Forbidden Magic (8 page)

He shook his head. “Not you, Ginny. Never you.” He sucked in a breath. “It’s the tattoo waking. The witches had said this would get worse, and it is.” He was turning into a human lightning rod. He’d given her what she needed to save her brother and she’d given him the best moments of his life. Now he had to end this.

Both for her safety from the increasing electrical currents running through him and because Ram had to stay in control more than ever now. Ginny was a threat to that, always had been, always would be. She made him feel, made him want more than he had a right to.

In his clearest voice, he added, “This is why there’s no future for us.” She stared at him with misery clouding her eyes, then turned to walk to the edge of the pool, looking down into the still water. “It doesn’t matter. I know you have to go find your mate.” Go after a witch who didn’t want him and beg her to mate with him? Assuming he didn’t lose control of the curse and kill her before he convinced her? Yeah, he’d get right on that just as soon as he amputated his own balls with a plastic knife. But more important to him at the moment was the sadness radiating from Ginny. He grabbed his shorts and tugged them on. Then he moved to her, reaching out to put his hands on her shoulders. Saw the sparks leap from his fingers and jerked his hands back. He used words instead of his touch. “Ginny, you’re the woman I would choose if I could. I wish I could give you a future, promise you a life like the other hunters have given their mates.”

“I don’t have a future, Ram,” she said quietly.

He froze at her words. “What do you mean?” A feeling he barely recognized, hadn’t felt since he was a teenager, rippled in his gut. This was about her father. He knew it. The fucker had

‘punished’ her. What else did he have in mind?

Something was wrong, very wrong. Moving closer, he kept his hands away from her but wrapped his arms around her waist and tugged her back against his chest. The snapping tension inside him eased with the feel her body pressed against his. “What then?” Would she tell him?

He folded his arms around her as if he could protect her from whatever it was that threatened her future.

She rested her arms on his, her fingers stroking his wrists. “That night we kissed in the bar—

I wanted you. I think I wanted you from the moment you strode into our house and tried to take over getting the bullets out of Eli.”

He assumed she was answering his question in her own way, so he gave her the space. “You had it under control.”

She tilted her head back, looking up at him. “Exactly. So you held his legs still and asked him questions to divert his attention from what I was doing. No one else sees me like you do, Ram.”

“Hot? Capable? Beautiful? Sexy?” Able to bring him to his knees like no other woman?

Yeah, he kept that last thought to himself.

Her smile was bittersweet. “I wanted you, but I knew if I had sex with you, I’d fall for you.” Regret stabbed him again. “Ginny, I don’t want to hurt you. I never wanted that.” She dropped her gaze back to the pool. “Just listen. You asked me and I’m telling you. There is no future because having sex with you will set me onto the road to my destiny. When I’ve acquired enough of what my father wants from me, I’ll be pulled from this realm into his.

Forever.”

Ram tightened his arms around her involuntarily. Deep in his chest, a hot emptiness spread, eating at his ability to even breathe. She’d be gone. He stared over her head at the water. Even though they weren’t destined to be together, the thought of never seeing her again nearly brought him to his knees.

What was her father that he could do this? Threaten this?

“Is there any way out? Can you stop him from taking you?”
From him
. Even though she wasn’t his. But that hadn’t stopped him from taking her body, had it?

He could blame the bloodlust. But the truth was simple. Ginny was the one he wanted.

The one who mattered.

Ginny took a deep breath. “No. He’ll destroy Eli. So I’ll give him what he wants.” Ram dropped his face to press his cheek against her soft hair. “What does your father want?” He felt her shiver in his arms. He tried to steel himself for her answer.

“My emotions,” she said flatly. “Once I ascend, he will take every feeling I’ve ever had from me and assume them.”

“Take?” He had seen all kinds of sick shit in his life, including torture so cruel it shattered the victim’s mind. But this? “As in gone? Like all your memories wiped?”

“I’ll have my memory, just not the emotions attached to them. So…I’ll know Eli is my brother, that we shared the same mother. But I won’t feel it,” she said in a hollow voice. “I won’t love him anymore. He won’t matter.”

From the time he was fifteen, Ram had used discipline to control his emotions. Always. He made decisions based on information and facts, not his feelings. Losing control of his emotions meant losing control of the animal inside him. That’s what he’d believed.

