She scowled. Called for her?
She didn’t remember any call.
Of course, everything had started to go fuzzy after Callie had left.
Oh hell. Was that what he was talking about? Had he spiked her tequila? Or bespelled something in her apartment?
No. A hot ball of rage exploded in the pit of her stomach.
Not something in her apartment.
Something she’d stupidly taken inside her apartment.
“Dammit,” she snarled. “It was the locket.”
“Very good, Ms. . . .” He paused to straighten a cuff of his jacket. “Can I call you Serra?”
She ground her teeth, sensing he was deliberately trying to annoy her. Logically she understood his tactic. If he could keep her emotions frazzled while he stayed in control, he would maintain the upper hand. But she didn’t want to be logical. She wanted to be pissed off.
“Whatever.”
His lips twitched. “Thank you.”
“There was a compulsion spell on the locket?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes narrowed as she realized the reason she couldn’t force her way into his mind. Her powers weren’t broken, he just had the ability to block her.
“You’re a high-blood,” she said, the words barely leaving her lips before he was allowing the illusion shrouded around him to fade.
Suddenly he was more than handsome, he was breathtakingly beautiful. His hair wasn’t just dark, it was a rich, glossy ebony. His skin wasn’t pale, it was a flawless ivory. And his eyes. Oh God, they were gorgeous. Not brown, but a shimmering bronze with flecks of gold.
“Guilty as charged,” he murmured softly.
He turned his head to the side, revealing the small emerald mark just below his ear. It wasn’t large, but the eye shape proclaimed it more than just a birthmark or a tattoo.
“Witch,” she hissed.
“You have a prejudice against witches?”
Of course she didn’t. Her foster father had been a witch. A man she adored. But he’d lived by a strict code of ethics.
He would consider a compulsion spell no less than rape.
“I have a prejudice against people who use their magic to steal my free will and force me from my home,” she snapped.
Bas was superbly indifferent to her outrage. “It was a simple, harmless spell.”
Harmless? She had a vivid image of her fist connecting with his arrogant nose. Oh, it was going to feel so good.
“Yeah well, I doubt the Mave is going to consider it a simple, harmless spell,” she warned. “She’s not going to be pleased when she finds out what you’ve done.”
A strange emotion flickered through the bronze eyes. “The Mave hasn’t been pleased with me for several decades.”
Serra was caught off guard by the warm familiarity in his tone. “You know her?”
“Our paths crossed years ago. It was . . . memorable.”