Zurlo, Michele - Torment [Daughters of Circe 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) (6 page)

She led him through the hallway maze to the rickety elevator in the back of the building. Her flat was small. The front door opened into a living room that ran the width of the rectangle that made up her apartment. A single open doorway led to a narrow kitchenette. The short hallway opposite led to a moderate-sized bedroom with a micro closet and a small bathroom.

Torrey watched Shade. She was sure he caught the scent immediately. His massive frame filled the space in her apartment every bit as much as Seth’s had. This was a man who needed the high ceilings and wide-open spaces not offered by her apartment.

Shade’s attention moved through the living room, settling on the window from which Seth had escaped. He crossed the room and reached out a hand to touch the painted woodwork framing the open window.

“Do you always leave your windows open?” His question reverberated through the silent room, filling the space.

The old hot-water radiator either emitted too much heat or not enough. An open window kept her apartment from becoming stuffy. Torrey nodded. “He came and left through there. The fire escape isn’t on that side of the building.”

Shade leaned out the screenless window. “You aren’t that far from the ground. A powerful wolf could leap the distance or climb the building.”

A powerful wolf. Torrey’s heart sank at the way Shade said the phrase. If the wolf was more powerful than Shade, then it was likely he’d never leave enough of a trail to follow.

Before she could blink, Shade was gone. Torrey ran to the window, crossing the short distance in five long strides. Hanging her head outside, she saw Shade disappear around the corner of a building several blocks away. At least he wasted no time getting to work.

Shade wandered through the deserted streets. The name of the small Ohio city escaped his memory. It didn’t matter anyway. It was unlikely he would ever return. It was unlikely Torrey would return, either.

Procrastination wasn’t a pastime in which Shade often engaged. He didn’t relish returning to Torrey’s tiny apartment to reveal information he knew the moment he walked in that front door. Her wolf’s name wasn’t Seth, though she knew that already. What the hell was Soren thinking, kidnapping a human like that?

Closing his eyes, Shade faced the answer. Soren wanted Torrey’s power, just as he had wanted Hope’s. Somehow, somewhere, Torrey had crossed his path. Most wolves would have eased away from the witch, avoiding revealing their presence as much as possible.

Not Soren.

Shade’s compulsion was to make a mess. If he wanted to find an item, he couldn’t control the way he went into a trance and emptied every drawer and cabinet until he found the item he needed. Even if he knew where it was stored, the compulsion to empty everything was irresistible.

It was a testimony to Shade’s strength that he had a compulsion at all.

As bad as a messy living space could be, Shade’s compulsion was merely annoying when compared with Soren’s. His little brother craved power. It was what caused the fight when their parents passed away. It was the reason Shade conceded the castle-like house and control of the pack and the village to his brother.

Soren would have killed for those things, but not because he wanted to. He would do it because he
had
to. It was the reason Shade could still stand the sight of Soren. It was the reason he would keep Torrey away from Soren at all costs.

Once she crossed Soren’s radar, Torrey hadn’t stood a chance. Shade ran a hand through his shaggy mane. Torrey hadn’t been lying when she said she didn’t know how to use her powers, and she had more now than she had as Hope.

A witch with her power should have been able to stop Soren. It wouldn’t have been easy. Neither of them would have escaped without scratches, but Torrey had enough power to prevent his brother from taking Riley.

When Torrey walked into that dive on Route 2, Shade hadn’t just scented her power. He had scented
her
. She wasn’t the first witch he’d encountered. Some of his powers—Soren’s, too—were from encounters with witches.

The first encounter happened before Soren’s compulsion kicked in. A witch had captured Shade when he was still a juvenile whose strength and power hadn’t fully manifested. His shape-shifting abilities had only begun to present. The witch who captured Shade also captured a female. The plan was to mate the pair and sell werewolves on the black market.

Soren accompanied their parents on the mission to retrieve Shade. During the rescue, Shade killed his captor. In doing so, he inadvertently took some of the witch’s power. A willing witch could give it all. His captor hadn’t been willing.

He learned basic scrying and the casting of light charms from books.

Another time, Soren and Shade had taken a trip to see a human settlement. They attracted the notice of a witch who decided to hunt them. Within two hours, Soren had acquired the ability to cast potent charms. The skill proved handy when humans began using radar, and then later when they launched satellites and developed GPS. Soren fashioned charms to keep their village hidden and undetectable.

The government wasn’t an issue. It was easy to manipulate. Tourists were to be avoided at all costs. Most wolves had only stopped eating humans in the last two or three hundred years. Though their flavor had fallen out of favor, they were considered lesser beings, annoying and unwelcome.

All of these memories and facts zinged through Shade’s mind to crash into one truth that would not go away. Torrey was Hope. She didn’t know it, which he found completely baffling. The Daughters of Circe were not only reborn, but they retained memories of their previous incarnations. Torrey should have recognized him, but she hadn’t. She should have known how to use her powers without the aid of a mentor, but she didn’t.

He needed to get into his truck and drive away. He needed to hide Torrey away where Soren wouldn’t find her. He wanted to bury himself in her and never emerge. He wanted Torrey. He’d waited almost fifty years for her, and the wolf in him would not let her go.

