Love Charms

by Multiple

  While I was still lost in sensation, Jacob flipped me on my back, pinning me with his body. Starting with my breasts, he worked his way down my stomach, caressing me with both his lips and hands as I undulated beneath him. When he reached my center and kissed my core, I couldn’t hold back a hoarse scream at that first contact. Apparently not satisfied with my immediate reaction, Jacob gave me a wolfish grin and continued to stroke me until I found myself moaning another release into the pillow beside me.

  Jacob left me for a moment to get rid of his pants and I watched with interest as his sleek body was revealed. I knew Jacob worked out, after all I had even worn his workout clothes, but I hadn’t really thought about how such a dedication to exercise would manifest in a physique that was just one big lean muscle. He walked back to the bed with quiet grace and controlled strength in each step. I cupped my breasts in my hands and rotated my hips in a slow invitation.

  In two steps, all control was abandoned and he was on the bed, on me, crushing my lips with his. Hard edges grinding into my soft curves. Conscious thought fled, running as sensation flooded my body. We kissed, rolling on the bed in a frenzied quest for more; more contact, more heat, more tension, more of each other. I wanted to drown in Jacob, to soak up his essence in my pores, and the next time I ended up on top, I took advantage of it. Locking eyes with Jacob, I dragged the tips of my breasts down his chest and, moving lower, I took him into my mouth, hot velvet covering satin skin.

  Strong hands lifted me away after several minutes and brought me up to where Jacob could capture a breast in his mouth. I sucked in air, holding it as he alternated from one nipple to the other. Dizzy from the lack of oxygen, I pulled away and moaned, “Please, I can’t wait anymore.”

  With a slow grin, Jacob gently lay me on my back. I arched up to meet him as he covered me and then…nothing. He went still and a disappointment I didn’t understand came into his eyes.

  He fell on the bed beside me with an exasperated sigh, “I don’t have a condom.”

  “A condom?” I frowned, confused and reached to touch him.

  Jacob captured my hands in his, keeping them from their intended target. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we can do this. I don’t have any protection.”

  “You pick now to bring this up?” I shook my head. “ Jacob, I’m on the pill. I’ve had blood tests, I’m good. What about you?”

  “My last blood tests were fine.”

  I ran a finger along his arm, tracing the curve of his bicep and read him, deciding it was worth the risk to verify the truth of his words. A girl can never be too careful and as frustrating as it was to have the subject come up now, he had a point. The mental heat of his desire flushed through me, making my own flare brightly. Underneath that, I found the image of his last doctor’s visit. I broke the connection and smiled. “So, we’re both healthy and since I’m on the pill…” I leaned forward, a sly smile on my face to nuzzle his neck while my hand went lower to make sure we hadn’t lost any momentum with our little ‘safe sex’ interlude. We hadn’t and Jacob was only too happy to show me how to throw that momentum into overdrive.

  *

  Later that night, a cold finger worked its way up my spine interrupting my dreamless sleep and beckoning for me to follow it to the upper levels of the astral plane. Leaving my body behind, I floated up into the gray over world, wondering if Mark had found a way to contact me even in Fairy.

  Drifting in the swirling fog of the over world, I stopped short at the sound of an amused chuckle. Not Mark. The laugh was high and reedy. I’d heard it before. I turned in a circle, eyes narrowed, searching for the source of the sound.

  A shadow of a man stepped in front of me. The fog obscured his face and his manifestation flickered in and out of focus, like a home movie in a bad projector. I could tell he was taller than me with a gaunt frame. Bony shoulders served as hangers for some kind of floor length coat, but all other features were hidden by way the smoke-colored air coalesced around him. He bowed his head at me and said in a voice deeper than his laugh, “So at last we meet.”

  I took a step back. “Who are you?”

  He ignored my question. “You thought you would be safe in Fairy, but I am stronger than you think. All I have to do is reach out with my mind to find you.”

