In. Out. In. Out.
A groggy half groan, half growl made her bite at her lower lip with the way it stroked along her libido with an easy grace.
This close, she could smell the same spicy, intoxicating scent that had hit her so hard from the vision. Only multiply it by ten.
Damn crazy wolf. He’d scared the holy Hades out of her bursting through the door as if it was made of nothing more than wet paper towels. One more thing she’d have to clean up.
“I’m here, I’m here,” she assured him. Her spells never backfired. Goddesses divine, help her if she caused any harm to him. She’d never forgive herself.
Silence settled over the room as thick as the smoke. “Roarke? You okay?” She waved a hand through the air in front of his face, but it didn’t help. Every wisp she managed to fan away rushed right back at them twofold. The stuff was hell bent on suffocating her. Like a fog straight out of sci-fi movie where some damn alien monster would pop out of nowhere and snatch her up. She almost laughed. That option might be easier to deal with than her current situation.
Particles danced around the edges of her eyesight. Another wave rushed over them only this time the effects of her spell dug its claws deeper.
Harmony let her hands slowly drop as she scooted back a couple of inches. A hexed werewolf even in human form was still a force to reckon with. By all accounts, Caden didn’t look so good. Sweat dotted his forehead and the vein in the side of his neck pulsed. His normally deeply tanned skin now looked pale.
She raked her free hand through her hair, which had slipped from her sloppy bun at some point and tried not to show the panic inching up her spine. Did that freak out shifters? The scent of fear? That and the power from so much potion bombarding them probably didn’t bode well for either of them in such a small space.
She gave a faint smile when he flashed a glance her way and tightened her fist around the edges of her sweatshirt. She had two options, let him work through the lure of the energy and hope he didn’t shift or help him stay un-furry for as long as possible. Not that shifting would be a bad thing, but she’d never handled a hexed werewolf in full on fang mode.
On bended knee, Caden braced himself against one shelf while she waited, unsure what to do next, if anything.
He raised his head and they locked gazes. Brilliant golden flecks pierced by rays of crimson stared back at her. Her heart did an erratic two-step. His eyes narrowed into thin slits that glowed with an ethereal power.
Wow. He had the most gorgeous set of eyes. She’d never seen them so red before. Hades, she’d never seen them anything other than deep brown, and never would again. She knew it, just like she knew she needed a closer look. Caden this so out of control...goddesses divine!
Captivated by the crimson shards of color in his eyes, she slowly ran a hand along the stubbled line of his jaw. “Beautiful,” she managed in a controlled, quiet voice and smiled at the dark skinned man and his unruly hair.
Mesmerizing more like it, but beautiful worked too. This close the shafts of red in his eyes filled with angry storm clouds that swirled and shifted with uncontrollable emotions. Shifters were so mysterious and she’d never been this close to one on the verge of shifting. Her line of work brought in numerous races of otherworldlies, but she never worked with them in their other form. A small voice in her head warned her to tread lightly with the beast, but she pushed it aside until the whispers were nothing more than background noise.
“Touch me.” When in doubt shock the hell outta them, she always said. “Anywhere, really, it’s okay. Use my energy to calm your wolf.”A pleased sound rumbled from his chest and she sighed long and heavy as his gaze raked over her body in a hungry caress.
It had been only a couple of nights since he last touched her as her lover and she craved it again, only this time the fire in her gut called for more than a gentle touch. She swallowed hard shocked by the raw need that invaded her body. His eyes lit on her and served as a burning hot jolt of electricity to her pussy. Wet heat slipped from her to dampen the small strip of cloth between her legs.
Fire would be cold in comparison to what he sparked inside her. She stroked another light caress along his cheek that caused him to groan and his eyelids to slowly slide closed. Goddesses divine let this feeling be right.
Muscles bunched beneath the weight of her other hand that rested on his shoulder. The leather of his gun harness creaked from his jerky movements as he reached for her. “Get back.” His words came out shaky and forceful.
