Dred used his tongue to clean a drop of the spirit she missed on her bottom lip and then he held the glass to her lips. She held the burning liquid in her mouth and he kissed her again, sharing the bite of the Green Fairy.
She didn’t want anyone to see her doing these things, but yet, when Dred touched her, nothing mattered but that: his hands, the heat of his body, the taste of his lips. Middy still wasn’t sure how putting on this display was going to get them anywhere.
He’d said she had to trust him.
So she gave herself over to him, put herself wholly into his keeping and played the game.
Middy was torn between losing herself in Dred and watching everything that was going on around them, from the couple in the alcove next to theirs where the woman had a corset piercing that began in the small of her back and ran up to her shoulder blades to the tangle of limbs and bodies in the alcove across the way.
Dred didn’t seem to mind whatever she wanted to do.
His hands and his mouth were occupied only with her.
With this smorgasbord of sexuality for the taking, he just wanted her.
Middy had an epiphany.
It was a soft whisper against her skin, it was a kiss. It was no more substantial than a drop of water in an endless sea, but it rocked her to her core. This could be as close to love as she’d get with Dred Shadowins.
That wasn’t the epiphany.
It was that she could live with the realization. Not only live, but perhaps even thrive. A new peace filled her, but unfortunately, it would have to take a backseat to the urgency that was building in her clit.
“Want some company?”
Hell no, they didn’t want company! Middy almost growled audibly. They wanted to— Right. They did want company if they were going to get any information.
She looked up to see a man with two rings in each nipple and chains attached to them that disappeared into his kilt. Middy imagined what it would look like on her real-life, dress-up Dred doll. It would be tasty, just like everything else. The kilt, not the rings. She could only pray that the chains weren’t attached to what she was sure they were attached to.
“Yes, we would.”
He smiled, the expression softening his appearance and he sat down on the divan. “Is there anything in particular you’re looking for this evening?”
“Yes, there’s—”
Dred had forgotten the game and had spoken without permission. They didn’t want to blow their cover so she jerked on the leash. The look on his face told her that she was going to pay for that later. That and the images of her over his knee that were racing through his mind were a pretty vivid clue.
She thanked Morrigan that their thoughts were only connected when they were engaging in sexual activity.
“Did I give you permission to speak?” Middy watched him for a long moment, as did their guest. “No, and I still haven’t. Lick my boot.”
Her mistake.
Dred knelt and licked from the ankle of her boot all the way up to the soft place behind her knee. He didn’t look down like a true sub would have, but met her eyes during the whole display.
“My mistress would beat me if I looked at her in such a way,” the newcomer offered.
“He does as I command. If he has no spirit, what use is he?” Middy asked. “So, as I was saying. A friend of mine was here last night and had a particularly . . . interesting treatment.”
“And you’d like the same?”
“Yes, indeed. I want the same room he was in, too, if that’s possible.”
“The treatment and room?”
“I’m not sure; he wasn’t altogether coherent this morning.” Middy nodded knowingly.
“His name?”
“Tristan Belledare.”
“Hmm, I remember him. He didn’t pay for a treatment. Just rented a room. I wish he had though. My mistress would have enjoyed him.”
“He must have been with someone,” Middy encouraged him.
“I can’t really tell you that.”
“You will tell me. Right. Now.” Middy threw caution to the wind and grabbed hold of the chains that led from his nipples to . . . and tugged.
“As you command,” he breathed deeply, obviously enjoying the pain. “A blond woman, petite. She kept calling him hero.”
“We’d like that room,” Middy said as a sick trepidation rose inside of her like bile. Had he been with Tally?
“I’ll be back with the keys.” The man left reluctantly after Middy let go of his chains.
“You’re a naughty witch,” Dred said into the shell of her ear. “He didn’t want you to let go.”
“Too bad for him.”
“Too bad for him, indeed. In all of this bacchanalia, you don’t see anything else you want?”
“What kind of question is that?” Middy did her best to look bored and at ease with her environment.
“Besides me, Midnight. I’ve seen you looking, but it was only a passing glance. You were a virgin. There’s no other flesh that intrigues you?”
Middy shook her head and it was an honest answer. She didn’t want anything but Dred Shadowins and she had a sneaking suspicion that the potion didn’t have anything to do with it.
“I would ask you the same question, but I don’t think I want to know the truth. I’ve decided what I want to believe and I’d like to stick with that, thanks.”
“Not even if I could answer the same?”
“Not even then, Dred. It was easy enough for you to lie about loving me earlier. Why should this be any different? Your lust isn’t the consolation prize.”
Dred’s attention was suddenly on something that wasn’t her. Well, that had lasted a grand total of twenty minutes.
Middy stubbornly shut that voice out of her head. It never said anything that she wanted to hear anyway.
“Middy! Do you remember the servant who showed us to our room at Snow Manor?”
“The stinky one?”
“He’s here!”
“Eww! I mean, why?” Middy supposed even the un-washed needed love. She just hoped that they made him bathe before allowing him in a room.
