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She tilts her head back and blinks up at me. The moment I lock eyes with her, I’m drawn into the rich chocolate of her gaze. Odin’s beard. It’s like looking into the bottomless abyss of the ocean where no light reaches.
This close, I’m at risk of being sucked into that void.
The push of her magic pulses against the periphery of my awareness, snapping me back into the moment, but she’s tapped out and we both know it. Josephine put up a good fight, but I’m the one who emerges victorious.
“Sleep.” My voice warbles with the single word, ensnaring the witch in my thrall.
Her eyes roll back in her head, and I’m freed from the insistence of her magic as my command takes hold.
Josephine goes limp, lilting to the side.
A flash of wind brings Fintan into the room with us. He catches the wilting flower before her body hits the ground.
“Would ye be careful with her?” he admonishes, his gaze fixed on the witch’s face as he smooths her hair back. “She almost cracked her skull on the edge of the desk.”
“Right. Next time, I’ll ask her nicely to not stake me through the heart instead. Have you forgotten the power the Dumont witches hold?”
After twenty-five years, I had forgotten as well until Josephine smacked me in the face with a brutal reminder. She held me at bay when she herself only had a fraction of her total power.
“I didn’t forget,” Finn says, his gaze locked on Josephine’s peaceful face. “I’ve felt how incredible the Dumont magic is.”
“She looks entirely harmless now.”
Harmless, yet there is still a fierceness to her features: the angular jaw and warm browns of her Cajun ancestry, the strong nose and brow of her father’s European influence.
A mixed marriage never looked so good.
Fintan is staring down at Josephine as if trapped in her thrall. Is it possible for witches to weave spells even in their sleep?
“Come,” I say, reaching to take Josephine from him. “Let’s find Bas and get out of here.”
Finn backs away quickly with a snarl of bared fangs, hunching over Josephine’s body as if to protect her from me. “I’ve got her,” he growls.
I hold my hands in the air and back off. “Whoa, brother. Be calm.”
What is wrong with him?
The two of us have known each other for decades—I created him, for Odin’s sake—and his reaction just now was very un-Fintan-like.
He’s the calm and collected one of our trio, the one who brings a cool head and sound reasoning to a bunch of blood-frenzied vampires.
“I meant no offense.” He seems to come back to himself, blinking and shaking his head as his fangs retract. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I reacted that way.”
“It’s okay.”
It’s not, but now isn’t the time or place to discuss Finn’s weird outburst.
“Let’s go, you two.” Sebastian appears in the office doorway. “The witches can’t hold this spell all day.”
Right. In and out.
We need to leave the Sun Witches with enough juice to shield us until we get back to the hotel. Otherwise, we’ll be stuck here until dark and sitting ducks for Egan’s pack to retaliate. Speaking of…
“Where’s Egan?” I ask.
“I’ll give you one guess.”
“Turned tail and fled?”
