Chapter Eight #2
A grin spreads across my face before I can stop it. I don’t say anything, but I don’t need to. My apparent glee says it all.
Dinner is a loud, chaotic affair, with the girls keeping us all wildly entertained.
It isn’t until there is an odd knocking inside my head that my mood plummets, because only one person could get onto the property without the house letting me know.
Pasting on a smile, I lean over and press my lips to Riggs’s ear.
“Can you keep everyone occupied for a little while?”
“Sure. What’s going on?”
“Someone’s here. I won’t be long.”
He pulls away to look at me, and I know from his clenched jaw that he can read the tension in my face. “Let me come with you.”
I reach up and cup his jaw. “I’ve got this. But if I need you, I’ll scream my head off.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“I don’t like it, but I’ll respect your wishes. Know this, though—if that fucker lays a finger on you, I’ll rip it off and feed it to him.”
“You say the sweetest things.” I wonder how he figured out who it is. There are enough people in this town who dislike me. It could be any of them. But then, only one man evokes this reaction from me.
I get to my feet and mouth, “I’ll be back,” to Dawn.
David is in a heated discussion with one of his sisters, so he doesn’t see me slip out, thankfully.
Something tells me that if he checked the cameras, Austin wouldn’t appear any more this time than he did before.
I can’t help but wonder if this man has powers himself.
Walking down the hall, I fortify my walls.
He’ll find any weakness I have and push it until he digs his way in.
I have no idea why. I was never anything to him but a stupid little girl with daddy issues.
My hate for him might be justified, but I can’t imagine he would have feelings for me either way, unless he really hates witches that much.
I pause for a moment, letting that sink in.
That’s the most logical reason. He told me himself that he’s a descendant of witch hunters, and clearly, he’s immune to my gift.
Is he trying to get close so he can kill me?
Even as I recognize it as a theory, it doesn’t fit. He’s had more than one chance to take me out. Hell, when he drugged me, I was at his mercy. He could have cut out my heart with a rusty spoon and eaten it in front of me, and I wouldn’t have been able to do a thing to stop him.
It doesn’t change anything, though. I find it impossible to think this man has noble intentions toward me.
Not after he drugged me and left me when I was at my most vulnerable.
Who the fuck does that? A fucking predator, that’s who.
It might have been someone else who attacked me that night, but he’s the one who set the trap.
I shake my head to clear my thoughts, not wanting to be back there.
That night has already stolen too much from me.
I’ll be damned if I keep letting it play in my head like some B-movie nobody wants to see.
The door opens as I approach, and I step out, not wanting to test the theory about whether the house would let him in.
I shiver at the thought. The house sends me soothing vibes, sensing my unease.
I get the distinct feeling it’s oblivious to Austin’s presence.
Which begs the question…how do I know he’s here?
I frown, confused as I take a seat on the porch, watching his slick black Range Rover roll up the road. What I felt was different. From the house, I get an indication of someone coming. Sometimes that includes who it is, and sometimes just a gentle poke that someone is here.
With Austin, it was like a knock, and then the identity of my visitor as a crystal-clear image in my head.
If that wasn’t the house, was it me somehow overcompensating?
Or was it Austin? Does that motherfucker have a way of getting into my head?
If that’s the case, that’s one more violation I can lay at his feet.
The Range Rover stops, and for a moment, silence falls all around us.
I can hear crickets and the light wind blowing through the trees, but beyond that, nothing.
Tension has my shoulders locked tight. Though I know my gifts don’t work against him, the pulse of my power tingles in my fingertips.
In fairness, I’ve only tested the electrical elements on him.
It might be fun to try to steal the air from his lungs or poison him with one of my potions.
I have to assume immunity to my powers only stretches so far.
Nothing a little belladonna wouldn’t fix.
Eventually, the driver’s side door opens, and Austin steps out. He has his hat in his hands, and though he’s wearing a dark pair of Ray-Bans, I know his eyes are on me.
The years have been kind to Austin, unfortunately.
Wouldn’t it be fairer if evil were forced to look ugly on the outside?
If every sin you committed twisted your appearance in one way or another, everyone would know just by looking at you what a monster you are.
But evil doesn’t play fair, does it? If legends are to be believed, the devil was once one of the most beautiful of all God’s angels.
And pretty faces are perhaps the best kind of bait.
Nobody seems to realize that something so stunning could also be deadly.
But I know better. I have a beautiful garden that can attest to that, after all.
As he moves closer, I take him in. Fifteen years have passed, and the man looks as if he’s barely aged. If it weren’t for the thread of silver in his hair, I would wonder if he’d cast a spell to make himself immortal. Or maybe he made a deal with the devil.
Tall, broad, strong—all things I thought of this man when I was too young to be noticing them at all.
And yet here he is, perhaps a little more muscular than before and just as foreboding.
He looks more like a brawler than I remember.
He had a reputation as a hard, take-no-shit kind of man, but rumor had it he sent his lackeys to do his dirty work.
I don’t know what he’s been doing since I’ve been gone, but something tells me he’s gotten rid of his lackeys in favor of doing the dirty work himself.
There’s a sprinkle of silver in the neat beard he’s grown, making him look almost distinguished.
Hilarious, given the man is a natural-born thug.
“Calliope.”