Victoria Cage Necromancer BoxSet

by Eli Constant

  “This isn’t normal,” he looks at my body, at all the blood. “You need help. Something is happening to you. It is not part of the Blood powers.”

  “I’ll figure it out. I. Don’t. Need. You.” I snap off each word like green bean tips.

  He continues to try and reason with me. “If I leave, if my arrangement with Oran is void, he will come for you.” Liam’s eyes plead. His hands lift as if to touch me.

  I move back from him, my body continuing to bleed like one great open wound. Rivulets of crimson are tracing down my face, falling from the red ocean hidden by my hair. “Let him come. Let him come and try his fucking luck.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “He’s not going to stay away.” Kyle has made this statement at least three times since Liam and Kiera left. You’d think he would have stopped mentioning Liam after the first time, when my body had started bleeding again.

  Now, I’m wearing a pair of gigantic sweats that won’t stay up even with the drawstring cinched down, and a Jim’s Bar shirt that’s seen better days. Thank god Jim had a full bathroom connected to his office—for nights he was too tired to go home. The soap and shampoos weren’t the best, and everything smelled like a woodsy pine, but at least I was clean. There’s a small pile of blood-stained, damp bar cloths piled in the corner of Kyle’s office with my spotted dress. I’m trying to avoid looking at them. They’re a reminder that I nearly lost control.

  And a reminder that I’ve lost Liam.

  My lying fairy stalker. Who I shouldn’t be mourning at all.

  I’m leaning against the wall, Moby Dick held loosely in my grip. Kyle’s stood stretching his body gingerly, the after-effects of the dark fae mark still a shadow in his body.

  “Tori, realistically… he did the wrong thing for the right reasons.” My bear’s voice is full and deep, but not forceful. It’s reasonable. And for some reason I find reasonable harder to swallow than fly-off-the-handle emotion.

  I turn on Kyle, fast and furious, feeling my power push and pull and beg for renewed release, but the look on my beau’s face stops me. It’s earnest, and a bit sorrowful.

  “Look, I’m the last one to defend the guy. Lord knows he pisses me off left and right. But if he hadn’t told this Oran guy, then Braeden would have. And, on top of that, Liam would be in prison, possibly even more punished for withholding your location. And, honestly? Would you rather Liam have lied to you, or be dead?” Kyle moves to the corner of the room, to the pile of cloths and my ruined dress. “I’m going to soak these in the utility sink. Maybe we can save the dress.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Kyle. We can just trash it.”

  “Not with how sexy you look in it,” he says, giving a wry smile. Then he looks at me seriously, the smile still in place but not as warm. “Think about what I said. Don’t shut Liam out completely. He can do things for you that I can’t. And, honestly? I need him too. This thing inside me—this animal—I’m only now figuring out how to balance the beast.”

  “I didn’t think about that. I’m sorry. I was just so… so fucking mad at him.” I walk away from the wall and place the book on the desk, then I grip the edge of the furniture, holding myself up as I think and go over what’s happened.

  “Well, be mad. Stew for a while. Bleed it out.” Kyle holds up the cloth and dress in his hands. “But then find a way to move past it.”

  “He’s your competition you know. Or at least he’d like to be.” I fold myself down onto the sofa, legs crossed and arms wrapped around my waist protectively. I try to sound teasing, but my words fall flat and sad.

  Kyle stares at me for a moment and then he drops the dirty linens to the floor. He strides forward, his body tall and full of barely-contained energy, the power of which still carries the taint of being basically poisoned. He doesn’t sit down beside me, but instead grips me by the waist and lifts me back up to stand. My legs stretch out automatically. My arms find their way around his muscled chest. My body is against his, conformed together like one seamless line of human being.

  His voice is a growl against my hair. “If another man…or fairy…can take you away from me, then I’m not doing my job right.”

