No Witch Way Out (Maeren Series Book 2)

by Mercedes Jade

  Elizabeth swallowed. The answers were right there if she ripped them from his mind.

  He was trusting her to wait for him to be ready to tell her.

  “Victoria wasn’t burned just once, although that was horrible, really horrible. She was tormented. My mother healed so many bites and scars,” Elizabeth said, not forgiving him yet.

  Had George really been trying to protect his sister—to protect Elizabeth? The severe burn Victoria suffered seemed too high a cost for that protection.

  It just didn’t make sense.

  George’s worldview was a dark nightmare.

  “Victoria spent years blood bonded to my family,” George said. “My mother wanted Victoria under her control. I thought it was for the prestige of determining who the sole fire princess would marry, but every year that she kept Victoria waiting without a suitor, I wondered more about her real purpose,” George said. “I knew my mother was summoning Victoria and I knew Victoria was afraid,” George admitted.

  “Why didn’t you do anything?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Do you really think everything is so easy?” George responded. He stroked his hand down from her neck to her half-unbuttoned pants. “I’m not a hero, some human equivalent of a knight in shining armour or a prince charming,” George told her, unbuttoning her pants the rest of the way, brisk and impersonal. “I’m the one tasked to do the dirty work, things that stain your hands and soul, and little one, I am good at my work,” George warned.

  She propped herself up on her elbows, most of her weight distributed where she sat on her bottom, her knees bent to keep George at a distance.

  He failed to get the hint and grabbed her pants on both sides at the waist and yanked, so they slid right off her ass and came down to her knees, then he tugged them off the rest of the way, tossing them to the side once stripped.

  Her white cotton drawers he left on, sitting back on his heels to examine her half dressed body, sprawled before him.

  She was a dirty, sweaty mess but he was eyeing her like his favourite dessert.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered, getting up to dig through their bag of supplies, packed from his cave.

  He pulled out a canteen and a thin shirt, the canteen filled from an icy stream deep in the cave earlier.

  When he returned and knelt by her feet, she expected him to dampen the shirt first, but he upended the freezing contents of the canteen on her left foot and lower leg.

  She yelped with surprise and tried to pull her leg back, but he grabbed it firmly and rubbed soap that he had hidden in the shirt along her shivering calf and foot.

  “You think washing the dragon is going to get Daemon’s attention?” she asked.

  He looked at her like she was an idiot, then resumed scrubbing.

  More hypothermia-inducing water was poured over her roughly scrubbed limb.

  Thankfully, George didn’t repeat it on her other side.

  He capped the canteen and placed the soapy shirt on top of it, wiping his hands on the dry side of the shirt. Her leg, he left hanging a few inches off the ground, still dripping wet and cold.

  She discreetly used a little air to keep it up.

  “I’ve mentioned you’re untutored in the ways of vampires and witches, right?” George asked.

  She nodded before she realized he wasn’t really looking for an answer.

  He grabbed her clean foot, wrapping his hand around at the natural arch, so his fingers were on top, her toes sticking out as he lifted her foot closer to his mouth.

  “Open your mind,” he demanded, sucking her baby toe into his mouth.

  She dropped her mental shield with a gasp, his mouth such a hot contrast after her impromptu wash.

  “Claim tattoos are traditionally placed on shoulders, so they are close to the neck. Any bite in the proximity will be felt by the vampire providing the claim. Yours is a little lower now.”

  George’s fangs scraped as he sucked another toe into his mouth, teasing the sensitive tips with his tongue.

  His free hand massaged its way up her calf, starting at the heel, and the thumb of his other hand rubbed circles into the ball of her foot.

  She moaned, it felt so damn good. Normally she was a bit ticklish, but this was an all-out pleasurable assault, velvety heat from his tongue wrapping around her captured toes and melding with the fire he fed into his hands, massaging her into submission.

  The things he could do with his mouth . . .

  “Tor said a claimed witch can let another vampire feed if she wants it without triggering the claim,” she whispered into his mind.

  Last time he’d primed her and bit, it hadn’t been enough to trigger the claim.

  George let go of her toes with a pop. He slid his hand from her mid-foot down to the heel, raising her foot higher, stretching her, as he flexed her hip and moved closer.

  His other hand had reached her knee, his fingers lightly dancing over the strong tendons to brush up against her inner thigh.

  His tongue stroked the inside of her foot’s arch, laving the curve as she curled her toes and moaned again.

  “I didn’t say it would trigger the claim, only that the vampire providing the claim would feel it.”

  “Tor didn’t mention that.”

  “Vampires don’t go around announcing it.”

  George’s hand snuck closer to play with the lace lining her drawers. His other hand moved from her heel to wrap firmly around her lower leg, just where her ankle and foot joined.

  He lifted her foot even higher, suspending it over his shoulder as he ducked his head to put his mouth on the other side of her calf.

  Hot air puffed against the dragon.

  “Why didn’t Daemon notice when you fed earlier?”

  George licked her right where the dragon’s tail twisted around her ankle. She felt it tug deep, pulling all the way to her chi.

  “Daemon felt it. I didn’t trigger the claim’s protection and he chose to ignore it. He knew that I was coming for you.”

