cupped her chin in one strong hand. “Then look, little one. Look and learn. I will teach you magick. Good magick.”
Releasing her, he waved his hand, summoning a ball of white light. Iridescent sparks glimmered from it. It hovered in the air, danced as Damian created patterns with his palm. Jamie gasped in delight. A wide smile touched her face. Damn, he’d do anything to keep her looking like that. Happy. Young. Carefree.
She leaned forward to study the orb, her slender arm stretching out. Her expression turned to awed wonder as she touched the ball with one finger. The light flashed, turned gray, then black. Before his astounded eyes, it shriveled, then vanished.
“Oh! Oh … I killed it,” she whispered.
Her mouth wobbled precariously. Jamie seemed to shrink inside herself. Moving closer to her, he clasped her hand in his. Cold, so damn cold. Like blue ice.
“It’s not you. It’s what’s inside of you,” he said very gently. “When the dark magick is gone, the light won’t vanish from your touch.”
A tremulous smile touched her mouth. “I wish I could believe you.”
I wish you would, as well. He picked up the bag of peaches. “Eat. You need your strength.” Damian frowned as he glanced around. “When did Renee leave? I asked her to stay with you.”
“Said she had to get back to the shop.” Jamie dug into the bag and withdrew a peach. “Thanks. I’m so hungry, I could eat an orchard.”
She brightened, a smile touching her pixie face. The sight lifted his own spirits. He steeled against the temptation to kiss her again. “Why did Renee go back?"
Jamie went into the kitchen. Her voice trailed out to the living room. “You should know. She said you’d called, asked her to bring another gris-gris to the house.”
Damian went utterly still, the hair on the nape of his neck rising. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move from here,” he ordered.
A horrible suspicion crested over him. He raced out of the house. Sprinting down the street, he reached the voodoo shop.
The door was ajar. Cautiously he stepped inside. The scent slammed into him with the force of a hurricane. Blood. Death. Lacing through it was the faint scent of honeysuckle.
A black cat greeted him, mewling pitifully. Damian crossed the room, started for the back and ground to a halt. Anguish spilled through him like acid.
“Oh, damn. Damn, I’m sorry,” he said softly.
Mama Renee lay in the corner, her eyes wide open in terror. Blood splashed over the pretty flowered dress, splattered the walls.
Someone had torn her heart out. Morphs. They reserved the right to lick up each last drop of fear.
Grief and rage twined together. Damian closed his eyes. Renee had been a last connection to his parents. How many more of his people must die, sliced down by evil? His parents, brothers and sister. Members of his pack back in New Mexico. How could he ever hope to stop this and protect those who looked to him to keep them safe?
He pushed aside sorrow. Grief was for later.
The stench of death made him gag. Damian murmured the ancient Draicon blessing for a departed soul. He spotted the altar to the voodoo priestess, Marie Laveau.
Darkness had extinguished the candles.
The police would question, snoop around. Couldn’t risk them finding out about his world. He needed a motive. A hate crime, and robbery. Damian withdrew all the money from the cash register and stuffed it into his pocket to later burn. He left the drawer open. He glanced around, found a permanent marker and scrawled on the wall.
DEVIL WORSHIPPER.
The mewling at his legs grew louder. The cat held the scent of an ordinary feline. Picking it up, he studied the animal. “You already used one of your nine lives. Let’s get you somewhere safe.”
Tucking the cat in his arms, he looked around. Waving his hand, he dispelled all evidence of his fingerprints. The cops would question Jamie, though, and …
Jamie. He’d left her alone.
Damian tore down the street, frantic with fear for his draicara. He unlocked the gate, banged it shut behind him. Releasing the cat, he took the stairs two at a time.
She was sitting on the couch. His knees went weak with relief.
Then he took a closer look. Terror shaded her expression as she stared at her hand. Seeing him,
Jamie thrust out her palm at him. It trembled violently.
“Damian, look at me. Look at me. Oh God, what’s wrong with me? I can’t bleed. I can’t bleed!"
Shock filled him as he looked at her hand. A knife and fruit slices lay on the coffee table. She’d been cutting a peach. Then the knife had slipped and hurt her.
Peaches scented the air, but he smelled no coppery scent of blood. A shallow laceration on her palm showed no crimson. Instead, a sluggish gray matter leaked out.
Gray, like granite.
She was turning to stone before his horrified eyes.
Chapter 4
I’m dying. It couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real.
Jamie thrust out her wrist at the Draicon she hated, the Draicon who’d warned her this was happening. A hysterical whisper bubbled up.
“Don’t let me die.”
It was her punishment. In trying to kill Damian, she’d succeeded in killing herself. It didn’t hurt. Painless, just this sluggish lethargy as if her limbs were turning to stone. She wanted to feel something, not this horrid draining as if she were already dead.
In her computer world, Celyndra possessed incredible strength and health. Jamie regenerated fast in cyberspace. Now, her body failed.
Damian sank down onto the couch. He seized her wrist, bound it with gauze on the table. Two strong arms pulled her to him. He muttered something she couldn’t understand, brushed her hair back. Jamie caught a glimpse of long canine teeth descending. Sharp. Dangerous.
Damian bent his head, nuzzled her neck as if kissing her skin.
He bit her.
Sizzling pain screeched along her nerves. Her scream was cut short by a slow, almost erotic scrape as his tongue traced the wound. Strength fled as she collapsed, sagging like a rag doll.
Damn you, Draicon, I was already dying, she thought fuzzily before darkness claimed her.
She mustn’t die. No. Not again. He couldn’t watch her die, lose her like he’d lost his family, little Annie …
He’d acted on instinct. Knowing his bite infused her with good magick. Knowing it would save her.
Very gently Damian cradled her as she fell limp. Her pallor grayish, her hysteria abated. He felt her forehead. Cold but no longer icy. He waited a minute, frantic with worry, then checked her wound. Watery crimson leaked out. Blood.
Relief filled him, so intense he shook. Damian licked her laceration with his healing saliva. He fetched a blanket from the bedroom, covered Jamie to keep her body temperature warm. He punched a number on his cell phone and explained what happened.
When Raphael arrived, Damian’s duffel bag slung over his shoulder and carrying a paper sack, Damian led him upstairs. Rafe dumped the items and gently picked up Jamie’s wrist. “The spell starts working from the inside out on the extremities, then spreads to the vital organs, clogging the blood supply. The fingernails and hair usually turn gray before it gets to this point. Mon Dieu, I’ve never heard of it accelerating this fast. When did she get bit?"
“Kane infected her six weeks ago. Why is it spreading like