All Things Wicked (6 page)

His own weren’t any prettier.

She didn’t fight as he tugged her upright, forcing her to sit up, but she couldn’t summon the energy to pull her hands away. “They don’t hurt,” she said wearily. “Not more than yours do, I bet.”

“They hurt like hell,” Caleb replied evenly, and she couldn’t help her crooked smile. Even her humor was tired. “Are you hurt anywhere else? Is anything broken?”

“I don’t know. It’s all numb.”

The light slid up her legs, picked out her soaked jeans and glossed over her arms.

Juliet tipped her head back, closing her eyes again. “Well? Am I alive?”

Could she be any less alive? Her body all but hummed under his perusal, and she clenched her knees tightly together.

Get. A. Grip.

This was memory talking, that was all. She’d already screwed up by sleeping with him once; she just needed to break that habit of easy freaking arousal.

No problem.

He said nothing. Some sense, an inner warning caused her to raise her eyelids. She practically had to peel them apart. God, she was tired.

He stared at her, his gaze glittering in the faint light afforded by the thin beam centered squarely on her chest. Her breath caught in her throat. Slowly, dreading what she knew she’d find, she looked down.

A flap from her black tank top hung over her chest, its ragged edges clearly visible against the pale, dirt-speckled curve of one breast. In some calm, objective part of her frozen mind, she realized that the rock wall must have torn it free when she’d wriggled against it. Her simple black shelf bra was askew, and the edge of one dark nipple was clearly visible.

Calm slammed into mortification. Heat seared her cheeks as she made a grab for the torn material, but Caleb caught her wrist, his grip rigid.

She pulled at it. “Let me—”

“What is this?” His voice bit, sharp as a whip crack and colder than the water below.

Her laugh cracked. “I’m pretty sure you’ve seen boobs before.” He knocked her other hand away and hooked a finger in the edge of the gaping fabric, peeling it away from her ribs. It revealed more of her bra. More of her flesh, half freed from the constraining band.

She jerked.

Caleb splayed his hand against her chest to keep her from twisting away, his mouth a thin line. The warmth of his palm drilled into her skin, swelled to a burning ache, but he didn’t seem to notice.

She did. Damn him.

He let go of her wrist and instead stroked a finger over the three-inch-long bar code stamped just under the heavy swell of her left breast. Her skin prickled under his touch. Her stomach clenched.

Confusion sizzled to stunned disbelief. “What, my tattoo?”

“Where did you get it?”

This time, he let her push him away, and she scrambled backward as he stood. “I can’t believe—You act like you’ve never seen it before,” she said with a scornful laugh.

His jaw hardened. “We didn’t exactly get naked, Jules.”

Heat climbed her cheeks. Blazed away the cold under a fierce pulse of humiliation.

The memory hit her all at once, of her discarded jeans cast in shadow. Of her bare legs wrapped tightly around his waist as he braced her against the wall, muscles rigid as he thrust himself so deep inside her that he’d been forced to muffle her shameless cries with one hand. And then his own mouth. Her shirt had never made it off. Neither had his.

She jerked the fabric back up to cover herself. “It’s always been there,” she snapped, mortified that he had to remind her. The memories of that night, of the raw, fervent sex that had left parts of her psyche permanently embedded into that wall were too much to handle now.

Maybe ever.

“What do you mean, always been there?” he demanded, and her shoulders rounded.

“I mean,” she threw back, “Delia said I was already branded when she found me.”

His eyebrows winged upward.

Juliet sliced a dirty hand through the air. “Save your pity.” Her voice cracked. “Delia found me when I was a baby, okay? She took me home, God knows why, but there you are.”

The rectangle of black ink had never meant anything to her. Why should it? All her life, Juliet had never seen anything else like it. Speculation was all well and good, but it didn’t pay for food.

Now she studied Caleb’s taut expression, tying the ends of the torn fabric together, and remembered why she never spoke of it.

Pity. It always came on the heels of her parentless confession. Well, screw that for a laugh. She didn’t need his pity. “Fine, now you know, can we move on?

His shoulders moved, twisted faintly. “You’re an orphan?”

