by Anne Malcom
Anger yanked itself up Sophie’s throat, burning away the elation of the moments before. “Eight days?” she repeated. She struggled against his grip. “Let me go. I’m going to find those wolves and rip their limbs apart, watch them grow them again, and then repeat the process for eight fucking years.” She wasn’t exaggerating—that’s exactly what she intended on doing.
Conall stopped her.
She glared up at him. “Let me go,” she demanded.
“Never,” he growled.
Sophie ignored the fact that she knew he wasn’t talking about that precise moment. She also ignored the fact that it filled her with the witchy equivalent of warm fuzzies.
“They tortured you, and you counted the time. Down to the minute,” she clipped. “They need to pay.”
He held her chin between his thumb and forefinger with a gentleness she wouldn’t have thought possible from the man she’d known before. But then she’d seen it in the beast she’d met that night.
Novel, the wild beast was gentler than the man who held it prisoner.
“No, I counted the exact time I was away from my mate.” His eyes burned into her, as if they were searching for any scars added to her psyche in the time they’d been apart. “Away from her when she was hunting a death that already stalked her.”
She blinked at his perception. Did he know? No, he couldn’t know the truth. No one knew that. Not even Isla.
He was just exaggerating, as intense alpha males tended to do. She’d once heard Thorne say, “I’m holding the future in my arms this very second. My sarcastic, infuriating, and beautiful future.”
Even a chick wouldn’t say that.
Well, not any of the chicks she hung around with. Granted, the only chicks she hung around with were Isla. And Scott.
“I’ve been fine. It’s been boring really,” Sophie lied.
He quirked his brow, calling her bluff immediately.
“Okay, so there might’ve been a small jaunt to Albania to kill the second of the witch sisters, but that was a little anticlimactic because Isla had already killed her without me,” Sophie huffed. “Such a shitty friend move. And then there was the whole ‘Thorne is actually Rick’s brother but not a vampire because of some fucked-up Catch-22 that one god or another tacked onto the creations of vampires,’” she babbled. “It was a big thing. Honestly, even the writers of Days of Our Lives couldn’t make this shit up. And I think Isla is still a bit pissed at Thorne, but I’m sure they’ll work it out considering she needs his blood to survive and she’s pretty attached to surviving. And also an age-old prophecy said they’re destined to be together, so there’s that.” She locked eyes with golden ones. “Other than that, it’s been downright dull.” She furrowed her brow. “I feel like the talking stick needs to be passed to you so you can explain to me how and why the fuck you got kidnapped.” Her voice held an edge to it she couldn’t control.
She was punishing herself for flitting around the globe, checking out caves holding some of the worst evil known to man and beast, being mad at Conall for disappearing, then mad at herself for being mad about him disappearing, and this whole time he’d been locked up. In the fucking woods.
“No,” he growled, bringing her closer.
She gasped as his hardness pressed into her and a hunger that she’d shoved aside in place of concern came back with a vengeance.
His hands moved to her neck. “None of that now.” He trailed his thumb over her bottom lip, rubbing it until she opened it to him with a moan. “You said something before, that you needed me.”
Sophie’s stomach dipped with the memory, with the need that still burned more intense than her need for oxygen. “I do,” she rasped.
“Are you going to beg?” he asked, running his hand down the side of her neck, trailing her collarbone and slipping into her tee so he could cup her breasts overtop of her bra.
“Never,” she hissed, but her body was already yielding to him. It was a matter of moments before her mind did too.
His eyes glowed in the moonlight. Though human now, the wolf still held him in her grasp. Sophie too.
“You will,” he declared, then leaned forward, claiming her mouth brutally and tenderly at the same time as his thumb tweaked her nipple.
Sophie’s knees shuddered as she kissed him back with ferocity.
At some point she’d hooked her leg around his hips, yanking him to her. But obviously not happy with the height distance, Conall lifted her with a grunt, laying her on the hood of her car so he could slam his denim-clad erection against her leather-clad core.
She cried into his mouth, her body so sensitive, so wanting, that the mere impact, even with clothes separating them, threatened to make her come.
He detached his lips from hers for the smallest of moments. Then they were back to ravaging her mouth, but somehow both her tee and bra were gone. Both his hands kneaded at her breasts before he laid his palm on her chest to push her back onto the hood of the car.
The cold metal contrasted with the inferno at her front. His form was cut from the midnight air behind him, cast in the moonlight glow above him. Like some kind of god.
“Beg,” he demanded, his voice a whip.
“No,” she whispered, the word lost in the night’s breeze.
He let out a sound in his throat and wrapped his lips around her nipple. She tangled her hands in his hair, feeling the same softness she had when she’d sank her fingertips into the wolf’s fur before.
Her entire body was on fire with her need for him, with the need for release. His tongue and teeth moved against her nipple, right to the point of climax, and then he stopped, the night air replacing his mouth.
She cried out in frustration, and he moved his head downward, trailing kisses down her navel.
“Yes,” she hissed as he ripped at the fastenings of her shorts. He lifted her up in one swift move so her shoulders were pressed into the hood of the car and her butt was in the air, her panties and shorts coming off in a flash.
