Moonlight Magic

by Alexander, K. R.

  He nodded, taking several slow breaths as he tried to recover himself. “What might have been … appropriate responses?”

  “You could have teased back and said why not gather up all six of the others. Then why stop there? There might be a cute guy still at the front desk to invite. More the merrier. Or you might have taken the frank approach with something more along the lines of asking if I’d just fallen off the crazy truck, or you would invite Jed, or anyone else, to join us tonight as soon as Moon burst into flames, crashed to Earth, and destroyed all life on the planet as we know it.”

  “Oh…” Still nodding slowly. “That last sounds good…”

  “We’ll pretend you said that.” I wrapped my arm around him, skin tingling against his, pressing only our upper bodies together. “I’m glad you’re comfortable standing up to me and defending something you want—in this case personal time which you very much deserve.”

  “Me too.” Zar also pressed my back. “It’s a great feeling, Cass. Even though … I didn’t actually do it.”

  “I’ve seen you go for Jed in fur. It’s okay to have backbone in a relationship like ours also. Not just against your tough-as-nails brother.”

  I moved back, returning the space between us.

  Zar watched each motion along my arm, my hair, and down my body to the sheet. I watched him in return—silent, facing his sensuous outlines with little body hair and that luscious skin that made me look like mayonnaise—unsure why he didn’t follow, didn’t touch, but glad for the quiet space. We looked into one another’s eyes and Zar smiled again: dazzling. I’d never felt this intimate with him, seldom so vulnerable with anyone in my adult life. And certainly never previously loved feeling vulnerable, reveling in it, eager for more, for the rest of the night.

  Chapter 36

  Lips first. No matter where his eyes lingered, he returned to my lips before moving down. I thought of his describing me as a wolf, how each detail and sensation mattered to him. Each scent and touch, but mostly each feeling.

  I told Zar several times while we kissed and touched that I loved him—feeling him loosen, his breaths softening.

  He eased me onto my back, leaning in, pressing my right shoulder back and following to kiss down my chest. He shivered, breaths going tight, as he tasted my skin. A sound, like the faintest hint of suppressed pain, left his throat when he took my nipple into his mouth and sucked gently, running his tongue around the tip. He moved to the other, then back.

  “I love you, Zar,” I whispered again, not to cheapen with repetition, but to imprint upon the mind like learning a new language. I stroked back his damp hair, leaned up to kiss his head, and fanned my fingertips down his spine as far as I could easily reach—making him shudder.

  I wished I could feel more of him but he lay diagonally to me, lower body shifted away. Not for long. He would climb on top of me, needing to be touched also.

  But he didn’t. After minutes caressing with lips and tongue and fingers, he kissed up my throat to my lips, each one slow and distinct, until he found my mouth again.

  He didn’t want this to end. Not the way Andrew had been deliberately insufferable at home, playing with my lotion. Zar didn’t want it to end because, to him, this felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

  I followed him up, leaning in so we traded, Zar on his back, me against his chest. I kissed his eyelids, savoring soft skin and the thrill of delicacy when so much of them was all iron, leaving me being the butterfly.

  “It won’t be this long again before we share another bed,” I whispered. “I promise. It might not be this posh…”

  He smiled a little, and held me tighter after that—more in the moment; less worried about the moment coming to an end.

  I eased along his body the way he had for me, kissing and stroking down chest and abs, telling him he was beautiful, to which he returned that I was a dream—making me chuckle.

  He shivered when I kissed down from his navel. His erection was full and dark with blood, arching upward, irresistible to press my lips to the underside.

  I’m not sure what he’d been expecting. Maybe a touch with fingers. Or it was only intensity of the sensation he hadn’t been prepared for. Either way, Zar jumped so violently I had to move back. Stopping only when his skull hit the wall-mounted headboard, Zar panted and dug his fingers into the bed to each side of him.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you.” Suppressing a smile, I touched the backs of my fingers to his dick, letting him take that in without pressure.

