1 Witchy Business (18 page)

I knew those fears, because they were the same ones I’d had just a little while ago, even while safe in Niall’s arms. The fear that I’d someday hurt someone. The fear that I wouldn’t be me anymore. I had come to Rebecca for help, advice, and maybe even compassion. Yet, it was obvious she didn’t have any to give. Not to a vampire.

“I don’t want to be that monster you say I am,” I said. “I’m not trying to hurt anyone.”

“Your kind kills indiscriminately,” Rebecca snapped back. “Your kind goes around slaughtering witches and humans, and that isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is that, just knowing you’re around, none of us can ever trust what we feel. Or are you going to deny that, when you’ve just tried to manipulate me into feeling what you wanted? Are you going to deny that all your kind does is play with people?”

That was her deepest fear. I could feel it pouring from her. The fear of not being who she thought
she
was. The fear of being used. Yet hadn’t the coven, hadn’t Evert, done just that?

“Rebecca—”

“No. Just sit there and shut up until Evert gets here.”

And what would happen then, I wanted to ask, but I didn’t, both because I knew that Rebecca wasn’t going to talk to me anymore, and because I already knew the answer.

So, I sat there, with my knees hugged close to my chest on the rough floor, trying not to think too hard about what was coming. Trying not to think too hard about the possibility that Rebecca might actually be right.

Was I was too dangerous to live? I’d almost attacked Niall’s housekeeper, hadn’t I? I’d come over here looking for Rebecca’s help, but then tried to manipulate her emotions when things didn’t go my way. Well, what help did I expect her to have for me? This was what I was. What I’d always been, if I believed Niall. And I did. I believed him and more than that, I believed
in
him.

Niall.
My heart ached at the thought of him. At the thought of what it would be like for him when he found out that I was dead. Did he love me enough for that to hurt? I didn’t know. I thought so, though he hadn’t said the words. I only knew that I loved him. There, I’d said it, though only to myself.

I love you,
I thought in the general direction of the house across the street, though I knew there was no chance of Niall ever hearing it. Words weren’t what our kind felt. It was simpler than that. Less precise, but also purer, in a lot of ways. Would Niall feel the moment when I died?

An idea came to me in that moment. I didn’t know if it would work, but I had to try. I took all my fear, all my love, everything I could find. I balled it up tight inside me, tying the emotions together with that thread of power I’d taken from Niall and swallowed down deep inside of me. I threw it out as hard as I could in the direction where I knew Niall lay, hoping that he might hear. Hoping that he might understand. Hoping that he would care if he did.

That was when Evert came back. I heard the slam of the door before I saw him, but seeing him was enough to make fear shoot through me. Before, he had looked dangerously handsome. Now, he just looked dangerous. His tattoos glowed lightly with power as he stalked forward, while his eyes on me…there was something cold about them, the anger I’d felt beneath the surface turned into something diamond-hard. His tattoos swirled around his skin in a frenzy, shifting as the power in him touched them. Oh, this was not good. Not good at all.

“He turned her?” Evert asked, looking over at Rebecca. Not talking to me.

“She as good as said it,” Rebecca said. “And her eyes…”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Rebecca snapped back. “Do you think I would have called you if I weren’t sure?”

Evert looked at her, and there was something in that look that obviously made Rebecca pause. I didn’t blame her. Not for that, at least.

“Sorry,” she said. “I was just hoping…I had hoped we could get through this without it coming to this.”

Evert shook his head. “Hope is worthless. I learned that a long time ago.”

He turned back to me, and in that moment, I knew I didn’t want to die. Whatever I was, whatever I’d become, I didn’t want it to end so much that I could sit there and simply let someone kill me. I’d come to Rebecca looking for help, but if this was the only brand of “help” on offer, I didn’t want it. Regardless of what I became, even if there was that potential for danger I’d felt when I’d almost attacked Kelly, I didn’t want this.

“It’s a pity,” Evert said. Just that. A whole almost-relationship’s worth of emotion compressed into just three words.

“You kissed me,” I tried. “I thought you liked me.”

He shrugged, those tattoos of his shifting and even blinking at me. “That was then. And yes, it was a good kiss. It might have been fun going further. Now…like I said, a pity.”

“I’m not going to kill anyone,” I insisted. Begged. I wasn’t too proud to beg. I wasn’t sure if I was begging Evert or Rebecca now. I didn’t know which of them was in charge. I had thought it was Rebecca, but Evert…he had the feel of someone who wouldn’t be so easily reined in, even if I could somehow get Rebecca to change her mind.

“You can’t say that for certain, Elle,” Rebecca said. “You’re not you anymore.”

“I am. I’m…” I was me. The simplicity of that struck me. I was who I had always been. Niall had tried to tell me that, hadn’t he? But I hadn’t listened. I’d been so scared of what I might become. So scared, not just of the potential for hurting people, but also of everything I might become. The power of it, the chance to live forever, and every hint of it had seemed like one more step along a road away from the Elle Chambers I knew.

