by Ann Gimpel
“Are they dead?” Liliana asked.
“Of course not. But nor do they live here anymore, either. I believe his mum is in South Africa, and his sister set up shop on one of the Polynesian Islands.” Arlen chuckled. “Her parting comment was Druid societies be damned. If she never lived anywhere cold and damp again, it would be too soon.”
Liliana laughed too. It was cleansing to let mirth run through her, and she felt lighter than she had in years. Since Warren’s death, actually. She walked around Kat and Arlen and retraced her earlier steps to the kitchen, shouldering through the swinging door.
She was rinsing her plates in an enormous double stainless-steel sink when Sean strolled into the kitchen and to her side. His hair clung to his head in damp curls, and he’d changed clothes, so she guessed he’d come from a recent shower.
“Just leave those,” he said. “I’ll put them in the washer later. Speaking of which, I rescued your cloak and laid it across a drying rack hear a heat vent.”
“Thanks. Maybe it’ll be dry in a few days. That wool is a pretty tight weave.”
“Won’t take as long as all that. I added a wee bit of encouragement to the mix. I’ll be surprised if it isn’t wearable by tomorrow.”
Liliana raked hair back from her face and turned away from the sink. “Arlen said you might have clothes I could borrow. I’d like to take a shower too. That sponge bath I had at Mother’s cabin helped, but it wasn’t a substitute for soap, shampoo, and oodles of hot water.”
“Of course. Follow me, and I’ll show you where a few chests are. Feel free to help yourself. I’ll point you to a bedroom as well, one that has its own bath.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” She looked away. She was forever thanking him. There had to be some way she could turn into more than a liability, return his kindness to her.
He led the way down a different hall and up two flights of stairs. At the end of yet one more hallway, a door popped open, no doubt courtesy of his magic. She walked into a room set beneath the castle’s eaves. Windows on two sides looked out onto the velvet dark of a cloudy, Scottish late afternoon. An inviting bed piled high with pillows and a plump duvet was tucked into a corner. Armoires and chests lined the other walls.
“There’s clothing in all the cabinets. Bathroom is through that door at the far end.” He stood near the hall door but didn’t make any move to leave.
A sarcastic quip about whether he was planning to watch her disrobe died unspoken as she understood she didn’t really want him to go. Something about his energy—solid and comforting—was like a balm. Soothing and enticing by turns.
“How’d it go with Kat?” he asked. “’Tisn’t any of my affair, so feel free to tell me to take a hike.”
“It kind of is your affair. You urged me to make a clean breast of things.”
“And? Ye dinna answer me, not exactly.”
He’d reverted to Gaelic. Maybe the witch’s spell language created an illusion of safety. She crossed to where he stood and smiled softly. “It went better than my most optimistic expectations. You were absolutely correct about her.”
Sean nodded. “I suspected as much. Besides, if there’d been teeth-gnashing or hair pulling or screeching, I’d have heard it even absent magic.”
“You weren’t listening in, were you?” Her hastily assembled comfort zone began to shred.
“Nay, lass. I wouldna do such a thing.” He tipped an index finger beneath her chin and tilted her head, so she had to meet his gaze. “Hear truth in my words. I admit I considered lurking on the sidelines, but I care about you, and it felt disrespectful.”
His words pinged cleanly off her magic. Heat from his fingertips was tempting, electric. When he cradled her head between his hands, she didn’t draw away. Ever so gently, he closed his mouth over hers. The kiss was so sweet, so tender, and so brief, she longed for him to repeat it.
No one had kissed her on the lips since before Warren’s death. Trapped between guilt and failure, she hadn’t wanted to risk another man to Rhea’s wickedness. Refused to even consider it.
He stroked her cheek with his calloused palm. “I should have asked. This time I shall. May I kiss you, lassie?”
Her throat was too thick for words, and her heart was doing funny little flip-flops somewhere behind her breastbone. She nodded. He wrapped one arm behind her back and covered her mouth with his. The full length of his body pressed against hers, and she threaded her arms around him. They were of a height, and their bodies fit together perfectly.
