Witch Fury

by Bast, Anya

  “That’s a good answer.” She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “How about in two hundred and seventy-nine days, give or take?”

  “What are you talking about, Sarafina?” From the tone of his voice, he knew, but it hadn’t really hit him yet.

  Butterflies flapped in her stomach at his reaction.

  Theo stared down at her, his face going blank and then white. A second later he smiled and shouted, lifting her up and swinging her around. He set her to her feet and kissed her. “Finally, some good news.”

  “I can’t tell you how relieved I am you think so.”

  He spread his hand on her stomach. “Sarafina, you’ve already given me love, hope, and joy. Now you’re giving me even more. Of course I’m happy about this.” He dragged her up against his chest and kissed her again. “I love you,” he murmured against her mouth.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” asked Adam near them. Claire gazed at them curiously.

  Theo answered before she could even get a word out. “I’m going to be a dad.”

  Adam smiled. “That’s just about the best news I’ve heard all day. One day Claire and I plan to have kids, too. Only we’re leaning toward adoption instead. There are little elemental witches out there caught in the non-magickal foster care system. We’re going to—”

  Sarafina pulled from Theo and launched herself into Adam’s arms. “Kids like I was,” she whispered huskily, once again on the edge of tears.

  Adam laughed. “Yes.”

  She detached herself from Adam and gave Claire a hug, too. “That is just so, so . . . awesome,” she finished lamely, at a loss for any words to express her emotion. She looked at Theo. “Maybe we can do that, too.”

  Theo blanched again, then chuckled. “Yeah, maybe. Uh, let’s handle the one on the way first.”

  “I think Theo is still in shock,” said Claire with a grin.

  “Speaking of kids, have you heard Thomas and Isabelle’s news yet?” asked Adam.

  “No,” answered Claire with a smile. “You’re kidding, right? Are they pregnant, too?”

  “No, not yet. But Micah’s been messing with some earth magick. Found a spell that might help with witchy infertility problems. Something might come out of it.” Adam shrugged.

  “Wow,” Sarafina replied. “Micah is a genius.”

  Adam nodded. “He is. He using some of the daaeman spells he got from a book given to him by the Syari when he came over to Eudae with me and Claire.” He paused, glancing at Micah across the room. “The loss of his magick is just brutal.”

  “Yes, how is he cooking up the earth magick?”

  “He can brew a lot of it, and research all of it. It’s just that someone else has to store and wield the charms and spells. He’s using a magickal surrogate, basically.”

  Sarafina looked over at Micah. He was speaking with Thomas. “He seems to be coping okay with it all.”

  Claire glanced in Micah’s direction. “His first love is research. I think he’ll be fine. He just needs someone as geeky as he is to test his spells. A permanent research and testing partner.” She looked pointedly at a tall, attractive brown-haired earth witch who was sipping a glass of wine across the room.

  “Oh, she’s very pretty,” Sarafina answered. “Have you been meddling, Claire?”

  She pinched her thumb and forefinger together. “Just a little. I think Emily and Micah will get along really well. She’s just as interested in history and magickal theory as he is. Micah just needs a little . . . push, is all.” Claire grinned. “They’re going to be working very closely together in the future. Plus, Emily’s been smitten with Micah forever. Micah has just never noticed before. He’s so oblivious to anything but his work.”

  Sarafina watched Micah glance at Emily across the room, then look again and stare at her a bit.

  Uh-huh. Magick in the making.

  “He’s not oblivious anymore,” Sarafina murmured, raising her eyebrow and taking a sip of her sweet tea.

  Claire laughed. “Nope. The seed has been planted. It has nothing to do now but bloom.”

  “Good for Micah.” Sarafina sighed. “All this good news after so much bad, it’s heartwarming. We’ll all be raising a whole new generation of witches soon.”

  “The Coven’s future is bright,” answered Theo. He pulled her against his side. “Like ours.”

  “Okay,” said Thomas loudly. “It’s almost time for our announcement.”

