockroom. Just as he’d expected, the bags of rice Luis said he couldn’t find were stacked right where Alex had known they would be, on the rack on the west wall. He tried not to sigh. It probably would have been easier if Luis was actually that stupid. He wasn’t, though…just lazy. And because he was Alex’s cousin, Alex couldn’t exactly fire him.

Just another day at Mercado Trujillo.

For most of his life, Alex had known this was where he’d probably end up, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. His one chance at escape had been that kiss with Angela McAllister. If he’d turned out be her consort, he would have been up in Jerome…doing what, he wasn’t sure…but at least it wouldn’t be managing the store that had been in his father’s family for three generations now.

But he hadn’t been Angela’s soul mate. No, that role had gone to Connor Wilcox, of all people. Lucky bastard. It wasn’t as if Alex had thought he was in love with Angela or anything. He barely knew her. What he’d seen, he’d liked, and at the time he’d thought they could have been good together, if fate or the Goddess or whomever had seen fit to smile on their pairing. She’d been destined for other things, however, and so Alex had let it go. Mostly.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if his brother Diego could have shouldered part of the burden here. He was the oldest son, after all, and so he really should have been the one to take over the store, or at least the larger part of managing it. But last year he’d finally gotten around to getting married, to a woman whose family owned a vineyard down in Bisbee, and he’d gone to work there instead, using the excuse that Letty was an only child and that he was needed to help shoulder some of the burden.

Burden
, Alex thought.
Yeah, it must be really rough to spend your whole day tasting wine.

Intellectually, he knew there was more to managing a vineyard than that. And Diego’s new wife was a civilian, which meant Diego had to be on guard all the time. Maria knew about the de la Paz clan, that her husband’s family wasn’t exactly typical, but her own family didn’t have a clue about the de la Pazes. And they needed to be kept in the dark, for obvious reasons.

“Besides,” Luz Trujillo had pointed out to her son, probably trying to be helpful but in fact just making things worse, “why did you get those degrees in marketing and communications, if not to be more valuable to the store? I’m sure you’ll have all sort of ideas!”

He’d had ideas once. Unfortunately, none of them really applied to running a neighborhood
mercado
, even if said
mercado
had a thriving side business that most of its regular customers didn’t know anything about. Through a side door that most civilians thought led to another stockroom or possibly an office, you went into a second store, smaller, but stocked with the sorts of items the witches and warlocks in the area might need: crystals and other stones of power, herbs and floral essences, candles and saints’ icons and all manner of arcane items. Luz Trujillo, whose gifts included a facility with minor illusions, had cast a spell on that doorway so the civilians never quite noticed the parade of people going in and out during the hours the
mercado
was open for business.

“Luis,” Alex said to his cousin, who was lurking in the dry goods aisle, attempting to look busy but really eyeing a pretty girl who was inspecting the spice display, “the rice is on the shelf to your right as you go in the stockroom.” He’d tried to sound mild, but he couldn’t help letting an edge creep into his voice as he added, “The same place it’s always been.”

The girl giggled, and Luis gave Alex the evil eye. At least he didn’t argue, though, but headed back where he was told, albeit with excruciating slowness.

And that’s the problem with hiring family,
Alex thought. Things would have been so much easier if he could have just gotten some regular help around the place.

Frowning, he emerged from the dry goods aisle and began walking toward the front of the store. His frown deepened, though, as he heard gasps and murmurs from up near the entrance. In the next moment, he saw the source of the disturbance: a young woman with long red hair was staggering toward him, eyes blank, glazed. For a second or two, he wondered if she might be drunk, or possibly high, and then he saw the stain of bright blood against her pale blue gauzy top, the way that blood had run all the way down her side and onto her jeans. And in that same instant he felt the slight tingle that told him he was in the presence of a witch, even as she reached out with a bloody hand to grasp him, her hoarse voice pleading for help right before she slumped into his arms.

He couldn’t stop to think. The better place to take her would be the hidden side of the store, the one where the witches shopped, but he wasn’t sure his mother’s spell could hold up, not with so many curious eyes on him. So he lifted the strange young woman, saying to the clerk, “Manuela, call 911!”

