Eighth Wand

by December Quinn

  “Let me see…ah, let me see…” His hand closed around her upper arm, pulling her around. She kept her hand where it was, moving her legs sideways until her hips were almost even with his head. He reached up and tugged her panties down, and she helped him take them off. Warm spring air swirled against her pussy, reminding her again where they were, that they were outdoors in the afternoon and that this was the hottest thing she’d ever done in her life.

  She paused for a minute while he ran one palm up from her thigh to her lower back, sliding his fingers to meet hers. He took over the rhythm, slipping one thick digit into and out of her so slowly and smoothly she couldn’t help moaning around his cock.

  His hips lifted in time with his finger as he added another, then another, then wiggled them inside her. His thumb found her clit, stroking just a little too hard for her to come. Oh, he knew her, the bastard. Already he knew her body so well he could stop her from having the orgasm she wanted so badly and she knew from the way his other hand caressed her head that he wanted to watch her while he tortured her.

  She was practically crying now while his fingers worked deep inside her, stretching her, finding secret places on her inner walls and rubbing them. Her body burned and raged with heat and she sped her pace on his cock, sucking down the salty-sweet flavor of his excitement, begging him to let her have her release.

  His thigh muscles tightened beneath her hands. She reached down to cup his balls, to scratch her nails over them. He groaned and jerked his hips up again and she reached beneath his sac to tickle the sensitive skin there.

  The sensation of his fingers withdrawing made her bump her hips back, greedily seeking their return, but his hand on her thigh stopped her. He urged her over, helping her balance while she placed one leg on either side of his face. Every muscle in her body tightened as he pulled her hips down, spreading her knees wider so she hovered just above his face. She wasn’t going to last long and she was both excited and terrified. Because she didn’t think she was going to be able to keep from screaming when she finally climaxed and when he swept the tip of his talented tongue over her clit, she knew she wouldn’t.

  He reintroduced his fingers while sucking her clit into his mouth. Her neck stopped working. She sucked feverishly at the head of his cock, but she couldn’t keep up a rhythm, couldn’t move, because her back was arching and her throat was tensing and she was coming and she was screaming and she’d never felt anything like it in her life and she thought she might die.

  No sooner had she started to come down than he did something, said something and her body arced and screamed again. Tears ran down her cheeks. The trees around them seemed to glow when she opened her eyes, as if they were doing something holy there in the protective circle of pines.

  Before she knew what was happening, he shifted her sideways, pulling her shoulders up, moving her forward so she straddled him again, her legs on either side of his waist and her pussy hovering just above his glistening, swollen cock.

  His hands steadied her hips as she lowered herself, inch by agonizing inch, onto him. His fingers tightened as he tried to urge her faster, but she refused, watching him, delighting in the unguarded look on his face.

  She knew well how hard it was for him to open himself up, knew that part of his urge to do so with her was simply because he’d never done it before. She knew how he felt. Hiding her true thoughts, hiding her feelings, had become second nature to her through her life and now she too relished the freedom she had with this man.

  This man, her warrior, her dark magic hero…

  His cock jerked inside her as he shifted his hips and pushed her back. She leaned forward to kiss him, to nibble at his throat and his earlobes, sliding back still farther so she could rub her clit against the base of his cock with every motion. In this position, he seemed even bigger and his blunt head worked against her sensitive upper wall. Her mouth opened and she gasped softly, bracing her elbows on the cool earth beneath them, rolling her hips over him.

  “Yes,” he gasped. “Yes…yes…”

  She joined him, their voices twining together in the breeze as she sped her pace. Her thighs trembled. Her fingers clutched at the grass, tangled in his hair, as his hips jerked upward again and again, helping her ride him.

  She exploded just seconds before he did, throbbing around his cock as it swelled and twitched deep inside her. His shoulders lifted off the ground as his head jerked back.

  The sun shone down on them, so bright she could see it through her closed eyelids, and when she opened them, she saw they were bathed in light. He looked so beautiful, there was no other word for it, with his features arranged in a moment of wild abandon and his black hair blending in with the dark ground beneath him.

  As if he felt her watching him, he opened his eyes and looked at her, his eyes still with the unfocused look of a man ready to fall asleep. Instead he sat up, bringing his arms around her and clutching her tight to his chest.

  “Prudence,” was all he said, but Prudence knew what it meant, knew what he was saying. Her heart broke. He was still inside her and already they both mourned their loss.

  * * * * *

  “She lives right along this road,” Prudence said, turning left. She’d parked her car at the store down the street, not wanting to attract attention. “I’m pretty sure it’s number forty-two, but you’ll know anyway, right? Because the house will glow.”

  Royd nodded. The sun had just set. Just set on another day.

  She tried to cheer up. At least once the wand was found they could relax. They could spend all day in bed tomorrow, eating ice cream off each other’s bodies and ordering takeout and watching movies and…well, and doing anything else. They could talk more about their childhoods and their lives and their dreams.

  Or maybe not. They’d tried earlier to talk about their individual hopes for the future, and both ended up just staring dumbly at each other. Prudence couldn’t conceive of a future without him in it.