  Pressure, with the weight of a mental sledgehammer behind it, slammed into my mind. I screamed, hands cradling my head, as he forced his way inside my mind. “Get out!” But he paid no attention to my protests and ruthlessly went through my mind, bringing forth memories and examining them with great interest.

  “I see you’ve always had the gift, but you were a late bloomer. And what is this?” The afternoon’s events came to the forefront and the Eros goblin leered at me once again. “How interesting. I knew you and the ghost had a thing, but I didn’t realize you would be so easily fooled. And here you are with, what is his name?” He paused and riffled through my mind like it was a file cabinet. “Ah yes, Jacob. You’ve been busy. So full of…life,” he said in a sneering voice.

  I gasped. How did he know about Mark? So far, I was the only one who had seen him.

  The stranger laughed. “Yes I know all your secrets Sofia. I’ve been watching you for some time now. I have even visited you in the dark of night in the shadows of your dreams.”

  I flushed, speechless. This was all news to me.

  “You look surprised. I’m sure if you think about it the memories will come. Let me see if I can find them for you.” He thrust through my brain and pulled forward a succession of images.

  Me, asleep in my bed, moaning while a dark cloud hung over me. It became clear that the mornings I had woken up, my fingers cold as ice, were not due to the loving presence of my dead boyfriend, but to the malevolent man now inside me.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am your Master.” His tone was a malevolent as his words.

  “I don’t think so.”

  He waved a dismissive hand.“It doesn’t really matter what you think, my dear. I control the steps in this dance and soon enough you will be mine.”

  My jaw clenched. “Bullshit.”

  “Protest all you want. It changes nothing. You will do as I command.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Many things, but to start, your allegiance.”

  “I’m not about to ally myself with a metaphysical rapist.”

  “Arguing is futile and I refuse to answer such pointless barbs. It is a waste of time.”

  “Then leave me alone.” I pushed against him, trying to evict him from my mind.

  “That is not possible.” He projected stronger inside me, weighing down my personality through sheer force of presence. “Tomorrow you will come to me.”

  “No.”

  “I thought you might say that and I have prepared a bit of an incentive for you. Look.”

  A picture of Vera flashed through my mind, bound and gagged, and unnaturally still. “No!” My stomach lurched.

  “Yes, I have your friend.”

  “Let her go.”

  “Only after you do as I request.” His voice was cold.

  “How will I find you?” I asked, defeated. He had me. I couldn’t turn my back on Vera.

  “Call Detective Wallace, he knows where I am. Now I think it’s time to go back to your body.” He pushed me down through the fog of the astral plane and into my body. “Disobey me and Vera will suffer.”

  I woke with a start and scanned my room half expecting to see my attacker, but the room was empty and quiet except for the snap of the fire. I shivered and got up to throw another log into the fireplace, as I tried to absorb everything that had happened during my astral nightmare.

  Most people would dismiss the whole thing as a bad dream, but I wasn’t most people and I knew better. The ‘ghost’ was real, and, by his own admission, had been stalking me for quite a while. Somewhere out there was a body to match the astral projection and they had taken Vera.

  Shit.

  My adre
naline kicked on and my heart began to pound a frantic rhythm. I had to save my friend. I had to go right now. I went back to the bed and shook Jacob. “Wake up.”

  He rolled away from me with a grunt. Okay. So he wasn’t a morning person. Fine, but now was not the time for this.

  “Jacob, get up. It’s an emergency,” I yelled, continuing to shake him.

  “What? What is it?” He opened his eyes and then closed them again, pulling the covers tighter around him.

  I yanked the covers off, using my body weight as leverage to compensate for his death grip on the blanket. “Jacob, this is serious. You have to get up.”

  “I’m up. I’m up.” He sat up and glared at me. “What’s going on?”

  “Vera has been kidnapped.”

  “By whom?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What?” He frowned and rubbed his eyes.

  “I had a visitor.”

  “And I slept through it?”

  “No. My visitor was metaphysical. Some guy who says he has Vera and he’s going to kill her if I don’t do as he says.”

