“You can’t be serious,” said Parker as Derek printed out another file.

“It might be nothing,” he admitted as he took the paper off his printer and added it to the growing pile on a table in the middle of the conference room they’d commandeered.

She leaned forward and riffled through all the cases they’d earmarked so far. “We’re never going to get anywhere with this,” she muttered.

Derek agreed, but he wasn’t sure what else they should be doing. After a lot of back and forth that morning, they figured the best way to move forward was to look back. Namely, look back on cold cases that seemed like there might be some supernatural element involved. A prospect that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, but now that they were digging through the cases everyone else had given up on, it was becoming apparent that any case that wasn’t solved looked as though there could be magic involved.

It was so easy to make a human forget the important details. To coerce someone to give an airtight alibi. To tell the police officer in charge that the droids they were looking for weren’t there.

“You’re right,” Derek admitted, running a hand over his eyes and thinking of the hours they’d wasted so far.

Parker stood and paced around the table. Her jacket hung off the back of her chair and she’d untucked her shirt a few hours ago, leaving it hanging loose around her waist. “Okay,” she said out loud. “Let’s think about this again. We want to keep the city safe from your girlfriend, right?”

Derek rolled his eyes. “From her family, yes.”

“And even if we found a case that could be explained by magic, there’s not much we could do about it.”

“I think that if a human was hurt because of a witch, Claudia would punish whoever was involved.”

“Claudia?” asked Parker skeptically. “The one who wiped Sam’s memories? And the one who used you to kill her granddaughter?”

“I’m not going to argue that she’s a good person or that we should trust her. But Claudia Harris does have a warped code of ethics she follows. She’s not afraid to hurt people, but she’s not trying to either.”

“Morally neutral is not morally good,” she pointed out.

Derek couldn’t argue with that so he kept his mouth shut.

“But we do know people who are morally bad in almost every way, right? Heather Harris and Jackson Benedict.”

“As far as I know, those are the two who the darkness was using to try to get free.”

Parker shook her head. “The darkness. That doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s magic. From what I can tell, magic doesn’t care about making sense.”

“No, I get that the laws of physics mean basically bupkis now. But what I don’t get is this dark magic.” She stopped her pacing to pick up an empty foam coffee cup. “Let’s say this is the darkness, right? It’s evil, so a young Claudia locks it away in a supernatural prison years ago.”

Derek nodded, even though he wasn’t fully sure where she was going with this.

“Years later, the darkness realizes the prison is weakening and somehow manages to make a crack in it.”

“Jackson accidentally killed his parents as a kid and the darkness used that event to get stronger.” Even as he said the words, he realized how crazy they sounded, but luckily Parker was still taking all of this in stride.

“See, I’m okay with all that. I can understand how the prison opened. I can even get the whole human sacrifice thing to destroy the prison. Do you want to know what doesn’t make sense to me?”

“You’re already doing a hell of a lot better than I am,” he muttered.

She slammed the cup on the table where it shuddered a little bit before it settled without tipping over. “That’s a cup.”

“I can see that,” he said carefully.

“If you put that in a prison, it’s not going to try to get out. Because it’s a cup.”

Derek stared intently at said cup. “You’re not wrong.”

“A cup doesn’t try to get out of prison. A cup doesn’t take advantage of mystical events. You want to know what would do that?”

“A person,” he said softly.

“Person. Witch. Whatever this darkness is, it’s sentient. And that makes me wonder.... Is it really just another form of darkness? Or is this some type of creature? Most importantly, would we be able to kill it?”

––––––––

––––––––

Claire’s head fell off her hands and the fall jerked her awake. She blinked a few times and smiled at the woman in front of her who was trying to get her license renewed.

“Are you falling asleep?” asked the woman accusingly.

Claire’s mouth fell open as she tried to find the right words to assure the woman she wasn’t bored to tears by her problems. “Of, um, of course not,” she stuttered. “I have something in my eye.” She rubbed at her eye and tried to look innocent as the woman took a deep breath as though she was about to start a tirade about how rude Claire was.

