Free Witch Interrupted by Jody Wallace

father had been deeply imbedded. His death, in a falsified boating accident, had been mourned.
    “She hasn’t been on the council for years,” Tonya said. “Don’t hold it against her too much.”
    “Keepers don’t quit. Lose the mask,” he insisted.
    “No.” Witches didn’t drop their everyday masks around strangers. Certainly they didn’t drop them around wolves. That tiny barrier was the only thing between her and total meltdown.
    “Take it off.”
    She could release it. Marcus had already scented her blood. Except…he hadn’t scented everything.
    “I don’t want to.” He’d learn the full extent of her weakness, and that was none of his business. Let him think she had a crush on him because he was good-looking. “If you’re so concerned about appearances, why don’t you tell us what you looked like before the change?”
    “I looked a lot like this,” he said. “Softer around the middle though. Don’t miss that. Your turn.”
    “This is my true face.”
    “Pretty. But you’re not showing all of it.” He ran a finger down her throat, smearing blood from the feel of it. “I don’t have a mask, Katie. Play fair.”
    “Like you’re playing fair?” How could her body jitter and melt at the same time? He was already using her attraction against her. She didn’t want to hand him the larger weapon.
    He touched her lip, his finger sticky with her blood. “I want to see you…naked.”
    “Fine. Fuck. Whatever. I don’t care.” Katie accessed her magical core, the flame burning inside her, and torched the mask spell. Her skin heated. The hairs on her arms prickled with static.
    Then her only protection was gone. She was completely exposed. Her weakness. Her want. Her intense need.
    Marcus inhaled. Blinked. Exhaled long and slow, his eyes silver.
    Katie didn’t require a wolf’s nose to realize he was stirred by her scent and what it meant. No wolves since her final mission, the one where she’d nearly died, had been exposed to her without any trace of a mask.
    Would he react like they had?
    And why wasn’t she sickened by the thought?
    He trapped her head in one hand while the other gripped her shirt. Did he tremble? He shifted his hips, his erection a hot bar of steel in his slacks. Confusion wrinkled his brow. “I didn’t expect… I don’t understand how you could have been a keeper. Unless…”
    “You got what you asked for. Let her go.” Tonya flew at Marcus, tugging him with frantic hands. Katie smelled peppermint and hairspray. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
    “It’s you,” Marcus breathed. “Chang Cai. The Black Widow.”

Chapter Five
    Marcus pushed Katie off the bed and himself to the far side so fast, he was up before Tonya finished casting her spell.
    It missed. The air popped harmlessly, and minty freshness filled the room.
    Tonya cursed. Katie rustled on the ground, unseen. The bedside table rattled. “Dammit. Where are my glasses?”
    “Here, Velma.” Tonya kicked them across the hardwood.
    Katie’s hands trembled as she slid on her ugly black spectacles and adjusted her clothing. Marcus tensed to spring again.
    “Chang Cai is dead.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her skintight jeans as if holding herself in check. “Did nobody tell you? She was killed in a plane crash.”
    Tonya, some kind of candy in her hand, drew back to throw at him again. “Are you going to behave?”
    Marcus had never been wonderful at thinking on his feet. For most of his life, he hadn’t needed to. Being a wolf on the lam required it of him, and he hated it. “What are you going to do with peppermint and sugar? Cure my headache?”
    “Hold still and you can find out.” Katie eyed Tonya in surprise, and the woman shrugged. “It was all I had.”
    Not since Marcus had lost his sister—and then five years of his life to the blackmailing keepers—had he been this stunned.
    Not by Tonya this time, but by Katie. She wasn’t just a keeper. She was the Black Widow.
    The