Page 44 of Cocktails & Cauldrons

“Why the hell have you come here?” She wasn’t fool enough to let him into her house or turn her back on him, but as a Succubus, she had more power than he and his family combined. Granted, hers were waning from longer periods between feeding, not to mention the major loss of Brenna’s gifts. Still, Loman couldn’t know that.

He scowled, but even angry, the fella was a looker. Yet on the inside, the man was ugly as sin, and that hadn’t changed. Loman was the one person Odessa had no desire to seduce. The bastard would’ve found a way to use her own abilities against her if he could.

“Yeah, and is it not enough I’ve come to visit an old friend?”

“You don’t have any friends, Loman. Don’t think to kid a kidder.”

“Two of a kind, then.”

Her heart pinged. She didn’t care to think of herself in his league, but she supposed, after all this time and all the evil acts she’d performed, she wasn’t much better than the low-down, sneaky sonofabitch in front of her.

“Do ya not intend to invite me in?”

“No. I don’t. I ask again, why the hell have you come here?”

“I’ve need of your magic,” he told her with no more preamble. “And you’ll be givin’ it to me.”

She laughed. “Not on your life, O’Connor.”

“What about onyourlife, old woman?” a cold female voice asked from behind her as a razor-sharp blade plunged between her ribs.

As Odessa fell to her arthritic knees, she pressed her hands to the place on her back above her kidneys.

Sneaky witch!

She could heal herself, even from the black magic seeping into her veins, but she’d have to expose her vulnerable self for a harrowing few seconds during the transition to do it. Most people didn’t know what to look for, didn’t know that the area covering her heart was vulnerable to attack for roughly five beats. But if these two knew how to pierce her skin, they probably knew that, too.

“Why isn’t she tryin’ to save herself, Uncle?” her attacker asked as Loman joined her in the foyer, confirming what Odessa suspected.

She looked up at the attractive auburn-haired woman frowning down at her. Recognition struck. “Because I’m not as stupid as you believe me to be, Moira Doyle.” Pretending to shift position, she touched the slate floor of her entry and drew in the energy of the ley line from beneath her home. Without closing her eyes, she envisioned the earth’s healing resources, absorbingthrough her palm what she needed to encapsulate and expel the poison from Moira’s knife.

“How did you know where to find me, O’Connor?” She asked to stall and give her body the boost it needed to defeat the pair of them when they least expected it.

“Ya think I can’t read the society pages?” His tone was disgusted, as if she were too stupid to exist. Which maybe she was if she’d underestimated his drive to find her. After Doreen’s death, Odessa had stopped running and hiding. She’d settled in one of the three family homes she owned. In her prime and full of arrogance, she’d always assumed no one would be foolish enough to tangle with a Succubus of her caliber. And they hadn’t. But she could no longer claim to be unbeatable. Brenna would have that title now. Heavyweight Siren champ of the world.

Odessa smiled.

Loman and Moira exchanged an uneasy glance.

“My wards? How did you get past them?” Odessa had few people over, but one of them had betrayed her. She’d like to know who, so when she was finished with these two, she could pay their accomplice a visit.

“We’ve been testing them for weeks. It helped when you let my nephew Reginald in to retrieve the girl’s things.”

“Reggie? Eoin O’Malley’s best friend is one of your clan?” She laughed, then frowned down at her chest as the sound of congestion rattled in her lungs. The earth’s magic should be healing her faster than it currently was. “I must say, he fooled the lot of us.”

“Sure, and that was the intent, it was.” Loman’s toothy grin didn’t reach his dead eyes.

Odessa shivered. So many of them at cross purposes, each a threat to Doreen’s beloved granddaughter in their own way. Her attention drifted to the shadowy figure across the room.

Doreen.

Come to watch Odessa finally get what was coming to her. She peered closer at her ghostly sister. Doreen didn’t look smug, though. She looked fearful, and that was different from the norm. Odessa wanted to tell her she had nothing to worry about, but the poison in her veins was gaining ground.

Curiosity got the better of her, and somewhat distantly, she asked, “What was the toxin on the knife?”

“Witchbane, Belladonna, and Rosary Pea,” Moira stated smugly. “And of course, the added ingredient to pierce Siren skin.”

Odessa’s painted brows shot up with her surprise. “One poison wasn’t enough?”

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