Zurlo, Michele - Torment [Daughters of Circe 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) (12 page)

His grin didn’t fade. “You charmed her, Torrey. With one smile, you melted her entire attitude toward you. I did the same thing, only I took it one step further to show you exactly what you did.”

She exhaled sharply and took a bite of her burger. She was hungry, and she wasn’t sure she could say anything that would make him see why she wasn’t pleased with his behavior. It wasn’t until she was nearly finished with her meal that she understood what he meant.

The waitress’ attitude toward Torrey hadn’t changed because she smiled and thanked the woman for water. Torrey had unwittingly used magic to put her at ease. Shade had used the same kind of magic to remove the woman’s objection to being pawed and treated like chattel.

It was small magic, something that didn’t take effort on her part, though Shade had put more effort into his magic than she had.

Still, her original objection held. She looked up to find Shade watching her. His plate was empty, and he’d ordered two burgers. “Are you going to apologize?”

“For what?” He looked honestly perplexed.

Torrey pressed her lips together. “You called her ‘sweetheart’ and touched her inappropriately.”

That smile returned. Torrey wondered why she had ever thought he might be brooding or forbidding. “Are you jealous?”

A little, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “You can’t run around treating people like that.”

“She’s human,” he said, as if that explained everything. When Torrey’s disapproving expression didn’t change, he continued. “I can’t eat her, and she’s far too frail to become a wolf.”

Torrey’s brows drew sharply together. “My mother is human. My sister is human. I’m half human. Just because someone is human isn’t a license to treat them badly. Shade, if you and I are going to be spending any amount of time together, you need to get over yourself.”

Pushing his plate out of the way, he leaned so far across the table his face was inches from hers. “If you wanted it badly enough, Torrey, if you used your eyes and your smile, you could make me do all of that. I wouldn’t have a choice in the matter.
That’s
a charm.”

The thought was disturbing on many levels. The idea of forcing someone to do or think or say what she wanted didn’t sit well with her conscience. Yet, if she could master that skill, maybe she could force Soren to let her sister go and forget about sacrificing her in his upcoming ritual.

She remembered the first time she met Soren. She had thought him charming. Realization dawned. He was charming. He charmed her into taking the medication from him, and he charmed her into agreeing to his terms.

“Soren did that to me.”
 
Her eyes filled with a quiet pain. The charm he put on her had influenced so many of her decisions. Almost nothing she had done since then was inside the realm of her normal behavior.

She had expelled Soren’s potion from her mother’s body, and now she was dead. She had sex with Shade on the bank of a stream where anyone could have driven by and seen that intimate act. She turned anguished eyes on Shade. “Have you done it to me, too?”

He had leaned back against the seat cushion to watch the wheels spinning in her head. He sat up now, startled at the direction her thoughts had taken. “If I was going to charm you, I would have done it when we first met. I would have charmed you into leaving that bar and going home and pretending you never met me.”

It was reassuring to know his attitude toward her hadn’t changed. Despite his help with her mother and the way he held her while she cried, he still would rather not have her in his life. He behaved as if he cared, and she had become too complacent in thinking she meant something to him.

With firm resolve, she peered deep into his dark blue eyes. “You haven’t answered my question. Tell me the truth, Shade. Be honest.”

“Honestly?” He ran a hand through his black hair. “Honestly, you’re not strong enough for your charms to work on me. Humans are weak and open to suggestion. They’re easy. I’m not easy, and neither are you. It would take time and energy to charm you, Torrey. I may have taken advantage of your attraction to me, but that is all I’m guilty of doing, and I don’t see that you have a problem with it. I only meant to kiss you at the stream. You took things further.”

Torrey stared at her plate. Two bites of burger and half her fries remained. Shade snagged a few fries. She didn’t stop him. Her thoughts were elsewhere. If she wasn’t strong enough to charm Shade, how could she hope to best Soren?

Bitterness twisted her words. “So, if I’m a strong witch and I can’t charm you, a werewolf, then why are wolves so afraid of witches? Why do you hunt and kill us if we’re not much of a threat?”

Shade stood, threw money on the table, and pulled Torrey to her feet. “Let’s get out of here.”

She followed him, only because she wanted real answers, the kind he didn’t want to give in front of an audience of eavesdroppers.

Once they were safely on the road, she repeated her question.

Shade’s answer was impatient, to say the least. “You can’t charm me today, but who knows what you’ll be able to do tomorrow? Yesterday, you couldn’t force the water in a human’s body to push out poison, and you couldn’t throw your stepfather across the hall with the force of your anger.”

She conceded the point.

“Besides,” he added, “charms are weak spells compared to what you could do with some practice.”

Tearing her eyes from the endless track of dark road, she watched the dark figure driving her into the thick forests of the mountains. “Are you going to teach me how to use my powers, Shade?”

“I already have,” he said quietly. He was hiding something.

“That’s all you know?”

He snapped. “Look, among my people, just being this close to a witch is enough reason to kill you. Witches have done nothing but hunt my kind since the beginning of time. You’ve used us as dogs, and you’ve repeatedly tried to steal the one element that belongs to us. Teaching you as much as I have is considered treason. I’ll protect you, Torrey. You have my word on that.”

