All Things Wicked (7 page)

Chapter Six

C
aleb had always thought it fitting that the Coven of the Unbinding made its home down amid the unmarked graves of the forgotten. He knew that corpses seeded the ruins, many buried under tons of rock and plaster and cement. Most were victim to the earthquakes, and many more casualties of the fires and flooding that followed.

But some were more recent. Some he’d put there himself.

Like Cordelia Carpenter. The only family Juliet had ever known. An orphan.

Like I’m the only witch who is.

Damn.

It was raining, as only Old Seattle could know it, and misery simmered into a dull, throbbing ache from his forehead to feet. Water streamed from the twisted nest of tangled pipes embedded into the cement ceiling far above. They helped drain the lower dregs of New Seattle into the empty ruins.

Helped keep the underground moist and rotting.

They walked in silence, step by bloody step. Every minute became a struggle, and he found himself focused on Juliet in front of him.

Pretty Juliet, Alicia called her. Lovely Juliet.

Snide. It was supposed to be. Few could have held a candle to Alicia’s striking raven-haired beauty back in the day. And of the sisters, he had to admit, Delia had been prettier with her long blond hair and emerald-bright eyes.

But it was Juliet who had haunted him all those months ago. Whose wide, green eyes watched him from the fringes.

And who he had watched back, despite every fucking voice of reason in his head telling him not to.

What was he supposed to do?

Leave her the hell alone.

Especially knowing that her sister, a powerless prostitute dying from some unknown disease, had volunteered to be his final sacrifice in a bid to destroy a coven he had
seen
reaching for the stars.

A sacrifice that had cost Juliet so much more than it ever did him.

But he’d promised.

And she was a goddamned orphan.
Why the hell hadn’t he known? In hindsight, he supposed it was obvious. Aside from shades of green eyes, she and Delia hadn’t looked that much alike, but for Christ’s sake, he and his own sister weren’t exactly identical, either.

How was he to know?

And would it have mattered? Even knowing he wrenched away the only family Juliet had ever known, would he have stopped?

No.

The Coven of the Unbinding was bigger than his feelings. His needs.

Bigger than a sister.

That’s what he’d told himself.

He dropped his head, blinking away the water as it dripped into his eyes, but that only put his gaze in line with her ass. The damned flashlight she held outlined her body in a halo of gold, knocking sense out of his skull with every feminine swing.

He knew that body.

Knew the feel of those legs around him, the heat of her skin beneath his palms, the sound of her voice as she climaxed—
For God’s sake.

He’d killed her sister and still lied about it. Destroyed the coven she had relied on. Screwed her and left her and dropped out of sight for over a year. Sacrifice and failure.

And then to find out that something about her, something in her magic, called to his?

Fuck. Shit. “Asshole,” he muttered under his breath. Caleb was exactly that. An asshole. He had to be.

Because in order to find out exactly what Alicia and her remaining witches were up to, he was going to have to wrench open whatever vault sealed his power away.

Juliet Carpenter just might be the only key he had.

The pain in his head, the angry sound of hornets droning in his ears, had started with her. Her magic had reached out, feeling, extending. He could sense it. Something in him had responded, hammered at the invisible barrier that walled his magic off. Struggling to meet hers, merge with it.

Use
it.

How, why? That, he didn’t know.

Why did she share the same bar code tattoo as his own sister? That, he also didn’t know, and he didn’t like not knowing.

He’d find out. He had to. Everything depended on his visions; everything always had. Juliet, Jessie. The city.

The future.

Caleb tore his eyes from the tempting insanity of Juliet’s hips and gritted his teeth, focusing his burning, watering gaze on the patch of ground separating them.

Fate was a bitch.

Trapped in a red mist of concentration and pain, he misjudged a step.

He stumbled, toe snagging on the ragged edge of a protruding metal cylinder. The next step barely made it off the rubble-strewn path, caught against something his blurring eyes couldn’t see anymore and he pitched.

The ground was a hell of a lot closer than he’d thought. Grunting, joints cracking loudly in the endless, stifling quiet, he fell to his hands and knees. Sharp gravel gouged into his palms; excruciating pain lanced through his spine, his brain, out of his mouth on a four-lettered objection, and his sight crackled to white.

