Free Warlock Unbound: Heart's Desire, Book 4 by Dana Marie Bell

high and sweet.
    “Fuck you very much, asshole.” Zach kicked open Arthur’s front door. “Pain-a-gram!”
    Daniel chuckled as he followed Zach’s glowing form into the house. He already had the yellow stone back in his hand, ready to fry Arthur the moment he saw him.
    “Here, creepy, creepy, creepy.” Zach whistled for the warlock like calling a dog to heel.
    Daniel, ignoring his brother, began sniffing around. He’d tried to hide his enhanced senses in the past, but no longer. Zach knew, and hadn’t blown a gasket. “He’s not here.”
    “Excuse me?” Zach was staring at him like he’d grown a second head. “How can he not be here?”
    “Fuck if I know, but while his scent is all over this place, it’s not fresh. It’s fading.” Daniel followed the trail of Arthur’s scent until it led to the boat dock. The dock was missing something vitally important. There was no boat. “Fuck.”
    “Shit. Now I have to explain to Gareth that I let the fucker get away.” Zach dimmed his light.
    “Of course he escaped and let children sacrifice themselves for him. I should have known better.” Gen sighed. “What now?”
    “Now we go deal with the minions, I guess.” If they hadn’t scattered. Daniel was pretty sure the terror of Zach’s wrath would keep some of them in place, but not all. And pack mentality would have a lot of the ones on the fence racing after their fleeing comrades. “Let’s go check on them.”
    Zach and Daniel made their way back to where they’d left the minions. Surprisingly, most of them were still there, just waiting for Daniel and Zach to reappear.
    “Huh. Looks like I was wrong. I really thought they’d book it.” Daniel glanced around, counting heads. “That’s ten of them.”
    “So only two left.” Zach shook his head. “He was building a fucking coven.”
    “That’s…not good.” While a coven could be anything from three members to a hundred or more, tradition stated that the ideal number was thirteen. “He put himself in the position of High Priest.”
    “Yeah. And led the young ones astray.” Zach reached out to one of the teens. “What’s your name?”
    The boy shook slightly. “Tony Romero, sir.”
    “When did you make the pact?”
    Daniel crossed his arms over his chest and glowered, more than content to play bodyguard and bad guy to Zach’s good guy. He allowed his wolf to show in his gaze, his amber eyes turning yellow and his teeth elongating until they were fangs.
    Gen stood back, glowing green, obviously ready to take over if Zach needed her to.
    The boy gulped. “Tw-two days ago, sir.”
    Zach glanced around at the other teens. “The same for all of you?”
    They nodded, ten little bobble-heads all in a row. Arthur had a lot to answer for. Some of these kids weren’t old enough for their driver’s licenses. “What do we do with them? Enroll them in warlock daycare?”
    Zach choked. “Not exactly.” He turned to the kids. “Your powers are currently on time-out, kids. I think you need to decide whether or not you want me to be hunting you down one by one—” the glow he’d dimmed suddenly became so bright Daniel had to look away, “—or change directions.”
    One of the kids, a girl, spoke up, her voice barely audible. “How? I mean, we made the pact, right? You can’t break that, can you?”
    “I think you can.” Zach held out his hand. “You want to?”
    She looked around at the others before meekly nodding. “Yeah.”
    “All right.” Zach turned to Daniel, dimming himself. “Call Gareth. We’re going to be late for dinner.”
    Daniel stepped away, keeping an eye on Zach as, one by one, the Own severed the tie between the kids and their demon. That should put a serious cramp in Arthur’s style.
    But Daniel wondered where the hell Arthur had gotten himself off to. The warlock had been better prepared than they were. If Arthur really was planning on building a coven, this couldn’t be his only group of mini-me’s. Daniel had