Witch Fire (21 page)

She reached her room, took a shower, and dressed in a green sweater, a black skirt with a hem that hit her about midcalf, and a pair of cute black wedge heels that Serena had been kind enough to give her after her cousin had gone on a shopping expedition. Mira was pretty much stuck at the Coven, unable to leave the tightly warded property. Serena had stepped in and decided to be her fairy god-cousin, bringing all kinds of goodies from the outside. Mira didn't put on any hosiery. She was lucky to have skin dusky enough that she didn't need them, not even in the dead of winter.

Before leaving to go to Thomas's office, she quickly curled her hair and put on a bit of mascara, blush, and lipstick. Okay, so maybe she did care a little more about her appearance these days. Was that so wrong? She felt beautiful in Jack's eyes.

And, staring at her reflection in the mirror, she realized she was once again starting to feel beautiful in her own eyes, too.

After the divorce, she'd lost that. Her self-esteem had hit rock-bottom. Finding her magick and learning how to control her latent power had a lot to do with the fact that she was finally recovering a positive sense of self.

In fact, finding her magick seemed to be reflected in all she was, even her appearance. Her hair seemed glossier and thicker. Her eyes seemed brighter, her lips fuller. Even her skin seemed creamier. Perhaps it was a side effect of recovering that missing part of herself and integrating it into her whole.

Mira stared at her reflection in the mirror and tipped her head to the side, letting her heavy hair slide over her shoulder. Or perhaps she was just seeing herself through different eyes.

She left her room, locked the door, and headed down to Thomas's office, where she found both men waiting. As soon as she entered she felt the tension in the room, thick like honey being smeared across her skin. Since she'd begun training her magic, she'd noticed her ability to sense emotions—something she'd always had to some degree—was growing stronger.

“Mira,” Thomas greeted her.

“Thomas,” she answered cautiously. She wanted to ask what the tension was from, but thought better of it. The edge of a storm shone in Thomas's black eyes.

“Have a seat.” Thomas motioned to the chair opposite Jack.

She sat, crossed her legs, and tried to get comfortable in the leather chair. It should have been easy to do, but the testosterone in the room had reached near unbearable levels. Obviously, there was something going on between Thomas and Jack that she was not privy to and, whatever it was, it was serious.

Thomas leaned against his desk, framed by the wide window behind him and the snow falling outside. He pressed his lips together. “We have new information about Crane. I didn't want to tell you until it was verified.” He glanced at Jack. “Crane has cancer. Bone cancer. That's why he needs the demon circle. His prognosis is grim. If he can't call a demon for healing purposes, he's going to die.”

The room went silent.

“So, I guess he's pretty motivated then,” Mira said finally. It was a fairly unnecessary comment and fell into the quiet air like a rock.

Crane wanted to sacrifice four lives to save his own. More than that, maybe, depending on what the demon asked for in return for the healing.

“He's rejected traditional medical treatment, out of hubris, most likely, and doesn't have much time before he'll lose his mobility,” answered Thomas. “There's only so much self-healing a fire witch can do, even one as powerful as William Crane. He's going to move fast, maybe even a little desperately. That's going to make him both sloppy and dangerous. We've alerted all witches in the Coven to be on guard, especially the air witches.”

“But that means he won't waste his time coming after Mira, or trying to kidnap one of the powerful air witches.” Jack rubbed his hand over his jaw. “He'll put Marcus in the circle.”

“Marcus is dead,” Thomas answered.

“What?” answered Mira and Jack at the same time.

“Marcus contacted an air witch in our employ right before he killed himself. Hung himself with a sheet. That's how we know about the cancer. After you foiled the Duskoff warlock's attempt to take you from Jack's apartment, Marcus assumed he'd be put in the circle and committed suicide to prevent it.”

“Oh,” said Mira. “Poor Marcus.”

“He may not have been very powerful, but he had admirable courage at the end,” answered Thomas sadly. “And he gave us a valuable heads-up on the situation. Seems they never truly broke him.”

