Dominic: Her Warlock Protector Book 1 (10 page)

“Very much so. And I want you to know. I want you to know what loving me is like.”

“That I'll grow old, and you'll stay young forever.”

Dominic nodded soberly.

“It's not easy. I've seen other Wiccans with mortals, and the relationships are beautiful, but they are not easy for either person. I want you to walk with me, or rather, I want to walk with you, wherever your path takes you.”

His words took the breath from her as she realized that she did love him. Whether they had a short time together or a long time, she wanted it.

“I...”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say she loved him.
 

The small quartz crystal on the nightstand by the bed lit up bright blue, and then it shaded to red.
 

They both froze.

DOMINIC HAD BEEN a man of action for five hundred years. Salvestro had always accused him of leaping first and thinking about the beehive that he leaped into second. All in all, given a long track record of going off half-cocked, he thought that his response to the quartz lighting up and giving him a positive reading was fairly restrained.

“I think there's something you haven't been telling me,” he said calmly.

Sophia leaped off of his lap, and the look on her face was a combination of guilt and terror.
 

“I...I don't know what you mean.”
 

She looked so afraid that it made his heart hurt, but there was also the pressing concern that she might do something more drastic. Dominic thought for a moment. Instead of moving towards her, he picked up the crystal instead.

“My best friend is Stephan. He's Wiccan like I am, and like me, he's in the Magus Corps. The Corps does a lot of things, but one of our most important jobs is looking for new witches and warlocks. A lot of them, like me, don't know what's going on after they've awakened.”

“Awakened. You...you mean had sex?”

“Yes. After a witch or warlock's first sexual encounter, they come into their powers. We all have our talents. That's why I managed to shock that poor woman the first time I got into bed with her. That's why Stephan is an absolute genius when it comes to putting magical properties into things like this crystal. See how it’s lit up with red? What it tells me is that I've found the person I've been searching for. I've found you.”

Sophia's laugh was false and tinny. It hurt Dominic to hear it, but he did his best to stay calm. He was afraid that if he spooked her now, he would never find her again. Given how long she had been fooling Stephan's toy, that was a serious concern.

“Your friend Stephan must not be as good at this as you thought he was,” she said nervously. “He's wrong. I'm no witch.”

“Actually, Stephan would tell you he's never wrong, and I think you are a witch. And if you've been hiding this long, you're a damn good one.”

Sophia shook her head, and to Dominic's dismay, she shrugged off the robe and started putting her clothes on again with jerky motions. He didn't move to stop her, afraid that if he did, she would disappear right under his fingertips.
 

“Let me tell you a story,” he blurted out, and she tilted her head to him.
 

She didn't look any less wary, but she nodded. Her clothes were on, but barefoot, she went to sit on the bed next to him. It ached that she wouldn't let him any closer, but at this point he would take what he could get. He took a deep breath and got started.

“About four years ago, my mentor Matteo Salvestro was on a mission. I don't know what. He has this toy that Stephan gave him, which helps him figure out when a witch or warlock is awakening in the area. He loves it, says it's way better than what he used to do, which was go around keeping an eye out for witch burnings.

“Anyway, he's in Phoenix, Arizona, and the thing lights up like fireworks. So he goes looking, because anyone who awakened that hard needs help, you know? They might have set a fire. They might have turned into a wolf. They might have turned invisible.”

Sophia flinched, and though he had been right, it gave Dominic no pleasure.

“He goes looking for that person, and he comes to a normal little apartment, just a small place not far from downtown. But when he arrives, there's trouble, a lot of it. There's a dead man, and there's a Templar knight there.” He paused for effect. “Templars, they're bad news. Some Wiccans think that they descended from the Spanish Inquisition, but it's never mattered to me. They hate Wiccans. They hunt us down. And their best chance for killing one is right after he or she has awakened. Stephan's little toy for detecting Wiccans who are awakening has saved lives, believe me.” Sophia made a small noise. “Yeah, the daggers that you saw—they've saved my life more than once. Anything that a gun can do, I can do with electricity and I can do it better, but sometimes, when you want to keep things quiet, the daggers are best.”

