by Cynthia Eden
He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “If you scream, I’ll wake you.”
Her breath slid out, nice and easy now. It was strange, but she felt safe in that moment. Of course, she should feel safe. She was in the shifter king’s arms. He’d claimed her as his mate. To a shifter, there was nothing more sacred.
So as long as he kept thinking she was the one for him, that they’d just randomly wound up in that dungeon together, everything would be okay.
***
“She put a spell on him.” Warren crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at Elliott. “I mean, isn’t that shit obvious?” His gaze shot up, to the ceiling above them. A whole lot of noise had been coming from upstairs just a moment before, but now there was only silence. “She bewitched him. Made him think he was in love with her.”
Elliott took a step back. “Hold the hell up.” He shook his head. “I can see a lust spell working. The woman is sexy as sin. But love? Who said anything about love?”
“You saw him with her. I know you did. He’s been frantic to get to her. Obsessed. It’s more than just lust, and we both know it.”
Elliott’s hand scraped over his jaw. “They’re mated. Of course, it’s more than just lust now. It’s the mating bond. He’ll want her more than he ever wants anyone else, you know that. That’s the way it works. Especially for a shifter of royal blood. Fate put the two of them together—”
“I don’t think it was fate.” Warren took an angry step forward. “I think it was Valerie Storm. I think she tricked him. I think she put him under a spell. For all we know, the mating bond might be total bullshit. She’s manipulating him. Using her magic to make him think the connection is—”
“You can’t fake a mating bond.” Elliott’s words were flat. His dark eyes gleamed. “You’ve never been mated, so you don’t know this shit. But there is no faking. It’s either there or it isn’t, and if it is there, there’s no fighting it. You’re tied—body and soul—to the other person. Linked. Good or bad.”
Valerie was bad. “You can mate someone,” Warren picked his words carefully, “and not go mad for her. Not put her before everything else. He’s risking a war with the witches. For her. Because she’s got him under a spell. She didn’t want the mating bond to be the only thing between them. Valerie Storm is brilliant. She wasn’t going to leave anything to chance. She was going to have him, all of him, and she used her magic to ensure she got exactly what she wanted.”
“Why are you so certain of this?”
He released a slow breath. “Because right before you arrived, the witch council elder, Devon, he was here. He said she used her spell on Griffin. Devon said Griffin has to bind her, before it’s too late.”
Now Elliott’s brows rose. “Bind her? How—”
They both stiffened. They’d heard the soft tread of steps on the stairs behind them. They also knew that the man coming toward them—he’d heard what they were saying.
He must have heard them, after all. No shifter had a better sense of hearing than the king.
Warren squared his shoulders as he turned to face Griffin. Lifting his chin, Warren deliberately answered Elliot’s question as he said, “Griffin knows how to bind her.”
Griffin didn’t speak.
So Warren continued, speaking straight to him, “Devon said he’d already given you the tools that you needed.” He waited a beat, but Griffin still didn’t respond. So he pushed, “Can you bind her?”
Griffin’s face was an angry mask. “Yes.”
Okay, that was something. But… “Will you bind her?” Warren asked. “For the safety of the shifters, will you bind your mate’s power?”
And Warren held his breath as he waited to see what Griffin’s answer would be.
Chapter Seventeen
Bind her? “That’s not an option right now.”
Warren’s eyes doubled in size. “Why the hell not?”
“Because we’re meeting with fucking hostile vamps at sunset. Because I want her to be at her full strength and because I’m not about to believe BS that Devon hands to me.” He pointed at his friend. “And why the hell would you believe him?”
“You mean believe a council elder…over a convicted witch criminal?” Warren’s face mottled. “They were going to put her to death! How could you have forgotten that? She was found guilty—”
“I haven’t forgotten a damn thing.” He stalked across the room. Stood toe-to-toe with Warren. “But I’m starting to think you have. You’re conspiring against your king. With witches. You’re meeting with them in secret and not telling me?”
