by Sophie Avett
What had gotten into him? He slid his gaze up and down her body. What was it about her that made him ache so? She wasn’t even his type, if it could be said that he had one.
She’d bewitched him. There was no other explanation. And there was only one way to free himself from her. He would have her. Because Elsa Karr and her spirit and barely hidden fire made him want her. And then, he’d be done with her. And maybe, if she was lucky, she would finally glean an image of the monster lurking beneath his charm and do them both a favor and stop looking at him like that. Like she could see the moon rise in the depths of his eyes. Like she was reading his every thought. Like she knew and understood what was coming next in a way he couldn’t.
He drew her closer. “Ask me to kiss you, Elsa.”
She tensed in his arms and pulled back. “I will do no such thing.” Her lips betrayed her with a tremble.
“A word of warning, little witch…” His voice deepened into a harsh whisper. “I won’t stop when you say so.”
Her jaw dropped as though she couldn’t fathom where he’d managed the gall to say what he had. He almost laughed. Didn’t she know? She was dancing with the Devil.
“Enough—”
Almost without thought, he slowed them to an abrupt halt, grasping her elbows and yanking her against him until the entire length of her body was molded to his. Holding her with one arm, he slipped a finger under her chin and lifted it.
“Stop,” she whispered.
He crushed his mouth to hers. She remained stiff, her hands trapped between their bodies, still fisted against his chest. Her entire body was a stake against his chest. Unbendable and unforgiving. No. That was unacceptable. She had to burn just as hot as him. She just had to. He would bewitch her as she had him. He must. He tried to kiss his way deeper into her mouth, but her ripe mouth was cold. Flat. Like unforgiving marble. Frustration pulled a groan from the back of his throat and he flung himself into the kiss, desperation driving his hand into her hair. Sharp spikey mistletoe chastised his fingers. There was pain and the scent of his blood perfumed the air. Elsa. Please. Oh, God, please.
Disappointment. He was about to pull away when something happened. In an instant, she let go of all the tension, the shock, the denial. It faded to nothing. Softened. Warmed until it blistered. Desire blossomed in a red shimmer that enveloped them both. Her fingers unclenched and her hands slid against his chest, gliding up his shoulders as her breasts flattened against him. Thick eyelashes feathered over the curve of her cheek and her mouth finally parted. Lips leisurely opening to his.
She tasted hot like whiskey. Smokey. Sweet and tart like apples and spice. He savored her and she did not fight him. She dipped her tongue between his fangs and sampled him just as deeply, her fingers threading through his disheveled hair, playing with the short strands at his nape. The deeper the kiss tunneled, the less who controlled it mattered. His mouth would seek hers. Rove and learn. And she would return in kind, tongue sweeping across his in bold exploration.
The kiss was entirely inappropriate and it was beyond perfection.
She pressed herself closer against him, sighing sweetly into his mouth. The sound was telling…and unexpected. He opened his eyes even as he kissed her. Her eyes were shut and her face utterly innocent. Utterly devoid of agenda and conflict. Instead of touching a pleasurable, possessive part of his sexuality, the notion she could ever be so simple, so pure, fanned his dark impulses. How dare such a creature look at him like she had. After tonight, she would never look at him like that again. He would rid himself of the craving for her mouth once and for all. He had to. But for right now, he simply kissed her. He sampled and savored every pull and sigh, trusting the magic to lead them back into the dance.
And finally, just when Marshall thought they might simply kiss for eternity, the music died, the rest of the ballroom slowing to a stop, and applause showered the orchestra. Elsa tore her mouth from his, eyes electric and angry with passion. Their chests rose and fell as they panted for breath. Beneath the sparkling wreaths overhead, he studied the murky depths peering up at him with warring desire and accusation. And then, something happened. Her eyes cracked and he saw a flicker of vulnerability. Of uncertainty. Of true, raw, and powerful desire.
“Curse you,” the witch whispered and took a shaky step back.
Then another. And another. Finally pulling her fingers free as she spun and fled. A better soul might have let her run. Left her alone. After all, the clock had already struck midnight and this tryst would not end well for either of them. And yet, he followed her off the dance floor with every intention of being a very, very bad man.
