Visions of Skyfire

by Regan Hastings

  She fought for clarity, struggled to get a handle on the new powers crushing her. Her frenzied gaze flicked from one man to the next and found no comfort in any of their faces. They were dirty, their clothes sweatstained from life in the jungle. They were smiling, but there was no humor in their eyes. Each of them was carrying knives and guns and two of them wore bandoliers stuffed with more ammunition crisscrossed over their chests.

  Bandits.

  Teresa gasped in pain, clenched her thighs together against the burning need and shot the first man a wild look as his friends formed a circle around her.

  Her body was vibrating, the moonlight filling her beyond her ability to control it. Her powers might erupt at any second. She felt as if she were about to explode and if she did that while these men were close, they’d all die. The way she was feeling at the moment, she wouldn’t have a problem with that. But she wasn’t a killer, so she gave them a chance.

  “Stay away,” she said tightly through gritted teeth. She swallowed back another roar of pain and desperation. “I’m warning you, stay away from me.”

  “If you did not want company, little witch,” the man said, his English heavily accented, “you should not have worked your magic. The moon led us to you.”

  Of course it had, she thought wildly, her body thrashing as it searched futilely for release from the pulse of need crashing inside her. Magic ruled her body now, filling her up so completely that she was helpless when she most needed to be strong. She had had no idea the moon magic would be so powerful. She’d never heard of anything like this before and couldn’t explain it even to herself. She had opened her body and mind to a power that was all-encompassing, staggering in its strength.

  “Hold her.” One sharp command and four men sprang into action. They pulled at her arms and legs, holding her down spread-eagled against the dirt. Firelight danced in the dark. Moonlight continued to stream from the sky. Teresa twisted and turned, trying to break their grip, trying to call down the lightning before they could go through with their plan.

  But her power was too knotted inside her to be called so easily. There were too many sensations, too many thoughts, too much fear and no time to sort through it all. She jolted as the leader of the little band knelt in front of her and pulled out a machete stained with old blood.

  “Don’t!” She groaned the word, unable even to scream for the tight hold the moonlight had on her. “Don’t do this. I warn you.”

  “You warn me?” He laughed and slid the razor-sharp tip of the machete beneath the hem of her jeans. With a flick of his wrist, the blade sliced through the denim with a whisper. The man grinned and continued to slice until the blade had reached her hip and her bare leg was open to the kiss of the warm, thick air.

  “You are not in charge here, little witch,” he promised, his eyes fixed on the expanse of skin he’d displayed.

  Rune! She sent out the mental scream, hoping that somehow he would hear it. But she knew in her heart that they were not connected mentally. Not yet. He couldn’t hear her thoughts. If he could, he would already be here, tearing into these men like an avenging angel.

  Their grasp on her wrists and feet tightened and Teresa’s stomach fisted into an icy ball of dread and fear.

  The leader ripped off her ruined jeans and warmth snaked across her skin even as the pebbled dirt beneath her scraped at her flesh. Still she fought, battling the moonlight magic for control of her body as she struggled to free herself from the relentless grip of the men holding her down.

  The men laughed and Teresa struggled even harder. “Don’t do this,” she muttered. “You’ll be sorry if you do this.”

  Now the leader laughed, delighted at her threats. “Will you do a spell on me, bruja? I don’t think so …” He reached for the elastic band of her panties, twisting his grubby fingers in the fabric.

  In the next instant, the moonlight vanished. The pillar of light was gone as if it had never been and darkness enveloped all of them. She heard one of the men mutter a choked-off prayer, but the leader was not to be denied.

  He gave a harsh order in Spanish. Just to the right of them, the river roared. Bugs clattered and a monkey high in the trees screamed. In the blackness, hands fisted tighter around her limbs and Teresa felt as if she had been swallowed by evil. There was no way out. She couldn’t fight them. Rune wasn’t here. And wouldn’t come back in time.

