Hecate's Own: Heart's Desire, Book 2 (3 page)

Annabelle had been wrong. The dreams weren’t getting better.
They were getting
worse.

He lifted his hands to his face, wincing at the feel of the
damaged one. The skin was still red and swollen, the brand in the center still
raw despite the passage of time. His good palm rasped against his whiskers, the
sound dry and loud in the quiet night.

“Fuck a duck.” Zach sat up and glared at the clock.
Three
a.m. Time for all little Becketts to go for a fucking run.
He stepped naked
into the living room of his rented townhome, through to the kitchen, and opened
the back door.
Just hope no one decides to take it as an invitation to come
on in and rob me blind.

Then again, I’m in the mood to bite someone, so why not?
He
called to his wolf, grateful when the great black beast answered the call. He
merged his soul with his wolf’s and limped out the back door, his twisted paw
slowing him down. He felt embraced by his wolf’s love, the knowledge that here,
at least, was someone who accepted him unconditionally, loved him without
limits.

He scented the night air. Exhaust fumes nearly choked him,
even here on the edge of the city. He’d have to find a place further out or
finish his training in record time and return home. He hated the stench of this
place, the constant noise and confusion. Most of all he missed his family. Even
asshole Daniel, who’d hugged him just outside the airport terminal before turning
him around and kicking his ass toward security and a life no Beckett had ever
lived before.

I’m just a plethora of firsts.
Zach rolled his eyes
and trotted off into the woods behind his townhome. He prayed none of the
neighbors saw him or, if they did, thought he was just a really big dog.

Someday he’d return home, a fully trained witch, and kick
Daniel’s
ass. In the meantime, he could only hope and pray that his other brothers
eventually forgave him for what he’d done.

Someday he might even tell them the price he continually
paid for Christopher’s life.

God, he missed them. It hurt, knowing they didn’t want him
around. That he’d fucked up, again. And if they knew how much trouble he was
having here they’d either laugh their asses off or tell him how they’d told him
so. This was his last chance to prove that he was truly worth something.

He was so damn tired of being a fuck-up.

Chapter Two

“Mr. Beckett.”

Zach winced and kept his eyes on the Prince. The man looked
vaguely curious as he stared at the great wooden chair where he normally held
court. The rich scent of chocolate filled the air, drowning out the sandalwood
incense the Princess had been burning. The Prince stood across from his throne,
arms crossed over his chest, his expression calm.

Zach was feeling anything but.

“Can you explain
that
to me, please?”

Zach blew out his breath and prayed he didn’t look as
nervous as he felt. He’d seriously screwed the pooch and he knew it. “I was
hungry?”

Prince Roland Malinborn, ruler of the Court of Witches and
the most powerful magic men in the world, turned to him. “So you turned the
carved white oak on the back of my throne, the ancient symbol of the Witch
Prince, into a
green M&M
?”

He resisted the urge to cover his eyes. He was pretty sure
his cheeks were bright red. “The lesson was to focus on what you wanted right
at that moment and bring it into being.” And hadn’t it been humiliating to fuck
that
spell up in front of ten-year-olds?

“That’s just wrong, Zach.” The Witch Prince shook his head.
“It has a face.”

“The strappy heels are kind of cute.” Princess Arianna
Malinborn tilted her head, the grin Zach knew she’d been fighting finally
making an appearance.

“Not. Helping, sweetheart.” Prince Roland sighed. “Fix it, Mr.
Beckett.”

He stared, horrified, at the Prince. “Are you
sure
you want me to do that?”

The Prince stared back. “Good point.” He pulled his cell
phone out of his pocket. “Send Jo up, please.”

Aw crap.
Jo was going to give him hell. And from the
look on Prince Roland’s face he was going to have Zach’s ass stilled, his magic
silenced forever.

Just like at home, he seemed to screw up every spell he
tried. But instead of fizzling and dying out with a whimper, here his spells
tended to blow up in his face.

The local “Elk Lodge” served the witches well, giving the
Prince a centralized court without building an obvious palace. It was also a
source of occasional revenue. Actual magic performed during a wedding ceremony
would more than likely freak any normal wedding hall proprietor the hell out.
So the rulers of the Witch Court allowed magic families to rent certain rooms
for functions and used the space themselves for their own holiday balls and
special court functions.

Zach kind of liked the place, even if the location sucked
ass. He missed being out in the open air. Maybe he could come and visit
occasionally, like once every ten years or so? Prince Roland might even begin
to forget he existed.

“Sire!”

The Prince’s right-hand man came running into the hall and
stopped, panting, in front of the Prince. “Yes, Tennison?”

Tennison bowed. “The mosaic, sire, in the hallway out front!
It’s—”

“M&M’s?” The Prince was going to grind his teeth to dust
if he kept that up.

