Ardith rolled to her knees as soon as she hit the mattress, fully intending to jump back up again. She was determined to show him that she was not some weak-kneed wench whom he could shove around. But the sight that met her as she turned kept her on the bed, on her knees, unable to move.
Draigh was drenched in power. His body glistened with it. His thick, silver-blond hair lifted off his shoulders on a power-induced breeze. His eyes sparked, alive with magic…snapping with energy.
The hunter’s brawny arms arced away from his body, his mighty fists clenched as he warred with himself, trying to control the forces taking him over. Ardith’s gaze slid down his wide, softly furred chest, over the firm mounds of his pecs, caressing the hard nubs of his erect nipples, and followed the silvery trail of curls into the waistband of his leather pants.
Her breath caught in her chest as her gaze slipped over the enormous bulge tenting the front of the unforgiving leather. She reached for it and he jumped, his chest heaving. “Don’t. Touch. Me. Yet.”
The words emerged in a sort of husky growl that made Ardith’s pussy clench with primal need. She’d heard rumors about the hunters. On some level she’d known he was different. But she’d never witnessed anything to make the rumors real.
“I’m just going to make you more comfortable.” She spoke to him as one might a ravaging beast, trying to get through the raging emotion to the sentient being beneath.
He closed his silvery-blue eyes and took a deep breath, his fingers loosening from their fists for just a beat. He inclined his head slightly.
Ardith moved toward the edge of the bed on her knees and carefully sat.
He stood with eyes closed, his fingers tightened into fists again, obviously fighting an interior battle of some sort.
She licked her lips as she watched him. He was truly spectacular. Reaching slowly, Ardith stretched out her fingers and very carefully touched his belly.
He jumped and snarled.
Ardith’s hand snapped back. Power surged from him, blowing her hair off her shoulders. Her body responded by sending a wave of sheer lust driving through her. Ardith squirmed on the bed as her pussy clenched, on the brink of coming just from the jolt of errant power he’d shed.
She couldn’t imagine what it would be like when he covered her body with his.
Draigh made a visible effort to recall the energy spill as Ardith lay her hand on his stomach. Aside from a quick intake of air, he didn’t react. She carefully placed her other hand beside the first and skimmed both hands up his torso, standing to reach his pecs.
He groaned softly. Ardith’s hands covered the impossibly hot skin of his chest, feeling the slight sting of electricity dancing around her fingers.
She leaned in and captured a taut, brown nipple between her teeth.
He growled low in his chest but kept his hands determinedly down by his sides.
She licked across the nub and then sucked it into her mouth. He tasted spicy, smelled like fire and magic. She treated the second nipple to a soft bath and nibbled her way up to his throat, inhaling to pull his scent deep.
A low, constant rumble had settled in his throat, almost like purring. Ardith liked the way the rumble tingled against her lips when she kissed him there. She rose on her tiptoes so she could reach his lips. As if knowing what she wanted, even with his eyes closed, Draigh lowered his head, the thick curtain of his hair falling forward to touch her face.
Ardith stared at his perfect lips, her tongue coming out to sweep her own in anticipation. Then she leaned into him, swaying against the rocklike surface of his body, and pressed her lips to his.
Draigh’s control broke.
He growled softly against her lips. His arms came around her, dragging her so tightly against his body she didn’t think her lungs could draw air. But she didn’t need her own, because her body craved his. Only his. Her lungs filled with the pheromone-rich breath he expelled and her cells expanded to draw it in.
Her hands were in his hair, tangling, pulling him more deeply into the kiss. She didn’t remember lifting them. Couldn’t recall sliding her fingers into the heavy silk that sparked with energy.
He placed a big hand beneath her buttocks and lifted her, consuming her lips with a fervor that should have frightened, should have warned, but only spurred her to greater heights of need.
His hands slid hungrily over her body, memorizing, seeking and probing carefully. His lips moved over hers, wild with need. Pain only added another dimension to their frantic tasting and the sweet, coppery taste of blood enhanced the heady mix they created.
She returned his heat, offered him more, and writhed against him as her naked pussy found the impossibly hard ridge of his cock under the leather.
Suddenly she couldn’t wait another moment. She had to have him inside her.
No matter the consequences.
Ardith tore her lips away.
Draigh growled, grasping the back of her neck to force her back into the desperate mating of lips.
“No.” She pushed against his chest. “I need you to fuck me. Now!”
Ardith reached down, ripped at the button holding his pants together and arched away from him as she carefully peeled the zipper down.
His massive erection popped free, slapping against her thigh, and he groaned. “Gods, woman.”
She shoved the leather down his hips, pushing it over his thighs as best she could. “Help me, hunter. I’m desperate to feel you inside me.”
Draigh took a step forward, and Ardith found herself lying on her back at the edge of the bed. With one brutal shove he skimmed the leather down his legs, ripping the pants in the process. His erection, as big around as her wrist and impossibly long, hung ready above a huge set of balls.
Ardith moaned, unable to stop herself. Her thighs opened and she lifted her gaze to his. “Now, hunter. Oh god, hurry.”
