“What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “What are you doing? You can’t possibly imagine I didn’t know the instant you began to build a spell. You come here to Hunter Corp. after your performance yesterday? After claiming your grandfather was attacked? After you violated the laws of safe harbor? Then you try to work a spell?”

  “I was only going make the rosebuds open fully.”

  That’s when Darius walked in and Hugo’s gaze flicked between him and Genevieve, leaving his mouth in a hard, flat line.

  “You’ve been told to go more than once,” Darius told him in that very cold and remote way the Devils had with most outsiders.

  “You can’t possibly choose him over me,” Hugo hissed at her.

  “Stop this. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  Rowan bustled over and without pause, grabbed Hugo by the back of his tailored sport coat and dragged him to the doors David held open.

  “You’ve abused my hospitality the last time. You are banned from this building, this parking lot, this area of Las Vegas, and before you tell me I can’t do that, I just did. Try me, you ratfucker. She said no. Respect that.”

  “Again, you manhandle me!” Hugo screeched.

  “I’m ratfuckerhandling you. Be glad I’m delivering the non-bloody version.” Rowan tossed him out onto the sidewalk. “You can report that too.” She flipped him off and he scampered away.

  “You’ll be sorry for meddling, you stupid bitch,” he yelled out before getting into his car and zooming out of the lot.

  “Sorry for taking that out of your hands, Darius,” Rowan told him when she came back over. “But he deserved so much more.”

  “He says he was only trying to open the roses fully, and that could be true. But I don’t trust his word,” Genevieve told them.

  Darius picked the roses up and strode from the building.

  “Okay, then,” Rowan said and then looked Genevieve over closely. “You okay?”

  “He’s very fervent in his affections. It’s always unsettling when they’re like that.”

  Rowan nodded with a shudder. “Yeah. I’ll have David be sure to get his photo out in all the appropriate places so he can’t come back. It’s not as if he can get to your home without getting through a few dozen Devils, so that’s good to know.”

  That was blessedly true. Powerful connected witches or not, not a single Procella would get two steps past the very first level of security the Devils had up around the outer edge of their subdivision. Would they try? That remained to be seen. Genevieve would bring it up with Darius to see what he wanted to do.

  “So grandpa assface filed a complaint?” Rowan asked.

  Genevieve laughed, releasing some of her pent-up tension after that exchange. “He did. It’s as we thought it would be. I imagine you have surveillance here?”

  “We do. I’ll have it pulled and a copy made of the whole thing, including audio, and sent to you. I really hate tattletales. Especially entitled ones who constantly start shit they can’t end but still cry about it and act like they’re the victim.”

  “It’s always far more satisfying though when they eventually come up against a stronger opponent. And that’s me. And you. I rather find myself quite excited for the moment when I can give over the video evidence to prove them both liars.”

  Darius came back inside and as he appeared to be unharmed, she hoped that meant there’d been no drama with the roses.

  “Those flowers had bad magic in them,” he said.

  Genevieve started. How could she have missed that? “Explain.”

  “Obsession and focus magic. When he opened those buds, he’d have triggered it.”

  Suddenly she very much felt like taking a shower for about an hour to scrub that entire exchange off her skin.

  “I still don’t understand how I missed it. I felt him start the spell, so I saw that. But if there was a trigger embedded in those roses, I should have seen it.”

  “If I can interject here?” Rowan asked. “He kept trying to hand you the flowers and you avoided him every time. Finally, he had to put them on the counter. I think maybe it was that you were trying not to focus on them so he wouldn’t get any ideas. And also? You did know on some level, right?”

  Genevieve considered that and agreed it was very likely.

  Rowan said, “And that’s why he tried to set the spell off when he did. When he asked if there was someone and you said there was, that’s when he decided to just pop it off to coerce you into wanting to go out with him. Which means he’s used that spell before because come on, that was very smooth.”

  “It certainly puts his claims to not want to actually coerce humans to a lie, does it not? If he’d do that to a witch, what would he do to a human? Or any other being he wanted?” Genevieve curled her lip.

  “He needs to stop existing,” Darius growled so low she barely heard him.

  “Let’s hold off on that unless there are no other options,” Genevieve told him, admittedly fascinated by the way he was reacting.

  He harrumphed but didn’t say anything, so she had to hope he’d hold off on the killing and such for the foreseeable future.

  “I’m quite hungry,” she told him. “You should take me to pancakes if you’re available right now.”

  He nodded once at Rowan and then swept out an arm for Genevieve to leave with him.

  “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  Rowan shrugged. “Your schedule is your own. Have a good lunch. See you later.”

  * * *

  Darius had taken the flowers out to the parking lot and destroyed them after noting the dark smudge of obsession magic all over them.

  The urge to run Hugo Procella to ground and feed on him until there was nothing left filled his system with adrenaline-fueled aggression. That meatsack had tried to steal Genevieve’s will. Tried to take her.

  “Thank you for coming today,” she said quietly. And because she was so quiet, he needed to turn the anger down to hear her.

