by Rhea Watson
The sentiment made my chest ache.
Made my heart pound.
Made me feel light as air—
But as sweet as it was, it was equally dangerous. With my future so uncertain, perhaps it was best that she had chosen two men who could keep her happy and safe—who weren’t tainted by scandal. Which meant… that she ought to disconnect from me now, before the look in her eye, the liquid gold all soft and wanting, eventually hardened and we shattered beyond repair.
This was my battle.
No sense dragging her down with me.
But I couldn’t bring myself to say any of that. The Jack Clemonte of a pre-Alecto era had no qualms setting people straight, be they lovers or business associates. I had always been able to lay down the law, certain of every move I made on the great chessboard of life.
Here, with her, I floundered.
Always had.
“Thank you.” I owed her that much at least—for her ability to separate me from both her boss and her Dom, to acknowledge the man beneath it all. “I’ve… been better, I suppose.”
Father had already raked me over the coals after I told him everything—every last detail, the insignificant and the damning, Alecto included. He hadn’t warned me off her but insisted I tread lightly, trust my gut and my instincts regarding the witch ten years my junior, my professor, and a minor player in our community’s savage politics. Outsiders had been welcomed into the family before, of course, society novices and the like, but the wolves rarely accepted them at first glance; it wasn’t an easy road by any stretch.
Fortunately, as furious as Father was, he stood behind me, utterly and completely. Some mused that the Clemonte coven closed ranks for public appearances, but we had always been fiercely loyal to one another no matter the circumstances. Addicts dotted our family tree. Mental health issues galore. Public scandals and debt—we spanned the full gauntlet.
But we endured because we stuck together.
Still, I hated to disappoint him.
Hated to let all of them down, my face splashed across witch tabloids literally the day after my termination, shots of me limping off the train in London taken from the most unflattering angles, the editing sharpened to show the depths of my exhaustion.
The weight of age.
After all that, trudging back to the middle of nowhere, living in a tiny flat with questionable heating and greasy fried meals—it was a lot to take, even for a warlock who spent his life taking bollocks and effortlessly lobbing it back. I’d thought being close to the school would keep me focused and motivated, but with Alecto here now, I realized that deep down, I just wanted to be near her.
Feel her grounded presence.
Be with someone who saw me for me—not the masks I wore. Me.
“Would you like to play?” Alecto asked suddenly, head tipped and eyes mischievous as my brows crawled up my forehead. “You know… Just a little scene. Maybe take your mind off things.”
“Thank you, but no.” For the first time in my life, I turned a submissive down. Heartbreaking, really, when we’d had such little time together—when she was my perfect partner. Thankfully, she didn’t deflate at the rejection, merely nodded and sighed, but I still felt the need to clarify that it was most definitely me, not her. “I… don’t have the focus to take care of you right now.”
She scoffed. “Jack, you don’t have to—”
“That’s my job, little one.” I scrubbed at my face, eyes longing to close, body and mind desperate for just four, maybe five, hours of blissful, uninterrupted sleep. “When we play, it’s my responsibility to keep you safe—mind and body. I can’t guarantee that right now with, you know, everything. Distractions are when people get hurt.”
The little witch appraised me for a moment, expression unreadable, and then shuffled into the opposite corner, squishing in as much as she could. She brought her leg up and stretched it along the couch, the other hanging over the edge, and patted her thigh.
“Come here.”
“Excuse me?” Was that… an order?
“Come here, Sir,” she demanded, utterly fearless—and a little foolhardy—as she snapped and pointed at her thigh. “And let me take care of you.” Everything about her suddenly softened. “Let me keep you safe.”
“Alecto—”
Her hand shot up. “This is not a negotiation, Sir. Now.”
Once more she surprised me, kept me on my toes. I shook my head, incredulous grin sparking fire in her cheeks. “Bratty girl.”
She beckoned me over with a crooked finger and an unapologetic grin. I could have said no. Held my ground. Ordered her to come to me.
