Witch Fire (9 page)

She felt compelled to let it free from its prison inside her. The compulsion had been growing steadily. It was almost as though the power needed to be bled off.

Mira knew there had to be a way for her to access that magick on her own, without Jack's fire to draw it out, she just wasn't sure how to do it.

Jack was in the bedroom. He had shown no interest in helping her learn, so she'd just have to do it on her own.

Mira found a comfortable position and closed her eyes. She'd always been faithful in practicing meditation. Maybe her skill in that area could help her now.

She allowed herself to drift a little, find a comfortable place in her mind where she could rest. Her breathing deepened and the sounds in the penthouse—the gentle click of the grandfather clock in the corner, the soft noises of Jack rustling paper on his desk in the bedroom—faded to the back of her mind.

Once she felt centered, she shifted her awareness to the middle of her chest, feeling for the magick she knew resided there. But it didn't feel any different to her in this slightly altered state of consciousness than it had before. It felt locked in a box, and she didn't have the key. With her mind, she explored the edges of the “box,” looking for any way in, some fissure in the walls that penned the power.

Mira quickly grew frustrated. There seemed to be no way to access it at all. Would she always need Jack's fire to draw it? She hated that idea. If this was her power, she should be able to access it on her own.

She clenched her hands in her lap. This magick was
hers
to command, no one else's.

The power in the center of her chest exploded into a flare of brilliance at her declaration. Wind rushed through the penthouse, making her hair swirl around her face and practically toppling her from the couch.

Mira opened her eyes to see something akin to a windstorm sweeping through the room. The pretty blue vase on the pedestal crashed to the floor, papers on the table in the corner were swept up high into the air and scattered, something in the kitchen smashed.

The center of her chest glowed with warmth and the magick brushed over her skin like a velvet-gloved hand. She stood and walked a couple of paces to the center of the room, letting the air rush around her, buffet her hair, and pull at her clothes. Euphoria rushed through her and a smile spread across her face.

It wanted out of the confines of the apartment. It begged her with big puppy dog eyes to let it off its leash. As tempting as it was to release the power and allow it to play, Mira clamped down with all her will, forcing it to stay within Jack's walls.

“Mira!” Jack yelled over the sound of the rushing wind. “Tamp it down!”

She turned with wide eyes to stare at him as he stood in the doorway of his bedroom. Chaotic winds buffeted his hair and tugged at his clothing. Paper swirled in a mini cyclone around him.

The gravity of what she'd done struck her, dampening her exhilaration. She tried to direct the power like she had before to keep it within the penthouse, but when she reached with her mind…there was nothing to control. Freed, it was uncontainable.

“How?” she yelled back.

He gave her a withering look and raised his hand. Something bright glowed in his palm and suddenly all the air in the room was…gone.

Mira gasped in panic, unable to breathe for a few moments as the very oxygen disappeared from her lungs. She collapsed to her knees, wheezing. Air from beyond the apartment rushed to fill the empty space immediately, pouring in from under the door and through the tiniest cracks. Closing her eyes, she breathed it in big gulps.

Jack stood holding his hand and swearing a blue streak. “Gods, I hate doing that.”

Silence descended. Mira opened her eyes and surveyed the destruction. Broken glassware, scattered paper, an upended office chair, drapes partially ripped from the rod, books fallen from the shelf.

What had she done? She struggled to her feet. When she'd tapped her magick, she'd felt intoxicated. She hadn't realized the damage she'd been doing.

“Don't do that again,” Jack said in a low, angry voice, still holding his hand.

“I won't do it again on purpose, but I didn't know I was doing it just now!” She chanced a glance at his grim face. “I'm sorry, Jack. I really am. I'll replace anything I destroyed.”

He only stared stormily at her.

She sighed and walked to him. “Let me see.”

He let her take his hand. “It looks worse than it is. It'll heal.”

She grimaced. A burn marked the center of his palm where he'd drawn the power to suck the air out of the room. “Jack, I really am sorry.”

He withdrew his hand. “Don't be.” He flicked a hank of hair out of his eye. “It's my fault. I should've been training you to your magick these last couple of days. I should've realized that you'd be feeling pressure to access it.”

