“And for your information, if you’re tough enough to skin a gator where I come from, you wear that shit any old way you want.” She looked Aerin up and down. “You wouldn’t last a minute.”
“I should have let him eat you,” Aerin bitched, turning to inspect the damage done to one of her favorite shoes. Breathing deep, she did her best to slow down the heart that hadn’t stopped racing since the moment Moira screamed. If anything had happened to her sister… well… She cleared suspicious weight out of her throat.
“Well, you didn’t…let him, that is.” Moira caught up to her, her bare toenails shimmering red against the green of the lush grass, the soiled ax swinging at her side. “I suppose I owe you for that and for the shoe... How ‘bout I make you a real gator purse to go with it by way of repayment?”
Aerin didn’t even have to think about it. “Make me chicken.”
“Say what?”
“Fried chicken.” Aerin’s mouth violently watered. It said something about her appetite that she still had one after what they’d just seen. “With a crispy shell,” she quickly added.
“Chicken? Fried Chicken?” Moira was looking at her sideways.
“You heard me.”
“I make some damn good fried chicken, but I don’t know as anyone’s ever offered to pay me hundreds of dollars for it,” Moira said modestly.
“At this point, I will,” Aerin argued. “And I want it extra fatty. Extra crispy. If I have to eat one more of Tierra’s goddamned vegan wraps I’m going to punch all the soy on the planet and shave off every hipster beard in this city.”
Moira dropped the ax and scooped up Aerin into a spontaneous hug. Aerin froze. She knew her sister was prone to spastic outbursts of affection, but hugs were still something she was getting used to. “We really are sisters,” Moira sniffed.
Aerin gave her sister a hesitant pat on her braless back, wishing she’d learn the art of air kisses and handshakes. “Of course we are,” she said. And meant it.
Moira released her. “One mess of fried chicken, coming up faster than a greased pole cat.”
Aerin nearly quivered with anticipation. “Wash your hands first.” She motioned to some zombie gunk that had splattered onto Moira’s hands.
“We should both wash up.” Moira gestured at the front of Aerin’s cream blouse, also splattered with gore.
Ew.
They turned toward the house. “And just so you know,” Moira continued, “Skunk McQuee’s pontoon cost a whole bunch on account of the gilded horns he had made special in Kentucky…”
Moira’s voice faded as an easterly wind gathered strength, bringing a portent of danger and caution. They needed to ward their house against the undead like yesterday, and pray to whatever god hadn’t forsaken them that it worked.
So this was their lives now… Before today, the only blood on her hands had been proverbial.
Maybe it still was, but it certainly didn’t feel like it.
Chapter Seven
Rhythm, he had it.
Julian Roarke rode a horse like Fred Astaire danced. Like Shakespeare wrote. Like Michael Jordan basketballed. Before the underwear commercials, of course.
Light from a nearly-full waxing moon cast the glade at the end of Leighton road in an ambient silver that lent the witching hour an enchanted feel. Aerin stood next to the lush meadow and watched the two sleek, dark beings, horse and rider, race through the night toward her.
Julian's black hair would have matched that of his horse if not for the strands of silver laced throughout. Tonight, his tresses flowed free of their usual restraint of a slick queue at the nape of his neck that hid its tendency to curl.
Pale eyes, burnished with excitement, flashed down at her from the immense prancing stallion. Muscles flexed beneath the thin linen shirt he wore as he reined in his beast.
"Aerin de Moray." He said her name with an edge of anticipation that thrilled her like a jolt from a Taser. Sidling his horse sideways, he held his hand out in invitation.
She took it without hesitation, and using his preternatural strength, he pulled her astride behind him. Her arms automatically locked around his lean waist, and she rested her chin against the cords of his strong back.
"I have some information to share with you," he said lightly.
"Ride first. Talk later," Aerin demanded.
She felt, rather than saw him smile. "As you wish."
