Fiendish Magic

by L. A. Sable

  “You wanted me to stop you from killing me and I did.” A different kind of heat settled between my thighs as he shifted, forcing my legs open even further to accommodate him. I felt trapped and exposed, but also strangely safe in the cocoon of his body. Which made no sense considering he had just been moments from tearing out my throat. “Time to get up now.”

  West didn’t bother to acknowledge my words. With one hand, he reached up and brushed a heavy hank of hair back from my face. I wanted to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. At least, that was what I assured myself as his head lowered toward my bared neck. I couldn’t get away if I wanted to.

  He didn’t bite me, which was what I’d been expecting. Instead, his nose snuffled against my neck as he deeply inhaled. His lips were soft against my skin with just slightest edge of sharp teeth. An awareness of the fact that he has me trapped settled over me, curling in spirals of heat in my belly.

  My arms came up, with every intention of shoving him away or scratching his eyes out, and instead my hands flattened at the back of his neck and pulled him closer, nails digging into him but not with enough force to break the skin.

  Unyielding lips caught mine in a searing kiss full of aggression and barely restrained passion. I desperately wanted to stay angry with him, keep his betrayal at the forefront of my mind. But that was impossible with his mouth on mine and his hands roaming the skin of my upper arms. We were like dried kindling and someone had just lit a match.

  My thighs fell further open as West shifted between them and my legs came up to wrap around his lower back. The hard length of him ground against my center and drew a small moan from deep in my throat.

  His kiss softened as I responded and I tasted the apology on his tongue. In a moment of startling clarity, his betrayal of me felt like more of a necessity than something he truly wanted to do. But that didn’t mean I would just be able to forgive him.

  Pain was a universal language, and I wanted to feel his, punishment for what he’d done to me. My teeth closed around the fullness of his lower lip, biting hard enough to taste the tang of his blood.

  West moaned, and the sound reverberated down my spine. His hands came up to grip my hips. I let out a gasp of surprise as he rolled our bodies so that I rose above him, legs spread wide to straddle his hips. It wouldn’t take much effort to shift away from him, I realized. But the thought of escape wasn’t enough to compel me as I stared down into his darkened eyes, pupils so large that it made the entire orb a penetrating shade of black.

  “You hate me,” I murmured against his lips. Electric sparks rose along my skin, tracking the stroke of his fingers. I felt like a powder keg, moments from exploding.

  He smiled against my lips as he kissed me. “Says who?”

  A thrill coursed through me despite my best effort to fight it. “You should probably stop kissing me.”

  “Never.” He shoved both hands into my hair that had gone frizzy from the humid heat and used his grip on my scalp to adjust the angle of my head. His lips captured mine again in a searing kiss that felt like a homecoming. Pressure built in my chest as he continued to touch me, making it feel like he crawled inside me and forced my heart to make room. “I had no choice about what happened with Darius, although I am sorry for it. You’ll understand more soon.”

  Part of me wanted to ask questions, but I didn’t want to shatter the fragile spell that had woven around us. I had been alone for so long that it had begun to feel like the inevitable state of things. Now, I basked in the undivided attention as his entire awareness seemed hyper focused on me. Even though I knew this wouldn’t go anywhere good.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening,” I whispered against his cheek, unsure if I was speaking to him or myself.

  “Something inevitable.” His smile was easier to hear than see in the growing darkness. Sure hands shifted to the waist of my dress, rucking up the fabric until a cold breeze blew across the over-sensitized flesh of my thighs. The uniform dresses had short skirts, allowing for easy access without tights or stockings. I’d spent the last years in jean and a leather jacket, or the booty shorts uniform at work, so I was only now appreciating the benefits of a short skirt. “Now, hold still.”

  His fingers found my sopping wet center like they were heat-seeking missiles. I couldn’t fight the moan that eased from my lips as he stroked with a feather light touch.

  “Oh, Goddess.”

  West smiled against my cheek. “You like that?”

  The question was clearly rhetorical as my hips shifted forward to increase the pressure of his hand, even as he countered by pulling back slightly, teasing me. “You are so mean.”

  “You have no idea, sweetheart.” Both his hands were between my legs, fingers from one pumping in and out of me, while the other played with the tiny ball of nerves at the top of my opening. “Now, open for me.”

  It was hard to remember that we used to be friends, or so I thought, and then became enemies. Now, we had morphed into something that didn’t have a name. And I wanted to think it through, but that was impossible as pleasure bloomed to overwhelm any other consideration. It had been way too long since any hands were between my legs, aside from my own. The part of my mind that needed to be touched, screamed at me not to say anything that might break this spell. We could go back to being enemies after I came.

  But West clearly had other ideas in mind. His fingers teased at my folds, pressing forward until I was on the very edge and then pulling back before I fell over it completion. My hips thrust forward on those teasing fingers as I begged him to finish it.

  “Tell me what you want,” West murmured, tone almost conversational. If it weren’t for the slightly out of breath character to his voice, I wouldn’t have known if he was affected by this at all. “This is your last chance.”

