Witch's Storm (The Bone Coven Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  “Well, actually.” Dorian cleared his throat. “We brought her to you. After much discussion, we decided that we couldn’t run the risk of human law enforcement interfering. There were a lot of witnesses. It was only a matter of time until they showed up at the crime scene.”

  Even though some members of the FBI were aware of the supernatural world, most law enforcement had no idea that warlocks, vampires, and demons existed. The covens insisted upon secrecy, something that had become more and more important over the past few years. The council was concerned that, should humans have widespread knowledge about us, they wouldn’t respond in a rational manner. We could be dangerous, after all. Would they lock us up? Surveil us? Track our every move? Or, worse, experiment on us to find the source of our power?

  No one truly knew how humans would react until it happened, and the council was determined to keep us out of the spotlight.

  Because of that, we sometimes had to take care of our own crime scenes way before the cops could get there first. They would still likely swing by the alley, but there would be no body for them to find. If they decided to question us about what happened, we had a cover story planned. Worst case scenario, we could make a call to the FBI agents who knew about our existence and have them put a stop to any investigation that might arise.

  “You actually brought the mage here? To us?” Magister Piper pressed a hand to her throat and glanced at each of us in turn. “I didn’t think bone mages had that kind of thoughtfulness in them. Usually, you all are so…” She wrinkled her nose. “Dry and brittle, just like your beloved bones.”

  “Hey, now,” I said, cutting in to defend the coven. Even though I sported a shadow mark underneath the illusion on my neck, bone mages were my people. And, I wouldn’t stand to hear them spoken about like that. “We’ve come here on good faith at the risk of our own necks. If we’d been caught moving the body, we could have gotten in a hell of a lot of trouble. The kind of trouble the council might not have been able to fix. Maybe eventually, but not right away.”

  Magister Piper’s eyes sparked with something I couldn’t read, something that looked a hell of a lot like defiance. “I’m sorry. Thank you for bringing her here. Can we see her, please?”

  “Yes, of course,” Dorian said. “But let’s just keep it to one of you until we bring the body upstairs. Otherwise, we might look far too suspicious, and we don’t want to catch the wrong sort of attention, if you know what I mean.”

  In other words, we didn’t want someone to see us clustered around a body in the trunk of a car and call the cops.

  We led their de facto leader outside and popped the truck. As soon as she saw the body, a loud gasp popped from her throat. I swallowed hard and stared at the ground. No one should have to go through this. I’d seen the glassy eyes of my parents when they’d died, and it was an image that was forever burned into my mind. Sometimes, I still had nightmares about their vacant stares, their pale, cold skin, their breathless lungs.

  “That is Sylvia. Whatever did this wasn’t a human.” Magister Piper closed her eyes and turned away from Sylvia’s body. “Or, if it was, it was done for supernatural reasons. There’s no way this was a random killing.”

  Dorian gave a somber nod. “I agree. That’s why I thought it best to bring this to you instead of letting human law enforcement take care of it. You’ll want to investigate the murder and find the killer, I imagine.”

  “We don’t have the resources for some kind of investigation,” Piper said. “And I personally wouldn’t have a clue where to start. We’re a splinter group of the main coven. More like an informal club than an official corporation. Yes, I’ve given us a name, but that’s all we have right now.”

  Dorian cast a quick glance at me, and I nodded, knowing the question he passed through his eyes. Sometimes, we were able to do that. Back when we’d fought the vampires, he’d fed me some of his blood to heal a wound. At the time, the blood had created a temporary bond between us, one that had lasted merely hours. But, somehow, a part of that bond had stuck around, appearing in momentary flashes just like now.

  “In that case,” I said. “Dorian and I would like to offer you our services. We’re Enforcers for the Bone Coven. While we don’t have the resources that Enforcers once had, mostly because the vampires burned them down a few months ago, we’re a pretty good team when it comes to finding murderers.”