  Would they kill her when they were finished with her? Was she going to die in this jungle, leaving her life, her quest, unfulfilled?

  No, damn it.

  She wasn’t going to die. She was going to find a way to survive, no matter what.

  Rune would come.

  Holding on to the mental image of him, she called on the last shred of her inner strength, focused her power and screamed, “Rune!”

  Chapter 46

  He felt rather than heard her cry. It was a knife to his chest. He sensed her pain. Her fear. And the danger closing in around her. Looking back toward their camp, Rune saw a towering pillar of moonlight and knew his witch was there at the heart of it. When that light suddenly winked out, he howled in rage, called on the fire and flashed back to his woman.

  At the campsite, he found Teresa on the ground, screaming as four men held her arms and legs apart while yet another hovered over her.

  He crashed into that man with a body blow that sent the tormenter flying into the jungle. Rune was after him a second later and in a rage beyond anything he had ever known before, he brought his own knife down in a swinging arc, slicing across the bastard’s throat. Not pausing to admire his handiwork, he raced back to the camp to find Finn snapping one man’s neck only to drop him alongside another of his dead friends.

  Teresa had come up on her knees and, trembling with shock and terror, was holding her hands to the sky, waving them frantically. Lightning flashed down and stabbed the jungle floor in an incredible sweep of power and majesty. The night shone with the brilliance of a million candles as lightning bolts pounded the trees, the river, the rocks. Animals screeched and Rune felt the very air burn along with Teresa’s frenzied movements. She jumped to her feet and kicked one man’s nuts into his throat and he dropped like a stone.

  Another of the bandits grabbed at her and Rune threw fire in a river of living flame that raced across the man, wrapping the bastard in what looked like a brilliant, fiery suit. He screamed and fled into the darkness, toward the river, no doubt planning on quenching the flames in the water. Rune smiled grimly. Water wouldn’t affect an Eternal’s flame. The bastard would continue to burn—he had dealt himself a cruel fate the moment he had touched Teresa.

  Rune’s fury wasn’t abated. He picked up the emasculated prick whimpering in the dirt and gave his head a hard twist, then dropped him like the trash he was. In the next instant, Rune was holding Teresa, pulling her close, running his hands up and down her body as if to assure himself that she was really alive. And safe.

  Quickly, he stripped out of his coat and wrapped it around her, giving her back her pride and dignity. He felt her tremble, her entire body quaking, and he hated himself for leaving her alone. If he had been with her, none of this would have happened.

  “You came,” she whispered, holding on to him and shuddering as if her bones were trying to vibrate out of her skin.

  He held her close, cupping her head to his chest with one hand. If his heart was capable of beating, he knew it would have been crashing against his rib cage. Rune had known danger and had always faced it with cool deliberation. But never had he tasted panic like he had just experienced.

  “Always, Teresa,” he whispered, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “I will always come. Did they hurt you?”

  “No.” She shuddered again and lifted her head to look at him. “They didn’t have time. But they were going to.”

  “Well, they won’t be trying that again,” Finn said, giving one of the bodies a good kick just for the hell of it.

  She shook back her hair and stared at him. “Who ar
e you?”

  “That’s Finn,” Rune told her, looking across the fire at his brother. Grateful he’d been here. “An old friend. He’s an Eternal. Like me.”

  One corner of Finn’s mouth curved briefly and flattened out again in an instant. “Don’t listen to him, Teresa. I’m way better than him.”

  She actually smiled and Rune felt relief slide through him like a cooling breeze drifting through hell.

  “Thanks for the help,” he said.

  “Not a problem.” Finn gathered up their supplies and stuffed them into the duffel bag before tossing it to Rune. “You and your witch ought to be on your way, though. Someone might come looking for this bunch.”

  “Right.” Rune tossed the strap of the bag over his shoulder and said, “You’ll take care of the bodies?”

