Hecate's Own: Heart's Desire, Book 2 (2 page)

Chapter One

“Good evening, class.”

Zachary Beckett winced and turned to face the woman entering
the room behind him.

Holy fuck.
Not her. Not Johra Yashodhar. Please,
Lady?

Apparently the Lady was not in the mood to hear one screwed-up
witch’s prayer, because Johra walked into the room in tight jeans and a sweater
that hugged her every abundant curve.

He envied that sweater something fierce.

“Good evening, Miss Yashodhar,” the children echoed around
him. Zach didn’t repeat it. He was too busy trying to roll his tongue back into
his mouth. His wolf stirred under his skin, peeking curiously at the woman in
front of them.

Those dark brown eyes zeroed in on him, the lone adult in a
group of children. Nothing showed in them. If she knew who he was she was doing
a great job of hiding it. She smoothed a lock of nearly black hair behind her
ear, revealing delicate, dangling gold earrings. “I understand we have an
addition to our class.”

Zach did his best to ignore the giggles of the ten-year-olds
surrounding him. He kept his eyes on the vision of loveliness standing near the
chalkboard.

If he had to be humiliated this way at least the view was
nice.

Her lips twitched. “Why don’t you stand up and tell the
class something about yourself.”

Zach gulped and stood. He’d hated school to begin with, and
now he was being forced to relive it after work three nights a week. It was the
YMCA craft club from hell.
What did I do to deserve this?
“My name is
Zachary Beckett. I’m from Pennsylvania, and I’m the son of wizards.” That did
it. Emotion shone in those incredible eyes of hers for all of two seconds.

He was pretty sure it was contempt.

He’d gotten that a lot from the witches here ever since
they’d learned who he was. Apparently Lana was right. Witches did
not
hold wizards in high esteem. He just hadn’t expected to have it thrown in his
face so blatantly. The witches here ran the gamut from cold to downright
hostile. They would close ranks against him, leaving him left out of just about
everything. Hell, the Prince had found him a rental for the duration. He’d been
grateful when Roland first told him about it.

Then he’d learned exactly how far away it was from the rest
of the magical community.

Zach cleared his throat. “I’ve been at the court now for—”
he did a quick mental check, “—a month. I’ve learned a lot.”
Not.
Nothing he’d tried so far had worked, and he was rapidly developing a
reputation as a screw-up here too. Johra
had
to have heard of him, being
one of the witches willing to teach pupils, but she gave no sign that she had.
Damn it.

A small girl with bright gold pigtails snickered behind her
hand.

Apparently she’s heard of me.
He sighed. “I’m the
first Beckett witch ever.” And according to his soon-to-be sister-in-law, Lana,
one of the strongest witches she’d ever met. Now if only he could get that to
translate into real, working spells rather than spectacular explosions of the
graphite kind. The Lodge’s cleaning crew was
still
complaining about
that. “I work for a graphic arts design firm as an artist.” He shrugged, giving
the teacher his best “aw shucks” smile. “That’s pretty much it.”
Other than
I’m single, disease free, and I think I want to you to have my babies.

Miss Yashodhar waved her hand. “Thank you, Zachary. Please
take your seat.”

“Zach.” He sat, squeezing behind the small desk. He felt
like a complete and utter dork.
Talk about a nightmare.

She nodded, but didn’t otherwise respond. She crossed her
hands in front of her, every inch the stern teacher. “My name is Johra
Yashodhar, and I’ll be teaching this class for the next few months. Welcome to
the novice class.”

Zach blinked. The
novice
class? He’d been told he’d
be getting a new trainer, but no one mentioned it was the
novice
trainer! He could feel the heat crawling up his cheeks at the subtle insult
he’d been dealt. True, he’d screwed up under the few teachers willing to take
him on, but he hadn’t screwed up
that
badly.

Had he?

The little blonde girl leaned closer. “My mom says you’re
the worst witch she’s ever seen.”

Zach blinked. “Really? Who’s your mom?”

“Sharon Quinn.”

