The Horned Mage: Books 1-5

by Hayden Harper

  Not that it mattered now because I’d gone and pissed off the boss of what had to have been the meanest pack in Texas. Someone shoot me now. It would be a hell of a lot more merciful than whatever trouble I was going to get myself into.

  I raised my hand and poured more power into the flames surrounding it. They grew brighter, bathing the lawn and street in an eerie, green glow that made the huge wolf all the more unearthly. Almost spectral.

  “Stay back.”

  The wolf made a chuffing sound in the back of its throat. Was it laughing at me? Whatever the sound meant, it didn’t stop.

  I put my arm around Lexus and pulled her close, trying to position myself between her and the werewolf. That was a mistake. The wolf’s golden eyes shifted from me to Lexus glowing with unmistakable rage.

  Faster than anything that big had a right to move the wolf was on us, a gray blur that came in low, aiming to take us off our feet. It bowled me over, taking me out at the knees and going straight through for Lexus.

  Lexus was athletic and had run with a mean crowd. Definitely a scrapper. But how the hell do you expect anyone to fight a wolf with their bare hands? And not just any wolf, but one that outweighs you by anywhere from two to three hundred pounds? Lexus never stood a chance.

  I hit the ground as the wolf’s teeth sank into her calve and ripped her leg out from under her. The wolf’s momentum carried it through us, dragging Lexus behind it as it crashed into the house’s front door. Lexus screamed. Screamed so loud that I reacted without thinking.

  Green fire billowed around me and flew in an emerald blast to crash into both the werewolf and Lexus. The door, already battered by having several hundred lupine pound of force batter it, ripped from its hinges to crash inside the house. I lost sight of them as they vanished inside.

  The wolf’s snarls and growls echoed through the door. Another set joined it, creating an eerie, violent echo.

  Another werewolf? Shit!

  I raced inside the house. I had to get the wolf off of Lexus and then get her to a hospital. Hopefully her leg could be saved. And maybe, maybe, they could do something about the magical virus werewolves carried. Sometimes victims could be saved if the right alchemical vaccinations were given soon enough to keep them from transforming. More often than not, it didn’t help. About half the time, people infected did not survive the transformation.

  Fire, regular yellow fire, danced in little clusters in the entry way where my magic had sparked them. The sounds of crashing and snarling filled the house coming from the living room. I rounded the corner, conjuring more fire in my hand, and was nearly bowled over by a pair of giant, furry combatants as they tore through the shredded remains of a sofa and put another hole in the wall.

  The new werewolf was fighting the first? Why?

  It didn’t matter and in the confusion I couldn’t tell them apart. If I could drive them out, I could find Lexus and get her to a hospital. I hurled my fire at them. It washed over both in an emerald wave and ripped them apart. One of the combatants—the first werewolf, I realized—whined in pain as it was burned. But the second raised its head and seemed to bask in the fire.

  My spell trickled out and the combatants stopped, eying each other from opposite sides of the living room. The werewolf’s fur smoldered and blistered skin visibly began to knit. The new combatant had emerald fire circling a wound on its hind leg, sinking into bite marks and closing them. It wasn’t a werewolf.

  I was looking at an enormous hound, easily the same size as the wolf, but just as clearly a dog. It was white with shaggy fur, or at least, I think it was white. It was glowing green from the inside, light spilling from its eyes and mouth, lowlighting its pale fur.

  The giant dog let out three barks that shook my ribcage and rattled the windows. A primordial sound that promised a hunt. That promise called to my magic, making it dance gleefully in my chest. Power spiked between me and the hound. Familiar power.

  “Lexus?” I said, and then she and the wolf came together again.

  My fire had healed the bite wound on her leg but hurt the wolf. Fire good for glowing dog, bad for werewolf. I threw more at them, igniting the broken furniture as the giant canines rolled through everything, demolishing whatever was unfortunate enough to get in their path. The werewolf was suddenly on the defensive—overwhelmed by the dual onslaught of fang and flame.

