Dominic: Her Warlock Protector Book 1 (6 page)

“This guy who rescued you. What did he look like?”

Sophia stifled the first few things that came to mind because she doubted her boss wanted to hear about how good looking Dominic had been.
 

“Um. Big. Really fit. Blonde, green eyes, I guess?”
 

The answer didn't seem to please her boss. “Was he good looking?”

“Uh, wow, boss, are you looking for a date?”

“Not since my wife passed away many years ago,” Brent said impatiently. “Answer the question.”

“Well, um, since you ask, uh, yeah, I guess he was good looking. Do you understand where this could be a fairly strange question for me to answer for you?”

“Not even in the slightest. Look kiddo, you need to come stay with me.”

Sophia gaped at her boss. She was usually no slouch at making sure that she stayed on top of things. Once she had managed to talk herself out of an altercation involving a very drunk, very large man who was being accused of insurance fraud who had her cornered in the back of the men's restroom at a bar. She was fairly certain of her ability to get out of trouble, but right now she wasn't even sure that she was in trouble, let alone what kind it was.

“Look, Brent, I don't know what's going through your head, but no. That's not a thing that is happening. I don't think that one bad night, a bad night that was prevented from being far worse, I might add, is something that I should run and hide from.”

“It's not safe at your apartment. You need to come stay at my home.”

Sophia laughed, staring at Brent with wide eyes. “You're seriously going to pull this dad shit on me? What the hell?”

“You're in danger,” Brent said insistently. “You are in a place where you are vulnerable, and if you don't do what I say now, you are going to regret it.”

While he talked, he had stood and come around his desk. Now he was standing close to her, looming over her, and those eyes were as sharp and hard as flint. She had seen clients under the sharpness of that gaze. She had seen grown men and women crumble under it like children.

However, she had also helped Brent through the discovery that he couldn't check his email when there was no Internet available. Somehow that was the conversation that gave her the strength to step back from him.

“No. That is not something that is negotiable, Brent. You're my boss, and you're a good one. However, you are not my dad. You are not going to pull this 'not in my house, young lady,' crap. Now, am I going to do the filing on that new fraud investigation or are you going to push me further on this? Because if you pick the second one, I am walking right out of here.”

Brent held her gaze for a moment longer, and just when Sophia could feel beads of sweat break out her forehead under his intensity, he looked away.

“I just worry about you, you know,” he muttered. “It's not safe out there.”

“It wasn't safe when you sent me out to go spy on those guys with the dog fighting ring, either, but I did that. Are we done?”

“Fine. We're done.”

There was such a peculiar flatness to the way he said it, sending a shiver down her spine. She wasn't sure what ‘done’ was, but the way he’d looked at her made her feel less than human. It was chilling, but it couldn’t be true. She shrugged it aside.

“Good call, boss man. I'm going to file a few things, and then I'm headed out to the suburbs for that Hennings case. I promise I'll call if I have any trouble, okay?”

“Can't tell you anything,” Brent groused. “Be careful. I don't give you enough insurance to get hurt.”

“Now who's fault is that?” Sophia asked, relieved.
 

The whole incident was strange, but then so was Brent. He was odd, cranky, and downright unpleasant when crossed, but on the whole, he had always looked out for her.

Determined to put the whole thing behind her, she simply unlocked the door and exited to outer office, glad to just get to work.

AFTER THE DOOR closed behind Sophia, Brent straightened. Upright and ram rod straight, he could pass for a man in his thirties. Underneath a suit that was designed to wrinkle, crease and hang off of him like a paper bag, his frame was thickly muscled. When he allowed the frown to ease off his face, it was like an another person had simply taken Brent Koeniger's clothes and put them on.

Brent fingered the sword pin, staring out the window. He could see the parking lot, but beyond it, there was the wide expanse of the lake. He had been in Milwaukee for just a few years. It was a tiny spot in his very long life, but it stung. Many things did.

