The Problem With Witches: An Arcane Shot Series Novel, Page 3

  Far too much, woman. Watch yourself.

  It landed me firmly in your arms, didn’t it?

  “No, she’s not,” Ben said in a deceptively mild voice. “None of our wives are going to be part of this.”

  “She is already on her way,” Raina said. “On her own, so you can rein back that blast of Irish temper you’re about to unleash. She didn’t like what she heard in your voice.”

  Another curse and he’d turned away from her, was already dialing the phone. That was easy enough to deal with. She merely sighed, twitched her fingertips, and knew the signal wouldn’t go through. A wafting of magic could trounce most electronics.

  It wasn’t that Ben would be able to change Marcie’s mind if she thought he was in trouble; it merely saved the arguing time, something for which she knew Mikhael and Derek would have little patience. That was another thing about Guardians. Both of them were mated to human females—well, she was mostly human—but that didn’t mean they had much tolerance for human waffling. For them it was simple. They made a decision, and everyone fell in line. Or were trampled by the inevitability of the choice they made.

  She leveled another amused look at her Dark Guardian. Apparently staring at his cards, but now even deeper in her subconscious, reassuring her he was there. Holding her in that never-ending dance they did through the ballroom of her soul. He knew she loved to dance.

  Men might be foolish creatures. But vital as well, to the thriving of a woman’s heart.

  Which was why Raina wasn’t surprised when Marcie arrived less than a minute after the rest of the team did.

  Chapter Three

  Before coming here, anticipating who might become involved in the situation, Derek and Mikhael had done their research and shared it with Raina and Ruby. The five men sitting around the table had been dubbed “Knights of the Board Room” by a female columnist. She was now a successful blogger in Baton Rouge, mated to a police sergeant there who was a close friend to these men.

  There were multiple reasons she’d given them the name. Publicly, it would be for their generous charitable donations and their ruthless abilities in business, jousters who rarely met defeat on the corporate battlefield. They also had an old-school, outdated but very appreciated protocol of courtesy, care and protectiveness toward women. Which went along with the unique stamp of sexual Dominant that every single one of them was.

  Raina detected all of those latter qualities in their attitude toward her and Marcie, who currently sat with quiet attention to her right. The young woman had given her a couple searching looks since taking a seat, not entirely friendly. Raina couldn’t fault her for it. When she’d arrived, Raina and Ben had been standing at the window, Raina’s hand still on her husband’s arm.

  There’d be time to correct any misimpressions. For now, Raina’s focus was on evaluating the men of the Kensington & Associates executive team.

  A brothers-in-arms camaraderie was there, a bond that their shared sexual preference had enhanced and taken into some deliciously unexpected places. They’d combined their skillsets multiple times to win the hearts, bodies and souls of each of their women. Because what woman in her right mind could resist that? She’d love to have the whole lot of them at her bordello for a weekend. They could bring their wives. She expected these men were well aware that visiting a house of pleasure could be a delightful couples’ activity.

  Subconsciously, though, the Knights of the Board Room moniker had also been sparked by what Derek had acknowledged. These men held to the warrior code. They could be counted upon to step up when danger threatened. A simple but vital thing in the world.

  While Ben was the head corporate lawyer of the K&A empire, each man brought his own skillset to the team.

  Jon, an absurdly beautiful male with black hair and blue eyes, as well as a deep, melodious voice somewhat at odds with his lean but yoga-fit form, was a mechanical and financial wizard, with near-genius level intelligence. His hobby was reading ancient texts, historical records, that kind of thing. What anyone else would consider torment, he considered pleasure reading.

  Lucas, with silver grey eyes and hair the color of sun-touched wheat, was the calm eye of the storm. An incomparable man of numbers, he was K&A’s CFO, and an amateur competing cyclist.

  Peter was the size of a muscular tank, with storm gray eyes and dark blonde hair. The former National Guard captain had served multiple tours in the Middle East and handled the operations end of their many manufacturing interests.

