by Anise Rae
She stood and leaned in to give Nils a lingering kiss on the lips. “I’ve missed you, my darling. Come sit and keep me company.”
Nils stared at her cleavage, missing the shrewdness in her eyes. Her gaze landed on Gregor before she slid back in her seat, facing the bar. Nils took the booth’s other side, his back to the bar.
“I’ll tell you all about those nasty outlaws who were here two days ago and then most of this morning.” She placed her fingertips to the top of her breasts. “Nils, the men barely left me alive. I needed a big, strong man like you around to protect me.”
Outlaws. She had to mean the Black Skulls. And they’d been here this morning.
Shit. He’d been watching the place all day. How the hell had he missed that?
Gregor squeezed his hands to fists.
“Problem, cowboy? You look a little sick.” The bartender switched her gaze between him and the drink she was mixing.
He cast his words to her ear. “Have the Black Skulls been by since Mara’s been here?”
She rolled her eyes. “I told you this place was trouble. But don’t worry about your girl in that regard. Fancy would never let anyone take Mara from her. She loves that girl in her weird way.”
He studied the vibes of her words. “Truth, but you didn’t answer my question.”
She shrugged and returned to her more favored patrons. He went back to eavesdropping, pulling sound with his vibes.
“Fancy, I seriously doubt you needed protection,” Nils said. “If you had men here who weren’t welcome, your patrons would be tripping over dead bodies tonight.”
“That’s not true. I’m no killer.”
Gregor could find no fault or lie in the madame’s words, but he still didn’t believe them. Something about her was off. Something more than her manipulating Mara into staying here. His vibes hadn’t settled down since he’d noticed her.
“They wanted me to hook up to their power lines and hand over half my girls to them,” Fancy said. “Half! I’d go broke. Besides, none of my girls has ever spun a damn thread. They spin their nipple tassels and their asses on my stage. But to spin yarn or wire? Forget it.”
Gregor looked around the room as he listened in. One of the working girls stopped a few feet from him and looked him up and down. She winked and walked away as if she knew he was off limits. Her high heels clacked softly against the floor. He looked down at the sound, unusual in the east among properly schooled mages, and caught sight of burn marks on the floor. Must have been a popular spot to drop a cigar. The madame probably didn’t appreciate that.
“Your girls could always learn to spin,” Nils said to Fancy. “However, I can take care of your electricity. I believe I’ve mentioned that before. Let me do this for you.”
The madame’s laugh trickled out over the crowd’s noise. “Oh, Nils, you always say the sweetest things. I thought Power United only did work in mageland. They’re such a patriotic organization. Do they know what a victory they scored when they hired you? You are a wonderfully proper citizen, with the best interests of the Republic at heart…unlike some.”
Nils laughed sharply. “Unlike some I work with.”
“Oh dear.” Sarcasm tainted her tone. “Do they seek glory for themselves instead of the righteous Republic?”
“Cut it out, Fancy. I know you don’t like the Republic. You’re playing me.”
“No, darling. Tell me about it. I respect you and your beliefs. I know you’re all for Goddess and country.”
“I do my duty for her great land. Always. Even when some cannot see what it’s meant to be. The Republic is under serious threat thanks to a few small-minded people.”
“Mmm. Let me ease your worries.” She leaned in, her hand under the table.
Gregor registered Nils’s hard inhale. Hell, some things he didn’t need to hear. He tuned out for a few minutes. By the time he listened in again, they’d jumped topics.
“If that’s the case, then the Mad Prophet is a fool,” Nils said. “He’s going to use up his sorceresses for nothing. If I had those women, I’d be twenty-five percent ahead of where I am now.”
Fancy waved his comment away like it was nonsense. “Those women are not sappy, silly citizens of the Republic. If you had those whores, you’d be lounging around your office fully sucked dry but with no more copper wire than you have now. Even a proper citizen like you wouldn’t be able to resist their true talents.” She lifted her drink and finished it off. “I don’t know what he was like before he was all fucked up by the glister relic, but Prophet’s only out for himself now. He wants to rule the West on a grand throne custom built for his tight ass and then take over the Republic.”