“I think ten more minutes won’t hurt you,” said a deep voice behind her.

The woman immediately calmed down and a peaceful smile covered her face. “Ten minutes won’t hurt me,” she repeated dutifully.

Claire tightened her lips and turned around to see Dante there. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“Well, if she started screaming at you, then everyone would get riled up and you really would’ve needed me.”

She knew he was right, but it still made her feel guilty that Dante needed to use his formidable mind whammy powers because of her own carelessness. Because falling asleep while working was bad and she deserved to be yelled at.

“Come on.” Dante held out a hand to her.

“I need to work,” she reminded him, which was kind of pointless considering he was her boss.

“Ten minutes won’t hurt.”

“Your powers don’t work on me,” she reminded him.

“Well, duh. If they did, you’d be wearing a French maid outfit,” he said with a little wink. “Come on. You’re not going to be good for much if you don’t take a break.”

So she put her hand in his and let him lead her away from her station at the counter. The DMV wasn’t exactly the best place to work, but the witch community liked to have people there to help when documents needed to be pushed through, and considering Dante’s abilities, he was the best person to be there. She’d only gotten her job there because he owed Sam a favor.

The fact that he and Claire had hit it off had been a happy coincidence. Dante stood out in any crowd, but in the square gray world of the government building, everywhere he walked, it was as if there were a spotlight on him. His hair was a bright green color and the piercings in his nose and ears fought with the tattoos on his neck for attention. If it weren’t for the mind control, he never would’ve gotten this job, but he didn’t seem to care what people thought of him. It was one of his more attractive qualities.

In Claire’s old life, fitting in had been her main priority in life. She knew she’d been adopted, and her family had always made her feel right at home until she’d outed herself as a witch. After that, she’d taken off running, living in the transient community of New York for a little over a year before Tommy Collins had found her.

No. Tommy hadn’t found her. Jackson found her and he was the one who told Tommy where to find her. Jackson was the reason she’d almost been raped and murdered. Twice. He was the only witch like her and she’d killed him.

Dante pulled her into the office he called his even though she never saw him actually work in it.

The second the door was shut, she crossed her arms over her chest. “I really don’t want to be a hassle.”

“See, you’re assuming I brought you here for your benefit. Really, you’re here for my own nefarious purposes.”

She snorted at that and tried to look all serious when really she wanted to laugh. “Nefarious purposes? You? Never....”

He closed in on her and her arms fell down as he invaded her space. “So, Claire,” he said. “You seem tense. What’s the best way you can think of to calm down?”

Her breath seemed to catch in her throat. She and Dante had been together for over a week now, but she still wasn’t really used to him. He still seemed so big and masculine and, in some ways, utterly alien to her.

“Ummm....” She searched for words. “A nap.”

“Nap? Are you tired?” He leaned in and his nose brushed hers.

Tired? She had been tired a second ago, but now sleeping was the furthest thing from her mind. “No,” she said honestly. “Not tired.”

His lips just brushed hers as he asked, “So how should we calm you down?”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t say anything. All she could do was push up on her toes to kiss him fully. For a second, the only part of them that touched was their lips in a soft, sensual kiss.

Then it seemed to take on a life of its own as Dante tilted his head to get better access to her mouth and his tongue invaded, leading the way and taking all.

She fell back against the door and Dante followed her, setting his hands on either side of her head, caging her in as he kept on kissing her, devouring her.

She let her eyes close and savored the heat of his body. The heat raced through her and pooled in her stomach as some part of her she barely recognized demanded more. She fisted her hand in his black button-down and pulled him closer.

All of a sudden, the kiss became fiercer. His teeth pushed against hers and his tongue seemed to mimic what other parts of him wanted to be doing. His erection pressed firmly into her stomach and one of his hands wrapped around her throat, not squeezing, but holding her in place. She gasped a breath in surprise and her hand let go of his shirt to flatten against his chest. She didn’t push him away. The domineering nature the kiss had taken was strange, but not altogether bad. She met the fierceness and gave as good as she got, interested in seeing where this was going.