“I assumed the Duskoff hostages gave you information,” said Jack.

Thomas shook his head. “They've been very tightlipped.”

“So without Marcus to use, he'll come after Mira for sure, since she's the most powerful air witch around with the least ability to use her magick,” said Jack thoughtfully. “He'll be pulling out all the stops.”

“That's why as much as I want you gone from the Coven, you need to stay here.” There was a brutal quality to Thomas's voice, something oddly aggressive, that Mira wondered at. “And stay near Mira.”

“I will,” answered Jack without hesitation.

Thomas seemed to grind his teeth for a moment. “I know.”

They glared at each other in challenge.

“Okay.” Mira popped out of her chair. “Can someone please tell me what's going on?
Please?
” Both men went silent as she looked from one to the other.

T
HOMAS CROSSED HIS ARMS OVER HIS BROAD
chest. “Nothing's wrong.”

“Everything's fine,” Jack said at the same time.

“Bullshit.” She put a hand on her hip. “Don't make me pull my new super-duper witch powers on you and read your minds.”

“Telepathy doesn't lie in the realm of air, Mira,” answered Jack.

She raised her hand. “No speaking unless it's to tell me what's going on between the two of you, because it seems to have something to do with me. That means I have a right to know.”

Jack sighed. “Your cousin is being overprotective of you, and rightly so.”

“Overprotective?” Her gaze swung to Thomas. “What does he mean?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “I've known Jack longer than you have. That's all. You're a nice woman and he's a nice guy. Jack is the best of men. I respect and trust him. But Jack is also…” He faltered and started again. “Jack is…”

“Not good enough for your cousin?” she ventured with raised eyebrows.

Jack just kept staring straight ahead as though he couldn't hear their conversation, like he wasn't even in the room. His face had gone blank, unreadable.

“No, it's not that at all. I'd be proud…” Thomas trailed off again. She'd never seen him at a loss for words before. “It's just that Jack is…”

“A man who likes to play the field?”

Thomas glanced at Jack, who didn't react. He just kept staring stoically out the window at the falling snow. “That's not an untrue statement about him. Nice way to put it, actually. I might call it something different,” Thomas finished wryly.

“I appreciate your concern, Thomas. Really.” She sighed. “But I wish everyone would stop trying to be so careful with me. I'm a grown woman. I can take care of myself. Make my own decisions. Set myself up for heartache if I choose to.” She shrugged. “Anyway, sorry to disappoint you both, but I'm just using Jack for hot sex.”

Jack jerked his gaze from the window to Mira's face and blinked. Finally, a reaction, even if his expression remained indecipherable.

She tilted her head to the side and grinned. “Sorry, Jack.”

She only wished it was true. Mira had a feeling Jack was bound to break her heart, so she preferred not to wear it on her sleeve. She'd take what she could from him, dealing with him with her eyes open, then she'd nurse the wounds he dealt her after it was over.

Someone knocked on the door and Thomas called for them to enter. Serena stuck her head in. “Is Mira going to be able to practice at all with me today?”

Jack cleared his throat. “I'll do it today. It's good for her to switch instructors once in a while. Anyway, I've got orders to stay close to her.” He paused. “Right, Thomas?”

Thomas hesitated before answering. “Jack will take over for today, Serena, if Mira is okay with that.”

A whole afternoon with Jack to herself? She tried not to slobber when she answered, “Of course.”

“Okay, then. See you later, cousin.” Serena winked at Mira and shut the door.

“Just stay inside Coven walls, Mira,” said Thomas unnecessarily. “Stay near Jack. Concentrate on learning to control your magick because the more powerful you become, the less of a target you are. We'll do the rest.”

“If I can help with anything other than protecting Mira, let me know,” Jack said.

“You have all the responsibility I plan to give you.”

Jack glanced at Mira. His blue eyes seemed strangely hot. “It's a job I take very seriously.”

“I know,” answered Thomas.