  “Fuck me,” I breathed, barely able to recognize my own voice as it had become so heavy with need. I had never wanted anything more in my life than him inside me at that moment. And I never begged, even when I thought death was just around the corner. But I couldn’t stop the word from falling from my lips as he pressed another finger inside me, stroking at my most sensitive place before pulling away. “Please.”

  With a practiced movement, West freed himself from where he had been trapped between our bodies. I got barely more than a glimpse of his oversized cock before he had lifted my hips so that my entrance was suspended over the tip of him.

  But when I tried to force my hips down onto him, West held me still with the strong grip of his hands as he stared up at me. “Last chance to tell me to stop.”

  My fingers moved to his chest, frantically stroking the skin. “I don’t want you to stop.”

  West plunged me down on him with enough force that it momentarily robbed me of breath. He filled me in a way that I had never been filled before, and it was almost too much to bear.

  “Fuck!”

  He had the nerve to laugh. “That’s definitely a word for it, although not the most polite.”

  “Don’t talk,” I breathed. Each inch took an excruciating amount of time as I settled over him until my pubic bone rested against his and he was completely inside me. It had been long enough that I couldn’t tell if the increased pressure was a result of disuse or if he was really just that big. I rested my hands on his chest as I sank down completely on to him, stretched in ways that didn’t seem possible. “I’m not listening.”

  West let me set the pace as I slowly rose above him and then sank back down. Lines of tension settled around his narrowed eyes as he pursed his lips and exhaled on a sharp breath. The restraint it took to just let me move on him was obvious. His hands shifted on my hips as he fought the urge to hold me still and thrust up into me like a frenzied animal.

  “Is the wolf your strongest form?” I asked, mostly to distract myself from the overwhelming pleasure. I felt moments from peaking and didn’t want it to be over so soon.

  “I spend the most time as a wolf.” West twisted his hips underneath h
im, striking my G-spot in a way that made me moan his name. “But it’s not my strongest form, no.”

  I wanted to ask him about his other forms, recognizing that this was the only situation in which he was likely to tell me anything truthful. But West had anticipated me. He gripped my hips and thrust up into me with a force and speed that no human would ever be capable of producing.

  He felt larger than seemed possible inside me, forcing my walls to stretch to accommodate him, just on the right side of painful. I had never felt more full in my entire life. And impossibly, with each thrust it seemed as if he grew even larger. It wasn’t just that his dick was hard, but that it swelled impossibly wide and created friction against every part of me.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked, voice reedy with a note of fear. He seemed big enough to tear me apart.

  “The knot.” A heavy hank of hair fell over his forehead as West gripped my hips hard enough to bruise. “It usually only happens with other shifters.”

  “What happens?”

  “Wait one minute and you’ll find out.”

  That did nothing to prepare me for what happened next. His flesh swelled to an impossible degree inside me. At the same time, his hand shoved between my thighs to play at my swollen clit. The teasing touch was gone, and he attacked my flesh with a single-minded intent.

  Heat rose between us, prickles of sweat gathering at the back of my neck. I wanted to strip off my skin and his so that there were no longer any barriers between us. The stroke of his swelling cock inside me combined with the deliberate shift of his fingers over my clit was more than I could bear. He grew so large inside of me that he was no longer able to thrust.

  I fell screaming into the strongest orgasm of my life, my flesh clamping down around him as I came.

  His body responded by swelling the knot even further until my inner channel gripped it like a fist, locking us together as we both catapulted over the edge. I collapsed against him even as his hips continued to rock under me. With each clamp of my inner walls, hot ropes of cum bathed my insides as I milked his knot. Judging from its size, it would take several more rounds before it drained dry and allowed us to separate.

  I knew that I should get up and walk away. This had already gone way too far. But the knot, or whatever he called it, kept us trapped together. We both groaned in a mix of pleasure and pain as I tried to pull back and was caught short as the turgid flesh stayed trapped inside me.

  In a brief moment of clarity, panic set in. I realized that I had just had sex with not just a shifter, but the acolyte of House Moon who might betray me again at any moment. What the hell was I thinking?

  Sensing my sudden emotional shift, West made a low rumble in his throat and the sound washed over me in a way that quieted my mind and set my nerves fluttering. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said that it almost sounded like a purr. My body responded by clenching harder around him until fluid leaked out from around our combined flesh to soak the forest floor.

  The problem started when his lips nuzzled against my neck, gently enough to be a kiss if not for the sharp edge of teeth. My only warning was the words he whispered against my skin. “You are mine.”

  Searing pain bowed my spine as his teeth clamped down on my neck with enough force to grind against the bone. I wanted to pull away, but he had me doubly trapped by both the knot and the merciless teeth digging into my skin.

  In the next moment, the pain faded almost as quickly as it had begun. Startling heat started at the site where his mouth clamped down on me and shifted to the rest of my body like I’d been dipped in too warm water. I floated in that haze for longer than I should have, realizing distantly that he floated there with me as if our minds had somehow become connected.

  “You are mine.”

  I heard the words again, even though his mouth had not moved from where it pressed against the skin of my throat. He had thought the words, not said them, and I had heard it.

  What the hell was happening?