But to have his emotionsstripped away?

The horror of it chilled him to the bone. He thought of his grandfather, the ex-military man who had been the constant in his life. His mom had come and gone, more dedicated to the Marines than her son. But the old man had been there. And when Ram had felt the first surge of the curse and gone after that witch with the knife in his hand, it had been his grandfather’s epic anger mixed with heartbroken disappointment that snapped Ram out of the bloodlust. Then it had been his tough love that helped Ram cope and find a way to control the monster inside him.

If he couldn’t feel those emotions anymore…

He’d be a monster.

Lifting his arms from around Ginny, he turned her to face him. “No. You can’t let him. He’ll destroy the very thing that makes you who you are.” It was her willingness to care so much that made Ginny so fucking special. He tried a new tactic. “Eli wouldn’t want you to do this, Ginny.” Sadness filled her eyes as she stepped out of his hold. “He can’t stop it, Ram. Even if I refused and Eli is destroyed, my father can take me anytime he wants. I don’t have the power to prevent him. So I’ll give him what he wants and find a way to free Eli from his clutches.” He stood there with empty rage filling his head as he tried to grasp the situation. “How can he do anything to Eli? Wing Slayer is Eli’s god.”

Her mouth tightened, then she said, “Wing Slayer’s not strong enough to stop him.” Ginny turned and walked toward the gate.

She was leaving. Ram didn’t think, he just asked, “Who the hell is your father?” She glanced back. Her eyes began to glow with that internal light that turned her eyes to fiery emerald green. “An old and very powerful angel.”

Chapter Six

Ram slammed his fist into Linc Dillinger’s pretty face. They were sparring in the gym area of the warehouse that served as the headquarters of the Wing Slayer Hunters.

The other witch hunter reared back with the punch, spun with the momentum and thrust his elbow into Ram’s side.

He grunted as two ribs cracked. Shit, that hurt. He leapt, moving so fast he hit Linc with his body and pinned him to the mat before the other hunter reacted. Ram shoved his forearm against Linc’s throat. Sparks jumped from his fingertips, landing on the mat. The scent of burnt rubber mixed with their sweat. “Where did you disappear to last night?” Ram was in charge of sending out the full-fledged Wing Slayer Hunters, as well as the recruits to hunt for rogues. Linc had texted he was
unavailable
.

Ram didn’t go for that bullshit.

Linc’s light brown eyes took on a lion-amber tinge. “Fuck off, asshole.” He caught Ram’s legs in a scissor hold and flipped him. Followed that up with a fist to his jaw.

Ram ignored the pain radiating up his jaw and bouncing in his head and threw the man off him. Jack-knifing to his feet, he whipped around. “I can smell the sex pheromones pouring off you.” Witch hunters had cranked up sex drives thanks to the curse. Fortunately, they also had pheromones that attracted women. Since sex helped control the lust for witch blood, that was a good thing.

Normally.

But Linc had been soaked in witch blood a bit over two months ago and it had taken a massive amount of Roxy’s sex magic to save him from the bloodlust. But that slam of sex magic had left Linc a walking boner that no amount of sex eased for long.

Ram was the one who had recruited Linc. He’d trained the hunter, had been there when Wing Slayer finished the tattoo of the falcon on Linc’s back as their god accepted him. Ram wasn’t losing him now.

Snap. Crackle
. His fingertips shed blue sparks. A thin wisp of smoke curled up from the mat.

Linc circled him, his eyes narrowing, his too-handsome face shifting into feral lines. “What’s that saying? The bigger the spark, the limper the dick?” Linc spun into a roundhouse kick.

Ram dropped into a crouch and kicked Linc’s anchor leg out from under the man.

Linc slammed down on his back.

Ram saw all the downed man’s muscles contract to shoot up to his feet and fight. Linc oozed money and charm until he fought. Then the James Bond veneer shattered, revealing the street fighter beneath. Linc would get up every damned time until death stopped him.

But Ram was a highly trained killing machine. He’d come up through the Navy SEALs, then retired into a branch of military so secret, even Sutton West’s hacking skills couldn’t find it.

Ram put his entire two hundred and fifteen pounds into a knee-drop right onto Linc’s solar plexus.

The other man managed a half grunt until every nerve in his body got the message and seized. He lay there frozen. Except for his eyes.

