by Jory Strong
She allowed herself to slide downward. Reveled in his quick inhalation and the subtle tensing of his body. Thrilled at the quickened throb of his cock against her abdomen.
Her lips brushed water-slickened skin. Tormented him by stopping when he fisted her hair.
“Lia,” he moaned, the husky need in his voice making her feel powerfully feminine.
A tug to her hair had her moving again, kissing downward, downward, downward to a cock that was fully engorged, the foreskin pulled back slightly, the veins along the velvety skin more pronounced.
She traced one of those veins with her tongue, and smiled at his panted, “Fuck.”
“You should have expected payback,” she murmured, running her tongue over a throbbing vein then sucking along the length of his shaft.
His hips bucked. His grip in her hair tightened.
“Do it,” he growled, his voice deep and rough, striking a primal chord that made her want to torment him until she was the only women who would ever matter to him, until all the women who’d come before her were erased from his memory.
Only when she was shivering with desire did she take him into her mouth. Her lips stretched around his girth. Her gaze flicked upward, drinking in the sight of him with hands against the wall, a flush across his cheekbones and eyes hot with need as they locked with hers.
“Touch yourself. Fuck yourself with your fingers.”
She blushed. How it was possible—given that her lips were around his cock—she didn’t know, but heat streaked through her cheeks.
Shyness kept her hand from hurrying to her pussy. But that shyness gave way with his husky, “Do it, Lia.”
Her lashes fluttered downward with the touch of her fingertips to her clit. She moaned and took him deep, deeper, bobbed and sucked and swallowed on his shaft.
“That’s right,” he whispered. “That’s so right.”
Pleasure shuddered through him, through her. She worked her clit, slipped her fingers into her channel, ecstasy surging outward in continuous waves.
Somehow she managed to open her eyes and that pleasure was doubled at seeing Kellen’s rapturous expression. Then heightened further at bringing him to release.
He came, then pulled from her mouth and dropped to his knees.
His hand replaced hers between her thighs. His talented fingers urged her higher, sending pleasure through her with each thrust into her channel, with each press and rub and pump of her clit.
His kiss was a carnal sharing of taste. A wicked reminder of his mouth on her pussy and hers on his cock.
She closed her eyes and just felt. Came in a shudder-flash of heat.
And lingered in a state of bliss.
“I feel like going back to bed,” she said long moments later, still on her knees, but now with her heels digging into her buttocks and her shoulders touched to the wall, keeping her upright.
“No time for sleep,” Kellen said, sounding as if he was struggling against the same lassitude. “As it is, we’ll be lucky if the astrologist will see us today.”
She resisted the urge to look down at her charm bracelet. Felt her chest tightening, forcing the pleasure into a tight ball around her heart. “What do you hope he’ll tell us?”
Kellen opened his eyes and shrugged. “I’m hoping for a lead.”
She consciously breathed, caught herself worrying her bottom lip. “What kind of a lead? You said his magic wasn’t something you understood.”
Kellen stood. He offered her a hand, then pulled her up and against his heated, water-slick body. “The astrologist’s talent is in dealing with the various realms.”
Her heart beat faster at the direction the conversation was taking. “Realms?”
“Do you think this plane of existence is the only one?”
She slipped her arms around his waist. Felt excited more than anything else. “I think parallel universes are possible. And I’ve never believed Earth is the only place that gave rise to intelligent species, or even that humans are the most advanced species in existence anywhere.”
She dared to ask, “Were the unicorns real?”
“Yes. Pulled into this realm by a sorcerer for his child’s birthday party.”
There was a decided growl when he said sorcerer. She smiled and pressed a kiss against his chest. “I haven’t had a chance to watch the news or hit YouTube to see the capture, were you there?”
“Yes.”
“And the unicorns?”
“Sent back to where they belong.”
“That’s what Supernatural Ops does?”
“It accounts for a lot of our work.”
“I’ve always thought there was truth in myth. What about dragons and faeries, especially the shapeshifting kind?”
“Now you’re talking about huge expenditures of power, more than any sorcerer is capable of harnessing and channeling.”
“Oh.” Too bad. Though it made her smile and say a silent thank you to Saffron, for preventing her from spending a grand on a charm meant to attract a supernatural mate.
Kellen stroked a hand down her back. “We should get going.”
They toweled dry, dressed and grabbed a quick drive-through breakfast at McDonald’s before reaching Old Town and traveling through it to Mission Hills. Kellen parked in front of a pale-yellow adobe house with a red-tile roof.
It was set behind a short wooden fence and among landscaping meant to look wild. A red stone walkway led up a small incline to a front door carved with symbols.
She’d never been very interested in Astrology, though she knew what the Zodiac symbols for Libra, Aries, Aquarius, and hers—Pisces—looked like. None of them were present on the astrologist’s door, nor was there a doorbell or knocker.
Kellen made no move to use his knuckles on the light-colored wood. She said, “So we just wait for him to magically appear?”
His flashed smile sent a surge of heat into her sex. “That sounds about right.”