Splattered by flecks of red where drops of his own blood blurred into rivulets of water.

Weakness battered at his defenses. Exhaustion plucked at his resolve. He couldn’t go on like this.

He couldn’t stop, either.

Juliet sank to her knees beside him. “You’re bleeding,” she said sharply. “How long have you been— Damn it, Caleb!”

God, her voice, all sweet and breathless. Even when angry, even while poking at him in the middle of hell.

Caleb’s laugh stuck in his throat. He shook off her restraining hand, forcing himself to sit back on his heels. He immediately regretted it as the world spun wildly around him, a thousand shades of black outside the tiny path of light the flashlight gave them.

He shook his head, swiping his forearm over his eyes. His vision cleared on her face. Concerned. Tired, hell, exhausted, but she’d always been a fighter.

Never tough enough, but determined as hell.

His fingers dug into the grit. “We can’t stop,” he said, but the words came out thick. Wrapped in fog.

“Yes, we can.” She caught his unwounded shoulder, digging her fingers into the jacket to pull him back down as he struggled to stand. “And we’re going to before you pass out. Take your jacket off.”

“No.”

Frustration etched grooves into her mask of concern. “There’s no reason to be a hero here. We’ll rest.”

Caleb reached up, shackled his fingers around her wrist and tugged her hand away. “We keep moving,” he said, and summoned every last ounce of willpower he had left to surge to his feet. The ground yawed wildly under him. He staggered, swore.

And found five feet and five inches of warm woman tucked against his side.

Juliet’s fierce green eyes crackled a warning as she wrapped her arm around his waist. The other hand curled around his wrist, securing his arm over her shoulders and pinning him neatly to her side. “If you’re going to be an idiot,” she huffed, bracing against his weight, “I may as well help.”

Warmth collected somewhere behind his breastbone, insidious and sweet.

He swallowed it down. “Can do it myself.”

“Just shut up, please.”

“It’s not—”

“Caleb, I swear to God, if you don’t shut up—”

He straightened so fast, she stumbled over her own feet. Without pausing to work it out, to think it through, he grabbed her shoulders. He told himself it was to steady her. To keep her from falling, to keep
him
from falling. Her eyes widened, her lips parted.

Caleb reminded himself that he was a liar.

He pulled her close enough to fit her body to his, to mold her curves from chest to thigh and invade every last inch of her space. She sucked in a breath.

He tightened his grip on her shoulders and dragged her up on her toes. The semihard ache between his legs strengthened to blinding lust as he rasped, “Just once more,” and covered her mouth with his.

Short circuits shifted to fireworks. Sparklers of heat and need and fear and frustration shot through his veins and lit every nerve he had left. Her mouth opened helplessly beneath the onslaught of his kiss, her soft lips clung to his, rubbed until static became fire became savage need. He devoured her breath, her sweetness, swallowed her gasp and skimmed his fingers up the curve of her shoulder as she shuddered.

His thumbs slid along her jaw, tightened as she pushed herself harder against him. Angling her head, he swept in for a deeper kiss, tongue thrusting between her teeth to taste the dark heat of a craving he damn well didn’t want to acknowledge.

Pain simmered into longing, satisfaction with the raw edge of a bone-deep anger. He growled deep in his chest, slid his tongue along hers. Her arms twined around his neck, her nails skimming his nape and forcing another rough sound from his throat as she bit at his lower lip.

The small pain, rough and surprising, slammed straight to his dick and squeezed.

He’d done this before. He knew how easy it would be to sweep her off her feet, haul her into his arms, and plaster her body against some wall somewhere; spread her out on the wet ground and sink into her until he didn’t have to remember anything but his own name as she whispered it in the dark.

You’ll break her if you try.

Guilt sliced through his conscience, leaving bloody furrows that tore his mouth from hers and left him reeling.

