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He folded his arms over his narrow chest. “Have you magically compelled anyone else, witching or otherwise?”
My lips didn’t budge. His eyes narrowed. Now I was getting a reaction.
“You understand that you can be compelled to give a response to these questions, do you not?” he said.
“Try me,” I said.
He gestured to the mousy-haired enforcer. I braced myself with a twist of my body on the bench. A fresh flare of my magic shot up through my body to shield my mind the same way I was protecting my guys.
The enforcer stepped into a complex form, her arms and hands swiveling so quickly I couldn’t follow the gestures. An instant later, a prickling of magic spread across my forehead. It dispelled against the barrier I’d constructed.
I might not be able to cast anything outside my body, but I could still work the magic inside myself as well as through the connections already in place.
The enforcer frowned and moved to try her coercive spell again. The investigator held up his hand.
“No point in wearing yourself out. We have time. It won’t be long before at least one of them breaks—or her magic depletes itself.” He smiled thinly at me. “Until we see each other again.”
He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, the enforcers right behind him. I sagged against the wall as the door thudded shut. But my gut was tied in knots.
He was right. My magic would deplete itself without my actual consorts next to me to help stoke my spark. And when I was out of energy, we’d be completely vulnerable to anything the enforcers threw at us.
Chapter Two
Gabriel
Ialmost would’ve been insulted that Rose’s “Assembly” had sent just one person to deal with me—and that the person in question was a woman so short and skinny you could have taken her for a fifth grader if it wasn’t for the lines starting to form at the corners of her eyes. Except I’d been around Rose and her witching kind for long enough to know that they didn’t need physical strength to be plenty threatening.
This witch made that very clear from the moment she sat down across from me, with a quick flip of her hand. All at once, a piercing sensation formed at the back of my skull. My tongue seemed to loosen. I gripped the edge of the bench so tightly the hard underside dug into my fingers, but I could tell I wouldn’t be able to withstand her magic.
I gritted my teeth, prepared to hold out as long as I possibly could, and a whisper of Rose’s energy washed over me. I’d have recognized her anywhere—even across a building, apparently. Her touch wrapped around my mind and deflected some of the pressure.
Only some. I couldn’t imagine how many battles she might be fighting at the same time, between protecting herself and whatever she needed to do for the other guys. I couldn’t ask for more help than she was already giving me.
That was okay. Self-control was a skill I had a lot of practice with. And I had my own ways of bolstering my resolve. I drew up my memories of Rose from the last few weeks like a shield. Rose’s smile and embrace when I’d turned up at Jin’s art gallery and found her waiting for me. Rose leaning into me as she admitted her fears. Rose’s mouth against mine, her body hot beneath me. The rush of awe that shot through me when I watched her work her magic.
And love. That intensely tender swelling of love that awoke behind my ribs every time I thought of her.
I wasn’t naïve to think that love could shield me from everything. But it made me even more ready to fight for it, for her.
The witch interrogator leaned forward in her chair, her eyes intent. She tapped her foot against the floor in an erratic rhythm that might have been strategic or just a personal tic. No other sound except that occasional patter penetrated the white walls of the little room they’d stuck me in. They had the air conditioning turned up too high. Goosebumps had popped up down my arms below the sleeves of my T-shirt.
“There’s no point in fighting,” the interrogator said. “We know at least some of you have completed the consorting ceremony with Miss Hallowell. Let me know whether you’re one of her consorts, and we’ll be done here.”
I didn’t believe that we’d really be done, not for a second. And especially not when she followed up the question with a flick of her fingers that sent another jolt of pain through my head. I winced in the second before Rose’s moderating influence closed around it, numbing the worst of the effect.
These weren’t the sort of people who simply had a little chat with you and then sent you on your way. No, they’d much more likely dump me lifeless in a ditch once they’d gotten what they wanted. Theyhaddone that to at least one other guy who’d hooked up with a witch, from the stories our brainiac Kyler had discovered.
“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” I said.
She let out a huff of breath. “What has Miss Hallowell told you about witching society?”
“None of your business.”
“Which of your friends has taken the role of consort?”
“None of your—”
Another spear of pain cut off my words and my breath. My tongue slipped. “They all—”