“I was, but I should've waited.”

“Yeah,” he answered, “but it's still my fault.” He walked around the couch, glancing at the vase that lay in shards on the floor. She followed him.

“Could've been worse,” he continued. “We're lucky you didn't release more than you did. An untrained air witch sparked a whole line of tornadoes in Missouri once. Nobody could stop the power she unleashed. Thirty-five people died and a state of emergency was declared.”

Mira sat down on the couch abruptly.

Jack sat down beside her. “It's important you learn how much to draw at one time.”

Wow.
That seemed like such an understatement considering his last remark. “How do I learn to do that without having the National Guard called in?”

“You have to
know
, to
believe
, that this power is yours to command. It's as simple and as complicated as that. It sounds easy, but true belief in your power isn't something that comes right away. If it does, you'll never be a good witch because that means you have too much ego. Assumptions with these kinds of abilities can be devastating and very dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“The funny thing about magick is the more you use it for violence and chaos, the more it twists you inside. A witch's magick is an integral part of her. Every time a witch uses her magick to harm, it's like adding a pollutant into the body and mind.”

“Crane must be a cesspool.”

Jack's lips twisted into half smile. “Something like that.”

“Well, he's definitely not following the tenet of
harm ye none
,” she muttered.

“The time has come for me to train you.” He sounded resigned. “I'm going to touch you now,” Jack said.

She jerked. “Uh…what?”

“It's okay.” He reached out and touched between her breasts with his uninjured hand, right in the sensitive hollow of her cleavage. “This is the seat of your magick, but I see you've already figured that out,” he said wryly.

He stroked her there, and she tried really hard not to purr. Her magick warmed in response to the pad of his index finger brushing over her flesh. She closed her eyes, enjoying the warm, soft glow filling her chest.

“Feel it?”

It took a moment for his question to register. She felt so relaxed. “Yes.”

“Concentrate on drawing a wisp of that power out. Nothing more. Just the tiniest thread of your magick. Visualize it in your mind.”

Mira forced herself to switch her attention from Jack's stroking finger to her magick. With care, she imagined a single smoky tendril of power, extracting it from the small bundle of magick tingling in her chest. It was hard to grab. Once she thought she had the edge of a wisp, it was difficult to draw it outward. Finally, she managed it, letting it hang in the air between them.

“Good,” he murmured. “I can feel it rising.”

“What does it feel like?”

“Soft, beautiful, and tentative, but with an edge of unrealized power. Filled with possibility.” He drew a breath. “It feels a lot like you.”

That comment left her speechless.

“Smells like fresh linen and lemons, too,” he murmured.

It was very hard to concentrate under these conditions. His voice seemed like melted chocolate to her—rich, sinful…and very, very bad for her. His hand so near her breasts was even worse. It took all her concentration to pay attention to the task he'd set her.

“Now, what do you want to do with that wisp? It's yours to command.”

Mira concentrated on raising a breeze, just a small one. It felt cool and smelled of the woods. She let it blow over herself and Jack, let it play in their hair and caress their cheeks. The tendril dissipated easily as it expended itself.

Smiling, she opened her eyes and found Jack looking at her intently, his hair mussed from the breeze. Slowly, he removed his fingers from between her breasts. “That was excellent.”

Her smile widened.

He stood. “Now, do that one hundred and fifty times and we can move on to something bigger.” Jack walked back into his bedroom.

Oh.
That was a buzz kill.

Mira's smile faded as she watched him close the door. She sighed, glancing around at the carnage her magick had wrought, then stood and started cleaning up.

J
ACK STOOD AT THE EDGE OF A DEMON CIRCLE IN
the same place his father had stood when Jack had been a child. The sound of chanting filled his ears.

Mira's mother knelt in her place, her gaze fixed on him as she endured the ritual theft of her power. Jack tried to look away, but couldn't. As he stood there watching her die, her face slowly morphed to Mira's.

The scene changed. Now he stood in a cemetery under a night sky in high summer. Grass and weeds choked the bases of the crumbling tombstones around him, the air redolent with the scent of decay and rotting flowers. The stink gathered in his nostrils, in his throat. He gagged on it.

“Jack,” called a soft, feminine voice.