Since Manuela was another witch, she would know he didn’t really want her to call emergency services, but instead their local healer, who lived approximately ten minutes away. She nodded, picked up the phone, and made a show of dialing 911…but instead was putting the call through to the healer. Luckily, this wasn’t the first time the clan had had to indulge in this sort of subterfuge, so the healer would know to come right away, no matter what Manuela might be saying on the phone.

Without pausing, Alex went on into the stockroom and through it, to the small break room at the back of the building. He laid the wounded witch on the couch there, then hurried to get some towels from the supply closet. After wetting a washcloth, he went back to the sofa before gingerly tugging her shirt upward a few inches so he could wipe away the blood and see where she was hurt.

And there it was — a small but deep gash in her left side, piercing the smooth, pale skin.

A knife wound. Shit.

He’d never seen her before, but, judging by the warm red hair that flowed over the shabby pillow where her head currently rested, he guessed she must be a McAllister. Most of them tended to be much fairer than the members of the Wilcox clan.

“Who are you?” he wondered, belatedly realizing he’d spoken the words out loud.

Her eyelids fluttered, and she stared up at him, face white and taut with pain. Then she seemed to focus on his features, and a spasm of panic went over her. She pushed at his hand and tried to sit up, wriggling away from the washcloth he had pressed against her side.

“Hey,” Alex said, wondering what in the world had set her off. Yes, she’d been attacked, but even in her wounded state, she had to sense that he was a fellow witch and that he meant her no harm. “Stay still. You’ve already lost enough blood.”

“You — you’re one of
them
,” she whispered, her voice cracking with fear.

“One of who?” he asked. “I’m — my name is Alex Trujillo. I’m Maya de la Paz’s grandson.”

That declaration seemed to calm her a little, although he noticed that she remained wedged up against the other end of the couch, as far away from him as she could manage. “Maya?” she echoed.

“That’s right, Maya,” he said, attempting to keep his voice as calm, as soothing, as he could manage. “She’s helped your clan before. You’re a McAllister, right? What’s your name?”

“C-Caitlin.”

Her voice shook, and her entire frame was wracked with shivers. Going into shock, probably. There was a blanket folded up at the top of the storage cabinet here in the break room. He should get that and cover her up. The healer would be here soon, but —

“Do you want a blanket, Caitlin?”

She nodded, and seemed relieved when he moved away from her to the cabinet. When he came back, he was careful to avoid touching her as he spread the blanket over her. With shaking fingers, she pulled it up to her chin.

He knew he should really be holding that washcloth up to the wound in her side to slow the bleeding, but he also knew that whatever had happened to her, it was traumatic enough that she seemed to be having difficulty recognizing a friendly gesture. Instead, he moved a foot or so away, then told her, “The healer is on her way. She’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

The smallest of nods. Her eyes, a clear, mesmerizing blue-green, seemed to be fixed on the window in the wall opposite, and as he watched, he saw tears fall from them and slide down her pale cheeks. “I left them,” she whispered, her voice ragged.

“Left who?” Alex asked. Something was going on here, that was for sure, but he couldn’t begin to make any sense of it. Maybe once Valentina got here and had this Caitlin McAllister put back together, they could figure out just what the hell had happened.

Almost as if his thoughts had summoned her, Alex heard a soft knock at the door to the break room. He went to answer it, letting the healer in. She was a tall, slender woman a few years younger than his mother, serenely beautiful.

“Over there,” he murmured, inclining his head toward the sofa. “Her name is Caitlin.”

That serenity appeared a little shaken when the healer approached Caitlin and realized the wounded young woman in question was a witch, too. Still, Valentina gathered herself and said softly, “Caitlin, I am Valentina. I will need to lay my hand on your wound. Will you allow me to do that?”

Silently, Caitlin nodded. Tears still leaked from her eyes, but she didn’t pull away, didn’t move or flinch as Valentina touched her. And that took some doing, because Alex knew from experience that although Valentina’s healing magic was powerful and effective, it wasn’t pain-free…more like you had to experience all the healing a wound or injury required as she brought her powers to bear. It could be intense.