He tasted sweet, like mead perhaps or scotch whiskey. The arm holding her against him tightened, and the swell of an erection pushed into her belly. Long-repressed sexuality surged, hot and primitive. She clutched handfuls of his shirt and opened her mouth to his tongue. Her nipples hardened where they pressed against his chest, and she delighted in sensation swirling through her.
It felt amazing to be in a man’s arms after so long keeping to herself. He explored her mouth with his tongue, slow and lazily, trading kisses for suckles and bites that made her bite back. She poured her pent-up need, her soul, into that kiss, and her breath quickened.
He drew his hands down her back, leaving trails of desire. When he gripped her ass, drawing her firmly against his erection, she writhed against it, wanting to be closer still. He ran a string of kisses across her cheekbone to her ear and down her neck to her collarbone.
A decidedly male noise, like a big cat purring, thrilled her, amped her embarrassingly apparent desire. She wanted to strip every inch of clothing off him, examine his body with her fingers and eyes and mouth. The thought of taking the pulsing length pushing into her belly into her mouth was intoxicating.
He lifted his lips from her neck and once again cradled her head between his hands. His dark eyes burned with an intensity that seared her to her bones. “Ye’re an amazing woman, Liliana.” He ran a thumb across one cheekbone and stroked hair that had fallen across her face out of the way.
“You’re pretty incredible yourself.” Her face heated from more than desire. What would happen next? Should she invite him to shower with her? It felt presumptuous, besides he’d already cleaned up. “I fear I’m desperately out of practice at this sort of thing.”
A soft smile curved his well-formed, very kissable mouth. “As am I. I want you, but maybe what passed between us is enough for now.”
The warmth suffusing her intensified. It didn’t feel like enough.
“Lass.” He tilted his head to capture her gaze. “I admit to sharing your thoughts just now. ’Tis been many a long year since I’ve been so drawn to a woman. We need time, ye and me. I could tip you across the bed, take you in a flurry of grappling and quick thrusts, but we deserve more than that.”
She released her death grip on the fabric of his shirt and smoothed her hands across his back, loving the expanse of muscle stretched over bones. His scent rose around them, heady with the tang of damp moorlands and greenery. Musk mingled with heather, gorse, and rosemary. Her throat was dry, but she had to ask. “What do we deserve?”
A smile began in his eyes before spreading to his mouth. “If what I hope comes to bear, we deserve to spend our long lives together. ’Tis why we have time. Desire is like well-aged spirits, lass, all the better with waiting for them to come into their own.”
Her eyes had widened when he’d said he wanted to be with her. Forever.
“Did you mean that?” she blurted.
“Not something I’d ever say in jest. I’ll see you downstairs once ye’ve cleaned up.” He kissed her, quick, hard, and sweet before turning and moving quickly through the door that shut behind him.
She blinked, staring at the space where he’d stood. The heat of him still lingered, and his scent was so thick it coated her tongue. She hadn’t thought beyond a casual liaison, but he was offering more.
Far more.
She made her was to the bathroom, determined to bathe before she mucked around in the clothing chests. Her mind was a jumble, and her body on fire from his
touch. Climbing over the rim of an old-fashioned clawfoot tub, she flipped the taps and directed the water to a showerhead attached to the wall. The tattoo of hot water on her nipples was exquisite.
Aware of her body in a way she hadn’t been in a long time, she dipped a hand between her legs. Her labia were slick, swollen, slippery and she teased them, separating them to rub her distended nub. In her all-too-brief fantasy before orgasm shook her from head to toe, Sean was the one touching her. His fingers. His mouth. His cock taking her. She’d felt enough of it to know he was wonderfully endowed.
She shuddered against her fingertips, alive in a way that had eluded her before. Witches leveraged sex in ceremonies, harvesting its power, but she’d scarcely been a witch in the years since Warren’s death.
