Wicked Thorne

by K Loraine

  I can barely draw a full breath. His presence is too intense, too powerful, and too affecting. “Pheromones.”

  He grabs me, pulling me tightly to him and dropping his lips to my throat. “Fuck the pheromones. This is fate. You and I are destined and you know it. Now put me out of my misery and let me have you again before day breaks and I have to retire to the cellar.”

  Tingles race down my spine, across my chest, into my belly and between my legs. The things this man makes me feel. “Are you sure that’s a smart idea?”

  “I don’t fucking care if it’s smart or not. You’re mine. I’ve nearly lost you once already. If you’re leaving me, I want to make a lasting impression. Leave you with memories of me you won’t be able to forget.”

  My eyes flutter closed when he sucks my earlobe between his lips and his fingers dig into my waist. Maybe just once more. But I know if I give myself to him, I’ll want everything, just like I did after our first time. If I’m being honest, I’ve wanted him since the moment he spoke to me.

  He trails a hand up the bodice of my dress until he finds the laces holding it closed. Then slowly, painfully so, he undoes each and every one until the bodice falls to the floor. My stays follow, then the skirt, and soon I’m in nothing but a thin shift, shivering in anticipation under his attention.

  “I love you best like this. Free from constricting clothing that hides your perfect shape.”

  “You’re a smooth talker, Blackthorne,” I say, trying his name out on my tongue. It doesn’t turn to ash as I thought it would.

  “Shut me up with your lips or your cunt, then, witch.”

  A zing of pure need hits me at his dirty mouth. My hands traverse his broad shoulders, the soft fabric of his modern clothes such a contrast to the ones Sarah had made for me. What I want most is his skin on mine.

  “Does this place have a bedroom?” I ask, glancing around and finding nothing more than a table, a writing desk, and a few chairs.

  He shrugs. “I didn’t sleep up here. The bed is in the cellar.”

  “Show me,” I say.

  He takes me by the hand and shows me until the sun rises and we both sleep.

  When I wake, Silas has me in his arms as he sleeps. His heart is beating so slowly I almost can’t hear it. I’m disoriented, unable to tell what time it is, and I need to get my bearings. I slide out of bed and shuffle up the stairs until I reach the door. Careful not to let the late-afternoon sunlight in as I leave the cellar, I close the door quietly and look around the room. Only the faintest sliver of daylight trails over the floor on the right side of the house.

  I begin humming a soft tune and exploring the house Silas used as an escape. Who was he before all this? Obviously someone he was ashamed of. I want to know but also want to leave it all in the dark. What good would it do to understand his deepest sins?

  Bone deep cold takes hold in my center and spreads, consuming my body. I’m freezing in here with nothing to distract me. I clutch the pentacle and pull its strength into me as I manifest logs in the hearth and start a fire.

  Silas is in front of me, his hand on my waist, eyes burning with mixed emotions. I see fear, want, need, love, anger, all rolling through those irises. “What have you done, Natalie?”

  “I…I was cold.”

  He tenses, his posture going ramrod straight, attention on something other than me. “They’re here. They’ve come for us.”

  “Who?”

  Putting me behind him, he takes a stance of protector. “The people of Salem.”

  “What people? What are you talking about?”

  Someone bangs on the door, hard enough to make the wood lock crack. “Open this door, whore of Satan. We know you’re in there corrupting a good man.”

  Fear lances my heart. “What is happening?”

  “Your greatest fear isn’t me,” he says, holding my hand tightly. “It is them.“

  The door bursts open, wood splintering as whoever is on the other side uses a battering ram to get in here. Why didn’t I put up wards when we arrived? I was a fool. Distracted and weak, and now they’ve found us.

  “Something is very wrong,” I say. “How did they find us?”

  Silas steps forward, walking toward the danger rather than trying to find a way out of it. Men stand in the doorway, torches in hand, disgust on their faces.

  “Witch,” the man says, pointing to me. “Stand aside, Silas.”