  Then there was Matthew Kensington. Both the tip of the spear and the propulsion behind it, he’d turned his father’s oil field interests into a global manufacturing company. His chiseled features, well-cut short brown hair and direct, glittering brown eyes only reinforced what he was. A formidable CEO and intimidating man who didn’t suffer fools.

  “So, everyone at this table knows I was a street kid,” Ben said brusquely. His tone said he had no intention of dwelling on any unnecessary details of that part of his life, nothing not directly relevant to the topic at hand. “When I was twelve, I pissed off a couple gangbangers. Turf issues. I managed to get away from them by ducking into the tunnels under the city.”

  “Tunnels?” Lucas lifted a brow. “We’re below sea level. New Orleans doesn’t have any tunnels.”

  “Yes, it does,” Jon said, in that remarkably smooth and deep timbre. “Some are documented, some not. At the turn of the century, when civil engineers figured out how to build underground in negative sea level environments, there was a plan for a fairly impressive thoroughfare under Harrah’s Casino. It was eventually shut down by historic preservationists and other logistical issues.”

  “Yeah. What he said.” Ben nodded. “At the time I wasn’t all that familiar with them, but that was the beginning of a pretty intimate knowledge. I gave them the slip, but I got lost.”

  He paused. Unexpectedly, his gaze slid to Raina. She knew he didn’t mean the kind of lost that required a map to correct.

  “That’s when Elagra found me,” he said. “The underground is her world. Like Pennywise the creepy clown, in that Stephen King novel Peter talked me into reading.”

  An avid reader herself, Raina agreed It was a fantastic story. Reading how the protagonists had overcome the clown’s evil had been life-affirming. Fiercely so.

  “Elagra offered me refuge in her world until the thing with the gangbangers blew over,” he continued, “but like most things, there was a price for my room and board. I collected things for her, stole what she needed. And gave her someone to torment with her mind games. I got free as soon as I could and didn’t look back. That’s that.” He lifted a shoulder. “You’re not here for a trip down memory lane. She’s a witch. The real deal.”

  Lucas, the practical accountant, cocked his head, his silver eyes narrowing. “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning if she wanted to wave her wand and dress Cinderella up in the fairy tale ballgown, she could. At least, that’s what Cinderella would see. Until she got to the ball, looked down and realized her dress was made of rat guts and pig’s blood.”

  A creature made of mud, sticks and pebbles flashed through Ben’s mind. A boy’s idle creation, no bigger than a hamster, had suddenly come to life, with a touch of Elagra’s slim hand. She’d had curved black nails with shimmers of lightning sparking off them. When she touched him with them, the contact would tingle. Or jolt the nervous system like keys stuck in a socket, depending on her mood.

  When she brought the mud creature to life, it hadn’t looked like his crude rendering. It had looked exactly like he imagined it in his head. A miniature version of a sleek, powerful, and beautiful monster. A guardian at his back. A friend and companion. Someone who would make him feel less alone, and be too powerful to let choices be taken away from him.

  Peter was studying him. Ben was close to all the men here, but he and Peter had a special bond. When Ben met the gaze of the blond-haired behemoth, it hit him, almost made him smile. He’d eventually found that creation. And
not just in Peter. In the shape of the four men at this table.

  Ben looked toward Lucas. Mr. Grounded-In-His-Calculator was still looking to make sense of it.

  “So, she’s a hypnotist of some kind,” he said. “Like an illusionist.”

  “It would be a lot more reassuring if that was true,” Ben said. “You remember when Peter told us that surviving in combat means never getting confused about who your enemy is, or isn’t?”

  At Lucas’s nod, Ben set his jaw. “Then take what I say exactly at face value. She’s a witch. She knows how to do magic, and it’s the creepiest Freddy Krueger mixed with flying monkey stuff you’ve ever seen, rolled into one freaky shitstorm. Only it’s not smoke and mirrors or Hollywood magic. It’s as real as that bad tequila you projectile vomited when we were in Mexico.”

