Visions of Magic a-1

by Regan Hastings

  “Next time I’ll have you with me, okay?”

  “Agreed. Now that you’ve unlocked your memories, do you know where we have to go next?”

  She mentally grabbed hold of the memory that had plagued her only moments before. “I don’t know the exact spot yet, but I have sensed we have to go to England first.”

  “I thought we would eventually end up there.”

  She turned against him, pressing her breasts to his chest. “Of course you did. You remember where we were.”

  “No,” he said softly, meeting her gaze. “None of the Eternals remembers that last night very well. I only know that the coven was based in Europe for a very long time.”

  “I remembered something else,” she told him. “A name. Haven.” She studied his reaction. “You know that name. Do you know where it is?”

  “No, not precisely.” He caressed her cheek. “The coven allowed no one into Haven. I know only that it was hidden from all but the coven. But after that?” He shrugged. “Back then, none of you risked sharing too much with us. None of you was willing to allow us too close for fear that you would lose some of the power you craved so desperately.”

  She laughed a little and the sound was filled with misery. “God, how did you stand any of us? I only remember pieces, but you’ve got all of the memories, don’t you?” She looked up at him. “How do you see me now without seeing her?”

  He cupped her face in his palms, his thumbs tracing over her cheekbones. His gaze locked with hers, he said simply, “I have always seen you, Shea. For who you are. Not for the hungers or needs that grip you as they do all of us. But the woman inside. The woman whose soul has finally found its way. Your time has finally come.”

  Shea dropped her head to his chest and just leaned on him, feeling his strength. His permanence. This man had been with her through eternity. He’d watched over her even when she hadn’t deserved his protection. And he was still here, supporting her even though he had every reason to mistrust her.

  Funny, she thought. Since the moment she’d met him outside the school-and didn’t that feel like a lifetime ago?-she’d wondered if he could be trusted. She’d held herself back, unsure of him or his loyalties.

  Ironic to realize that through the centuries it had been she who was the one not to be trusted.

  His big hand cupped the back of her head and held her close to him. “Trust yourself, Shea. Trust in the Awakening.”

  She nodded. “I’ll figure it out, Torin. I’ll get us to Haven.”

  “I know you will.”

  Shea took a deep breath and let it slide from her lungs. “Can you flame us over there?”

  He smiled. “No. It’s too far.”

  “I suppose it’s not a good time to mention how much I hate flying then, huh?”

  “We won’t be flying, either,” he told her, dipping his head for a quick, hard kiss. “With your magic Awakening, you could bring down the plane.”

  “Oh, God.” Her mouth dropped open at the thought of crashing a jet with her powers. “Okay. No plane. Maybe not ever again.”

  He smiled, running his hands up and down her back until he created a wonderful friction that took her mind off the trouble at hand. “When your magic is stable, flying will be safe enough. Safer even, as you will be able to ensure that the plane comes to no harm.”

  “Uh-huh,” she whispered, only half listening now as his hands swept to the front of her and caressed her breasts, her tender nipples. She wasn’t interested in talking about planes anymore. Or witchcraft. All she wanted now was to make love to him once more before they left.

  “So,” he was saying, “we will take a boat.”

  “Okay…” She wriggled on his lap and felt his erection harden instantly. Then she smiled, bent her head to his chest and kissed the flaming tattoo that marked him as hers.

  He hissed in a breath. “We will leave for New York immediately. The crossing will take several days.”

  She ran her tongue across the tattoo. “Okay, then. We’d better go.”

  “Not quite yet, I think,” he murmured and lifted her off his lap just high enough to give him the room he needed to enter her body. He looked into her eyes. “I want you, Shea. Now and always.”

  At his words she slowly eased herself down onto his thick shaft. She took him in deeply and felt all the jagged pieces of herself slide into place. This was what she needed. This connection. This joining with Torin.

  He moved within her, his gaze locked with hers and every stroke of his body made his eyes flare with more passion than she had ever known before. Her hands at his shoulders, she gave herself over to him and the real magic he created inside her.

