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  The sound exploded in the club.

  He caught sight of Ram pulling his knife out. Sutton bellowed “No!” and spun to protect his heart. The bullet tore into his right shoulder.

  The searing pain lit his nerve endings on fire. He snapped his teeth together and forced himself to breathe. Damn, that was one woman who didn’t take rejection well. But it didn’t make any sense; why had she shot him? He looked up. Key had wrenched the gun from the woman’s hand and held her by the arm.

  Axel strode up, his green eyes furious. He held a white bar towel in his hand. “Sit down, let me look.”

  “Later.” He took the towel from Axel, pressed it against his shoulder, and walked over to where the woman was standing.

  Her eyes were wide, sweat coated her face, and her hands trembled. “I shot you. My God, I shot you!”

  “Why?” Sutton asked. The pain in his shoulder was burrowing into the nerves and firing his compulsion for witch blood. But this woman wasn’t a witch, she was a mortal. A harmless little thing, she barely reached his shoulder.

  “I don’t know! I don’t remember! I … I don’t even have a gun!”

  Sutton watched as Axel faced the woman and looked into her eyes. Witch hunters had the ability to travel the optic nerve mentally and shift memories. Axel was seeing what he could get by touching her memories.

  He turned to meet Sutton’s gaze, his face grim. “Rogues.”

  Books by Jennifer Lyon

  BLOOD MAGIC

  SOUL MAGIC

  Books published by The Random House Publishing Group are available at quantity discounts on bulk purchases for premium, educational, fund-raising, and special sales use. For details, please call 1-800-733-3000.

  For all my readers

  who believe in witches and Wing Slayer Hunters,

  I tried to make these characters worthy of you!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to my editor, Liz Scheier, who was always there with guidance, answers to my questions, and an enthusiastic willingness to brainstorm whenever I needed the help. I’ll miss you, Liz!

  To my editor, Shauna Summers who took over midstream—thank you for all your insight, help, and grace! You made it all seem effortless. And a shout-out to Jessica Sebor who handles the details and inquiries with ease and good humor! Thank you to all the people at Ballantine who worked so hard on this book and the series. Much appreciated!

  To my agent, Karen Solem, who is always the calm and guiding light in the turbulent sea of writing and publishing. Thanks, Karen!

  A heartfelt thanks to Marianne Donley, Michele Cwiertny, Michelle Thorne, and Sandy Chvostal. These talented, smart, and uniquely gifted women gathered together for an afternoon plot group, and that was where this story was born.

  Additional thanks go to Laura Wright, Maureen Child, and Kate Carlisle, who are always there to critique, brainstorm, or just talk.

  And to the “witches” who hang out or fly by the website, www.jenniferlyonbooks.com, a huge Appletini to you all! You know the question: Is Sutton West Wing Slayer Worthy?

  Sex wasn’t working for him anymore.

  Sutton West leaned against a black acrylic bar etched in fiery red lights. The nightclub, “Axel of Evil,” had a whole hellish theme going on. The music pounded, the colored strobe lights flashed, and the smell of sweat and alcohol permeated the room.

  It was last call.

  A few mortal women lingered on the dance floor, and some witch hunters lounged by the two fire pits watching them with pointed interest.

  Sutton returned his attention to the dancers, looking for one to take to bed to ease the pain of his cravings. He spotted a woman with long, shimmering black hair, chocolate eyes, and long legs. His interest barely stirred.

  He shifted his gaze to the two blondes, one in a yellow dress, the other in tight jeans and a black top. Both were hot, but when another man walked up and started dancing with them, he moved on without a stitch of regret.

  One redhead stood out. She was taller and curvier, and she danced with her whole body. She practically burned up the dance floor. He watched her the longest since she was his usual type—a woman who threw herself into life with untamed enthusiasm.