  It maneuvered suddenly, a twist that somehow had took the legs out from under the giant dog and leapt at me. I raised my hands to blast it with more fire but was too slow. In my eagerness to help, I’d unwittingly closed the distance between me and our attacker. I braced myself as the wolf struck, driving me into the wall and cracking the Sheetrock, expecting to feel fangs burying themselves into my throat.

  What I did not expect was for a very human mouth to slam its lips into mine in the most ferocious kiss I had ever experienced. A body pressed into mine, a feminine body, breasts pillowing against my chest as fingers anxiously scrabbled for purchase. My kisser’s tongue made its way into my mouth, swirling around my own. Her power poured down my throat from our kiss and my own answered, rushing from me and into her in a torrent that sent spikey tingles through both our bodies. Her nipples pressed into me and my erection strained against my pants, eager to get to her.

  She broke the kiss, panting and bleeding from numerous injuries. It was the girl from the bar, not the alpha, but one of the siblings who’d been helping him. Her eyes glowed with golden light, meeting mine with a mixture of challenge and possessiveness.

  “Mine,” she said.

  Lexus was suddenly behind her, her dress ripped, exposing great swaths of her tight body. She grabbed the werewolf by her dark brown hair and ripped her off of me, slamming her into the wall. “Bitch!”

  The werewolf jerked an elbow across Lexus’ face, cutting her over her left eye and staggering her. The werewolf lurched forward, clearly hurting and just as clearly unwilling to back down. I stepped in between them, pushing them apart, and accidentally found my hand on the werewolf girl’s breast. Her pert, naked breast.

  She grabbed my wrist and yanked me to her, slamming her mouth to mine again. Only to yank herself free and make a mad scrabble to get at Lexus. “He’s mine!”

  The fuck?

  I grabbed her. She struggled and we both fell to the floor and somehow ended up kissing again. Every time she stopped it was to make a lunge at Lexus. It was as if she was torn between having the most animalistic sex with me she could and ripping Lexus to pieces.

  Lexus wasn’t about to sit by and take it. The wolf girl broke our kiss and tried to squirm out from beneath me to attack Lexus, who hauled back and delivered the hardest slap I had ever seen, hard enough to jerk the wolf-girl’s head sideways and stun her.

  “She fucking cut me,” Lexus said, pressing a hand over her eye to stop the cut from bleeding into it. Damn, that looked messy.

  The werewolf girl, the very naked werewolf girl, squirmed beneath me and wrapped her legs around my waist to grind her groin against mine. I could feel the heat of her sex through the denim of my jeans, sensing her eagerness as more than something merely physical.

  Lexus crouched down and grabbed the girl’s hair, yanking her back to the ground and stared down into her eyes. Blood dripped from her cut onto the werewolf girl’s face. They bared their teeth and neither broke contact. I recognized what this was, some sort of alpha-contest, like what I’d somewhat accidentally participated in back at the bar. No matter who won, the fight was going to resume. I had to do something.

  So I jerked my hips, pressing my still clothed groin against the werewolf girl’s sex. Her head fell back, eyes closing as she arched her body and pressed herself harder against me. Keeping one hand on her hip, I reached over and hooked a hand behind Lexus’ head and pulled her face to mine so that I could kiss her.

  At first she was too caught off guard to respond. I could taste blood on her lips, hers or her opponent’s I couldn’t tell and wasn’t sure t
hat I cared. But then she was kissing me back and my magic roared to life. Not the fire or the other thing, the part that had reacted to the fight and the werewolves, but the sex magic. It spilled over the three of us, somehow drawing greater strength from Lexus and my connection and pouring into the werewolf girl.

  It was met by something else, something that rose from her and felt just as alive as my own magic, perhaps more so. Focusing on anything but the naked and near-naked women on the floor with me was becoming next to impossible. My cock throbbed with need and I ripped my clothes off, aided by two extra sets of hands. My shirt was ruined, if it hadn’t already been by the fight, and soon lay in tatters. My jeans followed, more awkwardly, as the three of us tumbled across the floor.

