by Nadine Mutas
Slowly, it lowered its head, and she couldn’t even see all of it hovering above her. It was just too huge. Its beak—if she wrapped her arms around it, her fingers wouldn’t touch, the girth that massive—loomed closer, closer, closer, until…
Sniff.
Her heart stumbled over its rapid rhythm.
Sniff.
She’d die here, wouldn’t she? Eaten by a giant monstrosity of a thing that shouldn’t exist…
A rumbling vibration, the beast cocking its head to the side, its eye—night-glow like a lion’s, and that was another absurdity in a string of bizarre impossibilities—now level with her face, so close she could have reached out and poked it.
Maybe…
She raised her hand on a flash of impulse—and found her fingers buried in softest feathers.
The beast had moved its head toward her touch, as if welcoming a caress. But…she’d intended to poke its eye out.
Transfixed, she slid her fingers through the plumage, the filaments tickling her. That rumbling again, vibrating against her palm.
And somewhere, deep inside her, an ancient awareness coiled and uncoiled, stretched in fire-edged darkness.
The words tumbling out of her mouth were foreign and familiar at once, her own…and someone else’s.
“Hello, old friend.”
An answering rumble, that piercing intelligence in its eye now tempered with a warmth that should be as inconceivable in a beast like this as was its existence.
The stars above winked out on a wave of darkness. The next second, power crashed down with the force of a missile, shaking the earth. Inky blackness over her senses, a blanket of magic so consuming, so enraged it stole her breath.
The beast screeched, tensed above her, flaring its wings.
An answering roar that made her quake from the inside out.
Arawn.
He slammed onto the ground on a wave of darkness and rage, and the earth groaned and cracked under his wrath.
The beast hovering over Maeve let loose a screech that shook the world, the span of its wings such it veiled the sky. Even otherworld creatures would run from a primal force like this, demons and shifters and fae alike.
He was none of those. Cut from the cloth that had shaped this world, he was fury made flesh, his singular focus on the beast that threatened what was his.
So he roared right back in his most lethal form, a panther as black as the night, his size enhanced by the sheer magnitude of his powers so it nearly matched the beast’s. When the Old One jumped in front of Maeve, blocking his view of her body, its talons digging into the ground as it spread its front legs in a defensive stance, the last threads of reason in his mind snapped.
Mine.
A wave of his magic lashed out, and the beast screeched, reared up on its hind legs, wings flaring wide as it took the blow, beat some of it back with a mighty flap of its wings. The muscles in his back and legs flexed in preparation for a lunge—
“Stop!”
Dimly, his mind registered the shout. He glanced to the side, to the flash of red hair in the dark of the night. Mine.
“Stop it!”
He narrowed his eyes, sent a tendril of his magic out to push her back, out of the way. The beast let loose an enraged cry as he shoved her—gently, with what was left of some heretofore civilized part of him—farther to the side. She landed with an oof on her behind, and he faced the beast again just as it launched itself at him.
They collided in the air, the crash of power rending the sky.
Thunder and earthquakes and a crippling tidal wave of magic.
Talons flashed, slashed, teeth snapped at feathers and fur, and they broke apart on another surge of power. Circling each other, a primal rhythm to their dance.
Faint yelling behind him. He ignored it. Prepared to lunge once more—but a yank on the bond inside him wrenched him back. He skidded several yards until his claws sank into the ground, found purchase. He glared at the fiery witch who stepped between him and the beast, her hands raised in each of their directions.
“I said, stop!” She glanced over her shoulder at the beast hulking behind her, its attention on him a lethal, writhing thing. “You, too,” she muttered.
And the beast…obeyed her. Remaining where it was, it did not attack him again. And neither did it pounce on her. It could have easily grabbed her and taken to the skies by now.
Her chest heaving with her fast breaths, she faced him. “Don’t hurt it. I think it…recognizes me. As a friend.” Her ginger brows drew together, as if she couldn’t quite make sense of it herself. “It wasn’t going to harm me.”
The Old One now paced behind her, wings rustling in the dark, its night-glow glance darting between her and him.
Arawn’s heartbeat pounded in his ears while the need to crush his foe waned. Slivers of logic and reason returned, and he remembered… This was not how he’d meant to handle an encounter like this. Bloody brilliant. He’d nearly ripped to shreds that which he intended to lure and ensnare.
Puzzled at the force with which all rational thought had fled him, he changed back to his human shape. Even though the beast now dwarfed him in size, his power still more than matched the Old One’s, and he made sure it felt the pressure of it in the air.
He took a step forward, eyes fixed on the beast, as he wove a whisper of his magic toward the creature.
You know me, that whisper said. You know what I am.
The ancient beast cocked its head, rustled its wings.
His powers twined around it, cajoling, soothing. Remember.