Fire belonged to wolves. It was ironic she knew that, but she didn’t know which element belonged to witches. Thinking back, Shade had made her touch the ground. “Earth belongs to witches?”

“And water. Wolves were given fire. It’s all we have, and we will protect it with our dying breaths.”

Torrey pondered the fact witches were given control of two elements while wolves only had one. Reaching out, she rested a tentative hand on his arm. Heat emanated from his skin, burning through his sleeve. “I’m sorry, Shade. I don’t want fire. I only want to bring Riley back home safely.”

He said nothing for the longest time. Her hand dropped away from his arm. The truck slowed as he pulled into Rick’s parking lot.

Torrey blinked, surprised he would stop there. She was about to question his actions when he spoke first.

“Which car is yours?”

Hesitantly, she pointed to a white ’89 Tempo with a Semper Fi decal on the back window. He parked next to it and hopped out of his truck.

Torrey came around from the passenger side. He meant for her to follow him back to his house. Relief flowed through her. While he was off finding Riley, she wouldn’t be trapped in the middle of nowhere. She would have her own car. “If you give me general directions, I can follow you back.”

Shade studied the car. The amused expression on his face looked out of place. “This car is more than twenty years old. It looks like shit, Torrey. Who the hell is letting you drive this death trap?”

She squared her shoulders and narrowed her eyes. Being as tall as she was, Torrey wasn’t used to being treated as small and helpless. She didn’t like it. “I’m an adult, Shade. Nobody gets a say in what kind of car I drive.”

That car was the only thing she owned outright. Maybe it sometimes didn’t start, especially in the winter, and maybe it overheated occasionally, especially in the summer, but it was
hers
, damn it.

“I get a say,” Shade said. His tone implied she had no right to argue with him.

He was in for a rude awakening. “No, you don’t. I hired you to find my sister. Just because I’m also sleeping with you doesn’t mean I’m going to put up with your high-handed, old-fashioned notion that you’re the boss just because you have a penis.”

Those luscious lips pressed together. “Fine. Follow me. Stay close; it’s easy to get lost.”

Immediately, Torrey missed the comfortable upholstery of Shade’s brand-new F-150. The cushioning in her seats had been squashed before she bought it. Springs poked through, and they would skewer her bottom if she wasn’t careful. The pillow she kept on the seat helped a little bit, but it was also old and thin.

She popped a cassette tape in the player and hummed along to the ’
80s
mix that had belonged to her mother. Within three miles, smoke began to billow from under her hood. Torrey stared in disbelief. It was too damn cold out for it to overheat!

Easing to the side of the road, she pulled the lever to release the hood. Shade beat her to the front of the car. He must have been watching from his rearview mirror. The smoke wouldn’t have been clearly visible in the glare of her headlights.

When he lifted the hood with his bare hands, Torrey was reminded that wolves had mastered fire. She stared at him, realization dawning. “You did this.”

Shade shook his head, but not in denial. “It’s a piece of crap, Torrey. I’m amazed it started.”

She didn’t believe him. “You used a charm. You caused it to overheat. It only overheats in the summer when it’s really freaking hot out.”

His neutral expression didn’t change. “Fine. I used a charm to make your car overheat because I think it’s not safe for you to drive around in it. If you want to fix your car, you need to reverse the charm.”

When Caiden told her that Shade would train her, Torrey pictured a much earthier setting, like the woods or a meadow. She didn’t expect romance, but he had shown such patience and understanding in the hospital. Standing before a smoking engine on a moonless night and being completely pissed off at him was a scenario that never entered her thoughts.

She glared at him. “You’re a jerk. You know that, right?”

“I’m a cunning opportunist,” he said unapologetically. “Get used to it.”

She wondered if she had enough strength to punch him in the stomach and make it hurt. Likely, he would use those preternatural reflexes to stop her before her fist made contact. As she glared at him and fantasized, he doubled over, coughing and struggling for breath.

Her eyes widened. For a second, she thought she had done that to him, but she shook the thought away. When she used her powers before, she felt a tingling in her whole body, and it left her noticeably tired afterward. This time, she had felt nothing but an insanely strong urge to hit him.

She put a hand on his shoulder and studied him with wide eyes. “Shade? What’s wrong?”

Straightening, he took a moment to recover and gazed at her in disbelief. “You’re not serious.”

Her brows drew together. “Just because you’re being an imperious jerk doesn’t mean I want to see you hurt.” Not really hurt. Fantasizing about it was something else entirely, or it should have been.

His brows drew together, too, but his expression was cynical, not confused. “Then maybe you shouldn’t sucker-punch me like that.” Then he shrugged. “Though, you are progressing much faster than I thought you would. I didn’t even feel you building up for an attack.”

“I didn’t…” she began a denial, but stopped. She had pictured punching him. She had wanted to release her frustrated aggression. Maybe she had done it after all?

“You lack control,” he said, swatting at moths drawn to the headlights. “We’ll work on that.”