  Lexus’ dress followed suit and then all three of us were naked, kissing and biting one another, wrestling for dominance as much as to feel each other’s flesh against our own. And all the while power rose, fluctuating between us, pulsing and flaring with every caress or squeeze. Every time we stroked somewhere intimate or pressed our mouths together an electric pulse ran through our bodies.

  Without speaking, Lexus and I coordinated our movements and somehow penned our attacker to the floor between us. Lexus held the woman’s arms over her head, pinning them down and exposing her chest as I moved once again between her legs, this time with no barrier of cloth between us. I grabbed her hips and stroked my length up and down her engorged pussy. Oh my Dear and Fluffy Lord her sex was a soaking furnace.

  She moaned. Panted. Half-crazed eyes darted between me and Lexus and she tried to jerk her sex away from me, to break that connection and froze. God, it was the hardest thing I had ever made myself do. Everything, from the power in the air to my throbbing dick told me to push myself into her, to claim this woman and make her mine. Only the thought of Sadie, the confusion and fear she’d felt after my power had worked upon her, gave me the strength to resist.

  Lexus gave me a puzzled look, silently asking why I’d stopped moving.

  The werewolf girl shook her head, breasts heaving with every frantic breath. “It isn’t supposed to be like this.”

  I furrowed my brow. She’d come after us. What the hell had she expected to happen? Admittedly, a raucous threesome in the ruins of the living room had been the furthest thing from my mind when she’d come at us as a giant wolf but…what the fuck was going on?

  I was not a rapist. I was not going to take her against her will.

  With a grunt of effort, I began to pull myself away from her, only her legs wrapped around my waist, yanking my cock back against her hot entrance. My cock settled against her folds and we both groaned.

  “Do you want this?” I asked. “Tell me right now. Do you want me to take you?”

  She moaned, a long sound equal parts agony and need. “Yes!”

  I jerked my hips back, aligned my cock, and thrust inside of her. I sank home quickly. She was so hot and wet; ready for me. It was as if her sex was pulling me into her—her legs were certainly helping, trying to pull my body as tight against hers as we could go and still be two people.

  I felt more than saw Lexus grin at us and lost it. I began to pound into the werewolf girl with no regard for how hard I was moving. I slammed myself into her over and over again, driving her forward until her head pressed into Lexus thighs.

  Lexus had reached between her own legs and was fingering herself and moaning, “Take her! Take her!”

  The werewolf girl seemed to be in complete agreement, doing her best to meet my every thrust with her hips. Our flesh came together with a wet slapping sound over and over and her pussy squeezed down on my member, as if it didn’t want me to ever withdraw.

  Suddenly, her body seized up. Her back arched and she went completely still, letting out a feminine shriek as her pussy clamped down on my cock. Hot fluid spilled over my thighs and balls. I never let up, pounding her straight through her orgasm and driving her into another. Her body was caught between the urge to writhe in pleasure and every muscle trying to stiffen at once. She screamed, but a quiet, almost strangled scream of pure need.

  Her magic rose up and slammed into me and without thinking, I bent over to kiss her. Her hands slipped from beneath Lexus’ grip and began to claw my back. And then Lexus warm body was pressed into me from behind, mirroring my motions. Her small breasts and hard nipples felt good against my skin and her kisses rained down on the back of my neck.

  My kiss with the werewolf girl broke and she looked up at me with wide golden eyes, the solid gold eyes of a wolf. I felt her body seize up once again, felt our power collide, and her orgasm spill over her. And her eyes changed from glowing gold to glowing green as I claimed her with body and magic. She was mine. Mine! And my own orgasm overtook me.

  I thrust deep into her, as deep as I could and spilled my seed. Every pulse made me feel like I was dying and being filled with new life at the exact same time. And when I finally finished I collapsed on top of her, rolling off sideways so that the combined weight of Lexus and I didn’t crush her.

  Lexus rolled off of me with a smirk on her face. All was still. The entire living room stank of sex and smoke and I ached in ways I hadn’t known I could ache.

  I thought I heard footsteps but couldn’t bring myself to give a damn about them. A moment later, I’d passed out.