  I stare at Silas, my eyes likely boring holes into his back. Heart in my throat, thrumming like a panicked rabbit, I take a sharp breath. Silas holds his hand out behind him, a sign for me to calm, maybe. I can’t tell what he’s trying to get me to do. The pentacle sits between my breasts, heavy and warm. When I look down, terror grips my chest at the sight of the metal, glowing faintly, clear evidence of witchcraft. They accused me, called me witch. Who gave away our location? The only ones who knew were me and Silas.

  With a quick whisper of “dissipate peribunt” the pentacle talisman vanishes from sight around my neck.

  “Do you hear her? Even now she whispers to the devil.” A man shouts his accusation in my direction and my skin crawls in reaction.

  “No,” Silas says. “You don’t understand what you’re hearing.”

  “Silas Blackthorne, stand down. Go home, you have been seduced by this witch. She has you under her spell.”

  “You can’t do this,” I say, my voice shaking with absolute terror. They’ll kill him for being with me. No matter where in time we might be, death is…death. “Get away from me, Blackthorne.”

  “You don’t understand,” he begins, but I stop him.

  “No. You’ve done enough.” I bind him with a spell, paralyze him so I can make my escape without him coming after me and risking his own life.

  “See! She twists his mind with spells and now she betrays him,” the leader of the mob shouts to his followers, but I’m strong. I can stop them all. I wonder why the other accused didn’t just end their trials with magic instead of what happened. But the moment I step forward, I understand. The man throws a liquid on me that sends me to my knees. Silas screams my name, and the crowd rushes inside the house, pulling me to them. My spell on Silas must break because he snarls and gets to his feet, running as fast as he can toward me. The crowd shouts and gasps at the sight of him, standing in the dying daylight, tendrils of smoke curling off him as he begins to burn. But they continue to pull me out of the house and don’t stop until I’m in the back of a wagon drawn by horses.

  “You’ll hang, witch!” a man shouts.

  “The devil’s whore. You deserve to swing,” another says.

  Fear cripples me. Whatever they threw on me has my power immobilized. I don’t stand a chance. I’m going to die in Salem. At the hands of the people who killed Sarah. At the hands of the Blackthorne vampires.

  15

  Silas

  Natalie is gone. She’s been taken, and I couldn’t stop them. Not with the sun setting at a maddeningly slow pace. Not with my skin burning and the weight of the light keeping me slow and sluggish. Not after my father tackled me to the ground and into the shadows as they took her to their sad excuse for a jailer’s cart.

  “Leave me be, Father. Take your bloody hands off me.”

  My father pins me to the ground, his considerable strength keeping me from fighting. “What has happened to my son? First you give that treacherous witch your time and aid, now I find you have escaped and stand before me smelling like this creature’s cunt.” He wraps his hand around my throat and squeezes. “She better have been worth it. They plan to kill us all. You know that.”

  “I know. But you got what you wanted. Sarah Good is going to hang. The only witch who can do the spell is lost.”

  “But the bearer of the blood of the sun has vanished. She will be our end if we don’t find her.”

  I shake my head. “That’s not true. She will be our greatest asset.”

  He releases my throat and gets to his feet. “What madness has this witch told y
ou?”

  “I have seen it for myself. I’ve seen everything. Your death. My uncle’s demise. The power the blood of the sun will give us once we harness it.”

  “Power?” he asks.

  “More than you can imagine.”

  He grins and helps me up. “So your plan to seduce the witch?”

  “It was to get close to her and find the one we need.”

  “She will hang before the day breaks.”

  My stomach churns. I can’t lose her. I just found her. She might not be ready to admit we’re mates, but I know beyond all doubt. And she’s bonded to me. She’s mine.

  “How did you find this place?” I ask.

  “Simple. You’re my blood. I tracked you.”

  No. It was me. I’m the reason they found her. I’m the cause of her suffering. She’ll die here because of me. Just like Sarah.

