Dominic: Her Warlock Protector Book 1 (11 page)

It was Dominic's voice, and to her shock, she realized it was coming from her doorway. At a glance, she could ell that she hadn't locked her door last night, and it had drifted open. She lay very still on the bed, and she watched in silence as Dominic came inside, carefully closing the door behind him. He had the crystal in his hand, and she was gratified to see that even when it was held just ten feet away from her, it remained stubbornly dark.

“Sophia, I’m sorry. I don't know if you're here or not. I hope you are. Your door was open, I wouldn't have come in if it wasn't... I don't know what I'm trying to say.”

Dominic shook his head in a manner that she would have thought of as adorable if he hadn't looked so dejected. He sat down on the bed, and as quietly as she could, Sophia moved back. He was close enough that she could reach out and touch him if she wanted to, but she found that she couldn't. She already missed his hands on her, but she couldn't bring herself to bridge the gap between them.

“Gods, I don't know what I'm doing. At all. I thought I did when I came to this city. I had one mission to take care of for Salvestro. I was going to show up, I was going to find you, and I was going to bring you in from the cold, you know? I was going to bring you back to people who knew how to take care of you.” He nearly looked at her, and she held her breath, but then he lowered his eyes to the bed. “What I guess I didn't realize is that you've been in the cold for a good long time now. I don't know if you like it or not, but I know for damn certain that you are very good at it. I never thought about what that might mean. You have every right to be proud of how far you have gotten, and I hope you know that. You've built a nice life for yourself here. Good job, I guess. Great cat.”

That last was addressed with a wink at Zora, who rewarded his mention by leaping up on his knee. Dominic flinched a little as she dug her tiny claws in, but he rubbed her behind the ears anyway. Soon she was purring and butting her head against his hand for more petting, and he obliged her absentmindedly.

To Sophia's sudden apprehension, she saw Zora eye her from under Dominic's hand. If Dominic had been looking, Zora would have given away her position immediately. The only thing that saved her was the fact that Dominic wasn't really paying attention to the little cat.

“She is a really good cat, though, and I bet you noticed too. That's another thing you should be aware of. Wiccans, especially witches, attract animals. Usually it's animals of a specific type, but whatever it is, it helps them do their work. Sometimes they act as focuses, and sometimes they really are little helpers. Stephan has a snake that crawls around his desk. I used to have a cattle dog. Loved him tons, but unfortunately, just because I live forever doesn't mean he does. I lost him last year. That was hard.”

She almost did it then. She almost reached out to touch his shoulder, but she knew that the world would change if she did. It would change for both of them, forever.

“You probably got Zora when she just wandered up to you and refused to stop following you, right?” She had. “It's pretty common. They say that the Wiccan doesn't choose the animal, the animal chooses the Wiccan. You have a friend for the rest of her life. It speaks very highly of you to have such a devoted companion. There are a lot of things like this that you can't necessarily learn on your own, and I confess it scares the hell out of me. The fact that you've been fine so far is really nothing short of amazing.”

He swallowed a few times, and she realized in astonishment that he was fighting back fear.

“Templar knights, they kill people like you and me,” he whispered. “I've lost friends to them. I've lost men and women I thought of as brothers and sisters. We hold ceremonies for them, and we don't even have their bodies to mourn because the Templars
hurt
them so badly.”
 

He stopped, visibly composing himself, and it took all of the strength that she had not to wrap her arms around his broad shoulders and give him the comfort that he needed. But the guards she’d built over the last four years were too strong, and she stayed where she was––despite Zora’s accusing eyes.

 
“I can't even tell you how to stay safe. The best way I know how to stay safe is to stay together. Younger Wiccans stay with the covens. They learn how to defend themselves. They learn who they can rely on. Internet and smartphones make it easier, but still, we tend to recognize each other based on sight. We know each other. We know who we can trust. I want you to have people to trust.”

He paused, and it was like the last few words were being dragged out of him.

“I want you to trust me. I hoped you trusted me and now, I think that's gone.”