  Chapter Nine

  When I woke up I was hurting everywhere. Someone had thrown a blanket over Lexus and my naked bodies and there was no sign of the werewolf girl. There were sounds of people moving around and not bothering to try and keep quiet.

  I groaned. “Someone get the plates of the truck that ran me over?”

  “Oh, you got jokes? Put some fucking clothes on and help us clean up.” That was one of my roommates, Domingo. He spoke with a slight accent but probably had a better understanding of the English language than anyone else in the house.

  I blinked into the sunlight streaming in through the windows, wincing as it stabbed into my nerves, and then stared as the living room slowly came into focus. Or rather, what was left of the living room.

  “Fuck,” I said, taking it all in.

  “Yeah,” Domingo said. “Yeah, fuck.”

  He, Tim, and Danny were all dressed in grimy jeans and shirts and sweating hard. It didn’t take long to figure out what had been going on. They’d been cleaning up our mess. Judging from the lack of ruined furniture they’d been hauling the broken pieces outside. This made the rest of the damage stand out all the more. The cracks and holes in the wall and floor, the scorch marks…the little fires I’d set off looked to have burned for a while. Shit, I’d slept right through them.

  I carried Lexus up to my room, threw on some pants and hurried down to help them clean up.

  Nobody was feeling talkative. There was only so much we could do. The best that could be said was that by the time we were done the living room looked less like a war zone and more like a renovation project. I suppose that’s exactly what it was now. Shame it smelled like dogs and smoke.

  “Guys, I’m sorry.”

  Danny and Tim both shrugged but Domingo glared at me. “You know, you were sorry last time too. And I’m grateful you cleaned that mess up and got us our stuff back. Shit, I don’t even mind the mess hear so much, but dammit, this can’t keep happening, Caleb.”

  I winced.

  “The worst part isn’t cleaning up this shit,” he went on. “There were fucking fires burning in the living room when I got home. Fires. Do you understand that whatever you were doing, you nearly burned the whole house down—you and Lexus inside it? And whoever that other chick was?”

  “You saw her?” I asked. “What happened to her, where did she go?”

  Domingo crossed his arms. “I tell you that you nearly killed everyone and your first question is about the girl you had a threesome with?”

  I shook my head and held up my hands. “It isn’t like that. She attacked us.”

  Domingo raised his eyebrows. “Attacked yo
u? And what, mid-fight you all said hey, make love not war?”

  Well when you put it like that.... “Uh, pretty much.”

  “Whatever.”

  Everyone went on about their business after that and I fell back asleep, vaguely wondering where the werewolf girl had gone and how the hell both Lexus and I had slept through everything going on in the house. I woke up in the evening long enough to say good night to her as she took off for home and then passed back out.

  #

  I almost didn’t go to class the next morning. It seemed pointless in the wake of everything that had happened. But this was what I was here for, whether it felt like it or not sometimes, and so to class I went. And found Jadeite waiting for me outside the classroom door.

  She grabbed my arm and pulled me aside in the hall as everyone else trickled in.

  “What the hell happened to Lexus?” she hissed. “She came home last night, her dress in tatters and covered in blood.”

  I’d thought my green fire had healed her—maybe it had, but I guess it hadn’t done away with the evidence of the fight. We probably should have showered before passing out but…damn I’d been tired.

  “We…it’s complicated.”

  “So uncomplicated it,” she said. “I thought her spending time with you would be good for her, she was starting to take things seriously. I think she’s got a real shot at college now if you don’t get her killed.”

  “It wasn’t, look, we were attacked, alright. It’s…” I wanted to say it wasn’t my fault, but it was, wasn’t it? Or was it? Dammit, I didn’t know. Why had the werewolf girl attacked us and what the hell had happened in the middle of the fight that had made her switch gears like that? It didn’t make any sense, and without her around there was no way to get answers from her.

  “You were attacked? Did you call the police? Oh, God, are you hurt? I didn’t even think.” Her hands went to my chest as if she could suddenly feel for injuries.

  I winced. “I’m a little tender but fine. Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out what happened. It was…weird doesn’t begin to cover it.”