by Hazel Hunter
“I want you to spill,” she whispered. “I need you, I want you, Kieran my love.”
He stiffened and shuddered, his climax shaking violently. In the Shadow Walk Prison, a land of spirits and not bodies, she had felt how it would be if he spilled all hot and wet inside her. She shivered at the memory, clinging to him as his breathing slowed.
He withdrew after a moment, removing the condom before turning back to her with a stern look in his eye.
“I want to see you come.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“I would disagree with that,” he said. “Come here.”
He seated himself on the edge of the couch. When she wobbled to her feet to approach him, he picked her up as if she weighed nothing. She had no time to mount a protest before she found herself straddling his knee. She could feel the rough fabric against her most sensitive parts. She knew that she was dampening the fabric with her own juices. The thought made her blush, but Kieran smiled at her.
“If you got to see me come, I think it’s only fair that I get to see you, isn’t it?”
She barely murmured a response when he started to press his knee up hard against her mound. Her legs were sprawled on the ground. Most of the weight of her body rested squarely on her most tender parts.
Reflexively, she clung to Kieran. The pressure on her sensitive clit and mound were alarming at first, but now she could feel them start to overtake her. It was exciting being mounted on Kieran’s leg like this. It was amazing having those brilliant blue eyes on her, watching her every desperate move with a glowing love.
“Come on, love, you know how to ride me.”
She did. She rocked her body back and forth against his. He was as solid as rock, as stable as the world she walked in. She felt the low pressure of a climax come up through her belly, swelling and unstoppable. She ground herself down on him even harder, wanting more and more. Her orgasm shook her from her toes to the crown of her head. She didn’t realize that she was crying out until her face was buried in Kieran’s chest. She whimpered through it, unable to resist the way her body was shaking.
“I love you,” she said when she was at last able to do so. “I’ll wait as long as I must to have you by my side again.”
Kieran chuckled as he eased her off of his knee and onto the couch.
“Perhaps you can do some reading as you wait.”
Hailey wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly at first. She frowned at him, trying to make his words make more sense.
“What do you mean?”
He laughed, pulling a small volume from the couch where he had earlier set it. He must have been carrying it when he came in.
“Do you recognize this?”
For a moment, she didn’t, but then her eyes widened.
“This is the book that you took from me!”
“It’s the book that I bought at a ridiculous cost because I didn’t realize you were bidding to drive the price higher.”
“You should not have picked a fight with me to get to know me. There are other ways of getting to know me, after all.”
The feel of the small leather-bound volume in her hands took her right back to that day in Italy. She had been living with her previous coven at the time. He had come to test her for her capabilities and her skills, and the best way he had thought to do that was to apparently bully her. She had lost the book she wanted, he had paid an exorbitant rate for it, and after that, she had forgotten all about it.
Now with the book in her hands, she felt a rush of emotions for the people they had been before. Everything had changed that morning, whether she and Kieran knew it or not.
“Do you regret it?” Kieran asked softly.
She shook her head.
“I never could. This is a strange world, but sometimes, we find the things that we need. Sometimes, we survive and thrive.”
And sometimes we don’t.
Neither of them said the words unspoken. Hailey sat with her hands stroking the leather of the book. It was one that Liona had written centuries ago, a rare little volume that she had been eager to get her hands on. How shocked that younger Hailey would have been to know that Liona di Orsini was still alive and so lovely in bed.
She laughed a little, setting the book aside.
“That feels like a lifetime ago when we fought over it.”
“And now?” Kieran’s eyes were a brilliant blue. Sometimes, she thought that she could lie with him forever, looking into those gorgeous eyes.
“Now all I want is a lifetime with you.”
He smiled.
“We can have it. I want it with you. I will return. I have no interest in a life without you.”
She leaned over to kiss him. Her hand wound up tangled in his shirt, tugging a little.
“It is time for these to come off, and for us to sleep,” she said softly.
“I have to leave first thing in the morning. I don’t want to waste a moment of our time with sleep, but I think I must.”
Hailey bit her lip.
“Do you want Piers?”
Kieran made a face.
“I do, actually. I told him I was leaving, and he just turned and walked away.”
“What?” Hailey stared.
There was no hint of lie in Kieran’s face, but she couldn’t imagine Piers being so cruel.
“He looked…I don’t know. I think he had somehow forgotten that I was in the Magus Corps.”
“He can’t do that,” Hailey said, her temper beginning to rise. “He cares for you just as I do, he can’t treat you like this.”
She was ready to go storming after the coven master, demanding why he had treated Kieran like that, but Kieran shook his head.
“He’s a man with his own thoughts and his own counsel to keep. If that was his goodbye, so be it. Some people cannot deal with it. Thank you for being so brave.”
Hailey allowed herself to be coaxed back to bed, but her temper kept her awake long after Kieran had faded off to a deep snore.
Piers, what are you doing?