  Finn grinned at him, lifted both hands and called on the fire. As the flames burned on his hands and arms, he said, “Cremation special, man. Don’t worry about it. Oh, and I’ll look into the other thing we talked about earlier.”

  At the moment, Rune didn’t give a flying fuck about the possibility of a rogue Eternal. All he cared about now was Teresa. Seeing that she was safe. Her body pressed tighter to his and he felt her rub her pelvis against his thigh. His cock jerked into action even as he told himself to get a grip. She’d come too close to disaster to be interested in any man—even her mate. So he swallowed back the need crowding him and muttered, “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Finn told him. “Just find that fucking Artifact, will you?”

  “We will.” The flames swarmed over the two of them and in an instant Rune and Teresa were gone.

  Chapter 47

  Teresa was still shaking an hour later when Rune escorted her into a small but clean motel room in a quiet town not far from Tierra Blanca, Veracruz.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, still dwarfed by Rune’s far-too-big black leather coat. “Is it safe to stay here?”

  “Safe?” he muttered thickly, tossing their duffel bag onto one of the two chairs in the room. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and said, “I thought the jungle would be safer for you and look what happened.”

  She spun around to look at him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

  “And I shouldn’t have done that spell without you close. So we both screwed up.”

  “But you were the one to pay the price.”

  “They didn’t hurt me,” she reminded him, feeling the swell and rush of the mystical moonlight energy swarming inside her still. “You stopped them.”

  He stalked across the room, grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into a fierce embrace. “I only wish I could kill them again. That they touched you tears at me, Teresa. That I left you alone rips my soul to shreds.”

  Teresa reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Don’t. Don’t take what they did and make it a part of us. It’s not. They were evil and now they’re dead and that’s the end of it.”

  He lifted his head to look down at her. She watched him search her features, looking for further assurance that she was all right. Unharmed. She understood his need and shared it. She wanted the chance to feel alive and safe. She had survived—she’d fought back and won. Her mate had been there when she needed him. And now, she wanted him.

  “Kiss me, Rune.”

  He did. Tenderly. And that one brief touch of his mouth roused the insistent clamoring need inside her. She pushed her hips against him and felt his erection pressing back. She groaned and swiveled her hips, feeding the fires inside her. “I need you.”

  “After—” He looked down at her and shook his head. “Teresa, wait. Take a shower. Rest. Then if you still—”

  “I opened myself to the magic, Rune, and if I were stronger, I’d have been better able to fight those men off. Being with you increases my strength—and I need your touch.”

  She grabbed one of his hands and moved it down, down across her bare skin to the very heart of her. Then she pressed his palm to her heated core and sighed at the first contact. She was hot and wet and so ready every nerve ending in her body was screaming for release.

  “Ah, God …” he groaned, sliding his hand over her sensitive skin, caressing that bud of desire until she let her head fall back on a sigh of bliss. He delved first one finger, then two, into her depths and she rocked on his hand, pumping her hips as she sought release.

  He gave it to her.

  Teresa lifted her face to his and through passion-glazed eyes, she watched as he lowered his mouth to hers. That first brush of his lips lit up her insides and when his tongue dove into her mouth, she met each caress eagerly. Tongues tangling in a wild dance of desire, their breath mingled as their bodies went up in flames.

  The moonlight magic simmered inside her, pushing her on, harder, faster. This was what she had needed from the moment she began her spell. She moved her hips on his hand, felt his fingers stroking her inner muscles, his thumb caressing her core, and it still wasn’t enough. She wanted to be filled by him. She wanted him so deeply embedded inside her that he would never be entirely apart from her again. She wanted his brand on her skin, his cock in her body, his seed filling her womb.

  “Rune, I need you. I need to feel you. Now. Oh, God, now.”

  “Take this first,” he told her, and she lost herself in the swirling gray of his eyes.

