“You are a trying woman,” he told her, his lips barely an inch from her ear. “But I find it difficult to ignore you.”
Ardith’s pussy contracted as he slipped a hand down her back and cupped her buttocks, pressing her even more tightly against his thick shaft. She swallowed a moan as his lips touched her ear, his tongue sliding out to trace its edge.
She wanted to be flip. Needed to distance herself from his charms. But she wasn’t sure she had breath enough in her lungs to pull it off. She tried anyway. “That’s funny, I don’t have any problem ignoring you.” The words came out sounding strangled, without power.
Predictably, he laughed them off.
Draigh slipped a hand into the waistband of her skirt and flicked his wrist, ripping it down the middle. “You have a funny way of showing your disinterest.” His hand slipped down her belly, dragging the soggy silk of her panties away from her pussy. He slid a thick digit along her already-slick folds.
Ardith was swamped by a wave of lust so overwhelming her knees started to buckle. She’d have hit the floor of the shower if he hadn’t been pressing her into the wall with his body.
He inserted a knee between her thighs and spread them for his pleasure. She was like a rag doll, unable to form a coherent thought or travel down a path other than the one he forged. His busy fingers slipped along the folds of her pussy and circled over her clit. Her pleasure built. With a mix of horror and wonder, Ardith realized she was going to come.
She shoved weakly at his hand. “No. Stop.”
He complied. But when he did, she almost cried out from the loss of his touch. She needn’t have worried. He merely reached up and tore her bustier open, baring her breasts to his hungry gaze.
Ardith tried to tug the edges together again, but her efforts were halfhearted at best. Her body thrummed with a need she hadn’t experienced for months. Maybe ever.
“Oh gods,” he groaned. “Such perfect breasts. Plump and pale, with rosebud nipples.” He licked his lips as if he would taste her, then seemed to realize she was still covered in goo.
Draigh grabbed a bar of soap, dwarfing the oversized green bar in his massive hand. Ardith shook her head, her hands finding the well-sculpted planes of his wide chest and pressing unenthusiastically. “I can take my own shower. I don’t need…”
His hand slipped over her breast, skimming the silky soap across a rigid nipple. She slammed her mouth closed to restrain the groan that wanted to emerge as a result of his touch. The hunter’s soapy hand slipped over her other breast and down, to skim across her belly. He turned her into the water to rinse her breasts and then dipped his head, engulfing one of her nipples in velvet heat. Ardith gasped, arching her back to push her breast more deeply into his talented mouth.
She found her gaze sliding down his body, to the enormous, rigid shaft bobbing before him. She slammed her eyes closed on a moan.
Draigh’s mouth left her breast and she opened her eyes again, finding her gaze mere inches from his pecs. The hot water sluiced over his perfect pecs and streamed from the rigid buds of his nipples. Ardith’s gaze locked on to those perky brown buds, her tongue sliding across her lips in anticipation of tasting them.
Draigh’s big, warm hand slipped downward to lather the swollen folds of her sex and Ardith lost her battle to withhold a heartfelt groan. Her head fell back to rest against the tile wall behind her and her eyes closed on a wave of pure delight.
He turned her and skimmed the silky bar over her buttocks, sliding it between her cheeks. Ardith gave up trying to fight it and widened her stance, moaning. To her chagrin, she found herself wishing he’d return to her hungry mons to work his soapy magic.
When Draigh’s lips dropped to her shoulder and he nipped her, Ardith thought she’d moved too far beyond reason to pull herself back. Her body was strung tight, her pussy throbbed with helpless need, and her breasts felt swollen against the cool tile. But then she felt the thick head of his cock against her pussy lips and panicked, the reality of the situation slamming into her.
The moment served to bring Ardith out of her lust-filled haze. She surged away from the shower wall and turned, pushing hard against his chest. “Stop. No. I want you to go.”