  All the heads in the ballroom swiveled toward Thomas and the conversation hushed. Sarafina felt in the know, figuring his announcement would be Micah’s fertility tinkering. But when the large screen descended from the ceiling, Sarafina realized that perhaps that wasn’t what they planned to announce, after all.

  “For your viewing pleasure,” Thomas announced to the hushed crowd. He smiled vibrantly, Isabelle and Micah on either side of him, also smiling. “I think you’ll enjoy this.” He hit a button on the remote control he held.

  The evening news popped on.

  And in business news this evening, millionaire Thomas Monahan has purchased a controlling stake in Duskoff International. Duskoff International has been in the news lately because of the mysterious disappearance of celebrity CEO Stefan Faucheux. Faucheux took the company public only last spring. The police are actively investigating his disappearance. But perhaps for now, the rudderless company has found a new man to help lead it.

  The video cut to a smiling Thomas.

  “Now that I have a stake in the future of Duskoff International, I intend to take an active hand in shaping the company’s future.”

  In other news . . .

  Everyone in the ballroom cheered.

  The video stopped and the screen went back up. All around them people cheered and clapped.

  Thomas hushed the excited murmuring of the crowd once again and raised his glass. “To the future of the Coven.” He paused. “To us!”

  Everyone raised their glasses and repeated the toast.

  Magick flickered and flared all around them, the crackle and spark of all four elements in harmony and proximity, rising and falling, blending and twisting again. Up and up it all went to the ceiling of the ballroom and beyond—a combined expression of the Coven’s current shared state of mind and emotion.

  Lightness and joy filled Sarafina. Smiling, she reached out and took Theo’s hand in hers. Fire sparked from Sarafina’s chest and curled downward to twine around their hands and wrists in licks of harmless but pretty blue fire.

  Theo looked down at her with love lighting his dark eyes instead of the coldness that had filled them the first time they’d met. He lowered his head and caught her lips with his. “You’re so beautiful, Sarafina,” he murmured against her mouth.

  She glanced down at her dress. “Thanks. It’s new.”

  He tipped her face up to his. “I didn’t mean the dress. I didn’t even notice the dress. You’re just beautiful, everywhere. Inside and out. Up and down. Every single inch of your body and your soul.”

  She tipped her head to the side a little and smiled. “Theo, is that you? Where’d the poetry come from?”

  He took a long moment to answer. “It comes from you, Sarafina.” He kissed her. “You gave it all to me.”

  Turn the page for a preview of the next exciting paranormal romance from Anya Bast

  WICKED ENCHANTMENT

  Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!

  “SEX INCARNATE,” THE WOMEN AND MEN AROUND her whispered. “Half incubus.”

  Aislinn didn’t know if it was true, but she did know the man was Unseelie in a Seelie Court. That didn’t happen very often, so she stared just like everyone else as he passed down the corridor.

  Dressed head to toe in black, wearing heavy boots and a long coat over a thin crew neck sweater that defined his muscular chest, he seemed to possess every inch of the hallway he tread. He walked with such confidence it gave the illusion he took up more space than was physically possible. Seelie nobles shrank in h
is wake, though they tried to stand firm and proud. Not even the most powerful ones were immune. Others postured and drew up straighter, offering challenge to some imaginary threat in their midst. Not even the gold and rose bedecked Imperial Guard was immune to his passing. It was as if they sensed a marauder in their midst.

  Maybe this man was a marauder.

  No one knew anything about him other than that the dark magick running through his Unseelie veins was both lethal and sexual in nature. The court buzzed with the news of his arrival and of his meeting with the Summer Queen, High Royal of the Seelie Tuatha Dé Danann.

  According to gossip, Gabriel Cionaodh Marcus Mac Braire had been welcomed past the threshold of the gleaming rose quartz tower of the Seelie Court because he was petitioning the Summer Queen for permanent residence, a subject that had received a huge amount of attention from Seelie nobles. Predictably, most of the people against it were men.

  Gabriel, it was said, held Seelie blood in his veins, but the incubus Unseelie part of him overshadowed it. The rumors went that he was catnip to females and—when his special brand of magick was wielded at full force between the sheets—he possessed the power to enslave a woman. The afflicted female would become addicted to him. She’d stop eating and sleeping, wanting nothing more than his touch, until she finally died from longing and self-neglect.

