Sinful Magic: A Wing Slayer Novel

by Jennifer Lyon

  It had been magic that tore her parents apart, turning her father’s love into something ugly. It made Roxy’s stomach churn. Would her father come to hate her if her powers Awakened?

  And what if she fell in love with a man? Her limited experience with sex had already shown her that she made men uneasy; they complained that she was too demanding, wanting too much from them. And that was without her magic; once her magic surfaced, she would need sex to feed her power. Would one man be enough? Or would he resent feeling like a stud service for her magic?

  All this circled in her mind as she saw the picture on his phone. “How did you get that?” She made a grab for his phone, desperate to delete it.

  He snatched the phone back. “Better question is how he got the shot, since this appears to be the inside of your thigh.”

  The tone of his voice took her aback. You’re like your mother, aren’t you? I can feel it. Since she’s not here, you’ll do. Sweaty hands shoving up her nightgown … Roxy shook off the old memory. That man had been jacked up by her mother’s sex magic. He broke into their house and when her mom hadn’t been there, he’d come to Roxy’s room. She’d only been eleven, just a little girl. But the guy hadn’t cared; her mother’s sex magic had him insane with lust. Fortunately her mom arrived home at that moment and all kinds of hell had broken loose. And now there stood Key, using that tone, like she somehow deserved this. “How do you think?” she snapped, then turned to the closet, yanked out her suitcase, and stormed into the room.

  Key turned aside so she could pass.

  She walked back to the closet and wrenched clothing off the hangers and hurried back to dump them into her suitcase. Next she got her shoes, and threw those in.

  She went to the dresser and reached in, pulling out her underwear.

  “Pretty.”

  His voice was so close she could feel it on her neck. Roxy looked down. Siren red and robin’s egg blue silk spilled over her fingers. The cool satin contrasted sharply with his warm damp breath.

  The schema on her inner thigh tingled. And spread … her skin began to feel tight, and—

  No! Oh sweet crone, this was everything she had feared. Her Awakening invoked intense desire and feelings, and she barely knew him. He could be a crazy killer! Okay, she knew he wasn’t; if he’d wanted to hurt her, he could have last night. He’d helped her when she’d thrown up. But he was a witch hunter, which made this even more impossible. As her Awakening, sex with him would release her magic. And she believed, destroy her dreams of finding real love and having a family. As a mortal she could have that. As a fertility witch? She didn’t think so, not from what she’d seen between her parents and her own experiences.

  He was also physically dangerous to her. That sudden, intense surge of magic in her blood could incite the bloodlust in Key and he’d kill her. Cut her over and over, smearing her blood over his skin to absorb the power.

  The feel of his breath on her suddenly felt accusing instead of sensual. Better question is how he got the shot, since this appears to be the inside of your thigh. She didn’t care what he thought of her. Dropping the panties and bras, she whipped around and said, “That picture is why I broke up with him.” She closed her eyes, trying to get control. “I didn’t know he had his camera in the bedroom.”

  “He took it while you were asleep?”

  She opened her eyes and corrected him. “Sex.” It had been so long, and Mack had seemed like a good enough guy. She’d known he wasn’t her Awakening, and she just craved … touch, intimacy. And secretly, she was hoping that since her schema had begun to fade, no magic would surface during sex. It was the only time she showed any power, and it was just a trickle, but it opened up a pit of want in her that no one could seem to touch. The only two other men she’d slept with had reacted like there was something wrong with her. Something … unnatural.

  “He used sex to get close enough to take that picture?”

  She remembered how Mack had told her that he wanted to see all of her. Then telling her to close her eyes, let him. “As soon as I saw the flash, I realized he was a sick creep and I threw him out. I should have destroyed the camera.” She’d been so upset, embarrassed. Ashamed. Stupid.

  “He tricked you.” Lifting a hand off the dresser, he touched her face. “What did he do? Tell you to close your eyes and then acted like he was going to go down on you, bring you pleasure, then when you’re lying there, spread out for him …” His eyes burned molten gray with flecks of blue.