  Again and again, they moved together. She twisted her hips on him, sparking a delicious friction that sizzled along her nerve endings like live wires. Her heartbeat pounded, her blood pumped thick and hot in her veins. As she rode him, Torin dropped one hand to her center and used his thumb to caress her most sensitive spot.

  More electricity arched between them. Brighter. Hotter. She let her head fall back and moved into him, over him. Shea felt his body tense and knew he was close to release. Just as she knew he would wait, contain his own passions until she had found hers. He would drag this moment on forever if it meant she had one more moment of pleasure. And knowing that, feeling that, she reached for the bliss and caught it.

  Calling his name she shuddered in his grasp as her body erupted into a series of exquisite orgasms that left her quaking and limp. Only then did Torin claim what was his. Only then did he hold her body down on his and empty himself inside her, with a groan that was her name.

  “Wow,” she whispered, resting her forehead on his shoulder. “That just gets better and better.”

  He kissed the side of her neck. “And we will have eternity to improve on it even further.”

  She stiffened in his arms. “Torin. Something’s wrong.”

  He lifted her off his lap and sprang to his feet. “What is it?”

  “Darkness,” she whispered. “It’s coming.”

  Then the world exploded.

  Chapter 38

  The door crashed open.

  Windows splintered in a shower of glass shards.

  Shea screamed and tried to jump away from the glass, but her foot came down hard on a jagged fragment and the pain shot up her leg. Two big men grabbed her, each of them holding one of her arms, twisting them behind her back. Naked and terrified, shaken out of the cozy sexual haze she’d inhabited only a moment before, Shea looked to Torin as half a dozen strangers streamed into the room, shouting, waving clubs and guns.

  Torin roared in fury and reached out for her, just as a middle-aged woman threw a knitted blanket at him. The soft folds draped over him and he sank to the floor under its weight.

  “Torin!” Shea’s scream rattled through the room. She twisted and pulled against the men’s grips, but she couldn’t budge them. What the hell was going on? What was in that blanket that it could take Torin down like that? “Who are you people?” she shouted. “What do you want?”

  “That’s enough of that, missy,” the older woman said, shaking her head. “Keep your voice down. No point in shouting-no one’s going to come to help a witch!”

  Shea’s stomach sank. Oh, God. They were here for her. To take her who knew where. Maybe there were prison guards waiting in the parking lot. Maybe… no. She deliberately stopped her imagination from racing ahead of the situation. The woman had said no one was coming to help her. Which probably meant that no one was coming, period. These people, whoever they were, were most likely doing this on their own.

  “Just look at you.” The older woman clucked her tongue in disgust. “Naked as a jaybird, and him no better!” She whirled around, faced a teenage girl and shouted, “Tessie Marie Grainger, you close your eyes this minute. I’m not going to have to explain to your mama that you saw a naked man while you were under my protection.”

  The blond girl in question stared at Torin a moment longer, then
reluctantly closed her eyes. But the smile on her face said the memory was a satisfying one.

  Shea squirmed and futilely twisted, trying to get free of the two men holding her arms behind her back. But their grip on her was so tight, so strong, she couldn’t even snap her fingers to clothe herself. Instead, she was forced to stand naked in front of a room full of psychotic strangers. She felt their gazes on her like a caress from a dirty hand.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, tossing her hair back and lifting her chin in helpless defiance.

  “Watch your tone now, missy,” said the woman who was clearly in charge as she reached down to toss the edge of her blanket across Torin’s lower body. “Honestly. You magical people, not a sense of propriety among you. Both of you naked and it not six o’clock in the evening. No doubt you were having sex and it’s barely dark out. Is it any wonder God-fearing Christians have to take matters into their own hands?”

  Shea snorted at the woman’s sanctimonious tone. “Don’t make this about religion,” she said. “It’s not. This is just fear. You’re afraid, so you’re striking out.”

  Martha humphed. “Looks to me as if you’re the one afraid here.”

