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Beauty and the Beastmaster

Page 35

by Linda Winstead Jones

Jenna took a few steps closer to him. He was tempted to step away from her, but he didn’t. He’d be damned if he’d back away from a woman. “You have so much power, I sensed it when you walked into town.”

She was a nutcase…

“Three days ago,” she continued. “Late. It was just after ten. You didn’t come straight here, I don’t think. You wandered a bit. Lost. Uncertain. You explored the town a bit, then settled here. It was a good choice, which is no surprise. Your instincts are excellent. They always have been, I suspect, even away from Mystic Springs.”

If she’d been watching him he’d kill her, here and now. But did anyone else know she was here? Had she told anyone about him?

“All I want is Gabi. And my daughter,” he added.

Jenna sighed. She studied him from head to toe in a calculating way, then said, “I can help you round them up, but you need to know the truth first.”

“What truth?”

“What’s your mother’s maiden name?” she asked for the second time.

This time he answered. “Bolton,” he snapped. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

She smiled. Good lord, she looked as if she was about to lick her lips. “The last of the Boltons left Mystic Springs years ago, but that doesn’t change the fact that you have Bolton blood. It’s been sleeping inside you, just waiting. You should thank Gabi. She brought you here. It was meant to be.”

Nutjob. “Yeah, well, I’m here to take her and the kid off your hands.” He didn’t tell her Gabi wouldn’t make it to the interstate alive. There was lots of deep water and plenty of woods around here. Either would do nicely for body disposal. Jenna didn’t need to know everything.

“Before you do that, hear me out.” She moved closer, hands out to skim all around his body without touching him. “You have so much power. I have a little, and I’ve learned to use what I have, but you…” She sighed. “With a little training you could do any damn thing you wanted to do.”

“I always do any damn thing I want to do.”

She licked her lips and leaned in, close to him and still not touching.

Blake’s dick responded. Okay, so she wasn’t his type for a long-term relationship. That didn’t mean he couldn’t fuck this crazy blonde senseless. He could pretend she was Gabi. Just thinking about getting his hands on his ex-wife had him hard as a rock.

“What do you see in that mousy brunette? She’s so unworthy of you, Blake. You need a woman as powerful as you are. You need a witch to match your warlock.” She licked his throat with the tip of her tongue. “Our babies would be so powerful even Mystic Springs couldn’t contain them.”

Witch? Warlock? He placed his hands on Jenna’s shoulders and moved her gently back. “Look, I don’t know what your game is…”

Jenna held out one hand, palm up, and with a whispered word fire licked her palm. She seemed to feel no pain, but it was real fire, hot and flickering. With another word, it was extinguished. She turned and looked at a vase full of dusty plastic flowers, sitting on an equally dusty desk. Again, a word he did not know passed her lips. The flower rose out of the vase, floated in the air a moment, and then fell across the desk, sending dust motes into the air.

“Parlor tricks,” he whispered, wondering how she’d done that.

“Look at me,” Jenna commanded, and he did.

Her face shimmered, the air around it moved. Suddenly he was looking not at Jenna, but at Gabi. Well, those were Gabi’s features marred by Jenna’s confident smile.

The illusion didn’t last.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

“Let me teach you,” she said. “It’s my gift to remold men into someone, or something, better. The drawback is, most men don’t want to be changed. They don’t want my help.”

Of course they didn’t. Whatever else she was, the blonde was a real ball-breaker. Most men knew enough to run like hell from a woman like this one. But…

“Can you teach me to do tricks like you just did?”

“I can, but you must accept that they are not tricks. Magic flows within you. Undisciplined, powerful magic.”

He liked the sound of that, farfetched as it was.

“But there’s something I want from you in return,” she whispered.

Of course there was. What woman did anything without a price?