by Sadie Moss
I lifted off my shirt and bra, tossing them aside, then pressed on his chest gently, urging him to lie back. I wasn’t sure a man as rigidly controlled as Malcolm would yield his power to me, but he moved willingly, his gaze never releasing mine as he sank back onto the ground, leaving me straddling his waist.
Crawling down his body, I tugged off his boots and got rid of his pants, staring with open awe at the thick, powerful muscles of his calves and thighs. They bunched and flexed under my touch as I ran my hands up his legs, crawling back up toward where his cock, now fully hard again, stood proud and erect. I held onto his hips and ran my tongue up the length of his shaft, relishing the muted groan that rose from his lips, the smell of his arousal mixed with mine, the flex of his hips as his cock sought my mouth.
I obliged, taking the thick head between my lips and swirling my tongue around it before bobbing my head and hollowing my cheeks, sucking hard.
Malcolm jerked and grunted again, then a chuckle fell from his lips. The sound was warm and happy.
“You really are a wildcat.”
With one more lick of his soft, velvety flesh, I released him with a satisfied smile. “Your wildcat?”
“Always, Willow. Now and forever.”
His eyes were still soft, but his words held a gravity that almost knocked the playful smile off my face. Vampires understood the meaning of “forever” in a way humans simply couldn’t, and Malcolm’s use of that word, knowing full-well what it meant, made powerful emotions swell in my chest.
Suddenly, I was done teasing him. There was still so much more of his body left to explore, but I was done teasing myself too. That need to connect with him, to try to become one with him, to join with him in the most primal way, was rising inside me again. I crawled up his body quickly, straddling him and kissing him hard.
His large hands found my ass, squeezing and massaging the flesh before guiding me down onto his cock. He thrust upward as I sank down, and we both sighed in relief as he filled me. I broke our kiss, sitting up and resting my hands on his chest, using the leverage to work myself up and down his length.
It was less rushed, less frenzied this time, but no less intense. If our first time had been the breaking of a barrier, this was the sealing of a promise. Though we couldn’t kiss from this position, our eyes consumed each other, taking in every detail the dim light would allow.
His hands held onto my hips, but he let me control the pace, watching me with such fierce pride and love that it set my body on fire. When his thumb slid over to circle my clit, I rode him harder, biting my lip against the flood of feelings cascading through me.
Malcolm raised his other hand to cup my cheek, and I grabbed onto his wrist, turning my head to draw his thumb into my mouth, grazing my teeth over it.
“Bite me, wildcat,” he grunted, his voice thick. His abs contracted as he thrust up into me.
My eyes widened in surprise, and my tempo stuttered for a second as I glanced down at him. He traced his thumb over my lips, the other still working my clit, and I shivered under his touch.
“Do it. When you come, drink from me.”
Just hearing him say those words nearly undid me, and a few more strokes brought me over the edge. When the first wave of sweet ecstasy washed through my body, I grabbed his arm with both hands, sinking my teeth into his wrist.
His cock thickened and jerked inside me, and he let out a harsh cry. Warm, rich blood filled my mouth as his come flooded my womb. I swallowed, drinking deeply as my entire body shuddered with release.
The essence of Malcolm overwhelmed my senses. His taste, his sounds, the feel of him, the sight of his face as he let go completely—it triggered a second orgasm on the heels of the first, drawing out my pleasure until I felt like it would never end.
I was still clinging to his arm, I realized, as the last aftershocks quaked through my body. My grip on him was all that was holding me up.
Slowly, I withdrew my mouth from his wrist, lapping at the blood that seeped from the small wounds until they closed completely. My entire body felt weak and boneless, sated and exhausted.
Malcolm drew me down to him, wrapping his arms around me.
“Holy shit,” I whispered breathlessly.
“I’d say so.” He chuckled.
“That was… I can’t even… that was…”
The world was still spinning. My body was numb.
“Willow?” Malcolm lifted his head, looking down at me in concern. “Are you—?”