  She had a whole different image in her head. Key, kneeling between her legs, his fingers skimming that mark, and then rising higher, toward her desperate heat. The mark flamed hot, little tendrils of warmth spreading outward. She squeezed her thighs. “Don’t.” Curls of shame made her turn her face away from his touch, from his eyes. “Back off.”

  He dropped his hand and stepped back.

  Growing edgier, she demanded, “What do you want? Why can’t you leave me alone?” She scooped up the bras and panties and threw them into the suitcase.

  He perched on the edge of the dresser. “We found—”

  “We?” Her paranoia reared up.

  Without a pause he said, “Wing Slayer Hunters. We’re witch hunters who have recommitted to our Wing Slayer god. We’ve vowed to protect witches like you.”

  She nodded. “Axel Locke and his crew.” Her mother had told her about them. She bitched about Darcy and Carla trying to take over the Circle Witches online group that she had started. Did Key know who her mother was?

  “Yes. Axel is our leader chosen by Wing Slayer. But the hunter helping me with Mack’s computer was Sutton West. He’s a computer expert, and mated to a witch named Carla.”

  “Soul mirrors,” Roxy said, surprised how much information she’d absorbed from her mother. Gwen Banfield was bitter that these witches had found a solution to the curse that had stripped witches of their familiars and high magic, while she hadn’t. It all stemmed from the curse cast three decades ago by demon witches trying to bind witch hunters as their familiars. The spell twisted into a blood and sex curse, causing all the witches’ and hunters’ souls to be pulled out, joined, and then halved. The result was their souls were damaged. The hunters’ bond with their god was broken, causing them to lose their immortality and saddling them with a ferocious craving for sex and the power in witch blood. Witches lost their bond with their familiars and their high magic. The hunters that had once guarded earth witches now slaughtered them for the power in their blood. Then Axel and Darcy discovered they were two halves of the same soul, and once they were joined, the curse broke for them. She pulled out of her thoughts when she realized Kieran was talking.

  “Mack is working for Liam, my brother. It was all there on his computer, including pictures of five other fertility witches that are known to have been killed by rogues.”

  Roxy sank down on the edge of the bed. “But I’m latent! How did they know I’m a fertility witch? How did Mack know? I never told him, I don’t tell anyone I’m a witch. Or was it just an accident that we dated and he found the schema?”

  Kieran’s mouth pulled tight. “I don’t think it was an accident.” He pushed off the dresser, took out his phone, scrolled, then walked over to hold it out to her. “I had Sutton e-mail the file to my phone. Look for yourself.”

  Her palms were slick with sweat, but she took the BlackBerry. The throb spread to her entire head as she went through five pages of different witches with the schema, although none of them had the complete schema as she did. “This was on Mack’s computer?”

  “Same place I got the picture of your schema.”

  Handing his phone back, she felt the betrayal burn in her chest. “You’re sure about this? That Mack was drugging me to take me to your brother?”

  Key shoved his phone into his pocket. “I called the phone number we got off Mack’s computer—it was my brother’s voice mail. Sutton will try to track the phone, but it’ll be a prepaid. I went out searching for any sign of him last night, b
ut didn’t find anything.” He stared down at her, frustration tightening his face. “You said you’re latent. When do fertility witches come into their power?”

  Roxy was so rattled, she answered without thinking. “When they find their Awakening.”

  He sat next to her. “Which is?”

  She hesitated, her hand digging into the bedspread between them.

  “Roxy, we’re trying to help.” He covered her hand. “Witches are being killed.”

  The warmth of his fingers covering hers raced up her arm, inflaming her schema while settling her churning stomach. “A man. The fertility witch has to find the man that causes the chemical reaction in her to release the magic in her chakras. If the witch doesn’t find him, her chakras die off, and she becomes mortal.”

  “The schemas with color …”

  “Means the witch found her Awakening,” she explained. “The full color means they had sex.”

  “Sex magic,” he said softly. “Your power is based in sex.”