  Kyle’s fingers find the waistband of the too-large pants and it takes very little work to send them sliding down my hips and legs to bunch in a graceless pile at my ankles. It had been embarrassing earlier, when I’d stripped out of the bloody clothes to reveal the stained ‘wash day’ underwear. The holey bra. The granny panties. Now though, beneath the pants and the bar shirt, it’s all birthday suit.

  His fingers cup the apples of my ass, and I love that he’s got such long arms and big hands. He can get to the thick of me, with little effort. He squeezes and lets loose a small moan of desperation. And then he kisses me, and any grief for Liam’s absence or regret washes away on a tide of desire.

  “You’re feeling better,” I breathe out throatily, knowing I sound like Porn Star City versus average, ordinary, plus-size necromancer with a massive lady boner.

  “Better enough,” he replies, brushing the hair away from my neck and kissing gently, slowly towards my jawline.

  “Then I don’t want gentle.” I run my hand between our knitted-together bodies. I find that place of him that has grown hard with need. I have to trace an impossibly-long path down his jeans to find the tip. He’s always been big, but I swear the beast in him is translating outward, even when he’s not shifted.

  Kyle lifts me into the air quickly and I wrap my legs around his waist in response. I’m still wearing the shirt; he’s still fully-dressed from the waist down. But our want for each other is overwhelming. I can feel the nakedness of myself pressed against his toned stomach, and the unfortunate sharpness of his belt below that.

  “Take off your pants,” I mumble as I kiss his mouth deeply, our tongues dancing around like crazed ballerinas.

  I’m already wet and ready; it’s been too long. I can tell he doesn’t want to put me down, not even to take off his pants. But he also realizes pants might be problematic when it comes to sex. He drops me and I gasp as I hit the sofa. But then I smile as I watch him jerk his belt undone and slam down the zipper of his jeans. I love that he wants me like this, with the same fire that warms my belly.

  When he’s naked, stood in front of me, then I do want to pause and take him in—every glorious inch of him. Tall, muscled, a giant between the legs. I stand and move to press against him again. He frowns when it’s skin against shirt and he gently pushes me away, his hands taking the hem of the bar tee and lifting it upwards. I raise my arms obligingly, feeling the cool air of the office harden my nipples.

  His hands brush against my stomach, like they always do before we’re intimate, and move upwards to knead my breasts. Even with Adam, I’d had moments of feeling not good enough. But with Kyle? That feeling had been fading over time, slowly, until it no longer defined me. At least when we’re like this—in the heat of the moment—and I’m lost in the passion. We could be together, without me getting inside my head and nitpicking the lines on my stomach, or the extra pounds on my ass. We’re just lovers. And we loved every damn inch of each other.

  He picks me up again, so fast and fierce that I gasp and forget everything in the world except for him. This time, the only hardness beneath my ass is him. All him. The length and width and promise of him.

  Carrying me around the couch, he presses me to the wall. Every motion shoves the firm line of him against me and when he lifts me a little higher, his dick lifts also and the tip of it brushes the sensitive skin around my opening. I give a soft cry and dig my face into his shoulder, my fingers clawing at his back and begging for more than just that whispered suggestion of sex.

  But he holds me there like a vice, the wall against my back, him against my front. He kisses me like his life depends on it, like he’s drinking oxygen from my body and if he doesn’t he’ll die. I’m lost in him, a ship on a vast sea floating beneath beautiful skies that have the first touch of pink from a sinking, blissf
ul sun.

  “I love you, Kyle,” I gasp out before his mouth presses into me once more.

  He stops kissing me and he just looks at me, a man lost in some ways, and found in others. “I’m going to love you until I die, Tori. Until there’s not a damn fragment of life left in me.”

  And with that, we leave the wall. He carries me the short distance to the sofa and places me down, more gently than I want. The wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am is softening into lovemaking. I want to fight it, to give him a shove and tell him to take me like he means it, but then I realize he is—in his own way—taking me like he means it.

  With soft fingers down my face, tracing across my lips. With one hand pushing my hips deeper into the couch cushions. He brings himself to hover over me, one knee on the couch, the other leg bent beside the sofa. It’s not quite wide enough for both of us, but that doesn’t matter. His head leans forward, and his lips caress my neck, then move lower.

