Magick Rising (35 page)

sense her presence, hear her voice piercing the void.

“Fight, Mr. Craft. You’ve got to stay awake.”

Jon. My name is Jon. Say it.

“I won’t know what to do if you pass out . . . or how to explain it to

911. Stay with me.”

He cracked open an eye and managed to lift his hand, his fingertips

grazing her cheek. However, she jerked away as if his touch burned.

An uneasy silence swirled around them, one she finally broke, asking,

“How can . . . I mean . . . your face . . . ?”

He struggled to sit up, and after a moment of obvious indecision, she

helped him prop up. “I’ve been able to do it since I was a kid.”

“Oh.”

Despite her false bravado, he could tell she was still scared shitless. It

took him a while to realize her fear wasn’t all about his abilities. “He hit

you.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement of obvious fact.

She flushed. “Only after the accident. Never before.”

Anger flashed through Jon. “I should have guessed. The bastard. Why

didn’t you—” One look at the renewed fright in her face and he stopped.

“What’s wrong?”

She stared at him a moment longer then squeezed her eyes shut. “You

sound so much like him,” she said in a strangled whisper. She shivered then

opened her eyes.

“I’m not him. I could never be him. I’d never do something like that.”

“Of course,” she said aloud, but her expression read
I’ll say anything to

keep you calm.

Something inside of him wanted to shake some sense into her. He

started to reach for her.
Stupid bitch
. How could she sit there and believe he

was anything like . . .

The truth punched him in the gut. Not only did he look like David

Worth, but he was
acting
like David Worth. With Worth’s sense of

self-importance, Worth’s need to be in control, to force her to understand.

But it wasn’t only Worth’s anger he felt, but the man’s lust. Jon “knew”

what it felt like to have Serenity in his arms, how sweet her kisses tasted, how

soft she was, how bad he wanted her.

Right there.
Right here.

Right now.

Why
not
take her? Why not allow himself the pleasure he so wanted.

And deserved. And . . .

Oh God.
Why had he internalized more than just Worth’s features? And

how? Was it the drug? Or proximity to the place where Worth had lived? Or

a combination of both? Jon had never had trouble separating the physical

traits from the personality ones. Never before.

He closed his eyes, ordering his face and his body to return to their

natural state. But nothing happened. When he opened his eyes, Serenity was

watching him with an obvious dread.

“I’m stuck,” he tried to explain. “And the longer I stay in his form, the

more like him I’m going to be. Must be the drug. It must have wrecked my

filters.”

She inched away out of instinct. “Filters?”

He struggled for an explanation, hampered by building waves of pain.

“I only copy how someone looks, not their personality.” He scanned the

apartment. “This place. You lived here together, right? You and . . . David?”

She nodded.

He pushed himself to his knees in hopes of standing upright. “The

room, the furniture. They were all here in those days?”

She nodded again, curiosity replacing some of the fear in her face.

“Why?”

“The drug the woman gave me may have made me more sensitive.”

“To what?”

“To more than just how someone looks. Look. We can talk later. First,

help me get out of this room. This place. There’s too much of his presence

here.”

She stood as well. “Move you where? You can barely stand.”

A furious rhythm bounced against his temples, making his head swim.

“I don’t know where.” He reached out blindly. “Somewhere he hasn’t

been.”

He felt her slide under his outstretched arm, and he tried not to sag

toward her as his energy flagged. All he could do was trust her. And fight the

memories and the sudden urge to kiss her.

His thoughts skidded to a stop.
To what?

Sure, there’d been a sort of electrical connection that passed between

them, but that didn’t mean anything. Did it?

They stumbled along together until she stopped. “Here. Sit.”

He obeyed then realized it was a bed. Her bed. God, didn’t she realize

how much influence a place like this might have on him? He fought to sit up

until a new wave of longing coursed through him. Instead of pushing her

away, he pulled her down until they were inches apart.

“When you touch me, I feel his . . . desire. It’s all I can do to not . . .”

He fought a spasm of pain then gave into the nature that had been forced

upon him. Wrapping a hand around the back of her neck, he pulled her

closer until their lips touched.

For one scorching moment, they kissed, long and slow. He knew her

thoughts, her memories, knew what she feared and what she desired. The

good, the bad, and the undeniably sexy.

He tried to put his other arm around her waist, but she pulled away,

shaking. “I c-can’t . . . don’t . . .”

His heart thundered in his chest, her words sliced through the grip of

desire. He released her. “I’m sorry. I . . . I understand. Just stay away from

me.”

She complied, taking a step away. “When David left, he took our

bedroom suite. I bought this furniture from a secondhand shop. And, it’s a

new mattress and linens. He’s never touched any of this.”

Jon sagged back to the bed, letting its inviting softness and presumed

safety envelope him. He felt the muscles in his face relax a bit, and the anger

and desire which had filled him earlier seeped away. At the sound of her soft

sigh, he decided that the disconnection from all things David Worth must be

working.

He surrendered to the darkness.

WHEN JON AWOKE, bright sunlight filled the room. For the first time,

he noticed his surroundings. It was definitely a woman’s bedroom with

flowered sheets, lace curtains that did little to stop the blinding sun.

Given any other circumstance, he’d half-expect to see a woman in bed

with him. But Serenity Worth was curled up in an overstuffed chair in the

corner, her feet tucked beneath her and her head resting on the padded

armrest. She slept peacefully, apparently unconcerned about the stranger in

her bed.

