Dominic: Her Warlock Protector Book 1 (2 page)

“I thought I explained it well enough, Captain,” Stephan drawled. “The closer you get to your target, the brighter it glows. Step towards her, it glows, step away, the glow fades. It's not like there's a wad of instructions to get through.”

“It got me to Milwaukee, and that's all the farther it got me,” Dominic retorted. “It's been flickering like it's busted for the last two weeks.”

“You broke it, then. I made that myself, and if I made it, it works.”

“Seriously, did you send me out here with a broken flashlight inside a pretty piece of rock? If you tell me now, I'm only going to rearrange your face a little bit...”

Stephan laughed, but then it was cut off. There was some muttering on the other end of the line, and when Stephan came back on, he was a little more restrained.

“The Commandant says we need to stop fucking around. Okay. What's happening with that beautiful piece of magic I put in your hands two weeks ago?”

Dominic sighed, leaning against the wall. The bar crowd was going strong, and as he talked to Stephan, he kept his eye on them as well. Some of the men met his gaze with a challenge, and more than some of the women gave him an appreciative once over. Despite the fact that he was on a job, despite the fact that the crystal in his pocket wouldn't stop pulsing unreliably, he couldn't stop himself from smiling back. Something about the night, about the river, about the way the summer air was bright and mild made him think of his long-lost Venice, the city of his birth.

Venice was still there, but the place that he had known had been gone for more than five-hundred years. It was in Venice that he had been initiated as a Mage, and it was in Florence where he had spent the first fifty years of his immortality gambling, flirting, and making a living as a paid duelist. It was also in Venice where Matteo Salvestro had come looking for him and informed him in no uncertain terms that it was time to join the Magus Corps.

“Your talents are too powerful to waste playing with courtesans and representing spoiled lordlings in duels,” his mentor had said sternly, but now, on what was looking like a waste-of-time-mission far from his usual territory, Dominic might not have agreed.
 

“Your device lit up just fine on my way to the city,” he told Stephan. “Then when I got here, it started to fade, and now I could maybe use it as a nightlight and not much more. It flickers sometimes, it brightens up, but then nada.”
 

There was a pause, and somewhere on the east coast, Dominic knew that Stephan was biting his lip and frowning in concentration.

“That means...look, I know this doesn't make sense, but what I think that means is that she's there and not there.”

“That makes less sense than anything else you've said so far. Didn't the big man tell you to stop fucking around?”

Stephan's laugh was a short, unamused bark.

“I made that thing you are calling a nightlight. This isn't some kind of hedgecharm or love potion from the nearest pennywitch, okay? That thing is meant to target your girl's life source. Blue means that you're getting close, and red means you've got her. The fact that she's fading in and out...”

“Means that she's a vampire?”
 

“God I hope not, but no. I think it means that she's hiding herself or doing something to jam it.”

“That would take training,” Dominic said flatly. Suddenly the mission was taking a completely different tilt, and he tensed a little.

“Well, four years is a long time to be on the run, my friend. If she's jamming something I made, she's got to be something else again. Maybe she ran into a rogue mage who loaded her up with nasty tricks, or maybe she made a pact with a demon. It's happened before.”

“Great.”

“Look, the Commandant wants to know if you need more guys out there...”
 

Dominic stiffened.
 

“No. Repeat, that is a negative, Stephan. I can handle this. I'm going to handle this.”

“Yeah, sounds like you. But that's what I've got. If my charm is doing something weird out there, well, that just means that things are weird out there. Go out loaded for bear. Or pissed-off demon. Or Mage Corps-hunting rogue.”

“Gotcha.”

Dominic ended the call and shoved the phone back into his pocket, scowling hard. No one was going to take this mission away from him, not when it had been entrusted to him specifically. He didn't want other Magus Corps investigators cluttering up the field. The city was only so big, after all, and there were only so many places for a witch who could block one of Stephan's charm to hide.
 