Julian didn't have to kick Archimedes into a gallop so much as allow him some slack in the reins. The horse knew what his riders wanted, could taste the reckless frenzy on the air and the need to race it until they ran out of land.
It amazed Aerin that riding a horse was so similar to riding a man. The roll of her hips synchronized with the beast’s rhythmic strides, the clench of her thighs, the thrill low in her belly, it was all familiar.
The wind on her face coaxed an elated smile from her and she couldn't hold back the small, very unfamiliar squeal that escaped her when Julian had ordered her to hold on tight before they went sailing over a fence.
They could have ridden for a couple minutes or a couple hours for all Aerin knew. Eventually they both ducked low as trees and branches whizzed past them through a forest, and then they broke onto the clearing that rose above the water. Not quite a cliff, but tall enough to give Aerin vertigo.
This was their place. A moonlit meadow where the sparkling Puget Sound stretched below grass that laconically twitched in the ever-present ocean breeze.
"This place reminds me of a fairy land," Aerin breathed. Then stalled, embarrassed for vocalizing something so trite. "Does that make me sound ridiculous?"
"A little," Julian rumbled, as though amused. "But only because you've never actually met a Faerie."
Julian kicked his leg over Archimedes's back and jumped down, turning to reach for Aerin.
"You mean there's such things as—" The moment she was in his arms, he melded his mouth to hers. The kiss was nearly unbearable in its intensity, but Aerin instantly locked her arms around his neck, levering herself closer to him. Their blood was high at the thrill of the swift ride, and their desires more illicit because of their forbidden nature.
This was why they needed to meet. This was what they'd come here for tonight. After she got him naked, after she took him inside her, then they'd talk. Then they'd worry about the future. But first she would claim him. She would allow him to claim her, because if anything was destined, it was their joining.
She was suddenly consumed with the feel of him, his broadness, his strength, his careful deference. Even now, with need and lust rolling between them like a violent storm, he was gentle, painstakingly so.
She bit at his lip and he groaned, his hands lowering on her body in a long, torturous journey. Her shoulder blades, the dip of her waist, the flare of her hips. His kiss was like poetry against her mouth. It was as though he described every emotion she evoked in a language that even William Blake could not have comprehended. But she understood every word. Every insinuation.
The first of which was wonder.
Julian Roarke had never had the pleasure of exploring a woman's shape with his hands. Of searching for soft curves in a place where his body had angles and raw, hard muscle. If he touched a woman she died. Horribly.
But not Aerin. She was immune to his lethal powers. Though she could feel them trying to work on her. It was as though her very molecules battled the toxicity of his and won. It made her feel feverish. It made her heart pump faster, her blood work harder. It made her feel like every time he touched her, she became stronger for fighting him. And stronger for surrendering.
When he filled his large hands with her ass and dragged her against him, the movement sent a shock of lust straight through her loins. She was mindless with it. Overwhelmed by the barrel of his desire pressed against her belly.
Her hands, suddenly greedy for his flesh, fumbled with his shirt buttons until they fell away and she splayed her palms against the hard muscle and hot, smooth skin of his ch
est.
She heard the breathless sound he made low in his throat, but was too absorbed and delighted in how his muscles twitched and tightened beneath her touch.
Breaking their kiss, she pulled back to regard his sharp features, made more vague by the kindness of moonlight. Liquid heat gathered inside her and so did something else. Something hotter than fire. Something darker than desire. Something dangerous and bleak, but also possessive and feral. Aerin could no longer tell which emotions were hers and which belonged to him. What passed between them in that moment surpassed the present and hinted at the infinite, and her mortal brain struggled to comprehend it.
"I always wondered what it would be like to touch someone," he whispered, grazing her cheek with his knuckles. "But, I never dared allow myself to contemplate what it would be like for someone to reach for me. To touch me. Aerin...I—"
"Shut up and kiss me." Aerin tugged at his shirt, bringing his mouth against hers once more. This was safer. This was better. She'd stopped him from saying something that was too dangerous. That would make this more than it was.