  He took a breath. “If I could talk myself into writing down directions, handing them over and forgetting these three ever showed up, I would. But one thing I learned about Elagra is this. When she shows up on your radar, you don’t turn your back. Until you’re sure she’s off screen again. Right now, she feels way too on screen to me.”

  Lucas studied him for another long moment. “Okay,” he said.

  Peter likewise nodded. “Can’t be any harder to swallow than the esoteric crap Jon feeds us about the connectivity of life energy in the universe. How it fuels all worthy endeavors.”

  “You were listening,” Jon said. “Glad I’m sitting down to handle that shock.”

  “He pays attention because he thinks you’re going to give us a quiz on it, and Captain America refuses to fail any test,” Ben informed him. “I just ignore you.”

  He looked toward Matt. Their leader’s expression wasn’t giving anything away. But Ben knew him well enough to know Matt’s steel trap mind was running it through, waiting for the other variables sure to come. He looked like a former star football player, with his broad shoulders and formidable physical presence. But with his piercing eyes he’d been compared to a raptor, the way he waited, watched and collected info before making his move at just the right time. They wouldn’t look for him to make a comment until they reached that point.

  Unless they got off track and needed a yank back onto the path. Matt preferred the straightest line between two points, in the rare circumstances where a problem’s solution presented that as an option. This wasn’t one of them.

  Ben looked toward their silent guests. “Floor’s yours.”

  As Ben took a seat next to Marcie, Raina saw their eyes meet, the tension in their expressions. He wasn’t happy with her being here, but Raina heartily approved of the stubborn jut to Marcie’s jaw. Submissive didn’t mean doormat. This one seemed very aware of that. Her love for Ben was likely one of the few things that could override her strong natural desire to submit to him.

  Her gaze slid to Mikhael. She understood that herself. She’d accepted him as her Master. But there was nothing she wouldn’t do to care for and protect him. Yes, he might perceive himself as invincible, but everyone needed someone watching their backside. Since he had a very fine backside to watch, it was no chore to her.

  Even though he could regularly be a pain in hers. That, too, was part of love.

  Derek leaned forward in his seat, clasping his hands in front of him on the table. “A strong, Dark energy is moving beneath the surface of New Orleans,” he said without preamble. “It’s putting enough pressure on the magical ley lines to suggest it’s very close to breaking free. When it does that, if our estimate of its size is correct, it can initiate an apparent natural catastrophe that will turn the city into a lake. Elagra is the strongest Dark magic user in this area, so she will have knowledge of its nature, what’s coming. We seek that intel from her, so we’ll best know how to contain, re-channel, or destroy it.”

  “If Elagra’s as evil as all that, will she just give you that information?” Peter asked.

  “Dark is not synonymous with evil,” Mikhael said. “No more than Light is with good.”

  “However, as magical tools, they more often align with the purposes of evil or good, respectively,” Derek put in.

  Mikhael shot him a dubious look, but thank the Goddess they left their eternal argument over it there so that they didn’t get off point. They usually preferred to debate it over a bottle of vile Campari.

  “True enough,” Jon said, appearing pleased to find himself elbow to elbow with those who gave some thought to such questions. Raina stifled a chuckle when Peter tossed him a cross-eyed look and Lucas barely resisted flipping him off.

  The double-edged pleasure of men was that the boy in all of them rode so close to the surface. Then Jon directed a more serious question to Mikhael and Derek. “When you say it’s close to breaking free, do we have a timetable?”

  “Two to four days.” As the men shifted and muttered, Derek swept a quelling glance around the table. “In our world, that’s often normal lead time.”

  “Better than usual,” Mikhael added dryly.

  A grunt was Matt’s only reply to that, though that laser gaze suggested they would have been squirming in their chairs if they worked for him and provided such an excuse. But since they didn’t, and it was simple fact, not an excuse—plus Mikhael and Derek had a few centuries of experience over him—they matched him with equally impressive stares.

  She gave Matt props for matching it with a flinty look of his own. But Kensington had a strong aura, the consistency and color of tempered steel.