He was silent. Sophia tried to speak, but the words caught in her throat. She couldn't reveal herself like this. She couldn't give herself up, just let go.

As if coming to a decision, Dominic sighed and lifted Zora off of his lap. She mewed in complaint, but he ignored her, rustling in his pocket. He withdrew a white card from it and laid it carefully on her desk. He took a scrap piece of paper and wrote something on it, folding it and laying it next to the card.
 

“We're here and we are waiting for you, Sophia. I...we want to protect you. We want to give you a place to be yourself and to learn about the gifts that you have been given, because make no mistake, they truly are gifts. I promise. When you are ready to come find us, when you
want
us, let us know. I'll come running. I meant what I said about a long life with you. Until then, though, I'll give you all the space you need for however long you need it.”

He looked like he was going to continue, but then he shook his head.

“What a damn fool, huh?”

Sophia's hackles rose, and then she realized that he was talking to Zora about himself, who chirped in agreement.

“She's probably making tracks or getting ready to, huh, Zora?” He reached down to rub her ears gently. “I'm probably just talking to myself.”

He left, shutting the door behind himself. Shakily Sophia got to her feet. On her desk was the small white card, and when she looked closer, she could see that it was a beautiful little business card. It only bore his name, Dominic Berrett, a phone number, and an address in Boston. It was simple enough, but something about it made her fingers tingle when she picked it up. When she picked up the note, it was explained to her.

Sophia-

This card is one of Stephan's toys. Tear it up, and the two closest members of the Corps will know that you are one of ours and that you need help. We take our job seriously. Tear this card, and we'll come running. I'll be around for at least another day or two. I hope I'm the one who gets the call, but if I'm not, you'll still be protected. I promise. That's all I want from you.

-Dominic

 
She held the card in her hand for an extended period of time, and for a single insane moment, she thought she would rip it, call him back, say 'yes' to everything. But she couldn’t, not just yet. She needed time to think. She picked up her cell phone, opened the case, and slid the card inside.

BACK IN HIS penthouse, Dominic padded from room to room. He had spent most of the day in the hotel gym, lifting weights and curtly refusing the offers of a spotter from the men who came by. He wanted the punishment of the iron. He wanted the weight that pressed down on him. He wanted to exhaust himself until he couldn't think of beautiful women with dark hair and dark eyes.
 

He finally had to come back up to his penthouse, tired and exhausted, but he still couldn't get her out of his head. Her scent was in his pillows and his sheets. When he took his shower, he was haunted by the image of her writhing for him in mounds of bubbles. It was close to eleven when he finally decided to call Stephan.

“Hey champ, how's the city treating you?”
 

Dominic growled, in no mood to banter with Stephan. “It's fine. I'm ready to leave, and I can debrief when I get back to base.”

“That mean you find the girl herself?”
 

Dominic hesitated. “Yeah, yeah, I found her. She's not coming along.”

“What?”

“Listen when I talk for once, Stephan. She's not coming along. She doesn't want us.”
She doesn't want me.
“I'm coming home. Mission complete.”

“That's messed up.”

“Not my call to make,” Dominic said shortly. “She wants nothing to do with us, says she's fine on her own, and given the fact that she's given us the slip for a good four years, I'm inclined to agree. It's her call, not mine.”

“Hmm. Sounds like there's something you're not telling me, man, but hang on, we're well within the realm of not-my-call-to-make. Please hold, don't chew up the pillowcase and mattress while you wait for me to come back, and think happy thoughts.”

Stephan, damn him, actually did have happy hold music to play while he went off somewhere. Dominic was left gritting his teeth and frustrated. He really did feel like chewing something to bits, or more likely, heading back to the gym to lift some more weights. Anything was better than being left on hold while he thought longer about Sophia—about how the future that he’d always dreamed of had simply slipped away.

Come on, you only knew her for a few days,
he tried to tell himself.
 

But he hadn't been lying when he’d told her about the thunderbolt. That wasn't something he could take back—nor did her want to. Like so many things, he was just going to have to live with it.
 