  Maybe she should go with him. What was keeping her here, after all? What was the point?

  Why was she so adamant that this was where she needed to be? Because of Gran? Because her sister and mother would miss her, and no matter what sort of relationship they had, she couldn’t bear the thought of them living their entire lives not knowing what happened to her?

  She couldn’t do that to them.

  What if she left a note? A letter saying she was fine and…no. It just didn’t feel right.

  But then, it didn’t feel right to leave Royd either. How she’d come to care for him—to love him, admit it, Prudence—to love him so much in such a short time seemed impossible. She’d never believed in love at first sight. But she couldn’t deny now that the minute his eyes met hers in the forest, the minute he touched her, something deep inside her had known. Had known him. And had known he was the only man for her.

  So these were her options. Abandon her family, her home and the only world she’d ever known or spend the rest of her life adding to her collection of vibrators because no man would ever be able to touch her soul the way Royd did. Not ever.

  Some options. Was there a door number three anywhere? Because she’d love to see what was behind it. Of course, with her luck it would probably be Ebola or something.

  “Uishta.” His voice broke through her thoughts.

  “Hmm?”

  He smiled. “You look as though you’re about to cry or hit someone.”

  “Oh, sorry.” She tried to smile back. “What does that mean, anyway?”

  “Uishta?”

  She nodded.

  “It means ‘sweet one’, or ‘little one’. It doesn’t translate well.”

  Oh, yeah, that’s right. I’d be a stranger in a strange magical land where they speak a totally different language. This sounds more and more like the option to choose.

  “It sounds nice, anyway.”

  He pulled her close. “You seem reluctant to go to this woman’s house.”

  “I guess I am. I just
feel like…I don’t feel good about this.” Funny, it wasn’t until the words were out of her mouth that she realized they were true.

  “Are you thinking about…about me leaving?”

  “Of course I am. But that isn’t it. I feel like this isn’t going to go the way we want it to.”

  He kissed her on the forehead and pulled away, his hand falling to the hilt of his sword. For the evening he’d put his own clothes back on, so he was now again the original, shirtless Royd. She couldn’t complain about that. The view was awfully nice.

  He unsheathed the sword by a few inches. “Nothing ever does,” he said.

  * * * * *

  Elden kept his distance, not a difficult feat considering how difficult it still was to walk.

  He’d barely managed to get away after the battle before Royd performed the burial ritual and turned the bodies of his soldiers into dust. Lucky for him that Royd’s woman had taken so much power and needed help to release it. Doing so had apparently weakened Royd enough to overlook Elden’s absence.

  No matter. He was still here, making sure to stay downwind, and though his legs hurt and the wound in his shoulder was resisting all his efforts to heal it himself, he was able to walk and move. He would still be able to hold the woman and demand the wand. He still had enough power to create a shield strong enough to keep the woman from gathering energy again.

  He hadn’t realized the human world was as full of power as it was. Shame he didn’t have time to explore.

  Shame, too, that he wouldn’t have time to find himself a human woman. He watched as Royd and the one he called Prudence held each other and kissed beneath the streetlight, as their bodies pressed together. It made something inside him twist. He was lonely too, and if all human women were like that one…he’d never seen such passion.

  But the wand was more important. Having it meant a chance to move up, to move on. To finally be more than he was.

  In that respect, he supposed he and Royd were not so different. They both had ambition, they both worked to escape the shadow of a tainted family. The difference was Royd seemed to have succeeded, whereas no matter how hard he, Elden, tried, he just couldn’t…just couldn’t get there.

  Royd and Prudence started walking again, holding hands. Elden followed. Once they had the wand, he would pounce. And he would get everything he ever wanted.

  * * * * *

  “Greetings.” Ravenancia swept into the empty storeroom as if she expected a fanfare. Kym gritted her teeth. She and Kristof had had a long talk about this before bed last night. Tonight they would have a chance to use the wand. It was theirs, after all. It had come to Kym.

  She firmly believed that now. It wanted her, needed her. She knew she could make it do more than shoot sparks and clouds, even more than merely lifting objects in the air. She could make it do wonderful things, and it could do wonderful things for her.

  So she and Kristof exchanged a glance, and moved together to stand in front of the jar on the table.

  “I think I’m going to have a turn first,” said Kym firmly. “I want to try.”

  “By all means, go ahead,” Ravenancia replied. She handed Kym a sheaf of parchments. “I brought some spells to try, some words to say. You can try them if you want.”

  Kym tried to find something suspicious in this, but couldn’t, so she took the papers and started thumbing through them. “Oooh, Kris! Here’s one to call the Fae! We could do that, couldn’t we?”

  “We could. We pretty much did last night, didn’t we?”

  They turned to Ravenancia. “We want to do that one,” Kym said. “We want to talk to a real faerie.”

  “And make it give us stuff,” Kristof added. “Imagine how much I could get for real faerie-made silver in my shop!”

  Chapter Twelve

  “It’s not here.”

  “What do you mean it’s not here?” Prudence squinted at the silent house. True, it didn’t look to her like it glowed, but then her own home had never looked particularly glowy either.

  “It’s not here. The house doesn’t glow. They’re taken it somewhere.”