  The last time she’d been in the same room with so many alpha males had been when her bordello had hosted a SEAL team for one intensely intriguing weekend. Being surrounded with so much focused testosterone was a pleasurable distraction, one she didn’t mind savoring. She liked to live in the moment.

  Her glance slid back to Marcie. The young woman was digesting the information, all while a very large part of her focus remained on Ben, and his on hers. To Raina at least, it was clear an argument was brewing, just waiting for a trigger to let it erupt. But that conflict couldn’t override stronger things. Ben sat beside his wife, his elbow and hand resting on the table. The placement of his arm and cant of his body kept him facing Mikhael and Derek, the arm a subtle barrier between them and his wife. He likely wasn’t even aware he was doing it.

  “We would have preferred not to involve one of your people at all,” Derek continued. He tilted a grimly amused look toward Ben. “But we’ve been advised that finding her isn’t as easy as directions to the nearest tourist attraction.”

  “It’s a one-man op,” Ben told Matt. “I would have just done it, but…” He paused, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “Not telling you about it would have left you unprepared. In case things get sticky, I wanted you to have had a face-to-face with these three.”

  Marcie O’Callahan did not have a poker face. Her deep brown eyes flashed and soft pink mouth tightened. Ben didn’t look toward her, but from the subtle tightening in his shoulders, Raina expected he was aware of her reaction. Though Marcie said nothing, Raina didn’t think her silence was going to hold long.

  “It sounds like you need some backup, man,” Peter said.

  “He will, because I’m going with him.” Marcie said.

  “We’ll take them to her.”

  Less than ten seconds, in fact.

  Her voice reminded Raina a little of Ruby’s, a touch of sultry texture in the feminine syllables that suggested both delicacy and strength. It mirrored her appearance. She wore jeans and running shoes, but the soft, flowing sleeveless top revealed arms with sleek muscle tone. She leaned forward in her chair, one knee crooked beneath her thigh, an energetic, ready-for-action pose. Her thick blond hair was pulled up in a tail. Her expression was serious. And more than a little angry.

  She wore one item of jewelry, a silver band that hugged her throat, the metal unembellished except for an etching of three flowers on the front. Forget-me-nots. It was a lovely piece, but Raina knew it for what it was. A submissive’s collar, likely only taken off when social or work
constraints made it necessary. But that evidence of her bond with Ben hadn’t stopped her from throwing down the challenge.

  As Raina had thought—submissive, not doormat.

  Responding as a Master would, Ben’s own mien became ice, razor sharp as a broken piece of glass. “You might want to dial back that attitude,” he said.

  “My thoughts exactly. You were sorry to involve them.” Marcie made a brusque gesture toward the other men at the table. “But you were more than willing to keep me in the dark. I’m your wife. Which means I share your life and what happens in it. All of it.”

  Marcie met Ben’s cold stare head on, though it took her a visible act of will. Raina had been there with Mikhael. This discussion was about to get ugly.

  As Marcie threw up her chin, Peter reached out, laid a hand on Ben’s arm. It didn’t break Ben’s focus on Marcie, but it was a reminder. A connection to something important.

  Lucas exchanged a glance with Matt. A check, to see if the leader of their pack thought they should intervene, defuse this, particularly in front of their three guests. Matt shook his head.

  Raina surmised he wasn’t concerned about this for the same reasons she wasn’t. Marcie’s next words combined implacability with undeniable heart. That made all the difference, revealing the core of the relationship between these two.

  “You’re not scared of anything,” she said softly. “And this woman scares you. So I’m going.”

  “Ben.” Raina spoke, drawing everyone’s attention to her, particularly when she eased the hold on the shield between herself and her impact on human senses. Even so, Ben turned his attention to her last, and not until Marcie reluctantly broke that challenging eye contact to look toward Raina herself.

  “Elagra put her mark on you,” Raina said. “It’s best to fight the wrong woman’s hold with the right one, a female energy more vested in your well-being. It’s important that the balance, the mark of the woman you chose to be yours, be there as part of your arsenal against her.”