Piper hated magic and all magical beings, including me. She abhorred us for the atrocities committed against her and her people.
I might not have been in this world, or even known of her existence at the time, but it wouldn’t matter to her. She blamed me with the rest of them, all the same.
Piper might have entered the first blood-exchange with me willingly, but I was going to have to tread carefully with her. Striking a fine balance between chasing her and giving her space.
She needed to grow. To heal. To learn that not every magical person would abuse or betray her.
I stared at the spot where the taxi had been. I could see it in her glowing red eyes as they faded to violet. She was entering stasis. The magic she wielded was wild. Unruly. Untamable. Yet . . . she’d tamed it. She bent it to her indomitable will, even if it robbed her of her strength afterward.
My atma was a strong woman, but for a time she would be weak.
Weak enough to find.
I stepped back into the shadows of the building behind me. A void blacker than night wrapped around me as I used my magic to traverse space itself, and I reappeared in the penthouse I’d taken. It had been one of Kenneth’s before he signed over everything he owned to me.
I walked to the bar and poured myself a splash of scotch, then swirled the glass around to watch the honey-colored liquid coat the edge.
A buzzing built in the back of my head. It was almost time.
I swallowed the contents in a single motion. It had a smokey flavor, a hint of salt, yet smooth. A faint warmth followed it as I set the glass back on the counter and took a seat in the armchair before the fireplace. I had been watching the flickering flames when Greta MacArthur’s mind brushed against mine, notifying me of Piper’s arrival. I’d left her alive specifically to lure out my atma. The rest of the Antares Coven was already dead. Their money and estates all belonged to me now.
As well as their power, not that they had much.
All twelve members combined were no more than a single drop of what Piper held.
Then again, no being on this plane could compare to her. Not that she saw it. She handled her problems with firearms and a mean right elbow, even though she could end them all.
The buzzing turned to a burning.
I leaned back and never closed my eyes, though the penthouse faded from me. Flashes of memories replaced it. Images of a little blonde girl hiding under her bed, thinking if she couldn’t see them, maybe the monsters wouldn’t come. An older version of the same girl, shooting a firearm for the first time. Her hands shook, but they didn’t shake when it showed her killing a vampire only two years later. She was twelve.
I watched from the shadows of her mind as Piper relived her past. She must have entered the stasis, and this is where it brought her. While these memories couldn’t be relied upon to be exact, they still provided insight into the woman I sought.
For a long time, I didn’t want an atma. I hoped I’d never find them. That perhaps fate would be kind to me for once and not give me one. But as the years went on, the strain of my magic became harder to contain, and I found myself searching.
Then actively hunting.
When the door opened up in front of me, I jumped through without looking back.
And when I saw her, standing in the circle, glaring at me with feverish blue eyes and blood stains on her face—she was not what I expected.
I needed her, regardless of her prejudice, but the desire to possess her, keep her, own her—I did not plan for that, and yet I felt it all the same. She called to me on more levels than one, and like the selfish god I was, I refused to deny myself.
It was for that reason alone that I finally stepped out of the shadows and put her nightmares to rest.
The walls broke apart into dust-like particles. The monsters trying to kill her paused, their faces going blank, before they vaporized. The furniture turned to nothing, and when there was only the ground left, that, too, dissipated.
Her mind went quiet as nothingness settled in around us.
Then she stiffened and squinted into the darkness, right where I stood.
She could sense me.
This woman,