“I didn’t have a chance to tell you before,” Warren snapped. “You burst back in here, looked at her like you were starving, then you ran upstairs to fu—”
Griffin’s hand wrapped around his friend’s throat in a lightning fast move. “She is your queen. You will speak of her with respect.” Fury blasted through him, and he tried to rein in his dragon. The beast wanted to roar and rage with his fire.
Not now. Warren is pack.
Warren gave a jerky nod.
Elliott just watched them, his face tense. Worried.
Griffin forced himself to let go of Warren. Then Griffin took a step back and shoved his hands behind his body.
“We need to all take a really deep breath,” Elliott announced into the silence.
Griffin glared at his friends. “She’s my queen. That’s all there is to it. I won’t turn on her.”
“Even if she’s crazy?” Warren demanded. “Even if—”
Her scream broke through his words. Griffin immediately turned and raced up the stairs. He shouldn’t have left her. He’d just wanted to check in and make sure the others knew to be watching for vampires—and unwanted witches. Too late for that.
He flew up the stairs and shoved open the bedroom door. Valerie was in the middle of the bed. Still naked. He’d just dragged on a pair of jeans before rushing downstairs. As he hurried toward her, he saw claw marks appear on her stomach. A red, angry line—blood welled, then vanished.
“What in the hell?” His bellow seemed to echo through the house.
Her scream died away. She jerked upright, staring straight at him with wide eyes.
He put his hand on her stomach. No wounds. Totally healed.
“Sorry,” Valerie whispered. Her eyes seemed to be filled with tears. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
She hadn’t woken him because his dumb ass had been downstairs instead of in there, with his mate. “You’re telling me everything.”
Valerie shook her head. “I won’t scream again.” She winced. “Maybe. I’ll try really hard. I’ll—”
“You’ll tell me everything.” His voice was flat. “Because I’m your mate. And we won’t have secrets. If I’m fighting the vampires and the witches for you, you’ll tell me the truth. You’ll tell me why you scream. Why you bleed in your dreams. You won’t keep anything from me.” His hand still pressed to her stomach. “I’ll know if you lie.”
“Shifter senses.” Her chin notched up. “Just so you know, I’m good at lying, and I—”
“No more.” Again, his voice was flat.
Her lips parted.
“No more lies. No more pretending. No more bravado. You show me every part of yourself, and I’ll show you who I am.”
Valerie gave a quick, negative shake of her head. “This is me. You might not like it, but—”
He kissed her. A deep, hard, claiming kiss. “There is nothing about you that I don’t like.” And it was true. Unsettling, but true. “Sweetheart, I even think your weird laugh is sexy.”
Her eyes had flared wide. She blinked. “I-I don’t have a weird laugh.”
“You cackle. Like a cartoon witch.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I absolutely do not.”
“You absolutely do.” He kissed her again. “And I like it. I like you. So I want to hear everything you’ve got. If we’re in this together, we are in. You tell me your secrets, and I’ll tell you mine.”
> “What secrets do you have?”
He slid onto the bed with her. Caged her with his body. “You’re first.”
She yanked up the covers, shielding her nakedness. A crime. “Fine. But when you freak the hell out, you only have yourself to blame.”
He waited.
“Tomas. Okay? It all started with him.”
He wouldn’t let his jealousy break free. Griffin locked his teeth, chained down his beasts, and waited.
“He was a human. Sweet and kind and he loved me. Me. Not because he had to…there was no magic involved. It was just us. He made me laugh.”
Griffin was fucking hating Tomas.
“But he got sick. Today, we’d probably say it was cancer. Back then…he was just sick.” She swiped her tongue across her lower lip. “I wanted to heal him, but I couldn’t do it alone. I needed help from my best friends.”
A bad feeling swept over him.