  Just the thought made Aislinn shudder, yet it didn’t seem to deter his female admirers. Maybe that was because no one had ever met a woman who’d suffered that fate. If this man could use sex like a deadly weapon, apparently he never did.

  Yet some kind of sexual magick did seem to pour from him. Something intangible, subtle, and seductive.

  Watching him now, so self-assured and beautiful, Aislinn could see the allure. His long black coat melded with his shoulder-length dark hair until she wasn’t sure where one began and the other ended. A gorgeous fallen angel whose every movement promised a night filled with the darkest, most dangerous erotic pleasure? There was nothing to find uninteresting. Even she, jaded and disillusioned by “love” as she currently was, could see the attraction.

  That attraction, of course, was the stock and trade of an incubus, and Gabriel was at least half, if court gossip was to be believed. But for all his dark beauty and lethal charm, and despite that odd but subtle magick, he didn’t entice Aislinn. To her, he screamed danger. Perhaps that was because of the very humbling, public breakup she’d just endured. All men, especially attractive ones, looked like trouble to her now.

  “Wow,” said her friend Carina, coming to stand beside her. “I see what everyone was talking about. He’s really . . .” she trailed off, her eyebrows rising into her ebony hairline.

  “He’s really what?” Carina’s husband growled, coming up from behind them to twine his arms around his wife’s waist.

  “Really potent,” Carina answered. “That man’s magick is so strong that even standing in his wake, a woman feels a little intoxicated, but it’s false.” She turned and embraced Drem. “My attraction to you is completely real.” Her voice, low and honey soft, convinced everyone within hearing range of her honesty.

  “Do you think he’s potent, Aislinn?” Drem asked, curving his thin lips into a teasing smile.

  She watched the man disappear through the ornate gold and rose double doors leading into the throne room at the end of the hallway. The last thing she saw was the edge of his coat. Behind him scurried a cameraman and a slick, well-heeled commentator from Faemous, the annoying twenty-four-hour human “news” channel with coverage of the Seelie Court that the Summer Queen found so amusing. “A woman would have to be dead not to see his virility, but if he’s got any special sex magick, it’s not affecting me.”

  Drem shifted his green eyes from her to stare at the end of the hallway where the man had disappeared. “So detached and cool, Aislinn?”

  She shrugged. “He doesn’t make me hot.”

  “You’re the only one,” Carina muttered. Her husband gave her a playful swat on her butt for punishment. She gasped in surprise and then laughed. “Look over there. He’s the reason no men are making you hot right now.”

  Aislinn followed Carina’s gaze to see Kendal in all his glittering blond glory. He stood with a couple friends—people who used to be her friends—in the meet-and-greet area just outside the court doors.

  Ugh.

  Kendal locked gazes with her, but Aislinn merely looked away as though she hadn’t noticed him. She’d wasted too much time on him already. She could hardly believe she’d ever thought she’d loved him. Kendal was a social climber, nothing more. He’d used her to further his position at court, for the prestige of dating one of the queen’s favorites, and then tossed her aside.

  “I have nothing to say to him,” Aislinn said in the coolest tone she could manage.

  Carina stared at him, her jaw set. “Well, I do.” She began to walk across the corridor toward him.

  Aislinn caught her hand and squeezed. “No, please don’t. Thank you for being furious with him on my account, but Kendal isn’t deserving of the attention. Anyway, that’s what he wants. It feeds his ego.”

  “I can tell you what that weasel is deserving of.”

  Aislinn laughed. “You’re a good friend, Carina.”

  The doors at the end of the corridor opened and a male hobgoblin court attendant stepped out dressed in the gold and rose livery of the Rose Tower. “The Queen requests the presence of Aislinn Christiana Guinevere Finvarra.”

  Aislinn frowned and stilled, looking toward the doors at the end of the corridor through which Gabriel had recently disappeared. Why would the queen wish to see her?

