Arcane Heart (Talents Book 2)

by Angela Knight

  There was a long pause. “Could you do that? Never mind, I don’t want to know the details. Just do it. I’d love to discredit that bastard.”

  Jake’s jaw dropped as cold anger flashed through him. “Where the fuck did they get that audio? The sheriff’s office sure didn’t release that.”

  Dave gave him a very toothy tiger grin. “Funny story about that. Evidently some anonymous party emailed the audio to CNN about the time you were arresting Fleming.”

  Jake’s eyes widened. “He must’ve done it when they gave him back the phone.”

  “That, or he had it set to go automatically unless he stopped it. Mr. Fleming is a liiiiittle bit vindictive.”

  “Bad man to fuck over.”

  The camera cut back to a trio of talking heads, one of whom looked more than a little sick. “How do we know Fleming didn’t cast a spell on Mrs. Laurel to make her say that? We all know what kind of people Talents are.”

  The camera cut to a shot of Erica reaching out to lay a hand on Jake’s lion manifestation as he held Kurt down, fangs in his friend’s throat. A huge paw lifted, preparing to strike out at her, and Jake caught his breath in horror.

  He was barely aware of the talking heads arguing as the video continued: Kurt tearing free of him, planting himself between Jake and the two women. Erica deliberately walking around Kurt, then sinking to her knees in front of the lion manifestation and extending a shaking hand to him.

  That was the moment she’d helped him break the spell’s grip.

  The glowing leonine shape disappeared, leaving the recorded Jake on his knees. He leaped up, caught her by the shoulders and pulled her into his arms. He remembered his panic and relief as he realized she was unhurt…

  And the sheer giddy joy of kissing her, feeling the hot, soft pressure of her mouth…

  “Yeah,” drawled one of the talking heads dryly. “Those Talents are bloodthirsty.”

  “Jesus.” Jake tilted the beer up and slugged the whole thing down in three long swallows. He put the empty down on the coffee table and looked at Kurt. “Got another one of those?”

  Kurt handed over his own unopened bottle. “You’re entitled.”

  “Christ, you really did save my ass.” He twisted the top off the beer and took a long swallow. “I don’t remember much of that at all.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Kurt told him. “Look, none of this is your fault. And the point is, you didn’t kill anybody. You didn’t even really hurt me. You might have clawed the hell out of my manifestation, but you never got to skin.”

  “I damn near got to Erica’s.”

  A big forepaw landed on his knee as Dave sat down in front of him. “But you didn’t. And she knew you wouldn’t. Think about that for minute -- about what that says about your relationship. She doesn’t doubt you anymore.”

  Jake snorted. “We’re talking about Erica Harris. She’d have done the exact same thing if she hadn’t known me from Adam’s house cat. That woman has a streak of insane courage that goes all the way to the bone.”

  “Yeah, she does,” Kurt agreed. “But when I told her to get away, she told me you wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “And the rest of America agrees with her,” Dave said, turning to the open laptop and manifesting arms again. “Witness my Twitter feed.” He began to read in a high-pitched imitation of a teenage girl. “‘OMG! That was the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen! When he kissed her, my heart just MELTED.’”

  Jake fell back against the back of the couch, both hands covering his face. “Kill me now. I’m going to be hearing this shit from other cops for the rest of my natural life.”

  “Probably,” Dave agreed cheerfully. “Oh, here’s a good one.” He went back into teenage girl mode. “‘Would you just look at his shoulders? He is such a SNACK!’”

  Kurt roared with laughter as Jake snatched up a pillow and sailed it at Dave’s head.

  The tiger ducked, thoroughly smug. “You do realize you owe me a woman,” he told Kurt. “I told you he’d pull it off, and he did.”

  “I didn’t take that bet,” Kurt objected, as Jake wondered what the hell they were talking about. “And like I told you before, where the hell am I supposed to get this tiger woman? There aren’t that many women Ferals with female tiger Familiars. And there are even fewer melded women in the tiger’s body.”

  “Not my problem,” Dave told him loftily. “A bet’s a bet.”

  “Still didn’t take the bet. Anyway, he hasn’t proposed yet, and she hasn’t accepted.”

  “Hey,” Jake protested. “Sitting right here.”