When he didn’t immediately back away, she glared at him. “Leave now, hunter, or I won’t be responsible for where my next volt of witch fire ends up.” She dropped her gaze meaningfully and Draigh blanched, one large hand covering his enormous hard-on before he could stop himself.
But then he grinned. “You forget the place is warded against your magic. Besides, you’re only prolonging the inevitable, witch.”
Ardith grabbed the soap and turned away. “You’re delusional, hunter. I’d rather sleep with a zombie.”
She ran the soap over her body, holding her breath in the hopes he would leave. Ardith knew if he touched her again she probably wouldn’t be able to stop herself from reacting.
A moment passed. And another. She still felt his gaze upon her body. Finally she turned, glaring, and found herself alone in the bath.
Perplexed and cranky with unfulfilled lust, Ardith took her time soaping up her hair and body, lingering with wishful attention on the parts of her body he’d inflamed. And when she finally stepped out of the shower she found a thick, soft robe waiting for her on the chair beside the door.
When had he brought that? Oh god. Had he seen her touching herself?
She sighed, pulling the robe over her aching body, and went to brush her hair. Despite her body’s traitorous reaction to the prehistoric male in the next room. Ardith knew she’d barely escaped making a huge mistake.
Sleeping with the hunter would have made their current assignment impossible. It would also have destroyed her credibility with the other mages. Her kind considered hunters their enemies.
She had to complete her current assignment and get the hell away from him. The first thing she needed to do was get Sirius back. He wouldn’t have let her make the mistake she’d almost made.
Having made that decision, Ardith felt better. She felt good enough, in fact to acquiesce to her growling stomach and go in search of whatever was filling the hunter’s chambers with such delectable scents.
If she couldn’t quench her most overwhelming need, at least she could fill her empty belly.
* * * * *
When anticipating meeting the famed Watcher, Ardith had pictured a gnarly, gnome-like creature crouched on a tall mountain, bent over a silvery pool of mercury. But when Draigh fired up his guide and brought them to the Watcher’s part of the world, she was shocked to find herself standing on a wide beach with sparkling white sand and green-blue water as far as the eye could see.
The sun still crouched orange and spectacular behind a soft gray horizon as their feet touched the warm sand. A wide orange and gold trail seemed to leak from the lazy sun and spill across the dark waters frothing against the beach.
The sound of the tropics coming awake burst around them, joining the constant drone of the ocean smashing against land.
Ardith grinned. “The Watcher’s a beach bum?”
Draigh lifted a single, dark-blond eyebrow. “Not hardly. Come.”
He headed toward the palm trees lining the beach. Ardith reluctantly followed. She liked the beach. “Where are we going?”
In response, Draigh lifted his gaze to a thick ribbon of gray climbing the sky in the distance.
“Is that smoke?”
“Yes.”
“He scries with fire?”
The hunter snorted. “Not exactly.”
She frowned. “Can you possibly be more tight-lipped?”
“Not really.”
They fought their way through the jungle in silence for an hour before she tried again. They’d stopped for rest and Ardith thought it was possible she’d never felt so uncomfortable in her life. She was hot, covered in sweat and smashed bugs, and she itched all over.
Her braid was heavy on her neck and back. It stuck to her like a scratchy rope in the heat. F
or the first time in her life, she longed to cut it off. To make things worse, when they’d stopped by her place on the way so she could replace the clothing he’d ripped to pieces in the shower, she’d dressed in her usual black leather. She’d started out wearing form-fitting black slacks and a blouse with a leather jacket. Needless to say the jacket had been discarded about five hundred palm trees earlier. The blouse was soaked through with sweat and she had the sleeves rolled and the tails tied at her midriff. At that point she was seriously considering ripping it all off and going starkers.
The only thing keeping her from it was the realization that he’d enjoy the show too much. “You could have told me we’d be in the tropics. I would have worn something more conducive to traipsing through hell.”
He flicked her a glance. “If you didn’t always dress like a trollop you’d be more comfortable right now.”