Dominic shook his head, shaking away some of the old, bad memories.

“Salvestro shows up, and there's this Templar knight there. They fight, and Salvestro drives him off. However, after the Templar leaves, all that's left is a poor dead guy on the bed.
 
He thinks that the guy might be the Wiccan who awakened, except...”

“Except...”

“Except for a split second, he thinks he sees a dark-haired girl reflected in the mirror behind him. He turns, he calls, and there's no one there. No one that he can see anyway. So he went home, made his report, and tried not to think about it for four years.”

Sophia blinked twice, hard and fast. There were tears in her eyes, and Dominic gave in to the urge to reach for her. When she jerked away, he thought his heart was going to break.

“Then what happened?” she said in a small voice. “What changed?”

“Salvestro is feeling his age. He says he remembers a time when people didn't know how to write, and whether that's true or not, he's lived a long, long while. He says he wants to do something else, maybe lie around on a beach or something, but he also wants closure. He's always thought that the witch from Phoenix was still out there. He convinced me to take the job. Imagine our surprise when Stephan's toy thought that you were alive and findable.”

“That's not me.”

“Yes, it is,” Dominic said patiently. “It is you. Stop denying it.”

Sophia's face crumpled, and she staggered to her feet. Though Dominic went to her, she shoved him away, glaring at him as if he were responsible for everything that had happened.

“My life ended that day,” she hissed, and he could hear four years of pain in her voice. “Do you understand? That guy who died, he was my best friend, and we... we... I was so tired of being a virgin. We cared about each other, and it got him killed!” The trembling of her lips matched the quaver in her voice. “That horrible man broke down the door, and he killed Jason, and he would have killed me too.” Tears had sprung to her eyes. “I don't know why he didn't, he was looking right where I was standing, and then he started calling for me. I knew he wanted to kill me too, and I knew that the second man who came in wanted to kill me as well.”

She was nearly sobbing from the pent-up emotion. Dominic’s chest tightened and felt like it could burst. He reached out a hand, desperate to calm her.

“We did our best, we knew that you were afraid, we wanted to find you–”

“Knew I was afraid? Ha! Try terrified!” she nearly yelled. “I was invisible for four weeks! I couldn't go to work. They fired me eventually. I could steal what I wanted, but I hated it. I thought I was going to live the rest of my life without anyone touching me, without anyone seeing me! I thought about killing myself, Dominic!”

“Oh sweetheart...”
 

She yanked herself back from him.
 

“And now here you are, and you have knives, and you have orders, and you tell me that you're going to protect me? Who the hell are you, anyway?”

The words stung him as if she’d used her hand.

“I'm exactly the man who stood before you ten minutes ago,” Dominic said softly. “I'm the man who loves you. I'm the man who wants to protect you with everything I have. I'm the man who wants to spend eternity with you, and now... now we can.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Awakening's just the first part of your life as a Wiccan. After that comes initiation.”

He paused. It was all going too fast, too much to take in.

“Are you going to tell me what that is?” she demanded.

Dominic bit his lip. He didn't want to. Things were charged enough without bringing sex into it, but she was not going to take any excuses or half-truths. Hhe didn't want to offer her any.

“An initiation is when a Wiccan has unprotected sex with another Wiccan for the first time. When that happens, well, you become immortal, like I am, like Stephan is, like Salvestro is. Some Wiccans choose to forgo it. Eternity is a long time, after all. But, Sophia, if we have sex without those condoms, we really could be together forever..”

Eyes dazed, Sophia shook her head, but Dominic couldn't stop himself.

“I love you, I feel like I've been waiting five hundred years to find you. I know that. But more than that, I want to protect you. I need to keep you safe, and I need to bring you somewhere where you can learn about yourself and your gift.”

