Sinful Magic by Jennifer Lyon

long, and Mack had seemed like a good enough guy. She’d known he wasn’t her Awakening, and she just craved
    touch, intimacy. And secretly, she was hoping that since her schema had begun to fade, no magic would surface during sex. It was the only time she showed any power, and it was just a trickle, but it opened up a pit of want in her that no one could seem to touch. The only two other men she’d slept with had reacted like there was something wrong with her. Something
    unnatural.
    “He used sex to get close enough to take that picture?”
    She remembered how Mack had told her that he wanted to see all of her. Then telling her to close her eyes, let him. “As soon as I saw the flash, I realized he was a sick creep and I threw him out. I should have destroyed the camera.” She’d been so upset, embarrassed. Ashamed. Stupid.
    “He tricked you.” Lifting a hand off the dresser, he touched her face. “What did he do? Tell you to close your eyes and then acted like he was going to go down on you, bring you pleasure, then when you’re lying there, spread out for him
    ” His eyes burned molten gray with flecks of blue.
    She had a whole different image in her head. Key, kneeling between her legs, his fingers skimming that mark, and then rising higher, toward her desperate heat. The mark flamed hot, little tendrils of warmth spreading outward. She squeezed her thighs. “Don’t.” Curls of shame made her turn her face away from his touch, from his eyes. “Back off.”
    He dropped his hand and stepped back.
    Growing edgier, she demanded, “What do you want? Why can’t you leave me alone?” She scooped up the bras and panties and threw them into the suitcase.
    He perched on the edge of the dresser. “We found—”
    “We?” Her paranoia reared up.
    Without a pause he said, “Wing Slayer Hunters. We’re witch hunters who have recommitted to our Wing Slayer god. We’ve vowed to protect witches like you.”
    She nodded. “Axel Locke and his crew.” Her mother had told her about them. She bitched about Darcy and Carla trying to take over the Circle Witches online group that she had started. Did Key know who her mother was?
    “Yes. Axel is our leader chosen by Wing Slayer. But the hunter helping me with Mack’s computer was Sutton West. He’s a computer expert, and mated to a witch named Carla.”
    “Soul mirrors,” Roxy said, surprised how much information she’d absorbed from her mother. Gwen Banfield was bitter that these witches had found a solution to the curse that had stripped witches of their familiars and high magic, while she hadn’t. It all stemmed from the curse cast three decades ago by demon witches trying to bind witch hunters as their familiars. The spell twisted into a blood and sex curse, causing all the witches’ and hunters’ souls to be pulled out, joined, and then halved. The result was their souls were damaged. The hunters’ bond with their god was broken, causing them to lose their immortality and saddling them with a ferocious craving for sex and the power in witch blood. Witches lost their bond with their familiars and their high magic. The hunters that had once guarded earth witches now slaughtered them for the power in their blood. Then Axel and Darcy discovered they were two halves of the same soul, and once they were joined, the curse broke for them. She pulled out of her thoughts when she realized Kieran was talking.
    “Mack is working for Liam, my brother. It was all there on his computer, including pictures of five other fertility witches that are known to have been killed by rogues.”
    Roxy sank down on the edge of the bed. “But I’m latent! How did they know I’m a fertility witch? How did Mack know? I never told him, I don’t tell anyone I’m a witch. Or was it just an accident that we dated and he found the schema?”
    Kieran’s mouth pulled tight. “I don’t think it was an accident.” He pushed off the dresser, took out his phone, scrolled, then walked over to hold it out to her. “I had Sutton e-mail the