However, now the wheels were beginning to turn. Things were going to change. His hand was on his phone. There was a number he could dial which would swarm the city. He touched the sword pin on his tie again, and pulled his hand away.

Out in the front room, Sophia was filing. Soon she would enter the city again, and sooner or later, she was going to be found. He could wait.

ONE OF THE benefits of being part of the Magus Corps, Dominic thought, was that in general, he could go anywhere he wanted. Milwaukee was an open book to him, and whether it was money or authority that he needed to enter a place, he had plenty of both. That was why around two in the afternoon, he found himself at the very top of the US Bank building, the tallest building in the city. A maintenance employee had been bribed into letting him up, and now he was alone. To his left was the lake, and to the right was the city. He hadn't really thought that he was going to find his errant initiate there, nor did it seem very likely that he was going to spot her from so high up, but he realized that his heart wasn't into it.

Despite Stephan's assurances, the crystal stayed stubbornly dark. Dominic was on the verge of simply chucking it off the side of the building and letting it shatter. There were other venues he could search, but they hadn't been very forthcoming. The Milwaukee coven was extremely small and secretive, and though they would of course bow to his authority, they would likely do it while being as stubbornly unhelpful as they could.

He could have called the Commandant for reinforcements, but the best case scenario was that he would get Stephan, whose search charms were legendary among the Corps. Even if he got Stephan, which was unlikely as Stephan was greatly in demand, Stephan's charm hadn't proved very useful so far.

Alone with the wind and the water, however, Dominic had to admit to himself that there was more to the issue than his simple lack of success. He had chased colder trails, trails that were far more dangerous, and even trails that were duller, but none of them had brought him into contact with anyone like Sophia.

He couldn't explain it to himself. It was more than the sex, and it was more than the way that she had looked up at him with those dark and lovely eyes. It was the way that she had given herself to him so completely and with such a lack of self-consciousness. Dominic had been with many women throughout his long life, and he had never met one who had affected him the way that Sophia had. He could remember her touch as if it were branded on his skin, and after her morning disappearance, he wondered if he would bear a different kind of mark without her.

Her disappearance made no sense, but he had been a part of many things that never made sense. It was likely something strangely simple or simply odd. There were answers, but for the life of him, he couldn't find them. There were more things to worry about than a woman who had left his bed, but right now, it was hard to convince himself of that fact.

His phone rang, and he thumbed it absently. “Berrett here.”

“It's Stephan, are you secure?”
 

Berrett frowned. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

“Passcode one-one-seven-four-eight-nine-one,
 
Charlie Delta Tango. Repeat, are you secure.”

Dominic blinked. That was the highest authorization that he and Stephan shared, and the fact that Stephan laid it down like a stone sent a shiver up his spine.

“Dominic Berrett, seven-one-four-four-two-one-two, Echo Echo Victor. Confirmed secure. Now what the hell is up?”

“Maybe nothing,” Stephan said briskly, “but if it is something, it's going to be pretty damn ugly. One of our sources behind enemy lines is telling me that there may be Templars in town.”

“You're kidding me.”

“Wish I were, man. This source is beyond reproach, and they are definitely saying maybe.
 
The Commandant isn't willing to call in a team yet, but I wanted to call you to advise you of the situation. Plus, if you think that we need more boots on the ground, I want you to have the ability to make that call.”

“Negative. I do not need more guys out here, definitely not. But gods above, Templars? We sent them running south two years ago, and we've not heard a single thing about them further north than Tennessee in months.”

“Hey, I know how it sounds. Last any of us knew, they were licking their wounds in some tropical paradise and likely burning it down if they thought the palm trees were evil magic. Look, I know the source, and she doesn't lie. Be careful out there, okay?'

“Yeah, you know it.”
 