However, that didn't mean that he had to find her tonight. Dominic shoved the quartz crystal into his pocket, determined to ignore it for at least the evening. A man couldn't work all the time, and there were plenty of interesting things to be found in the city for a man who liked to have a good time. At least, that's how Dominic thought it was going to go when he heard a shout from the alley he was passing. He was almost bowled over by a disheveled couple who were exiting it, and when he glanced down the alleyway, he could see a large man bearing down on a small, staggering woman clinging to her cell phone.

Well, so much for a night off,
he thought wryly, and stepped into the alley.

SOPHIA HAD THOUGHT that the man was big in the alleyway, but it was nothing to how he looked in her tiny studio apartment. He filled up the space like a bear in a cardboard box, but it didn't stop him from entering the unit as if he owned it. Perhaps it should have made her prickle, but instead there was something oddly endearing about the way he sat her in her small wing chair and headed to the bathroom.

“Do you have an elastic bandage somewhere?” he called out. “I've got painkillers here for you.”
 

“The bandage is in the shelf behind the door,” she called back.
 

There was a clatter, followed by a yelp of surprise and Sophia grimaced.

“Sorry, it's been a little while since I cleaned that shelf off.”

She swallowed the pills and the water he gave her dutifully, and then watched in bemusement as he started to bind up her swelling ankle.
 

“Do you, um, make a habit of this?”
 

“Depends on what you mean,” he responded. “If you mean getting attacked by a waterfall of pink and green nail polish, the answer is no. If you mean rescuing damsels in distress, well, it's maybe happened a time or two before.”

His grin was easy and sweet, and she found herself returning it.

“Actually, I meant patching up the wounded. You're really good at it.”

“I'm not bad,” he said with a shrug. “I have friends who could have you dancing on that ankle before the clock struck midnight, but it'll do.”

Sophia looked down at her foot, which was bandaged expertly and elevated on the small ottoman that had been hidden under the chair. She wondered if he was a paramedic, or someone else who spent time picking up the wounded, but before she could voice her guess, she heard the man whistle.

“Well hello there, gorgeous...”

Sophia started to tense up. What
had
she been thinking, inviting a strange man into her home. But then she saw that his head was turned to one side. Her jaw dropped when she saw her tiny tortoiseshell cat sitting in the center of the room watching them both with her curious green gaze.
 

“She's a pretty one,” the man observed, and he offered a hand to the little cat.
 

Zora stretched out her neck to give the man's hand a delicate sniff, and Sophia braced herself for her pet to take a sharp-clawed swipe at him or to run straight under the twin-sized bed. Instead, she slowly rose to all four feet and paced a little closer to the man, ears up and tail waving in curiosity.

“Oh, that's a good girl,” the man crooned, caressing her head.
 

Zora dodged that hand neatly, but she drew closer still, looking the man over from head to toe before sitting down and waiting for him expectantly.

“Oh, I can pet you now? Thank you so much, your highness,” he said with a smile, and he scratched her behind the ears.
 

He glanced up, raising an eyebrow at Sophia.

“What, did I say something wrong?”

“No, it's just that she never, ever does this,” said Sophia in near awe. “Everyone I've brought to this apartment makes her hide in the closet or under the bed. Do you work with cats a lot?”
 

“No,” he said, but his smile was wistful. “When I was a boy though, they were everywhere in the villas. They'd be draped out the windows, hanging out in the courtyards, and some of them would even find work being charming on the gondolas, keeping the ladies company as their owners took the scenic route.”

“Gondolas? Are you from Italy?”

His smile was slow and dazzling, and for a moment Sophia thought that it was distinctly unfair that someone who was already so handsome should have a smile like that one.
 

“I was once,” he said, and he must have found just the right spot because Zora started to purr loudly, loud enough to make them both laugh.

“Will wonders never cease,” said Sophia. “Zora likes you.”
 

“Cute name. Though it does bring up the fact that I don't know your name, and you don't know mine, but now I know your cat's.”

Sophia hesitated, but before she could chicken out, she shook her head.

