Cuffed and Mated

by Penelope Wylde

  Time fast-forwarded with a blast of red light that sent him to his knees, all air knocked from his lungs. What the fucking hell was that?

  Ears ringing, he threw himself at the door. Wood cracked, gave beneath his weight like a soggy paper towel.

  Warm air rushed him while the frigid winter chased him from behind. “Aleaha.” Thick smoke clogged the whole room and his hearing couldn’t pick up a heartbeat.

  “Aleaha, baby, answer me!”

  Only silence greeted him and his blood pressure soared. Fear rose like an ugly beast. “Aleaha McKenna, I’ll toss everything is this place to find you! Answer me, woman. Let me know you’re okay.” A couple of shelves along the back wall had tipped over, the contents smashed and littered the floor between him, blocking the way to the back.

  He pulled on the power of the moon and gave his senses full rein. Open to everything around him, he had little defense against the invisible wave that crashed into him.

  Unsteady, he fell to one knee. Flashes of heat and cool tumbled up his spine on a continuous assault. Tingles rushed along his skin, over his arms and legs, then morphed into a heavy throb that wrapped around every fiber of his body. He snapped his head up, eyes narrowed to the source of all the thick, mushroomed fog billowing up behind the counter.

  Aleaha.

  With each beat of his heart, ice filled his veins. His wolf snarled and clawed to get out. Air, he needed air. His wolf pulled him deeper into the building.

  Find Aleaha.

  A voice in the back of his head played the message on a loop.

  Midnight black closed in on him and he stumbled forward.

  Find Aleaha.

  He gave a violent shake desperate to pull himself from the tar that clung to him.

  Cool hands clasped his face. “Oh, why did ya have to show up now, Sheriff?”

  A dark-haired dreamy vixen weaved in and out of focus, the deep emerald pools of her eyes the only thing anchoring him in place. “Had to save you,” he bit out between gulps of red magicked air.

  “You picked a fine time to play hero, wolf.”

  Chapter Four

  A knot formed in her throat from the sound of the sexy deep rumble, and Aleaha barely managed to work a gulp of air in to fight against the white dots blurring her vision.

  In. Out. In. Out.

  A groggy half groan, half growl made her bite at her lower lip with the way it stroked along her libido with an easy grace.

  This close, she could smell the same spicy, intoxicating scent that had hit her so hard from the vision. Only multiply it by ten.

  Damn crazy wolf. He’d scared the holy Hades out of her bursting through the door as if it was made of nothing more than limp noodles. One more thing she’d have to clean up, too.

  “I’m here, I’m here,” she assured him. Her spells never backfired. Goddesses divine, help her if she caused any harm to him. She’d never forgive herself.

  Silence settled over the room as thick as the smoke. “Rebel? You okay?” She waved a hand through the air in front of his face, but it didn’t help. Every wisp she managed to fan away rushed right back at them twofold. The stuff was hell-bent on suffocating her. Like a fog straight out of sci-fi movie where some damn alien monster would pop out of nowhere and snatch her up. She almost laughed. That option might be easier to deal with than her current situation.

  Particles danced around the edges of her eyesight. Another wave rushed over them only this time the effects of her spell dug its claws deeper.

  Aleaha let her hands slowly drop as she scooted back a couple of inches. A hexed werewolf even in human form was still a force to reckon with. By all accounts, Rebel didn’t look so good. Sweat dotted his forehead and the vein in the side of his neck pulsed. His normally deeply tanned skin now looked pale.

  She raked her free hand through her hair, which had slipped from her sloppy bun at some point and tried not to show the panic inching up her spine. Did that freak out shifters? The scent of fear? That and the power from so much potion bombarding them probably didn’t bode well for either of them in such a small space.

  She gave a faint smile when he flashed a glance her way and tightened her fist around the edges of her sweatshirt. She had two options, let him work through the lure of the energy and hope he didn’t shift or help him stay un-furry for as long as possible. Not that shifting would be a bad thing, but she’d never handled a hexed werewolf in full on fang mode.