Ram saw death in Linc’s eyes. The man didn’t care if it was someone else’s death or his own.

But Ram cared. He leaned in and said, “Sex isn’t a problem for me. But losing a friend? Not.

Happening. I’m not going to let you get yourself killed or lose your soul.” He calculated about five more seconds before all Linc’s nerves came back online and he went into kill mode. “I’ll find out where you’re disappearing to and what you’re doing. And I’ll make damned sure your back is protected.” Time was up, so Ram threw himself back.

Linc reared up to his feet, his fists clenched, anger riding his face. “Stay out of my business, Virtos.”

Ram laughed. “Dude, I’m going to be so far up in your business, you aren’t going to shit without me knowing.” It was a relief to deal with Linc. Yeah, this he could do.

On the flip side, thinking about Ginny ripped his guts to bloody strips of agony. She was a half angel. That fit, Christ did that fit. Her aura, her eyes, her inner beauty so sweet and sensual, it was addictive to him.

And she wasn’t his.

Bad enough. But she was going to be taken from her life and stripped of her emotions.

Rage poured out like salt over his raw gut. Fuck.

A boot slammed into his cracked rib, sending Ram flying into a weight bench. He shoved back to his feet.

“Distracted,” Linc said with interest. “That’s new, along with that lightning streak on your chest.”

Ram had coiled his muscles to pounce when he heard the door to the warehouse slam open and a powerful voice rang out, “Virtos, you’re dead!”

Linc smirked. “Popular guy, aren’t you?”

Ram turned as Eli stalked into the gym area. Six foot six, wearing two fifty worth of rock-hard muscle, and holding a long whip coiled in his right hand, Eli stopped a half dozen feet from Ram.

Linc whistled. “Someone is serious about flaying you.”

Ram didn’t take his eyes of Eli, but said, “Get out, Linc. This doesn’t concern you.”

“But what if I have to take a shit? You might miss it.” Linc’s voice flowed like melted gold.

Clearly the hunter was back in control, bringing out his twisted humor. “Besides, this is a hell of a lot more interesting than your pathetic attempt at sparring.” He turned to Eli. “What did ice man do?”

Eli turned to Linc. “Get out, Dillinger.”

Linc stared back for a long second, seemed to be considering whether he should stay or go, then he turned and strode to out of the warehouse.

Eli dropped the coiled lash and checked his grip on the handle. His gaze locked on Ram.

“Ginny,” he snarled.

Ram stared at her brother. “That’s between your sister and me.”

“Think so?” Eli said in a low voice. He flicked his wrist, snaking the lash across the blue mat.

Ram didn’t look at the whip. He watched Eli—the hunter could skin a man with the lash, but the real threat was the knife still in his holster. Ram fully expected to feel the burn of the whip, he could handle that. Deserved it, even. But he wasn’t getting his heart filleted with that knife.

Eli went on, “I found her an hour ago, moaning in pain until that sire of hers managed to freeze her vocal cords too. That makes it my problem.” He snapped the whip, sending the lash flying.

It stuck Ram in his bicep and bit deep across his back. He stood utterly still, even as he felt blood well and drip from the cut. “Ginny’s hurt?” She’d been fine when she left him. “What the hell happened? Who froze her vocal—” Then it hit him. “Fuck. Her father, the angel.”

“She told you. That’s why she’s being punished.” Eli struck again, the whip hissing through the air.

Ram caught it in his hand, feeling it cut to the bone. Wrapping the lash around his arm, he jerked Eli to him. Getting right in his face, Ram demanded, “What is happening to her?” Sparks from his fingers popped around the lash.

The muscle in Eli’s jaw twitched. “That bastard touched her, forcing extreme cold into her muscles and nerves until they freeze or some such shit. That hurts her like a motherfucker, but the fun is just beginning. As she thaws out like a piece of meat, every part of her becomes oversensitive until just the air on her skin hurts her.” Eli’s eyes burned with agony. “She screams if I touch her.” His skin took on a gray cast. “I can’t even turn on the fucking heat to warm her.

The air blowing on her skin makes her cry.”

The other man’s words hit him like exploding bullets. Ginny was
suffering
. Because of
him
.

A red glaze coated his vision, adrenaline slammed his veins. He shot his hand to his thigh holster and wrapped his palm around the cool hilt of his knife.