That would make her fall for him.
She took in a sharp, shocked breath and he took advantage. His tongue lapping at the inside of her mouth, curling over hers, exploring the moist depths of her in a parody of what was to come next. His hands cupped her face like it was made of the most precious glass. His lips were searing and tender and everything that filled his heart spilled into her, magnified by her empathic abilities until she was swept along in a tidal wave of unfamiliar emotion.
In that moment, Aerin opened herself to him. Her mouth, her magic, her heart. Somehow, for some reason, her defenses dropped. Her walls crumbled and she was alone, like a specter beneath a streetlamp, for all the world to see.
And right away, she knew she'd made a gigantic mistake.
Chapter Eight
Whatever pulsed between Julian and Aerin morphed from tender to malevolent. Suddenly Julian's grip on her face was no longer gentle, but painful. And this time when she bit his lip, it drew blood.
Lust still surged through them, but it became something else too. Not possessive any longer, but dominant. Not searing, but seething. They were going to fuck each other. And it was going to hurt. It wouldn't be the kind of give and take sex that would leave them on equal ground.
This kind of fucking would have winner and a loser. And the loser might give up something they were not ready to have taken from them.
With a raw sound Julian pried his mouth from hers and peeled his body away, almost pushing her into where Archimedes stood observing them with mild disinterest.
He stalked to the edge of the cliff, scrubbing his face with his hands until he sighed and let them drop, staring off over the ocean.
Aerin took a few deep, steadying breaths. Willing herself to calm, trying to regain control over whatever situation had just arisen between them.
Putting her barriers back into place.
"What just happened?" she demanded, shocked at the hoarse note in her voice.
The breeze turned into a wind that lifted the corners of Julian's shirt still hanging open, causing it to flare out behind him.
She looked away. He'd sought refuge from her in the right place. He knew she was afraid of heights. That she wouldn't follow him to the edge.
"You have to go," he rasped. "We should not be here."
Aerin couldn't shake the darkness. Her skin slithered with unease and her blood boiled with irritation. "What the fuck, Julian? You called me out here. You kissed me. Now you're pushing me away? My balls are turning blue here. What gives?"
He didn't look at her. "You have to leave. Now."
"Like hell I do." She crossed her arms over her chest, then uncrossed them and let them hang at her sides, hands curling into fists. Rule number four of corporate warfare: don't make defensive gestures. Don't show him how confused you are.
Don't show him that he hurt you.
"I came out here to butt-fuck Egypt because you promised me information. I'm not leaving without it." She'd process the feeling of her guts spilling onto the ground later. Right now, she had shit to handle. "If you're finished being a dick tease, then tell me what you found out about the undead."
He turned to her, his dark brows drawn down to shadow his pale blue eyes. "In order to be a dick tease, wouldn't you have to have a—"
"It's a fucking expression. Just tell me what the fuck with the zombies, Julian, so I don't have to look at you anymore."
His jaw clenched and he glanced at the ground as though summoning his immortal patience. "You are cruel when you are hurt," he accused.
"If you think I'm the cruel one here, you are sadly mistaken," she all but snarled. "Now do you actually know anything or did you lure me out here just to be an ass?"
"You should not call a man's honor into question so lightly, Aerin," he warned.
"Then cough up what you promised me, Julian," she volleyed back. "I was attacked by one of those squirrely motherfuckers today and even chopping off his head didn't stop him."
Julian took a step forward and put his hand out before he stopped. "Are you... all right? He didn't hurt you?"
"Don't pretend you care," she said coldly.
"I do care," he gritted through clenched teeth, his voice low and soft as though he didn't want them overheard. "I just can't. You don't know what I'm up against, Aerin. Or with whom I am dealing."
"Well at the moment, you're dealing with me, so keep your end of the bargain."