  George’s tongue traced the dragon’s outline, serpentine twists that he slowly followed, tilting his head every so often to let her feel a scape of his fangs, and pausing to blow hot air against her rapidly heating skin.

  The fingers of his free hand were playing peekaboo with her drawers, inching higher, his thumb on the outside of them tracing over the thin cloth teasingly, not nearly enough pressure.

  “No way. Daemon wouldn’t ignore it. Being in the cave must have interfered with the claim, or maybe the Wastes really are too far.”

  George chuckled against her skin. His tongue had crossed over at the top of her calf and was hotly making its presence felt near the inside of her knee.

  He looked up as he licked, his head between her thighs, wicked eyes meeting hers as he thumbed between her legs, over her drawers.

  “Daemon’s rather busy, maybe he was in a meeting. He has a lot of those lately.”

  George’s rather bland observation was nearly drowned out by the strum of pleasure from his thumb. He did it again, his fingers finding their way under her drawers and brushing against her damp curls.

  She made a noise that held all her pent-up frustration, fear and raw desire as she let her head fall back and thrashed a little against the restrained position he held her in.

  George was in her head, knew how close he was to pushing her witchy libido over the edge.

  “Maybe we should try some other way of contacting Daemon if you don’t think this will work,” she plead, twisting under his touch.

  George nipped her inner thigh, ignoring that suggestion.

  She reached for his head to stop him, grabbing the ribbon tying his hair back and ripping it loose in her desperation.

  His hair fell to his shoulders in a dark cloud, the curled ends from being tight bound tickling her inner thighs as he met her panicked gaze.

  His fiery look showed a fully primed male that wasn’t going to be easily dissuaded from his course.

  “If your claim doesn’t hol
d true, I’m going to eat you all up, kerashemeria. Try thinking of Daemon, before it’s too late.”

  George thumbed her again to make his meaning clear, nibbling his way up her thigh. His free hand slipped out of her drawers to grab the cotton ties, tugging the simple bow she’d made loose.

  She closed her eyes and groaned, so primed that it would be painful to deny him.

  Thinking of Daemon holding her down, bent over the end of his bed, wasn’t helping her resist what George was doing to her.

  She tried to focus on the memory of the circle on the floor that she had glimpsed, and the scuff marks—

  “Well, hello, Elizabeth Norwood. I’ve been looking for you.”

  She popped her eyes open in disbelief.

  Phillip’s lion smile was a toothy, fully satisfied grin as he fluffed the pillow under his head and turned to look at her, in a seated sprawl with her legs still spread wide, on the bed beside him.

  She put a hand on his hot, naked chest beside her, to push away, rolling onto her knees and gasping with shocked dismay.

  The room was vaguely familiar, the foot of the bed and the posts—Daemon’s room in the castle.

  She had only seen it once, in his mind, when Daemon used the amplification circle to call his familiar through her.

  Oh no.

  She hadn’t called Daemon or woken the dragon.

  The magic had connected her to the amplification circle Daemon had used instead, as George had suggested, only Phillip was the one doing the summoning.

  She was caught in a trap.

  Prince Beast

  Phillip

  Elizabeth managed to shock him.

  Phillip preferred the surety of plans, knowing what would happen step by step, with exact results and predictability.

  He didn’t have the neurotic rigidity of William nor the same temper when his plans went awry.

  Surprises just left Phillip feeling flustered, and for a fire prince in line for the throne, it wasn’t done to get so hot under the collar.

  Elizabeth had come to Daemon’s bed already primed.

  Her thighs were parted with tender, reddened marks bitten and sucked in brilliant contrast to her pale skin.

  She gave breathy gasps and pants with her head thrown back and her eyes closed, as if she had been dragged from another’s bed.

  The uncontrolled little thrust of her pelvis towards a phantom lover’s mouth had left him aroused.

  Why was Elizabeth coming to his brother’s bed wearing the marks of another lover?

  He would accuse her of throwing his game off on purpose, but there was no way she could have predicted his trap.

  Unless Daemon had managed to find her even quicker than George and the search for the Norwoods had been a clever ploy to get more of their brothers away from the castle.

  Phillip could still recover enough of his plan to get what he needed from Elizabeth. It would require going on the attack while she was vulnerable.

  He swallowed back the distaste of taking advantage of a witch and cleared his throat to get her attention, then greeted her.

  “Elizabeth Norwood, I’ve been looking for you.”

  She figured out that something was wrong, slapping a hand on his chest and pushing up to a roll, so she was kneeling on the bed, facing him.

  He got his first look at her blue eyes, startled and so sweet and innocent-looking that he felt like an utter bastard.

  She squeezed those beautiful eyes closed tight as if she could deny she had seen him.

  No, he wasn’t Daemon.

  He sucked in a breath, having not even realized he had been holding his air, until those eyes of hers stopped looking at him.

  Plan. He had a plan.

  “Tell me, do you show up in most summoning circles looking like a succubus in the middle of a feed?”

  She opened her eyes, a bit darkened with remnants of lust. Her dazed look didn’t last long, her pupils narrowing to focus on Phillip, then dismissing him to send her searching gaze darting about the room.