  Lower. Lower still.

  His tongue traces around my nipples in slow, seasoned strokes. He knows what he’s doing. The way he plays a journey across my breasts. He continues to kiss down my stomach. And then his mouth finds warmer, wetter things.

  I arch my back in pleasure, my head burying into the arm of the sofa and pressing painfully against the wood underneath. Which is ironic, considering I’m looking forward to having another type of wood pressing into another part of me very soon…

  The building pressure between my legs makes my body quiver. Kyle’s mouth is magic, his tongue circling like a vulture above a meal.

  Just as I’m about to crest that peak between absolute euphoria and the after-burn of orgasm, he pulls away and returns to my mouth hungrily. “You taste so good,” he runs his fingers through my hair and grips the strands firmly. He angles my head back so that we’re looking into each other’s eyes.

  And then he shoves his hips forward in one deep, hard, thrust. I moan, feeling the fullness of him inside. He’s so long, so wide and large, that I think there’s not a single part of me he’s not touching.

  God, I can taste him in my mouth.

  He moves then, in and out in steadied, paced rhythm. He doesn’t want to rush this, doesn’t want it to end. And I understand why.

  Our lives are so uncertain. Tomorrow could change everything.

  But right now, we’re together. And it’s fucking magical.

  He begins to move faster as he comes closer to the end.

  And the fever pitch is building once more inside me, a warmness in my groin that threatens to burn me inside out. I feel my power responding to it, the life he’s about to pour inside me calling to the death that is a part of me, down to my marrow. A chill brushes our bodies. And my eyes fight to focus on the room around us.

  Spirits are gathering.

  So many in one place, more than I’ve ever seen before. Something is pushing through the center of them. A face… something familiar.

  They watch us. And it’s disturbing and awful and macabre. And that face…

  But my body is only aware of one thing. The way Kyle is moving, the way he’s growling against my body, the beads of sweat pooling between my breasts as we work up a hell-rivaling heat.

  My eyes won’t stay open. I’m blinking, slowly against the fog of sex. My brain knows we are surrounded. That my power is still yelling out into the cosmos to anyone, or anything, that can hear it.

  Then I’m overcome, the sexual release like barreling down a roller coaster that’s out of control. Kyle’s fallen against me, his body shaking slightly, the length of him pulsing inside of me.

  We pant, sweaty and naked and caught in that glorious afterglow.

  It’s only after the sensation of orgasm fades that I remember the spirits, the cold air, my power.

  I try to sit up, but Kyle is heavy against me.

  I move my sweaty hair out of my face and I stare, trying to see every part of the room.

  The spirits are gone. The air is cool, but not deathly cold.

  Well… that was new.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, Terrance. Kyle’s been really sick. I haven’t been able to get away.” It’s nine AM. Crow arrived about an hour ago and a shipment of microbrews came in shortly after. Kyle still insisted on washing my dress and trying to save it. It’s sweet, but I plan to toss it no matter what and buy a new one. The beauty of online shopping—I can replace supernaturally-ruined clothes with a few clicks of the mouse. Plus, then I don’t have the reminder of my blood-pouring body. What the hell was that about, anyway? Liam said…

  Screw Liam.

  Adam’s jacket is another story. I’m glad I took it off when my power went haywire, but it didn’t completely escape the blood seeping from my body. The outer shell wiped away well, but the inner stain is a lost cause.

  I wait as Terrance rails at me. That I was shirking my responsibilities, that the town was in danger, that the arsonist killer witches were out there and could strike at any time. Like I could possibly forget any of that.

  “I get that, Terrance. Again, I’m sorry. If it was your wife that was on her deathbed, or one of your kids, would you have left them?”

  He tells me that’s different. I tell him it’s not. I let him yell some more.

  And then he finally calms down and apologizes and tells me what’s really wrong.

  He’s scared.