  She looked over at the hunter next to her. Images filled her mind—Kieran pushing her back, covering her with his huge body, and then kissing her. Heat pulsed in her schema, sending out those tendrils of desire to flicker enticingly. What was wrong with her? She never fantasized! Just being near him for a few minutes weakened her. She needed distance. She was so close to her chakras dying. Ignoring the desire forming a throb between her legs, she pulled her hand free and stood up. “I’ll be careful. I’m moving to a friend’s room and—”

  “Not good enough,” he practically roared at her.

  Pinned between his huge body and the bed, she couldn’t step back. “What is wrong with you? You warned me, your job here is done.”

  He ground his jaw, his hands flexing at his sides. “My job is to protect you. We’ll move you into my room and—”

  “No, and I’m not your job!” Even if he hadn’t been her Awakening, she wasn’t moving into a man’s room, a man who was practically a stranger. A man who drew a naked picture of her cut and bleeding on his wall. She could hire a bodyguard, if needed.

  He put his hands on her shoulders. “Do fertility witches have needs?”

  His warm hands made her catch her breath. “Needs?”

  He caressed soft circles. “I can feel you, I know you respond to me.” He lowered his head, and said in a thick tone, “I can smell your caramel desire.”

  Too much! Roxy froze beneath the onslaught. The feel of his warm hands sliding down her arms, and then back up and over her shoulders. He brushed his full mouth, so solid and hot, against hers. Tremors ran down her spine, her nipples tightened, and a pulse began to beat deep in her pelvis. It was more than she could handle. “What are you doing?” She meant to yell, to push him away, but it came out a soft whisper.

  He raised his hand to capture her face. His eyes were igniting to a fierce blue. Pulling his head back a fraction, he said, “You feel it, too, there’s a pull between us.” He pressed his swollen cock against her belly, “I want to give you pleasure, give you everything you need.”

  Frustrated fury nearly choked her. She had to get away from him! The pinpricks in her schema intensified to a near burning, crying out for the touch of her Awakening. He was turning her into exactly what she didn’t want to be—a witch controlled by her hormones. She’d lose everything she was working for—a chance to be loved without fear of her magic destroying it. A chance for a family. Her thoughts gave her strength and she caught his arms, jerked his hands off her face and said, “No!” Her heart hammered, her blood thundered, and adrenaline blew her anger into an inferno. “Last time I tried to have sex, that creep took a picture of my schema. That’s what happens when I let passion and hormones control me. So I don’t have sex.”

  “I won’t hurt you.” He ground his jaw in anger. “I sure as hell wouldn’t take a picture of you and put it on the Internet.”

  “No, you just draw naked, mutilated pictures on the wall of your hotel room. That’s so much better.” Remembering that, she said, “Is it still there?” What if housekeeping saw it or—

  “It’s gone.” He snapped the words. “And that was different. If you don’t want sex, fine, but you need protection.”

  From him! She ripped her gaze away and stormed into the bathroom, gathered up her stuff, and dropped it all into her travel bags. Then she went out and shoved those into her suitcase. She zipped it up, yanked it off the bed and dumped it on the floor. Her hands were shaking, the mark on her thigh burned, and her life was spiraling out of control. So she told him the blunt truth. “My schema is trying to make me have sex to find my Awakening.”

  Kieran’s face softened. “Roxy—”

  “No. I’m not going to Awaken. Not now or ever. I want my chakras to die off, and I will become fully, completely mortal.”

  His mouth dropped.

  Finally she was getting through. “Kieran, I appreciate the warning about Mack and Liam. I’ll be careful. You’ve done your job, now leave me alone.” She pulled out the handle, rolled the suitcase toward the door, and left.

  The multiauthor signing was scheduled for two hours.

  He’d made it an hour and twenty minutes so far. The noise in the large room was thunderous. The scent of sweat, perfume, latex, and marker was cloying. Many of the fans were dressed in costumes; Star Trek and Star Wars were always popular. So were X-Men and Transformers, a few even dressed as Dyfyr. Some stayed true to the comic books, keeping the dragon charcoal or black with only bloodred accents. A few added their own color.