Chapter Nine
The vampire was hot on her heels.
Shadows peeled themselves from the walls and dark corners to writhe like obsidian tendrils. They flailed and snapped, threatening to hold her captive for their master. Fisting her skirt and hauling it up over her boots, she fled and took the stairs. Her red tresses flew wildly behind her, her skirt rustling and shaking as she ran. She was sweating and out of breath. He was close. She knew that like she knew the snow was bitter white and the ocean a profound indigo. Her mouth burned, her lips swollen from his brutal kiss. She tried to swallow, but her pulse was jumping in her throat and she barely managed to stumble the last few steps to the door.
She pulled the decorative brass handle, but it didn’t budge. Darkness snaked between her legs like a thick serpent and she hurried a spell. The lock disengaged, the sound ringing. Snowy blue orbs appeared in a web of shadows down the hallway and she flung herself into the wood. She slammed the door shut behind her, back pressed against the frame. Standing still in the cool black room, she held her haggard breath and strained her ears, casting her senses net. There was nothing but the faint energy signature of the witches rooming next door.
Elsa wiped her sweating palms on her skirt. Where did he go? She waited in the night, searching by the crisp shards of blue moonlight spilling in through the suite’s windows. Nothing. Shivers broke from the crown of her head to the tips of her fingers and she curled her hands into fists. Her mind bloomed with an image of the kiss and she cursed him. But mostly, she cursed herself for the desire pulsing through her veins so loudly she was deaf to anything else.
Perhaps she should take Ingrid’s advice. Perhaps she should fuck him and be done with it. After that, it would be over. Marshall’s interest wouldn’t survive the dawn. Good. Afterward, she could go on with her life. Untouched. Unbothered by the heat and intimacy of companionship. With nothing more than a bat-shaped notch in her bedpost. She lifted her chin into the moonlight, her fingers slowly crawling to the door handle.
Don’t. You will regret it. You always regret it.
It was true. She always regretted it. She wasn’t Ingrid, she could not summon chemistry or guarantee a hard heart at will. She could not stop the occasional tryst from feeling like little more than a painful dance of going through the motions in a vain effort to scratch a terrible itch. By the end, it felt like a terrible invasion of her body and privacy in pursuit of something she’d never reach with a stranger. Something she wished on every star hanging in the black sky like charms that Liam had never shown her, so maybe she wouldn’t be so ready to sacrifice her sanity to touch it again. If only for tonight.
She dropped her head back against the wood and squeezed her eyes shut. When she’d been a small girl, her father told her never to worry about falling. That Odin and the gods walked among them. That they would crawl alongside her when she could no longer stand. “Trust in the gods and you will not fall, for they will carry you, pebble.” She knew now that he was a foolish man. Rare in his kindness and very foolish. For the gods had not carried her through Liam. They had not carried her through the agony of missing him. And they would not be there to help her crawl back to her feet after Marshall.
And she had no intention of crippling herself again. Not now. Not ever. Marshall would understand that. He would cease his pursuit and maintain his distance. Or so help her, she would rip Mjoll
nir from Thor and nail that vampire to the sun herself.
Elsa held her breath, trying to listen for him again. Nothing. She cracked the door and squinted at the empty corridor. He couldn’t have simply disappeared. Nothing in any of her reading or observations suggested he could. The presence tripped her net a split second before heat blistered her back and a heavy palm landed on the wood and slammed the door shut.
Cocooned in the darkness of his shadows, she rested her temple against the teak frame, dragging air into her lungs. The tops of his thighs were molded to the back of hers, trampling the dress between them as if it were of little consequence. Even through the folds of fabric and his black slacks, she could feel him. His length. Hot. Hard.
Insistent and shameless against her ass. An answering pulse leapt to life between her legs and she swallowed hard. “We need to talk, vampire.”
“I’m listening,” his breath moist against the back of her neck, “witch.”
Elsa dug her nails into the wood. She opened her mouth to speak and managed only a sharp intake of breath as a dangerous fang teased her throat. He sealed his mouth over the sweet spot in the curve of her shoulders. Suckled as if he could taste her rabid pulse through the thin layer of skin.
