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“Weird. They spelled witch wrong.” Zayn’s voice sounded distant. “Someone was testing your ward this weekend. They must have come into my place when they failed to get into yours. And I did tell that asshole you lived here.”
He stepped over to the coffee table, where someone had stabbed a knife through a folded piece of paper, pinning it in place. Extracting the note, he unfolded it and read it, then crumpled it up with an angry hiss.
“That fucking asshole.” He looked ready to punch a hole in the wall. As if his walls hadn’t taken enough of a beating already. “Shit.” He carefully uncrumpled the note. “I shouldn’t have read it. Sorry.”
He held it out to me, and I took it from him gingerly, almost afraid to touch the paper. My hands shook as I read it.
There was no name on it, but I knew who it was from: Nigel. It threatened to go to the EA with “my secret” unless I agreed to his “terms” and met him alone at a given time and place.
“Tell me, little witch,” Zayn said as I looked up from the note. “What’s this secret that you are hiding?”
For a long second, I considered lying to Zayn, telling him I had no idea what Nigel was talking about, but he’d never believe me, not after we’d spent four solid days together. He’d trusted me with his own secret and opened up about his serpent. What would it say about me if I lied to him now?
Then again, if things between us went south, it would leave me exposed and in a bad place. I didn’t think Zayn was the type to betray me, but you never knew.
Zayn held my chin with his hands, firmly but tenderly tilting my face up so I met his gaze.
“I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s happening. Please, Kitten.”
Protect me? That was his first reaction?
The pull in my heart made the decision for me. I hoped I wouldn’t regret it.
I glanced around the room. I didn’t trust Nigel not to have his hired goons install cameras in here before they left or otherwise bug the place.
“Come over to my place. I’ll help you clean up yours after.”
Back in my condo, I placed Salt and Pepper’s carrier on the coffee table, locked the door, strengthened the ward that prevented anyone from listening in on our conversation, either physically or magically, and spilled my secret.
Chapter 18
Zayn
Sybilwasnot,infact, a serial killer.
“So the deep dark secret is that you go out into the woods and transfer some already dying creature’s life force into your pets every few years to keep them young? I don’t get it. What’s the big deal about that?” I leaned back on her burgundy leather couch.
Sybil gawked at me like I’d grown another head. Salt sat on her lap grooming himself, and Pepper was grabbing handfuls of her hair, trying to climb on top of her.
“What?” I asked. “Owls and hawks need to eat, too. So do snakes and other reptiles. It’s not like you’re the one hunting down a perfectly healthy bunny, tearing its life force away, and tossing the carcass in the trash.”
She blew out a breath and started to absentmindedly pet the rat in her lap. They really did ground her. I saw that, now that I’d spent a weekend with her.
“That was my line of thinking too, but the EA doesn’t agree. To them, it’s a slippery slope. If we start doing that with animals, what’s stopping witches and wizards from going to a hospital and transferring the life forces of dying humans to themselves? Or offering it as a service to rich people? And what happens if the patient isn’t dying fast enough? What’s stopping an unscrupulous wizard from hurrying the process along for some coin?”
As she explained it to me, her face got paler and paler and she got more and more agitated. This was clearly something that she’d warred with herself over and kept hidden for years. Her guilt was palpable.
When I really thought about it, I saw why it could be a problem. Some people would do anything for money. Others would surely do anything for eternal youth. It was most definitely something that could be abused. I had a feeling many immoral magic users already did a version of this. I’d heard of wizards who would disappear overseas for a decade or so, then come back as their own long-lost son.
What Sybil did for her beloved pets didn’t bother me. Especially since she only took the life force of animals lost to natural causes. Death was a natural part of the cycle. Predators needed to eat too. As a naga, I was able to digest both animal and plant materials, but snakes were obligate carnivores and relied on meat for their sustenance.
Something still bothered me though. “Am I right in guessing that I am the only person who knows about this?”
“Great Granny Syl knew. She made me promise I’d do everything I could to keep it a secret.”
“She let you keep doing it.” It was a statement, not a question.
“As long as I was being ethical, yes.”