“It looks like he’s on staff! He just went through a ser vice door.”
They dashed after him, pushing their way through the licentious crowd. It was as if the creature was waiting for them: He would slip out of sight and then Middy or Dred would catch another glimpse of him.
He turned just as they rounded a corner and then a white light exploded between them. The light took on a familiar shape and Middy cried out. How could Tristan Belledare be standing in front of them?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Things to Do in Loudun When You’re Still Dead
Tristan Belledare had watched with an unhappy frown as the events unfolded in the world below. He had to say that this was, indeed, bullshit. Yes, it was.
First, he’d been eaten by his ex-girlfriend. That sucked all on its own. It didn’t need any help. Second, he was still in love with Midnight Cherrywood. Third, he’d just taken a new job. From hero to Duke of Heaven. It didn’t have the nice ring to it that Crown Prince of Heaven did, but he’d have to earn that.
The new job? Babysitting his current love interest. Upon his untimely and rather sucktacular demise, he’d been made her guardian angel. Talk about a selfless act? She was in mad love with another warlock and it was his job to see to it that she was happy. He knew that Dred was the right one for her, but that didn’t make Tristan want her any less.
That witch was an accident waiting to happen.
It was damned lucky for her that she had a special gift; otherwise, her ass, as they say, would have been grass when she’d fallen off that broom. Not that Dred wasn’t all badass hero, too, but without Tristan’s little push, they would both be dead.
Now, where in the name of all that was holy had Dred’s angel gotten to? That was another question Tristan wanted the answer to. Merlin knew that the warlock needed one.
Crazy bastard.
/> Tristan had been shown many things after his death. He’d seen what had happened at Shale Creek. And he was thankful for more reasons than one. The first being that Dred had saved his ass. The second being that the image of Dred that had been forever burned into his mind was there not because Tristan had repressed desires, but because it was a repressed memory.
That made him much more comfortable in his own skin, needless to say. Tristan had been worried because he’d thought that if he had a man crush, he’d know it. It had been disturbing to think that his mind had been going places without him. That was a sure recipe for crazy.
Tristan watched with rising alarm as he noticed that the revenant belonging to Barista Snow turned to wait on the other side of the door for Dred and Midnight. Damn, but he hated that witch. She’d just been irritating on her own, with her mad quest for eternal youth, until she met Vargill and got power hungry.
Tristan continued to watch the scene unfold, sure that Dred would take precautions, but he was just barreling ahead, hell bent for . . .Damn it.
Tristan had no choice but to manifest himself. A bright, white light blinded the creature, which scurried from it like a roach caught out in the open at high noon.
“Tristan!”
Middy had seen him.
He watched as Dred turned at her cry and abandoned the chase to see to her.
Tristan chortled like a monkey who’d just won King Shit of Turd Mountain. Dred was in love with Middy! His aura was so bright, but the colors ran the gamut from the bit of black where the Abyss had touched him to the searing white spaces that were the goodness in him.
But they were all tinged with pink. A color that Tristan happened to know had become a bit of a compulsion for Dred. Yes, he would take very good care of Middy and they would have a fairy-tale happiness, if only Dred would recognize his feelings.
An old adage about leading a unicorn to virgins came to mind.
Midnight, he could see, was head over arse for him. Her aura bloomed wherever he touched her. When his attention was on her, Middy literally glowed. She could be seen from space.
Tristan could see where the potion had affected her, but it was such a small place. She would have come to this over time on her own.
Dred’s hands were on her now as he checked her wound and their auras both changed to a lovely purple. Tristan took that as his cue to go look elsewhere. As much as he still thought of Middy, this was where she was supposed to be. Tristan also knew that this increased need for her was Fate’s way of making his job easier. He had to admit, Fate was either one sadistic bitch or had quite the dry sense of humor. Middy would always be out of his league. If she used her gift selflessly, all that light inside of her, she would ascend and become a Crown Princess of Heaven. But Tristan wanted that for her: It was the pinnacle of her journey, what she was meant for.
He wondered briefly how very much trouble he would get into if he eased Tally’s pain from the transition just a bit.
She didn’t deserve this. All she’d done was fall in love with the wrong man after Tristan himself had broken her heart.
And her faith. Sure, his death had been horrible, but that wasn’t her fault. It was his own. Tristan wondered if he maybe should have been a Duke of Hell instead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A Dark, Marbled Affair
“I know that I saw Tristan,” Middy said as she followed Dred into the rented flat in Paris.
“Middy, you do know that he’s dead, right?”
“I saw him! There was a flash of bright light, almost blinding, and I saw him standing there. He had the most beautiful wings,” Middy said as a warm feeling enveloped her.
“You, yourself, just said the light was blinding. Maybe you wanted to see him?”
“No! What else could have scared off that thing? Did you see that guy when he turned? He was like a Hollywood zombie.”
“I don’t know what that was. It looked like the servant we saw at Snow Manor, but up close it was more like that guy after he’d been dead for fifty years.”