She nibbled her bottom lip, found herself more excited about meeting a real magic practitioner than worried, though her chest felt tighter with each passing moment, and every other thought was a fervent hope the astrologist wouldn’t say anything about the charm.
Rather than glance nervously at her bracelet, she studied Kellen’s profile and heard again the old man’s words.
Together the charms will open the doors to a journey of discovery. They will lead you to a deeper understanding of the world and the mate meant for you.
She was definitely on that journey of discovery. And Kellen… He felt right. Incredibly, amazingly right.
The tarot reading at Stones had confirmed they were meant to be together. But how could she reconcile the rest of what the old man had told her? How could she sustain a relationship with him if she couldn’t be completely honest?
Swallowing against the rising guilt, she said, “Maybe whoever hired the mugger saw me pick something up at the supernatural fair and mistakenly thinks I bought it. I handled a lot of items and talked to a lot of vendors.”
None if it was a lie, but the misdirection made her feel worse. It tightened her chest and created a leaden weight in her stomach.
“Hopefully the astrologist will make an appearance and provide some additional information,” Kellen said. “Strong magic leaves a trace.”
As if in answer to his comment, the door opened and she was immediately hit by the scent of vanilla. And then she was fighting against doing something totally inappropriate—like drooling.
She might be with Kellen, but that didn’t make her blind.
Wow. Just wow.
The astrologist was the stuff of steamy romance covers with his long black hair and sinfully blue bedroom eyes. Eyes that were even now focused on her and doing a slow perusal.
Next to her Kellen took a small step away from her, eradicating the astrologist’s impact and bringing a heart-squeezing guilt. Not that she was interested in the astrologist, but guys who looked like him and exuded the kind of masculine pheromon
es he did weren’t all that common in her day-to-day life.
She reached over, put a hand-lock around Kellen’s wrist and used it to erase the physical distance he’d put between them. The astrologist’s lips kicked up in a wickedly sensual smile. To Kellen he said, “I’m starting to see a pattern. Should I expect to find Gaige or Crew on my doorstep next with a woman?”
“We’re in a hurry here,” Kellen responded on a growl.
The astrologist’s smile widened. “Of course you are. And as it so happens, I have little time to spare. I’m expecting someone.”
He stepped out of the doorway and allowed them into the house. The scent of vanilla intensified, and Analia spotted its source, a multitude of flowering cacti.
“How can I assist you?” the astrologist asked.
“It’s likely that Analia has come into contact with a powerful artifact,” Kellen said, then briefly described how she’d been attacked at the beach and what he’d learned during his interrogation of the mugger at the police station.
The astrologist sighed and shook his head. “Not a lot to go on in other words. Best I’m going to be able to do is give you a general direction.”
“Even that’ll be a help.”
“This way,” the astrologist said, leading them to what might have been a sunroom except there was no furniture, only a large circle created of crystal and stone set in the middle of the room.
Sunshine struck some of the crystals, making symbols glitter and pop. A closer look, and Analia could make out other designs, as well as subtle lines connecting strings of magical characters.
The stone in the very center of the circle was free of imagery, it was glossy black, obsidian maybe and delineated by narrow dual bands carved into the stone and inscribed with markings she assumed were sigils.
Similar dual bands of etched lines in shiny black stone formed the outer boundary of the circle, though rather than markings in between the lines, the rock had been carved to form a channel.
The astrologist opened a small wooden chest next to the circle and pulled out what looked like a rolled carpet runner. He knelt, intoned words she couldn’t distinguish then set the runner on the ground and gave it a push. It unfurled, rolling across the circle to reach its center.
Like the center and outer channel, the heavy cloth was a glossy black, though its edges were woven with strands of silver and gold, the pattern making her think of wave caps in the moonlight.
The astrologist stood, lifted his arm with a flourish and tilted his head, “Just stay on the path, and when you reach the center, make yourself comfortable but don’t cross any of the lines.”
Analia’s mouth went dry. She cleared her throat, not wanting to squeak out her question. “What’s going to happen?”
“Nothing harmful, I promise. This will provide a very rough reading of what type of supernatural beings you’re currently attracting.”
She shivered, partly in trepidation and partly with anticipation. Wait until she told Sabra about this! Sabra would probably beat a path to the astrologist’s door!
“Okay, here goes,” she said, stepping onto the cloth runner and proceeding to the center of the circle.
She sat, crossing her legs in front of her and resting her hands on her knees. The astrologist crouched, facing her, and once again murmured words she couldn’t differentiate.
Inches away from her, the runner folded over on itself, doing it over and over again until it gained momentum and returned to a rolled-up appearance in front of the astrologist. “Magic,” Analia whispered, her heart pounding harder, her belief in what the old man had told her solidifying—that the charms had picked her to be their guardian.
The old man was probably a sorcerer. Not just that, but someone who came from a long line of sorcerers.
When she’d asked him how he knew she was the charm’s choice, he’d said there was a knowing, a connection to the charm that his family had possessed for generations. What if one of his ancestors had pulled the charms into the human realm?
Her heart thumped a little harder. The astrologist returned the cloth to the wooden chest, a chest she now noticed had sigils burned into its corners.
