No Witch Way Out (Maeren Series Book 2)

by Mercedes Jade

  She had no idea if there were really two minutes left, having lost track of time, but he didn’t call her on it, likely just as unaware and distracted.

  “Sparks, what are you doing?” Geer whispered as a tavern came into view, full of raucous patrons.

  Was he . . . right now?

  Geer’s timing was the worst!

  Bite Me

  Elizabeth felt like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar before supper.

  She had to blink away the image Geer’s vision was projecting, so she could focus on George.

  She was thankful it wasn’t Daemon in her head, finding her in the treasonous act of screwing George over, but that was all for which she was grateful.

  This was not the dragon she’d intended to call with getting George to bite her!

  “Who is sparks? Do you have another male, other than my brother, in your fantasies?” George asked as she froze above him.

  Oh, crap. Just like when Daemon had been in her mind, at the same time as Geer, they could hear each other.

  How the hell did George access her mate bond?

  The simple answer to that, she wasn’t accepting.

  “Just a memory, sorry,” she apologized, trying to write Geer off as an errant thought. “Are you ready to feed?” she asked to distract George from questioning it further.

  Now, there was an even greater urgency to get George to bite her before Geer messed up her plan further.

  “Untie me. I’ll be gentle, so soft that your dragon will never feel me slipping under the claim,” George said, oblivious that her very real dragon, now growling in discontent—or jealousy—wasn’t okay with his plan.

  “Give me a minute,” she muttered, more for Geer’s benefit.

  She reached for George’s wrists and tugged at the loosely knotted leather she’d wrapped around them. He could have ripped it apart at any time, so there had been no point tying it tightly. Only his self-control had kept him bound.

  George didn’t grab her the moment he was loose. He didn’t toss her body under him and ravage her. If their minds weren’t still connected, she would have thought his desire had gone flat at the thought of her fantasies of other males.

  It was quite the opposite. He was so hot for her that she thought his touch was going to burn as he finally clasped her hips.

  She gasped, fighting memories of Daemon as George demanded again, “Undress!”

  “The shirt barely covers me up,” she protested. “My neck is plenty accessible.”

  She didn’t pretend that George would feed at her wrist.

  “I like this one, sparks. He’s built like a bull. Don’t mind sharing you with him, as long as I get to watch and hear him make you sweetly scream when—”

  George’s grip on her hips tightened painfully.

  “Who the fuck are you thinking about? It’s almost as if there’s someone else in your head, but it doesn’t feel like lightning,” George said with a possessive growl.

  She thought about denial, claiming she was crazy and this was just one of many voices in her head, or even trying to kiss George until he forgot all the other thoughts in his head in hers.

  No, Geer wasn’t going to be denied. She would have to fess up.

  “It’s my dumb dragon mate. Geer, meet George. Just so you know, I was only captured by George because your stupid dragon prince nearly knocked my brain out of my head. You guys have the worst timing and I would appreciate if you didn’t mess further with my priming right now and waste the feed,” she said, sighing as George looked around as if he could find Geer hiding in a corner somewhere.

  “He’s not here, not a threat,” she said, trying to get George’s attention back. “It’s a bond thing, kind of like telepathy.”

  “There is a dragon in your head,” George said, frowning at her.

  That was not a sexy look. Her plans were ruined!

  Geer laughed in her thoughts, and of course, George heard.

  “Oh, don’t let me stop you, George,” Geer said.

  Geer spoke through her to George, who looked more murderous by the second.

  They didn’t like each other, big surprise.

  “She needs a good fucking to quiet some of her sass. I would rather hear moans and gasps than her next plan to get herself killed,” Geer taunted.

  “I don’t have to work so hard at it if you send dragons out to attack me,” she muttered, feeling strange straddling George, while arguing with Geer.

  Her body was still primed, despite the distraction. It was as if the magic refused to simmer down now that it had been brought to a boil.

  “That is exactly how priming works, sparks. You’re going to feed this vampire mate of yours or suffer the consequences for hours. And it’s not going to end how you want, either, little dragon,” Geer warned.

  Geer must have been making an oblique reference to her plans to have George’s feed provoke Daemon’s familiar into being released.

  It irked her to have Geer even hint it, risking her plan being revealed—until she realized Geer shouldn’t have been able to read her thoughts!

  Then, she got furious

  The mate bond wasn’t supposed to work that way!

  “I am not a dragon,” she said out loud.

  George gave her a sideways look. Yeah, she sounded crazy, but she wasn’t talking to him.

  Geer snorted a laugh. “No, you’re a purple hippopotamus.”

  “You slimy lizard. I thought you couldn’t read my mind? What else have you been hiding about this mate bond? Or, is even that made up?” Elizabeth asked, her temper snapping.

  “Stop talking to him,” George ordered, sounding sulky. “He’s not here, and I will slay any dragon that thinks to lay one claw on you, kerashemeria. There is no way you are truly bonded to a dragon. Mates aren’t real.”

  George’s hot gaze wasn’t all anger. He still looked at her lustfully, his fingers going to her shirt.

  Perhaps he, too, couldn’t shut off his body’s demands, now that he had a primed witch in his arms.