  On bended knee, Rebel braced himself against one shelf while she waited, unsure what to do next, if anything.

  He raised his head and they locked gazes. Brilliant golden flecks pierced by rays of crimson stared back at her. Her heart did an erratic two-step. His eyes narrowed into thin slits that glowed with ethereal power.

  Wow. He had the most gorgeous set of eyes. She’d never seen them so red before. Hades, she’d never seen them anything other than deep brown, and never would again. She knew it, just like she knew she needed a closer look. Rebel this so out of control…goddesses divine!

  Captivated by the crimson shards of color in his eyes, she slowly ran a hand along the stubbled line of his jaw. “Beautiful,” she managed in a controlled, quiet voice and smiled at the dark-skinned man and his unruly hair.

  Mesmerizing more like it, but beautiful worked too. This close and the shafts of red in his eyes filled with angry storm clouds that swirled and shifted with uncontrollable emotions. Shifters were so mysterious and she’d never been this close to one on the verge of shifting. Her line of work brought in numerous races of otherworldlies, but she never worked with them in their other form. But something told her she was about to.

  A small voice in her head warned her to tread lightly with the beast, but she pushed it aside until the whispers were nothing more than background noise.

  “Touch me.” When in doubt shock the hell outta them, she always said. “Anywhere, really, it’s okay. Use my energy to calm your wolf.”

  A pleased sound rumbled from his chest and she sighed long and heavy as his gaze raked over her body in a hungry caress.

  It had been only a couple of nights since he last spread her thighs and took him with her body and she craved it again, only this time the fire in her gut called for more than a gentle fuck. She swallowed hard shocked by the raw need that invaded her body. His eyes lit on her and served as a burning hot jolt of electricity to her suddenly throbbing pussy. Wet heat slipped from her to dampen the small strip of cloth between her legs.

  Fire would be cold in comparison to what he sparked inside her. She stroked another light caress along his cheek that caused him to groan and his eyelids to slowly slide closed. Goddesses divine let this feeling be right.

  Muscles bunched beneath the weight of her other hand that rested on his shoulder. The leather of his gun harness creaked from his jerky movements as he reached for her. “Get back.” His words came out shaky and forceful.

  Instead of the gentle touch she expected, he pushed at her shoulder while he pulled back from her. Tension rolled off him and warred with the potion that still stubbornly clung to the air.

  A blue shield of energy crackled and hummed along the surface of her skin in warning to the danger. Tension wound tight, palpable. “Rebel, I want to feel your hands on me,” she reassured him, drawing her magic back in check as she eased closer. If she could just get him to follow her lead, she knew his wolf would calm.

  With a slight tilt of her head, she offered a small smile to help ease him. Breathing steadily, she moved in until not even a sliver of cold air could slip between them. Something told her that the power of the moon would overtake him soon and who knew where that would leave them.

  Seconds melted into what felt like long minutes.

  His chest heaved with every breath, but her words seemed to calm him. Good. She needed to keep him from shifting right here in her shop between the erotic sex lotions and wolfsbane.

  Rebel fell back to rest on his heels. “Aleaha, by God woman.” Muscle strained in his neck as h
e spoke. “You should have a healthier dose of fear.” He shook his head back and let out a growl that reached into her soul. “You need to go. We need to go. I’ll lock you up and there won’t be anything to fear.” As if on cue, another rumbled threat quaked along the floor, this time followed by what sounded like something heavy landing on the roof.

  He forced his words past clenched teeth. “Now Aleaha.”

  The way he uttered her name in such a rough bestial voice had her insides in a messy puddle and no way could her heart hold up against his piercing stare.

  She wanted to melt into his embrace. Everything about the man pulled her closer. And wasn’t that a surprise. She craved his touch, wanted to press every inch of her body against his in return, and in the same breath instinct froze her in place, driving fear into her veins, urging her to run the opposite direction. Fucking potion blurred her senses. Deep down she knew he would never hurt her, but his wolf?

