A Curse in Darkness by Sherilee Gray

Chapter 7

Willow

As soon asthe gates were opened and I drove in, Warrick appeared at the door of the clubhouse and strode toward us. His vibrant golden eyes slid to Ren sitting beside me, and his expression darkened.

Ren stiffened beside me. “You didn’t tell him I was coming?”

“It’ll be fine.”

Ren shifted in his seat and cursed under his breath. I didn’t blame him. Warrick was huge and imposing, and dominance radiated from him in hot, violent waves. I felt it and I wasn’t any type of shifter. I couldn’t imagine how it felt to Ren. I parked the Morris and Ren froze, his head dipping, gaze dropping as Warrick opened my door. His fox submitting instantly.

I pretended not to notice.

Warrick’s gaze slid from me back to Ren. “Why is the pup here?”

“Wait here, Ren?”

He nodded and still didn’t, or maybe couldn’t, move.

I grabbed Warrick’s arm and led him away, ignoring the instant tingles shooting up from where we touched. His gaze dropped to my hand on his arm when we stopped, the muscle flexing under my palm. He leaned closer, and more tingles danced across my skin.

I quickly let him go and shoved my hands in my pockets as I took a step back. “How’s Maddox?”

His gaze ate me up for several long, intense seconds. “He broke his own wrist, then gnawed off his hand trying to get free.”

Okay. Jesus.That was really not good. “That’s awful.”

Warrick kept that steady gaze locked on me. “It’ll grow back.”

“His hand?”

He dipped his chin.

“Well, that’s…something, I guess. Still no word on Edric?”

“No. Something’s wrong with his scent. Mad’s is different as well. My brothers can’t track him.” He looked more than a little troubled.

“Shit.” The hounds were the best trackers in existence. If they couldn’t find Edric, no one could.

“You can get that evil fucker out of Mad?”

“Yes, and I was thinking that maybe I could go one better.” There was no way I would ever ask for a favor from this male. Owing him was the worst possible case scenario for me, which meant I needed to offer a trade. “I can ward the perimeter of the clubhouse, which will stop any other spirits getting in, but…” I straightened my spine. “In exchange, I need you to do something for me.”

His eyes flashed, and he was right in front of me a split second later. His fingers, hot and rough, curled around mine. “About time. Let’s go.”

I dug my heels in. “Go where?”

“To my room, I don’t want anyone else seeing you naked—”

“What! No, that was not what I want from you. I’m not talking about sex.” I tugged my hand from his.

His rough exhale came out more a low growl, and he took another step toward me.

I lifted my hands. “Stop.” He wasn’t trying to be threatening, but the beast in him seemed to be the dominant force more often than not.

And right then, I didn’t want to think about the way my body instantly heated up in response.

“You’re lying to yourself,” he said.

Heat washed through me, embarrassment and anger, mainly because he wasn’t completely wrong. “If you’re that hard up, go fuck one of your groupies.” I crossed my arms over my chest because the asshole threw me off balance with his sexy voice and outrageous arrogance. And goddess help me, it turned me on, all of it, and it shouldn’t, and that pissed me off. What the hell was wrong with me?

“There are no females here, remember?” he said. “Not until this is over.”

“Wow, how will you survive a day without screwing some random chick?” Shut the hell up!

“Jealous?”

“What? No, of course not.” I kind of was, and that pissed me off as well.

“Don’t worry, dove.” His nostrils flared, and he prowled closer. “I have a hand…and an excellent imagination.”

Do not think about it!

Too late. I was totally thinking about it.

Ugh.

“I don’t want to know,” I said, lying through my teeth, because I did. I really did.

He licked his lips. “You sure about that?”

“Yep.” Time to move this conversation along. “Okay, so, if I ward this place, will you train Ren?”

He frowned, his chin jerking back before his gaze sliced to Ren, then returned to me. “To do what?”

I took several calming breaths. “He needs to learn to fight, in both his human and animal forms. He’s young, and foxes aren’t natural fighters. But with everything going on with me, and him being my familiar, he needs to know how to protect himself and take my back when necessary.” Warrick didn’t need to know the deep emotional pain Ren was going through. A male like him, devoid of any tender emotions entirely, wouldn’t understand. But he would understand the need to protect, to fight.

“You need someone to take your back, I’ll do it.”

He said it completely serious, like it was obvious. Nope. No way. “Look, you don’t understand how it works between a witch and her familiar. Ren has a need to…protect me, to the point that if he thinks I’m in danger, he will throw himself into a fight against someone who could kill him. It’s instinct…”

“He wants you for himself,” Warrick said, a whole lot of growl in his voice. “He wants to fuck you.”