“He’s a fool. Only Power United has the resources to string the entire land, east to west.” He shook his head. “Cecilia would shit herself if we powered the entire stretch of the continent.”
Fancy cracked a laugh. “I hear that excitement in your voice. You’re a manifester! Nils, you are keeping secrets from me.” Surprise laced her tone with an unexpected delight. “I had no idea. If your Republic stretched from Atlantic to Pacific for the pleasure of the Lady’s blessed people, what would happen to the rest of us?”
“Think of the good the Republic could bring to this wild land.”
“You’ll find that a number of people disagree with that. The fairies, the natives, the Normals. Seriously, darling. If uniting the two halves of the continent were as simple as a geo mage flicking a spell at a measly river dividing the land, someone would have done it already. There are good reasons why citizen mages are east and the rest of us are west. It’s a necessary balance of power. Lucky for us all that Prophet doesn’t have the tools he needs to do it.” She leaned in close.
“Goddess, Fancy,” Nils gasped.
“So big, so hard for me already. I think you have a tool that could unite two lands,” she giggled. It was an odd sound coming from the experienced woman. “I hear you’ve been confiscating spinning wheels.”
“For the good of the Republic.” Nils sucked in a hard breath.
The mage lights in the room dimmed and the audience quieted.
“Oh, it’s showtime,” Fancy whispered.
Nils groaned.
Gregor cut off his spell, relieved he didn’t need to hear any more of that. He tapped his fingers against the bar, impatient for Mara.
Somewhere behind the stage’s curtain came the beat of a drum. It had a soft, steady touch. His fingers automatically matched its rhythm, his body recognizing the magnetism of the sound before his mind did. Despite the beat’s lightness, strength permeated it, as if it might carry across forever without needing to raise its volume. The drum called to him, somehow waving come hither with its simple beat. He wanted to cross over to it, like stepping over a threshold he’d never noticed before.
He caught Fancy’s stare as he looked across the room. She closed her eyes as if in that moment the power swept her away.
The curtain lifted.
Mara stood in the center of the stage, lit by a hundred tiny mage lights hovering in the air.
His mouth went dry. A primal urge forced him to his feet, demanding he wrap her up and hide her away. Another part of him couldn’t move any farther, too amazed, stunned. Awed.
He could sense now that it wasn’t the drum that had such unexplained power. It was Mara. Energy pulsed from her, an invisible rope whipping over her audience in time with the drum. He’d never encountered anything like it.
Her body was draped in a complicated pattern of strings that sparkled with gold against her pale bronze skin. The thin ropes graced her arms, crisscrossing around her biceps in a wide, open mesh. Her belly and hips were draped in loops of the fine string. Her breasts were bare—Goddess, her breasts—the golden rope encircling their fullness. Low on her hips, a skirt of airy layers floated on the currents of her power.
She was motion and stillness at the same time.
A black blindfold wrapped around her eyes. If anyone had been cognitiv
e enough to think and reason, they might have compared her to Justice. Only instead of judging and weighing guilt, Mara invited their guilt, beckoned their imperfect hearts, and filled their souls with the call of her energy.
Her power surrounded him with its luscious touch. The energy that had engulfed their dungeon cell was nothing compared to this. This was indescribable.
He wouldn’t have been surprised if Luck suddenly appeared, standing next to her, for this power was no gift from the Goddess. No, this was the Goddess’s competition.
The drum stopped suddenly, only to start again exactly in time with the lift of her hips, up and down, side to side. The hard, rhythmic move flowed into tight, graceful circles of her hips and he wanted to rein them in and hold her tight. He could feel the softness of her skin under his touch already.
