over, became too much to control. It flashed through her, burning her from the inside out. Another scream preceded her second orgasm.
“No!” Seth roared. Too late.
It was too late when she realized the flame she took came from him.
Chapter Four
Seth stumbled away from the woman. “What the hell did you just do?” The question was like sound dragged through shattered glass. Bone-chilling cold wrecked him. He’d never been so cold in all his long, miserable life. She radiated warmth so intense it felt like standing too close to an open fire, her skin glowing and healthy. Dragging a trembling hand down his face, he narrowed his gaze. Comprehension dawned, a blinding awareness over the confusion’s dark horizon. When he’d first smelled her, that smell of ozone and summer rains, it had been a warning. The calm before the storm. It was
her.
The witch.
She shoved her hair out of her face, confused. “What did
I
do? What the hell
are
you? You said that—” she gestured to his exposed Marker “—was a tattoo.”
He spun on his heel when the first fist pounded on his door. When the second joined the fracas, he hurriedly shoved his junk back in his pants and barked out, “Cover yourself.”
Without waiting to see if she complied, he yanked the door open. Griff, Bailey, Dominic and Rhyan charged into the small space, each of them demanding to know what had just happened. Seth swept a hand through the air to silence them before looking at Griff. “Go.”
“We just had a minor earthquake, my friend. Might not be worth mentioning if we were in, say, Los Angeles, but we’re in freaking Atlanta. People noticed.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest, his brows winging down. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Wrong? Why?” Seth shoved his hands in his pockets. It took him a moment to realize the troop was looking past him at Red. He glanced back and shook his head. “She’s our fairy godmother.”
“You
bitch
,” Dominic snarled. Hands flexing, he put himself in front of Rhyan. “What did you do? Who sent you after our boy?”
“I… That is, no one. I just…” She pulled her hair over one shoulder, her forehead wrinkling in thought. “Who said I’m a witch?”
Griff snorted and bared his Marker. “Incubus.” Jerking his chin toward Bailey, he said, “Succubus,” before pointing at Dominic and Rhyan. “Nephilim and new nephilim.” Then he turned to Seth. “And our boy, here, is an—”
“I’m an
ifrit
, you gods-bedamned
thief
,” Seth interrupted. “You were to bind your magic before you came onto my turf. You were to keep it bound while you were here.” His voice rose with every word until the last was shouted.
“Ifrit.”
She paled. “Oh, goddess. I just… I didn’t mean to…”
“You’re a witch, a mercenary. Of course you meant to.”
“No.” She shook her head hard enough her hair swept around her shoulders. “I swear, I didn’t mean to do it.”
The tall, ethereal nephilim, Rhyan, stepped around her hulking male. “And what, exactly, did you do?”
“I think I stole his element.”
Seth’s knees nearly gave out. It was one thing to suspect but another entirely to hear his suspicion voiced aloud. He searched inside himself with increasing franticness, desperate to find the source of his immortality. She could steal part of it, thus commanding him to perform like a damn grinder monkey, but to steal all of it? It would render him mortal. Right before it killed him.
Fury pounded through his veins with every tick of the second hand on his wall clock, mounting until he thought he might erupt. That was all the evidence he needed. As angry as he was, if he’d still been the Keeper of his element, he would have been a towering inferno right about then.
Son of a bitch
. “Put. It. Back.”
Wide, grey eyes stared up at him from the loveliest face he’d ever seen. “I don’t know how.”
Dominic stepped past Seth and into the woman’s personal space. “You’ll