  “Do you still want to feed?” Elizabeth asked with hope.

  George nodded and, oh, so carefully, unbuttoned her shirt, ignoring Geer’s laughter.

  When he was done, he looked up at her face instead of her breasts, despite his thoughts of teasing her nipples as she had him.

  He wanted to take it even further, push her breasts together like plump pillows and bury his face in her scent and softness, rubbing his unshaven chin against her pale skin to blush it with friction.

  He barely had a shadow of growth, just enough to provide a subtle prick.

  She shrugged out of the shirt, turned on by his outward control as much as his wild thoughts.

  George probably would have folded her shirt after she shed it, if it hadn’t fallen off the narrow bed to the floor.

  She wanted so badly to play with his control.

  Geer whistled in her head. “Oh, sparks, he has absolutely no filter on his thoughts. How are your panties not already on fire? I hope you remembered to shave.”

  She had—not that it was any of Geer’s business—but she was wearing borrowed clothes. All of her nice lingerie was at home.

  She had some Victoria’s Secret push-up bras that would blow George’s mind, especially if she slathered cocoa-butter moisturizer all over and popped the front clasp to let him slide his big cock between her half-covered breasts as she squeezed them together with her hands and he fucked her tits, bouncing them with his thrusts—

  George’s growl reminded her his mind was still connected to hers, not only with Geer’s mind. It was all the warning she got before George grabbed her hips and flipped them, undeterred by the narrow bed.

  The breath was knocked out of her as she hit the thin mattress with her back. Nearly two-hundred pounds of aroused, hungry vampire surrounded her and her heart started racing.

  “Calm down, little one,” George whispered in her ear. “I’m still unwrapping the dragon you want me to drain and yo
u don’t want to disturb its slumber.”

  “Can’t you just do it now?” she asked.

  She was primed enough. She knew the next thing he’d strip from her was the pants and she really wasn’t ready to be completely naked again with him.

  He could read her mind if he wanted, so she didn’t have to explain herself, even if she’d rather keep her insecurities to herself.

  “Please, let him show us our pretty mate. I hope you don’t plan to feed me while you cross your legs modestly, sparks. I don’t know what these courtly vampires have taught you, but mates need the bond reinforced with more than a prissy nip of your wrist.”

  “Can he see us?” George asked, hesitating above her.

  “Not if I close my eyes,” Elizabeth said, doing that with a sigh.

  “I can see fine through your mate, sparks. It’s how I knew he was another of your mates, so easily.”

  She popped her eyes back open.

  “Dragon, stop lying to her. She belongs to Prince Daemon. His claim is on her shoulder,” George said.

  “The claim cannot override a mate bond. You’re as ignorant as she is about mates, though I’m not surprised, since anything to do with dragons has been smothered by the attempt to douse our fire,” Geer said with annoying arrogance.

  “Daemon doesn’t own me and I need you to feed, George. Ignore Geer. Trust me, he only nags more if you pay any attention to him.”

  She tried to lock her lightning around the two of them.

  It did nothing to stop Geer.

  “Well, I can’t read your thoughts if you use a lightning barrier, sparks. That bit of information is free, though if you are grateful, I would appreciate you opening your block from George’s mind. I want to remember the taste of your blood.”

  “Do not,” George said. “I want you to myself as long as possible, kerashemeria. No thoughts of Daemon or others,” he said, not even bothering with Geer’s name.

  “Yes,” she whispered, extending her neck for him.

  George anesthetized her skin, where he planned to bite, then licked his fangs to ensure they were also well-coated. He tweaked a nipple to distract her as he pierced her neck, doubly fooling her senses from his bite.

  She moaned, much to Geer’s delight.

  This was nothing like the first taste George had stolen or his second, fugitive nip of her lips. Priming made quite the difference.

  If they hadn’t been so rudely interrupted and delayed, she might have orgasmed as soon as George’s fangs entered her neck. As it was, she knew it wouldn’t take much to push her over the edge of his pleasurable bite.

  She focussed on how George’s body felt, running her hands over his muscled arms and shoulders, appreciating his blatant masculinity.

  Those human boys she’d fucked a few times in the past were nothing compared to George’s powerful body.

  It was even sexier how he held himself in control over her, taking the feed he had been promised, but not rocking the thick erection she knew he sported, to push between her thighs, asking for more than she was ready to offer.

  As soon as he brushed his fingertips against her ink, the demon she’d tried to avoid thinking of loomed large in her thoughts.

  Daemon wouldn’t have fed so nicely at her neck. He would have pushed all her buttons until she was begging him to feed, out of her mind with need.

  Just Daemon’s voice alone made her hot. His hands knew all her body’s secrets and his mouth had tasted her feelings. She had no defences against him.

  George tweaked her other nipple. She pulled back from her thoughts of Daemon, flushing guiltily.

  “So, you weren’t faking caring for a demon?” George asked.

  “Cared, as in past tense.”

  She shared the memory of seeing the heads of the dragons she’d helped render defenceless on pikes and her mother telling her that Daemon had lied to her from the first moment they met.

  “Do you think any vampire worth the salt in his blood would let an attack on his claimed witch stand?” George asked, surprising her with his unexpected defence of his brother.