She lifted her hands, circling them as she reached in a graceful stretch. Her power had an edge to it, sharp and tight, and he savored the sting of its cut as her dance lured him in. Desire pulsed, an offering to her audience….
An offering to him.
Gregor wanted to steal her away. What kind of man let the woman he wanted in his bed dance half-naked in front of other men? But to take her from this would be a sacrilege. He guessed that everyone in the audience felt the same. It was the only explanation for why they stayed in their seats. To interrupt her, to touch her, would violate the purity of her power.
She stepped side-to-side, shimmying and quivering, her simple skirt parting as if it was spelled to offer glimpses of her innermost secrets.
This dance was about temptation. It was about the primordial power that somehow lived within her, and it offered to alter his reality, to close a rift he hadn’t known existed. With every circle of her hips, she rode the energy and invited his to join in.
He leaned forward, bumping his empty shot glass. It rolled down the bar. A moment passed before he thought to grab it. The bartender beat him to it.
She leaned in. “This is who Mara is. This is her power unleashed. Can you handle it, motorcycle man? If not, leave. And don’t come back.”
19
Mara’s room measured fourteen steps from the wall to the dresser, and ten steps from the door to the edge of the poster bed. As she paced, her mage power puffed around her in a dense, tangled mess, exposed and vibrating with a need that left her feeling like a tigress in a cage.
She turned and paced toward the bed with its red satin sheets. It took a moment for her vibes to flow with her. Like a train of silk, her power spread out behind her.
She took a breath. Deep and full. Eyes closed. She was wound up…or rather wound out. Every joule floated around her, refusing to be tamed. The soft glow of her eyes refused to quit as well. She kept her face turned away from the mirror. She didn’t want the reminder.
As Fancy had commanded, she’d given her audience everything inside her. She’d given in to the wicked temptation to let her power spin wild and free. Her body had warmed with every mage her power brushed against, ensnaring their energy just as surely as they were ensnared within hers.
The Wild West had never seen anything like her.
She took another breath and drifted her hands over the silk of her robe. It had been waiting for her, draped over the bed. Her nipples hardened, and her belly twitched as she dropped her touch lower.
Her power wanted an outlet, a companion…a victim, someone to wrap in its tangles and hold on to. By the stars, she had to wind this back in. She had to meet Gregor out front in fifteen minutes.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Wrong room!” No customers. That was part of the deal. “Go away!”
“Mara.”
She halted her pacing with a hard inhale. Gregor.
His hard body. His broad shoulders.
The trim cut of his belly beneath her hands. The strength of his vibes, the security they promised.
Need quivered through her.
“I was supposed to meet you outside,” she called. Her voice faltered as the implications of his presence washed over her. Dread followed in a hot wave.
Rosemary had promised she wouldn’t let him in. She put her fingers to her lips. “Tell me you didn’t see me,” she whispered to herself.
“I can’t tell you that, firefly.”
She dropped her head to her hands. What had she done? “Go away, Gregor. You have to go away.” She clutched her robe tight. He’d seen her naked…or as good as naked. “I’ve spellbound you. That’s what my dance does. For your own sake, leave.”
His scoff carried through the door. “There’s no such thing as spellbound.” He paused for a moment. “I’ve never seen anything as sexy and utterly lovely as you were on that stage. I wanted to toss my shirt over you and hustle you away, but another part of me was captivated.” He sighed, and her vibes scattered like they could feel his breath. They were light and soft against her skin, the total opposite of shame’s weight that sat against her.
“Right. That’s because you were spellbound.” She shook her head even though he couldn’t see it. “Didn’t you see what my power did to those men? It coated them in desire. Like some kind of mind trick or contamination. That’s why you’re here. My dance pulled you in and now it won’t let you go.” That’s what her wayward power did fully unleashed. The knowledge of what she’d done to him slammed down. “Go away.”
The door rattled as if he leaned against it. “If I were spellbound, I’d obey your order and leave. I’m still here. We need to talk about your misperceptions regarding your power. But first, why is the key to your room on top of your door frame?”