  “Sorry,” he panted. “I don’t…”

  “No one ever touched you like that before?” Feather-light, I tried again: lowering my tongue to the sensitive underside, sliding a couple of inches up the hot skin, which was stretched tight, still smelling of chlorine. It must burn their noses but they seemed used to coping with such things in most cases. Making me think of Kage striking my toothbrush from my hand.

  Zar shook his head, breaths now very shallow and shuddering. “You can’t,” he whispered. “Cass, I … not—ah—” A sharp gasp when I slipped my mouth around the glans.

  I ran my forefinger up the path of a vein standing out on his shaft—also shivery and breathless with the contact, licking salty pre-cum from his skin, loving being able to do this with him. Then it dawned on me as he whimpered—and I had that vision of Kage from the night in the bathroom at Gabriel’s hotel—why Zar was honestly distressed.

  With an effort, I pulled away, rubbing gently only with my hand. “Zar? It’s okay. Relax. You can enjoy this and there can be more. Just relax…” I kissed again and Zar shuddered. This time, though, he didn’t flinch. He finally lifted his hips a little to meet me.

  I fondled his balls, all gentle, and shifted to take him deeper into my mouth—changing Zar’s breathing pattern. He gasped, moaned, said my name several times, and generally sounded as if he’d been stabbed. I wanted to laugh, yet it was still in a sensual way. Like how Andrew made me want to shake him but that was still in a sensual way.

  I pictured pulling myself on top of Zar: so aroused by the feel and taste of him, his heat and his own frantic need, I ached to have him inside me. Also to give him the new rush and shock of me taking him in like that. It didn’t matter. A glimmer of idea, myself getting high on it, when he came in my mouth. I pulled back, holding him, wet and burning for him, transfixed by being able to watch him inches from my eyes. After my mouth, he splashed his own chest before subsiding to sprinkling his firm abs. A final milky trail bubbled up and trickled down his shaft while I stroked out the last drops—before he became too sensitive for me to hold on.

  He was still gasping as I tried to make up my mind. I wished he would touch me—a finger, a tongue. Watching him like that had left me farther along than I’d realized. No … I let him be, just catching his breath, eyes glazed.

  My instinct was a sink to spit in, plus washcloth to wipe him off. An easy matter if one were to disengage and completely get out of bed and break a spell. It wasn’t as if he had anything I could catch. I swallowed, then licked off his dick while he flinched away. Not my favorite, yet it was nothing with my partner so mesmerized and fully connected in the moment with me—and half thinking of me as a wolf.

  I gradually licked up to his chest, then lay on him. Nibbling his ear and jaw, I smiled at the feel of the remaining semen and a hint of sweat against my skin, binding is tighter together.

  For ten or fifteen minutes we only lay there, listening to one another breathe, Zar stroking my hair. He ran one finger along my bracelet.

  Gradually, I moved away and we faced one another on our sides once more. After many kisses and promises of devotion, Zar sometimes falling into Lucannis without seeming to realize it, I reached around to switch off the light.

  Then another period of adjusting, kissing, touching in the dark, until we could see with city lights coming through the third-story window, covered by sheer curtains all the way across but only partly by darkening drapes. I reminded myself Zar could see much
better like this than I could and smiled at him in the dark, feeling somehow that we still meditated.

  Only when he again pressed his lips around my nipples did I turn on my back, moving away from him at the same time. I opened my knees, though did no more either to encourage or repel—waiting for him to make all the moves.

  He hesitated, watching me in the dark, stroking with fingertips, before following without a word. He held the space above me, a hand to each side, leaning in to kiss my lips. Then claimed me as he settled. The first I knew that he was even fully ready was the pressure when he lowered his hips, pushing forward, and his glans rubbed against me, seeking a way in. Neither of us touched or guided him. I only lifted and spread my knees more, watching his face in the dark.

  Zar leaned down, having to adjust his hips, pushed, and broke in. With a gasp he stopped, overwhelmed or savoring the pressure. It was not a comfortable place for me and I caught my breath, lifting my hips to him. When he only rocked there, making me more uncomfortable, I breathed, “Fill me, Zar. Please, I want you.”