Yet she didn’t strike him as the sort who had much experience with

situations like that. She had “good girl” written all over her and probably

had no idea what to do when her good husband turned bad. How much

abuse had she taken at his hands? How many scars did she have? How many

nightmares had she lived through?

Jon sat up, spotting his reflection in her dresser mirror. His features had

relaxed somewhat, but he still wasn’t himself. If anything, he was now a

hybrid of the two faces, sporting features from each. Worth’s nose, his own

eyes, Worth’s hairline, his own hair color. There was enough change since

he’d collapsed to make him think he had a remote chance of returning to his

own looks.

He hoped.

Her quiet voice startled him.

“You could still pass for David.”

He turned toward her. “But I’m not him. I could never be him.”

She stared at him, not as much to analyze his face, but to meet him eye

to eye. “I realize that, Mr. Craft. I’m not scared of you.”

The words “any more” drifted by, unspoken.

“But last night . . .”

“That was last night. Things are always better in the morning.” She

stood and stretched. “Especially after a cup of coffee. Can I get you some?”

He had to appreciate her efforts to pretend this was a normal situation.

“Uh, sure. Black.”

“Be right back.”

After she left, he climbed out of bed, found the bathroom, and splashed

cold water on his face. Then he used hot water and then cold again. There

had to be something he could do to shock himself back to normal. He stared

at his reflection so hard that his eyes began to swim. After a couple of

minutes, he felt a familiar tingling in his cheeks and around his eyes. The

sensation intensified into the familiar pain that usually accompanied change.

He gripped the cabinet, trying to find the right combination of

concentration and effort to speed along the process.

Waves of pain cascaded down from the top of his head, across his face,

and down his body. A sudden revelation broke his concentration.

What if his face wasn’t the only thing that had morphed?

He opened his shirt to reveal his chest. His chest. Not David Worth’s.

After a moment’s hesitation, he unfastened his pants and pulled at the

waistband, hoping that other parts of his anatomy were strictly his.

“Here’s the cof—”

Serenity stood in the bathroom door, two steaming mugs in her hands.

“Looking for something?”

He felt the blood rush to his face. “Uh, no.” He had difficulty

swallowing past his discomfort at being spotted checking his package and

the relief of recognizing it as his own. “Just . . . checking.”

She managed a small smile. “I won’t ask the results.” She placed one

mug on the bathroom counter and turned around.

He followed her out. “You’re taking this well. Too well.”

She returned to the overstuffed chair and sat down. “Who was it? The

Red Queen from
Alice in Wonderland
who said she’d believed as many as

three impossible things before breakfast?”

“Six.”

She looked up from her steaming cup of coffee. “Pardon?”

“Six impossible things.”

Serenity nodded. “Six. Good for you, sir. You know your Lewis

Carroll.” She managed a small smile as she stood. “I guess I better start

breakfast before we hit our quota of impossibility for today.”

As he watched her leave, he marveled at her resilience. Here was a

woman who was woken from a dead sleep, had what she presumed was her

abusive ex-husband dumped on her doorstep, took him in despite her

misgivings, and then watched that man start to change into someone else.

And she seemed to be taking all of it in stride.

Hell, it was all happening to him, and even he couldn’t believe it. He

took one last look in the mirror at the features that still looked mostly

foreign to him and followed the sounds of clinking dishes. He found her in

the kitchen, rummaging through the refrigerator.

She glanced over her shoulder. “Scrambled or fried?”

“Whatever’s easier.”

She busied herself with breakfast preparation, ignoring him as he stood

in the doorway, watching her.

“Mrs. Worth, can I—”

“It’s Serenity.”

“Then Serenity, can I ask you a question?”

She nodded. “Sure.”

“You’re taking this awfully well. Better than anyone might guess.” He

gestured to his face. “You know what I mean.”

She turned to stare at him, her face tightening as if she was gripped in a

particularly troubling thought. After a moment, the look passed, and she

spoke quietly. “Nothing is more terrifying than watching a good man’s soul

change into something, twisted and perverted. Once you’ve lived through

that, anything else is pretty much anticlimactic.” She turned her attention

back to the stove, her shoulder shaking a bit. “Plus you’re changing back.

David never will.”

Was it fear? Or grief. Jon wasn’t sure.

“So,” she said too brightly. “What do people do when they learn about

your . . . abilities?”

“Nobody knows about it.”
Other than family.
Of course
his father’s way

to cope was to call Jon a freak and beat the holy crap out of him for shifting.

“What you can do? I’ll admit it’s impressive. And more than a bit

scary.” She started beating the eggs with too much energy. “In my head, I

know you’re not David.”

“But in your heart?”

She put down the whisk and leaned forward, bracing both palms

against the kitchen counter. She remained quiet for too long. Finally, she

looked up. “It’s taking everything I have to not scream and run away from

you.”

“He was that bad?”

She nodded.

He waited for the gory details. When she offered none, his imagination

filled the void. He remembered his momentary flash of temper—David’s

temper, he told himself—and her resulting look of absolute terror. And yet

now, she was able to suppress the emotional reaction because logic

suggested that the man who looked like her abusive ex-husband was actually

someone else.

“Does he still scare you?”

“Not as much as he used to. I come from the school of forgive but

don’t forget.”

“That’s not easy.”

“It’s better than living for revenge. To err is human.” She turned back

to the awaiting eggs, whipping them with a renewed vigor.

Sure. Like he was supposed to take the high road and forgive his father

a lifetime of terrorism because the man feared what he didn’t understand.

Screw you, Dad.