“Yes, but the cost of living is higher. And I couldn’t be within a stone’s throw of a military base. You know how I feel about men in uniform.”

Derek imagined the bruises his fingers could leave on that fragile throat, then swallowed pride. “She used soul magic on me. That’s how she drove me off. And it took me too fucking long to figure it out.”

The sardonic look on the witch’s face vanished as if it had never been. It was one of the few times he’d ever seen her without it. She straightened from the rail, the Lilith seductress routine becoming more Shiva the Destroyer, her eyes like his six-inch switchblade. “Damn her lying bitch ass. Goddamn it. I should have known. You have the stubbornness of the bloodhounds that abound in this backwoods. But she did such a good job….” Her eyes became ominous slits. “She used it on all of us. I didn’t know she had the ability…. Well, yes I did. But I never would have thought Ruby….”

“Yeah, welcome to my world.”

Raina paced along the porch. She was barefoot, which increased the energy connection between her and the house. Heat magic shimmered through the boards like a flash of interior lightning as the witch channeled her anger. When he sensed the stirring of her sleeping succubi and incubi as they registered the formidable heat, he reached out with his own abilities to stabilize and soothe. It was probably unnecessary, though, since Raina had good command of her impressive powers. And, used to the volatile nature of their Mistress, the creatures probably rolled back over almost before her tantrum passed.

The witch stopped at the porch steps, her hands on her hips. “It’s stupid for you to pay for a hotel, even with your limitless resources. I’ll put you in a room for the night. My cook might fix you a decent steak. Two inches thick and at least two pounds of meat. Plus a bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy that’ll fill even your bottomless pit.”

He eyed her. The steak offer was appealing, since he always needed calories for his freakishly high metabolism. However, the meat would have to bunk down in his lean stomach with his bile over Ruby, so it might not be the most settling meal he’d ever eaten. Particularly considering his added wariness of the offering and what lay in that house. The Shoney’s all-you-could-eat buffet might be the better bet. “What’s the catch?”

She sighed. “You’re not the only one who operates on a code, Derek Stormwind. My house has a life of its own.” She stroked the pillar at the top of the porch, hand molding over the rounded shape. The gesture immediately conjured the vision of her cupping a woman’s breast, or trailing her hand along a generous female hip. “Even if I’d like to take a pitchfork to your tediously noble heart, my house tells me when someone comes to my door needing what I can offer. And, like every successful businessperson, I don’t ignore or neglect the advice of my assets. This is sort of like that.”

“I think I’ll find the motel.”

“Don’t be such a pussy. You came here because you think I’ll tell you what you want to know about Ruby. I won’t, but that doesn’t mean you won’t learn things from me that will help you. You already have. So don’t pretend you’re not coming in. I read men for a living. You may be a great sorcerer, but you have a dick, and that pretty much dictates everything else about you.”

“I don’t want anything your house has to offer.”

“So faithful. You’re wrong. Everything you want you’ll find in here. I promise you that. What you do with it…. that’s up to you.”

Chapter 3

RUBY HAD CALLED THE COVEN PRIESTESS IN FLORIDA. Linda Egret was not only Wiccan; she was an engineer and middle manager at a nuclear plant. Her technical, left-brain background was evident by her cautious and practical demeanor, relieving Ruby considerably. While she knew Derek wouldn’t train a coven to protect a fault line if they weren’t serious practitioners, it was good to confirm Linda knew her stuff, which meant her coven did as well. It told Ruby she wasn’t being sent in as a kindergarten teacher to teach ABCs and wipe noses. Derek was dispatching her as an expert consultant, augmenting a local spiritual force’s arsenal of skills. She’d be teaching higher levels of energy manipulation, geared to keep a fault line reinforced and stable. Once she showed them the basics on that, they’d take it from there.

However, even the estimated two weeks away from her business required a certain amount of preparation. The firing range was handled, because the facility was off premises, and she contracted with a trio of local cops to handle its open shifts for supplementary income. John, the most dependable of them, would come open up the store for a few hours each day to handle shipments and pending orders, and she could manage their Internet store from wherever she was. The constant work to try to restock inventory from overtaxed suppliers would just have to wait, but she at least needed to make sure the most recent log entries and 4473 forms for purchases were in order, in case the trip took longer than expected and a random ATF visit happened in her absence. She didn’t carry a lot of cheap guns, so ATF flagged her place a lot less frequently than they did the local pawn-shop, but if they called in for a trace, she didn’t want John to have any trouble locating the right information.