Zach buried his head in his hands. He’d accidentally turned
Sharon’s hair green two days ago. She’d sworn she could teach him how to cast a
proper
illusion spell.

“They said they couldn’t even bleach it out. It’ll have to
grow on its own.”

Zach peeked out from behind his hands. “Sorry.”

“Anything you’d like to share with the class, Zachary?”

Me?
He sat up straight. “No, ma’am.”

Her eyes narrowed. They darted between him and the little
girl. “Good. Then let’s get to work.” She reached down and picked up a book.
“Please open your books to page twenty-three of
Incense, Herbs and Potions
,
please.”

Zach scooted back as far as he could and looked under his
desk. It was empty. “Ms. Yashodhar?”

“Yes, Zachary?”

“I don’t have a book.”

She rolled her eyes. “Weren’t you given the syllabus?”

“No, ma’am.” He was lucky he hadn’t been given the boot, the
way people around here treated him. They all acted like he had leprosy.

“Sarah. Share with Zachary.”

The little girl glared at him and turned the book toward
him. Cover side out.

“Let’s begin.”

Zach sat back and prepared for what he was sure would be the
most miserable night of his existence.

Jo waved her hand in front of her face and dove frantically
for the windows. “Everyone stay calm!” She struggled with opening the old
windows. Something was jamming them closed. She coughed, desperate to get the
stench and smoke out of her classroom.

What in all the hells had she ever done to deserve this? How
Zach wound up in the same class with children she’d never understand, but the
Princess had strong-armed her into taking on the younger man and Jo had
reluctantly agreed.

The entire week had been one disaster after another.

“Sorry, sorry. Let me help you with that.”

Two strong arms reached around her and began tugging the
window open. She heard a deep grunt, felt the pull of that powerful body, and
the window screeched open underneath her fingers.

Jo took a deep breath of fresh city air. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

That deep rumbling voice was going to be the death of her. Maybe
if she’d been paying attention to what Zach had been putting in his cauldron
instead of his strong hands, one bound in a leather glove, one not, she might
have stopped him from whatever the hell he’d done.
It stinks like a half-cooked
skunk in here.
“Get the other windows, Zachary.”

She felt more than heard his sigh. “Yes, ma’am.”

She risked a quick peek at his strong shoulders outlined in
a white button-down shirt, dark jeans hugging an incredibly firm ass. That mop
of dark curls begged for her fingers. He reached over and pulled on the window,
opening it with another deep grunt that sent flutters through her stomach.

She had to get this unholy lust under control before it did
her in. Zachary Beckett was her
student
, damn it. She had to teach him
how to control and hone his powers. If Ro caught her drooling over the man she
just knew Zach would be sent away. He was at the end of his patience with
Zachary Beckett. The complaints against him were piling up as he screwed up one
spell after another in spectacular fashion.

But if he were sent away he’d never get what he so
desperately needed.

So she growled and she grumbled and she kept him at arm’s
length. She prayed he never saw the way she looked for his bright smile, or the
way she watched him those rare times when he threw his head back and laughed. She
never let him closer than she had to. She was terrified he’d sense her
attraction.

Still, if it wasn’t for his perpetual screw-ups, she wasn’t
certain she would have been able to stand by her decision. There was no way the
man could leave court without serious tutoring in the arcane arts. If he did,
someone, somewhere, was going to kill his ass just for the strange stuff he
tended to do without even thinking about it.

“All the windows are open, Miss Yashodhar.”

She watched him shake out the fingers of his gloved hand and
wondered at it. He never took it off, never allowed anyone to touch it. He held
out his left hand to anyone who wanted to shake, and she knew,
knew
it wasn’t
his primary hand. The awkward way he tried to do things with his left one let
her know the injury to his right was fairly recent too. The fact that he was in
her class at all made her think it was perhaps less than a year old but more
than six months. He’d been in court now for five weeks, and she’d never seen
his ungloved hand.

What had he done to fuck his hand up? It had to be pretty
bad if the healers around here hadn’t fixed it yet. Maybe it wasn’t even human
anymore? She snorted. She wouldn’t put anything past him.