  “I’m afraid that Daemon isn’t here,” Phillip said, interpreting her desperate look. “The circle has been modified as well, locked onto your soul the moment you crossed over.”

  Blue eyes returned to him, and this time, Elizabeth gave him the more thorough once over he deserved. The threat he represented to her was clearer.

  He hoped she didn’t know enough about magic to call his bluff. The circle needed reinforcement with specific glyphs that could only be drawn once her soul was present to truly bind her.

  Though, he would also be able to draw her corporeal form through the circle, too, if he completed the binding.

  She pinched herself and sharply exclaimed, “Ouch.”

  “What are you doing?” he asked, scowling at her.

  The witch was here to provide answers, and he had been prepared to persuade her, but torture would hardly be necessary and self hurt, inexplicable.

  He would rather be the one doing the biting and leaving his mark on her beautiful skin.

  “You’re a dream?” she asked, sounding confused. “I wasn’t sleeping.”

  Phillip grabbed her by the wrist and brought up the arm she had pinched, carefully avoiding the reddened skin with his grip.

  He placed a single, soft kiss to the spot. Her skin held the warmth of the circle magic.

  Perhaps persuasion wasn’t completely out of the plans.

  “Does this feel like a dream?” he asked.

  He could understand her mistake. The same circle could be used for dream tracing, something he hadn’t even known about until he had seen the circle etched in Daemon’s room and researched it.

  “I didn’t expect you,” she answered, looking flustered herself. It was slightly mollifying.

  Phillip had been expecting her, of course, after seeing Daemon’s circle.

  Who else could his brother have been trying to summon, except for the witch he chased with such singular attention during her short and rather dramatic visit to court?

  It had been simple enough to work out once Phillip cleared his head of guilt mixed grief enough to see what was right in front of him.

  Too bad, he hadn’t paid attention to his instincts about her earlier.

  She had escaped before Phillip had gotten more than a nibble.

  “You have turned out to be more than I expected, so I would say that makes us even,” he replied, playing word games with her.

  He was a charmer, easily employing a quick tongue to get what he wanted from most witches.

  She looked away from him, just over his shoulder but enough to not meet his gaze, hiding.

  He smiled to himself. They would see how long she could evade his questions. She may have surprised him but she hadn’t scuttled his plans yet.

  Phillip had already played out Elizabeth’s capture in his mind earlier, like a game of chess.

  She would be drawn to the circle when she tried to contact Daemon. Philip would take advantage of her unpreparedness when she found him instead, seducing or threatening the fiery witch until she confessed the dirty details of her regicidal plot with Daemon.

  Once she had given him what he needed, he would take care of her.

  He would have to imprison Elizabeth in the castle, but under watch in his personal harem, to keep her from rejoining her family or Daemon, excusing her actions as those of a misguided young witch.

  It was far preferable to the trial and punishment that William had been clamouring for ever since the poisoning.

  Daemon would come after her. Of this, Phillip had no doubt.

  Never in all of their years since the two of them had been of age and powerful enough to require their own feeders had Daemon been so obsessed with a witch. Phillip knew he had chosen his pawn wisely.

  Or maybe she wouldn’t confess.

  Elizabeth could be more innocent than she tasted.

  Daemon’s lightning had sparked in her blood the one time Phillip had partaken, but she seemed as startled as he ha
d been at the fire his kiss heated up.

  She had the softest lips he could ever remember kissing, parting so sweetly as he had caught her by surprise.

  He had taken dastardly advantage on the stairs to the library when she had been ruffled by the twins and dangerously distracted with trying to cover up the smoky evidence of their magical fight.

  If Phillip hadn’t stolen her lips, then another would have surely tried. She was ripe to be plucked.

  As a vampire with his pick of witches, he knew a succulent fruit when he saw one and Elizabeth was as tempting as the forbidden apple.

  Perhaps she had been fooled by Daemon like the rest of them.

  The questions Phillip had prepared for Elizabeth’s interrogation choked off as he realized with his grip on her forearm, turning hotter by the moment, that she was still fired up, but not to fight.

  “Why are you in Daemon’s room?” she asked, her tone frosty as she stiffened up.

  The chilly question was at odds with her heated body.

  He stared at the fresh bite on her neck, then lower.

  Her pebbled nipples tightened under a slightly damp shirt that looked borrowed, a finely knit cotton, but clearly, male in the tight cut that didn’t allow for her curves to be properly accommodated as she took a big breath.

  The mystery of where she had come from was deepening.

  He ignored her question, deciding it was time to take better control over the conversation.

  “You look ready to be served,” Phillip said.

  He reached up to snag the dangling strap of the chemise she was wearing under the partly unbuttoned shirt. She had revealed a good deal of her shoulder and a bit of her upper arm when she’d rolled, making the over-shirt hang askew on her body.

  Slowly, he tugged the strap back in place.

  She tensed and shut her eyes, fighting back a moan at the simple touch.

  It wouldn’t take more than a few strokes of his fire-heated hands along her skin, a kiss or two of her soft mouth, and he would have her begging to take his bite.