But my body made the decision long before my head had finished muddling through the possibilities, pros and cons list abandoned, implications be damned. Wordlessly, I crawled across the couch and very, very carefully rolled over to settle between her open thighs.
Not that the couch was wide enough to accommodate for that, and while I tried not to rest too much weight on her, worried I might crush her, Alecto took charge the second I was within reach. Clearing her throat, my submissive hooked her arms around me and hauled me—well, encouraged me—up her body so I could rest my head on her soft belly. Her hands worked up and down my arms, the pressure firm, instantly lulling me from wary old lion to purring tomcat.
“Close your eyes, Jack,” she whispered as she brushed her knuckles up my cheek and across my forehead. “I’ve got you.”
I fought surrender tooth and nail, stubbornly staring at the ceiling as she massaged from the top of my head down to my perpetually clenched jaw.
Darkness took me without warning. At some point, my lids just… closed.
And finally I could breathe.
In and out, deep and rejuvenating, every muscle relaxing under her touch. Not only did Alecto massage my face, but she worked those skilled fingers down my stiff neck, releasing knot after knot. My shoulders received a great deal of attention, too, and every time I tried to shift my massive frame off her much, much smaller one, she huffed, almost tsking at her Sir, and nudged me back into place.
Try as I might, I couldn’t deny it anymore: it felt so fucking good to have someone take care of me for once. I adored the caregiver role, the protector and mentor—but this was nice, too.
More than nice.
Life-changing.
Lifesaving, actually.
If only it could last forever.
If only the rest of the world didn’t exist, our problems a thing of the past.
A soft tap, tap, tap at the door eventually reminded me that wasn’t the case—that we were rarely so fortunate. Groaning, I hauled myself up and across the suite at the second more insistent knock, and sure enough, there was Bjorn Asulf on the other side of the peephole again.
“Sorry.” He flashed a knowing grin when I cracked the door open. “We’ve got to go…” I opened it farther, allowing him to take in Alecto on the couch, all rumpled and flattened. “Elskling, the curfew.”
She groaned, more dramatic and drawn-out than mine, and as I listened to her shuffling about and grabbing her things, Bjorn rolled his eyes.
“They’ve put a curfew on staff now, too,” he remarked, that subdued tone barely hiding his frustration. In fact, I’d rarely seen Bjorn upset before, but something dark and dangerous shimmered in his bright blues tonight. “If we’re not back by midnight, security won’t allow us through the ward.”
“Typical,” I muttered. It didn’t surprise me one bit that as soon as Iris seized power, she treated all the adults around her like incompetent children with a bedtime. Alecto materialized by my side a moment later, and the guilt-stricken part of me hissed that if I had treated her more like a child, perhaps she wouldn’t be here.
Perhaps she wouldn’t shoulder the risk of associating with me in these trying times.
“Can I come back?” she asked in a small, sleepy voice, hugging her coat to her chest, purse hanging off her shoulder. I tucked the strap up higher so that it wouldn’t sl
ip off.
“Please do.” For all the guilt, however, I couldn’t resist her. Maybe next time I would be stronger, braver, more willing to break her heart if it meant she lived a happier life in the end. Tonight, I stayed selfish, squeezing her hand when she grabbed my fingers on the way out. Bjorn and I nodded amicably over her head, and I leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, until they disappeared down the dark stairs and out into the noisy pub.
Back inside, door locked, alone again, I meandered to the couch and collapsed onto the unforgiving cushions.
Rolled over and buried my face where she had sat, her perfume and her natural scent mingling in the shoddy fabric. Maybe with that lingering, I’d get a good night’s sleep for once.
There I stayed, breathing her in, reliving the memories of her hands stroking away the stress, all the while slowly gearing up to return to work.
And one day reclaim my throne.
8
Alecto
I’d never seen so many stars in one place before.
