Black Magic Woman (18 page)

Until Asher glanced over and saw the grin threatening to split the alpha’s face in two.

Wait a minute. Hadn’t he heard a rumor that Missy Winters had been forced to run in a mate hunt before she married Graham because of some sort of challenge to his authority over the pack? She had apparently made it through just fine.

Asher cursed. “This is an entirely different situation.”

“Right.” Graham nodded. “I mean, Melissa was a sweet, innocent kindergarten teacher who had spent her whole life putting other people before herself when I met her. How could your independent little Amazon of a blacksmith ever live up to that kind of feminine ferocity?”

“I hate you,” Asher muttered.

“Back atcha, my brother.”

“It
is
a different situation. No insult intended, but you’re Lupine and your wife is human. The difference in your expected life spans is negligible. When Daphanie was born, I had already celebrated my five hundred and twelfth birthday.”

“You should meet a friend of mine,” Graham suggested. “You might have heard of him? His name is Dmitri Vidâme. His wife is a real firecracker. Not to mention being just shy of a millennium his junior.”

“You can’t use that comparison. A vampire has the option of offering immortality to his mate. I can’t make Daphanie a Guardian. It doesn’t work like that.”

“No, it doesn’t. But does that mean it can’t work at all?”

“Can you think of a way it would?”

Graham threw up his hands. “Look, it’s not my job to find a way for the two of you to be together. I’ve got enough on my plate without adding ‘matchmaker to the Others’ to my résumé. All I’m saying is that it’s ridiculous to pretend you’re not in love with the woman just because that would make your life easier.”

“I never said I was in love with her.”

“You never said you have balls, either, but I thought that was a pretty obvious one.”

Very few things in this world irritated Asher more than arguing with someone who possessed the unmitigated gall to be right.

The question now was, as Graham would likely put it, what the hell did Asher intend to do about it?

*   *   *

Clearly Asher intended to spend the day pissing her off, Daphanie decided. By the time they left the Winters’ house, she had noticed that he seemed to have a talent for it.

“I want to go home,” she had repeated at least twenty times while they had discussed plans for the day. “I refuse to confront D’Abo wearing borrowed clothes.”

“What’s wrong with your clothes? They look fine to me.”

Daphanie had glanced down at herself, at the baggy gray sweatpants that refused to stay up above her hip bones despite repeated tightening of the drawstring at the waist, and the virulent green T-shirt with the huge, yellow smiley face placed strategically across her tits. Although since the damned shirt was so tight on her, the smiley face’s expression had strayed disconcertingly close to a leer.

“Fine in what sense?” she’d demanded.

“Fine in the sense that they keep you covered and protected from the elements. What the hell else are clothes supposed to do?”

She had rolled her eyes. “God, you are such a man.”

He had stared at her impassively.

She’d tried again. “Look, while I’m grateful to Missy that she was able to provide me with anything at all to wear, these are not the clothes I would choose to have on when I confront the man who’s trying to kill me.” To be honest, she wouldn’t have worn those clothes to confront so much as a mirror. She’d heard lots of stories about Missy’s store of emergency clothes, but she had never been told those clothes were donated by people with such a mean streak.

“Why does it matter what the hell you’re wearing? You’re going to an occult store, not a fashion show.”

“And no one will take me seriously if I show up looking like a blind ragpicker!”

While she couldn’t claim that Asher had ever quite grasped her point, he had at least given in. But he did manage to sulk during the entire cab ride to Mac and Niecie’s apartment.

In a manly sort of way, of course.

He followed her from the cab into the lobby of the building, or maybe stalked after her would be a more appropriate description. She supposed she should be grateful he restrained himself from stomping.

She wished to God she could understand the man, but she’d never met anyone more baffling in her entire life. Part of her wondered if it had more to do with him not being human, or not being a woman.

He simply baffled her. One moment he was treating her like a burden, an onerous chore he couldn’t wait to see finished and off his hands, and the next he was cradling her against his chest and roaring out a demand that the alpha of the Silverback Clan do something to save her from some sort of evil curse. At least, that was how Missy had described it.

Daphanie had seen for herself, though, how one moment he could look at her as if she were a buzzing insect he longed to swat, and the next minute, his eyes could blaze with concern. Or desire. Earlier that morning, during that predawn conversation, he had squeezed her hand tenderly and looked ready to battle the entire world on her behalf, but since she had joined him in Missy and Graham’s TV room after waking for the second time, he’d been staring at her as if trying to decide in which of a thousand different ways he would finally choose to be rid of her.

Was it too much to ask for a little consistency?

All Daphanie could say for sure was that if fate really had brought them together, it had a pretty sick sense of humor. Why bring together two people so obviously not meant to be together?

Well, if she were honest, Daphanie had to admit she wouldn’t object to the idea of having Asher Grayson as her lover. What sane woman would? The man was hot enough to singe her retinas, and only a dead woman could have missed the jolt of electricity that passed between them every time they touched. The chemistry clearly worked. What worried Daphanie wasn’t the chemistry.

It was her heart.

She knew instinctively that Asher Grayson could break it without even half trying. In fact, she very deliberately refused to look inside that pesky little organ for fear she would learn it was already too late for her. Just because she had always believed in love at first sight didn’t mean she could afford to have it happen to her. Especially not now.

Her mind remained on her six-foot-plus problem as she led him off the elevator and down the hall to Niecie’s apartment, so it took her a full minute of standing in front of the shattered door with her key out and ready before the reality of what she was looking at sank in. When it did, her stomach turned over.

“Oh, my God,” she breathed, taking an instinctive step back.