“Genevieve and Devon,” she whispered. “We had plans. Such fine plans. We were going to take over the council. Shake things up. I knew we were the strongest witches. I knew what we could do. Since the three of us were so strong, I thought it would be easy to heal Tomas. Easy to even make him immortal. We could be together forever.”
He didn’t like this story. But then, he’d known he wouldn’t like it, even before he’d demanded that she tell him her secrets.
“I worked a spell to link me and Tomas together.” She glanced away from him. “His pain was so intense, I just—I did it to ease his suffering. I would take the pain. Pain makes witches stronger. Mostly because we’ve had to endure so much damn pain.” She gave a hard shake of her head. “I was linked to him. I went to Genevieve and Devon—they were my friends. I thought they’d help me. They were supposed to help me.”
“They didn’t.”
“They used their magic to trap me.” Her voice turned husky. “I was screaming at them. Raging. But they wouldn’t let me go. And Tomas was dying. Because of the link, I could feel it. Every single second. I tried to make Devon and Genevieve listen, but they wouldn’t. When Tomas died…” Her lashes swept down. “So did I.”
“No.” An instant denial. “You’re not dead. You’re right the fuck here.” And his heart was racing too fast.
“I came back.” Her smile was a brief flash, and it never touched her eyes. “Witches can work all kinds of magic, but they don’t bring back the dead. They never try. And I always wondered…why not? Why does life have to end? We have so much power. Why not bring back those we love? If you could do it, wouldn’t you?”
Shit. “You brought him back.”
“Genevieve and Devon couldn’t hold me forever. The minute I was free, I ran back to Tomas. His body was in our bedroom. He was cold when I touched him. I screamed for him.” Her gaze seemed to look right through Griffin. “Pain and magic. A bad combination. I opened a doorway. One that no one had opened before me. I went in, and I got him. I brought him back.”
The same way she’d brought Rio back.
“But Death didn’t want me to leave. Souls can’t come and go without a price being paid. I died when Tomas died, so that let me slip into the next world. I brought him back with me, and I thought everything would be okay.”
“What price, Valerie?”
Her lashes fluttered. “When I’m awake, I’m strong enough to fight the demons that come for me. They know not to even try to get to me. But when I dream, they slip through my cracks. And they try to take their pound of flesh.”
“You’re telling me that you’re tortured every night? Because you saved that human?” His claws were out. This shit will end. “He’d better have fucking been grateful to you. He’d better have kissed the ground you walked on for the rest of his life—”
“Didn’t work out that way.” Her lips pressed together, and her delicate shoulders straightened. “This was a long time ago. Right around the time of the Salem drama. Yeah, I’m a lot older than I look. A blood witch stays young forever. But with the years…well, age means power. There’s a reason the ruling witches are called council elders, you know.”
“Valerie.”
“Tomas remembered everything. Dying. Me bringing him back. He decided I was evil. An abomination. You don’t mess with nature. He would rather I have left him to death, and not shown him what a monster I was.” Her voice turned soft, “I think the famous phrase might be, ‘I will not suffer a witch to live.’”
No. No.
“He lit the first torch at my bonfire in Salem. He watched as the flames rose around me. I’d risked everything for him. I’d suffered for him, but he just backed up and watched me burn.” Her mouth tightened. “Turns out, though, there are a few benefits to surviving death. Fire doesn’t impact me the way it does other witches because I have demon fire inside me. That’s the fire that erupted after—after Rio. You, um, probably remember it.”
Her fire was rather unforgettable.
“So the flames don’t hurt me. I got away from the bonfire that Tomas had set.”
“Tell me you killed the bastard.”
Her brow furrowed. “I’d given up so much to save him. I loved him. I couldn’t just turn around and kill him. He was confused, scared.”
“He was an ungrateful bastard.”
“I left him. Left him to live his life, and I never turned back. I loved him, and I had just wanted him to be healed. To be whole. His sickness was gone. He—”
Griffin caught her shoulders and hauled her forward. “He tried to burn you alive.”