“He speaks. And surprise, I’m already regretting it.” She slapped at a massive mosquito, grimacing at the guts and blood coating her fingers. “What the hell do they feed these things?” She wiped her fingers on a wide leaf with water pooled around the center vein. “How much farther?”
He didn’t respond. She started forward again without looking up. “Damn it, hunter. Talk to me…umph.” She ran smack into him. He’d stopped and was looking toward the sky. Ardith followed his gaze and gasped.
A massive, black peak rose before them, its sides striped with molten fire the color of the sunrise. The thick gray smoke he’d shown her from the beach billowed from the flattened top of the volcano. A nearly constant stream of lava bubbled over the craggy edges of the peak and everything for half a mile from the base was dead, charred or covered in a thick layer of black soot.
In addition to the smoke spewing from the top, the volcano was encircled in hazy rings at precise intervals all down its height. Ardith’s nose twitched in the pungent air. There was a definite twinge of sulfur in the stench. “Are we here?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he? Where’s the Watcher?”
Draigh pointed to the column of smoke billowing overhead.
She frowned. “He’s at the top of this volcano? Impossible. Nobody could survive the heat and lava.”
Amazingly, Draigh didn’t argue, he simply raised a palm and called his guide. As the blue sparks gathered, Ardith looked around, curious. She’d never stood at the base of a volcano before. Strangely, the devastation formed a perfect circle around the mountain’s base, bowed up at the edges as if having met an invisible shield. Or as if it was being held in by magic.
Draigh’s guide sparked and spit angrily and he swore. “Grab hold of me, witch, and do not let go. This could get ugly.”
Her eyes widened. “We’re not going underground, are we?”
He started to flicker, his handsome face taut with pain. He wrapped his free arm around behind him, tucking her closer. “Hold on.”
Knowing she would probably regret it, Ardith wrapped her arms around his waist and held on tight.
A heartbeat later her very limbs started to pull apart under a pressure that was unlike anything she’d ever known.
It felt as if her insides were being yanked out through her pores.
She gritted her teeth against the pain, determined not to scream like a girl in front of the hunter. But as their feet left the ground, his head went back on a bellow of pain and all bets were off.
Ardith screeched in his ear as if the hounds of hell nipped at her heels.
Their feet hit something solid and they kept going, sliding across a slick marble floor and smacking into a wall. Draigh groaned, pushing himself painfully to his feet. He braced himself against the wall, his limbs limp with weariness.
The witch just lay on the ground, breathing heavily. Her arms and legs were sprawled, her thick braid sticking straight up from her head like an exclamation point.
He offered her his hand.
“Is anything going to eat us in the next few minutes?”
He blinked. “I don’t think so.”
“Then I’m staying here. In fact, if going back down hurts that much I’m moving in with the Watcher. Hopefully he can get carry-out pizza up here.”
Draigh felt the smile coming and twisted his lips against it. “Don’t be such a baby, witch.” He twitched his fingers at her and she sighed, pushing herself into a sitting position. “That sucked worse than spending time with you.”
“Even more than listening to you blather on.”
She grabbed his hand and he yanked her to her feet.
“Welcome.”
They turned and Draigh looked upon the Watcher in the flesh for only the second time in his life. Unbidden, Ardith’s dismissal of the Watcher as “that little monkey-like dude” popped into his mind and he almost smiled.
He bowed his head so the Watcher didn’t see and forced a scowl onto his face. The damnable woman was destroying his mind with her drivel. “Eminence.”
To his shock, the witch inclined her head too and remained silent. Apparently she did have at least part of a brain.
The ancient gnome was three feet tall. He wore a dark-green robe that covered his gnarled feet and draped over his hands, showing only the tips of his spidery fingers. He was older than time, his magic stronger than any creature Draigh had ever met, but it was all divinitive magic. He had no defensive magic.
Which was the reason he’d surrounded his lair with a power-stripping weave. When they left the gnome’s lair, the magic of the weave would reverse itself, returning their power. There was nothing quite so painful as having your energy ripped from the cells encompassing it. Except maybe having it returned.