  Key’s line for autographs still snaked around the room. Impatience pounded in his head and tightened the muscles of his neck. His hand cramped and his bloodlust was starting to burn and swell his veins. He needed sex.

  Automatically, he searched the room, his gaze passing over the authors and fans until he saw Roxy. She stood with a large man sporting a cop haircut and wearing a lightweight jacket over his gun.

  Bodyguard.

  But a mortal one, and that wasn’t good enough. Liam or any witch hunter could shift his memory and get him to do whatever they wanted. Hell, they didn’t even need to do that; Key could pick up Roxy and run, and he’d be out the hotel and partway down the street before the bodyguard reacted.

  A darker emotion slithered through him. What if she let that man touch her? Ease her? He clamped down on that thought. But damn, she looked hot. She wore a black skirt, a blue green, sleeveless, button-down top, and had her red hair pulled back into a clip. Fresh, yet so curvaceous and enticing.

  He was attracted to a fertility witch. That gave him pause. He wasn’t dumb enough to assume all fertility witches were willing to pervert their magic as the one who helped his mother had done. Still, he wasn’t a fan. But Roxy was latent, she didn’t have her magic, so what did he care?

  She must have felt his gaze, turned, and looked at him. Her fair skin darkened. They were hyperaware of each other. She turned away, resuming her conversation.

  He felt the loss, a return to the emptiness. Weird shit. He drew to pour out his rage and violence to be empty and clearheaded. But Roxy, when he drew her, saw her, or touched her, reversed the flow and made him feel as if a vital part of him had been drained and asleep, and was now waking.

  Soul mirror.

  The thought stunned him, and he rejected it. In the soul-mirror couples so far, the tattoos on the witch hunter came to life, giving the hunter real wings and acting as a kind of familiar for the witch and helping her control her high magic. The way to find out if they were soul mirrors was usually for the hunter to touch the witch’s blood, and the wing tattoo recognized his soul mirror.

  But Roxy was latent. She wasn’t his soul mirror. Hell, Kieran was a product of magic. When his mother had been pregnant with him, she’d taken the Tear to a fertility witch and had her do a spell to call the soul of a dragon into him. When he’d started drawing dragons as soon as he could hold a crayon, his mother said it worked. Key had always known the dragon was there, even knew his name: Dyfyr. It
was like his hand or his foot, just there.

  But he soon came to understand that he was a freak of magic, produced by a powerful Dragon Tear, a mother obsessed with immortality, and an unscrupulous fertility witch. A monster. Not the stuff of soul mirrors. No way in hell was he unleashing this dragon on any woman. The creature, when he surfaced, was furious.

  Besides, soul mirrors exchanged sex and blood, and formed a bond. A relationship. Key didn’t do relationships—he had destroyed people he loved or loved him. While dying, his mother blamed him for not saving her, though he never knew how he was supposed to when she wouldn’t take the Tear off. Then there was Vivian, their baby …

  He shut it down before the old guilt suffocated him. No, he didn’t sign up for that kind of grief. He could endure any physical pain. He’d had enough practice thanks to his father and Liam, so he knew how to survive that. But he wouldn’t allow himself to destroy another woman.

  His mind was in a turmoil trying to sort it all out. And yet his gaze returned to Roxy, sliding down her back, over that full ass and the length of her legs. His groin tightened, and the need to touch her ached in his chest. Sex he could do, but she didn’t want it. At the very least, he had to make sure she was safe. Finish this signing while Phoenix and Ailish were out sniffing around town seeing if they could get any information on Liam.

  Vivian flashed in his mind again, her skin so pale, her lips gray as he held her. He’d been desperate to save her, but it had been hopeless. His hatred of Liam burst like a firework finale in his head. Being an artist, his mind redrew the scene so it was Roxy’s face …

  Low complaints cut into his thoughts.

  “Hey!” said a woman dressed as Princess Leia.