Instead of the gentle touch she expected, he pushed at her shoulder while he pulled back from her. Tension rolled off him and warred with the potion that still stubbornly clung to the air.
A blue shield of energy crackled and hummed along the surface of her skin in warning to the danger. Tension wound tight, palpable. “Caden, I want to feel your hands on me,” she reassured him, drawing her magick back in check as she eased closer. If she could just get him to follow her lead, she knew his wolf would calm.
With a slight tilt of her head, she offered a small smile to help ease him. Breathing steadily, she moved in until not even a sliver of cold air could slip between them. Something told her that the power of the moon would overtake him soon and who knew where that would leave them.
Seconds melted into what felt like long minutes.
His chest heaved with every breath, but her words seemed to calm him. Good. She needed to keep him from shifting right here in her shoppe between the erotic sex lotions and wolfsbane.
Caden fell back to rest on his heels. “Harmony, by God woman.” Muscle strained in his neck as he spoke. “You should have a healthier dose of fear.” He shook his head back and let out a growl that reached into her soul. “You need to go. We need to go. I’ll lock you up and there won’t be anything to fear.” As if on cue, another rumbled threat quaked along the floor, this time followed by what sounded like something heavy landing on the roof.
He forced his words past clenched teeth. “Now Harmony.”
The way he uttered her name in such a rough bestial voice had her insides in a messy puddle and no way could her heart hold up against his piercing stare.
She wanted to melt into his embrace. Everything about the man pulled her closer. And wasn’t that a surprise. She craved his touch, wanted to press every inch of her body against his in return, and in the same breath instinct froze her in place, driving fear into her veins, urging her to run the opposite direction. Fucking potion blurred her senses. Deep down she knew he would never hurt her, but his wolf?
She had little experience with many of the otherworldlies. Summer days flew by while she helped her family manage the farm in Savannah. The long hot nights were for learning the art of her magickal heritage by the knee of her mother and aunts.
Winters were spent with her father’s sister here in Sweet Briar learning the art of clairvoyance. She was a book nerd, not the kind of girl that went to parties and had wild kinky sex with über hot shifter guys, despite what her sisters thought. Caden was her first in so many ways.
“Lock me up? Fear?” She cocked a brow and looked into his eyes. “Why? And do you mean fear of you?” Her voice kicked up in surprise.
“Yes and yes, fear of me, woman. You’re my one sin away from hell and I’m about to commit it and damn us both. And we have visitors that don’t exactly like to play nice.”
That had to be a compliment. At least it sounded like one. Kinda.
“Back up, are you sayin’...”
“That I’m holding my wolf back from slamming into you and taking you, claiming you and making you mine. The only thing keeping me in check is the threat flying above.”
Her brows pinched. Goddesses divine, he might be delusional, but damn he made it look sexy and kinky jail sex sounded like a good idea too.
She cocked a brow, opened her mouth but closed it. How exactly did a witch go about confessing to the sheriff he might be enchanted somewhat, with her spell? Maybe she should leave that last part out?
<
br /> Essentially, she’d served him a joint and now he was high on the job. Her look must have said it all, because despite the torturous expression on his face, Caden smiled and made her heartbeat spike.
“The way you scrunch up your nose when you’re thinking something over is fucking adorable.” Before she could reply, glass rattled and she braced her hand on the shelf to keep what little she could reach from falling to the floor.
Keep from falling... Her eyes widened. “Oh, damn...” Harmony pushed to her feet, stepped over the fallen debris and dived behind the counter. Ash covered most of the floor and left a huge smudge of soot up the length of her jeans as she skidded across the smooth flooring.
“GRRRR... Damn. Damn. Damn!” Her heart lodged in her throat. She should have known. How could she have been so distracted?
Dragon’s blood. Of course! That explained the quakes. Not the illegal blood, but the creatures it belonged to and who’d come a day early looking for what was rightfully theirs.
Streams of moonlight broke through the clouds and poured in through the skylights to reflect off the crimson drops as they ran down the side of the marble and steadily dripped into her cauldron.
