The moments ticked by and, with them, the last of Ardith’s ability to retain a cool demeanor. She started to shift her weight from foot to foot, her fingers twitching against her legs.
By contrast, Draigh was like a mountain, enormous and motionless beside her. His heat enveloped her and his scent spun a reluctant spell around her senses. Ardith wished desperately that she could step away from him, put distance between them, but she knew it would be seen as a guilty motion in the accusing eyes of the council.
So she stood tall, her shoulders back, and met their gazes, daring them to think the worst. She didn’t really blame them. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t considered jumping his bones herself. More than once.
“We have decided,” Lady Penelope finally announced.
Ardith’s gaze locked onto Lady Penelope.
“We will allow you and the hunter to continue your search for the time being. But you have only three days with which to find the witch and contain her. If you have not found her by then you will be removed from the hunt and others—hopefully more capable—will take your place.”
Ardith opened her mouth to argue but Lady Penelope slammed her council gavel and said, “That is all.”
Draigh grabbed Ardith’s arm and turned, all but hauling her toward the door. Ardith wrenched free as soon as they cleared the door and rounded on him.
“Save it, Ardith.”
She and Draigh turned at the sound of Blackthorne’s husky whisper. She had been so angry with the hunter she hadn’t even noticed Blackthorne following them out of the chamber.
“Walk with me. There are things you need to know.”
Silence reigned as they left the social club and walked outside, Draigh pulling the heavy door closed behind them. Ardith fell in beside Blackthorne, waiting for him to initiate conversation. His reticence told her he didn’t want to be overheard by the mages inside and around the social club.
Draigh walked beside her, his sexy blue gaze skimming the people fighting for space on the bustling avenue, continually assessing their surroundings.
Coaches, riders on horses, people on foot and carriages clogged the busy street, forcing Ardith to walk with a lowered gaze to avoid the steaming piles of horse shit and a wide variety of human debris staining the worn bricks.
The stench of road apples mixed with the sour smell of unwashed bodies and the sweet scent of pipe smoke to make up the familiar scent of the seventeenth century in Ardith’s mind.
They turned a corner, leaving the noise and commotion behind as they walked down a quiet residential street, heading for Salem Park. Only the soft thump of their shoes on the worn brick accompanied their journey.
Still Blackthorne didn’t speak. Ardith followed his lead, tagging along silently.
As they turned onto a wide path leading into the park, Blackthorne finally talked. “There are things you don’t know. Things you need to know if you are to trap this witch.”
Draigh and Ardith shared a look.
“What haven’t the elders told us?” Ardith’s tone was one of disgust not surprise. The mage council subsisted on secrets and half-truths. The thirteen members felt themselves far too superior to the rest of the mage population and the world in general to reveal everything they knew about any given situation. Instead they doled out bits and pieces of information like gods, amused by the antics of the little people as they tried to make do with the snippets. Ardith was tired of trying to jump through the hoops the council hung before her with only half the knowledge needed to do the job.
“Edana is not just a simple witch.”
Ardith snorted. “You think?”
Blackthorne headed for the lake, his dark face inscrutable. “I know this to be true.”
Ardith sighed. If sarcasm were a loveless orphan, it would starve to death on a cold street before Blackthorne gave it shelter. “Go on.”
“She has actually been rogue for a dozen years.”
Draigh stopped in his tracks and focused a shocked expression on Blackthorne. “And they only now attempt to capture her?”
“On the contrary. They have been trying to pull her back under their wing for nearly that entire time—as soon as it became obvious that her clumsy attempts at creating her own deadly army were starting to succeed.”
Ardith held up a hand. “Wait a minute. How many others have tried to reel this bitch in?”
Blackthorne looked toward the lake, his dark brown gaze studiously avoiding hers. “Many others. Very talented mages, all.”
“Hunters?” Draigh asked.
The mage nodded. “Handpicked by the Huntsman.”
Draigh swore.
“Why didn’t I know about these other attempts?” Ardith asked.
“That is by design. The council has held this secret close for all these years.”
“What is she up to, Blackthorne? What is Edana planning to do with her moldy army?”
Blackthorne’s gaze finally swung to meet Ardith’s. “She wishes to create the very thing we formed the council to avoid.”
“Another uprising against the mages?”
“Yes, and more. She works to undermine the council with the human government. She will create a divide between us and then slip in and conquer a human population that no longer enjoys our magical protection.”
Draigh held up a hand. “Wait. I wasn’t aware the humans knew about us.”
“Most don’t. Their government has worked with the council for decades, utilizing our special skills for their own protection. But it is of mutual benefit for our secret to be kept.”
“Why?”
Blackthorne blinked down at Ardith. “What are you asking, young mage?”
“What’s her beef?”
“Beef? You must translate this question.”
“Why is Edana doing this? What pissed her off enough to want to take over the world?” Ardith clarified.
“Why does anyone take over the world, young Ardith? Power and wealth.”
“Except I know this witch, Blackthorne. I’ve bumped up against her kind over and over. The type of power she wants has nothing to do with humans. She wants magic.”
“More specifically, she wants what you have,” Draigh agreed. “She wishes to travel through time.”