As she stood, gasping and panting, legs quivering from her release, water pounding down on her, she vowed everything was going to change. She’d claim her magical heritage, revel in it as she had when she was young and flush with power. She might not ever return to her job. She’d used it as a panacea, so she didn’t have to look too hard at everything she was running away from.
By the time she’d finished with soap, shampoo, and conditioner, she’d made up her mind. No matter what happened with Sean—and she hoped to hell he’d meant every word that crossed his lips—she was done pretending she was human.
Half a person. Half a woman. Barely a witch at all.
No more. From here on in, she’d be who she was born to be. No more compromises.
She turned off the water. Grabbing a towel, she wrapped it around her head and took another to dry her body. Hard tasks lay ahead. Maybe impossible ones. She might die in their attempt to corral Rhea and her rowdy sisters in Hell, but at least she was completely alive and facing whatever came next with everything she had.
Her mother’s words about too little, too late mocked her. Thank the goddess knowledge, recognition, and acceptance had arrived in time. A riot of emotion swept through her: relief, joy, determination to be true to herself. Riding on resolve to not lose sight of her epiphany, she opened the nearest armoire and began rummaging through it.
Deep in her mind, the joyful cries of an owl on the hunt rose.
Liliana froze where she crouched, not believing what she’d heard. “Are you back?” she asked her familiar, too overwrought to manage telepathy.
“I never went anywhere,” it hooted.
She rocked back on her heels. “You did. I chased you away after Warren died. When I turned my back on magic and all its trappings.”
More soft hoots. “You only thought you did. I’ve always been as close as your summons, and today that call rang loud and clear.”
When she closed her eyes, the bird’s familiar black, gray, and amber plumage formed behind her lids. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”
“We’re bonded. Giving up isn’t in the rulebook.”
“Someday, you’ll have to scrounge up that rulebook. I’d like to read it.”
The owl didn’t answer, but she felt its presence, steady and reassuring, as she went back to her hunt for something festive enough to wear for her daughter’s wedding.
Chapter 8
Sean floated down the hall and two flights of stairs. Leaving Liliana’s side had been damned difficult but staying would have presented its own set of problems. They’d have made love, but once wouldn’t have been nearly enough. If the fire burning between his legs—and in his heart—was any indicator, once he took her to bed, they wouldn’t surface for weeks, maybe months.
He wanted their first time to be unique, memorable, not a rushed affair where she hiked her skirts and he unzipped his trousers. She was special. One of a kind. He’d spoken the truth when he said he hoped they’d spend their lives together. He’d almost asked her to marry him, suggested a double ceremony for tonight, but it was premature.
Particularly in light of everything she’d been through.
Between being captured almost the moment she set foot in Old Glasgow and girding herself for the tête-a-tête with Kat, Liliana had had a rough go of things. She needed breathing space to regain her equanimity.
And he needed to believe the attraction between them was real. Not an artifact of her reclaiming her power—something she’d used very little in the years since Rhea murdered her husband. He hoped what he’d felt as he held her in his arms was more than gratitude because he’d stood by her and been prepared to go to the mat to remove her from Father Abernathy’s foul clutches.
Of course, he hadn’t actually rescued her.
But I would have, and she knows it.
He hurried through one of many downstairs halls to his suite of rooms at its end, relieved he didn’t run into anyone. Scots were a dour, disbelieving lot, and he sat at the far limit of that continuum. Spending his days surfing the seamy underbelly of high finance, money laundering, and offshore havens for cash hadn’t improved his faith in human nature.
He reached to move his throbbing erection to a more comfortable position, but there wasn’t one.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?” he muttered. What transpired upstairs had been pure and beautiful. She’d melted against him, as hungry for him as he was for her. Why was he having such a hard time accepting she could care for him?
He replayed every moment, every touch. The hard peaks of her breasts pressing into his chest. The quickening of breath and heart as she held him tight. After his declaration of wanting to spend their lives together, she hadn’t pulled out of his arms. Hadn’t run screaming down the hall. Hadn’t told him he was daft, that they barely knew one another. Nay. She’d asked if he meant it.
