Darknight (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 2) (10 page)

Connor opened the door and led me in. I suppose he didn’t see the need to knock, as it was his brother’s house. Or maybe it was locked against anyone who wasn’t a Wilcox. All I knew was that I didn’t intend to touch the door handle to find out. Those magical shocks were strong enough that I’d still be able to feel them even through my gloves.

When we entered the place, my first impression was of sound and light — people talking and laughing, pale winter sunlight shining through the pine trees that surrounded the house and slanting through the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows in the room opposite the entry, windows that surrounded an equally enormous stone fireplace. Logs crackled and snapped within. I pulled in a breath and wished I knew a good invisibility spell. Or one for teleportation. That would do just fine, too.

Neither of those spells was at my disposal, however, so I followed Connor’s lead and took off my coat, then hung it on one of the overcrowded racks clustered by the front door.

“Connor!” an unfamiliar voice called out, and I saw a tall dark-haired man smile and wave. He had the Wilcox look about him, with his sooty hair and eyes and high cheekbones, but his expression as he approached us was far friendlier than I imagined Damon’s could ever be.

“Lucas,” Connor said, “I want you to meet Angela.”

The man came to a stop even as his eyes widened. I could see the astonishment in them, that I would be here at all. But then he seemed to gather himself, and he smiled at me. “Angela. It’s so very good to see you here. I’m Lucas Wilcox, Connor’s cousin.”

“Fourth, right?”

“Something like that. Who’s counting?”

I couldn’t help smiling a little, recalling how I’d always thought of Adam that way. Third…fourth…five times removed…when the connection got that tenuous, it started to not matter very much exactly what degree it was. Thinking of Adam probably wasn’t wise, though, because then all I could do was wonder who else among these dark, handsome people had been wearing a hooded cloak that night, and had been there when the Wilcoxes invaded my home and stole me away.

Although my smile had faded, I still managed to say, “It’s very nice to meet you, Lucas.”

His dark eyes twinkled a little, as if he guessed I was only uttering the words custom expected me to say. But his only comment was, “Don’t even try to remember all our names, because it’s impossible. Just smile and nod…and make sure Connor keeps your glass filled. Assuming you drink, of course.”

Oh, I drink. Right now I want to drink…a lot.

I gave a foolish sort of nod, not knowing exactly how I should reply. Connor rushed to my aid, saying, “Looks like I’m already falling down on the job in that department. Angela, let’s get these bottles over to the table in the family room — that’s where we set up the food — and then I’ll get us a couple glasses of wine.”

“Sure.” I allowed him to lead me away from Lucas, who seemed to watch me as I went, a speculative look on his face.

I couldn’t figure out what that meant, though, because once we were moving through the living room we were approached from all sides, people saying hello and introducing themselves, a blur of smiling faces and names that, as Lucas had said, I couldn’t possibly begin to remember. Looking at them, I wondered what their talents were. We had a good deal of variation in Jerome, as there weren’t as many of us, and somehow the different skills seemed to get distributed evenly amongst a witch population, but there were so many Wilcoxes it seemed there had to be some doubling up. Not that I could ask; it was one thing to discuss such things privately, but going up to a witch or warlock and asking them to identify their talent was about on par with walking up to a stranger and inquiring about their weight.

We’d just set down the wine bottles when a woman approached and said, “So you were able to make it.”

As I focused on her features, it was all I could do to hold in a gasp. This was the woman from that nightmarish scene when I’d first been brought here to Flagstaff, when I’d been held down on a makeshift altar by one of Damon Wilcox’s unnamable spells. The Native American blood in her features was far more pronounced than it was in many of the other Wilcox clan members, and I wondered at it.

“Hi, Marie,” Connor said. “This is Angela.”

Her cool dark gaze slid over toward me, and she smiled, although it didn’t quite reach her long-lashed black eyes. “So glad you came. And you really made those tamales Connor brought over the other day? You are quite an amazing cook.”

So this was Connor’s cousin Marie. He’d mentioned her several times, and she appeared to hold a position of some importance in the clan. If nothing else, she seemed to be one of the few people with the strength to stand up to Damon Wilcox.