  He grips my throat again and runs forward, pushing me until I’m pinned against a tree. “You think I don’t smell your bonding all over you? You gave her your blood. You betrayed all of us. You’re lucky I don’t rip your traitorous heart from your chest right here and now.”

  “Go ahead. Kill your son and heir. I’m sure my uncle and cousins would love to know their line of succession will take precedence over ours.”

  “I’d have to die for that to happen.”

  I grin. “Exactly.” Then it all becomes clear. I am the reason my father died. Because I killed him. I pull the silver stake from my pocket—Natalie’s stake—and despite the pain of my palm against the metal, I embed the weapon into the chest of the man who raised me to rule the Blackthorne vampires. The king. My father. My tormentor.

  His eyes go wide and he reaches for the silver stake, hands burning even as his skin blackens around the wound. “Traitor,” he mutters with his dying breath.

  “Goodbye, Father,” I say, shoving his lifeless body to the ground and running as fast as my legs will take me to the only place I can go. I have to see my cousins. They’re all I have left if I want to save my Natalie. I finally understand why my uncle branded me a traitor, why my family said I was dead. My dealings with Sarah Good caused his death. They just don’t know I was the one who killed him.

  I reach the Blackthorne estate, my senses on high alert, my father’s blood on my hands. I hear screams as I approach, the screams of my past self, and I know why. My scar burns, memories of my uncle searing the pentacle into my skin over and over as punishment for my association with Sarah Good. For my sympathy for the witches and everything I tried to do to stop the madness my family inflicted upon Salem.

  Another scream rends the air and I instinctively look up to the tower. That’s where they took me, where my uncle Elias and his eldest son Callum kept me night after night, burning the pentacle into my skin over and over until I would forever bear a scar as a reminder of my softness toward Sarah.

  But if I could get inside, change out of these modern clothes and get to Natalie, I could free her. I could free them all and change history. My steps are all but silent as I walk through the servant’s entrance and slink in the shadows down the hallway and up the stairs toward my rooms. I haven’t seen this house in hundreds of years. I’ve blocked the memories, shunned my past. Now I’m face to face with every single sin I’ve ever committed. My greatest regret was Salem, but this is my chance for atonement.

  My rooms are empty, but it’s eerie being here, knowing everything set to happen over the next few nights. I would be locked in here, chained to my bed while my brand healed. My father’s body would be found. The witches hanged. And I’d be cast off as a traitor. My cousin Cashel would send me away in secret, telling them I should be left for dead rather than letting the council imprison me.

  I take a long breath and force myself to stay calm. I can feel Natalie’s fear. It radiates through our bond and that’s what I have to focus on now. She needs me. She’s powerless because of the elixir my father gave to the magistrate. Little does the idiot man know, he’s using dark magic to stop the witches he fears so much.

  “Ah, there you are, cousin. You seem much recovered from your—” Cashel stands in my doorway, concern written all over his features as he takes in my modern clothes. “What the devil?”

  “I don’t have time to explain. I need your help.”

  “With what?”

  “You know what we’re doing to the witches is wrong. It’s insanity. I have to stop this. I have to get them out.”

  He crosses his arms over his chest, the English style of his clothing betraying the fact that he’s not at all settled here in Salem. “I admit, it is extreme, but they are trying to kill us just as much as we are trying to kill them.”

  “My mate was taken.”

  “Mate? You don’t have a mate. Unless you are speaking of Sarah Good, and if I am not mistaken, that woman is spoken for and quite old.”

  “It’s not Sarah. Her name is Natalie. She doesn’t belong here. She should be with me.”

  “This is the first I have heard of anyone called Natalie. Are you ill, cousin? Has the witch set a spell on you to twist your mind?”

  “Cashel, listen to me. I have been bewitched, you’re right. I was sent here from hundreds of years in the future because of a curse. I have to help Natalie to make this right. If I don’t, I’m not sure how this ends for any of us.”

  He shakes his head and frowns. “Fine. I’m bored anyway. What do you have in mind?”

