by Lib Starling
And besides, she thought, if I’m being honest with myself, I’m more than a little tired of watching my exes moon over Roxy. Katrina and Alexander had had a good thing, before she’d decided to leave Jackson Hole to pursue the lifestyle of a rambling witch-for-hire. Had Roxy truly been enough to make Alexander forget all about the bond Katrina had once shared with him—not a magical bond, but an emotional one? A physical bond… Maybe she could jog his memory.
Katrina took his hand, running her thumb lightly along his skin. Alexander looked up at her, his eyes sharpening out of their haze of despair.
“There are other women in the world who can do things just as incredible as the things Roxy can do,” she said, her voice suggestive and low. “Maybe more incredible.”
Despite his dark mood, Alexander smiled.
“There’s more for you out there, Alexander—more than just Roxy. More than Blackmeade, too. You have other options—other possibilities—other interests.”
She leaned close and kissed him. Maybe he hadn’t lost all memory of the heat that had once existed between them—or maybe he was simply grateful for the distraction from his nagging worries. Whatever the reason, Alexander’s tongue eagerly entered her mouth. He tasted her hungrily, his kiss forceful and insistent. His hand found the back of her neck, clamping it with a hard grip, and Katrina felt the power of his natural charisma overtake her, filling her belly with a searing need even as a shiver of excitement ran along her skin.
He broke away and buried his face in her braids. When his lips—and then his teeth—found her neck, Katrina gasped.
“We had a good thing once,” she whispered. “We can have it again.”
He continued without speaking, his tongue flicking along her throat, playing in lazy circles beneath her ear. When he bit her again, his teeth pressing just hard enough to be not-quite-gentle, Katrina moaned and abandoned all hope of coherent talk.
Katrina pulled off her sweater; her braids fell down around her shoulders, partially obscuring the lacy white bra she wore. Alexander pushed the locks out of the way, and his mouth descended on first one breast, then the other, while his hands tangled in her hair, pulling backward until Katrina’s body arched, her breasts thrust up toward him like an offering, her throat vulnerable and exposed. She cried out with pleasure as he took her nipple in his mouth, teasing through the lace of her bra.
Heat flooded through her body, pulsing and surging like the wild Power of Fire. Her hands flew up, grabbing at Alexander’s body, clinging to his broad shoulders as he worked his way slowly along her body.
His tongue traced shapes across her bare shoulder, then he bit lightly at her collar bone, bringing another long moan of need from her throat. He released his hold on her hair, and Katrina gasped as she straightened. She was dizzy with desire, aching for more of him—his touch, his body, his mouth.
Alexander stood to undress—even before his hands were at his belt, Katrina could see the outline of his erection through his khaki pants. She remembered all the times before when she had taken him inside her, how good he had always felt. It’s been too long, she thought, and the breath caught in her throat when she realized that the long wait for him—for the thing she hadn’t even realized she’d been missing—was over.
He slid his pants and boxers off, and his long, hard cock stood ready. Katrina’s jeans felt suddenly far too restrictive. She tugged at the fly, but Alexander’s hand flashed out, seizing her wrist, stopping her.
“Wait,” he said, his voice hoarse and low. “Not yet.”
It was so easy to give in to his natural power—and strange, Katrina thought, that he held some sway over her, just as he did over his fellow shifters. She took her hand away, subsiding to his command, and knelt on the bunk, waiting.
Alexander arranged himself on the bunk, sitting back against the camper’s curved wall, the perfect, flat, muscular planes of his body catching the last, fitful glow of the sunset. “Turn around,” he told Katrina, and obediently, she maneuvered until her back was facing him. She shivered with anticipation, not knowing what he would do next, but desperately wanting whatever it was.
He took her by the hips, then pulled her back until she leaned against his warm, strong flesh—her back to his chest, her head resting on his shoulder, positioned between his legs. His hands found the straps of her bra and he slipped them off her shoulders, pushing the garment down to free her breasts—and when he pinched both her nipples between his fingers, pulling and twisting lightly until Katrina didn’t know whether the fire that filled her was pleasure or pain—she arched hard against him, moaning and panting.