Stephan came back on the line, and this time, it was with a totally different tone. Regardless of what the two of them might joke about, Stephan actually outranked him. He was a Major who held the rank of the iron pentacle, and that was the man who came back on the line.
 

“That's a negative on leaving town, Berrett. Commandant wants you to stay put and stay alert.”

Dominic was usually a good soldier, though in many ways, his work had more to do with improvisation than following orders to the letter. But when the Commandant gave him an order, he followed it.

“I want to know why,” he said, after rejecting the first few retorts that came to his lips. “As far as I'm concerned, the job's done. We don't force people under our protection, not if they're of age, and not if they've shown that they can look after themselves. What's going on?”

“More than we knew about the last time you called. We're getting reports of Templar activity out in your direction. We don't know what it is, and we honestly don't know if it's more than a rogue or something like that. However, Commandant wants eyes in the area. If there's an untutored witch running around out there, your boots are already on the ground.”

Dominic hissed a swear word between his teeth, but he understood the rationale. They couldn't dispatch a team on the basis of rumors, not when there were so many Corps members tied up down south. If his heart wasn't tied up in knots, he would have relished the chance to kick back and enjoy more time in the penthouse. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. But as far as the Commandant was concerned, Dominic was perfectly placed to keep an eye on things.

“Affirmative. I hear and obey, Stephan.”

“Yeah, I can hear how happy you are about that. The Commandant tells me to remind you that there's a lot going on, but if you need reinforcements, they will be found.”

“Roger that, Stephan. I'll report back if I see anything. But if I don't see anything in the next week, you're going to need to give me a damn good reason to stay here.”

“Heard and received, Berrett. I'm always on, so call when you need.”

There was a pause, and Dominic could hear his friend sorting through a dozen different questions.

“And call when you want. Doesn't have to be the end of the world.”

Dominic's laugh was hollow, and he hung up without replying. It felt like the end of the world, but it was hardly something he could explain to his friend over the phone.

He stretched out on the bed, smelling her scent and the sex that they had had less than twenty four hours ago. He had lived for a very long time, and it never stopped surprising him how things could change in the space of a heartbeat. Dominic suspected that from now on, his life might be cut into two. There was before Sophia, and after Sophia, and the time after Sophia was looking bleaker with every passing moment.
 

Finally, he hauled himself to his feet and glanced out the window. It was getting darker, and though he hadn't slept at all, he decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to go out for some patrol. At this point, he would welcome it if a little bit of trouble found him.
 

THE NEXT TWO days passed in a haze, and Sophia was grateful to go back to work. Her mind was not on the cases in front of her, and even as she accepted the payment from a very grateful Amanda Burns, she could no nothing beyond summon up a pale smile. Brent seemed to notice her foul mood, but he didn't say anything until close to the end of the day.
 

She was just turning the placard on the door to “Closed” when he came out of his office and fixed her with his piercing gaze. Most other days, she would have been intimidated by that glare, but she had spent the previous two days wandering her tiny apartment in a daze. She hadn't slept, had eaten very little, and Zora had given her up for a bad cause, retreating to glare and yowl from the top of Sophia's desk.

“Everything all right, boss?” she asked finally. “Do I have something on my face?”

“More like something missing. I know you, kiddo. I know that you can smile even when the cases come crashing down on both of us. What's going on? Does this have something to do with that guy you told me about?”

She wanted to be strong. She wanted to be the tough girl that Dominic knew, the one who didn't rely on him or anyone else to keep her safe. However, she had been that girl for a long time, and suddenly, she couldn't do it any longer. Brent's brusquely-worded concern broke down the last of her fragile barriers, and tears filled her eyes. She felt her body wrack with involuntary sobs, and she could sense Brent freeze, as if he had never been confronted with a crying woman before. He tentatively put his hand on her shoulder, and it was such an unnatural motion that she giggled through her tears. She shrugged it off, swiping at her eyes and grinned at him, though it was a rather watery grin.