She dragged her teeth across her bottom lip, her head spilling back against his shoulder. “This cannot continue.”
“But it will.” His tone was iron with resolve. Like he had every intention of pressing his case. Elsa’s calf muscles spasmed as she drew upon the Fade. Gathering magic around her in a living cloak of angry energy.
“Release me, vampire.”
He caught her ear between his teeth and bit. Hard. Elsa’s mouth dropped open as the faint twinge of pain highlighted the arousal slowly rising in her veins. Fine. Let the ocean boil and evaporate to nothing. She would not fall. The earth could crack and split in two from thirst and she would still be standing. Elsa spat a quick incantation, the threads of magic wove themselves into a battering ram aimed at his chest.
Energy pulsed in brutal black ripples. Striking the vampire. Shadows riled to a fury as he was blown back. Her skin tingled with the absence of his warmth as she spun around, expecting to find a pissed off vampire and a fight. She found…nothing. There was no trace. He had disappeared. Again. Elsa glared, searching her surroundings.
She waved a hand toward the sconces, turning the levers with her will. Nothing. Darkness remained. She frowned, narrowing her eyes on one of the lamps. “What. Now.”
“I removed the wicks.” His voice echoed through the moonbeams.
Elsa pawed at her skirt, hunting for a discernible source of direction. “Why?”
“Obviously, I didn’t intend for this be a fair fight.”
Sweat coated her skin in an icy sheet as she cast her senses net, wandering around the room in a slow search. “Come to your senses, vampire.” She neared a pocket of shadows and they bubbled and snapped at her skirt, forcing her to backtrack toward the middle of the room. She stomped on one of the obsidian tentacles and hissed. “I will break you.”
The shadow disintegrated beneath her foot as a deep male chuckle rolled across the darkness. Goosebumps rose on her skin. Her ears and eyes sharpened with adrenaline and she opened her mouth to murmur an incantation. Moonlight caught a shard of her amulet, reflecting it on the panel of mirrors wallpapering the closet doors. She tried to resist its shiny pull, but couldn’t, and the incantation died on her lips. Unfinished.
Silver sparkled. The ruby gleamed. And her reflection…she didn’t recognize it.
The lipstick she had fashioned out of one of the holly branch’s berries was gone. Eaten off by the vampire’s hot kisses. Her lips were swollen from them. Blood droplets fell from her earlobe, splashing against her milky white collar bone. She touched them, noting her hair. Earlier, she’d willed her hair into lazy spirals. Some of them had fallen from her holly branch clasp, thick ringlets falling to frame her bright eyes. And they were so very bright. Glowing with an ethereal light. Brilliant. Lush mountain green. She looked wild, beautiful, and dark. It had been such a very long time since she’d seen this woman.
“Take the dress off, Elsa. I would hate to see it ruined.”
Pitiful creature. Elsa touched the cool glass as she murmured the rest of the incantation. His arcane net flared in the reflection, drawing her gaze. His innate glamour was pulled tight around him, the fabric of reality braided beyond what any average monster would ever be able to detect. Seated on a mantle of shadows near the ceiling in the far corner of the room. What she could see of his body—the slope of his corded neck, his wrists and hands—was more shadow than flesh. Long, dark chestnut tresses waved around the sharp planes of his gaunt face as glass black orbs tracked her every movement—the rise and fall of her chest in the bodice, the flutter of her eyelashes. He watched from his perch with painful intensity.
Even in nearly raw form, he was a beautiful creature. Gorgeous, macabre, and so undeniably tempting. Elsa found the ruby’s reflection in the mirror. In its opaque, shiny surface she found an image of her true form. Resolve settled on her shoulders and she drew her magic around her like an iron studded shield. “You were warned, vampire.”
“So were you, witch.” His voice was suddenly much closer than it should’ve been. Elsa’s gaze snapped up from her amulet too late. Darkness was already closing in. Marshall was behind her, his presence blistering her back. She spun around with every intention of catching his pitiful little throat, but he ducked to the left and her arm pierced nothing but a dense pocket of shade.
