Running a hand through his dark brown hair, Killian tried to figure out what he was supposed to do with the angel now. “Do you think you can stand?”
“Maybe.” Pushing the sheet down to his waist, Maddox threw his legs over the side of the bed while Killian’s gaze was drawn equally to the deep bruises across the angel’s abdomen and his sculpted muscles. Thank the Divine nothing below Maddox’s waist had been broken, he’d be sporting a full stiffy.
Stepping back to give his patient some room—and when did he start thinking of Maddox as his? —Killian shoved his hands into his pockets, then immediately regretted the gesture when Maddox toppled into him.
“Maybe not.” The angel shuddered, and Killian wrapped an arm around his waist. “But, uh…I really need to…” He nodded towards the suite’s bathroom.
“Another thing I did not expect angels to do. Then again, if you’re half human…” Killian guided him until Maddox could lean against the counter on his own. “I’ll be outside,” he said as he backed away and shut the door.
Taking the few minutes to himself, Killian strode over to the closet. It had been stocked with clothing that fit him perfectly, and he chose a fresh shirt in a light blue and eased it over his aching shoulders.
What the fuck was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t leave Maddox alone if the man couldn’t even get himself to the bathroom and back. Sparks danced across Killian’s fingers, landing on his black pants and burning holes in the material.
Patting his thighs to put out the smoldering embers, Killian strode over to the ice bucket and shoved both of his hands inside. The frigid, mostly melted water made his fingers ache, but at least his magic couldn’t escape and burn down the entire hotel.
Beatrix would know what to do. Why the fuck hadn’t he thought to call her the previous night?
Because you were preoccupied with the angel in your bed.
She understood Killian’s unique…challenges. And though she’d never been supportive of him hiding away from the world, she hadn’t insisted he join the coven for their weekly meetings either. She’d help.
But just as he pulled out his mobile, Maddox emerged from the bathroom, a little unsteady but otherwise upright. “Where’s the vial, Killian? I need it back. Right now. Then I have to get out of here. Back to the celestial realm or Azrael will murder me himself.”
Killian lifted the broken vial off the table and held it up to the hint of light streaming through a break in the thick curtains. “This?” His palm landed square on Maddox’s chest as the angel tried to lunge for it and Killian lifted it over his head. “You practically begged me to take it from you last night. Which leads me to believe you are not supposed to have it.”
“Of course I’m not supposed to have it, you idiot. It’s celestial sand. No one’s supposed to have it. It belongs back on the shores of the Sea of Redemption in the celestial realm. The question you should be asking is ‘Why did the witches have it?’”
Before Killian could answer—or remind Maddox that he was, in fact, a witch, something tugged deep inside him, a compulsion he couldn’t ignore. “Fuck. Not now.” He was being summoned. And he had no choice but to go. The phone fell from his hand, and like back in England, his entire body started to compress, and he met Maddox’s terrified gaze. “Don’t leave—” he managed as his entire body was sucked into the void, the vial included, and he flew.
“KILLIAN?” Delphine, the New Orleans Coven’s High Priestess, sat in a plush, leather chair in an alcove with a curved, leaded glass window, her dark hair highlighted by the gentle rays of sunlight streaming in.
“Bloody hell. I was all of a ten minute walk away, High Priestess. Perhaps a phone call would have been easier than a summoning?” Killian angled his body and tucked the vial into his pocket. He didn’t trust Delphine. Not after last night.
Delphine’s smooth skin marked her as early forties, but Killian believed her to be much older. It was in the endless depths of her brown eyes, the way she seemed to be able to look right through the witches in her charge. And those who weren’t.
“Perhaps. Had I been summoning you. I was not.” She extended her palm. “Hand over the vial, Killian. Do it quickly and I might not have to consign you to the dungeons for the next fifty years.”
The dungeons?
Killian dipped his hand into his pocket, upended the vial, and hoped this celestial sand wasn’t so fine-grained it would end up on his socks. For fuck’s sake, he hadn’t put on shoes or even had a chance to button his shirt.
“You mean this?” He held up the empty, broken glass tube. “I found this last night outside the mansion. There was nothing inside. I assumed whoever cursed the lot of us dropped it.”
Delphine snapped her fingers, and the vial appeared in her hand. She sniffed it, then held it up to the light. “By the goddess, one grain left. You will answer for this, Killian.”
“Answer for what? Your bloody invitation summoned me here—a place I’d hoped never to see again—then you send the one person in the world with more reason to hate me than I do to greet me, subject me to a curse, the effects of which I still have not been able to figure out, and now, you’re going to make me ‘answer’ for a crime I did not commit? That’s rich, Delphine. I believed you to be fair and just, if not a bit loony. Clearly, I was wrong.”
He was almost desperate enough to lob a spell at the High Priestess, but two burly men stepped from the shadows, slapped iron manacles on his wrists, and locked them behind his back. The iron had to be spelled, because he felt his magic drain, and he glared at Delphine.
“What is the meaning of this?” he snarled.
“Tell me who sent you to steal the celestial sand. And what you know about Thea and the curse.” Delphine stood, striding over to him and jabbing at his chest. The new marks flared, and Killian thought he could smell his skin burning.
“I had nothing to do with that bloody vial, I don’t know any Thea, and I was cursed along with the lot of you. If you don’t believe me, just look.” He nodded down at his bare chest. “Do you think I would do that to myself? Are you that daft?”
Delphine tugged the shirt away from the marks and narrowed her eyes. “I think it is very possible these are the marks of someone burdened with guilt. Perhaps over stealing that which does not belong to them. Take him to the dungeon and put him on the rack. That should loosen his tongue.”
She vanished in front of Killian’s eyes, and before he could call her name, one of the men holding him forced his jaw open and shoved a leather bit between his teeth, then tied it behind his head.