Belatedly I recalled that she was also the one who’d done most of the shopping for me, so I said quickly, “Thank you, Marie. And thank you for choosing all those wonderful clothes. They all fit perfectly, and the colors are great.”

Another one of those cool smiles. She herself was dressed very well, if simply, in a long black skirt, slim-fitting black sweater, black boots, and some eye-popping turquoise jewelry. My Aunt Rachel would’ve positively salivated over that squash blossom necklace. “You’re very welcome. It’s good to see that you’ve…adapted…so well to things here.”

“She really has,” Connor put in. “Although I’m hoping after today the two of us can get out to do some hiking or something. If she keeps feeding me the way she has, I’m going to need some way to work it off.”

“Better buy me some snowshoes first,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. Something about Marie seemed to set me on edge. Maybe it was just that I did clearly remember her from that hideous night when Damon had tried to make me his consort, and couldn’t forgive her for the role she’d played. Or maybe it was the faint hint of disapproval that seemed to emanate from her, although I couldn’t figure out why. After all, she hadn’t seemed all that upset at the time when it turned out I was Connor’s match and not Damon’s.

Well, this probably wasn’t the place to attempt to figure it out. I’d try to pick Connor’s brain on the subject later, when we were safely home and away from here.

Home. Funny how I already thought of the apartment as my home, when I’d only spent a few days there. But somehow I knew that wherever Connor was, that was home.

“The snow melts pretty quickly on the lower elevations,” he said. “And it’s supposed to warm up through New Year’s. So I don’t think you need to worry about snowshoes.”

“Hiking boots, then.”

“Not a problem. We’ve got two hiking stores in walking distance.”

I couldn’t really argue with that. What I found more interesting was the way Marie seemed to watch our interchange, as if she were carefully studying our interactions. What, was she surprised by the way Connor and I got along? Didn’t she know that was how it worked with a
prima
and her consort, that our bond made us more than mere mates, made us lovers who were intertwined on every level, body, mind, and soul?

Maybe she didn’t. After all, things were done very differently here in Wilcox territory….

But of course she made no comment, offering another of her Mona Lisa smiles before saying, “There are quite a few diversions here in and around Flagstaff, Angela. I hope you and Connor have fun exploring them.” Her gaze drifted away from us. “But it looks as if Taryn is waving me over. You two enjoy yourselves.” She moved off into the crowd.

So many questions filled my mind, I didn’t know where to start. But I had one thing uppermost in my brain. “I’ll take that glass of wine now, Connor.”

A
fter a few gulps
of some local wine — a red blend from Arizona Stronghold — I was feeling a little more in control of myself. So far no one had tried to hex me straight back to Jerome, or turned me into a frog. Then again, why would they? In their eyes, I was one of them now. I’d bonded with Connor, brother of the
primus
. Now we were all just one big happy family.

Well, more or less.

More introductions, more smiling at attractive dark-haired people whose faces I wasn’t sure I’d be able to recall the next day. Okay, maybe their faces — I was always fairly good at that sort of thing. But names? As Lucas had advised me, I didn’t even try.

We ate and drank, and then drank some more. I felt as if I were in a sort of dream, as if all the introductions were happening to someone else, someplace else. I couldn’t be in Damon Wilcox’s house, chatting with his relations, talking about the weather and the food in downtown Flagstaff (not that I was an expert, except for the tapas Connor and I had shared my first night here), and talking about my aunt’s cooking and providing tips on making tamales as if doing so was the most natural thing in the world.

Through all this, I wondered where the man himself actually was. I hadn’t seen anything of him since we’d entered the house. Was he avoiding Connor and me, not wanting to see the two of us together, not wanting to look at the prize he’d had taken from him?

No, that was ridiculous; I shouldn’t flatter myself. The place was huge, after all; laughter and chatter echoed from the open area on the second floor, which looked like a game room of sorts, and there were many other rooms down on the ground floor that I hadn’t even seen yet. Connor seemed to understand that I was more comfortable staying here in the family room, close to the food and the wine. Everyone flowed in and out of the space anyway, since they needed to refill their own glasses and plates.