  “Hugo Procella is dangerous. Sergio Procella is dangerous. They are both reckless fools and this distresses me. What will they do next? Now that Hugo seems to consider you something he wants as much as this change to your rules.”

  “He won’t get anything he wants. Never me. Not this change. Certainly not now. No matter what wording they propose I won’t support it. They can’t be trusted. I’m petitioning Konrad to let me investigate their family and businesses.”

  “I already ordered round-the-clock surveillance on all four Procellas and the house.” Truth was, Darius had started the process of investigating the Procellas after that mess the day before, so he’d start tugging a lot more lines of inquiry. “The Trick doesn’t need Conclave permission, nor do we need to follow anyone else’s rules,” he told her before she could mention it herself. Witches—especially his witch—loved rules. He knew that.

  But he served chaos, not the Senate. Sergio and Hugo Procella were up to something, and he’d find out just exactly what. Because it involved Genevieve and the way Hugo acted was reckless and unhinged.

  It wasn’t jealousy.

  Yes, he wanted Genevieve with a greed it had been some time since he’d felt the like. But she wanted him with the same openness. What Hugo brought out in him was protectiveness. This asshole posed a threat to Darius’s witch.

  He took her to the diner she’d introduced him to the prior morning where she settled into a booth. “This is just the thing after such a distressing experience. I’m famished.” She smiled at him, so fucking pretty. Her hair had been pulled back from her face, but curls had escaped here and there to frame her features like she was a painting come to life.

  Clearly she was a regular because immediately the server brought them both coffee and Genevieve a large glass of orange juice as well.

  It was a good thing he liked pancakes, because if that’s what made her happy, he’d feed them to her every day.

  When the food arrived she ate steadily but he didn’t fail to notice a fine tremor in her hands more than once. Finally he reached out and took one of her hands in his. It was ice cold.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Not here,” was all she’d say.

  They finished up and instead of taking her back to the Hunter Corp. building, he drove them out to the open desert, knowing on some level she needed that.

  Just that morning before he’d left home, Marco had handed him a folded-up blanket and told Darius to put it in the trunk just in case he needed it. Darius had done as he’d been told because Marco knew things.

  And, as Darius spread it out so they could both sit on an outcropping of rocks, he knew this was what Marco had meant.

  “You don’t have to tell me anything,” he said as she settled at his side. “I just want you to be able to unburden yourself. That’s all.”

  She put her head on his shoulder a moment, leaning into him, and he wrapped an arm around her as she did. The day wasn’t cold, but she shivered and snuggled in closer, so he squeezed her tighter until she seemed to calm.

  “The coercion spell just brought up an old memory.”

  He stiffened and she hesitated. The last thing she needed was his response right then. He shoved it away and slowly ran a hand up and down her back until she relaxed again.

  “Before I married Tristan, there was another I was engaged to. Our families were pleased at the way to unite their houses. I’d been trained all over the world even at that point. I was about two hundred or so and thought I could make my space within a marriage and be satisfied with that. He often treated me like I was a spoiled child with no real idea of how the world worked when in truth I was by far the more widely traveled of us. I’d learned more disciplines than he had. I was more gifted. Then he began to blame my father for entertaining such ideas of independence. I hadn’t lived in the same home as my father since I was a very small child. I’d had to fight and claw my way to have enough power to make my own choices and as we got closer to signing the wedding contract I became certain I would be a prisoner. My light dimmed so his could glow brightest.

  “I’d written a letter to my father telling him all this. We weren’t close, as you know, but I knew if I told him, he’d be on my side when I broke things off. But when he arrived a month later, I... I’d forgotten. My fiancé pretended it had been a forgery and my father pretended to believe him but several hours later he sent people to my rooms to pack everything and told me we’d be leaving within the hour.”

  Darius had a feeling he knew where this was headed and more of that color seeped into his life when a throb of heartache filled his chest.

  He swallowed hard against a knot of emotion.

  “I didn’t even ask questions. I just grabbed a few important things, and we rode away. He told me some hours afterward when we’d stopped to change horses that my fiancé had used a similar spell to the one Hugo did. No one but my maid knew of that letter I’d sent to my father. If he hadn’t come or hadn’t seen something was off in my behavior, I’d have married and never known why I was so desperately unhappy.”

  Darius would deal with Hugo Procella for this. For bringing these memories to the surface. For attempting to harm Genevieve physically. But first he needed to comfort her. Put her before everything else.

  “I’m sorry. And I’m sorry today stirred all that up.”

  “You saved me,” she murmured.

  “I think Rowan was correct when she said your avoidance of the flowers at the start was because you knew on some level something was wrong. Moreover, you are not the same Genevieve you were five hundred years ago. You would have fought through it this time.”

  “But I didn’t have to. Thank you. I just had a flash. It happened a long time ago.”

  “You didn’t have to, no. I’ve got you. Not just because you’re our priestess.” He said things to her he hadn’t planned to say out loud all the time. “The Procellas will not harm you.”