  “So we’ve heard,” Magister Piper said.

  Great. My reputation proceeded me. I wasn’t entirely sure that was a good thing.

  “Will Laura be helping you?” she asked. “I’d feel a lot better about this if a blood witch was involved.”

  Dorian opened his mouth to speak, but I cut in before he could say no. “Of course she’ll be helping us. Isn’t that right, Laura?”

  She lifted her chin and nodded. “Damn straight.”

  Chapter 4

  After Dorian dropped Laura off at her apartment, he drove me home. When he parked at the curb outside of my building, he turned to me and gave me one of his piercing stares, the kind where I wasn’t entirely sure just how much of my soul he could see. Sometimes, it felt like he could read every single part of me, all of my wishes and desires and fears, no matter how hard I tried to keep them to myself.

  “I know what you’re going to say.” Sighing, I dropped my head against the leather seat. “Laura isn’t trained so she’ll be a liability in the investigation. And the council will never go for it.”

  “On the contrary.” His lips quirked when I popped up my head at his words. “I think she’s the perfect advisor for the job. She has a unique insight into the victim, and her powers could be useful, even if they aren’t fully developed yet.”

  My eyes practically bugged out of my head. “Am I hearing this right? Is Dorian Kostas actually telling me that I had a good idea?”

  “Obviously, she won’t be going with us into any high-risk situations.” He rubbed his hand against his thick hair, a move I’d realized he only did when thinking carefully about a situation. “We can consult her if we have questions, and she can come with us if we’re going to interview a potential witness. But she should stay at home if we get a lead on the killer’s whereabouts.”

  “Good luck convincing her of that,” I said with a laugh. “You think I’m stubborn? Laura is just as bad.”

  “Great,” he said with an eye-roll, though he looked far more amused than annoyed. “Now, I have to deal with two of you.”

  “Get used to it.” I cracked a grin. “She might not be a member of the Bone Coven, but she’s not going anywhere. You won’t be able to get rid of us if you tried.”

  “Have you told her yet?” Even though his words were vague, I knew exactly what he meant. He wanted to know if I’d told my best friend the truth about my powers. The answer was, I hadn’t. Not yet. I’d been waiting for the right time, and it still hadn’t come. I didn’t know what I was waiting for. Some sign in the sky to tell me everything would turn out okay. The last thing I wanted to do was lose Laura because of something I couldn’t control, but any sane witch would want to put as much distance between us as possible.

  “No,” I said, slouching into the smooth leather seat. “I just keep imagining the look on her face when she finds out I have black magic running through my veins.”

  “She might be surprised, but she loves you, Zoe.” Dorian clenched his jaw and glanced away. “What I would give to have something like that.”

  You have me, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t. The tension between us had been intensifying, to say the least. Ever since he’d almost kissed me in Vincent’s house, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about his lips, his arms, or his cold skin. But I was pretty sure he didn’t feel the same, and I didn’t want to put our working partnership at risk because I couldn’t keep my tongue in my mouth.

  “You’ve never really said much about your past,” I said, shifting on my seat to face him. “What were your friends like back in Europe?”

  “If I told yo
u about my friends, I’d have to tell you how I got cursed.” Dorian gripped the steering wheel tight in his hands. “And as much as I trust you, Zoe, that’s one conversation I’m not quite ready to have.”

  Silence descended between us. In the three months that I’d known him, Dorian had barely spoken a word about his past. I was dying to know what he’d been like, what he’d been through, how he’d become the way he was. I knew there were things he’d done that he regretted, but I also knew it went far deeper than that. There were scars under his perfect persona, ones that hadn’t yet fully healed. And talking about them would only pick at the scab.

  “Well, just so you know, I’m here when you’re ready,” I said with a smile and gave him a light, friendly punch in the arm. Mostly because the urge to kiss him was so overwhelming that making a stupid joke of the moment was the only thing I could do. “Does that sound cheesy?”