Thousands of them, big and small, winking and static, stood guard over Bjorn and me as we left Caladh and headed home. Even in the dead of night, the gorgeous, sweeping landscape was well lit beneath a canopy of starlight, the moon half-full and shrouded in a white halo. Not a stitch of wind tonight to rustle the grasses, winter’s grip still clinging to the terrain here and there, and while cool enough that my breath fogged, it was a manageable chill, the type that made you feel alive—made you want to walk farther, run faster, laugh in the frosts and dance beneath the stars.
Or maybe it was Bjorn who made me feel like that.
Jack, too, his heavy caress lingering on my back, my hips, my arms, my face—even now.
It had taken the beautiful vampire in front of me a day to find our former headmaster—more like a night, really. Caladh nestled in a sprawling valley some thirty-five minutes from Root Rot and was known colloquially as the village. If you were up for the hike, you’d find a quaint Scottish town with a solid pub and a decently stocked corner store.
It made sense Jack would hunker down there, close enough to the castle that he could show up at any time—close enough to me, I’d like to think, but no solid proof of that beyond what I read as relief to have someone hold him tonight.
Someone he trusted.
Someone who didn’t care that he had lost nearly everything.
I mean, that was how I felt, anyway. As I picked along the rocky path, grassy stretches and soaring hills and tangled brambles in every direction, I did so with an oddly full feeling, tingly all over, like I was suddenly lighter after seeing him—freer. While I hadn’t meant to dump all my emotions on him, I couldn’t stop myself: finally face-to-face with Jack for the first time since Alice and the sirens, the levies broke. All the plans carefully mulled on the walk to Caladh, poof, vanished, and I unleashed all the guilt, grief, and sorrow I’d carried for the last two weeks.
It didn’t help that Bjorn and I had left Root Rot and its shimmering ward manned by smug warlocks immediately after the Sunday-night staff meeting. Listening to Iris talk made my ears bleed. Being in the same room as Benedict, even at opposite ends of the table with Bjorn and Gavriel seated like sentries beside me, made my heart rage.
Not exactly the best headspace for that first visit with Jack since disaster struck, but now, just for a little while, maybe only the length of the walk back to the castle, everything felt… okay, my world no longer upside down.
Like he had topped me up just by holding me, cupping my face, assuring me in his own way that everything would be all right.
Alice’s death had stayed with me since I found her floating in a fucking wedding dress.
Jack’s termination dragged behind like iron chains.
And Hammond—
But just for now, my mind was empty—free.
Free to revel in the stars, in all this rugged beauty.
And in the selfless vampire marching ahead.
Bjorn made his way along the overgrown trail easily, like he belonged out here and not indoors, not in the cage of a classroom or the confines of our flat. Licking my lips, I raked my gaze over his soaring figure, from muscular shoulders to firm thighs, every inch of him steel beneath that ordinary, unassuming outfit, his peacoat fluttering open as he strolled forward.
He had found Jack for me.
Try as he might to deny it—and he had, repeatedly, on the walk out here—he knew I missed him, the academy darker in his absence, and Bjorn had gone out of his way to track him down to… to make me happy.
Make me feel safe and secure knowing that a warlock I cared about, not just as my headmaster or my Dom, was safe.
The thought made my eyes prickle with unshed tears, my heart on the brink of bursting the longer I studied his magnificent frame, so tall and handsome. Even without a magical aura, his otherworldly presence hummed in the ether, whispering across my skin and settling between my thighs, a wild, barely restrained energy that made my pulse pound just a little harder.
What I wouldn’t give to see him dressed as he once did—wool tunic with a low-slung belt, fitted trousers and a sword in his hand, a shield slung across his back.
Hell, ditch the tunic and we could do shirtless Viking heartthrob any night of the week—
“Hey?”
He stopped and faced me with the insane speed that only a vampire could make graceful, ice-blue gaze sweeping my face with a look I knew well these days. Concern.
“You all right?” he rumbled, reaching for me as I plodded over to his side, jeans a solid deterrent from the scratchier brambles. “Am I going too fast again?”
