by Eva Chase
He trailed off as we launched into the final sequence. I dipped low, and he caught my shoulders. With a whirl of his arm, he swiveled me back toward him. Our feet stepped together, our legs twining and releasing and twining again. The quiver spread all through my muscles. I couldn’t take my eyes off Jin’s face.
When we finished, Jin pulled me into an embrace. He hugged me close. “That was fantastic,” he said. “I felt the consort bond when we did the ceremony, but I’d never gotten this strong a sense of it since then.”
The connection between us thrummed through my veins alongside that giddy quiver. I hugged him back, not wanting to let him go. “That’s the point of the forms. To strengthen that bond. It won’t feel like that all the time when we’re not doing them, but it will stay stronger the more we practice the forms.”
“And here I thought that bond couldn’t get any stronger than it already was.” He chuckled, his breath tickling over my hair. “You can call me in to practice any time.”
“That’s just the first one,” I said. “You want to try something a little more complex?” I paused. “I’ll need to use a little of my magic on you for the next one.”
“Magic away,” Jin said, so easily any anxiety I might have had about that component left me. I squeezed him tight before forcing myself to let go.
We started slowly again, trying out each movement and seeing how they joined together. At one point, in the middle of the form, I boosted Jin’s feet several inches off the ground with a burst of magical energy. Then, at the end, I lifted us both in a quick spiral.
Jin was grinning when we touched down. “This is a fun one.”
His confidence trickled into me, pushing back the looming fears about the Frankfords and whatever they might be planning. “Are you ready to try it faster?”
He clapped his hands. “Let’s do this.”
We moved through the flowing pattern, each touch and momentary hold spreading fresh heat over my skin. My heart swelled with the emotion coursing between us until I wasn’t sure I could even hold it all. Jin’s eyes shone as he gazed back at me.
The magical wind whipped around us into that final whirl. The second our feet hit the ground, I couldn’t help myself. I reached for my consort’s face, and he was already leaning in to claim my mouth.
Electricity seemed to shiver through me with that kiss. My whole body was alight from the closeness of the forms, and my spark leapt to flood every nerve with hot desire. Jin kissed me harder, his hands roaming lower down my body. I arched into his touch. I wanted more—I wanted everything. I wanted him to know how much I always wanted him.
My lips trailed across his jaw and down his neck. “Do you trust me?” I murmured, struck by a strange impulse.
“Absolutely,” Jin said.
I nipped the bare skin at the crook of his shoulder, a slight graze of my teeth. At his encouraging sound, I bit a little harder. Not enough to break the skin, but enough to add a little spark of pain to his pleasure.
Jin’s breath hitched. “Fuck me.”
Before I could point out I intended to do exactly that, he’d drawn my mouth back to his. We devoured each other, sinking to the floor without breaking the kiss. Jin wrenched up my dress. I groped for the fly of his slacks. No time for teasing. No time for lingering in the moment. I wanted him in me now.
He slid inside me just as sure as the movements of our dance. A whimper escaped me at the welcome friction of his cock stretching my core. I raised my knees by his hips, urging him onward as our mouths collided again.
Pleasure spiraled through me in a swift wave. Jin plunged deeper and deeper with a groan. He cupped my breast through my dress, stroking his lithe fingers over the nipple until I was arching both chest and hips toward him in turn. My spark flared through me, so bright I thought it might consume us both.
He slipped his hand under my ass, angling me higher to meet him. I moaned as he filled me even more completely. All I could do then was cling to him, skin to sweat-damp skin, rocking with the force of his thrusts. His cock hit that glorious spot inside me again, and again, and—
I tipped over the edge with a burst of light behind my eyes. Bliss raced through my body, curling my toes. Jin came a moment later, with a ragged breath against my cheek. His release was another sear of heat through my core.
He eased to a stop over me, beaming down at me. I smiled up at him as the last ripples of pleasure radiated through me.
“You’re a fucking wonder, Rose,” Jin murmured. He nuzzled the side of my face and rolled us over, his legs tangling with mine. “How’s that for solidifying a bond?”
I giggled. “I think we passed with flying colors. Do you still feel different?”
“You mean other than the amazing high of just being with you?” He ran his hand over my hair. “There’s something about it—the sensation when I think about you, it’s… fuller, somehow? But, you know, it was pretty intense before, so I’m not sure it can get that much more so.”
“Even a little could make a difference if it comes down to a real fight.” Not just against a handful of lackey enforcers, but against all the witches who stood with the Frankfords—and maybe against those demonic creatures too?
The worries crept back in. I buried my face in Jin’s shoulder, but I couldn’t escape them completely. Jin kissed my forehead.
“You’ve got us,” he said. “You’ll always have us. And that means you’ll always be stronger. Do you know— You remember when Gabriel first showed up with that page from your book, the one you gave each of us before you left the estate the first time?”
“Yeah,” I said. The memory of Gabriel’s return was etched clearly in my mind. That and the moment when I’d given the guys those pages. I’d torn them from my favorite childhood novel, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, as a sort of token when my father had decided to move the family to Portland—mainly to force an end to my friendship with the unsparked guys he’d deemed unsuitable companions for a thirteen-year-old witch.
