And give him the reward. But he didn’t know she was the witch everyone in the country was searching for. That, she thought, was at least one thing she had going for her.
Should she run? No. He’d only chase her down—or shoot her. Besides, Shea told herself, she’d be damned if she ran again. She was through hiding from what she was. Done apologizing for her existence to a society that was so blinded by its own fear it couldn’t see the wonder of magic or the women who wielded it.
She wasn’t the witch she had been only two weeks before. She wouldn’t ever again allow herself to be captured or used. She wouldn’t allow anyone to put their hands on her. Not ever again. Times had changed. She had changed. She’d learned far too much to ever go back to what she used to be.
This one man thought he would capture her. Terrorize her. She looked at him and he suddenly seemed small and far less frightening than he had only a moment ago.
He was in for a surprise.
“Yes,” she said, “I am a witch.”
His eyes widened as if he hadn’t really expected her to admit it.
Shea snapped her fingers and instantly she was wearing the clothing she had zapped off herself only a short while ago. Maybe it had been a mistake to give this man proof that she was a witch, but damned if she’d stand there naked in front of him, letting him look at her as if she were the last steak at a barbecue.
“Got some power, do you?” he asked, raising the gun higher, taking aim at a spot right between her eyes. “Think that’ll be enough?”
Not so very long ago, on that last day at the school when a man had jumped out at her, she had been terrified. She’d reacted instinctively—killing him without even meaning to. This time was different. This time, she wouldn’t lose that hard-won sense of control.
He reached out and Shea let him grab hold of her. She needed him close. And the closer he was, the less likely he would be to shoot.
The power she felt beneath the moon washed over her in a lush, clean sweep of amazing magic. Through her fear, Shea felt her own strength rising.
“Not gonna fight me, huh?” He grinned as if he’d just been given a present. “Good for you.”
She smiled, reached up and laid two fingers against his forehead. He dropped like a stone and was snoring before he hit the ground.
“Yes,” Shea said softly. “Good for me.”
Chapter 36
The moment Torin stepped into the motel room, he knew something was wrong.
Gaze narrowed, he swept the small room thoroughly with one quick glance. Shea wasn’t there. He opened his senses to her, instantly dropped the bags of food he’d brought and flashed to her side in the middle of a moonlit meadow.
“God!” She slapped one hand to her chest and staggered backward. “You scared the crap out of me!”
He grabbed her and held her close, wrapping his arms around her and pressing her tight to his chest until the steady beat of her heart calmed the fury churning inside him.
“How do you think I felt when I returned to the room and you were gone?” If he had had a beating heart, it would have stopped the moment he realized she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Now that they had mated, the protective instincts he felt for her were more all-encompassing than ever before.
“I told you not to leave the room—” He stopped, looked down at the snoring man at her feet. “Who is that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He came up out of nowhere while I was drawing down the moon.”
Torin gaped at her. “He saw you working a spell?”
“Yes.”
“Woman, do you have no idea of the dangerous cloud we exist under?”
She pushed away from his grasp, folded her arms over her chest and said, “I know exactly what danger we’re in. Just as I know that unless I remember what we need to know, we’re not going to be able to complete this quest, or mission or whatever the hell it is.”
“And you thought to regain that memory in public? Where anyone could see you?” While he was gone? When he thought of everything that might have happened to her without him at her side, it chilled him to the bone. “Do you trust me so little that you couldn’t wait until I returned?