But before he could finish his question, blackness took me.
The familiar heaviness weighted down my soul, and my consciousness fell from my body. I spiraled through nothingness, trying to control my panic.
At least I knew what this was by now, but my Sight’s habit of throwing me into visions at inopportune times was getting a little frustrating.
Warn a girl first, huh?
The world slowly began to coalesce around me, and for a brief moment, I thought I was back in the cave with Malcolm. But no. This was a room. It was dimly lit, just like the cave I’d been in, and the walls were roughly hewn from stone.
I spun, trying to piece together where I was, and horror fell over me at the sight that met my gaze.
Two figures slumped against the wall opposite me, bound several feet away from each other by thick chains.
Neoma and Samira.
At least, I was fairly certain it was the two white witches. It was hard to tell. Their beautiful blonde hair had fallen out of the elaborate updos they’d worn; now it hung in stringy, blood-matted clumps over their faces as they leaned against the wall. They were both covered in blood and dirt, their robes stained so completely that not a hint of white remained.
As I watched, one of them—Samira, maybe?—jerked away from the wall, lunging toward her sister. The heavy chains binding Samira yanked at her wrists before she could reach the other woman, and she fell back against the wall, snarling and snapping. Samira’s long fangs slashed at her own skin, and she sucked greedily at the blood that spilled, seeming barely aware that it was her own.
Neoma was nearly catatonic, but her flesh bore similar marks. Were they trying to feed from themselves? How could that possibly work?
A door creaked behind me, and I shifted my focus just in time to see the lanky, brown-haired vampire who had attacked them enter the room. He tilted his head, watching Samira lap at her wounds like a wild animal.
He clucked his tongue. “Bad girl. You know that’s not good for you. If you want fresh blood, all you have to do is ask.”
The two women looked up at him, moving in unison like they so often did. Then, without a word, they both lunged toward him.
“Nicely,” the man commanded, the single word snapping out like a whip.
And it might as well have been. The sisters froze, almost at the ends of their tethers. Then they both bowed their heads, seeming to shrink into themselves. Docilely, they retreated to the wall, shuffling backward before dropping to their knees.
“Please,” they whispered, their voices combining as one.
The man grinned, his full lips spreading wide. He had high cheekbones and a strong jawline, and he would’ve been handsome if not for the sick gleam in his eyes.
“Very, very good, pets. I knew you’d learn.” He chuckled to himself. “Got to start training them young if you want it to stick.”
He retreated from the room for a moment, and when he returned, he shoved a scrawny, middle-aged man through the door ahead of him. The man took one look at the women and shrieked, trying to turn tail and run. But the vampire caught him and shoved him hard, sending him sprawling to the ground right in front of the two sisters.
Bloodlust ignited in their eyes, and they pounced on the man.
Sickened, I shifted my attention back to the vampire by the door. Slurping, snapping sounds and a high-pitched scream filled the room. The scream cut off abruptly, and the vampire smiled.
The scene dissolved, and relief flooded me. I didn’t want
to see more. If I’d had a physical body, I would’ve cried or thrown up—or maybe both.
But when the world took shape around me again, I was still in this dungeon room. Time had passed, I guessed. The vampire women were no longer chained to the wall. The robes they still wore were little more than tatters now. Blood splatters stained the walls. The two women lay together on the floor, curled up together as if trying to lend each other strength even in sleep.
The door opened, and they jerked awake. The vampire who had turned them walked in. He gestured to Samira, and she stood slowly, following him out the door.
Then images began to flow by in quick succession, so fast it was difficult to register them. But as they flickered past me, they painted a picture of the events that had transpired.
The vampire was keeping the sisters prisoner. As I watched, he fitted them both with collars that seemed to restrict their movements—although it hardly seemed necessary considering how well he had “trained” them. They fed only when he allowed it, and he often withheld blood for weeks at a time, driving them mad with hunger.