  She groaned his name and continued to move against his hand as tiny, shuddering explosions discharged inside her. When that orgasm ended, though, the fire was still there. Still burning, raging out of control. Calling down the moon had opened her body, her mind, her soul to the magic that only Rune could complete. “More.”

  Teresa shrugged out of his coat, then pushed at him, tearing at his clothes until he snapped his fingers and got rid of his own clothing and what was left of hers as well.

  “You’re trembling, Teresa,” he said, still stroking her core with steady, driving thrusts of his fingers.

  “It’s the moon,” she whispered, reaching down to curl her fingers around his hard, thick erection. “It filled me, lit me up and left me so hungry for you, I don’t think I’ll ever get my fill.”

  He hissed in a breath and held completely still as she used both of her hands to hold him, stroke him, cup him. Tiny sparks flew from her fingertips and danced across his skin, increasing the heat of her touch, intensifying each caress. He groaned and Teresa smiled with anticipation as his hunger grew to match her own.

  “I want you in me,” she whispered, suddenly squeezing both hands around his erection, dropping to her knees to take the tip of it into her mouth.

  “Damn it, Teresa!” His voice was a snarl of barely leashed passion.

  She looked up at him and smiled, loving what she could do to this man. This amazingly strong, fierce warrior. Keeping her gaze fixed on his, she took him deeper into her mouth, letting her tongue and teeth scrape across his sensitive skin until his massive body trembled with the force of his own self-control.

  But she didn’t want him controlled.

  And in the next instant, she got exactly what she wanted.

  He reached down, yanked her up against him, then tossed her onto the bed. He was on her in a heartbeat, his huge body covering hers, weighing her down on the bed. She felt the cool glide of the bedspread beneath her heated skin. She felt the hard, muscular planes of his sculpted body atop her and shivered in response. His erection was so close to her center. So near to entering her.

  She lifted both legs, gripping the backs of her knees with her hands as she parted her thighs to his gaze. His eyes locked on her and she felt even hotter with him looking at her, naked and vulnerable to him. “Rune, I’ve been waiting. I can’t wait anymore.”

  “Neither can I.” He lifted her hips off the bed, positioned himself and then drove deep inside her.

  On that first, hard thrust, Teresa gasped in satisfaction. He filled her as completely as the moon magic had. She was overflowing with what he meant
to her. What he could do to her. What he made her feel. He had saved her. He had always saved her. She felt it. And the connection between them burned even more brightly.

  “Again. God, again.” She groaned the words and let go of her knees as he positioned her legs across his shoulders.

  She was high off the bed now and she didn’t care. This way he could go even deeper inside. In this position, she could take him more completely within her than she ever had before and that was what she wanted. Needed. With a hunger that wouldn’t be satiated.

  His powerful hips moved against her, claiming her over and over again. He went deep and then deeper still. He rocked into and out of her body like a man possessed and she shared that passion. She reached up, running her fingers across the branding tattoo that was burning into his flesh right before her eyes. She felt the sting on her own skin and knew that she too was being marked more indelibly.

  Teresa grabbed hold of his upper arms, digging her fingernails into his skin to hold on tightly. He drove into her relentlessly, furiously. Tension peaked inside her, tightening, coiling into a spring that shivered on the edge of explosion, and still he pushed her.

  She was hungry for it, wanted it all, needed it all. When he pulled her legs off his shoulders and then yanked her up to sit on his lap, Teresa went gladly. Now it was she who set the rhythm and she deliberately slowed it down, to torture both of them with the caress of skin against skin.

  He kissed her, taking her mouth with his until she was left gasping for air that wouldn’t come. And while his tongue entwined with hers, he set his hands at her hips and moved her faster, quickening their pace.

  She was panting now, staring into his eyes, feeling the sweep of release encroach ever faster and still it wasn’t enough. Suddenly he pulled free of her body, as if he’d heard her frantic thoughts. Tossing her onto the mattress, he flipped her over as he had once before and Teresa sighed, “Yes …”