How was I even attracted to this guy? Seriously? “Nope, not even a little bit.”

“Does he prefer males?”

I blinked up at him. Was he really saying that if a male didn’t want me, it could only be because he was gay? I drew in a breath, trying to find patience. “The feelings we have for each other are like brother and sister.”

His massive shoulders relaxed a little, but he didn’t look completely convinced.

“So, do we have a deal?” I asked.

“How long will it take? The ward?”

“A night or two max.”

“You stay here, and you sleep in my room, and until he’s trained, I take your back, then we have a deal.”

I ground my teeth. “Hang on, you don’t get to add conditions.”

“I just did.”

His eyes seemed brighter, and my belly did a stupid little flip. “I’m not having sex with you.”

“Maybe not, but that wasn’t what I asked.”

He knew how badly I wanted this, and he was using it to his advantage. “Fine.”

Warrick glanced at Ren again, then whistled, like my best friend was a dog. Ren’s head came up and Warrick crooked a finger at him. Ren was out of the truck in seconds, striding quickly toward the massive alpha, that gaze still dipped. He stopped in front of us. Warrick eyed him for long seconds, and it took everything in me not to tell him to stop being an asshole.

“You care about that pretty face, pup?” Warrick asked him.

Okay. Nope. “Now, hang on…”

Ren’s gaze sliced to me, and he shut me up with a look. I was embarrassing him. Then his gaze slid to Warrick but stayed low, because he knew meeting Warrick’s gaze would be a phenomenal mistake. He squared his shoulders, though. “The only thing I care about is being what Willow needs me to be.”

“You want to fuck her?”

I shoved Warrick. “What the hell!” He didn’t budge, not even half an inch.

Ren recoiled. “No. God, no. She’s like my sister.”

Warrick was quiet another few painfully long seconds, then he said, “Get inside. Ask for Lothar and tell him I sent you and why you’re here.”

Ren rushed off and Warrick strode to my truck without another word, grabbed out my bags, and headed inside. I took the broom I’d brought with me from the back as well and had no choice but to follow. I searched out Ren as soon as we walked in. Lothar was standing over him, several other hounds there as well, and Ren looked embarrassed, no…mortified. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t let Ren do this. I changed course, about to go over there and get him, to tell him this was a terrible mistake, but Warrick grabbed my arm.

I spun to face him, and he shook his head.

“Let me go. I should never have brought him here.”

He slid his blade free and offered it to me hilt first. “Want my knife to chop off his balls as well?”

I jerked back.

“The fox doesn’t want to be a pup anymore, let him earn it. And no male wants a female to rescue him.”

“You’re a sexist pig,” I bit out.

He shrugged.

“They’re going to hurt him.”

“Yes, but they won’t kill him.”

“That isn’t very comforting.”

“But he’ll learn. No one likes to feel weak. He’ll get bruised and he’ll have some new scars, but when we’re finished with him, he won’t feel weak anymore.”

It was black-and-white to him. Why were males like this? Why were feelings so damned terrifying?

Then again, that wasn’t only a male thing, was it? It wasn’t like I didn’t actively avoid dealing with a whole lot of things I was feeling when it came to the trials, and Rose, or what happened at the knights compound a year ago. I shut down those thoughts quickly.

“Take me to Maddox. Let’s get this over with.”

He grunted, and I followed him across the room, down the stairs, and into the tunnels. We hadn’t walked far down the stone passage, lit with flickering torches, when I heard the growls and howls. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

Warrick shoved a door open, and we walked in. Maddox was still chained to the floor, only now, he had one of his arms free, and it ended with a bloody stump.

He stopped thrashing as soon as we entered and his neck twisted, black gaze locking on me.

“Hello, pretty,” he said in a warped version of Maddox’s voice.

This spirit needed to go back where he came from, or be sent to where it was meant to be. It was all about balance. I moved closer. “Tell me where you come from.”

He laughed.

If a soul was here on Earth, it had either been here all along or someone had released it. Souls didn’t just get out of Hell, or Heaven for that matter, and the darkness, the hatred, that came from this one had me thinking that Hell was exactly where it came from. If a soul was sent there, it stayed there. There was no mercy, no change of heart. No transfer to Heaven for good behavior or because some reaper made a clerical error.

“Why are you here?” I tried again.

He licked his lips. “Come here, little girl.”

The voice sounded higher this time, sharper, more urgent.

Warrick moved up beside me. “Is Maddox still in there?”

“Yeah.” But he wouldn’t be the same after this asshole was gone, how could he be? Every sick evil thing this monster had done, past and present, would be in Maddox’s head, every twisted thought seeping deeper and deeper into his consciousness—into his heart and soul.