She squinted.
Surely not….
The scrape of a key in a lock clicked through the door. The knob twisted. The door opened and his broad frame took up the doorway. “That’s not very safe,” he said. The look in his eyes nearly brought her to her knees—need, wanton desire. It pulsed from him.
She swallowed hard. She had to clear her throat before she could speak. “I’m sure the key was an oversight.”
He slipped the key from the lock, stepped inside, and closed the door. A soft, low hum emanated from his lips and his vibes spread out over the door.
“You can’t cast that lock spell. Fancy doesn’t allow spells on this side of the house.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Someone left a key up there so they could get in. The lock spell stays. No one’s going to notice my vibes unless they try to open the door. Besides, it’s all mages, all night. No Nons permitted because you put on a show that could have knocked every man in the city to his knees.” He stepped forward and stroked a finger along her jawline.
His touch was a flame. Heat spread through her. But if her dance had pulled him here, what would her touch do to him?
She backed away, her legs bumping against the bed, her hand trailing over the silk sheets. Their cool touch would delight her hot skin. A little voice whispered in her head that he would feel even better.
He stepped closer, trapping her between his body and the bed, a soft cage she could break free from.
If she wanted to.
Stars above, she shouldn’t do this to him.
“Where did you get such mixed-up ideas about your power?” He tucked her hair behind her left ear. It was so familiar, so comforting. So loving.
She froze, the hot flames of need still burning, suddenly afraid that if she picked up a foot she’d step closer, not farther away. “It’s not mixed-up. It’s true.”
Instead, he was the one who backed off. The moment his touch left, her nerves flickered against her skin as if reaching for him.
He leaned his arm high against the column of the poster bed. “All right then, who told you this truth?”
Those memories were a dark shadow woven through her soul with threads that cut if she pulled too hard. But it calmed her body’s cravings enough for her to slide away, to put her beyond arm’s reach.
He tilted his head and pressed his lips in a tight smile. Not a happy one, a worried one.<
br />
She averted her gaze, staring at the open vee of his buttoned-down shirt. It was nicely pressed, his jeans too, as if he were a cowboy who’d come a’courting in his finest. “Did you wear that for me?”
“I did. I’m looking to impress.”
She gazed at his neck, the line of his jaw, wanting to trace her fingers over the same path. Everything her body called out for was right here waiting.
“Who, Mara? Who told you that you capture people’s minds with your vibes?” He didn’t seem as distracted as she was. “Some wayward-hater?”
“Why does it matter?”
“I want to know you.” The words were gruff, demanding.
She swayed on her feet, battling desire and the past. It was too hard to fight them both. “The headmaster at the school I went to.” She’d never talked about it with anyone. “He told me more than once. I danced there on my first day of school.” She swallowed hard. “It wasn’t anything like this dance, of course,” she rushed to tell him. “I was very young. It was just a silly little girl’s dance. It was both the autumnal equinox and the headmaster’s mageday. There was a celebration, and I joined in. After, I was forced to vow never to do that again because it was detrimental to the goodness of those around me. I tainted them.”
He didn’t even need to say anything. The upset at her breaking a vow trickled down his face.
“Vows are just words to me, Gregor. I didn’t believe then, and I don’t believe now. That’s who I am.”
He frowned. “I don’t care about the vow.” He leaned forward, wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled. Gently. She didn’t need much encouragement.
The heat of his body wafted through her robe. She imagined undoing his buttons one by one.
“Your headmaster lied to you. I am not spellbound. No one was. You had a captive audience tonight but only because they chose not to look away. Nothing more than that. But if you thought that, why did you dance tonight?”
She dropped her gaze, but even the dread at telling him couldn’t cool her ardor. She fought to keep her hips still, to keep from pressing against him. She squeezed her core, trying to burn off the need. “Fancy insisted. I had to dance if I wanted a room. I didn’t know that would be the deal when I left you.”