  She had little experience with many of the otherworldlies. Summer days flew by while she helped her family manage the farm in Savannah. The long hot nights were for learning the art of her magical heritage by the knee of her mother and aunts.

  Winters were spent with her father’s sister here in Sleepy Briar learning the art of clairvoyance. She was a book nerd, not the kind of girl that went to parties and had wild kinky sex with über hot shifter guys, despite what her sisters thought. Rebel was her first in so many ways.

  “Lock me up? Fear?” She cocked a brow and looked into his eyes. “Why? And do you mean fear of you?” Her voice kicked up in surprise.

  “Yes and yes, fear of me, woman. You’re my one sin away from hell and I’m about to commit it and damn us both. And we have visitors that don’t exactly like to play nice.”

  That had to be a compliment. At least it sounded like one. Kinda.

  “Back up, are you sayin’…”

  “That I’m holding my wolf back from slamming into you, claiming you and making you forever mine. The only thing keeping me in check is the threat that just landed on your fucking roof.”

  Forever mine.

  Those words echoed through her thoughts.

  Her brows pinched. Goddesses divine, he might be delusional, but damn he made it look sexy and kinky jail sex sounded like a good idea too.

  Wait. “Why do you need to lock me up?”

  She cocked a brow. She did just enchant him with her hex gone wrong. But jail? That seemed extreme.

  Essentially, she’d served him a joint and now he was high on the job.

  Her look must appear comical because, despite the torturous expression on his face, Rebel smiled and made her heartbeat spike.

  “The way you scrunch up your nose when you’re thinking something over is fucking adorable.” Before she could reply, glass rattled and she braced her hand on the shelf to keep what little she could reach from falling to the floor.

  Keep from falling…

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, damn…” Aleaha pushed to her feet, stepped over the fallen debris and dived behind the counter. Ash covered most of the floor and left a huge smudge of soot up the length of her jeans as she skidded across the smooth flooring.

  “GRRRR… Damn. Damn. Damn!” Her heart lodged in her throat. She should have known. How could she have been so distracted?

  Dragon’s blood. Of course! That explained the quakes. Not only the spilled bottled blood version but the creatures it belonged to on her roof.

  Streams of moonlight broke through the clouds and poured in through the skylights to reflect off the crimson drops as they ran down the side of the marble and steadily dripped into her cauldron.

  Goddesses divine. Aleaha clamped a hand to her forehead and bit back a wild, colorful curse. She willed her stomach to settle, but the thought of everything that could possibly go wrong tonight that did, in fact, go horribly wrong made her feel sick. How the hell did the blood make its way into her potion at the exact same time she cast her spell?

  The floor trembled beneath her.

  The earthquake hadn’t been in her vision.

  She scooped up the tipped bottle and the clasp that failed to keep the contents locked in the vial. Right after her spell took hold, images of Rebel had flooded her psyche and then erratic pounding had rattled the entire place from the foundation up.

  Damn nosy, impatient dragon shifters. That’s how it had tipped over.

  Growls pulled her attention to the front of the shop followed by deeper, more guttural snarls from the entrance.

  Two days ago it came to the dragons’ attention someone in their inner circle had made off with several vials of dragon’s blood from their infirmary and came to call on her. Unfortunately, her charm and southern hospitality had nothing to do with it. They wanted her psychic abilities.

  The second she touched the hand of the dragon shifter whose blood had been stolen, Aleaha knew exactly where to look and a good idea of what they intended to do with it. Since her plan of stealing it back hadn’t been set in the fabric of the universe, she saw the black magic the warlocks intended it for, but didn’t know for sure if the plan would succeed. It made her ill. If not a little guilty by association alone. Which is why she agreed to help and swore under oath not to tell her Silver Circle about the breach in the Dragon’s security.

  Thirty-six hours after learning who had one of the five missing vials, she added breaking and entering to her rapidly growing rap sheet.