“About Annie,” said Mira.

Thomas held up his hand to stop her flow of words. “I called her this morning, tried to reason with her again. She will not agree to come into the Coven. I'm sorry.”

That sounded like her stubborn godmother. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

“Annie is working now, but you can call her this evening and try to talk some sense into her, if you like. Now go concentrate on learning how to better control your magick. It's important.”

Yes, now more than ever.

She and Jack finished up with Thomas and left to find a place to train.

“Hot sex, hmmm?” Jack asked as they walked down the corridor leading away from Thomas's office. He gave that familiar lazy grin that had the capacity to stop her heart. “I'm flattered.”

After stopping at the conservatory to pocket a feather and rock—he wouldn't tell her why—Jack led her into the basement again.

“Uh, Jack?” she said once they reached the bottom of the stairs. “I'm okay with the conservatory now. You helped me get over my block.”

“I'm not taking you to the storage room. I'm taking you to the ballroom.”

“The ballroom? Why?”

He led her across the basement, up another flight of stairs, and down a wing of the Coven she hadn't even known existed. Her shoes sank into the plush red carpeting of the richly decorated corridor. He didn't answer her until he opened a set of double doors. “Because there's a mirror.”

The room was enormous and completely empty. More plush red carpeting covered the floor, though the center of the room had an area covered in hardwood, probably for dancing. A chandelier hung from the ceiling and a mirror lined one wall, giving the illusion the room was twice as big.

She stepped within, and Jack closed the doors behind her. “And why do we need a mirror?” she asked with a raised brow and a leer on her face. Her voice echoed in the large space.

Jack laughed at the insinuation. “I know you can levitate objects, but I want you to try and do it when you're disoriented. The mirror is there to mix you up.”

He led her to sit cross-legged on the carpet, facing the mirror, and set the feather and rock a distance behind her on her right. She could see them, but it was a reflection and therefore disorienting. She'd relied a lot on her sight to accomplish these tasks in the past. Obviously, Jack knew that and wanted to break her reliance.

“Levitate them both at the same time,” he said, leaning back against a wall. “Do it so that they're held at equal levels in the air.”

She blew a strand of hair away from her face, her expression grim. This was going to be tough. Not only had she never levitated objects of such varying mass at once before, she'd never done it using a reflection.

He read her expression. “It's important that you gain full control of your abilities. Hopefully, you'll never need to use them to defend yourself, but if you do, you need to be ready. You're a strong witch. You don't want to end up like Marcus, your fate in the hands of more powerful warlocks.”

Mira thought of Marcus for a moment. She'd never even met him, but she felt a kinship with him because they were both air witches. He'd ended up dangling from the end of a makeshift rope, alone and used up. “No, I don't want that.”

He nodded at the stone and feather. “Then levitate.”

Mira drew a thread and manipulated it under the two objects. Creating air movement was fairly easy, but fine work like using wind to levitate objects was much trickier. Several times she blew the feather too far away and had to carefully draw it back using little puffs of air. She regulated the air currents to what she needed for each object—much, much stronger and tightly contained under the rock and hardly a breath for the feather.

It took all her concentration and several false starts, but she finally got the right recipe and very slowly lifted both the rock and the feather at the same time, then set them back down. Perspiration sheened her forehead by the time she'd finished the task. She had no idea how long it had taken her. Time had slipped from her as she'd worked.

“Good job,” said Jack. “I'm impressed. You've taken to your magick well.”

She had. To go back to who she'd been before her power had nestled, purring, in the center of her chest would be like tearing off an arm or leg.

“Now do it again,” said Jack.

She glared at him.

“Go ahead,” he prompted.

She raised the rock and feather five more times. Each time it became easier and faster. Mira looked at Jack with triumph on her face when he told her to stop.

“Okay, now do it with your eyes closed.”

“Jack!”

“Mira, do it.”

She sighed and settled in for a long afternoon, but she finally managed to master the task. When Jack told her to stop, she felt exhausted from having her concentration so centered on her lesson.

