The very minute his hands touched the amulet, she fell into his mind. God, it was crazy insane. Things like that didn’t happen. Couldn’t happen. People didn’t leave their bodies and go visit someone else’s head. But the world dropped away. She was touching Xia’s mind, and what she found there brought a scream to her throat.
Chapter 9
Alexandrine fell and fell without hitting bottom, and when the whirling sensation stopped at last, Xia’s mind surrounded her. He wasn’t doing anything about it, not yet. In the first instant of their touching, she knew him immediately and intimately. His hatred of her went bone-deep. He hated her for what she was. For being a witch. For being Rasmus Kessler’s daughter. But he wanted her, too, and that was scary, feeling all that hatred and desire coming at her. At the center of what he was, there was a cold, deep universe that pulsed in time with the beat of her heart. Magic. His magic. Narcotic magic.
As her dizziness receded, she got flashes of his physical experiences. He gripped her amulet so tight the edges cut into his palm. The sharp bite of the stone hurt her, too. His other hand was in contact with her. Or maybe that was her touching him.
Disoriented by her inability to separate his sensory information from hers, she swayed. The motion helped her separate herself from him. She tried to right herself but couldn’t, because she didn’t know which way was up or down, left or right. Fear vibrated through her with a low bass tone so subtle she almost didn’t recognize what it was. It was Xia’s power flowing through her.
This can’t be happening.
She flattened her hands over her ears. “Get out of my head.”
“Alexandrine.”
He was so achingly beautiful. His voice was so beautiful; she wanted to listen to him forever. Especially if he said her name like that, slow and soft. Her head cleared a little. Not much. And when it did, her stomach rolled up. She pried open her eyes and found herself looking into Xia’s neon blue gaze.
“Alexandrine,” he said again.
Her dizziness faded enough for her to realize she was still kneeling, still gripping his shoulders, and that he was on his knees, too. He had an arm around her waist. Underneath her shirt. An accident, that. He only meant to keep her from falling backward off the bed. Nevertheless, his fingers splayed over her bare back. He clutched the amulet in his other hand, and she could still feel the pain in his hand.
“Breathe,” he said.
Oh, God, she had no idea if he’d spoken out loud or directly into her mind. She inhaled. The world settled, but nothing was the same. Icy air rasped in her lungs. Her eye sockets hurt. Xia’s irises were big, wide pools of electric blue.
“Better?” he asked.
“So,” she said, pushing him away, well aware that he moved because he wanted to, not because she was strong enough to budge him. He let go of the amulet, and with a jolt, the connection ended. “Was it good for you, too?”
“Fuck off, witch.” They were both unnerved, then. “That wasn’t my fault.”
“Well it sure as hell wasn’t mine.” She’d read about the dangers fiends allegedly posed to humans. Right about now, she was thinking maybe the warnings weren’t far off the mark.
“I don’t go in without permission,” Xia said. “I swear, I don’t know what just happened.” He pushed her shoulder. “You wanna whine about what happened, go do it to your magekind friends about how fiends need to be taken down and killed or made into slaves. Maybe you can team up with all your lame-ass mage buddies and see if you can pull enough magic to get a mageheld of your own.” He reached out and poked the amulet, pressing it hard into her belly. “You could kill this and live a little longer.”
She got all mixed up again, when without warning she was staring into her own brown eyes. Honey-brown, she thought. Her eyes. Cheeks. Nose, chin, mouth. None of what she saw registered with her. It was like looking into a mirror and not recognizing her own face. Pure lust lanced through her. Sharp and needy. “What is this?” she whispered. She was having trouble breathing again. “What’s happening?”
“Hell if I know.” He took back his hand, but in the instant before the stone fell, cool and sweet against her body, she knew he was lying. The connection between them wasn’t gone, just minimized. But it was there, a high tension wire just waiting for the circuit to complete.