Middy noticed the black marble floor of Dred’s kitchen and she flushed. This was where she’d seen herself in Dred’s mind. She’d been naked and . . .
Dred shrugged. “A warlock’s brain is never a safe place.”
“How many witches have you had on this floor?” She rolled her eyes.
“None.”
It was hard not to snort like a pig.
“Seriously, it’s marble. It’s cold.”
“I’ve been told that some things are better in fantasy than reality,” Middy said, smiling shyly.
“Yeah? What do you think about that?” Dred implied that she had reason to offer her expert opinion.
“Stop fishing for compliments. Your head is big enough as it is.”
“Let me check your back. If there’s no improvement, you are going to the Magick Medic and that’s final.”
“I liked it better when I was in charge,” she said sullenly.
“No, you didn’t.” He lifted her up on the island counter and turned her to suit him.
“What can I say? I do love an alpha male.”
He lifted the back of her shirt and was surprised to find that her wounds had healed. Completely.
“Is there any pain?”
Middy shook her head, trying not to lean in to his touch like a cat begging to be stroked.
Dred’s Witchberry was lying at the other end of the counter. So, when it rang, Middy jumped and fell off her perch. Dred had grown accustomed to Middy’s penchant for throwing herself off things and was there to catch her.
Unfortunately, that meant that he was not there to intercept the call.
Aradia Shadowins’s face was drawn and white and she scowled at them.
“So you two flit off to France without even a word to your mother?”
“Aradia,” Dred began.
“Don’t you Aradia me, Mordred Arthur Shadowins. I was worried sick. Sick! And instead of calling me you two are fiddle-fucking around playing house? You’ve got some explaining to do, young man!”
Dred eased Middy upright and picked up the Witchberry. “Look, we’re a little busy; I promise I will explain everything later.”
“The one and only heir to the Shadowins’s fortune and magick disappears without a trace and . . . do you know what I’ve been through? You will explain right now!”
Dred dropped the Witchberry into a drawer, but as soon as he did, there was a knock on his door.
“That would be my mother,” Dred sighed and opened the door. Aradia brushed past him with casual irritation.
“So, did you know that the council denied your marriage petition? Good thing you already gave her that ring, Mordred, or we’d be screwed.”
“What does the ring have to do with it? Besides that thrice-damned tattoo on the inside of her wrist?”
“It means you’re already married.” Aradia set her purse and her broom down next to the counter. “Family magick.”
“What?” Middy blinked like an owl that had fallen into a vat of coffee—eyes wide and organ failure about to ensue.
“I couldn’t very well call you and tell you, now could I? Especially since High Chancellor Godrickle revealed that you were off on some sort of secret mission. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” Aradia sniffed delicately.
“Mother, your temper is going to give you age spots.”
Aradia gasped. “Ungrateful boy, I had my hair done today, but I still hopped right on the broom to come all the way to Paris and warn my son that his cover might have been blown. And this is the thanks I get?”
“Since all your help comes with a hearty side order of nag, then yes.” Dred handed her a bottle of water and she sipped it like a cocktail.
“Really, Dred. A spy?” she huffed. Aradia took a breath before speaking again. “I’m so proud of you.”
“We thought it best that no one knew.”
Middy saw that he was uncomfortable with his mother’s praise. Aradia emb
raced him and while he returned the gesture, he looked around as if he were checking for an escape route.
“So we’re already married? Dred hasn’t even met my mother. My brothers are going to make me a widow before I’ve had a honeymoon.”
“It will be fine; you just leave all of that to me. Midnight, have you called your mother? She doesn’t know, right? About the spying or anything?”
Middy shook her head.
“First of all, call the witch. She’s probably worried sick. I will go smooth things over and she and I will commence with the formal wedding plans. You two know there’s no way out of that now.”
“Middy, you’re going to be on the cover of every magickal newspaper for some time. How you managed to snag Dred Shadowins with no pre-nup.” Dred grinned.
“Considering that we’ll both lose our magick if we split up, I’d say that’s one hell of a pre-nup,” Midnight sighed.
“Midnight, Shadowins don’t get divorced. They die first.”
Aradia said that with such a cheerful smile that Middy was tempted to ask if it was ever of natural causes. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to hear the answer.
Dred pulled out a bottle of George Dickel bourbon and poured himself a double. He downed it.
“Is it that bad?” Middy asked, not a little insulted.
“Yes. Have you thought about all of the paperwork?”
Dred downed another shot. “It will take days of meetings with lawyers and boards and so on and so forth. I have to add you to my health insurance, the life insurance, shares in the Shadowins’s holdings. You have to meet the griffins as an official part of the family so you can travel freely through our holdings. We have to change your name and, yeah, we’re going to change it. None of this hyphenated garbage.
You can walk me like a dog on a leash and I’ll call you mistress all day long and lick your boot heel or whatever the hell else you want, but you’ll wear my name.”
Middy snatched the glass from him and downed a shot herself. “Don’t call me ‘mistress’ in front of your mother.”
How to Marry a Warlock in 10 Days Page 20