He turned toward the sound and saw a woman lying at the foot of an enormous granite angel. Pieces of the sculpture broke off and fell in slow motion around the prone figure at its base.

It was his mother as she'd appeared in the pictures his aunt had shown him, only the beauty she'd possessed in life was half rotted in death. Jack fought the urge to turn away.

“Jack,” his mother crooned, reaching out for him with dirt-encrusted, moldy hands. “Let me have Mira. I'll take good care of her, Jack. Jack—”

“Jack!”

Someone gripped his shoulders and shook him. Jack came awake with a jerk. He shuddered, disoriented, his eyes unfocused as reality settled over him.

It had been a dream. All the Gods and Goddesses, only a dream.

Mira rocked back on her heels. The moonlight streaming in through the window painted her in pale silver hues. One of the spaghetti straps of her nightgown had fallen down over the curve of her silky shoulder. Her long, loose dark hair shadowed half her face, but he could tell she wore a concerned expression.

“You were yelling in your sleep,” she said. “A nightmare?”

He took a deep breath and pushed a hand through his hair. Gods, the dream had made him sweat. The nightmare still held him in its clutches, and he didn't trust himself to form words yet.

He could still see Mira's mother in the circle, her face morphing into her daughter's. The cloying scent of the cemetery still clung to his nostrils and his own mother's voice echoed in his mind.

“Do you want some water? I'll go get you some.” Mira moved to climb off the bed, and he was on her in a moment.

He caught her up and rolled her beneath his body, needing to feel her warm and alive, needing to feel the beat of her heart.

S
HE YELPED IN SURPRISE AND FOUGHT HIM FOR A
moment, but when his mouth came down on her throat to feel the flutter of her pulse under his lips, she let out a little sigh and relaxed. Her hands brushed uncertainly over his biceps before her arms closed around him.

He inhaled the scent of her skin and hair, the light rose perfume mingling with the clean smell of her soap, and closed his eyes. The impulse to touch her had been sudden and uncontrollable, and now the situation had become dangerous.

Jack dragged his lips over her throat, up her jawline to her mouth. He hovered there, not quite kissing her, simply enjoying the sensation of her hot breath on his lips. He dropped his head a degree to kiss her and groaned. Beneath his mouth, her lips felt like warm silk. When he flicked his tongue, she opened for him and he slipped inside sweet, hot heaven.

His magick pulsed in his chest, sensing the physical contact of an air witch. Their magicks rose, brushed each other, and then settled down. It was a sign that her constant proximity was dulling the reaction of his magick to hers and vice versa. They were finding their balance.

Finding that balance didn't dampen his desire for her, however. That was something to worry about.

Her tongue rubbed against his, causing pure sexual need to jolt through him, and he forgot all the things he had to worry about.

Jack reached down, found the hem of her nightgown, and dragged it upward slowly. His palm rubbed the smooth skin of her upper thigh, the sweet curve of her hip and waist. He savored every inch of revealed flesh.

Mira moved beneath him, making soft sounds. He inserted his knee between her legs and settled himself in the cradle the apex of her thighs made, grinding his cock against her through his pajama bottoms and the tangled sheets. She felt hot against his shaft through the thin material that separated them. He wondered if she was slick and sweet the way she had been that day in the living room.

When she broke the kiss and arched her back, spreading her thighs for him, Jack nearly had a meltdown. He fisted the blanket with his wounded hand beside her head, using the pain shooting through his burn mark to try and maintain his control. With his other hand, he stroked her waist, loving the sensation of her silky skin.

How easy it would be to slide that hand on her waist down, to stroke sweeter, more responsive parts of her body. How easy it would be to pull away the sheets between them, yank down his pajama bottoms, and bury his aching cock in all that soft, damp heat, to fuck her long and hard until she screamed his name.

He closed his eyes, fighting the powerful urge. It would be a mistake, but it was a mistake they'd both really enjoy. They'd have one night of heaven before they hit hell full-on.
Damn it.
How could he want this woman so much? Mira was the one woman in the entire world he couldn't have.

Gods, maybe that was why. If so, it was the wrong reason.