Granting her request didn’t present too much of a challenge. Soren’s lust for power would make for an easy negotiation. All he would have to do would be to deliver Torrey to Soren, exchange her for Riley, and see Riley safely home. He could accomplish it in a day.

Shade’s problem was the tightness in his chest at the thought of standing by helplessly as Soren killed the woman he loved yet again. Even if she didn’t know him, something deep inside Torrey’s soul had to recognize him. Yet, he knew her resolve, too. That was the same. She had forced him to let go last time. She had used her powers to stop him from killing Soren.

Closed eyes failed to block the pain that had never quite abated.

How could he then turn her over to his brother for a ritualistic sacrifice? A witch couldn’t give up their power until the moment of death. He wasn’t okay with Soren performing this ritual in the first place. He had no plans to attend, but he had no plans to try to stop Soren. This wasn’t something his brother
wanted
to do; it was something he
had
to do.

This wasn’t going to be simple. Torrey was courageous and intelligent. She needed to learn to use her powers. He hoped she was a quick study in this incarnation.

The return trip to her apartment didn’t take long. The sun peeked over the horizon, shedding a weak pink glow over the grey concrete.

Her building was tall and nondescript, blending in with the myriad buildings in the area. One street corner looked much like the others. Differences lay in the street accessories—newspaper boxes, mailboxes, and the occasional tree.

Standing on the sidewalk, he looked up. She had left the window wide open. With a quick glance up and down the street to make sure he wasn’t being watched, Shade leapt, easily scaling the wall with the help of a couple of window ledges.

Torrey lay, sprawled across the couch on her stomach, sleeping. Though Shade entered the room silently, her eyes opened. She lifted her head, staring expectantly.

“You found her?”

He hated dashing the hope in her voice, but it had to be done. Eventually, he would be able to give her an affirmative answer. This morning, he could not. Shade shook his head.

Her face fell. Those light brown eyes darkened with disappointment. She pushed a strand of hair away from her face. It was similar to the movement in the bar that nearly broke his resistance. He knew she hadn’t meant it to be alluring, but it was. That simple act, a mannerism so like something Hope would have done, tugged at his heart.

She bit her bottom lip, and it took all of Shade’s willpower to not refresh his memory of her taste. Finally, she looked up at him again. “But you know where she is? You know who took her?”

That was a question he didn’t want to answer, not yet. He changed the subject somewhat. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want your powers.” That proposition was when he had been willing to let Soren have her. If she bequeathed the bulk of her powers to him, she would be beneath Soren’s notice when she was reborn. He might have to wait another fifty or hundred years to be with her again, but at least she would be safe from Soren.

Her lips parted, and her breath sped up. He wanted to cause that reaction, but not this way. “I’m not asking you to fight him. If he’s too strong, that shouldn’t matter. I just want you to find him and broker the trade.”

Shade shook his head. “I’ll retrieve your sister, but my terms have changed.”

Torrey was on her feet, her head shaking in disbelief. “I have nothing else to give you, Shade. I’ve completed the paperwork to name you beneficiary of everything I have, and I’m willing to bequeath all of my powers to you. I don’t know what else of mine you could want.”

Shade held up a hand. He didn’t want to make her cry, and he didn’t want to hear her beg. “I don’t want your money or your powers. I want you.”

She blinked once sharply, rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, frowned, and disappeared into the kitchen. The sound of running water was followed by the hissing of that same water as it made its way through hot coils. The scent of coffee laced with vanilla and cinnamon filled the apartment.

Two steps put him inside her kitchen. Her rigid back was to him as she watched the steaming liquid pour from the little hole above the pot.

He ducked under the header to the doorway and paused, his eyes on her. “Torrey?”

Startled, she jumped and turned. Brown eyes regarded him warily. “I am awake.” It was more of a question.

Recognizing her uncertainty, Shade grinned and came closer. The husky sound of her sleep-roughened voice beckoned to him almost as much as her heady scent. He remembered the feel of her lips against his and the pliancy of her body as it pressed closer during their one kiss. “You are, indeed.”

Torrey shook her head. “I don’t understand. You want my life insurance, my powers, and my body?”

Shade parked his hands on her hips, caressing the rounded curves through the stiff denim of her jeans. Her soft heat warmed his palms and the aroma of her arousal nearly sapped his control. “I just want you, nothing else.”

The pink tongue that darted out to lick at her bottom lip tipped him into the abyss. Shade lowered his head and closed his mouth over hers, pleased when her body again softened into his and her mouth opened to let him deeper. Something in her remembered him.

Her hands traveled a slow path up his chest to rest on his shoulders, fingertips digging into the muscle there sharply, reflexively. He liked the way she touched him, and the wild part of him wanted nothing between them, not even the thin cotton of his shirt that muted the power of her caress.

She was kissing a wolf. A day earlier, she had cursed the existence of the entire species, and now she was about to invite one into her bed.

The only thing she had really ever heard about wolves was that they were a bad lot, mostly murderers and kidnappers. They were feral and untamable. Judging from the fire ripping through her, Torrey wasn’t sure that was a bad description. Shade’s passion was barely restrained, and it beckoned to something similar deep inside Torrey.