The Prince’s face was cherry red. He was going to have an
aneurysm if Zach didn’t fix this. “Sorry?”

It didn’t help his case when Princess Arianna broke out in
giggles.

“Dear Goddess, Zachary. What have you done now?”

It wasn’t right, and it certainly wasn’t fair. There was no
way Fate would be so cruel to him, but there it was. He was in more trouble than
he ever remembered being. The Prince looked ready to have him stripped of his
powers. The Princess looked ready to adopt him, which would only serve to piss
off the Prince and Zach’s mother, a situation he strove to avoid at all costs.

He was about to topple over from sheer unrequited lust.

He turned to look at the object of his obsession. Her dark
hair brushed her shoulders. Jo’s deep brown eyes seemed to bore right to the
core of him. Full lips curled in a half-smile, the disdain he knew,
knew
she felt for him hidden for the benefit of the Prince and Princess. Johra
Yashodhar had faced better men than him and left them weeping and broken in her
high-heeled dust. She was an exotic orchid to his mangy wolf.

God, he wanted her. How could he not?

But she used the fact that she was two years older than him
as a barrier to any intimacy, even friendship. She claimed him as her student
and treated him like one of the kids. He’d been watching her the entire time
he’d been at court, lusted after her more and more since she started teaching
him.

She viewed him as an
issue
that needed to be dealt
with.

Zach was about to lose his goddamn mind. Unless he managed
to figure out a way to become a sterling example of witchhood he was going to
wind up forever watching her walk away from him.

“Get out of here before you do any more damage, Zachary.” Jo
dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “Why don’t you go get lunch or
something?”

“Lunch. Sure.” Zach stalked out of the room, desperately
trying to close his ears to the snickering witches that cleared a broad path
around him.

“And, Zachary?” Jo wouldn’t even look at him. “Don’t bother
coming back.”

Zach froze for all of two seconds, his hand clenching around
the twisted amulet, before striding out of the Lodge and right to his car.

Fuck it. If people were going to treat him like shit they
were damn well going to be family, not a bunch of asshole strangers who didn’t
even know who Zachary Beckett was. He stewed the entire way to his shitty
rented townhouse, slammed into his room and grabbed his suitcase. He was
determined to leave the dust of the court behind him.

Lana insisted being a witch was “instinctive”. Well, he’d
see how he lived on those instincts of his from now on.

He was so fucking tired of never having anyone who believed
in him. The only person who came close was Lana. It still amazed him that it
had taken Lana such a short amount of time to figure out the truth. The flow of
magic that called to him was so different from the orderly, precise way his
brothers practiced the craft. He wasn’t even certain he could explain the joy
that ran through his veins whenever he cast a spell, the need to use his
abilities to help those around him.

He knew he wasn’t completely useless. Hadn’t he saved Lana
from that hex Cole Godwin had cast on her? She’d be dead now if he hadn’t known
what to do and acted on it. He’d also saved his brother’s life, using a spell
Annabelle had told him privately she’d thought impossible to perform.

So why couldn’t he do a simple spell? Why, when he reached
for the magic, was it a raging torrent rather than the steady trickle most
other witches talked about?

Why was he considered a failure here, too, when he knew,
deep in his bones, he was not?

Zach zipped his case closed and headed down the stairs. He had
no idea why things had gone so wrong but he was going to find out. And he knew
just the woman to ask: Annabelle Evans, Lana’s grandmother. Right now she was
the only one he trusted to give it to him straight, good or bad. Zach got into
his car and headed for the airport. It was time to head back to Philadelphia.

No time like the present to solve the mystery of one Zachary
Beckett.

“Lord and Lady help me, that boy is going to be the death of
me.” Jo stared at the green M&M on the back of the throne and shook her
head. “What the hell was he thinking?”

“That should be obvious.” Ari was glaring at her, like
somehow the attack of the candy man was
her
fault.

Zachary was, without a doubt, the worst witch it had ever
been her displeasure to train. She matched Ari glare for glare. “The boy is a
menace.” A blue-eyed, sexy-as-hell menace she had no intention of giving in to.
She’d seen the longing looks he sent her way when he thought she wasn’t
watching, but what he didn’t know was she was
always
watching.

She had to. If she didn’t it might rain frogs.

She glanced over at Roland and winced. Ro was so pissed his
jaw was clenched. The last time his jaw had been that tight his future Princess
had just turned down his marriage proposal and was considering dating a wizard
who’d turned out to be a warlock.

A
warlock
, for the Lady’s sake.