  Dave turned to him. “And why are you still sitting right there? Go propose, asshole. I need a woman.”

  Jake snorted. “Yeah, because I’m absolutely proposing to win you a bet.”

  “No, you should propose because she’s a hell of a woman and you’re a dumbass if you don’t.”

  Kurt looked at him. “He’s got a point.”

  * * *

  Fortunately, Genevieve returned before he was forced to kill his two best friends, and Jake was able to escape.

  He headed for the memorial garden that lay not far from the house, intent on finding Erica. It was a lovely spot, azaleas and magnolias in full bloom, filling the air with their heady scents. Stone markers stood here and there among the greenery, each chiseled with the name of one of the cats who had been buried there. Besides the markers for the strictly non-magical cats, there were larger, more elaborate ones for Lahr, Fred Briggs’s lion familiar, and Stoli, who had been Kurt’s tiger.

  Jake found Erica sitting in the center of the garden under a wooden pergola. Roses climbed the wooden supports of the structure, and long swags of wisteria draped from its lattice roof. The grape-like clusters of blooms screened the circle from the view of the park, probably so the tourists wouldn’t be able to tell anyone was working magic inside it.

  Erica sat on a blanket in the center of a ring of stones, each carved with sigils Jake assumed were designed to feed magic to whoever occupied the circle. It was evidently working. As he dropped to his knees in front of her, he saw her face no longer held the expression of pain she’d worn throughout the day.

  She’d taken off her duty belt, socks, and shoes, which now lay in a pile off to the side. She’d also shed her uniform shirt and Kevlar vest, leaving her dressed only in a thin tank top and uniform pants.

  Erica sat very straight in the moonlight, eyes closed, her hands palm up on her knees. Something about her short-cropped hair and the elegant bone structure of her face made him think of Joan of Arc, the French teenager who’d led her country’s armies into combat when everyone told her it was impossible.

  Thank God things had turned out better for Erica than they had for Joan. It had been entirely too damned close as it was.

  In the depths of his mind, he heard a low leonine moan, echoing Clarence’s actual voice from the depths of the park. The cat had been desperately unhappy to realize how close they’d come to hurting her ever since they’d come back to themselves.

  Don’t worry, buddy. We’ll make it up to her.

  * * *

  Erica felt Jake’s presence the moment he stepped into the circle, felt the brush of fur against her skin as Clarence silently demanded reassurance. While they’d cooled their heels at the sheriff’s office, Erica had tried repeatedly to tell the lion she wasn’t angry, but he didn’t seem to believe her.

  Now Jake himself stood there, the glow of his presence lighting up her consciousness. Before she could open her eyes, his Feral magic touched her -- a slow, velvet stroke, ghosting across her aura. Sharing his aching need for her. Not just for her body, but for her intelligence and courage and skill.

  Her.

  Telling her without words that she was everything he’d ever wanted. The sheer naked intensity of his emotion made her catch her breath.

  Me? He feels that way about me? Deep inside her, the desperate, wounded child who’d never been accepted by anyone froze in wonder, scarcely daring
to believe.

  She opened her eyes and looked up at him, dazzled. She didn’t intend to ask the question -- it was incredibly hard to reveal such vulnerability even to him -- yet she heard herself say the words anyway. “Do you mean it?”

  Jake stood looking down at her, tall and strong, the moon pouring silver across his impossibly handsome face. “Yes.” He reached out, cupped her face in a broad, strong hand. Brushed his thumb over the curve of her cheek. “How can you even doubt it? I’d be dead now if not for you. Dead or destroyed by that bastard’s magic. You risked everything to save me. Didn’t hesitate, even when you knew I might rip you open.”

  Erica stared, startled. She could feel it, see the belief glowing in his aura. “I was never in any danger from you, Jake. Even if you hadn’t… loved me, you’re decent all the way to the bone.”

  “Bobby was decent.” Pain flashed in his glowing eyes.

  “Yes, he was.” Erica rose, needing to be on her feet. Needing to look in his eyes so he could see the truth in hers. “But not strong enough to beat the booby trap. You are. All I had to do was crack Fleming’s spell, and you were able to beat its effects.”

  “Barely.” He closed his eyes, and a spasm of terror crossed his expression as if he remembered how close they’d come to losing everything. “It was too damn close, Erica. Way too close.”

