Rescued (Book One of the Silver Wood Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel by Hazel Hunter Page A
Authors: Hazel Hunter
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grimaced. “If he’s that hostile then maybe we should go to your place.”
“I think now that he’s vented his spleen he will come around.” Troy turned around and scanned the room, which had other doors on either side, and was comfortably furnished in soft green colors. “You can have the bedroom. I’ll sleep on the couch.” He went over and crouched in front of the hearth to start building a fire.
“Troy.” She waited until he looked up at her. “I didn’t feel anything when Ewan kissed my hand, and he hasn’t shown any interest in me. Why didn’t the ‘curse’ affect him?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe my body ward is better than I thought it was.”
Or maybe, Summer thought, the curse isn’t what you think it is.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BY THE TIME the sun rose Michael finished his last sweep of the park. He drove to the east side, to one of the oldest churches in the city. He felt frustrated that he had not been able to find the rapist who had attacked Summer, convinced the man was a rogue warlock. Michael knew rape could be a powerful element in dark magic, and that if the Wiccan was deliberately assaulting females in order to augment some spell, he would have no qualms about terminating the vicious brute.
He will pay for terrifying her, with his worthless life.
Inside the church four humans pretending to work nodded to Michael as he made his way around the scaffolding and piles of construction materials toward the unfinished altar. There he slipped into an elevator hidden behind a curtain and pressed the only, unmarked button on the panel, which lowered the cab through the basement into the sublevel of the North Abbey.
It had been Temple Master Nathaniel’s idea to base their east coast headquarters beneath the decaying church, and use the excuse of renovating it to hide their real activities.
“No one goes to church anymore,” he had said. “No one will set foot in one that’s falling down around their ears. Once our humans finish repairing the old beauty––at a snail’s pace, naturally––we’ll simply have the church declared a private monastic retreat. Perhaps for lepers. That should keep the tourists away.”
Down at the sublevel Michael stepped out and removed his dagger and gun, which he left with the Templar on guard duty. Here cold air poured in from ducts that snaked up to outside air vents, bringing along with it the hard, sour smells of the city. As Michael walked down the long corridor to the command center, where Nathaniel oversaw all the Templar operations within their assigned quadrant, he smelled the mossy incense the humans burned to try to mask the dankness. For some reason the cloying smoke and claustrophobic lack of windows always made him feel as if he were walking into a tomb where the dead were being feted and worshipped.
The command center itself resembled a massive strategic data site, with longs rows of narrow desks and computers manned by the humans who monitored various media feeds for any sign of Wiccan activity. On one wall hung an enormous map of New York and other surrounding states that was regularly marked with flags and pins indicating pagan-related incidents or suspected gathering places. A massively complex radio array constantly swept the police bands and fed the calls into another computer, which flagged any call suspected of being perpetrated by their enemy.
In the midst of all this technological bustle, the Temple Master worked from a school teacher’s desk, where he reviewed reports, took phone calls from his men and the faithful, and directed a staff of more than a hundred mortals and twice as many Templars.
Nathaniel was always busy, and yet when he saw Michael approaching he closed the file he was reading and rose to his feet. Short and rather stout, the silver-haired Temple Master still had a commanding presence that made larger men feel like awkward, overgrown boys.
“Michael, you should have reported in hours
“I think now that he’s vented his spleen he will come around.” Troy turned around and scanned the room, which had other doors on either side, and was comfortably furnished in soft green colors. “You can have the bedroom. I’ll sleep on the couch.” He went over and crouched in front of the hearth to start building a fire.
“Troy.” She waited until he looked up at her. “I didn’t feel anything when Ewan kissed my hand, and he hasn’t shown any interest in me. Why didn’t the ‘curse’ affect him?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe my body ward is better than I thought it was.”
Or maybe, Summer thought, the curse isn’t what you think it is.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BY THE TIME the sun rose Michael finished his last sweep of the park. He drove to the east side, to one of the oldest churches in the city. He felt frustrated that he had not been able to find the rapist who had attacked Summer, convinced the man was a rogue warlock. Michael knew rape could be a powerful element in dark magic, and that if the Wiccan was deliberately assaulting females in order to augment some spell, he would have no qualms about terminating the vicious brute.
He will pay for terrifying her, with his worthless life.
Inside the church four humans pretending to work nodded to Michael as he made his way around the scaffolding and piles of construction materials toward the unfinished altar. There he slipped into an elevator hidden behind a curtain and pressed the only, unmarked button on the panel, which lowered the cab through the basement into the sublevel of the North Abbey.
It had been Temple Master Nathaniel’s idea to base their east coast headquarters beneath the decaying church, and use the excuse of renovating it to hide their real activities.
“No one goes to church anymore,” he had said. “No one will set foot in one that’s falling down around their ears. Once our humans finish repairing the old beauty––at a snail’s pace, naturally––we’ll simply have the church declared a private monastic retreat. Perhaps for lepers. That should keep the tourists away.”
Down at the sublevel Michael stepped out and removed his dagger and gun, which he left with the Templar on guard duty. Here cold air poured in from ducts that snaked up to outside air vents, bringing along with it the hard, sour smells of the city. As Michael walked down the long corridor to the command center, where Nathaniel oversaw all the Templar operations within their assigned quadrant, he smelled the mossy incense the humans burned to try to mask the dankness. For some reason the cloying smoke and claustrophobic lack of windows always made him feel as if he were walking into a tomb where the dead were being feted and worshipped.
The command center itself resembled a massive strategic data site, with longs rows of narrow desks and computers manned by the humans who monitored various media feeds for any sign of Wiccan activity. On one wall hung an enormous map of New York and other surrounding states that was regularly marked with flags and pins indicating pagan-related incidents or suspected gathering places. A massively complex radio array constantly swept the police bands and fed the calls into another computer, which flagged any call suspected of being perpetrated by their enemy.
In the midst of all this technological bustle, the Temple Master worked from a school teacher’s desk, where he reviewed reports, took phone calls from his men and the faithful, and directed a staff of more than a hundred mortals and twice as many Templars.
Nathaniel was always busy, and yet when he saw Michael approaching he closed the file he was reading and rose to his feet. Short and rather stout, the silver-haired Temple Master still had a commanding presence that made larger men feel like awkward, overgrown boys.
“Michael, you should have reported in hours
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