Page 45 of The Nowhere Witch

I did as he suggested. Any other place I laid my hand, I would either feel my magic or its magic. This was different. There wasn’t even a clear signal, more of a muddy feeling.

I looked up at him, the question obvious on my face.

“That’s what it feels like when someone is disguising their mark,” he said.

“Six. If it is them, they’re making ground and we’re losing it.” I took a couple of steps back, taking the whole of this newer one in, standing shoulder to shoulder with Hawk.

“Come on. Let’s check the rest.”

We made the rest of the rounds in silence, coming to a truce of sorts. Hawk and I had our differences, but with this, we were one hundred percent in sync. Our feud was shed the moment we got here.

As we finished, I saw a door waiting in the distance. Our short moment of peace seemed to be going away.

He waited beside it. “Are you coming, or do you have somewhere else to be?”

“I’ll gladly take the shortcut, thank you.” I walked into the hall of the broker building before I added, “This gets me closer to where I need to be. I have plans for the evening.”

His eyes narrowed on me with a level of heat I’d not yet seen directed my way.

I walked downstairs a little faster than normal, hitting the landing and heading into the offices and then the back room instead. If he was going to pursue this fight, I’d rather do it here, where there was a door, than in my bedroom.

When he didn’t immediately follow, I thought it was over, that he’d left. Good.

I was sipping tea on the couch when Hawk walked in and decided to stand a few feet in front of me. It was his dictator pose, one I was all too familiar with. I continued to drink my tea, pretending I wasn’t sitting in the shadow of his looming self.

“I can’t have someone on my team that can’t defend themselves. I can’t even leave to handle things without you disappearing when half of Xest wants you dead.”

It would’ve been all too easy to tell him I was working on how to defend myself. Several big issues, though. It wasn’t any of his business. There was no way I’d tell him just to end a fight. If I gave in and told him about my secret training, then what? He’d think he was entitled to know everything I did?

And come to think of it, what did he know about my disappearing?

“Do you have people tracking me or something? I didn’t know I was supposed to report every single place I went to you. Now that I know, I’ll makesureI still don’t do it.”

“You’re not listening. You don’t realize what some of these people will do.” He leaned forward, putting one hand on the arm of the couch and the other on the back, effectively forcing me backward unless I wanted to end up hugging him.

“Because I don’t have to listen to you. Also, I’m not on your team. And second, you’re crowding me.”

“If you could defend yourself, I wouldn’t be able to crowd you. I wouldn’t have to force you back here. I wouldn’t have to worry about you dying every time you walked out the door.”

He made it sound all so chivalrous, just a man worried about someone he cared for. But I knew better now, knew how quickly he used and then discarded people. I’d been fooled by the caring act too many times before.

I pushed on his chest. “I’m starting to think that you don’t want me to learn anything. You like being able to torture me.”

His gaze was on my lips. His leg was bent, resting in between mine, and damned if I didn’t wish he’d bring it forward, just a couple of inches, because even though I shouldn’t want him, there was no denying that I did.

There was something very right and very wrong about our chemistry. Or the way I felt alive when he was around. I’d spent too many years hiding out in Salem, and now my body went crazy anytime it got adrenaline. I should be swinging at him right now, and I was wetting my lips instead.

“I guess that’s one way to describe your relationship. Not sure I’ve even seen quite this mode of torture,” Oscar said, laughing as he walked past us. I hadn’t even heard him walk in.

Hawk straightened. I readjusted myself, feeling like a kid who’d just gotten caught doing something bad. Not that I would’ve actually done anything, so I was not sure what my problem was. Just because an attractive male got close, it didn’t mean it was my fault I was attracted to him on a cellular level.

I stood and, with an awkward nod to Oscar, made my exit.

19

It had been so sunny, but the minute I stepped outside the broker’s office, it was as if a storm cloud, a dark, mean one, hovered overhead. It was too cold to rain in Xest, but it looked like it would be one hell of a snow day. I picked up my pace, hurrying to Zark’s before this thing unloaded on me. The cloud was drifting the same way I was walking, but I luckily made it to Zark’s before it dumped its foul weather onto me.

I tucked my bag away under the bar.

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