  Torin groaned and struggled to sit up. He failed and his gray eyes flashed a warning that told everyone in the room they had better hope he didn’t get free.

  “Don’t you waste your time there, mister,” the woman told him. “I knitted that blanket myself. There’s threads of white gold mixed in with the yarn, so it’ll hold you.”

  Well, that explained why the blanket was having such an effect on Torin. It also cut short any hope of him escaping that blanket and getting them out of this. Shea’s gaze swept the room, going from one face to the next. They all looked so… normal, she thought. Except for the fact that they were carrying clubs and guns and were holding her and Torin captive. Her gaze swung back to the older woman standing in front of her.

  “You knitted a blanket with white gold threads?”

  The woman turned to look at Shea, eyes wide. “Well, of course. How else could we control him while we take you? And let me tell you, missy, white gold thread yarn is pretty darned pricey.”

  Shea almost laughed. Almost. She was being held prisoner again, but this time, it wasn’t prison guards. This time it looked like a local chapter of the PTA, for heaven’s sake. “What is it you want from us?”

  “Well, first things first, I think,” the woman said. “My name’s Martha Chapman. I’m the president of the local Seeker society.”

  Seekers. A hard ball of ice settled in Shea’s stomach. She knew that organization. She knew about the experiments. About the tortures. About the deaths of too many women-witch and human alike-to count. She looked at the faces surrounding her through new eyes now and she didn’t like what she was seeing. They didn’t look crazy.

  Just determined.

  “Ah,” Martha said, giving her a pleased smile. “I see you’ve heard of us. Isn’t that nice?”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Shea told her, frantically racking her newfound memories for a spell, a chant, anything that might come in handy at the moment. But her mind was drawing a blank when she most needed it. “We’re leaving town. We would have been gone in another half hour.”

  “Well,” Martha said, moving to the bed and dragging the floral bedspread off, “isn’t it lucky we showed up when we did, then? Tony? Hank? You keep a good hold on her now, while I wrap this blanket over her.”

  “She’s hard to hold, Martha,” one of the men said. “We could use the cuffs.”

  “Of course. Don’t know what I was thinking.” Martha turned and looked at a young man. “Michael, go fetch the cuffs from the car.” Then she turned back to wrapping the blanket around Shea’s body. “For pity’s sake, a woman tattooed. And on your breast, too! You would feed your babies with that awful ink covering what God gave you? You witches just have no shame at all, do you?”

  It was clearly a rhetorical question. Shea tried to pull away from the woman. There was a fanatical light in those pale blue eyes that was damn unsettling. She was caught, she thought, shooting a quick look at Torin as he lay immobile on the floor. The blanket with white gold threads covered his body from the chest down and when he looked at her, she read helpless fury in his eyes.

  “Her man there’s got a matching tattoo, Martha,” one of Shea’s captors said.

  “So he does.” Martha turned around to look at him, flat on the floor. “Heaven only knows what that might mean. But, doesn’t matter much to us, now, does it? It’s not him we’re here for, anyway.”

  “I don’t like the look in his eye, Martha,” one of the men offered. “Think we should just shoot him now and be done with it.”

  Panic reached up and clutched at the base of Shea’s throat. Torin was immortal, yes, but what if they shot him in the head? What would that do to him? Besides, she couldn’t bear the thought of these maniacs shooting Torin at all.

  Whatever she was going to do, she would have to do on her own. And fast. They had to get out of here. She couldn’t be taken by the Seekers. God knew where she’d end up. And even though Torin was immortal, she knew all too well that he could be wounded badly enough to put him out of commission.

  “You might have a point, Tony,” Martha mused, as if trying to decide whether to have potatoes or rice with dinner.

  “What are you going to do with me?” Shea spoke up into the charged silence, hoping that if she kept them talking, she could take their attention away from Torin and stall them somehow. Give herself time to come up with something.