He continued to play lightly with her breasts, squeezing, stroking, taking her to the edge of pain and receding again—and the bliss of being under his control, at his mercy, was as sweet as the physical sensations themselves.
Finally, when Katrina could take no more of this delicious torment, she panted, “More…please.”
“More?” he whispered in her ear. His deep voice reverberated down her spine. “More of what?”
Katrina couldn’t speak. She worked her legs apart, silently cursing her jeans, and reached for the fly again. But Alexander’s hands got there first. With agonizing slowness, he unzipped her jeans just enough that he could reach one hand inside. His fingers pushed down past her underwear, and he traced her slowly, feeling her wetness and the warm, inviting shape of what his searching hand had found.
He began to circle her slowly, one finger tracing with such feather-lightness that the pulsing heat built inside her to a fiery, unbearable throb. She was beyond words, her senses full of Alexander—his frosty smell; the hardness of his chest and his cock pressing against her back; the sound of his calm, controlled breath. She panted with the rising tempo of her need, but Alexander kept his movements light, small, slow, denying her release—and her panting turned to sobs of desperation.
“Please,” she managed.
Her acknowledgment of his power and control seemed to shake something loose inside him. He withdrew his hand, then, with one rough, powerful movement, he seized her hips again, tossing her outward as he flipped her onto her back. Katrina let out an ungraceful squawk as her back hit the bunk’s mattress—and in the next moment her jeans were peeled forcefully away, taking her underwear with them. Alexander tossed them carelessly across the camper’s aisle.
He pushed her thighs apart with a forceful gesture, and Katrina’s hands clenched in his white-blonde hair as his mouth met her with an explosion of heat. It took only moments for his tongue to finish what his fingers had started. Katrina’s panting rose to a crescendo of wordless cries, and the pleasure overtook her with a force she had never before experienced, sending her spiraling into an explosion of stars that seemed to rush past her darkening vision.
She was dizzy and weak by the time she came down, the veil of passion slowly clearing from her eyes.
“Oh, goddess,” she murmured, letting go of Alexander’s hair to paw feebly at the braids that covered her face.
“Not done yet,” Alexander said gruffly.
“What? I—”
But he took her in a fierce grip again, pulling her body up off the bunk, turning her over until she held herself on shaking hands and knees. Alexander pushed her shoulders roughly down, so that her face was pressed against the mattress—and when he entered her with one hard thrust, Katrina screamed with the pleasure of it.
Her cries rose unabated with every thrust. Vaguely, she was aware that the Airstream must be rocking comically on its tires, that every brother in Alpha House who was not out on patrol must hear her animalistic cries of pleasure. She didn’t care. In that moment, all she cared about was Alexander—his fingers biting into her hips, the forceful rhythm of his need, and the molten passion that went on and on inside her, as if her body was a bottomless well of fire.
Finally, just as his grip and his relentless pounding became too much to bear, he slowed, tensed, and gave a long, shuddering groan. His back bent, and with a soft puff o
f exhaled breath, his mouth hovered over her spine. He kissed her between the shoulders—and Katrina’s heart surged.
Alexander slid away from her and eased himself onto the bunk. He was breathing hard, his pale skin flushed, and when he lay back, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut.
Katrina lay carefully beside him, draping her arm across his heaving chest. That was better than anything before, she thought, still dizzy and bewildered. Better than it’s ever been with anybody—even with Chase.
A sudden, icy stab went through her, reaching from her heart clear to the place on her back where Alexander had planted his kiss.
What if Chase decides to take the bond, after all? she asked herself. He wouldn’t be the only one giving up all hope of a future with someone he cherished. If she were bonded to Chase, Katrina would never have Alexander again—would never again experience this stark, animal passion.
