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Not waiting for her, I squatted to grab the handle of the door. When I tried to lift it, it didn’t budge. My brow furrowed in consternation, and I made a second attempt, to no avail.
A snicker had me looking up. “What the fuck?”
She spoke soft words again and made a movement with her hand, and the door rolled up.
“Show off,” I grumbled, and her laughter followed me into the four-by-eight-foot storage unit. My eyes bugged when I saw what was in there.
A safe that was bolted to the floor sat against the back wall. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to bolt shit down in a rented storage unit.”
“As long as we pay our rent, no one will know,” she explained with a shrug. More soft words fell from her beautiful lips, and she turned the dial on the lock. By then, I was pretty sure that fucker wouldn’t have moved for me if I’d tried. Not that I knew the combo, but something told me she and her mother had some kind of spell shit on everything surrounding these scroll things.
The door swung open, revealing a wooden box with wrought iron straps that wrapped around it. Reverently, she lifted it from the shelf inside. Each thing she did required the soft guttural words to remove or open them. Slowly, she wrapped the box in her skirt she’d obviously stashed in the backpack. I hadn’t known it was in the bag. Then she placed the box in her backpack and zipped it shut. Once it was settled on her back, she closed the safe, locked the door, and took a deep breath.
“Okay, I’m ready,” she announced in a breathy tone.
“Out of curiosity, why couldn’t you leave it here? That seemed like a pretty secure setup.”
The sunlight broke through the clouds, sending a bright beam to her dark head, making her black hair appear impossibly shiny. Like a raven’s wing, it was a glossy blue-black.
Brow furrowed, she glanced over at the now-closed roll-up door and bit her bottom lip before returning her attention to me and my question. “Because though you didn’t notice it, the protection wards were not near as strong as they should’ve been. Like the ones at the shop, my mother and I created them together. I fear that like everything else, as she deteriorates, the scrolls shall become more vulnerable.”
Feeling I was in over my head, I dragged a hand over my coarse dreads and hooked my hand on the back of my neck. “There’s no reason to believe we were followed, but we need to be careful. Just because I didn’t see anyone, didn’t mean they weren’t there.”
“Oh, trust me. I understand.” Reaching around me, she plucked the helmet off the handlebar. “And Phoenix?”
“Yeah?”
“You have to promise me something,” she said with a bold lift of her chin.
“What’s that?” I asked with a questioning furrow of my brows.
“If we’re separated… or if something happens to me, you keep this safe. Never lose it. Never let anyone have it. Hide it somewhere no one will think of.”
“That’s not going to happen. Not on my watch.” My frown deepened, and despite my determination to keep my word, I wished I could control everything around me.
“Just promise me. Don’t come after me. Keep that book safe. Because if they get their hands on it, things will change as you know them. Worse than you can imagine.”
“Fine. I promise. But it’s still not gonna happen.”
She rolled her eyes, and I wanted to swat her ass but knew we needed to beat feet to the compound.
“Let’s get back to the clubhouse. We’ve been out in the open long enough as it is.”
She nodded and silently climbed on the bike behind me. Her arms wrapped around my waist, and her touch did something to me. Not only did it have a profound effect on my body, but the familiarity and simple rightness of her touching me was a serious mindfuck. The possessiveness I had toward her was pure insanity. Maybe it was psychological because of that crazy fated mates’ story she told me, but I had taken her fucking virginity. Not the first time I’d experienced that in my life, but for some inexplicable reason, it mattered to me. It left me feeling like I’d marked her as mine.
Which brought me to the fact that she was Voodoo’s sister.
The way he’d responded when he found us in the bar told me that this wouldn’t go over well. Now I understood how Chains had felt. Except I planned to talk to Voodoo, and one way or another, I was going to get him to understand he wasn’t going to stop me if she wanted to see where we went relationship-wise.
Unbelievable that I’d not long ago said I had no interest in another relationship. Ever. Guess the joke was on me.
We left the storage facility and headed back toward the clubhouse. The entire trip, I made sure we weren’t followed.
“I can get the gate,” she called out over my shoulder as we pulled up to the entrance.
Sure enough, she hopped off the bike and unlocked the gate. Not that she had the combination, but it seemed she didn’t need the damn thing. Which worried me, because she was convinced it was other witches after her. If they were able to do that, we’d never see them coming.
Once she was back on, I followed the curved drive toward the main building. After we came around the last little bend, I skidded to a stop. There were bikes out front. Upon closer examination, two had Iowa plates, which told me Voodoo and Raptor were here, but it didn’t explain who else was here.