  “We’ll be taking you to Dr. Fender, dear,” Martha said, her tone as soothing as her eyes were mad. “He’s moved his laboratory to upstate New York, so we have quite a long trip ahead of us.”

  Shaken, Shea drew a deep breath and swallowed hard. “You know who Fender is. Then you must know he’s a monster. He tortures women. Kills them.”

  Martha slapped her. “Nonsense. He’s never harmed a human woman. It’s only witches he’s interested in! Now, no more of your witch talk. Fender is a great man. He’s at the vanguard of our movement. The light of knowledge in the darkness. Through him, we will be purged of your evil and take your powers unto ourselves for the glory of God.”

  Shea’s gaze slid to Torin and she felt a surge of something hot and frantic pumping through her. She had to get them out. But how? These were not the kind of people she could reason with. And if she were to admit the truth, she didn’t much want to reason with them anyway. What she really wanted to do was howl and scream and throw punches and spells.

  Martha was in her face again, turning her chin until their gazes met. “Don’t you get any ideas now, missy. Those cuffs we’ve got for you are white gold. You’ll be quiet enough for our little trip, I’m thinking. Give you plenty of time to say your prayers to whoever it is your kind prays to.” She paused and frowned. “What’s taking Michael so long? Shauna, you go check on him now.”

  A woman standing at the back, her hungry gaze fixed on Torin, jolted into action and ran for the door. Apparently they all took their orders from Martha. Shea continued to search her memories. More desperately now, since she knew the moment the white gold cuffs were on her wrists, her magic would be dampened and she and Torin would be at the mercy of these… people.

  From the corner of her eye, she caught movement. The young blond girl was edging closer to Torin. No one else seemed to notice. They were all too concerned with Shea, keeping her under control. But Shea kept one eye on the girl as she moved close enough to Torin to slip one foot beneath the blanket covering him.

  What was she doing?

  Slowly, the girl nudged the blanket aside, until Torin’s lower abdomen and more were exposed. The girl’s eyes widened in appreciation and to get an even better view, she accidentally pulled that blanket just a bit too far.

  Instantly, Torin rolled out from under the weight of the white gold threads. The girl jumped back and shrieked. Martha whirled around, snarling, lifting the
club she held in her left hand.

  Torin threw a solid right punch into Martha’s jaw and the older woman dropped like a stone.

  In their surprise, the men holding Shea loosened their grip and she pulled free, reaching into her mind for the words she needed. Lifting both arms high, she found the spell and quickly chanted, “Lock and key, from sea to sea, elements rise to free my lover and me.”

  Instantly, the earth responded to her call. Wind howled through the room. Fire crackled at the base of the walls and a torrential rain pounded down hard enough to penetrate the old shake roof. Walls of water poured inside, drenching the would-be kidnappers. They screamed in fear and blind terror as Shea dropped the blanket, jumped at Torin and closed her eyes as he went to flames and flashed them to safety.

  Chapter 39

  Rune hadn’t heard from Egan in more than a century. He hadn’t thought anything of it, since he knew how hard the waiting was. He himself had vowed not to involve himself in his witch’s life again until the Awakening came. Too many years of hungering for her and at the same time starving was too much even for an immortal.

  So he could understand Egan disappearing. But if this Kellyn truly was an Awakened witch, then Egan should have been with her.

  After leaving Sanctuary and contacting Torin, Rune was determined to discover what had happened to Egan. He contacted other Eternals, but no one knew any more than he did.

  Which meant he would have to go back to England. Start where he’d last seen Egan and track him from there. Rune hopped a plane to Heathrow and thought about Torin and Shea being forced to take a ship. Six days at sea didn’t sound like a great time to Rune. But he was guessing the mating sex was keeping them too busy to mind the delay in reaching their destination.

  When the flight attendants came through announcing that they were beginning their descent, Rune stepped into the first-class bathroom. They were close enough now to England that he could flash out and not have to bother waiting for the jet to land. Besides, it amused him to think of the flight crew trying to figure out what had happened to one of their passengers once they discovered him missing.