  “But you beat it.” She rose on her toes and leaned in, bracing her hands on his chest as she breathed against his mouth. “I knew you would. I knew you’d never fail me.”

  She took his lips slowly, brushing her mouth back and forth across his. Tasting Mellow Microbrew and Jake, inhaling the ozone tang of Feral magic and the ghostly smell of fur. He stilled against her, then opened for her with a throaty groan, swirling his tongue into her mouth. Tasting her. Drinking her. “Erica,” he whispered, his voice harsh with emotion. “God, Erica, if I’d hurt you…”

  “You didn’t. Wouldn’t.”

  Both big hands came up to cup her head between them, fingers tunneling into her hair. Caressing the curve of her skull, drawing her close.

  With a low growl, she pulled back a fraction and bit gently at the curve of his plush lower lip, then nibbled the aggressive jut of his chin, a little rough with beard shadow after the long day. Her hand curled into the collar of his uniform shirt, pulled. “I want you out of this.”

  His closed eyes opened, revealing a glowing gold slit. “All right.” His lips curled into a smile. “If you insist.”

  “Oh, I’m insisting.” She stepped back, started in on the buttons, her fingers fast and a little clumsy in her need. He reached down and caught the fabric of her undershirt, and she stopped her attack on his buttons long enough to let him pull it off over her head.

  So they undressed each other, fumbling a little in their need, dropping pants and shirts and weapons and gear, piling them up haphazardly. Until Erica and Jake were naked in the moonlight, breathing hard, shaking with the intensity of the emotion they felt.

  For a moment they just stopped and stared at each other like a couple of virgins. Though they’d made love before, it had never felt like this. Never felt so new and strange, so naked and strong and… somehow terrifying.

  Dry-mouthed, weak-kneed, Erica gazed at Jake’s gloriously sculpted body edged in moonlight. At the broad shoulders and muscled arms, the ridges of abdominal muscles and powerful corded thighs. At his cock, that glorious shaft curving and ready, a pearl of pre-come glinted on the tip.

  He stared back at her, his pupils wide in the glowing ring of his irises, his lips parted, an expression of wonder on his tough, confident face she’d never expected to see.

  Bare, powerful arms closed around her, pulling her against his brawny body and trapping his thick cock between them. Then he was kissing her again, his lips as soft and warm as his body was hard and hot, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips and thrusting inside as she opened them to moan. She wrapped her arms around him, digging the nails of one hand into his shoulder as she threaded the fingers of the other into the short, silken strands of his blond hair.

  They kissed with ravenous intensity, greedy tongues swirling and thrusting, their bodies rolling together with desperate, yearning pressure. His hands roamed over her, cupping the curve of her waist, the rise of her ass, lifting her off her feet. In the depths of her mind, she heard an ecstatic rumble, felt the brush of the mane against her aura, the crackle of magic across her skin. She tore her mouth away from Jake’s and groaned, “Too many legs!”

  Clarence chuffed a lion laugh and vanished.

  Jake chuffed an echo and dropped to his knees with Erica in his arms. He laid her back on the blanket and sat back on his heels.

  God, he was beautiful, every muscle sculpted in moonlight and shadow, rolling under velvet flesh like music as he moved. His cock jutted straight up, angled by his pose, a long, elegant length, veined and thick and ready. Just the sight of it made her mouth go dry even as wet flesh swelled and tightened between her thighs.

  He surged forward, coming down on top of her, catching himself on stiff arms, biceps bulging. Erica drew in a breath of delight as he lowered himself, and she arched to meet him, surrendering stiff nipples to his mouth, to his tongue, to his teeth. She moaned in helpless pleasure as his tongue swirled and lashed each nubbin in turn, alternating with nibbles of gently raking teeth. The silken pleasure made her eyes slide shut and her breath catch.

  She wrapped both arms around him, cradling his head, relishing the cool, feathery texture of his hair. Bracing on an elbow, Jake caressed the side of one breast as he sent the fingers of his free hand tracing over the line of her ribs, the jut of a hipbone. Stopped to circle her navel as she writhed at the ticklish sensation with a breathless giggle. He chuckled, his breath gusting over the point of her nipple, warm and arousing.