Goddesses divine. Harmony clamped a hand to her forehead and bit back a wild, colorful curse. She willed her stomach to settle, but the thought of everything that could possibly go wrong tonight that did, in fact, go horribly wrong made her feel sick. How the hell did the blood make its way into her potion at the exact same time she cast her spell?
The floor trembled beneath her.
The earthquake hadn’t been in her vision.
She scooped up the tipped bottle and the clasp that failed to keep the contents locked in the vial. Right after her spell took hold, images of Caden had flooded her psyche and then erratic pounding had rattled the entire place from the foundation up.
Damn nosy, impatient dragon shifters. Shit.
Growls pulled her attention to the front of the shoppe followed by deeper, more guttural snarls from the entrance.
Two days ago it came to the dragons’ attention someone in their inner circle had made off with several vials of dragon’s blood from their infirmary and came to call on her. Unfortunately, her charm and southern hospitality had nothing to do with it. They wanted her psychic abilities.
The second she touched the hand of the dragon shifter whose blood had been stolen, Harmony knew exactly where to look and a good idea of what they intended to do with it. Since her plan of stealing it back hadn’t been set in the fabric of the universe, she saw the black magick the warlocks intended it for, but didn’t know for sure if the plan would succeed. It made her ill. If not a little guilty by association alone. Which is why she agreed to help and swore under oath not to tell her High Council about the breach in the Dragon’s security.
Thirty-six hours after learning who had one of the five missing vials, she added breaking and entering to her rapidly growing rap sheet.
DraegonStone warriors had a long memory and when double-crossed, blood would spill. The Witches and Weres war might be over, but the fragile treaty they held could crumble beneath them all with the right motivation. In all honesty, she wouldn’t put it past the High Council to poke the sleeping dragons hard enough to cause another war all in the name of taking more power for themselves.
Careful not to draw too much attention to herself, she walked slowly around the counter and headed back to where she’d left Caden, who seemed too damn quiet, tucked between the shelves of wolfsbane and sex potions. The goddesses must love this irony.
One would free the beast, pun totally intended, and the second would lock him away and possibly kill him. Not so good.
“Caden, uh... I forgot to tell you somethin’, sweetheart.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“No kidding. We’ll get to your moonlighting activities later. Right now get behind me.” Caden gave a smile that held a savage edge. His teeth gnashed together, his words gravelly and forced. He was already standing, and his chest heaved with labored breaths.
She swallowed hard and her lips tightened into a thin line.
His shoulders and back tensed and bulged against the force he obviously had to use over his wolf. For some reason the man didn’t want to shift. She knew why she didn’t want him to, but why didn’t he want to? Did it have anything to do with her and what he had confessed?
Gray silhouettes broke through the thinning fog. Broad shoulders, thick waists and long legs slowly melted into two men that soon stood before them. Their gazes, lit with an odd combination of violet and golden fire that seemed to come from within, landed on her first then shifted to Caden.
She could see how women fell for their mesmerizing allure. Despite the menacing aura, they willed a force around them that demanded the attention of others.
Something that had no hold over Caden. “Get behind me.” Pulled from her rampant thoughts, she held out a palm to Caden to stop him, though his stony gaze was locked on their visitors. With a wide hand to her shoulder, he moved her to stand safely behind him.
Something clicked and had her pausing. Without a doubt the man that had claimed her heart from her first day back in Sweet Briar would do anything to see her safe. Did that mean he cared more for her than he let on? She didn’t dare hope... her heart willed it so anyway.
Men, shifters or otherwise, had a hard time listening. Mix in the power of the moon to mess with their ability to think clearly, she’d have an easier time getting a wall to see reason.
“We’ve come for what is ours, wolf. This has nothing to do with you. Step aside.”
Oh, why did they have to say that? Her head dropped and she buried a cringe behind the heels of her palms.