In all her desperation to stop Scarlett, she hadn’t considered what a bond with a familiar would mean to her.
Struck by the chilling though, she held very still beside Alexander as his breathing slowed. Please, she begged him silently. Let it be you.
.6.
A fter a few minutes of silence, when the languor of their lovemaking began to lift from him, Alexander stirred beneath Katrina’s arm. She rolled away, giving him space, and watched his face as he sat up. The camper was dim now, its narrow interior cast in dusky-purple hues. At first she could not determine what emotion, exactly, played on his sharp features—he was shrouded in cool shadows, unreadable to her. But then she noted his staring eyes, their stunned, disbelieving look, and a poignant crumpling of his expression. Not as if he was about to cry—she had a hard time picturing Alexander giving in to his emotions that completely—but as if he’d just found some momentous revelation. Some strange new reality around which he couldn’t quite wrap his mind—but the obvious truth of which he couldn’t deny.
“What?” Katrina asked gently.
Alexander jumped at the sound of her voice. He stared at her, his eyes wide and almost frightened, flicking over her features, her body, as if he had never seen her before.
“What?” Her voice was more urgent now. “Are you all right? Is it Scarlett? Are you under attack?”
Panic rising suddenly in her chest, Katrina laid a hand on his shoulder. His expression softened, just for a bare instant, and he laid his own hand atop hers. Then, as if her touch burned him, he roughly brushed her away. Alexander rounded on her, his blue eyes flaming.
“You witch.”
Taken aback by the anger in his voice, Katrina could say nothing. She only gaped at him helplessly.
“What did you do to me?” he said. “Did you cast some goddamn spell on me?”
“Alexander, what are you talking about?”
In one swift movement, he clambered over her body and snatched his discarded clothing from the camper’s floor. He refused to look at her as he pulled his boxers on, then stepped into his khaki slacks.
“Just what the hell is going on?” Katrina wrestled her bra back on, then scrambled into her jeans. “Don’t storm around like a giant toddler throwing a tantrum. Talk to me.”
She took him by the arm as he struggled with his cashmere sweater, trying with shaking hands to flip its inverted sleeve right-side-out. Katrina turned him so that he couldn’t look away—and dropped his arm in surprise. When his eyes met hers, their desolation frightened her. But behind his pain, she could see another emotion, drifting like a pale ghost.
Love?
“It’s a spell,” Alexander muttered, looking away from her as if ashamed. “It must be a spell.”
“I didn’t cast a spell on you. Did you see me making any circles or entreating the Four Directions while you were fucking me?” The truth was, Alexander had so taken her breath away that she couldn’t have mustered the brain power to weave the simplest charm, even if she’d wanted to. “What spell do you think I’ve cast? What magic do you think you’ve fallen under?”
He said nothing, clenching his jaw so hard that the muscles in his cheeks twitched.
Katrina folded her arms over her lacy bra, determined to wait out his silence. I can stand here and stare right back at you for as long as it takes, buddy.
Alexander pulled the sweater over his head and ran a hand through his hair. Then he sighed. “Love,” he said. “You made me love you.”
Katrina ruthlessly suppressed the warm, thrilling glow that spread outward from her heart. It was stupid, to moon over confessions of love at a time like this, when everyone associated with Alpha House needed to keep their heads in the game, their focus on bringing Scarlett down. But more than that, she didn’t want Alexander to see how his words had filled her with happiness. Then he’d really believe she had enchanted him—probably, he’d think she was trying to manipulate him into the familiar bond.
“I did not put a love spell on you,” she told him levelly. “That’s not the way I operate.”
“Well, what else could have done this to me? What could have made me forget all my feelings for…”
Roxy. Katrina truly had no hard feelings against the fox-shifter—she knew that Roxy certainly hadn’t chosen to be the object of every shifter’s desire—but all the same, she couldn’t help feeling a small, electric zap of triumph. It was no small feat, to make one of the Blackmeade boys sit up and pay attention to you, if you didn’t happen to be Roxy. And she had done it with no magic required. Not bad, she congratulated herself.