  He shared the memory of a foot-long gouge that had been wickedly carved into Daemon’s chest, like something had tried to rip his heart out, the raw wound edges closing under George’s moderate healing magic, in slow agony.

  “Your defenceless dragons woke up the moment we stepped back through the portal. Daemon must have felt something through the claim because he tracked you to the portal’s cave and dealt with the threat to you.”

  Daemon hadn’t abandoned her. He’d gotten hurt to punish the dragons who had attacked her.

  It hadn’t been about a power trip, like her mother supposed.

  “Daemon might have gone a little crazy, smelling your blood and the remnants of strong magic from the fight. Once those dragons had tasted your lightning, did you think they wouldn’t track you down again? You would have been another kidnapped witch,” George told her.

  Elizabeth grateful that she had locked Geer out of their minds, so he couldn’t hear George’s angry thoughts.

  Geer had been with the dragons that attacked her, even if he had stayed outside until the end.

  In fact, George might have fought Geer off, from what the others had told her, when she had been unconscious and Geer had snuck in to rescue his dragon prince, stealing a taste of her blood and the mate bond he claimed they now shared.

  She kept the secret of it to herself, locking these thoughts even from George.

  “That is possibly the sweetest feed I’ve ever witnessed. Don’t tell me you’re going to simply sip from her neck. Our mate is primed,” Geer said, reminding her that she could lock him from her thoughts with lightning, but he was able to speak and hear them out loud through the bond.

  The problem was, she no longer felt the same urgency to feed George as she had earlier.

  The interruption earlier had consequences.

  Perhaps, too, her mind wasn’t as ready to accept George as her body. He had done little to earn her trust, still a clear and present threat.

  “Sparks, if he was such a threat, your claim would have fired,” Geer whispered. “He’s proven you trust him more than you think.”

  “I’ll earn that recognition on my own,” George growled along their bond.

  He pulled out of her neck, licking the wound he’d made with soft, sure strokes of his tongue. It was a much better experience than that sickened vampire that tore her wrist.

  He still kneeled over her, his body radiating heat while she felt cool, whether with shock or just the effects of a deep feed.

  “You are worth a kingdom, kerashemeria,” George said. “Daemon was right to protect you, and you shouldn’t misjudge him for it. Not over dragons with boundary issues.”

  That was definitely a dig aimed at Geer.

  Surprisingly, the dragon ignored it.

  “Daemon was protecting me?” she asked, not quite able to keep the doubt out of her voice, though she would rather not get into this topic with Geer listening.

  George snorted. The inelegant sound seemed out of character for him.

  “Yes. Tough as you look when you’re riled up, he was worried. He took on four dragons with his magic already half-burned out by getting the first heads the king requested, because it was you.”

  “They were traitors and outcasts, sparks. Don’t judge the rest of us by their behaviour. The enforcer was right to take their heads, as well he knows. Any dragon cast out is subject to Maerenian justice,” Geer said.

  “You both agree with Daemon killing dragons and staking their heads on pikes, like morbid garden scarecrows?” she asked, shocked.

  She gave George a look of disbelief.

  He had been the one to challenge his brother’s claim and now he agreed that Daemon had the right to protect her, that the violence was justified?

  He wasn’t going to use it as an excuse to turn her against Daemon, in favour of his own claim?

  “Stubborn little witch. You can’t e
ven keep your thoughts off of Daemon long enough to let me feed deeper to erase it. That claim is going to be your guard a little longer,” George said, gently scolding her.

  She didn’t need to look at herself to know he was right about the familiar, feeling the tingle of the magic on her skin.

  George had stroked the beast, but he’d kept his word and didn’t wake it while drawing some of its power.

  The tattoo had faded from her shoulder and arm, the head now peeking just above her hip and then the rest of the body wrapping down her thigh and leg to encircle her ankle with the tip of its scaly tail.

  “Why did you stop feeding?” she asked, sounding like a customer who realized she had been overcharged for services rendered.

  She dropped her lightning from around them, now he was done. It had been over relatively fast.

  “As much fun as it was to feed on a witch that is thinking of someone else, and while another person is watching and commenting, it is also completely useless, as the magic won’t stay primed for feeding if you’re focused on another vampire. I did the best I could with you pining for your lover.”

  I already told you—”

  “Yes, I heard you. You no longer care for him. Your mind must be in denial because your heart still belongs to Daemon. I can’t believe a lovesick witch is currently one of the biggest threats to the kingdom.”

  “Whatever,” she snapped.

  “How is she a threat?” Geer asked.

  “I poisoned the entire royal family, ran away with their only princess, and stole Daemon’s familiar, although I can’t really be blamed entirely for the last crime,” she bragged out loud.

  “What do you mean by stealing Daemon’s familiar?” George asked, not sounding amused by her taunts.

  Oh, crap. He would have figured it out the moment her plan had worked, anyway. The plan she had mostly forgotten about between George’s seductive feed and Geer’s teasing innuendo.

  She didn’t even want to think about what it would have been like with both of them really here, touching and feeding on her together.

  It had given her a new respect for Jill when she had fed more than one vampire prince at once.