  “It sounds pretty fucking cheesy.” He laughed and reached over to tweak his thumb against my cheek. “But it’s also really damn endearing. You, Zoe Bennett, are a good egg.”

  My face went hot, and my muscles went tight. I yearned to hold his hand in place, to feel his fingers whispering across my skin. But just as quickly as he’d touched me, he pulled away, something outside the car catching his eye. Leaning sideways, he looked up at my apartment and pointed at the living room window where the light had just gone out.

  “Looks like your Grams made it to bed, so you don’t need to go up there just yet,” Dorian said as he leaned across me, his chest brushing against mine. The scent of musk, leather, and pine enveloped me, my lungs going into shock. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t blink. Dorian was so close that I felt the whisper of his breath on my skin. He smiled and pushed down the passenger door lock. “Why don’t we have a quick training session back at my place? See if we can get you practicing a shadow spell this time?”

  In any other situation, I would be thrilled down to my toes. Training with Dorian was one of the highlights of my week, and I welcomed any opportunity to shove another session into our busy days, especially when it involved just the two of us in his apartment. Alone. Together. Not that anything ever happened. His bed was still as untouched as it always was.

  But this time, his words grated my nerves. He knew I didn’t want to use my shadow magic. I’d been more than clear on numerous occasions, and yet he still persisted.

  “Stop trying to push me toward using my black magic, Dorian,” I said, flicking back open the lock. “How many more times do I have to tell you I’m not going to do that again?”

  His dark eyes sparked with anger and irritation. “When I took you on as my partner, I was under the impression you were at least going to try to work on controlling your magic.”

  “And I have been working on it.” I balled my hands into fists and fought the urge to jump out of the car. “It’s in control, isn’t it?”

  “It’s in control because you never fucking touch it.” He clenched his jaw and glanced away. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to push you into anything, but it’s been three months, Zoe. Isn’t it about time? There’s so much more we could do. So many more people we could help. If you’d just try. How can you ever be a full Enforcer if you rely on bone spells, magic that isn’t even yours to command?”

  “That’s what you don’t understand. It will never be time.” Tears pricked my eyes as I turned away, my heart banging out a frantic beat. My shadow magic had made me kill someone. It had tempted me to hurt Dorian. I could never touch it again. If I did, there was no telling what it would make me do next.

  Without another word, I threw open the door and put my boots on the hard pavement. As much as I hated to walk away from Dorian in the middle of a fight, I couldn’t have this conversation right now. Not when the guilt of Vincent’s death was almost enough to drag me under.

  “Zoe,” he said, leaning across the seat when I hopped out of the car. “Come on. Get back in here and come train with me. You know down deep inside I’m right about this.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Dorian.” And with that, I walked away.

  Chapter 5

  “What are you doing here?” I asked through the rolled down window when Laura pulled her car up to the curb outside of my apartment building the next morning. It was a typical winter day in Boston, dark clouds rolling across a cobalt sky. There wasn’t even the hint of a sun to speak of, which meant Dorian didn’t need to hide inside to save his skin. “Where’s Dorian?” My eyes caught on the passenger in the backseat, and I almost tipped sideways from the shock of it all. “And what the hell is Anastasia doing in your car?”

  Laura kept her gaze rooted on the road in front of her. “Just get in. I’ll explain everything on the way.”

  With a shrug of my shoulders, I jumped inside, joining what was officially the most awkward car ride of my life. Anastasia sat in the back, whistling an eerie little tune almost too low to hear under the roar of the engine. Laura’s cheeks were flushed, and her blonde-and-pink streaked hair was curled around her shoulders. She rarely bothered to do anything other than put it in a bun or wear it straight, so the fact she’d made an effort was impossible to miss.

  Several blocks later, Laura pulled to the curb, and Anastasia hopped out of the car. “Thanks for the lift. See you later.”

