The Shifter and the Witch

Lucy

Deklan and I head up to his room hand in hand, and get into bed. I immediately make him my pillow when he lies down next to me, resting my head on his chest. He wraps an arm around me, and a few moments later, soft snuffling sounds near my ear let me know he’s fallen asleep.

I look over at him and smile to myself.

That didn’t take him long.

Shutting my eyes, I realize something else isn’t going to take long, either. It isn’t going to take me long to fall for this man.

If I’m honest with myself, I have to admit I’m already half gone.

***

I stretch as I wake up and bump into warm, solid muscles.

“Morning,” Deklan murmurs.

“Mmm,” I hum. “Morning.”

Blinking sleepily, I look over at him. He looks sexy first thing in the morning, with his hair all messy and his face scruffy. Waking up to his handsome face every morning is something I could easily get used to.

“Sleep well?” he asks and raises a hand to my face, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear.

“Mm-hmm. You?” I ask.

He echoes my ‘mm-hmm’ with a lazy smile on his face.

“What time is it?” I ask.

He rolls away, stretches his arm back and toward the bedside table, and checks his phone for the time.

“A little after one,” he replies as he rolls back towards me.

Hearing the time, I figure I better get up and start scrying for Hannah.

Last night, I considered not scrying during the day because I know there’s a good chance I won’t get a hit on Hannah during daylight hours. But I can’t not scry for her. Even though I’m probably wasting my time, I still have to try.

“Better get busy,” I murmur. “I’ll be back soon,” I add after getting dressed.

“Want me to make you something to eat while you’re gone?” he asks.

“If you don’t mind,” I reply, and sit on the end of the bed to pull on my boots.

“Of course not,” he replies. “Sandwich sound good?”

“Sounds great.” I smile over at him and stand.

He reaches for my hand and tugs to indicate he wants me to come closer so he can kiss me goodbye.

I happily oblige.

***

Deklan

After Lucy's gone, I go shower and get dressed in my usual jeans and T-shirt and then make my way downstairs and into the kitchen. There, I throw together two turkey sandwiches and add plain potato chips to the plates as a side.

As I’m heading over to the dining table with the lunches I’ve prepared, Lucy appears. She’s dressed in all black, and her hair’s wet and tied back in a ponytail.

“I made turkey sandwiches,” I tell her, lifting the plates in my hands.

“Yum,” she says, and follows me over to the table. “Thanks.”

While she pops a chip in her mouth, I start eating my sandwich. Things are quiet as we eat. It doesn’t take us long to finish, and when we’re both done, I take our dishes over to the sink. By the time I turn around, Lucy already has her map spread out on the table. She picks up her pendulum and starts scrying.

Her expression is determined. Focused. After how quickly she found Malek before, I expect it won’t be long before she locates Hannah. And as soon as she does, I get to have another go at Malek.

I can’t wait.

As much as I’d like to stay in here with her, I have to spend at least some of the day in the studio. I have work to do and customers waiting.

“Good luck,” I say on my way out.

Lucy looks over at me.

“Thanks.”

For the next several hours, I stay busy in the studio and anxiously wait to hear from her.

***

The sky is pitch black when I stop working in the studio. Standing, I stretch out the kinks in my back and neck and then go over and check the time on my phone.

11:07 PM.

It’s not as late as I thought, but I’m ready to quit. I’m happy with the work I got done, and I want to go in and join Lucy in the kitchen.

I clean up my workspace, put my tools away, and turn off the lights before locking up my studio and returning to the house. My commute from work takes all of twenty seconds.

When I enter the kitchen, I find Lucy exactly as I left her after supper. She’s standing, leaning over her map, one arm supporting the other as she scries. Her gaze goes over to the clock on the stove when I come in.

“Done for the night?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I reply and move to her side.

Taking in how tired she looks, I frown. She looked a little fatigued at supper; now she looks wiped.

“I wish I could help you with this,” I tell her. “Give you a break.”

“Me too,” she sighs. “My arms are dead weights at this point.”

“You want anything? Are you hungry?” I ask, wanting to offer something.

I can’t help her scry, but I want to be of help in some way, and I noticed that she didn’t eat much of her supper earlier.

“No, thanks. I’m good,” she replies.

I stand next to her for a while, but as I continue to watch her scry, I take a seat. Minutes pass. The longer I watch her, the slower those minutes seem to go by. It feels like a couple of hours have passed when I pull out my phone and check the time.

12:15.

Damn. Only one hour has gone by.

