“Oh, my God,” breathed Jules, her words sucked into the wind.

“Mateo!” I cried out, steam rising from his skin where the glyphs had burned.

His eyes snapped to me—full fiery gold with a wolf who was mad as hell. He actually snapped his teeth, though other than his eyes, he was still a man. Nothing had changed. He hadn’t shifted. The wolf was still trapped, and he was fucking pissed off.

The signs sizzled on his skin in red light. They were witch symbols, crawling all over his skin, but I only recognized one. He wasn’t just cursed. He was dipped into the batter of a very, very dark spell. Something I’d never seen before. It was common for the curse to illuminate when I probed with my gift to break the hex, to set the cursed person free. But I’d never, ever seen something like this before. It was horrifying. He was horrifying. I stood there, shaking, not knowing what to do.

His predatory gaze was fixed on me, his teeth bared, then he launched himself over the candles and into the air.

“Pas un geste!”

Jules used the sharp command in French. It did its work. He froze mid-air, his arms reaching for me, hands spread like claws, in full attack mode. My nightmare swept back to me, and again I heard that witch whisper on the wind. She was powerful, whoever she was.

Clara had already leaped over to Mateo’s side and placed a hand on his shoulder, his body still telekinetically frozen in the air. She pushed into him with her joy spell, probably dialed up to a thousand. Jules and Violet joined me at my side.

“Don’t hurt him, Jules. Don’t take anything away.” A tear slipped from my eye. I didn’t want her to punish Mateo by siphoning his powers. “It’s not his fault.”

“I know.” She wrapped a hand around my shoulder. “I’ll just put him to sleep for a while.”

“Aller dormir,” she whispered softly, curling the r in the French tongue.

Mateo’s eyes drifted closed immediately, his limbs going limp, his head lolling forward.

“What the fuck was that?” asked Violet. “Did you see all that witch sign? Like, holy shit!”

I swallowed down a new fear I hadn’t thought of. What if this witch, whoever he or she was, had some darker intent with this curse? A million questions flitted through my brain.

“I’ve never failed to break a curse,” I said dumbly.

“Come on,” said Jules, waving her hand and moving Mateo through the air back toward the car.

I gripped onto his shoe since he was floating head first. Not that I could hold him up by the tip of his shoe or like Jules would drop him. Our telekinesis strength would shock the shit out of people if they knew how powerful we were. I just needed to have my hands on him. For my own reassurance more than anything.

“Clara and Violet, you two can get the candles. We’ll get him home where he can sleep off the spell.”

“You mean the spell that didn’t work,” I said. “Did you see how much pain I put him in?” I choked on a sob.

“No.” Jules squeezed me closer. I wrapped an arm around her shoulder, my other hand still clinging to the toe of Mateo’s shoe. “This wasn’t your fault. We’re dealing with something I’ve never seen. Far more powerful than we thought.”

“God, Jules. I hurt him.”

“Stop saying that. It wasn’t you who did that. It was the curse that blocked your magic. We had no idea. We need to find out more before we move forward.”

I nodded as we came out of the woods. Jules had successfully levitated Mateo all the way to our two vehicles.

“Put the seats down in the SUV,” she said, maneuvering Mateo to the back hatch.

I flattened the second and third row so there was room for him to lay down. Even so, when she pushed him in, I helped her ease his head to one side, bending backward over the driver’s seat as his body was still too long to fit straight. She put him down gently, then we both physically bent his legs so he was curled on his side.

“He won’t wake from my null spell, but I want to ride with you just to be sure. Give me a second.” She felt into Mateo’s jeans pocket and pulled out his keys then scooted back out the hatch and ran back along the path.

I twisted around and brushed his long locks away from his face. His skin was hot, burning up, but at least the symbols had faded from his skin.

“I’m sorry, Mateo.” I swallowed the lump in my throat, wishing I was more powerful than the man or woman who’d done this to him. “We’ll figure this out. Don’t you worry.”

Jules opened the driver’s side door. “I’m driving. You can’t drive right now.”

I didn’t argue. I walked around and hopped in beside her, put on the seatbelt, then we were on our way. “Clara and Violet will drive his truck back to our place. He’ll need to stay the night to be sure he doesn’t wake up and have some residual effects.”

“Like lunge at my throat again or something?” I asked with too much snark when she cranked the car.