“Have you done anything to tap into your ability of hearing conversations from far away?” he asked.

“My super-duper eavesdropping ability? It's been happening spontaneously.” She drew a breath and told him about the whispering she'd heard early that morning. “That's why I'd been going to the kitchen when I saw you. I couldn't fall back to sleep after that. I wanted to think it was just a nightmare.” She shuddered. “But I know it wasn't.”

“It was a nightmare, all right, but one of the waking variety.”

Mira dropped her gaze, feeling a mixture of dread and panic wash over her. She didn't like being a target, a potential victim. It made her all the more motivated to gain control of her power. She raised her gaze and met her own eyes in the mirror. “Okay, give me another lesson, teach.”

“Find me a conversation somewhere in the building.” He hesitated, thinking. “No, find me either Thomas, Ingrid, or Serena and tell me if they're having a conversation. If so, eavesdrop on it. You know them, so it should be a little easier to locate them in the Coven. Plus, we can verify it afterward.”

“Uh, aren't they going to mind if I drop in on their private discussions?”

“They know there's an air witch in the building who's training. That's warning enough.”

“If you say so, Jack.” She closed her eyes and let her consciousness drift into deeper places. Mira had been meditating every day, training to let her awareness steal a bit of magick and go exploring.

Soon she lost most of her physical connection with the room and unfurled the thread of power she'd taken along for the ride. It reached into the house, sorting through the vocal vibrations it found disturbing the air currents. Mira discarded the ones that didn't seem familiar and stopped to investigate ones that did.

Finally, she found a pattern that seemed very familiar and honed in on it. Using her magick, she adjusted the frequency so that it became less a humming buzz and more and more like a conversation. It was Ingrid.

Mira heard only her half of the discussion. Either Ingrid was talking on the phone, or Mira didn't have a good grasp on the person Ingrid was speaking with. Reaching out a tendril of magick, she sought the answer and discovered the second person. Again “tuning the frequency,” she forced the other person's voice to come in clearly.

She'd half been wishing for some juicy gossip, but instead got a discussion about garbage pickup.
How scintillating.

Carefully, she unhooked the tendrils of her magick and withdrew. Their voices faded as Mira gradually came back into her body. She let her eyes slowly open and found Jack sitting on the floor, his legs and arms around her. She'd been so involved with her project, so out of her body, she hadn't even noticed him settle in behind her.

Mira snuggled back against his warm chest. Now this was what she'd been wanting all day long. “Well, that was boring.”

“Good. What did you hear?” He slid his hand under her sweater and rubbed his thumb back and forth over her lower stomach. It made it hard to think.

“I overheard Ingrid and an unknown person discussing the entertaining topic of arranging new garbage pickup for the Coven.”

“Fascinating. If you can remember specific details, we'll verify them later.”

“I can.”

“Good.” He held his free hand in front of her, palm up. “One more task for the day,” he said, his deep voice rumbling through her back. A spark ignited in the palm of his hand. “Make it brighter. Make it flare.”

Her magick responded to his instantly, growing warmer and tingling in the center of her, wanting to be free, wanting to play with his magick. She pulled a thread, molded it into the shape she wanted and let it slide sinuously around the flame, like a cat rubbing up against a person's leg, silky and soft.

Behind her, Jack shivered, and she wondered if he could somehow feel what she did. Obviously, he couldn't see the tiny air current. She teased the flame over and over, making it flare in the center of his hand.

Finally, she fed her magick into his fully, causing the fire to grow bigger and brighter until she was able to pull it completely from his hand and allow it to hang before them. Their combined magick danced, suspended in the air, in shimmering colors of red, orange, yellow, and blue. It looked like a fiery version of the northern lights.

Jack pushed his hands under the hem of her sweater, and Mira faltered in her control of the magick. “Don't lose it,” he breathed into her ear. “Don't let me break your concentration.” He nipped at her ear gently, making gooseflesh erupt over her body.