“Like I’m the only witch who is,” she scoffed. Grief knotted her throat; she fought it back even as fatigue beat at the edges of her thoughts. She slumped. “Look,” she said wearily, “Delia found me when she was six years old. She lived with a couple of strippers, okay? So I did, too.”

“How old were you?”

“Don’t know.” Juliet plucked at the knot holding her tank top together. “Young enough to still need milk.”

“Jesus—”

She cut him off with a sudden, sharp shake of her head. Droplets of water scattered across the pitted ground. “Don’t even. So we were raised by prostitutes and strippers, so what? It wasn’t the worst life ever.”

“And the tattoo?”

“Will you listen to me?” she said sharply. “I already had it when Delia found me.”

“She never said—”

“No,” Juliet cut in, and she pressed two fingers into one throbbing temple. “She didn’t know what it meant, and neither did anyone else. What’s the big deal?”

Caleb centered the beam on her chest again, and Juliet resisted the urge to check the knot. “What did Cordelia—”

“God damn it, Caleb!”

The words exploded from her lips, bitter. Sharper than she meant, more ragged. So much more emotional than she ever wanted to reveal, especially to him.

Juliet surged to her feet with renewed vigor, adrenaline slamming through her body. Her head. The ache between her ears intensified.

The light in Caleb’s hands jerked.

“Stop it,” Juliet pleaded, almost a sob. She dragged her forearm across her lips, as if it would wipe away the grief. The regret; the not knowing. “Just stop it. My sister—fuck you,” she cut in brokenly as he opened his mouth. “My sister is missing, okay? She’s been missing since that day you killed everyone else I knew, Caleb. What do you
want
from me?”

His eyes narrowed. The light shifted, pointed down to the ground at her feet.

“I looked everywhere,” she continued, leashing it down to a low, tense pitch. It hurt. It slammed through her chest like a howl demanding to get out, but she forced herself to be quiet. Contained. Like him. “I asked everyone I could find, everyone left. She knew about the coven, so I even went back to the park. I thought maybe she’d gone looking for me that day. I sifted— Jesus.” She dragged her forearm over her eyes. “I even sifted through the rubble once the missionaries were gone, but they took all the bodies.”

Caleb didn’t blink. Didn’t look away. “Are you blaming me for your sister?”

Juliet opened her mouth to say yes, to skewer him with all the rage and hatred and . . . and
loneliness
that she’d drowned in for the past year, but her breath snagged. Twisted. Something in her chest popped, pressurized, and Caleb flinched.

Features tightening, he splayed out a hand as if it could ward off a blow. “Jules. Stop it.”

She seized her head between her palms. As if untwisting, uncoiling like a spring, the power rushed through her veins, thicker than blood and more intoxicating than any gin. It hammered at her temples, beat against the fragile cage of her ribs, and Juliet groaned from behind her clenched teeth.

“Juliet.” Caleb’s voice was much closer than only a moment ago. Warm hands fell on her shoulders. Callused fingers dug into her bare skin and shook. “Jules, get a grip on it.”

Was that pain in his voice?

She sucked in a breath. Magic clawed at every lock, every restraint. Sweat gathered between her shoulder blades as she pushed her fingers into her temples. Hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to clear a space behind her eyes for thoughts to form.

“S-sorry,” she gasped, her eyes squeezed shut. “Sorry. I can’t—it comes like this. It . . . Oh, God, it always hurts.”

The fingers left her shoulders. Cupped her face, framing her cheeks. Caleb tipped her face up. “Brace yourself,” he said, so quietly that she wasn’t sure she heard it. Or if her fevered, magic-high mind simply made it sound like that was his voice, suddenly gentle and tender.

Then a sharp pain, jarring and sudden across her cheek. Juliet gasped, eyes flying open.

Caleb’s face was only inches from hers. His eyes, shrouded and intense, glittered into her own. Her cheek stung.

The pain helped. Pain always helped. She sucked in a gasp, mortified to find herself shaking from head to toe. “Str-stressed,” she said, somehow managing to inject wry humor into it.

The thin press of his mouth softened. Just enough. “How long has this been happening?”