Regarding her from beneath his lashes, he took a deep breath, seeming to come to a decision. She could feel how conflicted he was. How aroused and aching. And beneath all that, she could sense something else. Something that distracted her from her ire.
Fear.
What in the world would an immortal like Julian Roarke be afraid of?
"From what I read, the rules of necromancy are surprisingly simple," he began. "There are two kinds of undead, the astral kind and the physical kind. Essentially, they're a body or a soul that is ripped away from each other, but remains on this plane bereft of its other half."
Aerin tried to think past her pounding heart and her throbbing nethers. God she was going to hate him for this, for a good long time. She was going to hold a grudge that would make the Hatfields and the McCoys proud. "So, these zombies are just bodies without souls?"
"Correct."
“And so if it's just a soul without a body, they're like... ghosts?"
"Essentially, as you mortals understand them, yes."
Aerin thought for a moment, trying to ignore the way his pale, muscled chest gleamed in the moonlight. Her fingers twitched and she turned away to stare out at the cold, lonely ocean.
"So all we would have to do is reunite the body with the soul and the problem would be solved," she mused.
"That’s quite impossible." he said.
"Why?"
"Because their souls have moved on. Bane has delivered them to their eternal reward. When the fifth seal broke, they rose to take their vengeance, but it is not the power of the seal that keeps them animated. It is something else." He caught her eyes, regret and powerful meaning flashing in their fathomless, sea-colored depths. "Someone else."
"Who?"
"I cannot say." He lifted a brow at her. "But I learned how they can regain a soul, and a second chance at mortality which is why they are after you."
He paused, looking off into the trees in the distance, as though searching through the shadows there.
"Don't leave me hanging."
Julian took another step forward. "If they consume the source of your power, your life force... they'll absorb that power. They'll absorb your soul, and you'll be lost. The prophecy states that those who are martyred will return, but don't assume that all who returned are innocent. Not every one of their souls was sent to heaven when they died." His eyes positively burned into hers now, and each word was delivered with such annunciation, that she felt as though Julian was trying to talk to
a stupid child. "Who are the most powerful mortal beings in existence, Aerin? Powerful enough to end the world?"
Witches.
"Holy fuck." Her eyes widened as the truth of it all hit her like a cartoon anvil, threatening to pound her into the dirt.
"The souls in their heavens are at peace, Aerin. Once the seal was broken and vengeance was wrought, they returned to their graves."
A new horror reared its head. "That means...anyone who is left..."'
"Is beyond redemption, because their souls are writhing in the depths of hell," Julian finished for her. "They are the souls of the damned, and they are after you and your sisters’ powers."
No. That meant... Tommy.
"Claire!" Without thinking, Aerin ran and leapt atop Archimedes, and spun him around. If only she had a broom that worked. If only she wasn't such a goddamned failure at being a witch.
If only she'd make it back in time to stop anything bad from happening to her sisters.
The stallion wouldn't move, not without his master's go-ahead.
"Let me go," she commanded. "Let me go!" The second time came out as a plea.
"Take her to her vehicle," Julian acquiesced.
Aerin didn't look back to thank him. She didn't allow herself to look back at all.
Julian stood on the edge of the land, the ocean swirling below him, and watched her plunge into the night. A part of him hoped she succeeded in her endeavor to rescue her sisters.
A part of him hoped she'd fail. That all this would be over.
"Are you going to lurk in the shadows all night, or show yourself to look in my eyes as you torment me?" he queried.
A black and yellow snake slithered through grass, tonguing the toe of his boot before climbing his leg with its sinuous body.
Even the brightness of the moon, that orb from which the Goddess drew her power, seemed to dim in the presence of the serpent.
A mist crept through the meadow and the snake tightened painfully against his leg before morphing and twisting in grotesque undulations until a breathtakingly beautiful woman was pressed against him, her leg entwined around his, her arms wrapped around his neck.
Which Witch is Wicked? (The Witches of Port Townsend Book 2) Page 13