Blackthorne’s handsome black face lightened noticeably, turning a sickly shade of charcoal gray. “That would be terrifying if true, hunter. The black arts needed to gain that power if you are not born with it are horrifying when unleashed.”
Ardith suddenly found it hard to breathe. “Blackthorne, what is the foundation of that type of magic?”
Blackthorne turned away, his large hands clenching into fists at his sides.
“Blackthorne?”
He shook his head and swore. “Death magic.”
“Like the kind of magic needed to make zombies?” Ardith prodded.
Blackthorne’s only response was an even more colorful expletive.
Chapter Seven
Fresh Whore Duds and a Bath
The witch insisted on returning to her hovel before they resumed the hunt. She expressed a wish to change her tattered and stained clothing for a fresh set of whore duds. Draigh had offered her use of his limited supply of female clothing but she did a wrinkly thing with her pert nose and twisted her lips as if she’d tasted a lemon.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t be caught dead in any clothing you’d pick for me,” she’d told him.
Draigh followed Ardith through the noisy streets of Salem, using his body to keep cutpurses and lascivious drunks away from her. He was appalled by her apparent ignorance regarding her own safety. She barely seemed to acknowledge each near miss with a glance.
It was a miracle she’d survived as long as she had without him there to protect her.
Draigh’s sensibilities were assaulted as they turned onto a street running through a decidedly unsavory part of town. The stench coming off the narrow street from the buckets of offal continually being discarded by the street’s inhabitants made
his own nose, which was decidedly not pert, wrinkle with disgust.
In addition to the stench coming from the gutters, the sour smell of sweat and unwashed flesh lay thick upon the area. The few people walking the street with them wore dirty clothing, tattered to an almost indecent state, and had the pasty skin and sunken eyes of sickly, half-starved dregs.
“You don’t live here, do you?”
Ardith turned her head, swaying sideways. “Too low for your tastes, hunter?”
Draigh caught movement above their heads and reached for her, yanking her against his chest as a bucket full of something foul smelling was dumped from a second floor window.
The feel of her against his body was a shock. Her breasts were heavy and soft against his ribs, and her breath tickled against his lips as she looked up at him, mischief dancing in her eyes. “I like it here.” For just a flicker of time, Draigh thought she meant in his arms. But then she continued and he felt foolish. “The people are nicer and they don’t play mind games all the time.”
Draigh’s cock hardened, pushing against the leather of his pants. He wondered if she noticed. Pressed tightly against him as she was, he didn’t know how she could miss it. “Says a wench who plays mind games even in her sleep.”
Her lush body jiggled against him when she laughed. Draigh’s muscles tightened with need, his hands slipped down to frame her narrow hips. “I would speak to the council about your wages, witch. They apparently don’t value your services much.”
She made no move to get away. In fact, her lips parted and Draigh thought he saw invitation in her pretty gaze.
He lowered his head.
Her lids grew heavy. Her scent enveloped him, drew him in and made his balls tighten.
A wolf whistle nearby, accompanied by several suggestive shouts, brought Draigh out of his lustful stupor and he stepped away, steadying her as she stumbled forward.
Quick color flooded her face and she laughed, making light of her reaction to him. But Draigh had seen, if only for a moment, that she more than shared his raging lust.
They moved on and moments later she stopped before a tall, white house that was slightly tidier than its peers along the street. A large sign hung on two rusted posts beside the door. The carefully lettered sign read Mrs. Bloom’s Boarding Home and was bordered in pretty yellow tulips. The paint on the tulips was slightly brighter than the rest, as if they’d been added as an afterthought.
“A whore house?” Draigh felt blood rising to his face as she laughed. “You live in a whore house?”
“You know, not every boarding establishment is a whore house.” Ardith’s rooms were on the third floor of the establishment, reached by an outside staircase. She climbed the stairs quickly, leaving him sputtering behind her.
Draigh snorted. “That’s what they all say. No wonder you dress like a harlot.” He noted she hadn’t directly denied that the place was a bordello.
Ardith pulled a key from a crack in the wood siding and inserted it into the door, turning to grin at him. “Yes, but a harlot from 2096. Not a harlot from 1698.”
She left him gaping on the landing and disappeared inside. Shaking his head, Draigh reached out and stopped the door just before it closed in his face. A reluctant smile tugged the corners of his lips. He didn’t want to be amused by the witch. But she was just so incredibly immune to propriety and shame that it was almost entertaining.
Almost, but not quite.
He stepped inside and was nearly overcome by the scent of jasmine. It hung so thick in the air that the room seemed to be painted in it. As his eyes became adjusted to the dim lighting he saw the source of the incredible scent. Clothing was strewn about the room without apparent concern for where it landed. Leather pants lay in a crumpled pile at his feet. A pair of boots lay nearby. A wispy white blouse hung over a nearby chair. He lifted it between two fingers, enjoying the silky softness of a fabric that was surely little more protection from a man’s hungry gaze than sheer fabric hanging over a sun-drenched window.
The small iron bed tucked into one corner was a mass of comforters and pillows over stark white sheets that must have come from the witch’s time. He figured the comforters would make living in a room heated only by a fireplace more habitable in the winter months.