  “Shit.” Prudence folded her arms over her chest. The look on Royd’s face…like he was ready to kill someone. Hopefully not her. This was all her fault, after all. Her grandmother stole the thing, her stupid bitchy houseguests who stole it again… She was not good luck for the poor man, was she?

  “Do you have any idea where they might have—”

  “The store!”

  “What?”

  “The store, Kristof’s store! They might have taken it there and he lives right down the street from it, so if it isn’t there we can find his house and we can get it back that way and—”

  His hands on her face cut off her words, his lips pressing softly against hers. “This isn’t your fault, Prudence.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. “It feels like it is.”

  “I know. But it’s not. And we will find it. I still have two days, do I not? So if we do not find it tonight…” He pressed closer to her. “If we do not find it tonight, I shall just have to spend the day tomorrow making love to you in your little bed and tomorrow night we will come out and find it.”

  “Hmm…that doesn’t sound like such a terrible thing at all, does it?” She kissed him, letting her fingers play up over his chest and shoulders. His skin was so warm under her hands. He felt so good. No man had ever felt this good.

  “It doesn’t sound terrible at all,” he whispered, nibbling at her throat. “In fact, there is a hedge over there by the house that would hide us very nicely. I seem to have something of an urge to take you again right now.” He squeezed her bottom, letting her feel how hard he was.

  She giggled. “Being outdoors really does it for you, doesn’t it?”

  “You do it for me.” His tongue tickled her earlobe. “Come with me, over there. I’ll make it worth your time.”

  “I bet you will.” The idea really was tempting. Beyond tempting. Maybe it was a good thing he was leaving, because she was certain a raging case of cystitis couldn’t be far away at the rate they were going.

  “So come then.” He grasped her hand in his and took a step away. “We will—” he stopped short, lifting his head as if he were listening to some faraway music.

  “Royd? Are you—”

  “Hush.” He did not move, but his grip tightened on her hand, squeezing her fingers until they ached. His jaw tightened, but his eyes…his eyes took an almost dreamy quality. It was heartbreakingly gorgeous to see, but something in Prudence twisted a little with fear too. This didn’t seem right at all.

  She waited for a few seconds, then couldn’t help herself. She spoke again. “Royd?”

  He turned to her, sweat beading on his forehead. “I found the wand.”

  “What? How?”

  He turned and, still holding her hand, started to run.

  “Royd! Royd! Stop, we’ll get in the car if we have to go so fast!”

  He heard her, but he couldn’t stop. It was calling him. The wand was calling him, commanding him and that was very, very wrong.

  The Wand of Elenyi wasn’t a toy. It wasn’t something for humans to do magic with. It was a treasure, a relic of his people, the protector of his lands.

  And now one of those stupid fucking humans who’d stolen it from Prudence’s house was trying to use it to call the Fae. They had no idea what they were dealing with.

  So he ran, not sure how to stop, not sure he would be able to find it if he got into that metal box Prudence called a car. “You take the car!” he managed to gasp. “Meet me there.”

  “At the shop? Can you find it—”

  “I’ll find it. Go!”

  Energy hummed and throbbed in the air around him, the voice of the wand sweet in his ears. Whatever they were doing, whatever was happening, he could only pray he was there in time to stop it before something terrible happened.

  Her hand left his and he sped up, running as fast as he could, with his hair flying out be
hind him. It felt good to run like this, even though the thick air of the human world made his lungs hurt, even though his legs were still sore after the night before and, if he were honest, from all the activity of late.

  From having Prudence over and over, in as many positions as he could think of. And it wasn’t enough, would never be enough.

  At least he would have some memories to comfort him on the endless, lonely nights stretching ahead of him.

  Somehow the thought didn’t cheer him.

  * * * * *

  Prudence’s hands shook as she fished her keys out of her pocket. This wasn’t going to end well. The feeling of foreboding that had plagued her all night had bloomed into a full-blown panic, so much so that when a cold hand closed over hers as she inserted the key into the lock, she was almost relieved.

  “Is it Prudence?” a voice said in her ear. Low and musical and accented like Royd’s. Oh my Gods.

  “Who’s Prudence?”

  The man chuckled behind her, his breath warm on her neck. “Prudence is the human lover of a warrior of the Radeuan, dear, and don’t pretend you don’t know of what I speak. I’ve been watching you.”

  She swallowed. Her throat suddenly felt very dry. “Who are you?”

  His grip on her hand did not loosen, but he stepped to the side, allowing her to half turn and see him. He was sweating too, his eyes almost as faraway as Royd’s, and she thought she knew what must have happened. The wand had called Royd. This man—whose face was vaguely familiar—must hear it too.

  “I am Elden of the Rechanyi,” he said, giving a little half-bow that might have been courtly if he didn’t look so distressed and if there hadn’t been a very painful-looking wound on his shoulder.

  “You’re injured.”

  “No matter. Get in this thing. Help me get in.”

  “Why?”

  He squeezed her hand. She fought not to cry out. “Just do it.”

  Prudence unlocked the door with stiff fingers, then watched as he slid across the seat. She could lock him in and run, couldn’t she?