He’d also tried to drown her, along with some other Salem goons. But…“He did try to burn me. So did Genevieve, and so did Devon.” She stared into Griffin’s eyes. “They were with him that day. Did I forget to tell you that part? They were in the village, pretending to be humans, and chanting all the while for me to burn. Burn, burn, burn. See…they’d watched what I did to him. They knew I was the strongest witch to ever live. They also knew I’d be the witch in their way. Always in their way because I had more magic than they did. So they tried to get rid of me. They were the ones whispering in his ear. In the ears of everyone in that damn town. Using spells on the humans. They were the ones turning on their own kind. And I’ve fucking hated them ever since.”
And he’d made a deal with them. Sonofabitch. “Valerie—”
“I scream when I dream because my guard is lowered. I’ve had centuries of that pain, but it will end.”
He could only shake his head. “You saved Rio. You brought him back from the dead, knowing the cost it would be for you.”
“I saved Rio.” She nodded. “I’d do it again. No one dies in my place.”
“Have you…” Dammit. “Have there been others that you’ve saved? People you’ve brought back from death?”
Her gaze slid from his. “Yes. Not many. But, sometimes, I couldn’t look away.”
“You will look away from now on.”
Her stare whipped back toward him.
“You will never do this magic again. You will not raise the dead. You will not hurt.”
She smiled. Her dimples winked. “That’s so cute. You think you can control me.” Her hand rose and patted his cheek. “It doesn’t work that way. I feel like I’ve told you this before.”
“I will do anything to protect you.” She needed to understand this. “You can’t keep raising the dead. I saw you while you slept—something was clawing open your stomach. You opened a freaking doorway, all right. And I think when you dream, whatever is on the other side of that door tries to get you back.”
“That’s why I’m going to take over the council. When I’m ruler, I’ll have the whole witch nation behind me. I can use their power, and I can make a spell strong enough to never feel that pain again. Whatever is trying to get out, I’ll stop him. I’ll be free.” Beneath Griffin’s hold, she shrugged. “And I’ll also be running the show. I’ll be in charge. The witches won’t know what hit them.”
He sure as hell didn’t know what had hit him. His hold on her wa
s too tight. He should let go, but he didn’t. In his mind, Griffin could still see the claw marks on her stomach. And that shit happened to her every night? “There are protection spells. You can work those now, to keep this sonofabitch from hurting you.”
“You’re worried about me.” Her face softened. “That is so sweet. I don’t think anyone has ever worried about me before.”
“You’re being attacked every fucking night. And this shit has gone on for how long?”
“A few centuries.” She shrugged. “Don’t tell all my haters. They’ll say it’s why I’m absolutely insane.” Her face was tense. “But I’m not, you know. I’m not crazy. I might be a killer. I might be bad. But I’m not a psycho. Every attack is for a reason. Those I target deserve what they get.”
“Protection spell,” he gritted out. “You will make one that is—”
“I can’t make one strong enough to shut him out.”
Him?
“Not yet. I’ve tried. But when I’m ruling the council, I will. I can use the power from all the witches. I can do it.”
She just had to survive a battle to the death with Genevieve and Devon. And their witch guards. And every single other paranormal who wanted her dead. “I’m not going to lose you.” No matter what he had to do. He’d find a way. He would keep her safe.
“There you go again, being sweet. Careful, shifter, or I’ll start to think you care.”
“I do fucking care.”
Her eyes widened, but Valerie didn’t have one of her quick comebacks for him. In fact, she almost looked scared. “Why?”
“Why?” Griffin repeated, then he pushed her back onto the bed. Her hair spread out over the pillows as she stared up at him. “Because you are mine.”
“Mates.”
“More the hell than that.” He caught her hands and pinned them above her head. “You are mine. I knew it from the first minute I saw you.”
She laughed. He would never get tired of that beautiful sound. “You did not. You were a giant dragon, and you probably wanted to eat me.”