“I still have my page too,” Jin said. “Tucked in with my favorite art supplies back home. Any time I left for more than a day, I’d slip it into my wallet. Like it was for luck or something. Or in case it’d somehow let our paths cross. You’ve always been with me, Rose, and I’ll always be here if you need me. You can trust in that.”
My throat choked up. I tipped my head to kiss him. His hand rose to my cheek, and we might have fallen back into each other all over again, except a frantic knocking reverberated through the door right then.
“Rose!” a muffled voice said from right outside. “I think you’d better come. There’s someone at the gate—he says Charles Frankford sent him.”
Chapter Seven
Rose
Jin followed me down to the front door. “Stay behind me,” I told him. “And hang back a bit. I know you want to help, but… we don’t know what to expect from this guy.”
Jin made a face, but he nodded at the same time. “I’ve got your back.” His voice turned sly. “He definitely doesn’t want to mess with you after the boost your spark just got.”
In spite of the stressful situation ahead, I might have been a bit flushed when I started down the front drive.
There was indeed a guy outside the gate, waiting there with his arms folded loosely over his chest. He wasn’t much taller than me, but he was burly, with hard lines to his nose and his jaw that made him look imposing. From the lines at the corners of his eyes and the silver cast to his light brown hair, I guessed he was about my father’s age.
He tapped his foot in a slow but forceful rhythm as I approached. I couldn’t see his car, though I doubted he’d walked here. He must have parked it farther down the road. Because he was worried we’d do something to it? That our seeing it would be a bad thing?
Hard to tell whether it was reasonable sneakiness or just paranoia.
“Hello,” I said, coming to a stop a few feet from the gate. The guy didn’t look as if he were carrying any of the magical weapon
s the male enforcers sometimes used, but after what I’d seen in the last few weeks from his people, I didn’t trust myself to be able to spot every potential threat. “You wanted something?”
“Is this how you usually greet visitors, Lady Hallowell?” the man said with a gravely edge to his voice.
“No,” I said. “But visitors usually call first, or at least they don’t demand my attention the second they arrive, after they’ve announced they’re coming sent by someone who specifically swore to leave me alone.”
The guy shrugged. “I’d think your dealings with my boss would make you more inclined to tread carefully.”
“Your opinion has been noted,” I said, folding my own arms in front of me. “Are you here to judge how welcoming I am, or is there some other reason you came by?”
He patted his hand against the bars of the gate. “Can I come in so we can talk?”
I barely held in a snort of derision. “No. My ‘dealings’ with your boss have made me inclined to keep a wall between me and anyone associated with him if at all possible.”
Jin let out a muffled snicker behind me. The guy glowered at him and then at me. “This isn’t really how I’d like to have a conversation.”
“Well, if you don’t really want to talk, you can go, and I’ll get back to what I was doing.”
His jaw worked. He sighed, dropping his arms. “Fine. Mr. and Lady Frankford would like to confirm that you’re following the terms of your agreement with them.”
“I don’t really have a whole lot of choice in the matter, do I?” I said. “I’d be curious to know if they have.”
Their lackey ignored that jab. “You had a visit from Caroline Almeida,” he said.
My back tensed. They had been monitoring the estate, then. She’d obviously covered her tracks with her parents, so it wasn’t from them that the Frankfords would have found out. I hoped she hadn’t gotten in trouble for coming to me.
“Are you jealous because I invited her in and not you?” I asked.
“I want to know what business you had with her.”
“Well, first,” I said, “that’s none of your business, because I didn’t say a word about your boss to her.” Which was true. She was the one who’d mentioned the Frankfords. “She simply happened to be in the neighborhood and wanted to drop in. We hadn’t seen each other in a few years, you know.”
Caroline and I had never been particularly friendly with each other, but it wasn’t as if we’d been at each other’s throats either. I didn’t think the Frankfords could say I had to be lying.
The man’s eyebrow arched. “That’s all? You caught up over tea and sent her on her way?”
“What do you think I’d tell her about?” I fixed him with a hard smile. If he said anything incriminating, I could tell people about that. It wouldn’t have come from the files.
“Never mind that,” he said. “If Mr. Frankford finds out you’ve been looking for loopholes in your oath—”
“He’ll what?” I broke in. “Break his end of the oath and do something to hurt me or my family?”
The guy narrowed his eyes. “For an oath to be broken, it must be agreed on both sides.”
“Which means he knows that hasn’t happened. Is that all you wanted to ask about? I’ve got nothing else to tell you about Caroline Almeida. You can always talk to her directly, you know.” I kind of hoped she was already out of the country by now.
“What about the other two witches who’ve joined you here?” he prodded, shifting subjects with about as much grace as a bull. “What did they want here? Why have you let them stay?”
“They told me they needed somewhere to stay,” I said evenly. “I have plenty of room and nothing against either of them. Why would I turn them away?”
“Because you know you’re not supposed to be spreading around word of what you’ve been doing, about your perverse relationships.” He gestured toward Jin with a disgusted curl of his lip, and my temper flared.