  Sutton had an absolute rule about women: They were helping him beat back the curse, and he would treat them with the respect they deserved. The redhead deserved more than he had to give tonight, and he looked around the club again. This lack of interest in sex worried him. Sex was how the hunters controlled their compulsion for witch blood. If they gave in to the compulsion and killed a witch, they lost their souls and went rogue—living only for the next “fix” of witch blood. For Sutton, losing interest in sex meant the curse was getting a foothold in him. He’d touched the blood of a witch, and now he was on the edge of losing control. He tightened his jaw in determination. Never. He’d never give in to the curse. His father had set the standard, and Sutton would live up to it.

  Which meant he’d die before he let the curse win and take his soul.

  Pushing his dark thoughts aside, he focused on the three men returning from hunting rogues. Key and Phoenix went to report to Axel, while Linc headed toward him.

  Linc was one of their two candidates set to be inducted into the Wing Slayer Hunters. They both had the outline of their wings tattooed on their bodies: Linc Dillinger had chosen a falcon and Brigg Cusack had chosen a crow.

  Now they all waited. Each of the two men was preparing to face a test that would prove him loyal to the Wing Slayer. The test was an unknown, but Axel Locke, their leader, would recognize it when it happened.

  Linc came to a stop next to Sutton with barely a whisper from the perfectly cut slacks and coat over an open-collared shirt. His rich brown hair was expertly tousled. His gold eyes were dark and troubled under the pulsing strobe lights. “You heard anything from Brigg?”

  Sutton shook his head. Brigg had left the club two nights ago and evidently no one had seen him since.

  “I looked for him tonight. I couldn’t find anything, not a goddamned trace of him. It’s not like him to just vanish like this.”

  The tension of waiting for their mysterious test was taking a toll on both men. “Maybe he found a party and hasn’t come up for air.” They all had their times when the curse drove them to extremes. Sutton took himself off to the most isolated spots he could reach. He climbed, hiked, ran, and swam trying like hell to sweat out the curse. Then he’d return to civilization and find a willing woman. As many as it took.

  “He should have checked in,” Linc said.

  He silently agreed. It was giving him a bad feeling, too. “Could be getting cold feet about becoming a Wing Slayer Hunter. It’ll make him a target for the rogues.” The Wing Slayer had created the witch hunters to hunt and kill demon witches while protecting innocent earth witches. Because the Wing Slayer was half demon and half god, invoking his god powers required complete and total acknowledgment from his witch hunters that he was their god. The demon Asmodeus had his demon witches cast the curse to break the bond between the Wing Slayer and his hunters so he could gain power on earth. It had been working until the five of them recommitted to the Wing Slayer, reinstating his god powers.

  Linc shook his head. “No. Brigg is hard-core about passing the test and getting fully winged at the Ceremony of Induction. We both are. We want to vow our allegiance to the Wing Slayer, take our oath to protect the innocent, and never give in to the curse.”

  “Might be that Brigg is facing his test now,” he pointed out. “There are some things a man has to do alone.” Sutton knew the man was really worried about Brigg, but under that was the resentment that Brigg might be facing his test and would be ready to take his wings first.

  Linc let the silence stretch out, then he shrugged, looked around, and
said, “Any claims on that redhead?” He tilted his head to the woman Sutton had noticed earlier.

  “Nope. She’s yours if she’ll have you.”

  He looked at Sutton with a gleam in his gold eyes. “Thousand bucks says she does.”

  “Sucker bet and I’m not a sucker.” The man was throwing off pheromones so heavy that women across the club were glancing his way.

  Linc chuckled and strode off to the dance floor.

  Sutton turned back to the job at hand, closing down the club for the night. He glanced at Key, Ram, Axel, and Phoenix. They were spread out around the club, checking things out, closing down the bar, saying good night to patrons, and making damn sure a rogue hadn’t gotten in. The rogues had been quiet for the last couple of months. Witches still disappeared, but the rogues weren’t challenging the Wing Slayer Hunters openly. They were scurrying in the shadows.