“You did this to you,” she told Alexander. “It’s just your heart, responding to what it truly wants. You should listen to your heart. It won’t steer you wrong.”
But again, he shook his head. “I refuse to believe that. This is too sudden, too extreme.”
“Is it, really, though? It’s not as if we’re strangers. We have a history.”
“It’s been more than a year.”
“That’s not so long, in the grand scheme of things. Is it so hard to believe that you could still love me, even though we’ve been apart? Even though Roxy has come into your life since?”
For a heartbeat, his eyes softened and his clenched jaw relaxed. But then he shook his head, and his laugh was bitter with denial. “Magic. This has to be your magic.”
“Oh, for the love of all that’s sacred,” Katrina blurted. “You really are dense sometimes, you know that? Here—watch.”
She tugged her shirt on, then rummaged in a few of her built-in cupboards until she found what she was looking for: the dried leaves of the baneflower plant—just the thing to aid the spell she was about to perform. She tossed the little silk bag of herbs in her hand, feeling its slight weight against her palm.
Alexander edged backward. “What are you doing?”
Katrina smirked. “It’s funny, how afraid of magic you shifters are.”
“What’s so funny about that?”
But she only rolled her eyes in response. Carefully, Katrina drew a circle around her body, sprinkling the baneflower leaves on the camper’s floor. Then she reached for the Powers—they’d grown even more callused and unwieldy during her time with Alexander—and began to weave in time to her chanting.
“Stream meets dam,
Wind and lee,
Fire is quenched
And Earth is cleaved.
If I do a liar be,
Take all Powers away from me!”
As she set the final weave carefully in place—more fearful than ever of snapping its brittle core—she noted the involuntary twitch of Alexander’s shoulders.
He felt it, she realized. He doesn’t realize what it was he felt, but some part of him recognized the setting of a spell. So I’m not wrong. Shifters do use the Powers. And this scheme to bond to a familiar should work out just fine, goddess willing.
“What was all that about?” A wary gleam was in his eye, and his shoulders were drawn up tensely.
“I cast a spell on myself,” Katrina said casually. She stepped out of the circle. The enveloping gri
p of the Power loosened as she moved clear of the spell’s casting site, but she could still feel its effects bridling her spirit. It had worked—she had laid a magical weave on her own heart and soul. “I enchanted myself, so that if I am a liar—if anything I’ve said to you is false—I’ll be cut off from the Power.”
Alexander frowned. He peered around the dusky Airstream, as if expecting an ambush of witches to leap out at him, clamoring and reaching from the shadows.
“I didn’t put a spell on you, Alexander,” she said, firm and clear. “If you love me now, it’s because you’ve really fallen in love with me, of your own accord. It’s none of my doing. It’s entirely yours.”
“How do I know you truly put that kind of a spell on yourself?”
“Because you felt it.”
He gave another tiny jump, as if he’d received a powerful static shock, and his hands formed instinctive fists. “I did not. Shifters don’t feel magic—we’re not witches!”
“Oh, don’t you? Well, if you insist. But you know you felt something, Alexander. You detected the magic, and you heard the words of my spell.”
“Well, how do I know whether you still have the Powers, then?”
Her eyes widened in shock. “Are you serious? Do you think I’d have put that spell on myself if I weren’t telling the truth? Would I willingly cut myself off from the Powers, and right when we need my skills the most? Give me more credit than that. I’m not a complete moron.”
“Still…”
His eyes flicked around the Airstream again, and Katrina saw his gaze land on the unlit beeswax candle, ready for her magical use, standing on the camper’s little fold-out table. Before he could look away, Katrina snapped her fingers. The candle flared to life.
Alexander gasped in surprise. Then he turned a slow, considering look on Katrina’s face. In the circle of golden light, she watched him shift from suspicious and frightened to calm…almost accepting. Or so she prayed.