Jude walked around him to the other side of the counter. “I’ll see you later.”
“Wait.” He had no idea what he wanted to say. Jude couldn’t walk in, blow him, and leave, especially on such a sour note. He shouldn’t care, he had work to do, but he did. He swallowed, wanting to say something meaningful, but he failed to find any words. “What are we going to do about the creature?”
Jude stared at him. His eyebrows pinched together for a moment. Mack knew he’d said the wrong thing. He should’ve said something about them, not the job. He was shit at this.
“I want to go back to North.”
“I’ll come with you.” Though he had no idea what Jude hoped to find out there.
Jude shook his head. “You don’t have to.”
“Yeah, I do. I said I’d help, and I meant it. Besides, according to what I read, I’m supposed to keep you alive or something.” He forced a smile. If a shifter killed their witch, they were effectively committing suicide. But it had happened. History was littered with the corpses of what witches called familiar gone bad and what shifters called witches gone mad. “I’ll pick you up.”
Eventually Jude nodded, but Mack had been judged, and he had failed by some yardstick he didn’t even know about.
Chapter Seven
Jude bought a salad roll and a drink on his way back to his room, then he opened his laptop and stared at the black screen. He could still taste Mack on his tongue. He didn’t let himself think of what might have happened if Mack’s ex hadn’t walked in. He cracked the lemonade and took a few gulps. The memory wasn’t as easy to erase.
He wasn’t used to the eye contact, or to the connection. He’d felt Mack’s need, the coil of heat, and he’d wanted more. Needed more. Even now desire simmered, brushed aside but not forgotten. It flared to life when he came within a few yards of Mack. The pull to be near him was ridiculous. He found it hard to believe that witches had once sought this kind of connection because it made them stronger.
As far as Jude was concerned it was completely distracting.
He had a creature to hunt and his magic to save.
He loaded up the database and logged in. He’d been given a log in when the Coven had deemed him trustworthy. In theory, all paranormals were able to log in and get information about themselves and find meeting groups. In practice, many had fallen away. Perhaps being unknown by the Coven was safer than living by their rules. It was interesting that Mack’s family was still connected, even though they were so isolated. Or maybe that was the reason.
Jude returned to the creatures he’d flagged and read through the descriptions again. He was, of course, assuming the creature was flesh and blood. If it was incorporeal, that was a whole other list. There were many things that needed to feed on the living to exist in this realm.
Did incorporeal beings leave footprints and eat hearts? He didn’t think so.
He sipped his soft drink and studied the menu bar. He clicked the drop-down menu for witches. Then the one for shifters—he couldn’t click on any of the links for shifters, and Mack wouldn’t be able to look in the witch menu.
He went back to the witches and scrolled through the different types. Had his mother or father been an electro-mage? When he was younger, he’d often wondered why he’d been abandoned. Had they known what he’d be and not wanted him? Or had his mother simply been too young and known nothing of witches, the magic coming from a father who hadn’t stuck around? The database wouldn’t give him any answers. It never did when it came to his family.
He kept scrolling until he reached the link for familiars. The cursor hovered. The screen burned his retinas. He blinked and opened a new search window. There were other places he could get information. Places that the Coven didn’t monitor. Places the Coven would like to shut down but couldn’t because they sprang back up like toadstools.
He typed in the website address. There was no way to search for the dark coven site on the internet. It was a secretive place where things most people didn’t need, or want, to know about could be talked about. No human could accidentally find it either. The only way in was to be invited. Like the Coven database there was a password. Someone had vetted him before giving him access, but he had no idea who or what they had discovered. Only that he’d been approved.
There were no restrictions on the dark Coven site. He could look up bear shifters or any spell he wanted. Some of the information had been taken from the Coven database, and users had added other bits. Not all of it was reliable. But then, he wasn’t convinced the Coven’s database was either. This was where those who chose not to be part of the Coven, or who wanted more than what the Coven offered, went for information.
For a time, he’d been lured in hoping to find out something about his parents. But without rules guiding behavior, people were less than genuine. Some of them made the Coven look caring. The Coven had drawn him closer, ostensibly for further training, after he’d fried the computer lab at college.
It had been a lie created out of kindness. He’d been dangerous to everyone back then. He hadn’t realized what his fuck ups meant for the paranormal community. He hadn’t thought one Vegas win would put them in danger either. But if the Coven knew…
He sighed. Sometimes a life without magic seemed so much simpler.
Without fear of repercussion, he clicked on bear shifters, something he never thought he’d need
