Soon it would end. Today, he would hunt her down and demand answers, even if he had to wring them from her pretty neck. He was unsure where to begin the search, but somehow he knew this feeling, her looming presence, would guide him.
Prying his gaze from the carving, he turned to the door. “Fifteen minutes. No more.”
“Smashing. But until you give me the Doomsday Diary…” Bram grinned, “I’m your new best friend.”
As soon as Bram parked three blocks off of Oxford Street, Marrok bolted from the hated automobile’s small confines. Warriors did not travel in motorized death traps, by God.
They trekked through the gloom of London’s gray morning to a narrow little shop, where a purple sign flashed A Touch of Magic. With a cynical grunt, Marrok stared through the picture window. A clay rendering of Pegasus took up most of the display space. He studied the piece critically. The sculpture had symmetry, but lacked life and movement.
As Bram opened the door, an electronic chime heralded their arrival. Two steps later, a wave of musky incense slammed his senses. That and the strains of a passionate ballad surged through him. Across his skin awarness burned and tingled.
A woman had recently stood here. An enticing mix of light perfume over natural scent told him thus. He inhaled peaches and vanilla.
The clatter of beads in a doorway at the back of the store brought his gaze across the room. A woman emerged, carrying an armload of boxes. He caught a glimpse of windswept dark hair and a fragile profile before she turned to deposit the load on the counter along the back wall.
Familiar movements seized his breath.
Marrok willed the woman to face him. Instead, she unpacked, swaying in time with the Celtic tune piping through the room. A dangerous slash of desire sliced his gut.
“Olivia?” Bram called above the music.
She turned and smiled at the wizard.
The sight was an invisible fist slamming into Marrok.
“Bram, thanks for coming by.” Her distinctly American voice rang in Marrok’s head as she shut off the music. “I know you’re busy. Did you get my message last week?”
“I did. Sorry. I haven’t heard anything more about your father. I’ll ask again. Nothing new from the investigator?”
Her shoulders slumped. “No, just an address for a crazy man who claims to be nearly five hundred years old. I’ll keep looking. I moved here to find him, and I’m not giving up.”
As if just realizing they weren’t alone, Olivia peeked around Bram at Marrok. The welcome on her face faltered, fell. She covered lush lips with her hand and stared as if the sight of him shocked her.
He could hardly be more shocked himself. Delicate cheeks, a slightly pointed chin, and those bloody haunting eyes.
Morganna’s eyes in the face from this morning’s dream. Recognition jolted his every nerve.
She looked back at Bram. “Is this…?”
“Of course. I told you I’d deliver.”
Bram shoved him toward her. Normally, he’d growl at the wizard for touching him. Today, his attention was fixed on Olivia.
Or rather, Morganna. The one woman who could end his curse.
He had not believed she could make herself as beautiful as the woman in his dream. He had underestimated his opponent. That alone made her more deadly, to say nothing of the power she had surely gathered over the centuries. She looked so young, barely twenty. Though her youth was an illusion, she made him feel ancient.
Bram turned to him. “Marrok, this is Olivia Gray.”
She paused. Her hand dropped from her mouth, and she bit her bottom lip. For such calculated hesitation, the gesture looked natural. But Morganna never displayed vulnerability without a trap looming close behind.
Finally, she extended her hand to him. Marrok stared, wanting nothing less than to touch her—and nothing more. A film of sweat broke out across his skin. Oh, how she must be laughing.
But the centuries had taught Marrok to play her game.
Pasting on a shark’s smile, he enfolded her hand in his. Electricity shot across his palm, up his arm, rocking him to his soul. In that instant, his cock hardened. Blast it all, with one small touch she bewitched him, exactly like his dream…
Only stronger.
Olivia’s eyes widened. Grim satisfaction seeped through him.
“Ms. Gray.”
She quickly withdrew her hand. “I—it’s nice to meet you. Bram has told me about you. Actually, about your talent,” she clarified. “The pictures I’ve seen are very impressive.”
Morganna had never cared about his carving, only for his reputation on the battlefield and in the bedroom. This pretense of interest infuriated him. What game did the witch play?
Looking flustered, she glanced Bram’s way.
“Where is that piece you brought?” Bram asked him.
He’d been so focused on Morganna, he had forgotten it. “In your car.”
Bram’s gaze bounced from Marrok to Olivia, then back again.
“Well, then, I’ll…go get it. You two get acquainted.”
The door chime signaling Bram’s departure sounded loudly in the room’s silence. But Olivia never looked away from Marrok. Her heart zoomed into hyperspeed.
He stared as if he knew her, could see inside her. As if he were utterly aware that, just that morning, she had dreamed of being naked and wet for him, begging for his touch.
When his sharp perusal swept down her body, she had the distinct impression Marrok knew he’d starred in her erotic fantasy. His scrutiny didn’t seem sexual…exactly. Still, she flushed and tingled in some interesting places.
He didn’t return the interest, of course. Most men weren’t aroused by an odd-looking woman with nearly-black hair and purple eyes who resembled an extra from an Elvira Halloween spectacular. Doutful that a prime male like Marrok would be enticed by her.
He stood at least six feet four. His door-frame-wide shoulders bulged, straining the seams of his black T-shirt. The fists bunched at his sides were huge. A shaggy mane of dark hair framed his haunted, hollow-cheeked face, accented by a neatly-trimmed goatee and unfathomable blue-gray eyes. His mouth twisted in a mysterious smile, as if he knew he made her nervous.
Olivia restrained the urge to toy with the bangles on her wrist. Marrok was a temperamental artist. Period. She owned an art gallery, her dream since she’d been a moody teenager living a nomadic life with her cold, overprotective mother. If she wanted to keep this place afloat, she’d better stop mooning and do business.
“I’d like to carry your carvings here,” she said. “I think you have a great deal of talent. I could help you make a tidy sum.”
He raised a dark, disquieting brow. “Money does not interest me.”