The smoke was clearing, but the rotten skunk smell was
lingering like a bad headache, throbbing behind her sinuses. “Everyone, class
dismissed for the evening. Call your parents.”

“Way to go, Zachary.”

She hid her wince as best she could, but she knew everyone
had heard a child mock the very adult Zach. “Everyone, out. Now!” She sighed. “Zachary,
hold back for a moment.”

She watched the children gather their things and head for
the door. More than one glared or shook their heads at Zach, blaming him for
the catastrophe her lesson had become. She found herself shaking her head at
him too.

Someone needed to take this man-boy in hand before he killed
himself.

“What
exactly
did you put in that spell?” It was
supposed to be relatively simple, a brew to relax and open up the third eye,
allowing the magical senses to be brought to the fore. Instead it wound up
closing off the sinuses. “Well?”

He shrugged. “It should have worked.”

“Tell me the ingredients you used.”

He began chanting them, his voice almost sing-song. Her
horror grew as he listed out the herbs he’d placed in his cauldron. “Lord and
Lady, Beckett! Half those herbs are poisonous!” And how the
fuck
had
poisonous herbs wound up in a novice classroom?

He shrugged. “They were what I needed.”

“What you needed.”

He nodded, giving her what she’d come to term his Bambi
eyes. “Uh-huh.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose and tried desperately to
remind herself why she hadn’t killed him yet. “Beckett, you can’t have those in
here with ten-year-olds.”

“I was careful.”

She pointed toward the desks. “Those children are under my
care, Zachary!” She shook her head, furious with both him and herself. She
should have noticed what he was doing, stopped it before it got to this point. This
was more her fault than his. She sat behind her desk, hoping it gave her more
of an authoritative air despite the eau de funk clinging to her. “From now on,
you use the herbs I tell you to use, understand?” He opened his mouth to
object, but she stopped him with an upraised hand. “
Understand?
”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She hated when he got that hurt tone, but what could she do?
There was no way he was qualified to work with those herbs. How were they
supposed to open his inner eye? Through death? “Go home, Zachary. Try not to
blow anything up on the way.”

She watched him walk out, leaving his jacket behind. Once
she was certain he wasn’t coming back for it she started slowly and
methodically banging her head on her desk.

What was she going to do with him?

Darkness would be a blessing. Too bad they’d chosen to
light a fire.

Zach could barely see. His eyes were swollen shut. He’d
howl, except he was muzzled. His paws were bloody from trying to scrabble free
of the cage the men had put him in. A chain had been locked around his neck with
a silver collar, enchanted to be unbreakable even by magic, hobbling him in
place. He’d tried to turn back into his human form, but the silver collar was
magically sealed to keep him in his wolf form until they were ready for him.

He was helpless to save her.

A dark altar had been placed right where Zach could watch
the horror unfold. A hooded man stood over a naked woman, bound to the altar
with silver, enchanted chains. Blood stained that silver, a mark of the
sacrifices that had gone before. He could see the woman straining at her bonds,
her wrists chafed raw from the cuffs.

A knife flashed into the air. The chanting increased in
intensity. The foul language seared his ears. Below the girl, the runes on the
altar glowed a vicious green. They were going to sacrifice her to the dark
powers, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The girl turned her head and pleaded with her eyes for
Zach to save her. Zach increased his struggles against his bonds as he realized
just
who
was strapped down on the altar. He renewed his struggle to get
free of his bonds, ignoring the blood that littered the grass beneath his feet.

He couldn’t let those bastards kill her!

When the girl’s head turned and he saw her horrified
face, Zach almost died himself.

Zach started awake as the knife flashed down, the echo of
Jo’s gurgling scream still echoing in his ears.

He tossed the sweat-soaked sheet off his body and stared up
at the darkened ceiling. He clenched his teeth together, fighting off the
phantom pain that racked his whole body. His hand throbbed, an agony that never
quite went away, a reminder of everything he’d done to save his brother’s life.