Page 8 of Warlocks Don't Win
“You can’t stop it?”
The curse would already have fed on most of the victim’s strength, sucking them dry. Stopping it would still leave the victim weak, dying unless there was a way to reverse it. I didn’t know nearly as much about reversing curses as I did about creating them.
“No,” he said shortly. “I put safeguards in place, linking my life to hers, but it can only do so much. She’s barely hanging on.”
I started chewing on my bottom lip while I considered. “If the spell is based on my house, maybe I could do a reversal, feed the life of the curser into her, or draw strength from the house into her.”
“Moridia Fleur usually kills its victims outright if the original setup is altered.”
I wrinkled my nose. “You already researched it.”
“Extensively.”
“So I’m just here to allow you access to the house?”
“And get in with the local coven, which are the only ones with the ability to use your property, and find out who did it.”
“For justice? I’m not a fan of justice.”
“What happened to you wasn’t justice. It was error, blindness, and?—”
“We aren’t talking about the past,” I snapped, my stomach knotting while my hands strangled the wheel.
I wasn’t feeling so good. One, Winston the Warlock, my vile, despicable, ex-fiancé, was in my truck smelling addictive. Two, I’d been avoiding my past, including my old coven for a lot of extremely good reasons. I couldn’t think of a single covenmember that wouldn’t make the world a better place when they left it.
He cleared his throat. “Right. Why would you want to find the person who murdered your mother and get vengeance on them?”
“I’m the convicted murderer. You should know as you’re the one who testified against me for the crime.” I shot him a hard smile. “If you don’t stop talking about it, I’m going to murder you next. This time, I won’t leave any evidence.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, death by sausage rolls. I’ve seen how you dominate your adversaries. I’ve been to your new coven.”
“Don’t pretend to know me,” I said, cold and icy and nauseous. Seriously, he acted like things were just fine between us. Also, I didn’t talk to warlocks for an extended period of time. Or witches. Or anyone other than customers that looked like they might be an easy upsell. I wasn’t interested in a tough upsell. Nope. Speaking of…
“If you want your warlock coat back, it’ll cost you,” I said.
“You didn’t burn it?”
I shot him a contemptuous look. “Whatever else you think you know about me, you should realize that at my core is a pecuniary businesswoman. I wouldn’t ever destroy something when I could sell it back to its owner for five times more than market value.”
He looked directly ahead, out the windshield and the tree-lined interstate in front of us. The sky was overcast, gloomy, like I felt being around the monster. “Then why didn’t you sell the ring? They returned it to me once you were released from prison. The jewel alone was worth a fortune, but the magic spelling imbued in it made it priceless.”
My whole body went stiff and cold. His engagement ring was gorgeous, heavy with spells and intentions that were all ashes to me now. I’d loved that ring as an extension of the love I had forhim. When I’d gotten out of jail, they’d given me all the things I’d had on when I came in, including the ring. I’d left it in the box when I dressed in my black sheath, matching my dark hair, contrasting to my pale skin. I looked like my mother, except that she was always smiling. Not anymore.
Why did he bring up the ring? Why did he keep talking about the past? He was Winston the Warlock, international sensation, and national neutral magic coalition director. Not to mention how many witches would throw themselves at him when given the chance.
I’d seen his show once, enough to know that there was a particular female who had an on-again, off-again relationship with him. I’d almost burned down the city when I’d seen him kiss her. That was only a week after I got out of jail and had the weight of my magic combined with my mother’s released back to me. Her magic wasn’t stable, or at least it hadn’t been at the time. I’d spent a lot of effort anchoring that magic to the Singsong Coven, using them to stabilize all the psychotic I’d inherited with my mother’s death. Still, my reaction had been valuable, teaching me that my feelings for him hadn’t diminished during my time in jail.
At any rate, he was a popular, handsome man who could have a good percentage of most females in witch circles or otherwise. Why was he flirting with me? That’s what he was doing, wasn’t it? Come to think of it, before, when I thought he was sincerely in love with me, he hadn’t flirted like this. He’d wanted to know what I thought about things, wanted to read all the same books and do the same things so we could talk about them. He hadn’t told me how he felt about me, he just made me feel special. Especially stupid.
Chapter
Four
The pain of being with him built over the next few miles, hours, built and built until with a crackle of energy over my skin, it erupted in a cloud of noxious stench that left me barely able to see the road. I changed lanes, leaving cars honking at me, while my eyes burned, my nostrils screamed, and Winston gurgled.
I couldn’t take much satisfaction in his misery when my own was so potent. I drove down the exit ramp and then pulled over on the shoulder, shoving open the door and falling out the second I could. The cloud of green stench followed me out.
I bent over, coughing and gasping until I made my way around the truck to the field beside the road. I kept walking out into the field until I got enough distance from my truck that I could breathe.