I managed to tamp it down—for the most part. “I haven’t volunteered any information about my consorting with them,” I said tartly. “As I swore not to. If they draw their own conclusions, I can’t help that. I should be allowed to spend time with whoever I want on my own estate.”
“It just doesn’t seem right, you witches gathering together like this,” the guy said. “You don’t want to make Mr. and Lady Frankford uncomfortable, thinking you might be brewing some sort of conspiracy.”
They were worried about me conspiring, when they’d been carrying on a massive conspiracy against all witching society for decades? I would have rolled my eyes if I hadn’t been so on edge.
“There’s no conspiracy,” I said. “My guests just want to live in peace. Which is all I want to do too. You coming around here harassing me about things that have nothing to do with you or your boss doesn’t help with that.”
The guy shook his head. “No harassing here. Just making sure you remember what’s good for you.”
Now I was really bristling. “Look,” I said, taking another step forward and summoning a glow of magic into my hand with a flick of my wrist. “What would be good for me is if you got the hell out of here and all of you left me and the rest of us alone. Tell the Frankfords they should remember what’s good for them. Or maybe you should just think about what’s good for you.”
The man’s gaze jerked to the quavering light dancing around my fingers. A fire I could have called all the way into being and thrown at him if I’d really wanted to. It’d have been more for show than functional, but it still could have burned.
“Rose.” Gabriel’s voice carried across the yard like a warning. He’d come out of the garage apartment. He glanced from me to the guy and strode over to join us. “You heard her,” he said tightly. “Lady Hallowell asked you to leave.”
“I’ll leave when I’m damn well ready—”
An engine rumbled on the road. A pick-up truck pulled up just behind the guy. Seth frowned at him from the driver’s seat as he leaned out the open window. “Is there a problem?” he asked me. The muscles in his shoulders had flexed.
The Frankfords’ lackey might be burly, but Seth had at least half a foot on him, plus a little extra muscle besides that. Not to mention the truck. He’d left the engine running at a low growl.
The guy looked from me and my two consorts behind me to the one in the truck and seemed to decide he’d finally outstayed his welcome. “Mr. Frankford isn’t going to be pleased that you handled the situation like this,” he said, turning to go.
“You can let him know I’m not pleased he sent you at all,” I called after him.
I waited until the Frankfords’ man was well down the road before I opened the gate for Seth. Not that I really thought the guy would try to dash in—what would that even accomplish?—but caution seemed wise. I’d gathered the magic I’d sent to my hand back into my body, where it thrummed at an agitated key.
“Are you okay?” Seth asked, jumping out of the truck. “Who was that guy?”
“Some jerk the Frankfords sent to poke around,” Jin said. “Our Briar Rose brought out the thorns.” He grinned.
“I’m fine,” I said, but I leaned into the embrace Seth offered anyway. Few things made me feel quite as secure as his solid body against mine. “I just wish they’d back off.” I paused, straightening up again, and motioned the guys away from the gate. The three of them followed me around the other side of the garage.
“You know not to talk about any of this, even with each other, outside these walls, right?” I said quietly. “From some of the things he said, it’s obvious they’re monitoring what goes on around the estate, like I thought they might be. I can block them from spying right inside, but to try to push those protections farther…”
“You shouldn’t strain yourself,” Gabriel said. “We’ve had a lot of practice keeping our mouths shut in the last couple months. You don’t have to worry.”
“Even Ky and I don’t talk about anything to do with you or the
rest of it when we’re not here,” Seth said. “Sometimes it’s hard, but—better than the alternative.”
I let out my breath. “Okay. Okay. Damn it!” Every time I started to think I’d gotten a handle on things, every time I found a new strategy to pursue, the Frankfords pushed back a little harder. And I hadn’t even started to really push at them yet. If they’d wanted to make me feel hemmed in, they’d succeeded.
“He’s gone now,” Jin said. “You put him in his place. I was ready to start applauding.”
“But he’ll come back, or they’ll send someone else—or something else.” I paced to the side of the garage and back again. “I thought we’d have more time than this. Do they even think about what they’re doing? I promised not to talk about them or share what we found. I never promised not to hurt them.”
“Rose.” Gabriel caught my arm, turning me toward him. His bright blue eyes searched mine. “You don’t really mean that,” he said.
The concern in his tone deflated some of my anger. Only some. “I don’t,” I muttered. “Not that I’d be all that sorry to hear it if something happened to them another way. I wouldn’t go calling down their wrath on us like that.”
His gaze stayed on me, the corners of his mouth tensing in a way that made my chest clench up a little, even though I wasn’t sure what was bothering him.
Jin motioned toward the house. “You know,” he said, “I’ve been thinking, if you don’t mind me messing with the décor… I could do in the house what we did with that tour bus we drove back from New York—paint glyphs on the walls to help support all that protective magic you’re doing. I could probably blend it into a sort of trim along the ceiling so it looked like a quirky design, not anything your staff would associate with magic.”
Something in me twisted at the idea of shaking up the traditional look of my childhood home just to fend off villains like the Frankfords. But we did have to fend them off. And… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to change the house up a little anyway. It held a lot of good memories, but there were a lot of bad ones in that place now too.