Page 66 of Inflamed By an Incubus

Her look was all innocence. “I wasn’t.”

Vail growled and flashed fangs at him, and Fenix waved the gold band that encircled his finger at the male.

“I told you I’m mated. I’m not interested in her.” Fenix didn’t wait for the apologetic look he knew would be coming. He couldn’t really blame the male for turning aggressive towards him, after all. If it had been Evelyn wriggling on his own lap and firing him up, he would have been angry at any male in the vicinity too, the thought that they might try to steal her from him pushing him to threaten them. “She did disappear as I expected, but now I’m thinking about it… she wasn’t the only one who disappeared.”

“Colour me curious.” Rosalind leaned forwards, pressed her left elbow to her knee as she crossed her legs and planted her chin on her upturned palm. “Do tell me more.”

Vail wrapped his arms around her waist, keeping her in place on his lap, his gaze unfocused as he trailed it down her golden hair to her back and lower.

Fenix cleared his throat and scowled at the elf when he glanced his way, trying to hammer home the message to dial it back. Vail looked unrepentant. Instead of helping Fenix out by banishing his wicked thoughts about his mate, Vail loosened his grip on her and skimmed his hands over the curve of her waist, bringing out the silver stars in her blue eyes.

So Fenix scowled at her too.

“Oh fine,” she huffed and dropped off Vail’s lap, a pout to her lips as she went to her own chair. “You’re such a spoilsport.”

“Look, I had to put up with you two throwing off pheromones like crazy in that dungeon. I don’t have to put up with it here. You want me to talk rather than walk, then keep it in your pants.” Fenix gave them both a look he hoped conveyed that he meant every word he had said and he would carry out his threat if they didn’t keep their hands off each other.

Rosalind really pouted now as she folded her arms across her chest and gave him a look. “You’re no fun.”

He didn’t dispute that. He wasn’t any fun right now, hadn’t been since the day he had been cursed to lead a miserable existence pining for his mate and watching her fall in love with him, experiencing a few glorious days where things were back to normal for them, and then having her wrenched from him.

“When Frayne killed her, her partner was alive.” Fenix hoped that would get the conversation back on track. Just the mention of Archer was enough to have his darker side prowling to the fore, hungry to find the bastard and take him out of the equation. He gritted his teeth instead, denying the need to hunt him down, one that would only lead to him going after Evelyn instead.

“Her partner?” Hartt flicked him a look. “The one you said had too tight a hold on her for you to get it through to her that she wasn’t human?”

Fenix nodded and then shook his head slightly as he thought about Archer. “Here’s the rub. I swear that he isn’t human.”

Rosalind leaped from her chair as if her arse was on fire. “He’s the Crow! The bloody Crow is already inside Archangel!”

Her blue eyes darted between Vail and Hartt, as wide as saucers, as she bounced on the spot, more excited than he had ever seen her.

“Uh, Archer’s a what now? Crow?” Fenix felt sure he was missing something when neither male looked confused about her outburst.

“Oh. Silly me. I forgot you weren’t there for that part.” Rosalind idly waved a hand at him. “A Crow is a witch… a male witch. Warlock. Whatever you want to call them. They’re rare. Legend says that there’s only a handful of them in existence. When one dies, another is born, and with the… blood? Soul? I’m not sure of the finer details… but one dies, another is born, and all the knowledge possessed by the previous Crow gets passed to the next. Of course, they’re not born all Crow-ish… Crow-y? They’re normal until they near their terrible tweens… speculation says it’s on their ninth birthday. Ninth for the nine. But anyway, the magical birthday rolls around and then… boom… they’re a Crow!”

Fenix still wasn’t quite following. Rosalind was rambling so fast that he could barely keep up. He tried to run over what she had said and straighten out the facts in his head.

“So, let me get this straight. A group of nine warlocks exist called Crows, and when one dies, all the knowledge they’ve accumulated is passed on to another… host… who when they’re old enough awaken as a Crow?” Fenix spoke each word slowly, feeling them out.

Rosalind nodded.

“And how long have these Crows existed?” Fenix hoped she was going to say it was a recent development, something that had occurred in the last few hundred years. Witches could live for a good two or three hundred years as far as he knew. Maybe Archer was only the second in his line of Crows.

“Um.” Rosalind tapped her chin, her face screwing up as she pursed her lips and looked at the canopy of the parasol. Her blue eyes dropped to him as her hand fell away from her face. “Three… maybe four… might be five thousand years.”

“Shit,” Hartt muttered.

Fenix’s thought exactly. He really didn’t like the sound of Archer having the magic of the ages stuck in his head and at his disposal. It was no wonder Fenix always lost in a fight with him.

A thought popped into his head.

His eyes widened.

“While I like the thought of Archer possessing that much power as I do the idea of a hot poker shoved up my arse, it does explain one thing for me. Sometimes… he looks ready to really go off… like unhinged.” Fenix glanced at Vail and held back the smile that wanted to curve his lips. “You’d know the look.”

Vail scowled at him.

“Spells can sometimes be a little… rambunctious.” Rosalind sidled over to Vail and stroked her fingers through his blue-black hair, tousling it as her expression shifted towards thoughtful. “They have a will of their own. It might be that he’s having difficulty leashing some of them.”

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