  He knew from his constant efforts to hack into their new databases that they were rebuilding the Rogue Cadre. They had created new and better firewalls, showing a sophistication that did not bode well. They were also trying to recruit witch hunters to go rogue and fill their ranks. Quinn Young, the rogue leader, had to find a way to kill all the witches. He had a very demanding master—a demon—who wanted all the witches dead. Young and his rogues were out there, strategizing and planning to make it happen.

  Sutton got the all-clear signal from the others. He dropped his crossed arms and raised one hand.

  The music cut off, the colored strobes died, and the house lights went on.

  Witch hunters and the women started making their way out.

  One woman hung back, a mortal with wavy brown hair and bright brown eyes, wearing an emerald-green dress that swirled around her thighs. She was rooting around in her purse with a frown. He walked over to her. “Lose something?”

  She lifted her face, and he saw the sheen of sweat from dancing. Flashing him a smile, she said, “I don’t think I should drive home.”

  They were prepared for that. “We have several cabs out front.”

  She moved up closer to him. “Or you could drive me home.”

  She smelled of peppermint blended with her natural scent. Maybe he should take her up on it. Take her home, give them both a little pleasure, and leave.

  Too much effort.

  He’d rather go to the warehouse to work on cracking the firewalls into the Rogue Cadre databases. “Maybe another night. But I’ll help you to a cab.”

  She shook her head, looking embarrassed. “No thanks. I’m fine. I just got a little overheated from dancing.” She started walking away, putting her hand back into her purse, probably looking for her car keys.

  He regretted embarrassing her, and turned away to make a last circuit of the club.

  He heard a click and whirled around, spotting the gun in the woman’s hand just as she fired at him.

  The sound exploded in the club.

  He caught sight of Ram pulling his knife out. Sutton bellowed “No!” and spun to protect his heart. The bullet tore into his right shoulder.

  The searing pain lit his nerve endings on fire. He snapped his teeth together and forced himself to breathe. Damn, that was one woman who didn’t take rejection well. But it didn’t make any sense; why had she shot him? He looked up. Key had wrenched the gun from the woman’s hand and held her by the arm.

  Axel strode up, his green eyes furious. He held a white bar towel in his hand. “Sit down, let me look.”

  “Later.” He took the towel from Axel, pressed it against his shoulder, and walked over to where the woman was standing.

  Her eyes were wide, sweat coated her face, and her hands trembled. “I shot you. My God, I shot you!”

  “Why?” Sutton asked. The pain in his shoulder was burrowing into the nerves and firing his compulsion for witch blood. But this woman wasn’t a witch, she was a mortal. A harmless little thing, she barely reached his shoulder.

  “I don’t know! I don’t remember! I … I don’t even have a gun!”

  Sutton watched as Axel faced the woman and looked into her eyes. Witch hunters had the ability to travel the optic nerve mentally and shift memories. Axel was seeing what he could get by touching her memories.

  He turned to meet Sutton’s gaze, his face grim. “Rogues.”

  The scream jerked Dr. Carla Fisk from a light doze.

  She jumped up off the couch, her head spinning at the sudden movement. Her small office was dim, lit only by her desk lamp.

  Another scream.

  She kicked aside the shoes she’d taken off before lying down and raced out the door, lifting her long skirt out of the way as she took the stairs two at a time. By the second floor, she could hear the broken sobbing.

  Then Max Bayer’s soothing tones. “Josie, honey, wake up. You’re safe.”

  Carla slowed her steps, composing herself. She loved to listen to Max gentle their residents. The transitional clinic was Max’s baby. His specialty was tracking and extracting people who had been indoctrinated into cults. Whether they were lured, seduced, or forced, if he could find them, he got them out.

  Carla had worked closely with Max to design the program to reverse the brainwashing. She admired him, respected him, liked him …

  But she didn’t feel anything romantic toward him, only admiration for his work and friendship.

  As her heart calmed down, she turned and walked into the room.