With a low sound of impatience, Juliet twisted his shirt in her hands and slid the hem up. Logic and desire clashed. Burned. “Not again,” she whispered, but her eyes were heavy-lidded, veiled by the lacy fan of her smudged lashes. “Heaven help me, but something about you—”

Groaning, he threw back his head as her fingers slid over the clenched muscles of his stomach. Her touch left a trail of fire in its wake, shimmers of wanting and impatience and, hell, raw lust that shot straight to the pulsing erection trapped beneath the confining rasp of his jeans.

“God.” Her voice caught as her hand curved over the ragged tissue at his left side.

The scars he bore. The scars he’d created himself.

He wrenched back from that touch, jerked away before her single syllable could turn to revulsion. Moved too fast, too eager to put distance between them; his body fought him, and he sank to a knee as pain swamped his synapses. It overwhelmed everything in a flurry of craving and agony and fatigue.

The buzzing in his head was back, like rusty nails on glass. He panted for breath.

Juliet staggered, her cheeks flushed in the dim light, eyes hazy as she struggled to help him and keep herself from pitching over at the same time.

The world turned orange and white. A column of flame arced overhead, lighting the ruins like a comet, and she jerked, startled. As effective as a bucket of ice water.

Caleb lurched back to his feet with more intensity than he had the energy for. “Coven,” he hissed, as if it wasn’t obvious. He tried to push her behind him, but Juliet caught his arm, draping it around her shoulders.

He couldn’t argue. It beat falling on his face in front of the enemy.

They slipped out of the shadows around them. Caleb fought to keep from swaying as one of the figures stepped into the light. He managed to put together a face covered with tattoos and grimaced.

A faint gleam of blue winked out as the witch tucked something small and glassy into his pocket. He raised a silver revolver in his other hand, pointing it at them with steady ease. “Well, damn. It worked,” he said, and grinned. “How about that?”

Caleb’s chin drooped. “How many are there?” he murmured. “I might be seeing double.”

Juliet shifted under his weight. “Two.”

“That’s all?”

“So far,” she told him dourly. “Give them time.”

No kidding. “Get ready,” he murmured, tensing as the tattooed witch stepped closer.

“So this is how it goes,” the tattooed witch began, only to swear as Caleb snapped out a hand and flung the flashlight at him. The light spun, end over end, and Caleb shoved Juliet to the ground just as a gunshot cracked through the false night.

She yelped, pained sound cut short as he landed on her, barking his elbows and one knee. The breath knocked out of her, she gasped as the gunshot echoes slammed back from every direction.

Real guns, real bullets, real magic. They had to be out to kill.

Or were they?

Maybe not.

Juliet shifted beneath him, and he closed his eyes.

Gentle. He didn’t have the luxury.

Firelight flickered into sudden, vivid life. It threw shadows across the wicked orange panels of light dancing over every ruin, every crumbling wall and twisted remnant of structures gone to rot. Fire outlined them all in stark radiance.

He didn’t have any other options.

Rolling off her, Caleb jumped to his feet, seized Juliet by the arms, and yanked her up. Wordlessly, ignoring the shocked flare of her eyes, he spun her around, pinned one arm behind her back, and locked his forearm at her throat.

Juliet froze in his arms, every muscle clenched. “Caleb?”

He didn’t look at her. He stared at the two witches, each outlined by the fire witch’s flame. “The way I hear it,” he said, almost conversationally, “you’re not supposed to kill her.”

The tall, lanky man with a shock of bleached hair over one eye took a step forward. Fire pooled over his palm like water. It dripped to the ground, liquid flame that sizzled out as it hit wet rock and dirt.

One wrong move, and that magic could engulf them both. Just the thought of it made the skin between his shoulder blades itch in memory.

Caleb wrenched Juliet’s arm higher, forcing her to cry out.

The fire witch stopped mid-step, but the tattooed witch watched him calmly. “Where will you go?” he asked, the black line of his lower lip set into a smirk. “You can’t run, soothsayer.” He patted his pocket. “Not from us.”

“You think,” he lied, forcing Juliet to take a step back with him, “that I haven’t
seen
this? Go ahead, gentlemen. Ask me how you die.”

The younger witch glanced at the tattooed one.

“I can’t believe I trusted you,” Juliet hissed. Her voice cracked on the arm he lodged against her esophagus. She clung to his forearm with her free hand and spat, “I hate you.”