“I’ll just be a few minutes.” She was dragging her tight pants down slim legs when he turned to look at her. “You might want to wait outside.” She grinned saucily. “Or your puritan soul will be sorely stressed by what I’m about to do.”
He frowned, trying to dredge up anger to serve as a balm for the raging erection her casual undressing had created. “What are you up to, witch?”
“Nothing more sinister than a bath.” She tugged a snug-fitting, thin-strapped, black slip of clothing off over her head, leaving her dressed only in the impossibly tiny underclothes he’d noted when he’d undressed her to put her in bed after she was injured.
Draigh’s breath stalled in his lungs. She was perfection. Lean and strong through her limbs, narrow in the waist and rounded at the hips and breasts, just like a woman should be.
As she turned away from him, his mouth watered over the taut roundness of her lush little behind.
His cock was in danger of being cut in half by the unforgiving leather encompassing it. Swallowing a groan, Draigh cast a wistful look at the door. He longed to run outside, where he would be safe from lusty, sex-eyed witches who cared nothing for propriety or decency.
But he couldn’t trust her. As far as he knew she was doing the stripping thing just to get him to leave and, once he was gone, she’d perform her scrying magic, find Edana and go attempt to capture the rogue on her own.
At least that was what he told himself as he watched her heat the water in a small wooden tub with a bright stream of her power.
It was better for his psyche to believe he stood watch over her only because he couldn’t trust to let her out of his sight.
But when fragrant steam rose from the bath at last, and she turned to give him one last chance to leave, Draigh knew in his heart that he stayed for much baser reasons.
Holding his gaze with a bright, hopeful one of her own, Ardith reached behind her back and deftly unhooked the tiny bra, letting it slide down her arms and fall to the floor.
Draigh groaned, unable to hide his lust any longer.
She smiled softly, her gaze never leaving his, as she tucked her fingers into the strings at the sides of her panties and tugged them, ever so slowly, over her lush hips.
Draigh’s balls were so tight by the time the wisp of fabric dropped below the glistening nest of curls at the vee of her thighs that he was afraid to move for fear the action would cause him to come in his trousers. “Good god, woman.”
The panties slipped down her legs and she stepped out of them. “Why are you still standing way over there, hunter? Have you lost interest?” She turned her back on him, giving him a quality look at her heart-shaped behind, and lifted a slim leg over the edge of the tub.
It was the final straw on a painfully overburdened camel. With a growl that would have frightened a woman who had any sense at all, he ripped his shirt off and stalked toward her.
Ardith knew he was coming. She tracked his movement toward her in the groan of the floorboards under his feet. Anticipation warred with panic and she realized she was holding her breath. Her foot touched the hot, jasmine-scented water just as he hit her back, his massive arms wrapping around her from behind.
He splayed the fingers of one hand over her belly and the other encompassed a heavy breast. Ardith sucked in a breath and pulled Draigh-scented air into her lungs, feeling slightly intoxicated by his essence.
“You will rue the moment you decided to taunt me, witch.” The heat of his breath teased the side of her face. She heard the slight clashing together of his teeth as he ground out the threat.
Ardith’s head went back on a wave of pure lust as he tucked his hips and pressed a truly impressive ridge of hard flesh into her back. “I already do,�
�� she managed to whisper.
Draigh dragged her more tightly against his body and nibbled his way up the side of her neck. His hand kneaded her painfully full breast with surprising gentleness, as the fingers of his other hand slipped downward to cup her moist mons. “You play at being a temptress, Ardith. We’re going to find out if you can take the consequences.” A big, hot finger slipped through her cream-drenched folds, treating her throbbing clit to the most delicious pressure. She gasped, opening her thighs to give him better access.
“More delay, hunter. I’m starting to think you don’t intend to actually do anything.” She knew it was dangerous to taunt him. Beyond dangerous. Because Ardith suspected that once they’d started down the path they were on, there would be no turning back. Draigh was a drug she wouldn’t be able to resist for long. She was afraid she was already addicted.
A dense, slightly calloused finger slid inside her channel. Ardith cried out with pleasure.
“Very well, witch. But remember, you requested this.” He nipped her jawline, his fingers grasping a rigid nipple and tugging it to the point of pain. He fucked her dripping pussy with a thick digit, while his thumb increased its pressure on her clit and he pressed into her from behind.
Ardith felt the multi-pronged assault in her very core. Her lower belly was consumed by a tight smoldering knot of need. Her muscles were taut with it. Her breath struggled to move through her lungs. She was thoroughly trapped in his web of physical pleasure and she couldn’t have escaped it if she wanted to. So she did the only thing she could.
She embraced it.
Reaching behind her, she smoothed a hand over his leather-clad hip. “Get these things off so I can touch you.”
The hunter growled against her throat. A moment passed and Ardith thought he was going to ignore her plea. She wouldn’t have been surprised. Draigh Piers was a man who liked complete control.
She was a woman who would never give it.
But then he released her, his wonderful finger slipping from her body, and grabbed her hand. He pulled her toward the bed and gave her a gentle shove, sending her sprawling across the tangled covers.
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