Putting my phone away, I look back at Lucy. I don’t know how she’s kept this up all day. That she has impresses me. She’s a real trooper.

More time drags by, and sleepiness sets in as the pendulum hypnotizes me with its circling motion.

Blinking owlishly, I give myself a little head shake. I pull out my phone again and pick a game to play because I know if I keep watching Lucy scry, I’m not going to be conscious much longer.

***

Lucy

Impatience grows inside me as I continue to search for Hannah. I’ve only just started looking for her, but I’m so anxious to find her.

I check the time on my phone and see that it’s almost one in the morning. Setting my phone back down, I shift my gaze to Deklan. He looks as tired and bored as I feel. While he continues playing a game on his phone, I continue watching my pendulum spin over the map.

Another hour goes by and nothing. Then another. I’m just about ready to quit for the night when my pendulum suddenly shoots to the map.

Just like that, I go from sleepy and bored to feeling like I just pounded five pots of coffee.

I’ve got a hit on Hannah!

Deklan’s head snaps up at my gasp, and he takes in what’s happened. While he straightens up and sets his phone aside, I pull my phone out of my pocket. I put in my four-digit passcode, quickly bring up a map of the city on Google Maps, and zoom in on the area my pendulum pointed to. I set my phone on the table and scry again, and immediately get a hit.

It looks like Hannah’s in a suburban area.

I zoom in further and scry again. Now I can see that my sister’s in a building on Keys St.

I zoom to street level and shift the view until I’m looking at the front of the building Hannah’s in.

I have Hannah’s location. Before I teleport to her, I want to know if she’s alone or not, so I scry for Malek. The pendulum immediately shoots to the same house, which makes me scowl.

Even though I figured the two would be together, I still hoped I might find Hannah alone.

Straightening up, I set down my pendulum and look over at Deklan. Wolfy has his game face on. His blue eyes are already starting to bleed silver.

He meets my gaze. “Ready?” he asks.

To face off against someone I love—someone who doesn’t remember me and wants to kill me?

I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

I reach my hand out for his, grasp it, and teleport. The two of us disappear from his kitchen and seconds later appear in a dark bedroom just a few feet away from Hannah. My sister looks like a badass in the slinky red tube top and black leather pants she has on. Her dark hair’s loose and flowing down over her shoulders in waves. She’s in the middle of choking a young man and seems to be quite enjoying herself, going by the wicked smile on her face and the gleam in her eye.

That smile wilts when she notices she has company.

“Oh, for crap's sake, not you two again,” she sighs.

She throws us a bored look and unceremoniously drops the man she was holding in the air by the throat. The guy hits the floor with a heavy thud and doesn’t move. I wince and hope my sister didn’t kill the poor guy.

“Babe, hurry up!” Hannah hollers over her shoulder.

My gaze shifts beyond my sister and finds Malek on the floor. Once again, he’s draining a woman. Going by Hannah’s calling the demon ‘babe’, I guess she and Malek are indeed lovers, not just cohorts. I’d really hoped that wasn’t the case.

An image starts to form in my head of my sister kissing the Jogon, and I hurriedly block it out. That’s a visual I very much don’t need in my head.

At my side, Deklan shifts shape and growls menacingly. He launches himself over the bed and sets upon his target. Grabbing Malek’s leg, he yanks him off the woman he’s choking. Freed, the young woman coughs and sputters and rolls onto her side.

I send up a mental thank you to the universe that the woman is alive and conscious. I hope she can get herself and her boyfriend out of here.

I quickly crouch, set a hand on the man Hannah was choking moments ago, and teleport him to the woman.

“Can you teleport?” I ask the woman.

She nods, and when she sets a hand on her man’s arm, I let go of him. I blink, and the two disappear. With them gone, that’s one less worry.

Pushing up from my crouch, I stand and face my sister. I raise my hands between us in a placating gesture. “Hannah, I don’t want to fight you,” I tell her.

My words seem to amuse her. She smirks and steps closer, shortening the distance between us.

“Good,” she says. “Don’t fight. Killing you will be so much quicker and easier.”

She raises a hand, flicks her powers at me, and sends me flying back into the wall behind me. Picture frames are dislodged from their nails and crash to the floor when I hit the wall.

Damn.

My back is going to be one big-ass bruise later.

Hannah raises both hands, and a blue ball of energy sparks to life between her palms. She manipulates the energy, and the orb quickly grows in size.

Seeing this, I realize that I don’t need to worry about bruises if I don’t survive until later.