Caitlin’s small white teeth clamped down on her lower lip as Valentina continued to press her hands against the wound in her side. Gradually, though, the young witch became less tense, until at last she expelled a breath and nodded.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice still hoarse. She placed her hand against her side, against the flesh that had knitted itself together, and gave a small wince. The spot would probably be tender for a few more days. “That’s…amazing.”

“You clan doesn’t have a healer, I recall,” Valentina said, straightening so she could move a few paces away from her patient, her work done.

“No, we all have to get patched up at the Verde Valley Medical Center,” Caitlin replied. Her gaze moved from the healer and came to rest on Alex. “I’m sorry I reacted like that. You’re Alex — the Alex who tried to be our
prima
’s consort. I should have recognized your name.”

“It’s all right,” he said, vaguely wishing she’d heard of him some other way. Not that there was anything shameful in not being a consort, if it wasn’t your fate. But still…. He shook himself. That wasn’t important right now. “You’ve had a shock. Can you tell us what happened?”

Her entire body seemed to tense, and she winced again. That involuntary reaction had probably hurt a good deal. “I-I’m not completely sure. I mean, I know
what
happened, but I still can’t explain it.”

Alex flicked a glance at Valentina, and she gave the tiniest lift of her shoulders. She’d healed Caitlin’s wound, but that didn’t mean she had any more idea of who had inflicted it — and why — than he himself did. He offered Caitlin what he hoped was an encouraging smile, saying, “Well, just tell us as best you can, and we’ll go from there.”

She hesitated for a few seconds. “Can I — could I have some water first, please?”

“Of course,” Valentina replied. She went to the break room’s refrigerator, where they kept some bottled water for the store’s employees. After pulling out one of the bottles, she took it to Caitlin, who accepted it with a grateful nod.

She drank deeply, almost a quarter of the bottle. “That’s better. It’s getting the rest of that…whatever it was…out of my throat.”

Alex could feel his eyebrows lift at that remark. What exactly
had
happened to her?

Now looking a little more composed, Caitlin shifted slightly on the couch so she was sitting more upright. That must have hurt as well, but she gave no sign of being in any pain, save for a quick tightening of her fingers around the water bottle she held. “There were three of them,” she said at last. “I was here with my friends. Roslyn McAllister and Danica Wilcox.” She pronounced the names carefully, as if wanting to drive home that her companions had been fellow witches. “We went out for drinks. Spring break, you know?”

Alex nodded. Of course, he’d never been able to cut too loose during his own vacations, mostly because his getaways in the greater Phoenix area had been made under the watchful eye of his grandmother, and so news of any debauchery he’d indulged in would have reached her ears soon enough. Not that Alex had much taste for debauchery. That had been more Diego’s thing.

The McAllister witch continued, “There were these guys at the bar. They came up to us. Sort of flirting, you know?”

That didn’t seem terribly strange. Even pale and drawn as she was now, he could see that Caitlin was extremely pretty. And that head of gorgeous red hair was sure to attract attention pretty much anywhere she went. He opened his mouth to reply in the affirmative, but she kept talking.

“Only…I knew there was something wrong about them. I
knew
, and yet I let Danica and Roslyn go with them anyway.”

“‘Knew’?” Valentina repeated. “How is it that you knew?”

Caitlin’s face seemed to crumple as fresh tears sprang to her eyes. Her fingers clutched the blanket, knuckles showing white against her already fair skin. “I could tell they were warlocks, you know, the way we can always tell when we’re around witch-kind. But it wasn’t just that. They felt off. Bad. Wrong. Whichever word you want to choose.” Her gaze fastened on Alex, and there seemed to be something both pleading and ashamed in those blue-green eyes of hers, too bright now because of the tears that still shimmered in them. “And I’m sorry about the way I reacted to you. It’s just that they were about your age, and also — ” She broke off, staring down at her fingers where they were knotted in the blanket.