  They stayed there on the blanket, Genevieve tucked into his side, for another hour until she finally stood, stretching.

  “You need to tell Konrad about this,” he said. Though he wanted to handle it himself, Darius knew it was important the leader of the Conclave Senate—and Genevieve’s father—needed to be informed and allowed to address this breach.

  Darius would still deal with Hugo after all was said and done. The witch needed to understand where he was in the larger scheme of things.

  “You’re right. I’ll call him when I get back to work. He might want to talk to you about the spell.”

  “Understandable. I’d want all the information possible in his place as well.” Darius realized too, she might need a little more reassurance after she’d been shaken. “I took everything. Every last bit of energy. There’s nothing left of the flowers, the vase, the water, or the spell. I give you my word.”

  “I trust you,” she said and then grinned for a moment, utterly beautiful. “But I also can’t deny I’m very curious about Dust Devils and how your magic works.”

  Pleased, he hugged her to him quickly, kissing the top of her head. Though he wanted to take her home where she’d be surrounded by so many layers of safety and security nothing could harm her, he didn’t want to clip her wings. She needed to be her normal confident and self-assured Genevieve. He understood that.

  “You’ll learn as you go. Being our priestess will mean your officiating at rites and ceremonies of all types.”

  “You’re teasing me,” she said, shaking out the blanket before folding it and handing it over.

  On the way back to work, she called her father.

  * * *

  “I need to speak with you about something,” she told Konrad.

  “Something to do with the Procella family?” he asked. “What’s happened?”

  “I’m unharmed. But earlier today Hugo Procella attempted to set off a coercion spell he’d put into some flowers he was trying to give me. The flowers and the spell have been destroyed. If he could so easily use such a spell on me, how can we allow the rule change they want? They clearly have no intention of being responsible and no problems taking whatever they want whether they’re offered it or not.”

  She told him about the video and audio from the HC lobby and that she’d send it his way.

  “You will file an official complaint. That’s what you’re doing right now,” her father told her. “I needed the Medicis. Before,” he said, meaning the powerful family of her ex-fiancé who had been helping fund the armies defending magic users. “Things are different now. There will be an investigation. You can’t do it, you’re too close now. But there are others who are more than qualified. Are you safe?”

  “The Dust Devils have a guard on me twenty-four hours a day. I can’t explain my living situation over the phone, but suffice it to say I’m very secure at home. Rowan was already in the process of tightening security and dealing with the Hunter Corp. response to Hugo’s behavior so I’ve no doubt she’s already got things in place or about to be.”

  “He won’t let you come to harm,” Konrad said. Not a question.

  “No. I will not,” Darius said, obviously overhearing the whole call.

  “Good. I’m going to get this complaint process started when we end this call. Send me everything you think will help. I plan to let the Procellas know they are to stay away from you. If you see them, contact me or my office immediately.”

  “If I see any of them trying to get access to Genevieve you should hope your witches can get to them before I can. Fair warning,” Darius said.

  Konrad was silent for several moments before clearing his throat. “I’m sure I didn’t hear that last part. Take care of yourself.”

  “I have not met the father of my...sweetheart since I was a very young man,” Darius said after Genevieve disconnected the call, making her laugh.

  Telling him about her past had taken the weight of it from her. Not entirely. Even five centuries later the thought of how powerless she’d been and hadn’t even known it still sent panic through her system. But it had created another deep tie to him. A moment of shared confidence and vulnerability.

  She reached out to cup his wrist for a few moments. Just a touch because she’d needed it. He turned his hand then and tangled their fingers together, kissing her knuckles.

  Genevieve leaned back in the seat, and despite all the things going on in her life, satisfaction settled into her bones.

  And she let it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The next afternoon after she and David had left a lunch meeting with some of the new employees, Rowan dropped David off at the office. “I need to run home to grab a file I left behind. Be back in half an hour or so.”

  “I can go get it if you’d rather,” he said, always helpful. “Or Elisabeth would be happy to bring it over.”

  She knew Elisabeth would do that without blinking. Or that she could have sent David in her stead. But she wanted a few minutes on her own to think over all the puzzles in her head and she told him so.

  David nodded and jumped out. “Got it. See you in a bit.”

  Rowan had had another dream. One she was still puzzling over. She’d talk to Clive about it when he woke for the day. If Genevieve was around—and Rowan wasn’t sure if she was or not because there’d been some back-and-forth to Los Angeles to deal with official Senate stuff—she’d be helpful too if for nothing more than listening while Rowan broke it all down.

  Ships. Storms. Then empty places. Empty parks. Deserted grocery stores and malls. Some of the same imagery from the first dream but it seemed more...nuanced. And the empty places, that chilled her more than anything else.

  She should have written it down in the dream journal, but there’d been so much to do and she figured she’d work it out and then write it down when she got home for the papers she needed. The problem of working out of several places was she ended up leaving stuff invariably in the office space she was not. Rowan needed to train herself out of that. Maybe she’d get two decent-sized baskets she could leave at the door to her office to put all the necessaries she’d need in to carry back and forth?