  In the light from the nightstand lamp, she saw that Josie was sitting up in the bed closest to the door. She had her knees drawn up tightly to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. Her face was tight and splotchy from crying.

  Max was on his knees, his back to Carla. He wore a pair of gray sweatpants and nothing else. His back was lean, his arms wiry and strong. “Josie, you’re hyperventilating. Try breathing with me, like Carla taught you.”

  Josie kept her eyes fixed on the wall across the room. “They’ll find me.”

  She saw the muscles ripple across Max’s back. She could feel his need to pull Josie into his arms and swear to her that he would never let that happen.

  But Max resisted the impulse. Josie had only been out of the cult two days. Men frightened her. In the place she’d been, men had total, brutal, and humiliating control over the women. Max was the gentlest man alive, and yet she couldn’t relax around him.

  It always killed Max that these young women were afraid of him. Eventually, they came to trust him. And then he let them go, back into the world.

  Carla put her hand on Max’s shoulder.

  He looked up at her, his dark eyes full of impotent fury. Max had once had a purely scientific curiosity about cults, and had worked closely with a young research assistant trying to infiltrate a cult. Then the research assistant had gotten in too deep and the cult had killed her. The curious sociologist in Max died, and this man, full of passion, grief, anger, and guilt, was born.

  She squeezed his shoulder. “How about getting Josie some water?”

  He rose. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  His bare feet made little sound on the wood floors.

  “Is he mad at me?”

  Carla sat down on the side of Josie’s bed. It was a child’s question. “No. Max isn’t going to get mad at you for being scared or having nightmares.” She reached out, putting her hand over Josie’s cold fingers. Opening her first four chakras with a swift popping sensation that started at her pelvis and rose to her heart, Carla sent calming energy to the frightened girl.

  Her eyes widened. “How do you do that?”

  “In our hypnosis sessions, I’ve been giving you calming suggestions. When I touch you, your brain remembers the suggestions.” And, of course, she was a witch. But Josie didn’t need to know that. She believed Carla worked her healing with hypnosis alone.

  The girl’s breathing settled down to an even, healthy rhythm. “Do you think they can find me here?”

  “No. You were in Arizona, out in the desert. This is Los Angeles, they wouldn’t even know w
here to look. But more important, do you think Max or any of his men wandering around here would let them take you?” Max’s team doubled as protection for the clinic when they weren’t out on a mission to extract someone from a cult.

  “Yesterday, that big guy, umm, Rich?”

  Carla nodded.

  “He watched me walk in and out the front door. Never said a word.”

  Testing to see if they’d stop her from walking out. To see if she was a prisoner. “Did you think he’d stop you?”

  She shrugged, then picked at the blanket. “You tell me that I’m free now, that I’m safe, but I can’t seem to accept that.”

  Carla fought down her anger at the bastards who had done this to a nineteen-year-old girl. “Honey, they brainwashed you. They tried to destroy your individual self. But you are an amazing, strong, and smart young woman—and they failed. Your brain is fighting back and the nightmares are the result.”

  She took a deep breath. “Really?”

  “Really. Ready to go back to sleep?”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  Carla glanced at the bedside clock, it was just after two A.M. Softly, she said, “I can help you sleep.”

  “Okay.”

  Carla concentrated to funnel the elemental power of the earth up through her four opened chakras. That was the easy part.

  The hard part was trying to open the top three chakras. Actually it was nearly impossible ever since the curse had destroyed the witches’ bonds with their familiars. The special bond with an animal helped focus and control a witch’s power to open the chakras, as well as provide some protection from demons if they were using ley lines. Without their familiars, the witches just didn’t have enough control over their power to access the higher magic. Carla could open her fifth chakra, which was her communication with other realms, but she couldn’t open her sixth chakra, which was her third eye, or her seventh, which was knowledge.

  She needed her fifth chakra to guide Josie’s spirit to the astral plane. She concentrated and pictured the blue chakra at her throat, then she began funneling her powers up faster and faster, concentrating on that one spot.