  Draegon warriors had a long memory and when double-crossed, blood would spill. The Witches and Weres war might be over, but the fragile treaty they held could crumble beneath them all with the right motivation. In all honesty, she wouldn’t put it past the Silver Circle to poke the sleeping dragons hard enough to cause another war all in the name of the witches taking more power for themselves.

  Careful not to draw too much attention to herself, she walked slowly around the counter and headed back to where she’d left Rebel—who seemed too damn quiet—tucked between the shelves of wolfsbane and sex potions. The goddesses must love this irony.

  One would free the beast, pun totally intended, and the second would lock him away and possibly kill him. Not so good.

  “Rebel, uh… I forgot to tell you somethin’, sugah.”

  Chapter Five

  “No “No kidding. We’ll get to your moonlighting activities later. Right now get behind me.” Rebel gave a smile that held a savage edge. His teeth gnashed together, his words gravelly and forced. He was already standing, and his chest heaved with labored breaths.

  She swallowed hard and her lips tightened into a thin line.

  His shoulders and back tensed and bulged against the force he obviously had to use over his wolf. For some reason, the man didn’t want to shift. She knew why she didn’t want him to, but why didn’t he want to? Did it have anything to do with her and what he had confessed?

  Gray silhouettes broke through the thinning magic-laced fog. Broad shoulders, thick waists and long legs slowly melted into two leather-clad men that soon stood before them. Their gazes, lit with an odd combination of violet and gold liquid fire that seemed to come from within, landed on her first then shifted to Rebel.

  She could see how women fell for their mesmerizing allure. Despite the menacing aura, they willed a force around them that demanded the attention of others.

  Something that had no hold over Rebel. “Get behind me.”

  Pulled from her rampant thoughts, she held out a palm to Rebel to stop him, though his stony gaze was locked on their visitors. With a wide hand to her shoulder, he moved her to stand safely behind him.

  Something clicked and had her pausing. Without a doubt, the man that had claimed her heart from her first day back in Sleepy Briar would do anything to see her safe. Did that mean he cared more for her than he let on? She didn’t dare hope… her heart willed it so anyway.

  Men—shifters or otherwise—had a hard time listening. Mix in the power of the moon to mess with their ability to think clearly, she’d have an easier time getting a
wall to see reason.

  “We’ve come fer what is ours, wolf. This has nothin’ to do with ye. Step aside.” Dragon number one’s command made her brows pinch. Scottish accent or not, sexy as it was, didn’t sway her irritation one bit.

  Oh, why did they have to say that? Her head dropped and she buried a cringe behind the heels of her palms.

  Her wolf shifter visibly bristled at the dragon’s words. “If it involves the witch it has everything to do with me, so fuck off, lizard boy.”

  Nice. That helped the situation.

  She stepped around Rebel, placed a hand on his chest, and nailed him with a look that said she wasn’t taking his alpha macho moves. To her left, the dragons stood shoulder to shoulder to form a wall of muscled meat that the wolf to her right probably couldn’t wait to sink his fangs into and tear out a chunk.

  “Nae. Last I checked one lone wolf and a witch didn’t make worthy opponents.”

  Oh, they didn’t just call her magic insignificant.

  She craned her head and threw them a sideways glance. Arrogant bastards.

  The first of the dragons took a step forward.

  She held the hand out that wasn’t silently asking her wolf to stand down and called on her inner bitch. Her body tightened and she let out a slow steady breath. Fire traveled along her arm into a flame that quickly kindled to life in her palm. Witch’s flame was the one thing that held dragons—and any other arrogant otherworldlies—in check when they thought they could throw their weight around.

  Her lips tilted up in challenge as both men recognized her intent. “One more step and we’ll put that to the test, boys.” It felt good to flex her powers.

  Rebel unfastened his harness and the weight of his gun thudded against the hardwood floor, which sounded like the proverbial shoe dropping in the silence that suddenly swept through hers. The second dragon dipped his head and let out a belly-deep roar that damn near shattered her eardrums. In a blink, everything moved in a blur.