“Sophia,” she said “It's Sophia Chambers.”
 

“Dominic Berrett.”
 

He held out his hand, and she took it. He might have looked like a model, but his hands revealed that he was no stranger to hard work. There was a lifetime of labor there in the callouses and the toughness of his palm, and she could feel the strength that flowed through them. She realized that she had hung on to his hand too long, and let go self-consciously.
 

“Dominic doesn't sound very Italian,” she found herself saying, and Dominic shrugged.

“It is, but I haven't been Italian for a very long time. I came to America when I was really young.”

“I can sympathize with that,” Sophia said with a grimace. “But look, um, thank you for saving me, but you don't have to stay. You were probably on your way somewhere interesting before you had to rescue my dumb butt.”

“Nothing dumb about your butt,” Dominic said, and if there was a trace of flirtation there, it was buried under a look that was as innocent as a newborn lamb. “And you're wrong when you say I have plenty of more interesting things to do than to hang out with a beautiful woman. I'm in town for work, and let's just say it's not going well.”

“Oh, well, I'm sorry to hear that... wait, did you just call me beautiful?”
 

“I might have,” he said innocently. “After all, my mother always told me to tell the truth.”
 

Sophia's laugh was bright and surprising. She put her hand over her mouth in surprise, and she shook her head.

“You're trouble,” she managed to say, and Dominic quirked an eyebrow at her.

“Sometimes,” he admitted, “but believe me when I say that I will never be trouble for you. I'm not looking to make your life difficult, and I swear that I wasn't thinking about anything more than getting you home to see to your ankle tonight. As it is, I got to punch an asshole; I am talking with a lovely woman; and I’m enjoying the company of a friendly cat. As far as I'm concerned, my night's going well, and anything else is going to be a happy bonus.”

“A happy bonus...” Sophia said musingly. “How do you feel about hamburgers?”
 

“Love them,” he responded instantly. “Best thing to come out of American cuisine in the twentieth century.”

“The best?”

“I... might be exaggerating a little, but I do love them.”
 

“Good. If everything is a bonus, as you say, how about if I give you twenty dollars, and you run downstairs and next door?”

“To…the weird shopfront with the broken glass?”
 

“To one of this city's best kept secrets,” Sophia said with a grin. “Order two bison burgers, a limoncello, and whatever you want to drink. You're going to like this.”
 

WHEN DOMINIC GOT back to Sophia's apartment carrying a bag full of delicious smells and two limoncellos, he was impressed with her and slightly alarmed.

“How did you ever go in there on your own in the first place?” he asked, setting the food on her coffee table.
 

She had set out plates, and at the moment, she was resting comfortably on the twin bed, her foot resting lightly on her ottoman. She was short and curvy, and in her layered cardigan and skirt, she looked adorably urchinish. Zora sniffed the food before leaping up on the chair, disdainful of human fare, and Dominic came to sit down next to Sophia.

“Oh, did Roberto give you trouble?” she asked, and he raised an eyebrow.

“Was Roberto the man behind the counter with the missing eye and no patch, or was he the man who looked like two of me sweeping up?”

“Neither. He's the guy who runs the grill in back, and sometimes he takes exception to...customers, I think.”

“There were broken tables piled against the side of the dining room. The whole place was lit with bare bulbs, and the only thing that told me it was a restaurant and not some kind of drug bust waiting to happen was a chalkboard with the special of the day on it. Which was just listed as 'fries.'”

“They're pretty no frills,” Sophia agreed, unwrapping the burgers. She set one on his plate and one on her own. As soon as they emerged, the filled the air with a deliciously savory scent that made Dominic's mouth water.

“How the hell do they stay in business?”
 

“Take a bite. You'll see.”

Dominic had eaten food all over the world, from Vietnamese street stands to some of the most amazing, secret, subterranean restaurants in Paris. He took a bite, chewed, swallowed, and then, wide-eyed, took another.

“So, pact with the devil?” he asked after swallowing.