  Then it was good. So good: rush and excitement of him, as if we had a chance to relive that hasty loss of virginity in the castle, yet controlled, giving me pleasure as he never would have if we’d gone ahead with this instead of the buffer.

  I told him it was perfect, held onto him, and he did indeed seem overwhelmed, taking in a new experience as if never before. Many times he repeated some variation on, “Cass, I’m in you, oh, Moon, I’m part of you. We’re part of each other, Cass—”

  The personal element of his pleasure was a powerful drug—the way he made it feel like I was giving him something he’d never had before, would never have again, and never wanted to end. He left me dazed before any orgasm.

  When we did come, him just before me, sending me over with that picture of his ejaculating now clear in my mind, plus feel of him inside me, I joined him in that fantasy that it should never end.

  “Keep going. Please, please, Zar, touch me. A little more—”

  He struggled, thrusting to push me into a second high while I clung to him and thanked him.

  Both shaking when we again faced each other on our sides, sheet tangled around our legs. We held on tight, steadying one another, foreheads together. The power of the moment, the whole night with him, gave me a pang for having never thought to harness any of it for magic. Just as quickly I dismissed the idea. It didn’t matter if I had thought of it. I’d never have done it. I’d meant what I’d said. This was our night. Just the two of us.

  Another time. When the partners and I were all in agreement. There really had been something in that sex and spellwork combination. But not like this. This, exactly as it was, how we had been all evening, was magic. The most perfect, most illuminating magic in the world. The kind that can bring people together and give them safety and love and never let go.

  “I love you,” I whispered one more time.

  Zar pulled the blanket up to our shoulders before his arm again slipped around me. “I will love you until Moon crumbles and the last star dies,” he whispered back.

  That is our greatest magic.

  Chapter 37

  I remembered while in the shower next morning. Another hair scrub and all. Not sorry. But queasy. Decidedly queasy to the point that I did vomit up a little bile in there, which detracted from the pampering moment.

  Ginger in mouth, dressed as far as bra and jeans, towel around shoulders, I met Zar at the bed. He was flipping channels for the novelty of the thing, volume down, only studying the images and singing under his breath. I’d heard the song before in English and Lucannis. When Zar was not humming or muttering lyrics of his own design this was a favorite folk tune.

  Running through the willow grove,

  Moonlight guide my hunt tonight.

  Running through the willow grove,

  Catch this trail, catch this light.

  Running through the willow grove.

  I sat beside him and Zar at once took my hand. He sniffed. Looking at me in quick concern, he reached to turn off the TV and drop the remote, giving me his full attention. “Cass? Are you sick?”

  It wasn’t the ginger—which had become a staple for me. He’d smelled acid on my breath.

  “No. I’ve been wanting to tell you. I need to tell everyone and there’s just no good time.” I looked up from his hand to his eyes. “I’m pregnant.”

  Zar simply stared. Didn’t blink.

  “Zar?”

  “You can … what? Feel? Like … magic? Did you use magic?”

  “Magic for what?”

  “To know? You can know in a few hours?”

  “What?” I frowned.

  Zar only went on staring at me, mouth open.

  “Oh—gosh. No, Zar, not from last night. I mean, I’m pregnant from … well, I’m not sure. But I think from right at the start. So … it’s probably either you or Isaac who are the biological dad.”

  “No…” Shaking his head like I’d slapped him in the ear. “It’s not possible, Cass. Or, I mean, it’s so … it’s hardly… You’ve been under a lot of stress.”

  “I’m not mistaken. It was only a very strong suspicion. Then, remember the hospital in Kendal? They said she’s fine. Or he. Not like I know about the gender. But they said the baby is fine as far as they could tell. That also kind of confirmed the whole thing. Zar? Are you okay?” I gripped his hand with both of mine. “Zar?”

  His expression had gradually changed, color sliding from his cheeks, eyes wide, hardly breathing. He looked terrified.

  “Cass, you can’t be… Not out here. You can’t be doing this and … no…”

  “Listen, Zar. I’m fine. I’m going to be okay and we’ll get through this. I hesitated to tell you all because I don’t want you panicking about keeping me safe, or fighting about this or anything. But you have a right to know. Zar—” Horrified as tears dropped from his black lashes.