We’d been there for a little more than an hour when Connor leaned down and murmured in my ear, “I need to go to the bathroom. Will you be okay here for a minute or two?”

My first reaction was to say no, I wouldn’t, but that would be childish. Setting aside the off-putting undercurrent in Marie’s reaction to me, everyone else had been very friendly. Maybe too friendly, because of course it didn’t take much for me to start wondering just
why
they were being so nice. I’d worry about that later, though. I was certainly in no imminent danger, except maybe from indigestion after eating my way through everything from chili cornbread to Swedish meatballs.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, and hoisted my plastic cup in his direction. “You just gave me a refill, remember?”

“Right.” The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled down at me, and he bent and kissed me quickly, a soft touch of his lips at the edge of my mouth. “Don’t eat too much, though. I don’t want you so full that we can’t have a repeat engagement when we get back to the apartment.”

“Not a problem,” I said. “I’ll have, what, a whole twenty minutes to digest even if we left right now?”

He shook his head and moved away, heading toward a hall I’d noticed earlier, although I didn’t know which rooms branched off from it. The bathroom at least, obviously. Or one of them, as a place this big had to have at least three or four.

I took a few steps toward the fireplace. This room had its own hearth, not as grand as the one in the living room, but still imposing, made of more stone and reaching up to the wood-paneled ceiling. The crowd had ebbed away, most people seeming content to let the food they’d eaten settle a bit before they came back for seconds or thirds.

“Enjoying yourself?”

Damon Wilcox’s voice. Something in those silky tones sent an icy shiver down my spine. My fingers tightened on the clear plastic cup I held, and I had to tell myself to relax before I crushed it and spilled wine everywhere.

I took a breath, then forced myself to turn around. He stood a few paces away, watching me, black eyes hooded. He wore a gray houndstooth jacket over a white button-down shirt and jeans, an outfit that seemed calculated to present the perfect image of a college professor relaxing at home.

“Very much,” I said coolly. “You have a beautiful home.”

“You like it?” he inquired. “It could have been your home as well.”

My heart thumped uneasily, and I told myself it was fine. He couldn’t do anything to me here in front of all these people.

What, the same people who stood by and watched while he tried to force the
primus
bond on you?
my brain mocked me. All right, maybe the presence of the Wilcox clan members wasn’t as big a safeguard as I’d thought.

But Connor had just gone down the hall and would be back at any second….

“I’m fine with Connor’s apartment, actually.”

“Are you?”

I paused, then forced myself to meet those piercing black eyes.
He can’t do anything to you now,
I reassured myself.
You’re bonded to his brother. You’re useless to him. He’s just messing with you because he can, and because he’s still pissed that he didn’t get what he wanted.

“More than fine. I mean, I have everything I could possibly want. My consort has turned out to be the man I’ve been dreaming of for years. What girl wouldn’t be thrilled by that?”

His lips thinned. “Sometimes dreams can be nightmares.”

“I know that,” I retorted. “Because you sure did your damn best to screw up mine, didn’t you?”

At least he didn’t try to deny that he’d been meddling with my dreams. “It was an interesting experiment, that’s true. Dreams have…a fascinating energy.”

At that moment I saw Connor approaching from behind his brother. Judging by the look on his face, Connor was not exactly thrilled about the
primus
swooping down on me the second I was left alone. “Damon,” he said, his voice tight.

Damon allowed his gaze to linger on me for another second before he turned to greet his brother. “Oh, hello, Connor. Angela and I were just having a nice chat.”

Jaw tight, Connor moved past Damon to stand next to me. “Were you?”

No way was I going to challenge Damon here on his home ground. Besides, I’d always been taught that causing a scene at a family get-together was in extremely poor taste. “Oh, yeah,” I said airily. “I was just complimenting Damon on his lovely house. Wasn’t I, Damon?”

Instead of looking annoyed, he merely smiled and said, “Yes, you were. Connor, it seems your little
prima
here appreciates the finer things in life. You might want to reconsider that cramped apartment of yours.”