“My curse!”

Dominic flinched. It was how Templars talked about the Wiccans.
 

“It's a gift, I swear. You can use it to help people who were in the same position that you were in. You can help get them to safety, you can meet other people like you.”
 

“I don't want to meet anyone! Dominic, this destroyed my life! I can't believe you're a part of it.”

“Being Wiccan is all of me,” he said trying to hang on to his calm. “This is me. It has been me for a very long time. I look after my own, and Sophia, even if we never touch each other again, that includes you. Please, please stay with me. I can bring you to meet people who can explain it better than I can, we can help you”

“No!” Sophia raising her hands in front of her. “I don't want your help! I don't want anything from you!”

“Sophia, listen please–”

“No,
you
listen!” Her face was flushed with fury, and she stepped toward him so angrily that he took a step back. “I have been on my own for four years now. I was driven away from my life. My best friend was killed because he tried to do me a
favor
, and I thought I was going to die. Maybe if you had found me then, it would be different. But that’s now what happened. I’ve been living on my own for four years now. For four long years, I have been doing just fine. Sure, I was lonely, and sure, I was afraid, but I didn't need anyone!”

Pain and rage mixed in her voice, so deep and sharp that Dominic had to suck in a breath. As she stalked to the door, he could only watch her. But when her hand landed on the knob, he finally found his voice.

“Sophia,” he said lowly. “Please, don’t.”

“Leave me alone,” she said, not turning, her voice barely more than a whisper. “You and the Corps and whatever, just leave me alone.”

He tried to swallow past the lump in his throat, tried to find words—any words—that would make her stay. But in moments she was out the door. Though he sprang to the closing door, catching it before it latched, she was gone. The hallway was empty, and the crystal in his hand went completely opaque once more.

SOPHIA WALKED FOR almost four blocks before she realized that she had left her shoes at Dominic's penthouse. She passed by an all-night drug store, and though the clerk looked up when the revolving doors swung with no cause, she quickly fell back into an old routine. Sophia picked up a pair of flip-flops, slipped them on, and left as quietly as she had come.

How easily it all came back
, Sophia thought.

She had stolen a lot during those first few weeks. Then, after she was on the run, it had been a matter of survival. She had been aware of people tracking her, of the two men who had come into poor Jason's home, and then the weeks and months of simply not knowing what was going on. She had learned a lot in those months, and among the things she had learned was that there was no one to count on except herself.

Except that wasn't true, was it?
 

There was Brent, who had come out of nowhere to give her a job that she desperately needed. It was strange that despite her gifts, she had never been tempted to turn to anything but the most petty and pedestrian crime. She had sometimes thought of robbing places that would never have been the wiser, but she knew that payback was always coming, always waiting. Brent had saved her from that.

Dominic had saved her from something else, and when she thought about his gaze, steady and sad, her heart tore. The idea of living with him for years, perhaps even centuries, pulled at her like the tide of an ocean. She could imagine it all too well. A big part of her wanted to give in to it, to let him take her. But his world was dark, and it terrified her. More than that, she finally realized she’d been scared for a very long time, and the thought was exhausting. Even living her life as it is was was frightening. The idea of entering into a secret society of witches and warlocks, with a life that stretched on forever, it made her shiver.

It took her almost an hour to get back to her apartment. Several times, she clung to the walls to avoid people who were walking on the streets, and when she made it back home, she could have collapsed with relief.

Zora met her at the door with a nearly silent mew, and she picked up her cat for a quick cuddle. As if sensing her mistress's distress, Zora chirped comfortingly and butted her head under Sophia's chin. With a sigh, Sophia went to lie down on the bed, her cat by her side. Though she’d been worried about tossing and turning for hours, exhaustion quickly grabbed her and pulled her under.

“SOPHIA?”

SOPHIA AWOKE with a start, and kicked her blankets off in a panic. She looked around wildly, and the voice calling her name came again.