Once he was certain they would no longer fight him, he dressed them up in lavish dresses and allowed them to dine with him upstairs in his opulent dwelling. He danced with them, kissed them, and used them like lovers, not seeming to care that they just lay there, catatonic. And every morning, he returned them to the dungeon, where they curled up around each other.
When a familiar pull on my consciousness dragged me away from the scene, relief flooded me. I wanted to go back to Malcolm, away from the horror my Sight was forcing me to witness.
Was that man the one who was truly behind all of this? Was he forcing the sisters to resurrect fae? Who was he?
Bright light flared in my vision, and for a brief moment, a new scene appeared before me.
The weird sisters, looking just as they did now, knelt on the floor in a massive, dimly lit room. Torches burned on the walls, and a large pentagram was etched onto the dark stone floor. They held a small statue between them. Gently, almost lovingly, they set it down on one point of the pentagram.
The roughly sculpted stone bore the shape of a naked man, crouched low, with a lion’s head. One another point of the pentagram, a small statue of a child with a bird’s head sat. And on a third point was the statue the sisters had stolen from the Penumbra—the pregnant woman with the pig’s head.
Only two points remained empty.
“Soon,” one of the witches whispered. “All the murdered fae resurrected.”
Her sister sighed. “Soon. An army of the undead.”
Then, like mirror images, they reached up to press their palms together, their voices uniting into one.
“Soon.”
9
Willow
I jerked awake, pushing at the hard wall I was pressed against.
No, wait.
Not a wall.
Malcolm’s chest.
I lay cradled in his arms, his thick bicep supporting my head, and my face nestled against his shoulder. I inhaled the musky scent of leather that always seemed to cling to Malcolm, my pounding heart beginning to slow.
“Willow. Are you all right?”
He helped me sit up, but I made no move to get off his lap. I felt foggy and disoriented, and my mind was still reeling from what I’d seen in the vision. After witnessing that horror, I wasn’t ready to leave the warmth and comfort of Malcolm’s embrace just yet.
“Yeah. I had a vision of the weird sisters. Neoma and Samira.” I glanced down at myself, relieved to see that Malcolm had dressed me while I slept. “Thanks for putting my clothes back on. I didn’t mean to slip away right after…”
I trailed off as I flushed, suddenly embarrassed. My Sight had truly awful timing.
Malcolm lifted my chin with two fingers, ducking his head to claim a sweet kiss. “You have nothing to apologize for, wildcat. You can’t control it. Besides, we know you tend to slip into visions after intense experiences. And that was certainly intense.”
I bit my lip, an echo of pleasure rippling through my body as I remembered. “Yeah, it was. Good though, right?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask me that.”
Warmth flooded me. I loved this more playful side of Malcolm. It was a side I felt certain very few people saw, and my heart swelled with pride that he trusted me enough to let me in like this.
“What did you see in your vision?” Malcolm asked, and the warm feeling in my stomach froze to a block of ice.
I caught him up on what I’d seen in my previous vision of the sisters, the one that had ended with me inside his head somehow. I downplayed the strength of the connection I’d felt to him when I slipped into his mind, but his eyes widened with surprise anyway. Then I continued on, picking up the sisters’ story where my new vision had begun.
“Whoever this vampire is that turned them, he’s a psychopath. He makes your father look like a fucking saint,” I finished, shuddering at the memory of how the vampire had abused the two women.
“What did he look like?” Malcolm asked.
“Tall and lanky. Not as big as you or your brothers, but still very powerful. He had brown hair, about shoulder length, and sharp features. His eyes were green, intelligent, but somehow dead-looking. Sound familiar?”
He shook his head. “Not particularly. If I could see him myself, maybe I’d recognize him. But there’s a good chance I wouldn’t. There are thousands of vampires worldwide; he could be from anywhere.”
“Yeah. Wherever my vision took me, it didn’t look like the States. And it didn’t look modern. I don’t know when or where it was though.”