  I wrenched myself away with an effort, gasping at the dual pain of pulling my neck away from his mouth and forcing our bodies to disconnect. Blood leaked from the wound on my neck and soaked the white collar of my dress, but I was barely aware of it. All I knew was that I had to get away before I lost my mind completely.

  West didn’t fight to keep me as I stumbled away and did not follow as I crashed through the forest in the general direction of the castle. All I knew was that I had to get away.

  Except his presence followed me, even as more distance separated us and I couldn’t even make him out in the darkness. His smell rose up around me, a mix of freshly turned earth, sage and honeysuckle. He was a mass of contradictions, both sweetness and darkness, the spark of life combined with the specter of death. He would have torn me apart if I hadn’t been able to stop him.

  I wasn’t just running from West, but also my own reaction to him. I wanted him inside of me, wanted to feel the press of his teeth in my skin hard enough to draw blood. And that terrified me.

  Running away was basically second nature for me now, it was the only thing I was still good at. Trees whipped around me as I drove forward, as quickly as my legs could carry me. A small part of me was disappointed that West hadn’t come chasing after me, but I recognized that it was for the best. Running was what I should have done before letting him fuck me. Running wasn’t the problem.

  Except I wasn’t expecting to crash right into the arms of Cynth Killoran.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jinx

  Cynth caught me in his arms by reflex, but quickly shoved me away from him with a disgusted look on his face. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

  I glanced behind me, but West was nowhere in sight. My hand reached up to shift the collar of my dress so that it covered the wound on my neck. Even though I hadn’t gotten a good look at it yet, something told me that West had done more than leave a hickey.

  “Taking a nice long walk through the forest, by myself. What the hell does it look like?” Bravado was pretty much all I had left at that point.

  “It looks like you’re alone and defenseless in a place you shouldn’t be.”

  A sense of foreboding settled over me as I stared into his eyes, the color of fresh grass in springtime. The green in them was impossibly bright, a shade that couldn’t exist in human eyes. “That sounds like a threat.”

  His dark smile revealed the barest flash of fang. “I could kill you where you stand.”

  “You could,” I agreed, even as my heart started beating faster. What happened with West had been a fluke, forcing him out of a shift before he could rip my throat out. And I wasn’t exactly looking for a repeat of what came after. There was no way for me to defend myself. “But then you’d have to explain to the headmaster why you violated our agreement. My blood debt has been paid.”

  “And what do I want of money?” A sneer touched his lips as he glared down at me. “Blood debt can only truly be repaid with blood.”

  A shiver of fear worked its way up my spine. “Well, I’m all done bleeding for today. So we’ll have to take a raincheck on our fight to the death. You can have whatever pieces that Valentine leaves behind.”

  It was the first time in a few days that I’d acknowledged what I was really doing here. No matter what the acolytes were capable of, it didn’t hold a candle to what Valentine might do to me. I’d run from him and he would want to see me punished for it.

  “Maybe I don’t want just a piece.”

  Overwhelming emotion had made me bold. I had just fucked one of my enemies in the middle of the forest and my neck ached from where he had torn into the skin. “Get in line, vamp. I hope you don’t mind sloppy seconds.”

  “Sloppy seconds, indeed.” Cynth stepped forward until barely a breath separated us and I fought the urge to back away. Showing weakness would only make him push harder. His nostrils flared as my scent filled the air and he glared down at me. “Where is the wolf? I can practically smell him on you.” />
  “West is around,” I told him pertly, wondering myself if he had gone running in the opposite direction once he realized what we’d done. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  Surprising me with the speed of the movement, Cynth gripped my chin and wrenched my head to the side so my neck was exposed to the meager light. “What is this?”

  I wanted to melt into a puddle and cease to exist. “Nothing. I had an accident.”

  “Those marks look like teeth.”

  I wrenched away because it was impossible not to react to the cool pressure of his hands on my face. I had literally just had sex with a shifter in the middle of the woods and let him take a chunk out of me as a parting gift. It made no sense that I was reacting to Cynth’s touch like a vamp groupie.

  But everybody knows witches are whores.

  And Cynth continued to watch me with a new intensity in his gaze and some dark emotion that I couldn’t read.

  “Did you let that shifter mark you?” he asked, sounding almost incredulous.

  I took a step away from him. Cynth continued to watch me like a bird of prey winging through the air who spotted a field mouse in the grass below. He completely blocked the path, and I had no way to get around him without making contact.

  “Whatever West did or didn’t do is none of your business,” I replied with a glare. I needed him to get back to just wanting to kill me because the inquiry in his gaze was more than I felt capable of dealing with. “Now, get out of my way.”

  But Cynth acted as if he didn’t hear me at all. “Do you have any idea what that means?”

  “What what means?”

  His glare lingered on the wound at my neck until I felt a different sort of heat rising in my skin. Something had shifted in the air between us. The animosity was still very much there, but now it was colored by something else.

  “Shifters aren’t like vampires, they don’t feed on blood.” His gaze finally flicked away from the barely covered mark and back to my face. He seemed genuinely annoyed. “They only mark their true mates. It’s a once in a lifetime thing. Why would he establish a claim with you?”