  “God, Jake!” She wrapped her arms around the width of his chest, rolling her hips up to grind against the intoxicating male promise of his cock. It felt so damned good. She couldn’t wait to feel him spearing into her, grinding erotically over slick and eager flesh. “God, I want you, I need you. So bad…”

  “Not as bad as you’re going to,” He growled against her breast, and she gasped at the sweet threat. Releasing the captured nipple, he licked and kissed his way downward, pausing here to nibble a rib, there to suck the jut of her hipbone. A quick swirl of his tongue over and around her bellybutton made her squirm and gasp.

  And every time he moved, the hair of his chest tickled her skin as his body pressed against her pelvis, brushing over hot, aching pussy.

  That was where his mouth was headed. The thought of what he’d do there made her grind her head back into the blanket in helpless need.

  But she wanted more than that.

  Erica locked the fingers of one hand into his short hair and tugged until he lifted his head to look at her. “Sixty-nine! I’ve got to taste you!”

  He grinned at that, a wicked flash of white teeth and gold eyes. “Demanding wench.”

  “You bet your sweet ass.” She planted both palms against his chest, tightened the grip of her thighs as she twisted her hips against him in a wrestling throw.

  Jake let himself be flipped onto his back. Sprawled there in the moonlight, he was broad and muscled and beautifully erect.

  Lust flashed through Erica like a lightning strike. She flung a leg across his narrow hips and leaned down to kiss him, unable to resist the lure of his mouth. His cock brushed her naked belly, and she sucked in a needy breath, drinking the taste of him, smelling sweat and fur and magic. Tasted Mellow Microbrew and Jake. Jake, more intoxicating than the beer.

  He kissed her back, cradling her face in one broad, calloused palm. When she drew back at last, he gave her a lazy smile. “I thought you were going to let me kiss the other lips.”

  She grinned wickedly at him. “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

  “You forgot?” Gold brows lowered in mock anger. “I must be doing it wrong if I’m that forgettable.”

  Erica laughed
in a chuff worthy of Clarence. “Believe me, Jake, you don’t do anything wrong.” She sat up and rearranged herself, turning her back on his laughing mouth to kneel aside his torso and face the broad, eager curve of his shaft. Wrapping her fingers around his impressive width, she savored its warm, velvet texture.

  Then, slowly, anticipating, she extended her tongue and licked a pearl of arousal off the tip of his cock. It tasted salty, astringent, eager.

  His hips gave a little involuntary jolt at the feel of her tongue, and she smiled in pleasure. God, she loved making Jake hot.

  Slowly, spinning out the moment, she opened her mouth and leaned in, letting him feel the heat of her breath. Letting him anticipate. Enjoying the power his lust gave her. I’m going to drive you right out of your mind.

  Her plan derailed when a wet male tongue stroked the length of her sex, scooping through swollen, juicy lips. Spreading her lips with his fingers, he lifted his head to lap at her clit. Time to return the favor.

  Angling his cock up with one hand, Erica began to lick all up and down the shaft, playing her tongue along the thick veins, tracing the mushroom tip, swirling over its exquisitely sensitive head.

  To her immense satisfaction, Jake groaned, hunching against her grip. “Damn, you’re good at that!” His voice sounded ragged, his breath gusting over her wet flesh.

  Erica lifted her head and grinned. “Believe me, it’s my pleasure.”

  Opening wide, she sucked him in, tightening her lips for a long, merciless pull. He grunted against her pussy and began to eat her, just as ravenous and eager. One hand slid down to the erect nipple dancing over his torso, captured it. Skilled fingers milked its hard jut, each tiny pinch spilling more burning delight into her body like flaming brandy.

  Erica moaned around his width, pulling her lips off him, sucking hard. Her free hand reached up to find his balls drawn tight and close to his body. Cupping them, she rolled their warmth in her fingers, making him squirm.

  He plunged his thumb into her wet pussy as he sealed his lips around her clit, suckling with delicious greed, his tongue dancing wet swirls around it. The sensation made her close her eyes, moaning helplessly around the hefty girth of his cock. Magic danced and sparkled behind her eyelids, all violet, blues, and shades of lusty pink. It gave her an idea, and she sent tendrils of magic stroking the length of his aura, building his pleasure and arousal even more.