  16

  Natalie

  Coughing and retching. Those are the only sounds I hear. It’s cold and dark in this dirty prison cell, the scents of piss and shit coating the air, making me nauseous. How did they stand it? How could anyone have lived here like this? This is the fate my ancestors met. The fate of so many of my kind.

  “They will come for us soon,” a low female voice says from the dark corner to my left. “The end is upon us.”

  “How do you know?” I ask, hating the tremor of fear in my voice.

  “I can see. Just as I know you are not from our time. You should not be here.”

  Tears spill down my cheeks. She’s right. I should be safe at home, not betrayed by a Blackthorne vampire, not heartbroken that he lied, not imprisoned in Salem.

  “Oh, you poor girl. Prepare yourself, for tonight, we swing.”

  “Stop adding to the girl’s terror, Martha.” Another woman shuffles toward me. Her hands are bound and she’s fighting to keep her balance. She looks exhausted, resigned, and sad, but I recognize her.

  “Sarah,” I whisper. “No. I thought you were safe.”

  “The Blackthornes have spies everywhere. We were fools to think they wouldn’t find you.”

  “I can’t die here.” There’s real anguish in my voice. I have too much to take care of to hang in Salem.

  “Why?” Martha asks. “We all die sometime. That is a fate we cannot escape. Try as we might. Even the vampires die. You saw to their end.”

  “You’re a fool if you think that.” I can’t keep the anger from my voice.

  “Hold your tongue, little witch. You are speaking in the presence of the strongest witch in our coven. Show some respect.”

  “Sarah. What can we do?”

  “Come closer, Natalie,” she says. I move nearer, my heart pounding hard enough I should be worried I’m doing damage. Her eyes, exactly the same shade as mine, lock onto me. “Do you still have the pentacle?” I nod and pull it from under my shift.

  “I’m so sorry I got caught. It’s like they were waiting for me to use magic. They just…pounced.”

  “Someone is working with them. Another witch. A traitor to all of us.”

  “I’ll never get back home if I don’t get out of here.”

  “I will do everything within my power to free you and send you home.” She frowns. “Tell me, how came you to be here in this place, in this time?”

  I thought surely she was the one who gave me the spell to transport me here. But now I wonder. “I said a spell. It was nearly the same as the one my gran gave
me to open my past lives.”

  “And it brought you here?”

  I nod, then frown. “You mean you didn’t lead me to it? I thought for sure it was you who turned the pages.”

  “It was in my grimoire?”

  “Yes. In the secret coven house where you first found me, hidden inside your chest. I unlocked it with this.” I hold up the pentacle and I begin to say the spell but stop when she stops me with a hand in the air.

  “That spell is not in my book. Dark magic is wrapped around your soul, child. The wicked thorns of the curse you bear dig in and do not wish to let go.”

  “I know. I was cursed to face my darkest fear.”

  “Someone must have a great deal of power to lay such a curse over you.”

  Nodding, I grip the pentacle tightly. “She is very angry.”

  “I do not know if I can help you. This curse is strong. Why would fear lead you to us?”

  My stomach churns. “Because your death has haunted me ever since I learned your story. I had nightmares as a child that I was going to swing.” It all comes into sharp focus as I say the words. The Blackthornes, the witch trials, Salem. All of these things together make up the most terrifying nightmare I could ever experience. This is the culmination of the curse. It isn’t just Silas being a Blackthorne vampire. It’s being responsible for his death as well.

  “We shall get you safe passage, child. I swear to you.”

  “Don’t promise her such things, Sarah. It’s unfair to give her false hope.”

  Sarah jerks her head in Martha’s direction. “Quiet. She has a great deal to carry back with her, and nothing can happen to endanger her task.”

  “What?” I ask, panic cresting in my chest. “What task?”

  “You will return to your time with every last drop of my magic stored inside you.”

  My brows pull together as I try to piece the words into something that makes sense. She sounded sad when speaking of losing her magic.

  “How are we going to get out of here? We have no magic. Whatever they threw on me doused my power.”