The astrologist’s hand emerged from the chest fisted. He used the other to close the chest’s lid.
Swiveling in his crouched position, so he once again faced her, he brought his closed hand to his lips, like a dice player about to make a lucky toss.
He spoke against his fist, then lowered his hand and placed what looked like a glossy black marble into the channel forming the circle’s boundary.
As he’d done with the carpet, he gave a nudge, setting the marble in motion.
There was no discernable tilt to the floor, nothing to explain how the marble picked up speed as it traveled around the circle in a clockwise direction. Around and around and around it went, soundlessly, Analia realized with a start.
The astrologist’s absolute focus on the glossy ball didn’t invite questions, so she remained silent, her heart beating faster with each pass, her mouth getting drier and drier.
Without apparent cause, the black marble slowed, slowed, seemed to pause at a spot along the circle before continuing. The astrologist laughed, murmured no surprise there freeing her to ask, “What did that mean?”
He glanced up at her. “You’ve attracted the attention of a fey hound.”
Instantaneously she pictured the huge Irish Wolfhound that’d both kept her company on the beach and intervened when she was attacked. No wonder her call to Saffron had brought Maksim to the animal shelter!
Her gaze flew to Kellen. “The dog? He came from another realm?”
His nod sent a thrill of excitement through her. It was further validation of what the old man had told her, that possession of the charms would open the doors of discovery.
But the zip of the ball as it went past her, dampened that excitement. Because validation of the supernatural also meant that because of the charms, she was facing a very real threat.
Moments later the glossy ball slowed again. It was close to the spot where it’d slowed before. Relief edged in, maybe whoever had paid the mugger had stuck around and seen the hound. Maybe that’d scared him off for good.
She had a bad feeling she was trying desperately to fool herself. The old man had warned her against carrying both charms at the same time or she’d attract harm, which was suggestion enough that someone might do anything to acquire the charms.
The ball stopped. She stood, trying to get a better look to determine if it was in the exact same spot, but she just couldn’t tell.
“Fey,” the astrologist said. He stood and walked around the circle until he reached the ball. “The interest in Analia has origins in the fey, or the artifact she came into contact with is fey in nature.”
Chapter 8
“That covers a lot of territory,” Kellen growled, despite having known from the onset that the visit was a longshot.
“Not as much as you think.” The astrologist retrieved the orb and returned it to the chest, then lifted what would look like a thick, rolled cloth to Analia, but was really created by strands of woven magic. “The artifact or those pursuing it will be familiar to you. One or both will be found in the myths, legends or realms that overlap with those of fey hounds.”
Kellen suppressed a sigh of frustration. That still covered a lot of territory, too much territory.
The astrologist created a bridge to the center of the scrying circle and Analia rejoined them. Kellen took her hand, an automatic gesture that had the astrologist smirking.
Fuck. He was rapidly becoming as bad as Taine, who couldn’t keep his hands off his mate.
That thought had Kellen’s heart pounding faster. It was one thing to make a show of possession around humans, but to do it around those who were part of the supernatural world…
It’d taken everything he had to step away from Analia rather than lunge at the astrologist and tear his throat out for looking at her in a way that suggested the
slow peeling away of clothing.
Kellen silently growled. The astrologist’s smirk reappeared. As soon as he escorted them out, he’d probably call Gaige or Crew or Maksim to report that there’d soon be a mating.
Rather than give into the temptation to snarl a denial, Kellen turned his attention to the charm bracelet on Analia’s wrist—and felt an exploding ache in his heart.
The translucent green-apple charm wasn’t on the bracelet.
The suspicion he’d avoided in her apartment returned with a vengeance, bringing with it the visceral memory of confronting Cosette about the overheard conversation with Cason—and how desperately he’d wanted to believe her claim that she’d been telling his brother what he wanted to hear. How even as he knew deep down she was lying to him, he’d craved the continued feel of her hands as she’d stroked his chest, wanted desperately to lose himself in heated passion and offer comfort as he’d stared into eyes that shimmered with manufactured tears.
He flashed back to the resonance that had awakened him and sent him searching Analia’s apartment. To the moment he’d returned to bed, felt the resonance briefly—and then been distracted by the feel of her hand on his cock and the ecstasy that followed.
In that moment, he hated her for fooling him—and hated himself for believing she was different than Cosette.
He released Analia’s hand and erected an emotional wall. Shoved a fist into his pocket and caught the astrologist’s quizzical expression.
He refused to acknowledge either the unspoken question or the howling sense of loss in his chest. Instead he concentrated on when he’d last glimpsed the charm. It was in the car, when she’d lifted her hands, carrying the Egg McMuffin to her lips.
His own lips formed a grim smile. How she’d removed and hidden the charm while sitting next to him, he didn’t know, but he would find the charm and present it to the astrologist.
Turning away from the circle, Kellen spared a glance at Analia and refused to let the hints of confusion and hurt in her eyes touch him. He’d given her a chance, a chance he’d sworn never to allow another female.
They left the room, and when they reached the astrologist’s front door, Kellen said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”