  The car door slammed, and I immediately turned to Laura, my eyebrows raised up to my hair line. “What the hell was that?”

  “I have a secret.” Laura nibbled on her bottom lip and avoided my gaze. “Do you promise not to freak out?”

  “I’m not sure. I just shared a car ride with the vampire who drank your blood. If she went after you again, I might very well lose my shit.”

  Laura took a deep breath and drummed her fingers against the steering wheel. “She apologized for that. The thing is, she’s actually kind of fun to hang out with.”

  “Hang out with.” All I could do was repeat the words, hoping that would somehow force everything to make sense.

  “I know, I know.” She held up her hands and finally met my eyes. “It sounds insane, and I know there’s no way you could understand. But I’ve felt so drawn to blood since getting my mark that it’s making me go a little crazy. I needed someone to talk to about it. Anastasia, as vampy as she can be, gets it.”

  “Laura,” I said softly, a shock of pain going through my gut. “You know you can always talk to me about anything? Even if you don’t think I’d understand. You don’t need to reach out to a vampire. Not when you have me.”

  But what stung the most was that I did understand. I knew what it was like to be drawn to something, to feel sucked toward the one thing you wished you weren’t. But Laura wouldn’t know that. I hadn’t had the courage to come clean about my shadow powers. So, she’d felt as if she needed to turn to someone else. A fucking vampire of all people.

  “I know,” she said with a sad smile. “And I’m so lucky to have you. But I need someone who understands what I’m going through, too. And Anastasia does.”

  It was hard to argue with that, as much as I wanted to.

  “Alright, well. As long as she doesn’t try eating you again, I’m cool with it. But if she so much as blinks at you funny, I swear to god I will beat her vampire ass.”

  Laura cracked a smile. “I wouldn’t expect anything else. And speaking of beating asses, what’s going on with you and Dorian? He called me this morning and said we’ll be meeting him at the blood mage’s apartment. Thought that was a little strange seeing as you’ve been practically glued together for months.”

  “I don’t know. He always comes and picks me up, and he usually brings me a coffee.”

  “I don’t want to pry into this whole partner thing you two have going on,” Laura said as she shifted the gear into drive and pulled out into the morning traffic, “but did you do something to piss him off? He sounded really fucking grumpy. Like, he took his normal seven out of ten grumpy up to a nine.”

  So, he still hadn’t gotten over
our little tiff from the night before. After it had happened, a part of me had wanted to turn around and apologize right away. But then I remembered the way he’d spoken about my powers. He’d taken me on as a trainee, not because he believed in me as a person, but because he wanted me to use my shadow magic, regardless of how dangerous it was.

  “Let’s just say that we disagree on some of my training,” I said after a long moment. “He wants me to do something I’m not comfortable with because he thinks it’ll help him catch more bad guys.”

  “Will it?” she asked, glancing at me as she shifted gears. “Catch more bad guys?”

  “Probably,” I said with a frown. “But that’s not the point. The problem is that he wants me to do something that I don’t want to, and now he’s pissed off that I refused. He practically said he had assumed I’d be more useful when he took me on as his trainee. Instead, I’m a big fat disappointment.”

  “Ouch.” She fell silent for a moment as she drove us through the streets. After several turns, she finally spoke up over the roar of the engine. “So, what is it he wants you to do? I mean, it can’t be that horrible, can it? He may be a grumpy vampire, but he’s always done the right thing as far as I can tell.”

  My heart squeezed tight. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. Despite the big day ahead of us, despite the fact that I was terrified of losing my only friend, I’d been telling myself over and over that the right moment needed to come first. And here we were. She’d just told me yet another secret about herself, one that must have been hard to share. If I didn’t tell her now, how would I ever find a way to fess up to the truth?

  After a moment, I took a deep breath. “There’s something I need to tell you, but I want you to promise me that you won’t freak out.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “But prefacing it like that kind of does the opposite, Zoe. What the hell is going on?”