  Carina pushed her forward, breaking her momentary paralysis. Aislinn moved down the corridor surrounded by silence. She’d grown used to being the topic of court gossip lately. The Seelie nobles didn’t have much to do besides get into each other’s business. Magick wasn’t a valuable commodity here, like it was in the Unseelie Court.

  She entered the throne room, and the heavy double doors closed behind her with a loud thump. Caoilainn Elspeth Muirgheal, the High Queen of the Seelie Tuatha Dé Danann, sat on her throne. Gabriel stood before her, his back to Aislinn. The Imperial Guard, men and women of less pure Seelie Tuatha Dé blood, lined the room, all standing at attention in their gleaming gold and rose helms and hauberks.

  It always gave her shivers to stand in the throne room before the queen. Arched ceilings hand painted with fres coes of Cath Maige Tuired, depicting the fae taking over Ireland from the Firbolg, humans in their less-evolved and more-animalistic form, instilled a sense of awe in all who entered. Gold-veined marble floors stretched under her shoes, reaching to rose quartz pillars and walls. It was a cold place despite the warm colors, full of power and designed to intimidate and control.

  The Unseelie, Gabriel, seemed utterly unaffected. In fact, the way he stood—feet slightly apart, head held high, and a small, secretive smile playing over his lips—made him seem almost insolent.

  The Faemous film crew stood near a far wall, the light of the camera trained on the Summer Queen and Gabriel. Though now the camera turned to record Aislinn’s entrance. The silver-haired female commentator—Aislinn thought her name was Holly something—whispered into her mike, describing the goings-on.

  Ignoring the film crew, as she always did, she halted near the incubus, yet kept a good distance away. The last thing she was going to do was fawn like most women. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him do a slow upward appraisal of her, the kind men do when they’re clearly wondering what a woman looks like without her clothes. He wasn’t even trying to hide it. Maybe he was so arrogant that he felt he didn’t have to hide it.

  Aislinn was seriously beginning to dislike this man.

  She curtsied deeply to the queen, difficult in her tight Rock & Republic jeans. If she had known she was going to be called into court, she would have worn something a little looser . . . and a bit more formal. Today she was wearing a gray V-neck sweater and wedge-heeled black
boots with her jeans. She’d twisted her hair up and only dashed on makeup. This was not an event she’d planned for.

  The queen, as always, was dressed in heavy brocade, silk, and lace. Today her color theme was a rich burgundy and cream, her skirts pooling at her feet like a bloody ocean. The Royal’s long pale hair was done up in a series of intricate braids, and heavy ruby jewelry glittered at her ears and nestled at the base of her slender, pale throat. She wore no makeup because she didn’t need it. Her beauty was flawless and chilly.

  Caoilainn Elspeth Muirgheal gestured with a slim hand, the light catching on her many rings. “Aislinn, please meet Gabriel Mac Braire. He is petitioning the Seelie Court for residency, in case you hadn’t already heard. It seems word has spread through court about it. I am still considering his case. As you know, we don’t often grant such requests.”

  Yes, but there were precedents. Take Ronan Quinn, for example. He was part blood druid and part Unseelie mage. He’d successfully petitioned the Summer Queen for residency in the Rose Tower over thirty years ago because he’d fallen in love with Bella, Aislinn’s best friend. Ronan had lost Bella, fallen into a state of reckless despondency, and pulled some mysterious job for the Phaendir that had nearly gotten him beheaded by the Summer Queen. In the end, Ronan had retained his life and won Bella back—but both had been banished from the Rose Tower as punishment for Ronan’s transgressions. Aislinn didn’t know where they were now.

  She missed Bella every single day. Bella had been the only one to know her deepest and darkest secrets. Without Bella’s presence, she felt utterly alone.

  That entire story aside, Ronan Quinn was one example of an Unseelie male who’d managed to find a place in the Rose. Ronan, like Gabriel, was exceedingly good-looking. That would weigh heavily in Gabriel’s favor. The queen couldn’t resist a virile, highly magicked man.

  “He’ll be staying here for the next week, and I have decided you shall be his guide and general helpmeet while he’s here.”