  His breaths were ragged. He grabbed the top of his head with his free hand. “You need to go home—”

  “No—”

  “You can’t stay out here doing this, Cass. The other night, the reavers, the river, walking up to wild mages… You can’t—”

  “Zar, listen, this is why I wasn’t sure about telling you, but I’m—”

  “At least go to London and stay with the others. We’ll keep looking. We can get you a new phone—”

  “Zar—”

  “But you should go home to Portland. They won’t follow you. If you stop hunting—remember? ‘Stop searching and live.’ Right? They only want you dead if you hunt. You’re not even a wolf. They’d never have targeted you in the first place—”

  “Stop it!” Now I was crying. I grabbed his face in both hands. “Listen to me. Zar, I am fine. You all are looking after me. Not flights home. You are between me and the river. Jason is between me and a madman. Kage is between me and reavers. Just like you have all been there for me, taking care of me, getting me safe to the other side, all along. I’m not in any more or less danger because I’m pregnant. I have bruises on my arms and legs from the river. That’s it. I’m fine. I’m going to be okay and we’re going to stop this and I’m not going to walk away because I’m six-weeks pregnant. It’s not that I take this lightly. I realize this is a miracle, a gift, nothing any of us expected. It’s an incredible blessing at an incredibly bad time. You all keep doing what you’re doing and I’ll keep trying and we’ll be okay. You can’t find out about one unexpected bump and send me away any more than you can be afraid of losing me and therefore shut yourself off from ever loving anyone. Zar…”

  I held his face against mine, then his head on my shoulder, breathing deeply, eyes shut. “It’s okay. We’re going to be okay.”

  It was several minutes before he could take it in more and shudder, hold on tighter, say he loved me, even smile in a terrified sort of way as he held my face to look into my eyes.

  “I just never … never imagined, Cass. I’ve never been so blessed—never thought i
t was possible to be so blessed.” Still struggling.

  Soon he had to get up, so restless he couldn’t stay still.

  I watched him from the bed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. Sorry this is such a shock…”

  He didn’t seem able to hear, wringing his hands, pacing up and down, fiddling with the curtains and looking in the wardrobe drawers.

  I let him be, going to dry my hair.

  That was when it must have occurred to him how much he needed to say. He kept popping up before me so I turned it off over and over while he told me things like I needed to stay in the Jeep and keep a gun with me. Or asked if I’d thought about names and what about me legally staying in the country?

  Damp was dry enough. I went to stand with him in the bright window for several minutes all over again in a long embrace, quiet, not leaving him until his breathing had settled.

  Eventually he nodded. I kissed his neck, then headed for the bathroom mirror to finish face and hair, leaving the door open. Zar burst into the mirror beside me with a big, nervous grin.

  “Cass?” Still panting slightly. “Would you marry me? Not like we do. Like worms do? Then, couldn’t you stay here?”

  “Zar…” I set down my travel foundation brush and turned to see his eyes directly instead of the mirror.

  “I mean,” he rushed on, “it wouldn’t have to be me. I suppose… We’re all citizens so … that’s your choice. Wouldn’t it help, though? I don’t mind a human wedding. Anything you want. Do you want a cake? They always have cake, right? And a church? That’s fine too. Some of them are beautiful. As long as they welcome any faith—”

  “Zar? Now’s not a good time. I should probably marry one of you. And before she’s born. But … not this morning. Okay? It doesn’t hurt to think about it, like names. I would love you to suggest names in general. You know your people’s lore and traditions better than anyone and it would be wonderful to honor that with a name. Speaking of other faiths; you guys and the whole biblical names thing has always struck me as weird, but I like classic names anyway. It’s just … again, not right now. We have so much to work on. We need practical things today, and to figure out our next move. Also, I’m worried about Gabriel’s leg. And Jed’s going to be miffed because of being here. I have no phone, my notebook is gone, I don’t know what we’re supposed to make of what happened with the mages. One thing at a time.”