Jack forced himself to roll away from her with a guttural groan of frustration. He lay on the mattress beside her and pressed his palms into his eyes. This was torture. Either Thomas had to call soon with permission to move to the Coven, or he would give in to the urge to seduce her.

Mira had gone silent. The only sound in the room was their harsh, labored breathing and the gentle tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the living room.

“Jack,” Mira said slowly. “What the hell was that?”

“Mira—”

He reached for her, but she moved, abruptly sitting up and scooting to the edge of the bed. “I can't take much more of this,” she said in a soft voice with her back turned to him.

“Damn it. You're my charge, my job, but I'm attracted to you.” He ground his palm into his eye. “I fucking want you.”

“Okay. Ditto, Jack. I want you too.” She gave a little laugh. “We're both adults here, so what's the problem?”

Needing to tread carefully, he took a moment to answer. Thomas had instructed him not to tell her about his past yet. Thomas believed Jack to be the best person to protect Mira—and Jack believed that too—but Mira needed to trust him while he did it.

“It would be wrong,” he answered. “I'm your bodyguard. I have a job to do and I need to keep my mind on it. I can't guard you if I'm preoccupied with you in my bed. Tell me you don't see that sleeping together would be a mistake.” All true.

She picked at the blanket beside her. “I agree that it would be a mistake for me to sleep with you,” she finally replied. She turned toward him, her voice angry, “But if I'm just your charge, just your
job
, then explain all those pictures you have of me.”

He pushed up on his elbows. “What? What—” Realization bloomed. “You broke into my photography room?”

She stood and turned away from him, folding her arms over her chest. “That's not at issue right now.”

He bolted from the bed and stalked to her. “The hell it isn't! You broke into a private room, broke the goddamn lock on a door in my home!”

“I didn't break the lock, I just picked it.”

“Semantics!”

She turned to face him. “Considering I'd been abducted by a strange man claiming he wasn't quite human, I think I had a right to fully explore my surroundings.”

Jack stared at her for a moment and then turned on his heel. He walked through the living room, pounded up the spiral staircase, and kicked the locked door of the photography room open. The door splintered under the force of his anger. The lock was definitely broken now. He flipped the light on and strode to the center of the room. Mira followed.

He swept his arm out. “You want to explore? Go ahead, explore. I have nothing to hide.”
Liar.

Glaring, she stood for a moment with her arms crossed over her chest, then went straight to the oak desk in the corner and flipped open the book containing the pictures of her. Mira motioned at the album, glaring at him accusingly. “Why, Jack? Why did you take all of these?”

He pushed a hand through his hair and went to stand beside her. She turned the pages, revealing picture after picture of herself.
Gods.
He
had
lost control a little.

“Surveillance,” he muttered.

She glanced up at him, her eyebrows raised. “Oh, surveillance was it?”

She flipped to a page of her sitting in a cafe on one of her breaks, sipping a cup of coffee all alone in a corner booth. She turned to another picture, this one of her outside, with her coat on and her scarf around her throat. She was looking up at the sky for some reason. The wind whipped dark tendrils of her hair across her pale face. Her eyes were closed and a slight smile played on her lips. He loved that picture of her. It was one of his favorites.

“Why did you need such intimate shots of me for surveillance, Jack?” she asked softly. “These don't seem like business to me. These seem personal.”

He stood at a loss for words. They
were
personal. They were pictures of the daughter of the woman who'd haunted him for the last twenty-five years.

Or that's who Mira had been at first.

As he'd watched her at work, at the grocery store, going to old film festivals by herself, Mira had begun to emerge as a person independent of what she'd originally represented to him. A gorgeous woman, adrift in the world around her, alone and looking for pieces of herself she wasn't even aware were missing.

Jack had found reflections of himself in her.

After that he'd wanted to take pictures of Mira for her own sake, because her soul had been on display and he'd been able to capture the truth of her life so easily in those vulnerable moments when she'd thought no one had been looking.

“I took them because you're beautiful, Mira, and my hobby is photography. That's the only reason.”

Mira snorted. “Beautiful? Now I know you're lying.”

He blew out a breath of frustration. “Yeah, beautiful. I think you're fucking gorgeous actually. I'm sorry you don't see that when you look in the mirror, but I see it every time I look at you.”