“It’s the talisman.” She took his hand—amazed that he let her touch him after everything he’d told her about what her father had done—and opened his fingers, expecting to see blood. There wasn’t any, and she was mysteriously and vaguely disappointed by that. Her room seemed very small now. Intimate. Her thoughts and feelings were all mixed up with a desire so intense she hurt, and that, too, was mixed up with anger, puzzlement, fear, arousal, and curiosity. To her bones, she knew some of these reactions were not hers. She couldn’t tell which ones belonged to him and wasn’t sure it would matter if she did know. She brought his outstretched palm nearer. Xia took a breath.
“Well look at that,” she whispered. “Now you have one, too.”
On his palm was the gray impression of a panther. Just like the one on her stomach, except the obverse side. She traced the outline of the creature, then followed a line down his wrist to the crook of his elbow. She pressed the tip of her finger to the purple bump of a vein. “Which one of us,” she softly asked, “wants the taste of blood? I can’t tell.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. He pulled his hand free of hers, though his other remained splayed on her back. If she knew he wanted her, then he must know how she felt about that. He touched a fingertip to the back of her neck where the leather thong had cut her skin. The salty sting of his finger touching the spot made her suck in air.
“Baby,” he whispered. “You hurt yourself.” His voice was low and sweet and full of desire. “How bad is it?” he asked.
“Not very.”
“I can make it better.” He stayed close to her, and in her belly she felt an echo of his desire to touch her. And to taste her, too. That would do something to him, she thought. For him. Tasting her blood.
She wasn’t herself; she knew that. Though she no longer felt like she was in his head, the connectedness hadn’t faded. She lifted her gaze from his hand and, whoa, head rush. She got caught in his eyes all over again, and she was dizzy and losing her sense of physical and mental boundaries. How the hell was she supposed to know where his thoughts ended and hers began? His body was the same as hers. Her body was the same as his. She knew him intimately, so how was she supposed to keep the barriers up when she couldn’t find them? Or, and this was a poser, how was she supposed to know when she was getting his thoughts and desires? Or both. Or maybe she was hallucinating all of it.
He pulled her nearer, and her palms ended up against his chest, against warm skin and unforgiving muscle, and she turned her head to the side. He brushed her hair off her neck. Arousal zinged through her. His knife was in his other hand, but she took it from him and set it arm’s length away on the mattress.
“I shouldn’t want you like this,” Xia said. “I don’t want to. You’re Rasmus’s daughter.” He touched a fingertip to her nape again and bent his head, inhaling softly. “But I do. I want you so bad I hurt.”
Alexandrine thought she’d melt right now, right into a puddle for him to do with as he would, except for when she was doing as she would. He slid a fingertip along the abrasion left by the leather thong. Then his arms tightened around her, and softly he growled. The sound came from deep in his chest, un-human. His lips brushed her nape and then opened, pressing down on the back of her neck. His tongue slipped along the cut, tasting, touching, and then became a kiss, moving around to her throat.
She tipped her head back, and his hands brushed down her arms, urging her closer. No problem whatsoever. The closer she was to him the better. She ran her palms down his torso from his breastbone to the top of his sweats, while he helped her keep her balance with his hands spread over her back. Somehow he ended up with his hands cupping her ass. She trailed a
finger down. All the way down. “You have a fantastic body,” she whispered.
His eyes flickered, and a sizzle of energy went up her arms. She leaned in and kissed the side of his mouth. They connected again. Mentally. Without the disorienting trading places. Her breath stopped. Xia threw back his head and groaned, hands clutching her. His arms shook and he stopped. Everything. All of it. He set her back. Too far away for her to touch him.
“Alexandrine…”
She didn’t feel any steadier than he looked. Leaning back, she looked at him. “What?” she said. “That felt good. You know it did. So what’s the matter?”
