Free My Wicked Enemy by Carolyn Jewel Page A

you’re not a normal witch. I know what Magellan’s done to you.” He cocked his head, and she had the feeling he was being careful with his words. “So here’s the deal.”
    “A deal.”
    “I’m offering you my protection. My oath,” he said, emphasizing the word, “that I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe.”
    “In return for?”
    “You don’t have to do anything. You’ve proved yourself to me.” He leaned toward her. “We both know if you go out there by yourself, you’ll just get killed. Hey, you took on fucking Kynan Aijan for me. I’m not letting him or Magellan have you. It’s as simple as that.” He looked thoughtful as he shook his hair behind his shoulders. “Although . . .”
    “Although?”
    “I could use some help with Magellan.” He grabbed his beer and finished it off. “You don’t have to. No pressure, Carson.”
    “I’ll help,” she said after another long silence. “If I can.”
    “Thanks.” Nikodemus set the carving on the table. “I do mean that.” He looked at the ceiling. “Shit. I cannot believe I’m saying thank you to a witch.”
    “I’d be dead if it weren’t for you,” she said.
    He walked to her, but he didn’t say anything. He stared into her face like he was memorizing her. His eyes looked normal. Gray irises with a hint of blue. But they weren’t normal. He wasn’t normal. Her skin crawled with the cold inner knowledge that he wasn’t human and that he was letting her feel the difference. “You and I are just totally wrong.”
    The air between them seethed, and the buzzing in her head started up again. Underneath the sleeves of her sweater, her skin prickled. She rubbed her forearms. “Well, to be honest, there isn’t much right about my life at the moment.”
    Slowly, he lowered himself to the couch, straddling her with one hand on back of the couch. He touched her cheek with the side of his thumb. “I’m sorry about all this, Carson.”
    “Me, too.”
    He traced a circle on her forehead. “What happens to you if you don’t take your meds?”
    “I don’t know.” She swallowed hard. “I’ve never gone this long without. Lately, I have to take them more and more often in order to stop the pain.” His finger started a line from the center of her forehead to the end of her nose. A burst of warmth followed his fingertip as he continued along the space above her mouth and then over her lips. Whatever he was, desert-fiend, liar, psychotic, he’d saved her life today.
    “Can you get more?”
    “I take several different meds. Mostly prescription. Ergotamines. Triptans. Isometheptene. Feverfew. We rotate them. When one stops working, we use another one. And then go back.” His finger continued down her chin, over and then to the underside and along her throat. She felt like he was drawing a permanent line on her. Marking her. She wasn’t sure what she thought of that, but she had the vague sense that maybe she should mind more than she did.
    “You sure that’s what you’ve been taking?”
    She pushed him, but he didn’t budge. He started tracing another line, above her eye and down, like a prison bar. For a while she was sure she was going to throw up, but she concentrated on the air around her and the nausea went away. Nikodemus kept drawing his line, and after a bit, she didn’t feel sick at all. Being this close to him made her too aware of his masculinity, of the rock-solid chest underneath his shirt and the hard thighs on either side of her legs.
    “I think I’m addicted,” she said. Her fear took over, and the confession tumbled out of her. “Whatever he’s been giving me, I think I’m addicted. I’ve thought so for a while. You know? Like some kind of paranoid looney. I’m not normal, I know. Normal people have friends and go to school, and I’ve never done any of that. I’m practically the only woman in a house full of men, and I almost never have sex.” She laughed, but to her ears the sound was