She closed the album and stared down at it, quiet. He wished he could guess what she was thinking, but he had no idea.

“It was an invasion,” she said almost inaudibly.

“I know. It was wrong. I'm sorry.” He seemed to be making mistake after mistake with her. Why did it feel like more were on the way? Why couldn't he just stop, just leave her alone? She was irresistible to him and he'd never dealt well with temptation.

Silence.

“I guess we're even then, as far as invasions go, considering I broke into this room,” she said finally.

“Okay.”

She turned to face him. Scowling, she blew a tendril of dark hair out of her face and crossed her arms over her chest. “What were you dreaming about, anyway?”

“You,” he answered. “And my mother.” He glanced away, not wanting to reveal with his eyes that he wasn't telling the whole truth. “I dreamt my mother wanted to take you with her into her grave.”

Mira shuddered. “Your mother is dead?”

He nodded.

“I'm sorry.” She motioned to the photographs on the wall. “I assumed she was your mother.”

He shook his head. “That's my aunt. She raised me. I never knew my mom. She was an earth witch, I'm told.”

She pursed her lips together for a moment. “Did Crane kill your mother, Jack?”

His gaze snapped to hers. “Why would you ask that?”

She didn't know how close to home she was hitting. His mother had probably killed herself because of his father. The doctors had diagnosed her with postpartum depression, and that may have played a role in her suicide, but Jack would never know for certain. Regardless of the reasons, she'd killed herself and left him behind to suffer life with his father alone.

“I don't know.” She shrugged. “I thought maybe Crane had done something to hurt you on a personal level.”

Jack glanced away. “He did, but it wasn't that.”

“Okay.” She paused. “Is your father still alive?”

He could hardly blame her for peppering him with questions, and she deserved all the answers she could get. Jack only wished he could give her the whole truth. “He's alive.” His lips twisted into a rueful smile. “We don't talk much.”

“If your mother was an earth witch, what element was your father?”

“Fire. I got my ability from him,” he answered.

She bit her lip. He watched that pink bit of flesh caught between her white teeth with interest. “Been meaning to ask you. Where do witches come from? I mean…you know, are we aliens, or what?”

He exhaled the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. She'd navigated away from the personal questions. “We don't know. There are theories. Maybe we're a different race, or humans who have evolved a bit further. We know we date back to Sumer. We know that once we lived among the non-magickicals and were worshipped like gods and goddesses for our control of the elements.”

“So witches were out of the closet once?”

He nodded. “There's speculation that we were the reason Goddess worship was labeled evil. There were non-magickal factions who feared us, so they tried to destroy us. We were forced to go underground. Once in awhile one of us would be exposed and it would ignite an inquisition. We try very hard not to be exposed these days.” He paused. “That's a point both the Coven and the Duskoff can agree on.”

“I always thought the inquisitions were all church politics, mass hysteria, or greedy people persecuting others for their own gain.”

“There was lots of that, but our own have been killed too. The Salem witch hunts were sparked by a case of demon possession. A demon the Duskoff birthed possessed the bodies of several young girls in a village. The hysteria that followed had nothing to do with us. No real witches were executed.”

“So our origins are mostly unknown.”

He nodded. “Cloaked in mystery.”

“Hmmm.” She stared up at him with her deep, penetrating eyes. “A lot like you,” she said softly, holding his gaze.

“Mira…”

She didn't respond. She only dropped her gaze, rubbed her finger along the photo album meaningfully, and left the room.

“H
E'S GOT HER,
”
SAID
W
ILLIAM
C
RANE, TENTING
his carefully manicured fingers on the top of the shiny boardroom table.

David, a tall, thin water witch he treated as a go-to boy, stood in front of him with his pale narrow hands making a fig leaf in front of his crotch. It was an annoying nervous habit of his that made Crane itch to hit him, if hitting people wasn't so loutish.

Frankly, Crane hadn't expected any problem lifting the air witch from her apartment in Minneapolis, but it was true, what they said about having to do it yourself if you wanted it done right. Now they were out some hired muscle, and he was forced to gear up for a goddamn trip northward where it was even colder than his home in New York City.