He drew up his knees in line with his shoulders and tipped his head back. His expression went blank, and then Alexandrine watched while the emotions that came from him—lust and hunger, and then anticipation and desire—appeared on his face. He kept his gaze on the ceiling. “That got out of hand. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. Well, I am right now, but I wasn’t before.”
He lowered his chin and looked at her from under a veil of dead-black lashes. A direct look. “You know what I want right now,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
After a bit, he said, “I know what you think you want.”
“It was fantastic, Xia. Why wouldn’t I want that?” She was still getting flashes of his feelings, and she supposed that meant he was getting hers. Their eyes met. Collided. Connected.
“So,” he said in a low voice, “what the fuck are we going to do about that, Alexandrine?”
She scooted closer, a finger sliding along the bare inside of his forearm.
He lifted his panther-marked hand and set his palm on top of her shoulder, pushing aside the fabric of her shirt in order to put bare skin to bare skin. For a minute there, she had the eerie sensation that the mark on his palm was moving, tickling her skin.
“I need you to tell me you’re going to let this happen,” he whispered.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m going to let this happen.”
He brought her toward him, and she instinctively exposed the side of her throat to him again. His breath warmed her skin. He touched his finger to her, drawing a line that burst with cold and then heat. Somehow he’d managed to open a cut. It stung but she didn’t care. Blood trickled down her skin. His mouth opened over her skin, and he tasted again. More this time. Deeper. Harder.
Colors whirled behind her closed eyes. Amethyst, violet, emerald, streaks of ruby across endless black. She fell into him, joining with the pulse of his power, a reservoir of magic so dark and deep and wide she’d never find the end. He lifted his mouth. Alexandrine was aware now that she was in his embrace, that one of his hands cupped the back of her head and that his forearm pressed against her upper back, keeping her close to him.
He took a long breath, and her body flooded with a sensuous anticipation that burned with an edge of hunger. The warmth of his lips on her skin startled her, and then she felt his tongue, moving along the cut he’d made. He felt so good. So right. Lord, but she wanted to touch him.
Xia released her and, making a fist, stretched for his knife with the other and used the blade to nick her wrist. She flinched and then watched, fascinated, at the welling line of red. Her blood was so very red. Blood scent rose to her, the tang in her mouth already. The sense that he was in her head doubled. Or maybe that was her in his head. She couldn’t tell. Did the desire to taste belong to her or to him? His eyes flashed through several shades of blue.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked.
He brought her wrist to his lips and gently, slowly, touched his tongue to the drop. The taste exploded in her mouth, transmitted from him to her. Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this shivering of connection through her, pulling her deeper into Xia’s mind, into the center of his magic. When she lifted her head, she had trouble getting her bearings. She sat on her haunches, trying to make the room stop spinning. Xia steadied her.
“I fucking hate witches,” he said. His hand, big and warm and more than capable of killing, followed the upward indentation of her spine. He brought her head to his and kissed her, hard, and Alexandrine returned his kiss with unrestrained passion. With one quick motion, he grabbed the top of her shirt and pulled at the buttons until they either came free or popped off.
The minute his finger brushed the curve of her breast, she leaned in and kissed him; she’d been dying to kiss him since forever. He let her. He even kissed her back. His hand slid around, unfastened her bra, and covered her breast. He pulled back to take a look.
“You’ve made it clear what you think of me,” she said. “You sure you want to see where this leads?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Oh, yeah.” She grabbed his wrist and spread her fingers up and over the back of his hand, pressing his hand over her breast. “I want you to touch me.”
He spread his thighs and pulled her forward. Off balance, she tipped toward him. She got a hand up just in time. Her palm hit the wall beside his head and kept her upright. The scent of lavender soap came to her, faint but rising from his skin, like the clean smell of his hair. Her amulet swung forward, dangling between their bodies. She watched it move.