Shadows coiled themselves around her wrists and her ankles. She opened her mouth to snarl an incantation when another shadow wrapped itself around her mouth. Her eyes flew open and she shrieked as the mass of tentacles tore her off the ground, flipping her around and planting her face first against the glass.
I will have his heart on a stake. Anger seared a red line through her being and she pulled at the slick manacles, her shoulders bunching and the muscles in her back rippling with effort. Her biceps burned, and her chest constricted as oxygen burned its way into her lungs. Fear perfumed the air, and she wriggled and struggled. Trying to find purchase. The shadows hauled tighter, pulling her feet completely off the ground, leaving her weight to be suspended solely by her shoulders. Pain knotted the tendons woven in her neck and vertebrae and she let out a muffled screech.
“You don’t do so well off your feet, do you?” Marshall’s breath was cool. Close, but she could not feel his body—as if he was holding himself away from her. Curving forward just far enough to taunt and tease the curl of her ear. “I am going to release the gag now, little witch, but I beg you, believe me when I say should you so much as breathe a spell”—he tugged the silver chain bearing the amulet around her neck in an unspoken threat. She convulsed and he released the gag, allowing her an unobstructed gasping breath—“now, that we understand each other…” He dropped his temple against the back of her head, nuzzling her hair and sliding his shaking hands down her arms. His hands closed over the shadows manacling her wrist and he whispered, “Tell me you want me.”
Buoyant in the air, she tried to kick out her legs and the shadows threaded her higher—drawing her into a five point star across the mirrors. She was caught. The truth of that dropped into the pit of her stomach like a flaming brick of dread. He would take what he wanted. The notion should’ve sickened her. It should’ve lit every feminine fire in her body until she was positively engulfed in fury.
And she supposed in some ways it did. And yet, even so, fear, anger, outrage—they all gave way to reason. In the depths of her mind, she knew she should capitulate. Pretend to surrender. Submit. And then, she should kill him. Deal be damned. She should ring his little throat until there was nothing left. Drag the pieces of his corpse to her shop and mount him on the fucking wall for Odin’s maidens to collect.
He pressed his lips to the nape of her neck. “Tell me you want me, Elsa.”
Shivers of pleasure shocked down her spine and s
he closed her fingers around the shadows holding her captive. “Never.”
“I’m going to make you cry.” He was against her, molded back to chest. Thigh to thigh. The material of her dress hardly camouflaged the length straining against his zipper. Blood hammered into her heart as snowy blue eyes found hers in the mirror. Given how close she was to the glass, her view was skewed, but even the blind would’ve seen the hunger sucking in his cheeks. Sweat pouring down his face in thick rivulets, effort to wield the shadows no doubt. Need. Yearning. Desperation painting his eyes in a glassy sheen.
Her breath fogged the glass. “I cry for no man, vampire.”
Cruel fingers tangled themselves in her hair. He ripped out the holly garland and yanked her head back mercilessly “Oh, but you will cry for me, Elsa.”
Marshall’s voice was thick with need, harsh and raw. Pained. What demons were driving him now? There was no doubt in her mind, he was being driven. Driven to exact control. Driven to make her a slave to him. He would fail, of course.
Sharp pain radiated from her skull as he ripped out the left over twigs, burrowing his fingers so far into her curls when he closed his fist tight, she felt the friction of his knuckles against her head. Neck hauled back, she was forced to gape up at the ceiling. Wicked lust snaked down her spine, nestling between her thighs. Throbbing.
“You will regret this, vampire.”
“Most likely.” Fabric whispered up the back of her calves, black wisps with tiny claws raking the bell up. Slowly revealing her skin. She tensed, drawing herself up in shadow chains as cool air kissed her skin, making it tingle.
He would see her without clothing.
The thought pierced through her mind like an arrow and she squeezed her eyes shut, and let out a little strangled breath that nearly caused her lungs to collapse. Cool air touched the back of her naked thighs, banking against the curve of her ass—just barely covered by her threadbare cotton panties. Liquid heat pooled behind her eyes as she drew herself impossibly tighter in the bonds. Trying to haul herself up and away. Her shoulders spasmed, the slick shadows biting into her sweating palms. “Stop.”