Dominic hung up the phone, and the sense of foreboding that had been following him around since he left Sophia's apartment this morning bloomed inside. His mission was one thing, but Templars were another. The ancient war had come to a brief lull, but at the moment no one knew anything, and the Magus Corps was getting more nervous. However, the presence of Templars turned what should have been a simple, if frustrating, errand into a possibility of a full out battle. Dominic wondered how he should proceed. He wondered how his mentor would have moved forward.

The older man was a relic of another time in many ways. He called himself Alfonso, and he claimed to have remembered a time before bronze, though whether he was joking or serious was always up for interpretation.
 

“Show them only what you want them to see,” he had said to Dominic. “Show them strength. Show them cunning. Above all, do not show them your heart.”

Dominic took a deep breath and looked up into the clear blue sky. It was another beautiful summer day with not a single cloud to be seen. Taking a deep breath, he held his hand up over his head, and he felt the first sparks begin to strike and sting his skin. They built up fast, though, and he held the electricity long past the time when he would have been able to ward off a would-be mugger. There was a subtle sense of danger to this, in holding so much sheer power by his will alone and using his body as the focus. He let it build and build, and he knew that if anyone was looking at him right now, they would see his entire body lit up, the lightning spiraling around his torso, his arms and his head. In one rush, he released it, and a giant crack of blue lightning arched across the sky. It was there and gone with a nearly deafening boom, and Berrett wavered on his feet, slightly lightheaded.

There were very few occasions when a lightning strike of that size and shape was necessary outside of a full-fledged battle, but damn if it wasn't impressive.

“There,” he whispered. “Now you know that I'm here too.”

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT WAS going a great deal better than her assignment with Mr. Turner the weekend before. This man, a Greg Burns, was also suspected of sleeping with another woman, but unlike the Turner case, Sophia wasn't there because someone had a settlement or a prenuptial agreement to protect. Instead, it was because Amanda Burns had come into the office with an envelope full of money and a desperate look in her eyes.

Amanda was a rather plump, middle-aged woman with soft laugh-lines around her eyes, and her hair cut into a practical snip-and-go style. She looked uncomfortable in their office at all, and when Sophia had gently asked her what she needed, the woman burst into tears.

“I don't...I don't want to keep him if he doesn't want to be with me,” Amanda had explained. “I've been alone before, and I can be alone again, and it's hard, but I can do it. I just need to know.”

Greg Burns had been acting out of sorts for the last three months, Amanda stated. He was tired and snappish half the time, and the other half of the time, he was smothering. She never knew whether he would be angry over what was on television or ask if she wanted to go out dancing, something they hadn't done in years. All told, the matter sounded fraught. Sophia almost wanted to tell the woman to save her money, that her husband was cheating on her.

“But he promised me he wouldn't,” Amanda insisted. “If you knew him, you would understand. I just need to know.”

I just need to know.
It was the refrain of almost everyone who walked into Brent's investigative services. Sophia sighed. She gave Amanda a box of tissues and went to confer with Brent.

“Take her money, give her what she wants,” Brent had said with a shrug. “This isn't going to be a hard one, kiddo.”

If she was beginning to feel jaded regarding the infidelity of forever promises, she could only imagine what it was doing to Brent. She nodded, but still there was something about this that tugged at her, that told her that there was more than met the eye.

That was why she was trailing Greg Burns in Brent's nondescript little Toyota. It was in good enough repair to avoid getting pulled over or stalling out, but it was dull enough that no one would ever give it a second glance when it was on the road. Greg Burns drove a mid-size sedan, dull in every way. Sophia thought cynically that his mistress likely made fun of that car when he wasn't around.

She wondered briefly if he was going to drive to the trendy neighborhood south of downtown, where he was meeting a cute girl half his age, or whether he was going to drive north to the home of an expensive escort.

Instead he did neither. He drove around in what felt like aimless circles for a while, and then he hit a drive-through. Sophia trailed him at a safe distance, growing slightly more confused as he pulled over and ate his food. She couldn't see his expression, but she thought that more than once, he dipped his head down, as if he were grieved or exhausted.