She wouldn’t have bothered with the question if his answer weren’t important to her.
He batted at his unruly appendage again, but it wasn’t in the mood for retreat. Years had passed since he’d bothered with the one-night stands that peppered his memory. When he was so aroused he couldn’t see straight, he’d found women—usually professionals because it was so much easier with them—and slaked his need. It had kept him going for another few months.
For some reason even that became too much trouble, and he had no idea how long had passed since his last liaison. Maybe a year, or as much as two. His cock was giving him hell, and he didn’t blame it.
“Sean!” rang in his mind.
Something about Arlen’s summons held an urgent note, far more serious than if he were simply hunting Sean’s whereabouts.
“Aye.”
“Get out here. Now.”
Sean didn’t waste time asking where. He’d figure it out soon enough. At least his cock started to deflate before he left his rooms at a run, drawing warding around himself as he sprinted for the castle’s common areas.
The sound of raised voices reached him almost immediately, and he recognized various spells, all iterations of incantations meant to stymie dark power.
Goddess damn it all to hell.
Were they under attack?
How in the fuck had that happened?
His castle was thoroughly warded, impregnable. Or so he’d convinced himself.
A deep, rolling roar filled his ears. The structure, its stones and mortar laced with Druid power, shuddered around him. Its fortifications were being breached, and the castle wasn’t happy about it. He skidded around the last corner and into the great room. The ripping, tearing, crashing intensified until he clapped his hands over his ears. Pain ratcheted through his head, but his eardrums didn’t rupture.
Why wasn’t his warding keeping the horrific noise at bay?
After reaching a discordant crescendo, the noise was joined by a long gash in the ether at the far end of the room. Windows shattered, and an elaborate candelabra chandelier crashed to the floor amid millions of crystal shards. The rip grew longer. Blood-red scaled claws reached through, grasping one side and pushing it open wider. The fissure creaked and groaned like rusty chains scraping against each other, as it expanded.
Sean forgot about his painful ears and ex
tended his arms. Magic sparked from his fingertips, and he sent it hurtling straight at the crack. Arlen’s voice, hoarse and firm with command, broke through his damaged hearing.
“We have to close that thing. Now.”
“State the obvious, why don’t you?” Sean muttered. Even a magical neophyte could imagine what would happen if the gateway opened fully. The ruby talons punched through, followed by an oversized arm covered in shiny black scales.
What the hell was it?
Possibilities careened through his mind, but Sean shut them all down. He didn’t need to see the rest of the monster to know its presence on Earth would be disastrous. Apparently, the dead Roskelly women had been busy scaring up help from Hell’s denizens.
Arlen motioned the Druids into a line. Good plan since it would maximize their power. A second clawed hand had joined the first, and the intruder grasped both sides of the fissure, levering it apart.
Harsh, strident cries ripped through the castle. Raptors, but how the hell did something like that get inside. Frantic, he diverted a thread of magic to see if a second breach had occurred—one out of their immediate vicinity. Before he’d gotten very far, an enormous golden owl with shining amber eyes winged down the stairwell with a dusky black raven right behind it.
Liliana and Gloria ran beneath the birds. The power he already had deployed revealed shiny multihued streamers flowing between the witches and the birds. Understanding slammed home. Familiars. The birds had to be the women’s familiars. He’d read about such things, but never seen one before.
“What the hell?” Katerina screeched, pointing at the birds.
“They’re on our team,” Arlen yelled back.
Leaving his side, Kat loped to a spot between her mother and grandmother. “I want one of those,” she announced before the rest of her words were drowned out by the demon’s guttural shouts.
Raven and owl converged on the black-scaled arms that had worked their way through the fissure to elbow level. Hovering, wings extended, they pecked at the scales and talons. Black blood spurted, but the wounds didn’t slow the thing down.