  “What does he want? Money?”

  I shook my head. “No. He wants me.”

  He looked alarmed. “What are we going to do?”

  I smiled liking his use of the word ‘we’. “We’re going to save her.”

  “You have a plan?”

  “No.”

  “That’s right, I forgot you never have a plan.” He sighed and swung his legs over the side of the bed to stand. Stretching his arms over head he asked, “Where do we go from here?”

  I pulled on my clothes and quickly swept my hair up into a pony tail. “Let’s see if Wyllven’s up. If not, I’ll make arrangements to come back and finish the case at a later date.” Assuming I survived to see later.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wyllven, unfortunately, still showed no signs of recovery or consciousness. Which left us no choice but to seek out Zyllven. Either that or strike out into Fairy on our own, and I wasn’t brave enough for that.

  The prince lived in a large suite almost on the opposite side of the castle from his father’s apartment. A guard ushered us to a large living room where Zyllven sat on one of two overstuffed couches across from a tall woman. Her short black hair was styled into stiff spikes that looked sharp enough to cut flesh. They stopped talking as we approached and watched us cross the room.

  The guard snapped to attention in front of Zyllven, “Miss Sofia Parker and Mr. Jacob Sanders to see you, my lord.”

  “Thank you Kyllven. You may leave us.” Zyllven said. “Sofia, Jacob, we were just talking about you. This is Athena, a business associate.”

  “So this is the famous Sofia you were telling me about.” Athena looked me up and down with narrowed dark eyes.

  I shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know about famous.”

  Athena laughed. “With as many newspaper articles there are on you? You can’t be serious.”

  I stared at her until she stopped laughing and then turned to Zyllven, “I need to go home. Now.”

  “What about our agreement?”

  “I’ll still help you,” Jacob said moving forward. “Assuming you follow through on your end.”

  “You have to give it back, all of it” I said, choosing my words carefully in case Athena didn’t know what was going on. “Our agreement hasn’t changed, just the timing of it.”

  “I see.” Zyllven and Athena exchanged glances. “If I had known you would be leaving early, I might not have called Athena.”.

  “Oh, I don’t know Zyllven. I don’t see any reason to alter our original plan.” Athena inspected a perfectly manicured hand. “Besides, I can give you permanent results, not the stay of execution she’s offering.”

  Suspicion raised the hair on the back of my neck. Something was off. “What’s going on?”

  “Athena has presented an excellent alternative to your solution. One that is more to my advantage.”

  She laughed. “And mine too, Zyllven. Don’t forget, we’re fifty-fifty partners.”

  “Of course.” Zyllven smiled, showing all his teeth. Not good.

  “Partners?” Jacob asked.

  “You see, Athena here runs a large organization in your world. Perhaps you’ve heard of them, the Renegades?”

  “You’re going to make a deal with renegades?” I narrowed my eyes, staring into Zyllven’s. He met my gaze, unflinching and unrepentant.

  “Not just a deal, more of a revolution in the making. I’ve decided not to give back the Sidhe’s gold, instead I’m using it to fund the dragon invasion of the human world and the takeover of Fairy.”

  “What? Are you insane? That will never work.” The Sidhe had stronger magic than the dragons. I doubted Zyllven would get very far in his revolution once they learned of his plans and the gold itself was likely riddled with curses. Most of it would turn to dust in the Renegades’ hands. The thought comforted me.

  “Yes it will,” Athena said. “Zyllven and I have been negotiating for the last several months. The plan is quite solid and last night he called to say he was ready to commit…if I help him take care of a little problem he’s having.”

  My stomach sank. “You mean me.”

  She gave an evil little smile. “Very perceptive. Yes, I mean you.”

  “The Sidhe aren’t going to let you just walk off with their gold. They’ll come after you, upset your revolution,” Jacob said, a hard edge to his voice.

  Zyllven shook his head. “No, they won’t.” He reached into his robe and pulled out a gold crown. “They won’t risk a direct assault, not with this on my head.”