Her wolf shifter visibly bristled at the dragon shifter’s words. “If it involves the witch it has everything to do with me, so think again, lizard boy.”
Nice. That helped the situation.
She stepped around Caden, placed a hand on his chest, and nailed him with a look that said she wasn’t taking his alpha macho moves. To her left the dragons stood shoulder to shoulder to form a wall of muscled meat that the wolf to her right probably couldn’t wait to sink his fangs into and tear out a chunk.
“Last I checked one lone wolf and a witch didn’t make worthy opponents.”
Oh, they didn’t just call her magick insignificant.
She craned her head and threw them a sideways glance. Arrogant bastards.
The first of the dragons took a step forward.
She held the hand out that wasn’t currently securing her wolf in place and called on her inner bitch. Her body tightened and she let out a slow steady breath. Fire traveled along her arm into a flame that quickly kindled to life in her palm. Witch’s flame was the one thing that held dragons—and any other arrogant otherworldlies—in check when they thought they could throw their weight around.
Her lips titled up in challenge as both men recognized her intent. “One more step and we’ll put that to the test, boys.” It felt good to flex her powers.
Caden unfastened his harness and the weight of his gun thudded against the hardwood floor, which sounded like the proverbial shoe dropping in the silence that suddenly swept through the room. The second dragon dipped his head and let out a belly deep roar that damn near shattered her eardrums. In a blink, everything moved in a blur.
Caden fell to his knees, his clothing and shoes gone in a flash. Bones cracked and popped. Human morphed into beast, revealing a flawless white wolf growling down at her. She froze, completely mesmerized by his size and the glow of his fur in the swaths of moonlight hitting him from above. Mystical and powerful. At her five foot and some change, Caden in his full on fur mode stood at eye level.
A-MAZ-ING.
The future ‘forbidden’ for her to see, flashed before her eyes. Thank the goddesses she was on his side. Or was it that he was on hers? She bit the inside of her lip and tried to focus. Either way, the dragons had a worthy adversary. She flexed her fingers. Make that two.
Although there was nothing she could do to stop the shifters if they really wanted to have a go at it, she sure as Hades could stop them from trashing Enchanted Embers.
She pushed forward with both hands extended and ablaze with indigo flames. “Stoooooop.” The single syllable word rushed out, and she forced all her will into her magick. If they thought she would sit by like some damsel in distress while three testosterone-pumped men duke it out, they were sorely mistaken.
“Maybe you forgot, but you’re all guests in my place.” She let the flames recede then jacked a thumb around to encompass their surroundings. Snow flurries trickled in through the door that stood ajar. With slow steps, the white powder crunch underfoot as she walked up to Caden’s wolf, who currently stood with his lips curled back and fangs on full display, and softly rested a hand on his neck. A low rumbled growl held the dragons in their place, but anything could set off the tightly wound tension when it came to them enforcing their laws.
“Easy, Caden. The dragons mean no harm.” She shot them with a pointed glare, her hand at the ready with her witch’s fire. Hopefully Caden could read her energy as well as hear her words better than his human counterpart and feel she was in no danger with the dragons. They only gave an uninterested shrug in answer.
“I think you should be on your way before something we all regret happens here tonight. We can handle our arrangement at another time.”
“Out of respect for your kind, we’ll take no offense through the actions of your mate.” Clairvoyants were regarded with high reverence by the dragons. Her aunts had taught her they believed her kind as blessed guardians of the otherworldlies. A role she took too lightly until tonight.
Both men took a step back to mirror their words. Their eyes were bright with an ancient power that rolled off them in waves to smash against everything in its wake. If she didn’t know any better, she’d bet they did it on purpose.
She gave a half smile. They thought Caden was her mate? Ha! What a hoot! The minute she spied his cruiser beneath the old willow tree earlier tonight she knew there would be some fast-talking to do in her immediate future if she didn’t want the sheriff’s cuffs to clink around her wrists for real this time. Lovers or not, he had a job to do.
Enchanting the Alpha (Hex My Heart, #4) Page 3