“I don’t know. A while.” Because she couldn’t help herself, she slipped her fingers around his wrist. He stiffened. Juliet tightened her grip. “Please, I—”

She what?

Needed too much.

The magic slid from her, drained out from her skin like so much air and nothing. Slowly, unable to find the escape it needed, it flowed out through her feet and back to whatever grounded source her magic came from, leaving her feeling tapped. Drained.

Caleb disentangled himself. Gently.

Resolute.

“You just tried to get inside my skin,” he said, matter-of-fact. Face impassive, he stood and offered her a hand. “Your power looked for magic to attach to. That’s going to be a problem later.”

“Later,” she repeated, her chuckle catching. She cleared her throat. “When I . . . when I’m stressed, or tired. Sometimes it’s stronger. It’s one reason I . . .” She hesitated.

“Why you didn’t rejoin the remainder of the coven,” he supplied, as if he wasn’t the reason the coven only
had
a remainder left.

“Yeah.”

His hand hadn’t moved. She took it, flinching as his fingers curled over hers. Warm. Warmer than she was, anyway. Steady.

“They used you,” he said.

She flinched. “I know.” It was barely a whisper.

His fingers tightened around hers, and smoothly, he lifted her easily to her feet. “Try to keep it under wraps,” he said, suddenly brisk again. Cool. “I can’t have you falling behind.”

Juliet extricated her hand quickly, folding her arms over her chest as if that would help make up for the torn remains of her shirt.

As if it could keep her heart from picking up speed.

Anger curled into the base of her spine.

“You’re intolerable,” she said quietly.

He turned away. “I know,” he said, but as if to himself. He palmed the light, swept the beam over the rocky ground. “Are you ready to walk?”

Ready, oh, yeah. And eager. She stamped her sodden feet. “Fine, absolutely. Let’s.”

He pushed off into the dark without another word and she followed, telling herself that she wasn’t disappointed that he hadn’t cared more to argue. She was ready to drop. He couldn’t be feeling any better.

But if she stopped, she thought as she jammed her hands into her jeans pockets and shivered, she’d only try to push him into the damned trench again.

Or dwell on the heat swirling inside her body. It wasn’t all anger. It wasn’t all fear and exhaustion and the lingering whisper of magic she wasn’t sure how to control anymore.

Damn it. Why was she so thickheaded? Why did just the touch of his hands make her crazy?

She had been down that road and paid that toll until she’d bled. He was right. She was too soft to cut it. She even failed at revenge.

Juliet had nothing more to give.

Chapter Five

T
he man seated at the scarred bar table was the type Alicia ordinarily thought of as her kind of candy.

His hair was a gold-streaked brown, long enough to lead a girl to twine her fingers through it and short enough that he could style it away from his face. His features were precisely defined by edges, giving his expression a severity only softened by fine lips quirked up into an ever-present smirk.

His body beneath a blue flannel shirt and faded jeans was fit, the kind of hard body that wouldn’t get tired easily. Muscled, broad without overwhelming, and relaxed in his own skin.

Alicia adjusted her hood with a quick tug of two fingers, her eyes devouring every last inch of the latest man the Church had sent to yank her leash.

He liked to play. She’d put money on it. All the signs pointed to a smug sense of self-confidence, which was par for the course when it came to the Holy Order of St. Dominic. As far as she could tell, there were two kinds of Church operatives: zealots, and assholes.

This one had asshole written all over him.

She straightened, prepared to push through the small knot of rowdy barflies between her post at the back door and the table he’d so cleverly chosen in the middle of the dive. He shifted.

Alicia stilled.

She couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, not in this horrific miasma of neon and smoke, but she couldn’t possibly miss the intensity of it as he looked her way. As if reading her mind, the man smiled, and her brain power plummeted to a hard knock between her legs.

Oh. He was
good.

No wonder men like Curio came to lead the coven. A witch had to be twice as sharp to keep up with the clever Church boys.

Giving up any pretense of subtlety, Alicia made no attempt to hide as she slipped through the noisy crowd. The few people who bothered to look away from the press of drinks served up at the bar would see only a slender woman in shiny black vinyl, with legs up to her chin and a hood shadowing most of her face.