With legs a mile long, Bjorn always outpaced me. It had taken him months to adjust to my shorter, decidedly thicker lower half meant for marathons, not sprints. “No, no, I’m fine.” We had found our speed now, the one that worked best for us. My hand found his with the same certainty, fingers twining as I lost myself in those frigid pools, his skin frosty in a way that made me feel so fucking alive. “Thank you for tonight.”
With a sweet smile, Bjorn squeezed my hand in turn, gently, forever aware of our differences so he didn’t crush my bones to dust. “Of course.”
“No, no, not of course like it’s a given,” I insisted, sidling close and pushing onto my tiptoes, free hand pressed to the broad plane of his chest. Solid as ever, he didn’t so much as flinch when I leaned all of me onto him. “Bjorn, what you did… is very kind. And thoughtful. Considerate—it shows you listen, that you can pick out what’s important. So, thank you. I really appreciate it.”
His grin faltered, and I swore something dark flashed in those beautiful eyes, like lightning across a black sky, there one second and gone the next. The vampire swallowed hard, then brought our twined hands up to his lips, dragging a delicate, albeit open-mouthed kiss over my knuckles as he murmured, “You’re welcome, elskling.”
A shiver cut down my spine at that word—elskling. The pet name he chose for me, purred in a foreign tongue, sounded so natural, so right, as if it had been my heart’s true name all along. With a soft breath, I freed my hand from his and stroked his rugged jawline, across white-blond stubble that would feel so brutal between my thighs.
As soon as I found his chin, I stood higher on my tiptoes, fighting to halve the distance between us, and the slightest pressure nudged him into free fall. Bjorn kissed me like a falling comet, his mouth crashing hard to mine, fierce and so all-consuming that it stole my breath away. Powerless against his strength, I sank onto flat feet, moaning as his arm snaked around my waist, as he chased me with a growl, trapping me in place and bowing my back over his steely grasp.
Of all the men in my life, Bjorn kissed the deepest, all passion and feeling and undeniable need. It wasn’t a battlefield like Gavriel—it was a dance. We were partners, and for once I wasn’t a bumbling, rhythmless idiot tripping over her own feet. I knew these steps. Felt them in my blood as our lips parted and tongues tangled, as my hands clutched at that strong jaw and my hips found s
anctuary against him.
The only slight hiccup in this routine were his fangs. I was so used to Bjorn the Vampire, a creature with, you guessed it, elongated canines. It wasn’t until we kissed that I learned just how sharp they were—how there they were, all the time, as ever-present as the monster lurking below the surface. The deeper he kissed me now, the more insistent they became, just as rigid as the desire nudging at my belly.
Usually I worked around them, but tonight, lost to the moment, bathed in starlight, I purposefully snagged my tongue on the left’s razor-sharp tip.
“Oh.” I pulled back with a hiss, the pain brief but the metallic spurt ongoing. Bjorn grimaced, immediately loosening his hold on me—maybe to remind himself who he was and that he should keep the beast caged…
I didn’t want him caged.
It was just a surprise.
One that throbbed low in my belly, insistent and demanding, like I had a hungry beast of my own to satisfy.
“Sorry—”
“Don’t be,” I told him roughly, two fingers ghosting over my swollen lips, tasting blood with every swallow. When I glanced up, pools dark and stormy as a raging North Sea stared back, and the butterflies swarmed eagerly at the first crackle of danger in the air. Gulping, I gathered my hair to one side with trembling hands and exposed my neck. The storm cascaded to it immediately, his gaze caressing its length, lingering, and his cheek twitched with what seemed like effort.
Control.
Sighing softly, Bjorn gently removed my hands from my hair, then swept the curls back into place. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
He looked away with a snarl, the hand that had nestled at the crook of my neck tightening suddenly. I winced at the power behind his grip, but even that made that the butterflies soar.
He shouldn’t have to fight himself.
I didn’t want him to battle his instincts.
He needed to know he could be free with me.
That I wasn’t made of glass. I wouldn’t break. I had always been stronger than I looked.