She was wearing only her heels and the gaze from her wolf. His eyes were glued to her as he spread her legs wide so she was exposed in the most intimate way possible. There was no unease, no shame. Not with the utter reverence in his gaze. With the worship.
His rough fingertips trailed the skin of her inner thighs, eyes on hers.
“Sophie,” he growled.
And she knew he was going to demand her to beg again. So she beat him to it.
“Please, Conall,” she rasped.
She’d expected to feel shame at being so stripped down to her base needs. To beg a man.
But she wasn’t begging a man.
She was begging a wolf.
And the wolf ate her up.
And she enjoyed every second of it, her screams music in the midnight air.
“Isla, if something happens to me—”
“Ugh, please don’t be as cliché as to give me a verbal love letter to regurgitate to the wolf in the event of your untimely death,” she said, following Sophie’s eyes to Conall, who was sitting in the corner, going over the plan with Thorne and not looking happy about it at all.
Then again, he hadn’t been happy since she met him, so this wasn’t exactly a change.
And he’d been in a permanent state of fury since they’d only just gotten back from their sexfest in the woods to find Duncan lingering at her front door to tell her it was “witch hunting season.”
Obviously Conall had taken that the wrong way, and a growling wolf had threatened to tear at a hulking Scottish vampire.
“Chill, laddie,” Duncan said with a grin. He nodded to Sophie. “She’s a protected species.” He clapped Conall on the shoulder, unaware—or maybe cheekily aware—of the fact that Conall was seconds away from ripping his throat out. “You’re part of the gang now. You’re gonna have to establish a little thing called a sense of humor so you don’t fall on the wrong side of my fangs.” The threat rolled off his brogue with ease and sincerity.
He stepped b
ack. “All right, let’s be off.”
And then they were off.
Without even the opportunity to discuss the whole kidnapping thing and plan the murders of the wolves who did it.
Sophie snapped her gaze back to Isla’s emerald irises.
“I’d literally have to cut out my own tongue so I had an excuse not to do that and not seem like an asshole for not carrying on my bestie’s death wishes,” Isla continued. “And I’d have to do it, like a lot, since it would keep growing back. And I like doing stuff with my tongue.”
Her eyes cut in the same direction as before, but instead of focusing on her wolf, they locked with Thorne’s electric gray irises, which cut to Isla at least every five seconds. Since they’d made up, he didn’t seem to want to have her out of the range of his soulful gaze. Isla sighed and looked back to Sophie lazily before sharpening her stare.
“Did you even think of that, Sophie? Of what your death and the wishes following it would do to me, my tongue and, by extension, my sex life?” She pursed her lips. “No, you didn’t. You were only thinking of yourself.” Isla sipped her wine. “So the only solution to this problem is not to die. It’d piss me right off.”
Sophie grinned. That was Isla’s way of saying she was worried about her. Her drooling at her aptly droolworthy slayer was as close as she’d get to affection—in public, at least. And Sophie wasn’t talking about sex; the vampire had had sex in public a number of times.
She was talking about the kind of love that Sophie had thought was the only myth left in the supernatural world. The kind you died for. More importantly, the kind you lived for.
And Isla had it.
It had changed her, though not much because Isla would rather die than change. She was an ultimate narcissistic, loved herself just the way she was. And rightly so. Everyone expected Sophie to grow up just because she was almost two hundred years old. Sophie always cursed those people.
Usually to go gray and wrinkly, because they were so obsessed with maturity.
But Isla had changed as much as she could, and before Thorne, Sophie would’ve said not one inch. But now, it was enough.
And Sophie liked that for her vampy bestie.
“Isla,” Sophie said, sipping her own wine. “I’m serious. There’s a high chance we could die on this mission.”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “There’s a high chance that my immortal brain cells might burst if I continually watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” she retorted. “Do I still watch it on the reg? Of course I fucking do, because I love Lisa Rinna.”
Sophie grinned again. “Well, this isn’t as serious as Real Housewives, but I’m going to have to insist that you tell him….” Sophie trailed off, searching for whatever words would even fit inside one sentence. Which would be Isla’s limit if she even agreed to do this.
Even if she had a fucking novel, she couldn’t say the right words.
Because she didn’t know them. The most important thing about growing and controlling powers as a witch was the ability to know oneself. Sophie was seriously sucking at that. Maybe that was why she was like a kid with an industrial-sized fire hose every time she tried to turn on her powers.
Because she was so fucking mixed up that she didn’t even know where she ended and the wolf began.
“What? Remind him of a vet appointment?” Isla prompted.
“Just… I don’t know. Tell him I didn’t hate him,” Sophie snapped, draining her wine.
Isla smirked into her own glass. “Is that Shakespeare?”
Sophie poked her tongue out at her. “Forget it. I’ll just have to make sure I don’t die.”
Isla nodded. “Better idea.”
They stood at the back of an unyielding stone building, the air cold, the bite of a Russian winter enough to suck the marrow from your bones.
But the energy of the house was colder still. Evil lived there. Seeped into the very soil the house was built on. Sophie knew that even if it had been the height of summer, she would not have seen a flower. Not a single one.