They wouldn’t know anything about the witchcraft simmering under her skin, and she relished the thought. One word, one gesture of her black-gloved fingers, and she could have them all begging for her.

Her power was more than sex.

The man didn’t bother to get up. He kicked out a chair, and in the weak bar light, his eyes looked brown. “Have a seat.”

She didn’t. “Make this quick, pet,” she said breezily, resting her hands on the back of the chair. “I’ve got things to do.”

His smile edged into a crooked slant. Amusement sparkled in his gaze, all but leaked out every pore as he hooked an elbow over the back of his own chair. Not a care in the world. “What, no flex of witchy muscle? No attempts to seduce me with your sex-kitten wiles?”

Impatience flickered. What was this, a game? Well, to her, sure. She didn’t like it when they thought so, too.

It was tempting, of course. But as her gaze slid over the corded muscle of his neck, traveled the vee of exposed skin at the collar of his shirt, she picked out the discolored edge of a tattoo.

Fuck the seal of St. Andrew. So this wasn’t just any Church dog sent on an errand. He was a missionary, one of the witch hunters in the Order.

She wasn’t stupid enough to flex magical muscle at a man protected by so-called holy magic.

Alicia leaned forward, just enough that he could see beneath the shiny black folds. Enough to see the gleam of her teeth, bared between strings of ropy scars. “Don’t,” she warned softly, “waste my time.”

His eyes crinkled. “As you wish.” He pulled a thin nylon envelope from his lap, tossed it artlessly to the table, which rocked on its single unsteady column.

Alicia eyed it. “What the fuck is this?”

“Language,” the man chastised, laughter lacing his expression as her gaze flicked back to him.

“Look around, choirboy,” she replied, stung despite herself. “Who the hell do you think will care?”

He laced his hands behind his head, leaning back precariously on a tall chair that creaked with the effort. Even under the thin flannel, muscles shifted. “Job for you, ma’am,” he continued, as if she hadn’t said anything at all. “And let me continue this novel idea of not wasting time. No, you have no choice. No, I don’t think you’d survive refusing. And yes, they want it done now.”

Her grip tightened on the chair back, vinyl gloves squeaking as her fingers rubbed against roughened wood. An icy claw of rage curved subtly, neatly into place behind her eyes.

Conceited asshole.

“What, then, is the job?” she asked sweetly.

“I bring you blood.”

“Whose?”

“Not going to open it?” His eyes watched her face, steady and dark, and Alicia resisted the urge to pluck the edge of the hood forward. She knew damn well he couldn’t see much more than the gleam of her eyes in the smoke-filled bar, and it pissed her off that uncertainty made her fingers twitch.

The unscarred side of her lips twisted. “Just tell me, pet, before I—”

“Fail to make it ten steps toward the door,” he pointed out, his smile widening to something edged, with lots of gleaming white teeth. This time, the table rocked as he propped one brown work boot against the single center leg.

Another finger of fury snapped neatly into place. “Is that a threat?”

“I’m unarmed.” And utterly unconcerned. Annoyed, she reached for the folder, stilled as he pinned one edge down with two fingers. “But I’ll humor you . . . pet,” he drawled. “You’ve been busy tonight, haven’t you?”

“Not all of us sleep,” she replied, smirking even as she forced herself not to tug on the trapped sachet. Instead, she braced her palms against the table, knowing how the shiny black pants she wore hugged her ass for the men at the far table to admire.

She loved that effect. Shame that current company was ruining her fun.

“Uh-huh.” Unimpressed, the man whose name she refused to have to ask for let go of the folder. His fingers curled loosely around an unlabeled glass bottle; some bathtub swill dives like this hole-in-the-wall brewed in the back.

She didn’t care. She hated beer. Classless stuff.

Wordlessly, she unzipped the envelope, straightening to tip its contents to the light. Plastic tubes glinted, banded neatly into place and filled with a dark fluid. Each tube sported a plain white label.
J. Carpenter.

Well, well, well.