  And, God, he’d be an idiot not to be scared. Everyone should be scared.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just need to make a pit stop at home.”

  He doesn’t say goodbye, he just hangs up.

  ***

  “Will I see you later?” Kyle hugs me, and his arms are tight and solid.

  “That depends. Are you going to run away again and sulk at Jim’s house, or can we go back to normal?”

  “We still need to be careful,” Kyle lets go of me and crosses his arms over his chest.

  “Careful, together,” I qualify.

  He smiles. “Together.”

  I wave at Crow as I’m walking through the bar. He nods at me, his face stoic. I don’t trust him. I just don’t. But that’s a problem for another day.

  When I pull into the driveway of the Victorian, I’m once again struck by a feeling of distrust. Yet, I know this must be my paranoia seeping into innocent things. Of all the things in my life, all the inconstants and steady forevers, the house has been a beacon of steadiness. It has never harmed me, never betrayed me with a power loss in the middle of a season finale of one of my few, beloved shows. It has never leaked in foul weather, or refused to warm the water for my shower.

  It is, for all intents and purposes, the last family member I have in this world.

  However, the niggling feeling that something is wrong will not leave me.

  How do you know your life has gone off the rails? I think to myself. You’re even suspicious of your own home.

  I park and walk in. There’s no work, so no Dean. Though, it’s past his normal arrival. Maybe he’s spending the morning with Mei. Maybe they spent the night together. I really need to call her. I need to see her. I was so grateful to make, or remake rather since we knew one another in high school, a true friend. And I’m basically brushing her to the side.

  Not that she easily fit into my life of ghosts and murder and magic.

  I take off Adam’s jacket. Despite the new stains, I can’t give it up. I’ll keep it until it rots around me—like it is a second skin I wear against the world. Folding the leather coat gently, I set it on my bed and then slink out of the giant sweat pants and old shirt. I hadn’t even checked to make sure the curtains were pulled before stripping.

  They weren’t, so thankfully there’s not many houses nearby to see me in my naked splendor. Really wishing I’d have done wash, I dig out another pair of granny panties and quickly remember that my one-and-only clean bra is now dying in a trash can.

  So I do what every girl in the world does on wash day when they don’t have anything to wear�
��I dug through the pile until I found the least stinky bra available, I sprayed it with deodorizer, and I stuffed my big boobs into it.

  Jeans, a tank top, and button-up blouse that had the dreaded chest gap came next, followed by the same combat boots I’d had on, which had been surprisingly spared by my… blood expulsion. I found that strange, because feet sweat. Like… a lot. So I’d no idea why blood hadn’t poured out of my feet as well. Not that I wasn’t grateful. They were a favorite go-to shoe.

  Leaving the house, I felt the same way I had returning to it. Something was wrong. Again though, it couldn’t be the house. Maybe it was the fact that the entire town was in peril. That someone was out there doing the darkest of magics to summon the darkest of things.

  An army of demons to destroy the world and everything alive and lovey.

  Nothing looked different around the town though. People were walking around, holding coffees from the local diner. The community garden was the scene of a smiling couple posing for engagement photos. The burned building where the family had died is a scar on the town. The yellow police tape a neon sign that says ‘things aren’t as perfect as they seem’.

  Otherwise, though, Bonneau is just… Bonneau. It’s hard to imagine that the world might end as we know it, and sometime soon.

  I park at the station and see Andrea outside talking with Scotty, her fiancé. He looks flustered, and her mouth moves a mile a minute. The poor guy looks like he wants to run away, rather than walk down the aisle.

  I paste a smile on my face as I walk forward. “Morning, Andrea. Hey, Scotty.”

  Andrea shoots me a death glare, but Scotty smiles like I’m his potential savior. “Hey, Ms. Cage. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Scotty. I’m surprised you remember me. We only met that once and for like two seconds.” I study his face as I talk. I suppose he’s not all that bad looking. He’s definitely got a boyish twinkle in his eyes. Not exactly my type, but I can appreciate a good boy toy.