The government insisted on knowing every last detail of every firearm sale, making sure she hadn’t peddled her wares to a six-year-old wanting to play Rambo, or the felon with a yard-long rap sheet. There was even more red tape on the front end, verifying her suppliers weren’t black-market operators. So in short, if she got behind on the paperwork, catching up was like a root canal without painkillers.

Which was why she had no idea why she’d set all that aside to go to Raina’s.

As she drove her beat-up van down the winding road leading to Raina’s place, her lip curled at the thought of the latest stack of invoices on her desk. The current cost of keeping an adequate inventory made black-market prices way too tempting. Demand was high these days, not only for guns, but munitions and accessories for them, and the prices she was paying reflected that. Many gun brands were backordered for months at the manufacturers, so the bulk of her time was spent figuring out how to get what her customers wanted quicker.

Mikhael— an acquaintance, in lieu of a better word for their complicated relationship— had offered to get her military surplus fast if needed, but his secretiveness about his sources made her wary. That wariness had been replaced by outright rejection when he added he could get her certain gun brands for 30 percent under her supplier’s price, which meant they were stolen. When she asked him point-blank about it, his response was that they’d been liberated from those who shouldn’t have them. He also courteously noted that he could make the paperwork pass inspection so she wouldn’t have to worry about that. Yeah, right.

Actually, from what she knew about Mikhael, she didn’t doubt it. She still wasn’t touching any deal he offered with a ten-foot pole. ATF could shut down a store at the drop of a hat if they scented even a whiff of something out of order. Mikhael kept offering, however, and she kept telling him he was Satan, tempting her with water in the desert. Mikhael had replied with his usual indifferent shrug.

The Devil isn’t to blame for offering the temptation. The weakness of men is, for taking it. Fast-food employees sell hamburgers to overweight people with heart problems. I sell guns to people who may or may not do bad things with them. It is not up to me to make others’ choices. I am not worried about going to Hell, Ruby. Haven’t you been paying attention? Hell lurks in every corner of this world.

Despite her unwillingness to accept his offers, or sign off on straw purchases he requested, gun purchases he was coordinating for someone sight unseen, Mikhael had proven useful for other things, as most sources of seductive Dark power were.

Maybe it was the paths she’d traveled in the past three years, or maybe it was being without Derek. She didn’t like to think about which reason gave the knife such a cruel edge, but at times her body burned for release so badly it was painful. Her hand and modern electronics could do only so much. She couldn’t relax enough, couldn’t get there, and it could make her cry with frustration in the small hours of the night. The Darkness would roll through her, taunting her with erotic whispers of forbidden things, needs that grew desperate and volatile. That was when she’d met Mikhael.

In reflection, he had been the Devil, only it wasn’t his offer of low-cost guns that made damnation look irresistible.

Mikhael, with his apathetic attitude toward good and evil, his pure physical intensity. He fucked women. Never made love to them, wooed them, romanced them. The first time she saw him, he was sitting at a bar, spinning a half-empty glass of whiskey while he pointedly studied the overflowing cleavage of an animated blonde chattering to him. It was a trade show, a big one that catered to gun suppliers and store owners, so Ruby had been at a table with an owner from Texas and two guys who ran a machine shop. The first was trying to flirt with her; the other two wanted to help with the repair side of her business. They interested her far more than the flirting gun store owner.

But when her gaze flickered over to the bar, she’d been caught by the way strands of dark hair fell over the tall man’s brow, how his sensual lips were set in a stern, cruel line. He’d turned his head, as if feeling her regard. Brown eyes the color of deep-below-the-surface earth had swept over her with the same deliberate appraisal he’d had for the blonde’s tits, only he seemed to like what he saw in Ruby’s direction more.

He finished the drink in a swallow, stubbed out his cigarette and left the woman in mid-sentence, not saying another word to her. As Ruby watched him come, all that heated need boiled up in her, but a deep panic as well. She wanted to cry out for Derek, run away from this approaching threat, but Derek wasn’t there. He was never going to be there for her again, because she’d sent him away. Because he hadn’t been there when it mattered, and that changed everything.

Leaning down to her, the dangerous male cupped the side of her neck, strong fingers stroking beneath her ear as he murmured into it, his voice flavored by a Russian accent.