He reached for her, yanked her upward and caught her against his chest, lowering her slowly to his cock as his lips found hers again.
The thick head of his erection nestled at her dripping entrance. Ardith squirmed against the delicious pressure, trying to work him inside. She gasped as his massive shaft invaded her tight channel and Draigh stopped.
His chest heaved with the effort to control himself. His hands clenched against her buttocks, painful as he fought to remain still. Ardith focused on relaxing and he slipped in another inch, then another, and finally buried himself to the balls.
Ardith screamed his name as he began to move, slowly at first, allowing every stroke to skim delightfully over the sensitive flesh inside her pussy. She tasted his lips with her tongue, her teeth, and explored his body with frantic hands.
The pressure in her pussy created answering pressure in her belly, and the coil of need tightened there as her orgasm built and burned.
He held her effortlessly, his big hands wrapped around her thighs to control the pace of their joining as his lips fired the intensity.
When he increased the pace of his strokes, Ardith gasped against his lips. Delight speared outward from her pussy. Lust spun in her belly and tightened her thighs. Each thrust curled her toes and jiggled her delightfully tender breasts.
Draigh grabbed her pillows and stacked them on the edge, then lay her down on them, her hips lifted so that he could plunder her pussy more freely. His hands free, he skimmed them over her quivering belly as he thrust into her, then encompassed the tender mounds of her breast.
He built the pressure slowly, increasing the speed and depth of his thrusts until Ardith felt the first, fiery edge of her release sparking in her belly. As the knot of pleasure exploded, sending warm waves of delight rolling through her, Ardith grabbed his forearms with clenching, eager fingers and screamed out his name, her head thrashing against the mattress.
Draigh plunged one last time, all the way to the balls, and stiffened, his head going back on a long, drawn out groan as he joined her in release.
He came and came and came, his cock jumping with every
delightful stroke.
Draigh collapsed over her, covering her face with kisses as she panted under the powerful aftereffects.
“Someday you need to tell me what just happened here,” she told him as she reached up to skim a thick ribbon of silver-blond hair away from his face.
She felt his husky laughter all the way to her toes. “If I have to tell you that, we have bigger problems.”
“You know what I meant, hunter.”
He did, it was obvious by the way his smile slipped away. If Ardith knew anything about hunters, she knew they were not supposed to show their true, magical forms to anyone outside the sorceri authority. She’d always been curious about that other form, but having seen what she assumed was an early stage in his change, she had a new respect for his power.
Her teasing words had apparently reminded him that he had something to hide. And he’d nearly failed. She deeply regretted the reminder. But had no idea how to fix it.
Draigh pulled away and stood, reaching for his clothing. Ardith barely kept herself from reaching for him. She felt his loss keenly, in more than just the heat and delightful pressure of his cock inside her body.
“You’d best get dressed, witch. We need to find that rogue and we don’t have much time to do it.”
Embarrassed at his quick dismissal and angry that she was responsible, Ardith pushed herself off the mattress and headed for her now-cold bath. “You’ll have to wait until I’ve had the bath you so rudely interrupted, hunter.”
Ardith reheated the water and lowered herself into it. She ignored him while she washed, but couldn’t stop herself from looking for him as she stood up and grabbed her towel.
She needn’t have worried. She was all alone in the room.
Chapter Eight
Premature Escalation
Draigh stood on the street, the magic of his guide swirling above his extended hand. The guide had called to him and he’d brought it forth, watching with interest as the blue, spinning light wavered, thinned and then thickened as it settled into place.
The Watcher’s ugly gnome face appeared at its center.
“What is it, eminence? Have you found the rogue witch?”
The gnome’s bumpy countenance folded in on itself. “I have found evidence of her destruction. I suspect you can follow the path of death and evil directly to her.”
Draigh turned as Ardith joined him.
She was frowning. “Where is she?”
The Watcher continued, “Devil’s Glen. Zombies have taken over the town, led by a young man…”
“Long blond hair, blue eyes, looks like an angel?”
“Yes.
She turned to Draigh. “Junius.”
Draigh nodded. “It’s her apprentice. How long ago did the attack happen?”
“Hours. But there’s more.”
Draigh and Ardith shared a look.
“The human government is in an uproar. They’re vowing retaliation.”
“Shit.” Ardith grimaced. “Blackthorne’s warning came too late.”
“What kind of retaliation?” Draigh asked.
“They’re gathering an army to go in now. And once they have the city back, President Zith has demanded a search be made to round up all magic users. He’s insisting that they’ll try any witches they find…and execute them.”
“She’s won,” Ardith said, her face turning pale with horror. “She’s done it. We’re going to have another set of witch trials.”
Draigh shared her horror. “It would certainly appear that way, witch.”
Ardith spun on her heel and headed back into her house.
“Where are you going, Ardith? We need to get to Devil’s Glen.”
“Just give me a minute. I need to get a message to Blackthorne.”
Draigh followed her into her rooms and waited while she retrieved a cell phone from a hidden cranny under the floorboards. She typed a message into the phone and replaced it in it niche. “Thank god for magical wireless,” she told Draigh with a grin.
“You hide a cell phone in your rooms?”