  “You have the Sidhe crown,” I said, my heart sinking. It looked just like the king’s but had the sheen of real metal. This was no imitation, it was the real thing.

  “Yes, they kept it with their gold.” Zyllven laughed. “I wasn’t even looking for it, it just fell into my lap.”

  “So you’re invincible.” I worried my bottom lip. This was bad. Real bad.

  “Pretty much.” He grinned at me, pleased with himself.

  “Why are you even worried about me? I can’t touch you.” I didn’t like the predatory look in Athena’s eyes or the two goons that had stationed themselves behind us.

  “Suffice it to say, we have our reasons,” Athena said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with it.”

  I frowned. “With what?”

  “Your kidnapping,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. Like it was an everyday occurrence. For a renegade it probably was.

  “You can’t do that, we have safe passage,” Jacob said glaring at Zyllven.

  “No, you don’t,” Zyllven said. “You were in breach of contract when you ran after the Eros goblin. You left the path and your guide nullifying safe passage.”

  Jacob and I looked at each other. His gaze flickered to the window behind Zyllven and back to me, questioning. I gave an imperceptible nod. If we could get to the window and down to the terrace below, we might have a shot at escape. A chance to warn someone about Zyllven’s crackpot revolution. Moving in unison, we both made a run for it.

  Time slows down when you’re running for your life. Even though I was moving as fast as I could, I noticed Zyllven’s stunned reaction as we ran straight for him, leapt up onto the couch, and over its back. Two more strides and I would’ve been at the window, but a hand grabbed my ponytail yanking me hard enough that I flipped back onto the couch, my head landing next to Zyllven’s thigh. Athena didn’t leave me there for long, and pulled me upright by my hair to face her.

  Her ruby lips stretched into a wicked smile as she said, “Nice try, but I’m not going to let you go that easily. I have plans for you that don’t involve jumping out of windows.”

  One of Athena’s goons wrestled Jacob’s hands behind his back and goose-stepped him around the couch to stand next to me.

  I clawed at Athena’s hand, hoping to peel her fingers off me, but she smashed a fist into my jaw. I fell to
my knees, hand cradling my face, and neck arched back from her death grip on my hair. My scalp burned with the tension of her grip and individual strands of my hair snapped, giving way.

  Next to me, Jacob broke free of his captor and landed a hard punch to the one guy’s solar plexus. The goon went down with a grunt and lay still. Jacob came for Athena next, but behind him I saw another goon storming toward us, ham-hands clenched into fists.

  “Jacob, run,” I said. If one of us could get away there might still be a chance to stop Zyllven.

  Jacob hesitated. I could tell by the uncertain expression on his face that he didn’t want to leave me behind.

  “Run,” I screamed, my hands going up to keep Athena back, further away from Jacob. She resisted and fought to move forward, but I threw my whole weight into her stomach, leading with my shoulder. She grunted and had no choice but to fall back with my momentum.

  It was too late, though. The second goon was on Jacob, his fist crunching into Jacob’s temple. Jacob’s eyes glazed and crossed as he crumpled to the floor, his head hitting the stone with a sick thud.

  My heart stopped and a wail sounded from deep in my gut.

  Using my hair like a leash, Athena whipped me around and slapped me, cutting me off mid-wail. “Shut up.”

  I rubbed my aching jaw and went quiet as Athena nodded to her goon. “Is he breathing?”

  The goon kneeled and checked. “Yes, but barely. That was a hard hit. I don’t think he’ll wake up again.”

  We all looked at Jacob for a long, silent, moment. His eyes were half open and glistened, unseeing, at us. My stomach convulsed and bile rose in my throat. Jacob was going to die. The second man to die because of me. The first man I had let close to me since Mark died was now dead too. Last night had been a horrible mistake.

  I didn’t even fight when Athena covered my mouth and nose with a cloth. I inhaled the acrid scent it carried deciding I didn’t want to be conscious for what came next.