• • • • •
The next morning, Kieran roused her when he was dressed. Blinking sleepily, she noted with some sadness that he was dressed in black again, the uniform of the Magus Corps. His sigil indicating his rank glittered on the pin on his lapel. It took a bit of will to make sure that she was not simply blindly angry at it.
“Do you want to walk me out to the plane? You can sleep if you like–”
“No, I want to come with you as long as I can.”
She stumbled into her clothes, dressing by feel as much as anything. It was barely dawn yet. The light that came into her room was a dull and lifeless gray. She took Kieran’s hand. They walked silently towards the field together. She wondered if Piers would catch them, but their lover was nowhere to be seen. Anger mixed with the grief of leaving Kieran. She couldn’t believe that Piers had left Kieran behind so abruptly, that he wouldn’t be there to see him off.
Julie was giving Kieran a lift back to a major airport. Waiting for him as well was his enormous wolf, Cavanaughaugh. The wolf allowed Hailey a gentle stroke on his broad head, but his yellow eyes were trained on Kieran.
When she saw him like this, it was hard to see her gentle lover in the military man. To her dismay, it felt like an ending. It felt like they were leaving behind a dream that she had cherished. Now it was over, and they both needed to get back to real life.
“Be well,” she said finally. “I will think of you every day.”
“Hailey,” he began, and then he frowned glancing up at the sky. “Hmm. He decided to show up after all.”
Hailey looked up just in time to see Piers fall out of the sky. He was a flyer, a skill that saw him crossing long distances as quickly as a bird. He landed heavily on the ground beside them, something that startled Hailey because usually he was grace incarnate.
“Piers?” Hailey started, but she was taken aback by the wild look in his eyes.
“You’re not leaving,” h
e said bluntly to Kieran.
Kieran looked confused and wary.
“I most definitely am. What are you talking about?”
“Do you care about the cause of the Magus Corps?” Piers demanded.
Hailey was startled to see lavender circles under his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. Given what she knew about his habits, that might have been true.
“You’re treading on dangerous ground, Piers,” Kieran said, his voice just short of a growl.
“Tell me the mission of the Magus Corps.”
“To protect Wiccans and to defend them from all harm whether from within or without.”
Piers nodded triumphantly.
“Yes. What I have––what I know I have––is the ability to protect us forever. The three of us can do it. If you want to truly fulfill your mission, if you truly believe what the Magus Corps says its cause is, you need to stay with us.”
“Piers, what are you talking about?” Hailey finally managed to say.
Her lover was always a bit like a firecracker, ready to go off and chase down the next idea, but there was something desperate about him now.
“The three of us together. I’ve been talking with Liona. I’ve been studying and researching, and now I think we can do it. The three of us, with the power we bring to bear, we can work a kind of magic the Wiccan world has never seen.”
“And all that I need to do is to give up my post.” Kieran’s voice was dry.
“I’m not asking this of you lightly,” Piers said, his voice solemn. “I can’t ask it of any of us lightly. Hailey, what we are doing is dangerous, but it will be especially dangerous to you. I’ve told you about my ideas before, and they require you taking on more power than perhaps any witch ever has. The consequences of what that might be are not known at this time. It could hurt you. It could harm you in a permanent way.”
“I’m ready for that,” Hailey said as resolutely as she could.
She had been brought to the Castle in the first place for just that purpose. She knew that others might think that she was a fool, a sacrificial lamb, but the Castle had been her first real home. She couldn’t turn her back on it, not now.
Piers turned to Kieran.
“I didn’t stop you until I was sure,” he said, and now there was a hint of a plea in his voice. “I wouldn’t have kept you from your post for anything short of my being sure.”
For a terrible moment, Hailey thought that Kieran was just going to shake his head and get on the plane. Piers’s dislike for the Magus Corps was well-known. If she were completely honest, Kieran often acted independently and against the wishes of other coven masters.
They stared at each other for a long moment, but finally Kieran sighed, setting his bag down.
“All right. Because I know you, and I know you wouldn’t say something like that if you weren’t sure.” He turned to Julie. “I’m sorry, but it looks like I won’t be needing the flight to Casper today.”
Kieran’s eyes when he turned to Hailey were gentle, if rueful.
“You get to keep me a little longer then, little fox. Maybe by the time I need to go again, you’ll be tired and willing to see me out the door.”
“Never,” she said, finally giving in to the temptation to hug him tightly. He held her as well, but she could tell that his attention was directed at Piers.
“If you give me cause to doubt you, if you have kept me from a place where I could do what I was trained and raised to do, you will regret it.”
Piers nodded.
“I would, and not simply because of the harm I know you could bring to me. I wouldn’t have stopped you if I wasn’t sure.”
Hailey felt a chill run down her spine at their words. They cared for each other. She would even bet that they loved each other. However, sometimes that love came at a great cost. She needed to remember that in many ways, they were polar opposites. The tension between them was real, and not all of the love and care in the world could banish it.