Asher lifted her bodily and set her aside, cursing softly as he placed himself between her and the ransacked apartment. “Wait here,” he snarled, placing a palm in the center of her chest for emphasis.

Daphanie didn’t think she could have moved if she’d tried.

She stood frozen, watching in numb horror as Asher made an efficient sweep of the apartment. Daphanie could see that the great room was empty, but Asher checked closets and cabinets, under furniture and down the hall where the bedrooms and bathrooms were located separately from the main space. When he returned, his face looked hard and grim and Daphanie wished she could feel the same. She was too busy being horrified.

“They’re gone. Probably long gone,” Asher said, the corners of his mouth drawn straight and tight. “Come inside. You need to look around, see if anything’s missing.”

She shook her head and remained where she was. “How could I tell? They’re not my things. They’re Niecie’s.” Horror gave way to guilt. “Oh, my God, what am I going to tell Niecie? She was doing me a favor, letting me stay here, and now look what’s happened! How am I going to tell her?”

Asher stepped back out of the apartment and took her hand, squeezing gently. “This isn’t your fault,” he insisted, his voice low and reassuring. “Your sister will understand that.”

“Not my fault?” Her voice sounded hollow and incredulous, just like she felt. “Of course it’s my fault! Why else would someone do this? I mean, it’s obvious this wasn’t a robbery. The television is still here, all the stereo and computer equipment. Hell, Mac must have thousands of dollars’ worth of gadgets and surveillance equipment here that he uses in his business … Whoever was here wasn’t looking to fund a drug score.”

“You don’t—”

“He was looking for me.”

She felt Asher stiffen beside her. He said nothing, but she knew she was right. This had been done to hurt her, not her sister. Niecie was the innocent party, the injured one, and Daphanie would have to live with the fact that this had only happened because of her.

Asher drew her forward gently. “You have to go in and check. Daphanie. You need to tell me if anything is missing.”

She dug her heels in and shook her head. “I told you, how would I know?”

He remained gentle but implacable. “You need to check.”

Reluctantly, she unlocked her knees and allowed Asher to lead her into the chaos.

The intruders had done a thorough job. Every drawer and cabinet had been emptied, every table and chair overturned. The cushions had been yanked from the sofa and tossed aside, some of them with huge holes rent into the fabric. Papers had been scattered and shredded, picture frames and pottery smashed, dishes broken.

Daphanie choked back a hysterical laugh. “It doesn’t even look like they were trying to find anything. It just looks like they wanted to destroy it.”

Asher didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. She knew he agreed with her. The purpose of this break-in had been at least as much to hurt her as to find whatever they’d been looking for.

“I don’t see anything obviously missing,” she said, picking her way carefully through the wreckage, “but like I said, how could I tell?”

“I’m less worried about the things in here,” Asher admitted. “I agree they weren’t after your sister’s belongings. Which is why I want you to check the bedroom. You need to make sure none of
your
things are missing.”

For a moment, Daphanie just frowned at him. It took several seconds for his meaning to sink in, for her to remember what Erica Frederics had told her.

A practitioner of voodoo might steal a woman’s scarf, for instance, or a man’s handkerchief and use the fabric to make the doll’s clothing. Some of the person’s energy is tied up in his or her possessions and that helps to forge the link so that the actions performed on the doll are experienced by the intended victim.

Daphanie felt herself go pale. “Do you think…?”

Asher urged her forward. “Go look.”

The bedroom looked like a replica of the great room, only in miniature. Even the mattress had been knocked askew, hanging drunkenly off one end of the bed frame.

Daphanie felt her heart clench. She hated the idea of someone having invaded the apartment this way, not for her own sake, but for her sister’s. Danice didn’t deserve to have her things pawed through, her mementos broken, her belongings disarranged. She should never have invited Daphanie to stay.

We’ll be out of town for three weeks. Trust me, you’ll be doing us a favor,
Danice had said, her smile radiant with excitement and love for her soon-to-be-husband.
If you don’t stay here, we’ll just have to have someone else come in to water the plants, bring in the mail, keep things looking lived in. C’mon, Daffy. Say you’ll stay. You can even use our room and sleep in the big bed. The guest room is full of boxes and wedding presents, anyway. We’re still only three-quarters unpacked.

God, Daphanie did not want to look at the guest room. She thought seeing her sister’s wedding gifts broken and violated would just kill her.

She stared down at the floor, at the clothes emptied from her still half-packed suitcases strewn all about, through watery eyes. “I don’t know … I don’t see—I … I can’t tell.”

“Keep looking.”

His voice sounded so gentle, as if he knew how hard this was and he hurt right along with her. But he remained insistent.

Daphanie shook her head, but she kept looking. Slowly she made her way across the floor to the closet—a single one of Mac’s dress shirts hung lonely and forlorn on its hanger—then on to the master bath. Tubes and bottles and lotions and creams lay scattered across the floor and counters. Her own bottle of shampoo—which she perpetually forgot to replace the cap on after she used it—had been knocked into the tub, the contents spilled out into a pool of pale, aromatic green. A container of powder had broken and dusted every available surface with fine grains of dusky tan. Daphanie’s hairbrush lay drunkenly in the sink, shed hairs clinging to the bristles.

“I don’t know,” she said softly, almost despairingly. “I don’t see anything … But I just don’t know.”

“All right.” Asher laid an arm across her shoulders and guided her gently back toward the apartment’s entrance. “You’ve seen enough. Let’s get you back to the Winters’. I need to let Graham and Rafe know what’s happened, and Missy can keep an eye on you while we go and take care of this once and for all.”

Daphanie jerked to a stop in front of the upside-down coffee table. “What? No!”