Page 6 of To Tempt a Witch to Sin

“How do you know?” He frowned at the scene. “This looks pretty fucking unhidden to me.”

She shot him a dark look, then focused on the body again. “There are traces of concealment magic,” she said quietly, her shoulders tensing, “as if she was in the process of casting a spell to make it look like a natural death and mask any involvement of powers. You must have interrupted her before she could finish. Otherwise, we’d never know this human was murdered with magic.”

“Can you really mask it like that?”

The soft lines around her eyes hardened, and she swallowed. “There are ways.” She turned and scanned the room, studying the layout of the murder. “This is bad,” she muttered, probably more to herself than to him.

“Yeah, I imagine gutting a human is generally frowned upon among you lot.”

“It’s not just that.” Her voice sounded pressed. She massaged her temples, shook her head. A tendril of her inky hair came loose from her tight braid and brushed her cheek. He wanted to open that braid and run his fingers through the silken strands, press his nose into the black mass of her hair and inhale until he was drunk on her. “This is not just a murder.”

“Then what is it?” He folded his arms so he wouldn’t act on that irrational impulse. “A bloody tea party?”

Those chocolate-colored eyes of hers turned to black ice. “For a moment there, I’d forgotten how irritating you are.”

He flashed her a grin that came with a growl. “What’s so troubling about this murder? Besides it looking like an abattoir in here?”

“You’re dismissed, Tallak.” She waved a hand without even glancing his way. “Go hop along now.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.” He clucked his tongue. “See, my night’s been ruined by rolling into this butcher shop and having to call you because one of your friends apparently went crazy with a knife—and a hammer and some nails, and…” He frowned at the body. “Whatever makes those wounds—and now I’ve got nothing better to do than hang around here and be a really pesky thorn in your side unless you’d like to share what’s going on.”

Inexplicably, the amiable smile he sent her made her scowl at him. Tss.

“I thought you didn’t care about anything but Basil,” she said, moving away from him, her gaze studiously on the murdered human.

He followed her, like the damn moth-to-the-flame that he was. Always, always, he tried to avoid her, knowing this would happen if he did see her. Inevitably, with excruciating predictability, he’d be drawn to her, his focus splintered in her presence, his body all too aware of her nearness, reacting to her every movement like a compass adjusting true north.

He balled his hands into fists so he wouldn’t reach for her. “I don’t. But I choose to be selectively nosy about certain things. This is one of them.”

“It’s none of your business.”

She was right. Not that he’d ever tell her that. “Seeing as I stumbled onto this, I’ve got a right to know what it’s about. You said it’s more than a murder, so what—”

He broke off as he studied the scene again, then whistled low. “It’s a ritual, isn’t it?”

Her slight wince confirmed his theory.

“What kind of ritual? What was she trying to do?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Hazel ground out, her back to him.

He prowled up to her until he could feel the heat of her body, and he knew he was playing with fire by allowing himself this close to her…but he enjoyed poking her for a reaction more than he feared his own. If he couldn’t avoid her for tonight, he’d at least relish chipping at her icy facade.

“Come now.” Bending over her from behind her back, he murmured in her ear, “You want to share this. I can see it, your need to tell someone. This is huge, and you need to process, and you do that by talking it through, don’t you?”

Her scent twined around his senses—heavy and smooth, warm with a bite of chill, like coming home from the cold. It nearly wrecked his control. She inhaled with a hitch, and when she swallowed and the muscles in her throat shifted underneath that creamy skin of hers, it was all he could do not to lean forward and press his lips to her neck.

To that spot he’d licked—nipped at—once before, on that night neither of them had ever spoken of again. Like they’d both agreed. As if it hadn’t happened. As if every cell of his body wasn’t screaming for another taste of her, as if the memory of her touch didn’t keep him awake at night and spark new, elaborate embellishments in his dreams when he finally managed to sleep.

His acute demon hearing picked up the rapid drum of her heartbeat, her quickened breaths, and his own breathing was so shallow and fast that he realized his little game had caught him as much as her. His body hardened, his muscles tensing with the effort it took not to grasp her braid, tilt her head, and capture her mouth.

“Tell me.” A rasp against her ear.

The air between them whirred and heated.

A flick of her hand, a muttered word… Magic gripped him tight and sank into his bones, and the ridiculously desperate part of him reveled in the fact that she was touching him, even if only with her powers.

“You are bound to secrecy,” she said, her voice but a murmur, her face oh-so slightly turned toward his. Barely an inch between their mouths, their breaths embracing. “If you speak of this—”

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