“It’s 1698, hunter. I can’t exactly carry it around.”
“Why don’t you just scry for him?”
She shrugged. “Texting’s faster.”
Blackthorne appeared in her rooms a moment later, startling Draigh into pulling his sword. The older mage wore a stern expression on his face, and a jewel-encrusted sword on his hip.
Ardith took one look at the weapon and started shaking her head. “You can’t, Blackthorne.”
“You’ll need help,” he argued.
“You’re much too valuable. We can’t risk you being arrested and tried.”
“It can’t be helped. You need my dislocational magics.”
“We can use the portals.”
Blackthorne shook his head. “The humans know the location of all the portals. It isn’t safe to use them.”
Ardith stamped a foot, swearing. She brushed a hand over her face. “Okay. Here’s the deal. You take us there and then leave immediately.”
“I don’t take orders from you, young one.”
“She’s right, Blackthorne. The council can’t afford to lose you.”
The big black man lifted his hands, scrying upon the air. “They stand to lose much more than me if we don’t stop this before it turns into a war between humans and witches. Now grab my robes and let’s get going. Every moment we waste cuts into the future of our kind like a saber.”
* * * * *
Draigh had been on the receiving end of dislocational magic before. He hadn’t enjoyed it then either. They left the plane of existence in 1698 with a screech as time was split and curved to Blackthorne’s purpose.
The trip to the future was a tortuous affair, with a feeling of being ripped to shreds being the predominant feature. He gritted his teeth against the pain and gripped the witch’s hand tightly. Every moment of their journey seemed fraught with the possibility of being torn apart, and Draigh had no intention of losing her in some discordant time and place.
That was the moment he realized he was falling in love with the witch. When the pain of their travel through time and space paled in comparison to the horror of losing her.
He swallowed a groan of horror at the thought.
* * * * *
Their journey ended with a whimper rather than a bang. After the screeching of ripping a chasm through time, the soft whir of night insects in the quiet dark of the countryside beyond the outskirts of Devil’s Glen in the twenty-first century was shocking.
Blackthorne dragged the sleeve of his robes over his ebony face, removing a sheen of sweat from his efforts. Draigh suspected that pulling three people through time and space had been an exhausting process.
The night was lit only by the radiance of a fat, round moon. Without any visible lights in the nearby city to cast a residual glow over the countryside, it was very dark. Only the whites of Blackthorne’s eyes showed clearly. They looked unnaturally wide. The older mage shook off his weariness and grabbed the hilt of his sword. “My intelligence places her in a cave nearby.”
Draigh didn’t miss the look of relief that passed over pretty Ardith’s face. It was obvious she’d been worried about fighting Edana and her army on a battleground deep within the earth. She nodded and started forward but Draigh stopped her with a hand on her arm. “We’ll need your star mutt.”
She hesitated, obviously unwilling to put the valuable familiar in danger. They had no idea what they were heading into and the human armies were an added danger. Sirius had centuries of training in the art of avoiding human contact. His existence could never be known by humans, if he was captured by an unscrupulous human, his powers could be used for untold evil. Draigh knew this because the star pup was famous in sorceri literature, as he was in mage history.
Finally she sighed. “You’re right.” She looked toward the sky and said his name on a husky whisper. “Sirius.”
The sky started to sparkle, forming into the shape of
a huge, golden-furred hound. The explosion was softer this time, drawn by a whisper instead of a shout, and light burst outward in relative silence as the meteor-like form shot downward from the center of the explosion.
Sirius hit the ground in a shower of dirt and rock, but his landing was cloaked in silence. He moved directly to Ardith and licked her hand, whining softly. “Hello, old friend. You need to be a dog for a while. We may see humans.”
Sirius gave a soft growl and, in a flash of sparks, transformed himself from an elegant, golden hound into a large, hairy black dog.
Ardith petted him approvingly before turning to Draigh and Blackthorne. “Ready?”
They moved across the wide, weed-strewn meadow toward the foothills surrounding the town of Devil’s Glen. They gave the portal they’d used the last time they’d come to Devil’s Glen a wide berth, circling around behind it and keeping to the trees that ranged along the stony toes of the mountain.
Blackthorne’s warning about the portals had been on target. The human armies patrolled between the portal and the city. A tank sat right in front of the magic-infused spot that witches had used for centuries to travel from place to place. To the non-magic eye, the portal looked like a six-hundred-year-old tree and nothing more, yet a large number of soldiers stood at attention facing it, their guns focused on the seemingly harmless target.
Their presence proved that the human government knew of the portal’s existence, and by extension the existence of the magical realm.
Ardith stopped at a familiar spot near the base of a steep mountain wall, her hands reaching in front of her, fingers testing the air. Looking up, Draigh recognized the spot where the witch had thrown him into seeming open air, scaring the living shit out of him. “Don’t tell me we’re going in here?”
She turned to him, her wide smile making his cock stir with interest. “Flashbacks, hunter? I can hold your hand if you’re scared.”
He lifted an eyebrow but managed to restrain himself from reminding her about the panic attacks she’d suffered when they’d been underground.
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