Yet, how could it be?

“You’re wrong,” I said. “Niall didn’t turn me into a vampire.”

Rebecca shook her head. “I’m not an idiot, Elle. I know what you are.”

“And so do I,” I said. “I’ll say it again. Niall didn’t turn me into a vampire. He didn’t turn me into one, because I’ve always been one. It’s who I am. Who I’ve always been. You, my mother, everyone else can try to deny that if they like, but it doesn’t change anything.”

Evert crouched in front of me, his weight rolling back on his heels. “You’re right. It doesn’t change anything.” He reached out, one of his cavernous hands wrapping around my throat almost tenderly. “Shut your eyes, Elle. I’m good at this. I’ll try to make it painless.”

I didn’t shut my eyes. Instead, I stared straight into the depths of Evert. I could see all of the anger there, the shell of emptiness at the core of him. How could I ever have thought that he was better than Niall? I was afraid, I couldn’t be anything but afraid with his hand on my throat, but right then, the only thing I felt for him was pity.

He started to squeeze. Back in the club, I’d already seen some of the strength the tattoos gave him, but now I could feel it. Enough strength to kill. Enough strength to crush. But never the kind of strength Niall had shown me. The strength to just stand in a crowded room and be a part of it. Already, I could see darkness starting to creep in at the edges of my vision, the pressure in my head making it feel like I was going to burst if I didn’t breathe.

Somewhere in the background, I heard something splinter.

Then the pressure was gone, and Evert was standing, turning from me, his hands raised to fight.

I gasped for air, and as I gasped, Niall stepped into the room, brushing fragments of door off of that elegant suit of his as if they were specks of a cobweb he’d walked through. He looked over at me then and I knew. I knew I loved him, and I knew he had heard me reach out to him with a desperate, last-ditch effort to save myself.

“Sorry I took so long,” he said, ignoring the other two. “It took me a while to find my clothes.”

I would have laughed if I could have done it without choking. Instead, I just had to sit and watch as Evert charged for him.

Evert smashed into Niall, and for a moment, I couldn’t see how Niall could possibly survive it. Evert had so much magic running through his skin that every inch of him was like a weapon now. He had so much power in him that he actually
glowed
. Yet somehow, Niall turned ahead of the charge, slipping punches and sidestepping in time to avoid a kick that burst through the plaster of the wall. Niall’s answering punch brought a whoosh of air from Evert, and the two men circled one another with deadly intent.

Niall threw himself flat as a blast of power from Rebecca ripped past him and slammed into a batch of Evert’s surveillance equipment, sending up a shower of sparks from the little that remained after it hit. I had been so busy watching Evert’s first assault that I hadn’t even seen that one coming.

Evert had clearly been waiting for it though. He rushed in, and this time, Niall barely kept him back with a kick aimed at his knee, forcing the larger man to give him enough room to spring to his feet again.

I jerked at the radiator that held me, wanting to help, bruising my wrists, not caring when I drew blood. I wanted to stop all this before someone got badly hurt. At least before Niall got badly hurt. Right then, I wasn’t too sure how I felt about the others. Rebecca had stood by to let me die. She’d attacked me and chained me up like an animal. She’d lied to me for years. As for Evert…I could still feel where the pressure of his fingers had been on my throat, bruising it cruelly, almost snapping my windpipe. My throat was so sore that I could hardly swallow. The fact that I could still remember the feel of him kissing me only made me feel even more betrayed.

Niall was faster than I might have thought, seeming to blur as he stepped forward, throwing a flurry of strikes Evert’s way. He was fast enough to dodge, too, when Evert sent an elbow scything through the space where Niall’s head had been.

Evert’s skin was glowing almost translucent with power now, the tattoos standing out in black light against it. Just one of those strikes would have been enough to kill any human. But we were not human, Niall and I. I didn’t know what it would take to kill Niall, but I didn’t want to find out, either. Not when I’d only just found him. And fallen for him…

I felt the flash of hatred from Rebecca right before she sent another blast of power Niall’s way.

“Niall!” I yelled. “Duck!”

He was already moving. Of course he was. He was everything that I was. He could feel it coming just like I could. He whirled out of the way, picking up a battered camp chair and flinging it Rebecca’s way with enough force that it splintered when she dodged, opening up small scratches along her cheek. She gasped and paused, putting her hand to her cheek. That bought Niall enough time to turn back just as Evert charged him again, covering up the most vulnerable areas as the hunter battered him with blows so rapid I could barely see them.

I was more concerned with what I could feel. Hatred seemed to pour off Rebecca and Evert like morning mist off a loch, spilling out into the room and seeming to fill it bit by bit with a malevolence that chilled me to the bone. I could feel Niall pulling in their malice, using it as fuel for the fight, yet I could guess how fragile that must be. At best, he was borrowing energy in the way I had in the club. It wasn’t his energy, as it would have been if he’d “fed.”