“Well, he did lunge at your throat,” she added dryly.

“That wasn’t him, Jules. He would never hurt me.”

We remained silent as we bumped off the gravel road and back along the highway. Neither of us spoke for some time, both absorbed in troubling thoughts, still processing what had just happened. As we veered back onto the interstate toward Magazine Street, I glanced back at Mateo. His face was calm and peaceful, completely beautiful. Then the image of that violent flash of dark magic filled my mind.

“It wasn’t just the symbols and his screaming pain that has me so shaken,” I said into the quiet cab.

“I know.”

“You felt it?”

“Yes. Definitely.” Jules looked at me. “It was like a living malevolence, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” I wiped a tear roughly away. “It was fucking horrifying.”

Jules wasn’t the comforting sort too often, so when she reached across and squeezed my hand, I knew I was a hot mess.

“It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure this out.”

She steered with one hand, holding mine with her other. I squeezed hers in appreciation. “We have to.”

“We will.”

When we pulled up to the house, Jules backed far up the drive so no one on the street could see us levitating a body from the back of the SUV. There weren’t many people out anyway.

“I’ll do it,” I said, wanting to lead the lifting of him. Needing to.

Gently, I pressed my magic toward him and lifted. Jules opened the back door and pushed chairs out of the way as I held his head in my hands, levitating him feet first through the house.

“Where are you taking him?” she asked when I passed the sofa in the living room.

“To my bedroom.”

“Evie, that’s not a good idea.”

I gave her a sharp look and kept going.

“Okay. Fine.”

She squeezed past us down the hall and opened my bedroom door. I pushed him through then lowered him onto my bed. I had a queen-sized bed, but it somehow looked so tiny with him in it. His long limbs and broad shoulders and chest—broad and naked—ate up the space.

“I’ll sit with you a while.”

I didn’t argue. I didn’t want to be alone right now. I removed his shoes and socks, then sat on the edge of the bed, combing his hair back away from his eyes. His dark lashes formed perfect black crescents on his cheeks. That sensuous mouth, which had snarled at me in rage an hour ago, was now soft and slightly ajar in slumber.

We heard the back door slam, then Clara and Violet were both in the room. Violet leaned her shoulder against the doorjamb, but Clara walked to the opposite side of the bed. She put her hand on Mateo’s forehead and closed her eyes, assessing his inner emotions, another aspect of her gift as an Aura. When she opened her eyes, I asked, “Well?”

She smiled. “He’s fine. Like it never happened. All cool and calm in there now.”

“Well, we need to talk about that shit-show back there in Bayou Sauvage.” Violet’s wary gaze was fixed on Mateo.

“Has anyone ever seen witch sign like that?” I asked.

“Never,” said Clara, a little breathless, her clear blue eyes wide and round.

Violet shook her head. “That was the darkest curse I’ve ever seen.”

Jules stood, both hands on her hips with her thumbs forward, fingers back. “We’re obviously dealing with something serious. Someone serious. I recognized some of the signs, but I need to check Mom’s grimoire to see what they mean.”

“Not tonight, you aren’t.” Clara stood from the bed. “All I can feel from the lot of you in the room is extreme exhaustion. You all need rest.” She glanced back at Mateo. “He’s fine now.”

With Clara’s joy spell and Jules having nulled him, there was no way he was a danger.

“Fine,” agreed Jules. “Everyone get some sleep. Evie, just take Isadora’s room tonight if you want.”

“No.” I stood and went to my dresser to get a pair of sleep shirt and shorts. “I’m staying right here. He might wake up and…” Be afraid? Be hurt? Need me? “I need to be here when he does.”

Jules’s assessing gaze flickered over me, then landed on him, then back to me. With a stiff nod, she went for the door, pushing Violet out ahead of her. Clara walked around the bed and squeezed me in her arms so tight I could hardly breathe.

“Don’t you worry, Evie. He’s going to be perfectly fine.” She pecked me on the cheek then sauntered out. Eternally optimistic. I wish I was.

I stared down at the man who had commandeered a place in my heart somewhere along the way. “I hope so.”

Chapter 24

~EVIE~

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t sleep. After I’d changed into my raining-cats-and-dogs sleep shirt and shorts, brushed my teeth, and slipped under the covers, I lay there curled on my side facing Mateo. I’d left him in his jeans and pulled up the covers over him.