It had taken weeks for Ro to get over it, but at least Ari
had finally accepted his proposal. She was pretty sure the entire Lodge heard
the huge argument they’d had, the way Roland had shouted his love for Ari. It
turned out that was what Ari had been waiting for. Apparently Ro had chosen to
couch his first proposal in formal court terms rather than letting Ari know he
thought she hung the moon and the stars.

She still wasn’t certain how she’d kept her childhood friend
from finding said warlock and turning him into a fly. Thank the Lady Ari had
realized her mistake and made up with Ro. Jo was pretty sure Roland would have
lost his mind if he’d lost Ari.

“Both of you need to lay off Zach.”

Jo exchanged a glance with Ro. If it were up to him, Zach
would more than likely be stripped of his powers and banished from court. But
Zach had the backing of the Princess and, Goddess help her, his teacher. She’d
fight for him whether he knew it or not. “Only if he’ll lay off us first.”

Ari damn near growled. “There’s something about him,
something…precious. Something we
should
be nurturing.” The Princess
frowned. “He reminds me of someone I met a long time ago.” Princess Arianna
grimaced. “Of course, if
that
were true I don’t think Annabelle would
have sent him
here
.”

“He’s a warlock?” That might explain the numerous
“accidents” that had been happening since he arrived. Others had taken notice,
and now Zach couldn’t go anywhere in court without someone harassing him. She’d
tried to put a stop to the persecution, but it was like trying to stop a
tsunami with a dryer sheet. One of these days he was going to find himself in
way over his head, and she didn’t know if she’d be able to save him.

“He’s no more a warlock than you are.” Ari tapped her finger
against her teeth. “No, he’s…” She shook her head. “Different.”

That’s one word for him.
Oh yeah, Zach was different
all right. No other man had gotten under her skin the way he had with just a
look and a smile.

She bit back an uncharacteristic snarl. Zachary Beckett had
no right to be there. She had things to do that didn’t involve a ten-year-old
in a twenty-four-year-old’s body. She was a teacher, damn it, not a nursemaid.

“I need a break.” Jo rubbed her forehead. This wasn’t the
first time Zach’s antics had given her a headache, and she had the feeling it
wouldn’t be the last. At least she’d finally gotten that funky smell out of her
classroom. It had only taken two days of perpetual casting and a whole can of Febreze
to do it.

She still didn’t understand what he’d done and she prayed
she never found out. Still, she had to admit she’d been just a little more
sensitive to the energies flowing around her since he’d…done whatever the hell
it was he did.

Ro shook his head at the M&M on the back of his chair.
“I’ll clean this up. Somehow.” He clapped her on the back. “Go make sure our
new boy doesn’t do something else, like try that Mickey Mouse broom trick all
the newbies do.”

Ari giggled. “Think of it this way. We’d probably be the
cleanest city in the world.”

Jo bit back her smile, sketched her leader a bow and strode
out of the room, careful not to crunch the candies on the floor.

But when she went to get Zach he wasn’t anywhere in the Lodge.

Something’s wrong. Something
bad
.

She moved faster and faster, searching for him as she went
from room to room, but he just wasn’t there. Checking out front she saw his car
was gone. Her stomach filled with dread. “Crap. I have a really bad feeling
about this.”

She ran back to the Archives. It took her almost an hour to
hunt down his current address, and when she did she had to double check it.
“That’s weird.” Zach wasn’t living in any of the normal communities. She was
certain there were apartment complexes housing witches that were much closer to
the Lodge than the one he was staying at. Roland had to know that, so why had
he set Zach so far apart from the others?

She darted out to her car, waving good-bye to a still
laughing Ari. She had to get to Zach, and fast. Her instincts were screaming at
her in a way they never had before. If she didn’t find him soon, she was going
to lose something. She had no idea what, but the thought filled her with dread.

It didn’t take her long to get to his townhouse. She looked
around and frowned. Ro had put the novice witch on the opposite end of the city
from the rest of the magical community. It was almost like he was isolating
Zach. Whether Roland was trying to keep the others safe or Zach away from court,
she didn’t know, but the situation bothered her more than it probably should.
She understood why
she
had issues with Zach, but if he was living here
then it meant Roland had issues with him before he even arrived.

She’d have to look further into that. If one of the reasons
Zach was such a screw-up was animosity from his Prince she’d need to speak to
Roland about it. Emotions could tangle up a witch’s magic, making it more
difficult for them to cast spells. While positive emotions could give them a
boost of energy just when they needed it, negative emotions could give them too
much energy, or cause the spell to affect not only the intended target but the
spellcaster as well. They had to learn to control their emotions or the
emotions would control the magic. The results if the witch never learned
control could be catastrophic.

If Zach was as powerful as Annabelle Evans thought, and he
was being battered by uncontrolled self-doubt? Jo shuddered.

That might explain why it took a whole can of Febreze.