“It’ll be fine,” she said softly. “I have faith in the three of us.”
• • • • •
Kieran spent the morning calling his commandant and the other officers that had been counting on his arrival. Hailey sat with him, tight-lipped and nervous. Cavanaugh sat at his feet, occasionally whimpering in sympathy and nosing his knee.
The conversations began as shouting matches, and then they grew tense. Hailey had hated it when Kieran was shouting. She liked it even less when his voice dropped down to clipped single words that revealed the conflict within him. There were never enough members of the Magus Corps to go around. They were a small organization, and even if their reach was global, their resources were often scanty. There were not many warriors as old and as skilled as Kieran. If he was absenting himself from the battle to come, there could very well be people who would die because he was not there to watch their backs.
Once Kieran committed to something, however, he committed with everything he had. He stayed firm and calm in the face of men who were demanding his presence, reminding him of the most serious oath of his life and all but threatening him. Finally, he hung up the phone, shaking his head. They were in Piers’s office. Hailey and Piers had been going over what they could do to improve their strength and to consider what their goals could be. Hailey looked up, concerned.
“All done?” she asked.
“As done as I will be. Some of the Magus Corps are convinced that I’ve gone mad, and the others are calling me a Templar spy. I’ve always been told that you don’t really understand an organization until you do something they don’t like. I’m beginning to see the truth of that.”
He looked up, and though there was something lost on his face, he still smiled gamely at Piers and Hailey.
“I guess what that means is that I’m all yours.”
Hailey had never heard sweeter words, but she could wish that it hadn’t come with a cost. However, there was little time to go into that. Kieran was holding himself back from the Magus Corps for a reason. She had to make his sacrifice count for something.
She and Piers had quickly realized that she needed to be the one to take the lead on the work they were doing.
“As much as I love running the show, this is one place where I can’t,” he admitted. “At this point, Kieran and I are like power sources for you. We can give you strength, and we can support you, but you’re the only one who can figure out what we can do with it.”
Hailey nodded, thinking of what she had learned of her own abilities.
“I want to try something big,” she said finally. “I don’t want Kieran’s sacrifice to be for something he regrets.”
Kieran raised an eyebrow at her.
“It won’t be. And that’s not your decision to make, though I appreciate the thought.”
She smiled at him briefly.
“All right, then let’s get started.”
• • • • •
Instead of working in the training field inside the walls of the Castle, Hailey led them into the forest instead. If there were any ill-effects from their work, she wanted the people of the Castle shielded from it.
In a clearing, she took several deep breaths. She wanted to be as clear and cool as a mountain stream for what came next, but there was a part of her that whispered that it was all foolishness, that she would bend and break at the worst possible time. She tried to shut the voice down as completely as she could. Kieran and Piers, and indeed everyone who was counting on her deserved better.
“What I want to start with is hiding,” she explained to the two listening men. “I want to see if I can camouflage things. I want to see if I can make them entirely free from notice.
Piers looked thoughtful.
“There are some Wiccans who can do that to themselves and to the things that they are holding. What you are proposing is something entirely new.”
“Well, like I said, there’s no point in starting small,” Hailey said with a shrug.
Kieran nodded.
“I would rather go for something offensive rather than defensive, but it sounds like a good idea. How do we start?”
Hailey offered the two men her hands. They each took one as she closed her eyes. For a moment, she simply relished the feel of them together, the way the air was just a little chilled and the sounds of birdsong all around them.
She reached for their power simultaneously. She found Kieran’s tempestuous sea and Piers’s ocean of light. They were not so different, she realized now. They were immense reserves of strength and passion, and they were both being offered lovingly to her.
When she had taken strength from them in the past, it had always been something that she was careful about. She didn’t want to drain them. She didn’t want to leave them thinking she had stolen something from them.
Now, with the threat of war breathing down her neck, she had to take what she needed. She had to take it without fear. Taking a deep breath, she started to pull the power from them. No matter how much she held, she found she could hold more. She started to feel a warm tingle through her body as the power mingled, became greater, became hers.
When she let go of their hands, there was a smile on her face. She felt a little lightheaded. If she spoke, she didn’t think she could do so without slurring.
“Hailey?”
That was Kieran, reaching for her, but she waved him off. She felt like an over-full bowl that might tip at any second. She glanced around her. There was an ancient spruce not ten yards away, enormous and tattered with age. Hailey directed her thoughts and her powers towards it. The tree shimmered as if it was at the center of a mirage. It faded slowly, and then at the last, it disappeared entirely.
“There,” she said softly.
Piers whistled while Kieran laughed with delight.
The three of them approached the place where they knew the tree to be. From any angle they could approach it, it was invisible. When Hailey touched it with her hand, she could feel the bark and the low hanging branches, but when she climbed up into the tree, she disappeared as well.