Until she noticed it. The shirt beneath her hand was soft. Like the finest cotton beneath her hands. Not what Dante had been wearing....

Her eyes snapped open and the man on top of her didn’t have heat or arousal in his eyes. Instead, the dark-brown irises studied her as he kept on kissing and demanding. Claire ripped her head away, but Jackson’s hand around her neck kept her from going far.

“Miss me?” he asked with a sick gleam in his eyes.

Claire grabbed at his arm and immediately tried to suck his power away. Would he be stupid enough to attack her when he knew that she had already killed him once?

But when she tried to use her magic to hurt him, there was... nothing. He let out a bitter laugh as he stared down at her. “Not anymore, babe. You’re never going to get rid of me.”

She let go of his arm as though he were burning her. She immediately started to hit him and pull away and scream, but he just stood there, smiling down at her. No one was coming for her and there was no way to get free. Just as hopelessness was starting to set in, Jackson leaned in until his mouth brushed against her ear. “From now on, it’s you and me, Claire. Forever and always.”

Claire’s eyes snapped open and her heart felt as if it were about to pound out of her chest. Except Jackson wasn’t there. Her head whipped around to see Dante standing behind her and the annoyed woman still in front of her window and looking just as annoyed as she had before in the... dream?

Claire pushed away from her station and moved away from the counter with shaky legs.

“Claire?” said Dante as he followed her.

She couldn’t focus on anything right now. She could still feel Jackson’s hand on her neck, his breath on her ear. She wiped at her neck, trying to get all the remnants of Jackson off her.

When she made it to the breakroom, Dante grabbed her arm and brought her to a stop. “Hey, what’s going on?” he asked.

Tightening her lips, she glanced around them, looking for any sign that she wasn’t awake or Jackson was about to pop out. Everything looked fine, but that was part of the problem. In the dream, everything had looked completely normal too. It hadn’t been black and white. Nothing crazy had happened. It was just like real life but... not.

“I, um.” She remembered Dante’s role in the dream and decided to choose her words carefully. “I had a nightmare. Jackson was there and he attacked me.”

A look of concern immediately crossed his face. He ran a hand down her arm, which should’ve been relaxing but just made her stiffen. Even though she was ninety percent sure this was all real, she was still waiting for Dante to morph into Jackson any second now.

“I’m fine,” she said in a very unconvincing voice. “I just need a second. Sorry for freaking out.”

“Freak-outs are allowed after everything you’ve been through.”

She hated that reasoning. She didn’t want to be someone who’d been through a lot. She wanted to be a normal witch. It had taken her long enough to come to terms with her magic heritage, but that wasn’t it. Now she had to be a survivor and a type of witch everyone hated. Everyone except for Sam and Dante, which was her only saving grace.

“Hey,” said Dante, sensing that she was still freaked out. “Head back to the line. We only have another hour and we can get out of here. We can get some Chinese and watch a movie at my place.”

All of that sounded great. Very normal and exactly what a new couple would be doing. “Chinese sounds good. Would your roommates want some?” Dante, ever the conundrum, lived with two women, Lindsey and Lacey. Except after meeting the women, it was very obvious that she had nothing to worry about with either of them.

He looked up and tilted his head back and forth as though considering it. “Yeah, I was thinking about asking them to give us some space.”

Claire smiled up at him, and for the first time since she snapped out of the dream, she actually felt awake. “That actually sounds great.”

“Awesome. I am going to spend the next hour thinking of the best movie to get you naked by the end of the night.”

Claire let out a laugh and felt the heat creep into her cheeks. Even though Dante had been completely respectful of her inexperience compared to his, well, free-loving lifestyle, he still liked to make her blush whenever he could. And considering she was more than willing to get rid of her virgin label, she was very okay with that. “Tonight then.” She smiled up at him.

“Good. Now maybe we should work on the line before the newest civil war starts here in New York City.”