She plucked out a thin sheet of paper, pristine and probably expensive. She took her time reading its brief directions, and her eyes narrowed as she studied the letterhead at the top.

What the fuck was GeneCorp?

She turned her head back to him, raising an eyebrow he couldn’t see as he tipped the contents of the bottle into his mouth. He swiped at his lips with the back of one hand. “Word has it that you caught Juliet Carpenter.”

Dents formed in the padded neoprene. Alicia’s knuckles ached with the sudden force of her grip. “So what?”

“Word follows,” he continued with lazy good cheer, “that you lost her.”

“
I
didn’t—” she snarled, only to cut herself off. She hadn’t lost anything. Banner had, the moron.

It was the last mistake he ever made.

She tucked the paper back inside, then set the binder down gently. Once more bracing her palms on the table, she framed the contained tubes of blood and asked icily, “What the
fuck
does the Holy Order want with Juliet Carpenter?”

“You just use that blood to get her back,” he said, and tipped the bottle to his mouth again.

Alicia refrained from smacking it out of his hands. Just barely. Her palms itched with it. “How do you know about that ritual?”

He took his time swallowing. Finally, after he’d swooshed the foul-smelling brew around in his mouth for a while, he swallowed and said with a shit-eating grin, “We’re the Church, ma’am. We know everything.”

“Fuck—”

“
Language
.”

One word. It wasn’t as if his expression changed. His smile remained. His eyes steady. His grip loose around the bottle, fingers leaving smudges on the brown glass.

But suddenly, Alicia felt as if every fine hair on her body was standing straight up. Sweat gathered under her arms, her palms, and she straightened with slow, deliberate calm.

Fury hammered at her skull. “Fine. We’ll use the blood. We’ll even deliver her to your precious GeneCorp.”

“Yes. You will.” The man raised his bottle once more, a salute that screamed dismissal. “Good luck. The Church will be in touch.”

Alicia turned, tucking the nylon folder under her arm. Across the pitted, splintering floor, the three men huddled around the nearest tottering table smiled, nodded. If they only knew what kind of face topped an ass like hers, she thought, and forcibly relaxed.

“One more thing,” she said, pausing just long enough to toss the sultry words over her shoulder.

The man leaned back in his chair, watching her. Her face, she realized, or where her face would be without the hood. Not her body.

Goddamned religious boys. What a waste.

“What’s that?”

“If I ever catch you alone, pet,” she said huskily, tightening her grip on the case, “I’m going to gut you.”

His teeth flashed in her peripheral as she sauntered across the beer-stained floor. “My name’s Simon,” he called. “And you have yourself a deal, sweet cheeks.”

The heavy, dented metal door swung closed behind her, and Alicia stepped over the filthy, prostrate figure of a drunk. The fumes practically seared her nose as she strode out into the alley.

The rain pounded the mottled pavement, splashed from the streets built in layers above and leaving everything in the lower streets slick and treacherous. Her heels clicked, counter to the rhythmic chaos of the city streets. Cars rattled by in irregular intervals, beaters and junkers too far gone to do anything but nurse along until they died.

She bypassed the streets for the back alleys, leading any Church operatives following her on a merry goddamned chase.

Fuck the Church. Fuck the smirking operative with his shitty taste in beer swill.

She might have inherited one hell of a partnership from Curio—and wasn’t that the surprise of a lifetime?—but she wasn’t going to marry the Church for it. Curio had milked the Holy Order for everything it was worth, and in exchange, they demanded the occasional errand.

It was, for the moment, a partnership she had no choice but to keep. The coven was all but shattered. The best and most powerful of them had been killed in Caleb’s trap—God fucking
hate
him.

Even a year later, they were weak. They needed an infusion of power.

The pretty whore was going to make them strong again. No, Alicia would make them strong again. That was her job, now. Her goal.

Her calling.

Coven mistress.

Her smile stretched as she hugged the folder to her chest. Scar tissue twanged, stiff and corded. Pain mingled with pleasure; amusement and the lingering tendrils of bitter rage.

The Holy Order could send all the dogs it wanted to sniff her crotch. She’d use them all.

And flay the skin from every last one.