This was a place even nature knew not to fuck with.
So naturally, Sophie was there.
“Of course this is Isla’s childhood home,” she muttered, stamping her combat boots on the snow for something to do rather than for warmth. She’d already cast a spell over herself to keep her body temp up so she didn’t have to dress for the weather.
She despised that.
So she was wearing skintight leather pants that fit her like a glove, and more importantly were easier to get bloodstains out of. She had a low-slung gold looped belt with a moon hanging off one end—it could be used to choke someone with if she was in a pinch, and she really hoped she would be. She hadn’t realized how utterly sappy it was until Conall had fingered it in his large hands like it was some precious brand or something.
No thanks.
She was wearing a sheer mesh black long-sleeved top, fingerless leather gloves that went up to her elbows, and a leopard bra peeking through the sheer fabric of her top.
Conall had not been impressed.
“We’re going to battle,” he gritted out after she’d burned his hand for trying to command her to change.
“And who says a girl can’t look good while she does it? Have you even seen Daenerys Targaryen?” Sophie replied.
Obviously there’d been an argument. Clearly Sophie had won. Imagine your kind-of werewolf boyfriend trying to tell you what to wear to a face-off with the most evil witch walking?
Honestly, men these days.
“Here,” he grunted, holding his hand out to give her something, eyes on the imposing mansion in front of them.
She immediately took it, because it was in her nature to take things when given, no questions asked. It had not worked in her favor in the past when she’d snatched a hand grenade with the pin removed.
Isla thought it was hilarious.
The weight of the gun was cold and foreboding in her hands. She frowned at it, thrusting it at Conall. “I don’t want that,” she hissed in disgust.
He calmly aimed the barrel downward, away from his chest where she’d been pointing it. “Don’t care if you want it.”
His hands were tight around the handle—was that what it was called?—so she couldn’t let go.
She gave him a look. “You do know the second you let my hand go, I’m just going to hurl it into the snow, right?”
He gave her a hard look. “Then I won’t let your hand go.”
She scowled. “We can’t very well go into battle holding hands,” she spat. “It’s so unprofessional. And gross.”
“I won’t be holding your hand. I’ll be holding a gun, which just happens to be in your hand,” he replied.
Sophie’s scowl deepened. “I liked you better when you were mute,” she lied. She’d loved the fact he talked more in the short time since she’d saved him from being tortured in a cave in the middle of the woods. It had been a real turning point in the relationship.
He sometimes said words that consisted of more than two syllables. Granted, they’d barely gotten back from their little jaunt in the woods before they’d had to man the battle stations, so they hadn’t been able to talk about anything pertaining to their relationship. But they’d argued a lot. He tried to tell her what to do, and she told him she’d turn him into a toad if he tried to stop her from doing what she wanted—like go on quests to kill evil witches.
Just normal couple stuff, Sophie assumed.
His hand flexed around hers, heating it better than any spell. He was only wearing a tee and a light leather jacket, plus his signature jeans and boots combo. His metabolism was crazy high—to the point where Sophie wanted to be a werewolf just so she could consume the sheer amount of calories he did without gaining a pound—so he ran superhot.
And he also was superhot.
But that was neither here nor there.
“I’m not having you go in there without a weapon,” he said firmly.
She rolled her
eyes. “Um, didn’t you get the memo? I am the weapon.”
His free hand clutched the nape of her neck. “You fight well, babe. You have power unlike anything I have ever seen.”
Sophie grinned at the compliment.
He tightened his hold. “But you still bleed.” His eyes held demons that couldn’t be explained on the eve of battle, only seen. “And anything that bleeds can be lost. I’m not losing you,” he promised, either to Sophie or himself, she wasn’t sure.
She swallowed a thick and sharp rock at the emotion in his tone and the sudden realization that this battle could have death on its heels. Not hers—she didn’t worry about that, since death was always at her heels. No, Conall’s. He was the strongest man, and immortal, she’d ever known.
It was always the strongest of men who perished in battles.
Cowards had the pesky habit of surviving.
Not that she was a coward.
And not that she would even entertain the idea of having to face his death. Her own? Sure, why not?
His?
No way in heaven.
She painted on a jaunty smile that she didn’t even pull off. “I’ll make sure I don’t skin my knees, then, shall I?” she said, voice light. Then she used a spell to dissolve the gun in their hands to dust.
She didn’t give Conall time to shout at her, or worse, say anything more soulful and intense. She pushed forward.
To battle.
To death.
Whichever came last.
They entered through the back door.
Which wasn’t locked.
Of course it wasn’t locked. You’d have to be mad to break into the house that had everything but a neon sign on top of it reading ‘Evil inside, will torture anyone who enters.’
Plus every resident of the town who lived in the perpetual shadow of evil—like Gondor in Lord of the Rings—knew exactly what resided in the Mansion of Death, as Sophie had named it.
Secrecy was the biggest rule in the whole of the supernatural community, but they were in the Old Country now, and these mortals knew better than to be calling Time magazine. They did everything they could just to survive, just to endure. Plus, they were the people in the world at the least risk of being drained by a vampire. The Rominskitoffs didn’t murder in their backyard, apparently.