The Watcher flicked his large ears and stroked his beard, his round black eyes sparkling. “Why have you come before me?”
Draigh straightened. “Eminence, we are pursuing a witch who is creating an army of zombies…”
The gnome tilted his head and interrupted him. “Why is she doing this?”
“For protection, we think. She has an apprentice…”
“She wishes to protect this apprentice so she creates an army of zombies?”
Draigh tightened his jaw, striving for patience. The Watcher was wise beyond understanding, but he processed information differently from others. “She values this apprentice above all things. Apparently the humans have be—”
The gnome turned to Ardith. “You are an epoch mage.”
Draigh’s mouth closed with an audible snap.
Ardith cocked a hip and slipped her slender fingers into the pockets of her over-tight pants. “I am.”
“You wish this witch to be captured and killed?”
She slid Draigh a glance. “I do not.”
“Yet you work with the hunter.”
“By elder decree.”
“What do you wish from me?”
“Locate her. Please?”
The gnome smiled, offered her his long-fingered hand. “Come. It is refreshing to converse with one of intelligence.”
As Draigh’s mouth fell open, Ardith slipped her fingers into the Watcher’s hand and accompanied him to the center of the huge, circular room. She slid Draigh a smug smile as she sashayed past.
He squeezed his fists so tight his knuckles cracked. Reluctantly he followed them to the massive scrying ring.
Ardith stopped at the low brick wall encircling the ring and looked down, exclaiming in delight. “That’s the center of the volcano.”
The Watcher grinned, delighted by her reaction.
She leaned on the wall and rested her chin in her hands, teetering dangerously forward to watch the show.
Draigh moved up beside her, ready to grab her if she should start to topple into the ring. At the same time he wondered why he even cared. His life would be easier if he simply gave her a shove.
“You have something of the witch’s?”
Draigh handed him a lock of ebony hair. Ardith frowned and it made him smile. She hadn’t seen him gather it. Hadn’t had the foresight herself.
Who was the intelligent one now?
The Watcher climbed a small platform at the side of the ring and stepped onto the wall, his large flat feet clinging to the bricks as he walked. He moved confidently, circling the ring as if it wasn’t only six inches wide and perched over a quarter-mile fall into a raging pit of melted rock.
He extended his spidery fingers toward the opening. Far below them, the fiery, boiling mass mounded and bubbled, lifting toward the top of the volcano as his fingers danced on the air. The Watcher walked around the edge as he scried, his small black eyes focused intently on his work.
The lava reached the top of the mountain and began to spill down its sides. The Watcher flung his hands into the air and the molten rock rose into the sky, bounded by what she’d thought was just a column of smoke. She now realized it was a containing web of some kind.
The Watcher grunted, his rosy face shiny with sweat, as he lifted the fiery mixture toward them. Ardith sucked in a breath as the lava continued to rise, until she realized it was coming all the way up, to fill the ring of stone within the room.
She glanced at Draigh, whispering, “He does know what he’s doing, right?”
Draigh snorted, pretending to be bored. The truth was, he’d only seen the ancient gnome do this one other time, and it had scared the crap out of him then too.
Heat billowed upward, shoved into the sky from the terrifying rise of boiling rock. Smoke filled the room but, amazingly, as the lava settled into the ring of rock, the smoke disappeared with a soft spitting sound.
The Watcher’s hands moved at an almost impossible speed, his fingers twisting and spinning in airborne shapes that transcribed themselves to the boiling lava in the ring. As the shapes formed in the glossy surface of the scrying ring, flames rose from the scrolls and swirls. Slowly the swirls moved and reordered until they spelled a name.
Edana.
The Watcher flung the strand of the witch’s hair into the pool and it exploded on the surface, sending lava into the air above the pool. The lava spun and spit, slowly taking shape, until Edana’s round but pretty face looked out at them from the center of the roiling pit of lava.
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