He said he hated her, but that wasn’t what he was feeling. Not by a mile. She didn’t move. He raised his eyes, too. His hand on her back tightened. And his other hand, his panther-marked hand, touched her belly. She sucked in a breath. She kissed him again, and yes, yes, he kissed her back, and damn, he was good. His mouth was soft, and he was a monumentally good kisser, with an edge that promised she could make him lose control without much more effort. His tongue slipped into her mouth, and Alexandrine flat-out melted for him. Wherever he was taking this, she was right there with him.
She wanted to touch him. Had to. She drew back, pressing kisses on his mouth. “Shirt off,” she said, tugging upward on the hem of his T-shirt.
He stopped her. “Alexandrine.”
“What?”
“No.” His hand gripped her wrist. “Not that I don’t want you—you’re effing beautiful—but…” His eyes flashed white, which startled her. “I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I can’t do this. We can’t.”
“Why?”
He let go of her and rolled onto his back, one arm over his eyes. He had an impressive erection going, so there wasn’t anything wrong in that department. Fully functional. God, but she wanted him. “I can’t.”
“Because I’m a witch? We’ve been over that.” She sat beside him with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around her shins. “You knew that when this started. Why chicken out now?”
One neon blue eye appeared when he moved his forearm. “Because I didn’t think you’d make me this hot.” He moved his arm off his face and stared at the ceiling. “I haven’t done this in a really long time.”
“That’s hard to believe. You must have women lining up at your door.”
“I get plenty now,” he said. “All the vanilla I want. I meant doing it with a witch.”
“And?” She was dying to touch him. Dying for contact with him. She wanted to feel his arms around her and feel her naked skin against his. She wanted to touch his body everywhere and find out what made him fall apart.
“When I was mageheld,” he said softly, “Rasmus didn’t let me have sex. Not often, anyway.” His eyes stayed focused on the ceiling, where she’d stenciled a stylized golden sun on the black portion over the bed. “When he sent me after a witch, he usually explicitly forbade me from doing her.”
She reached for his near hand, which happened to be the panther-marked one. For whatever reason, he let her twine his fingers with hers. Her palm tingled. Maybe he didn’t notice the contact; he was pretty far into his memories right now. “Like that would have been the same as sex I wanted to have. It’s different when you want to hurt everything and everyone. And it’s different when you’re compelled.” He raised his knee and glanced at her. “Rasmus Kessler is one of the magekind, and that means he’s a vindictive
bastard. A couple of times he told me to do it. Some witch he wanted dead. So I had to. Not that I minded. Killing mages and witches like you was my favorite thing to do. He liked to be in my head during those times so he could feel everything I did to them. You understand what I’m saying? He knew I was mean and a fucking nasty bastard.”
“Xia, I know,” she whispered. She wished she didn’t, though. “It’s all right.”
“Killing one of the magekind was the closest I ever got to feeling like I was free. I lived for those orders.”
Alexandrine squeezed his hand. “It’s all right. I understand.” And too bad she did. No wonder he didn’t want her.
“It’s not like I never got laid.” His lashes hid most of his eyes at the moment. “A mageheld is always looking for loopholes, always looking for ways to rebel. But it didn’t happen often. Most of the time, if I had sex, it was because Rasmus wanted it, too.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I got taken because of a witch.” He sat up, sitting cross-legged. Their hands stayed clasped. “Betrayed by a witch. She didn’t have any impressive power—enough to make a living, but she couldn’t pull like Rasmus or Christophe. She was with Rasmus, too, only I didn’t know that until it was too late.”
“And I’m a witch.” Not the one who betrayed him, but Xia understood that. He just didn’t like witches. With good reason, unfortunately.
He let out a breath and brought their interlinked hands to rest on his thigh. “You’re a witch with no control over your magic. And that makes you dangerous. There’s no way”—he looked straight into her eyes—“no way, I’m putting myself into a situation where I could get taken again. No matter how bad I want my dick inside you.”
The thought of that took her breath away for a moment. “I couldn’t, Xia. You know that. Not even if I knew how.”
My Forbidden Desire Page 9