Dead After Dark (Companion #6.5)(92)

“If you think I’m going to accept a blanket statement written by someone who deals with damage control for your troops, you’re crazy.”

“Sasha, I can’t—”

“Don’t you Sasha me! I just watched you battle something from another world. What was he? And what did he mean about being owed for past blood debts?”

Trey swung the Bronco onto her street, parked along the curb several car lengths from her house, and cut the engine. Tension battled for space in the sudden silence. He turned to her, expecting a woman close to hysteria.

Sasha had swung around to face him and leaned back against the door, arms crossed with a you-better-have-answers look in her eyes. Forever his tough girl.

“He’s a Hindu warrior who lived eight hundred years ago,” Trey answered. “I’m wondering why he’s here and thinking he must have come in Ekkbar’s place. As for the blood debt, I wouldn’t want to speculate.” He knew the story, but preferred to wait until he contacted Brina, who led the Belador warriors and answered to the Celtic goddess Macha. Bottom line—his Belador ancestors had murdered families of the Kujoo in an attempt to enslave the race, forcing future generations to make amends for past sins. How the hell was he going to keep Sasha safe from this demon and not draw the Beladors into a war?

“Wait, you know who Ekkbar is?” Sasha asked.

Trey leaned an elbow on the door panel and supported his forehead with his fingers. “Yeah, and you do, too. Time to start explaining, but first tell me how you dropped two trees.”

“I didn’t hit him,” she protested and shrugged sheepishly. “I was trying to send the birds down to break his focus so we could get away.” She stared off in thought. “Must have used the wrong inflection. But I had the words right. Or maybe I—”

“Sasha, what—are—you?” he repeated.

She sagged against the door. Her arms relaxed. One hand lifted to her hair, twirling a length round and round a finger. She answered in a soft voice. “I’m a . . . witch.”

He wanted to laugh it off as a joke, didn’t want to believe she’d kept that from him all this time. The embarrassed glance she sent him said she’d been serious. She’d never told him.

Who am I to quibble? He’d never told her about being a Belador. “Since when?” he asked.

“My whole life. My sister and I are tenth-generation witches. My twin brother, Tarq, is a warlock.” She dropped her hand to her lap, tapping her fingers on one another.

“What about your parents? What are they?”

“Just plain dysfunctional.” A wry grin touched her lips. “They aren’t our biological parents. Rowan tried to tell me they weren’t when I was a child, but I wouldn’t believe her. When she moved in with me, I finally understood that she was a witch . . . and I was, too. Together, we found out our adoptive parents had inherited us from some distant cousin, but the records are vague. The house was given to our adoptive parents through a legal network that’s been impossible to break through. That’s why I started researching ancestries—trying to uncover mine—but my parents covered their tracks well.”

“So you never realized you were a witch?” he said, still amazed at her admission.

“I should have since my ear drove me crazy sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”

“After Rowan convinced me about being a witch, she explained that our ear burns as a signal when an unknown witch is nearby. The stronger the sensation, the stronger the witch.”

“Why did trees come down instead of the birds?” he asked.

Her lips drew up to one side in a chagrined expression and she sighed. “Rowan is better than I am, but I’m learning.”

Trey lost his smile, reality just sinking in. “So you don’t have control of your powers?” She could have dropped a building on the two of them while his mind was lost to everything except wanting her. Naked and hot.

“Don’t look at me that way. I’m not dangerous, just a half-bubble off sometimes,” she groused. “Back to the original topic. What do you know about Ekkbar?”

“Uh-uh. You were looking for him first. Why?”

Her smooth brow puckered in thought. “How did you know I was looking for him first?”

Damn. He’d screwed up. “I just know.”

“That will so not work right now.”

Might as well tell her. He’d have to at some point if they were going to catch this guy. “I had your phones tapped and heard you telling your sister you were going to find Ekkbar.”

“You what?” Sasha’s jaw dropped. She jumped out of the truck. Trey was right behind, trying to catch her. Leaves blasted away from the sidewalk, taking refuge in the gutter.

“Sasha, wait a minute.”

She rushed up the steps to her porch, shouting, “You tapped my phones? I know exactly what you are—a snoop. Go away.”

He snagged her an arm’s length from the door and wrapped her up from behind, her back to his front. She struggled, elbows digging into his side. “Stop it and let me explain.”

“There’s no explanation for spying on me, you bat dropping.”

“Bat dropping?” He started laughing. “You don’t boil lizard tongues and eyeballs in a big cauldron out back, do you?”