I wasn’t going to get anything from this spirit, though, and there was no way I could force him to share the information. There were ways to torture a soul, I’d heard of it before, but I didn’t know the effect it would have on Maddox when we were done. And Maddox had been possessed for far too long as it was.

There were two other hounds in the room, standing behind the salt line that was now twice as thick since they’d been adding to it like I’d told them to.

They watched me closely as I took a silver urn from my satchel. I placed it on the stone floor along with more salt peppered with cemetery dirt, the lilies we’d gathered, some moss from one of the ancient oaks, a mortar and pestle, several different oils—Else’s own special and highly potent mixes—and finally some more dirt, also from the cemetery.

I added the lilies to the mortar, crushed them, then added the oils, moss, and dirt.

“What are you doing?” Warrick asked.

“This mixture will act as a barrier when I get the soul out of Maddox. He’ll be on the hunt for a new host and this oil mix will stop it from entering me. The salt across the doorway will keep it from leaving this room.” I opened the lid on the urn. “The only thing available to him will be this dead rat. Silver is also a natural barrier, and this one is smelted with a whole lot of other goodies that will make it impossible for him to break free.” Thankfully, the oil was fine to use everywhere. Gran had made sure of that, after years of using recipes that stung and left rashes in unmentionable places.

“Then what?”

“He’ll possess the rat, and I’ll keep it trapped in the urn until we work out how it got here—if it was summoned from Hell, or some other place, or if it’s been in limbo. Whatever it is, I’ll send it back to wherever it came from.”

Warrick frowned. “Why can’t you just do that now?”

“Because if I do the wrong ritual, things could get messy. We have to keep things balanced. Also, I want to know who unleashed them, if that’s what happened. And if that was the case, we have an entirely different problem on our hands.” I didn’t want to think about that, not yet. One thing at a time.

When I had everything mixed, I stood and tugged off my jacket, then kicked off my shoes.

“What are you doing?” Warrick growled when I undid my pants.

“It’s your lucky day.” I winked. “Getting naked.”

His gaze shot to the other two hounds. “Out,” he barked.

They left quickly, and his gaze sliced back to me. “Why the fuck are you getting naked?”

“I need to rub that oil all over myself. Can’t do that with my clothes on.” I wasn’t a shy person. I didn’t get embarrassed. I was naked a lot—it was a witch thing. A lot of rituals and spells required it. “You should leave, or you’ll be the next vessel.”

“Not leaving you in here on your own with that fucker.”

I tugged my shirt off, throwing it aside. His gaze dipped to my boobs and the deep purple bra I was wearing. He gritted his teeth before his gaze came back to mine and they were even more determined than before. “Not leaving, dove.”

Shit. “Fine.” This was fine. No big deal, right? Plus, I didn’t have time to fight with him on this. “Then get your clothes off. I should have enough here for both of us.” I turned away.

“What the fuck?” Warrick said, his voice filled with fury.

“What?” I started to turn, and he stopped me with a wide palm to the back of my neck, the other brushing my hair aside. Every muscle in me tensed as his finger traced the letters that had been carved into my skin, just below my shoulder blades over a year ago: WITCH.

“It’s still there?” he said, voice vibrating with fury.

“Yes, he made sure of it,” I said, keeping my voice as strong as I could.

Azel, that twisted fucking fallen angel, had chosen darkness over light. And my friends—mates of the knights of Hell—had almost died because of me, because I hadn’t been strong enough to fight him. It’d been my protection spell warding their compound, and it was my fault that monster got through. A shudder moved through me at the memory.

“I didn’t know,” he said, deep, gruff.

My mouth went dry. After Warrick had carried me away, he’d cleaned me up. He’d wiped the blood from the letters carved into my back. I’d told him my aunt would make sure it didn’t scar, but Azel had used salt, not only to cause pain but to make sure it scarred. Not even Else could fix that. Salt was one of the most powerful ingredients in our arsenal; it did a lot more than season food. So I’d lied to Warrick because he’d been so angry and there was no one left for him to punish. “It’s fine…I’m fine. He’s dead and gone. Never coming back.”

He snarled. “It should have been me to end him. For you, I would have torn him to pieces with my bare hands.”

My heart raced faster at his brutal declaration. “Just forget it’s there. I do.” It was a lie, of course. It was a constant reminder that I couldn’t be weak ever again. That I wouldn’t let anyone break me like that, and that I would do anything, anything, to protect the people who relied on me.

He grunted and finally released me, taking all that intense heat with him.