Heart of Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

obsession. Plus, he knew he’d have to give them information about himself, an in to his own magickal signature. He didn’t like anyone having knowledge about him that they could use.
    Perceptive brown eyes looked into his. Reading him. Knowing. Saw through the outer facade, right into his soul. He didn’t like that she got him so well, much less the fact that he’d known her all of twenty minutes.
    Just for the briefest of moments, she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. But that brief moment was enough to send shards of desire splintering through his system. Her presence affected him so much he’d have suspected magicks, but there were none. He had excellent personal shields; he’d have known if she had attempted to ensorcell him. Just being near, the taste of her magick on his skin, had rendered him slightly punch-drunk.
    He didn’t trust it. Didn’t trust anything that fast and intense.
    She finally spoke, breaking the silence and saving him from the urge to blurt out that he wanted to take her back to his place and strip her naked. He wanted to see what sunrise looked like on her neck, what shadows it would create in the hollow of her throat, the dip of her belly button.
    “I can close my eyes when you share magick with me, if that helps. That’s it, right?”
    He paused, the words stuck in his throat. Perceptive. So much so he found himself ruffled by it. He cleared his throat. “I don’t share magick very often,” he said, his annoyance clear in his voice. Enough that her eyebrows rose in response.
    She sat forward, choosing her words carefully. “Look, I get that you’re probably unaffiliated for a reason and we respect that. We’re a clan, not a cult. We’re all members by choice. Others make different choices and that’s fine too. I respect your choice. But the font is powered by every witch in the clan and they all agree to let others use it as long as everyone shares. That’s how it works. We all pay in. We all can use it. If we let you shoplift, others will too. And then what’s the point? You don’t want to be in a clan, that’s your choice. But it’s not your choice to steal from us. We won’t allow it.”
    She paused, letting what she’d said sink in. He’d never mistake her for a pushover, pretty face or not. She was a smart, savage woman who’d kick his ass from Seattle to Toronto if she had to. Which only made him want more.
    Her voice softened, “No one can get into your head. No one can steal your magick.”
    “But that’s how the font works. You take power from witches in the clan.”
    She made a face, first annoyed, then confused. Strangely, he wanted to laugh.
    “No, that’s not how the font works.” She twisted the bracelet on her left wrist and he saw her clan mark. A pretty, stylized O for Owen. “Has no one ever explained it to you?”
    He shook his head. He didn’t need her pity. “I’ve been told enough to get by. I wasn’t raised in a clan. My foster father was my teacher but he’s unaffiliated.”
    She nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Fair enough. I’m not insulting your intelligence or what you were taught, but you don’t understand how it works. When you expend magick—if you’re keyed into the font—the magick once performed will absorb back. It’s a collector of sorts.”
    She must have seen his confusion.
    “Okay, so you know energy never dies, it simply turns into something else. That’s physics. It’s not like I made it up. Anyway, the font doesn’t steal your magick. It collects whatever the magick dissipates into once the function is served. Like a cistern collects rainwater, for example. Only the dissipated energy once collected, will mature into magickal energy over time and be there should anyone need it.
    “Essentially, if you were a registered user of the font, each time someone walked through those wards, a glimmer of energy would travel back to the font. But it can’t because you’re not keyed in. It’s either