The fog was nearly cleared from my brain. At least the after-effects of the visions faded more quickly now that I was mastering my powers. Reluctantly, I crawled out of Malcolm’s lap. I needed to focus, and that was difficult to do with his hard, warm body surrounding me, his scent filling my nostrils. He let me go, but I could feel his reluctance mirroring my own.
“Do you think that man has something to do with this?” I asked.
Malcolm looked thoughtful. “It’s possible. We’ll try to find out more about him, but in the meantime, our main priority has to be stopping the sisters from acquiring the last two Stones of Power. Their plan to raise an army of undead fae presents the most immediate threat, and once we deal with that, we can worry about this mystery vampire.”
“Agreed.” I pulled my knees up to my chest. “We need to start tracking down the stones. Jerrett, Sol, and I haven’t made much headway on it. We were busy looking for you.”
Malcolm grimaced. “I know. It’s nearly dusk. We can leave soon.”
My eyes shot to the mouth of the cave where a dim, purplish light filtered in. “Was I out all day?”
Crap. I’d missed out on a whole day alone with Malcolm. This vision had been longer and more intense than others I’d had in the past, but I was still shocked it’d kept me unconscious for that long.
He seemed to know exactly what I was thinking when he wrapped his large hand around the back of my neck, pulling me toward him to kiss me again. “We will have other days, wildcat. Many of them.”
Wicked tingles raced down my spine at the promise in his voice. And it wasn’t just the prospect of a day—or several—spent naked in his arms. I wanted all the non-sex stuff too. I wanted to know every facet of this complicated, tortured, kind-hearted man.
I kissed him back, slipping my tongue into his mouth to get my fix of his taste, and sighed when he pulled back to help me to my feet.
Bending over, I brushed off my clothes, which were a little worse for the wear.
“Should we—?”
The words were barely out of my mouth when movement by the cave’s entrance caught my eye. Two figures barreled inside in a rush.
“God fucking damn it!” Jerrett cursed, shaking his limbs out as if they ached.
They probably did. The sun would be barely past the horizon by now, so he and Sol mus
t’ve run here through stinging rays of indirect sunlight.
Sol’s blind gaze turned unerringly toward me. He didn’t even slow his stride, plowing into me and wrapping his arms around me in a hard embrace.
His voice was rough as he whispered into my hair, “Thank Fate, you’re all right.”
Guilt slammed into me at the fear in his tone. Of course, he and Jerrett must’ve been worried sick. I could sense the strain in Jerrett when he tugged me from Sol’s arms, lifting my head to attack my mouth with a ferocious kiss.
“Thank fuck,” he muttered against my lips.
“I’m okay. I’m sorry.”
“I know, sweetheart.” Then his body stiffened, and he looked past me toward Malcolm. “Care to explain yourself, you son of a bitch?”
Malcolm’s spine stiffened, but remorse flickered in his eyes. “I didn’t want to endanger Willow. I wouldn’t be any help on our hunt if I couldn’t be trusted around her—”
“Yeah, fuck that.” Jerrett’s voice was sharp. “You need a day or two to get over your demons? Fine, take it. You’re scared of hurting Willow? I get it.” He released me and stalked toward Malcolm, his lips curling back in a snarl. “But disappearing into thin air like that? Dick move. We’re your brothers, you twat-waffle. You think we’re just going to leave you behind and continue the hunt without you?”
Malcolm opened his mouth to respond, but Jerrett leapt toward him, fists flying. The broad-shouldered vampire barely blocked the attack, dodging and lashing out with a strike of his own.
“Malcolm! Jerrett! No!”
I started toward them, but Sol wrapped his arms around me from behind, catching me around the waist.
“Let them be, Willow tree. They need to sort this out between themselves. They’ll be fine in a minute.”
He turned me around to face him. His light green eyes gazed down toward me, and although I knew he couldn’t see me, his thumbs and fingertips ran over the curves of my face, as if absorbing every part of me. It was a testament to the hypnotic power of his touch that I barely heard the sounds of crashes and growls that echoed through the cave behind me.