The Old One stopped its pacing.
Heed my call, as you once did.
Wings quivering, the beast stalked closer, closer…and lowered its head to meet Arawn’s outstretched hand. He touched its giant beak, stroked up into the feathers. The Old One closed its eyes on a sigh.
The night stood still for a breathless moment.
“Welcome home.”
Maeve stared. And stared. Her thoughts a jumbled mess, she gaped at the scene playing out in front of her. At the display of power that was all the more staggering for its quiet. If Arawn had been intimidating in his battle rage, the way he brought a beast like this to heel with nothing but dark magic hushing the night robbed her of breath.
He angled his head, glanced at her over his shoulder. “Check on Lucía.”
She started, rushed over to the slumped form of the other female who’d become more her friend than her guard over the past few nights, and touched her fingers to her neck. A steady pulse greeted her, and she breathed a relieved sigh. With no apparent injuries—all limbs accounted for and no blood—she was likely just knocked unconscious by the blast when the beast crashed down. She had been closer to the impact than Maeve.
“Still breathing?” Arawn asked.
“Yes.”
“Then she will be fine.” What could have been a callous remark was tempered by the affectionate confidence in his tone. He wasn’t dismissing Lucía—he was simply that sure of her strength.
After checking her friend over once more, Maeve went to his side, and the mighty thing that could have jumped straight out of a fantasy novel inclined its head to her as well. Shrewd, night-glow eyes studied her, seemingly to the bottom of her soul, and the creature who dwelled there stretching its talons toward it. Maeve reached out and caressed its feathers again.
“Tell me,” she murmured to Arawn, “that this is not really a griffin I’m petting.”
“You have grown up knowing magic and all sorts of creatures that humans would relegate to the realm of myths and tales. This is where you draw the line?”
“I’ve grown up hearing something like this being referred to as myth and legend by witches who fight demons every night. There are no accounts of beasts like this having ever been real.”
“Because you have been made to forget.” A murmur laced with an edge of age-old anger.
She frowned at him. “The Powers That Be?”
He nod
ded, his attention on the griffin as he stroked its mighty head. “They could not abide the beasts. Wanted them caged, their power leashed. But power such as this”—a languid caress, the griffin rumbling in response—“should never be shackled. Directed, perhaps. Guided. By those who know how.”
A shiver ran down her spine. “What are you?”
One side of his mouth tipped up. “The male to stoke your fire.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re being evasive.”
“And you are being nosy.”
She uttered a sound of frustration. “You’re not a demon, you’re not a shifter, and you’re certainly not fae.”
“Astute observations.”
“What else is there?”
“Given that you are still agape at this magnificent creature you did not believe existed before tonight, I would say the possibilities are myriad.”
“You truly are insufferable,” she muttered, turning back to the griffin.
“And you are sublime in your beauty when you climax,” he replied, his voice dark silk and lush seduction. “I want to see you like that again.”
Her heart jumped into her throat so fast she saw stars for a few seconds. Heat washed through her, centered throbbing between her legs.
Catching her breath, she asked, “So what other beasts are there?”
“What sort of myths have survived through the ages?”
She swallowed. “The one inside me…is it…?”
“You know its name.”
Her arms and legs tingled while an ancient presence breathed in darkness, in flame. “It’s a dragon, isn’t it?”
The smile he gave her was edged with feral appreciation.
Movement to the side, followed by a feminine groan. Silence, then— “If you guys wanted to adopt a pet, why not start with a damn puppy?”
Chapter 21
“Down here,” Hazel said, and held open the door to the basement of the Murray mansion.
Merle watched Thorne and Madhuri Gupta drag the unconscious witch through the hall and down the stairs. Blond hair hanging into her face, Lydia Novak didn’t look worse for wear except for a few scratches.
“This is even better than I hoped for,” Merle said to Thorne as she followed them into the part of the basement fortified to hold prisoners of the otherworldly sort. And now, witches too, in light of the tragically ironic turn of events in their community. “How did you manage to snatch an Elder witch?”
Thorne just smiled, his wintry blue eyes sparkling, but Madhuri—daughter of Shobha, and next in line to inherit the magic of the Gupta family—muttered, “He has quite the creepy talent when it comes to sneaking up on people.”
“Mausi,” Anjali, Madhuri’s niece, said, the word an affectionate address meaning “aunt” in Hindi, as Maeve had once explained to Merle.
The young witch had insisted on accompanying her demon mate to the Murray mansion after they decided to lock up the head of the Novak family here instead of at the Gupta residence. Hazel’s home did have the most advanced cells for holding prisoners, another legacy of the severe stance her sister Isabel had taken toward demons while she was head of the family.
Madhuri looked at her niece, shrugged with the shoulder not holding up Lydia’s body. “There’s only so much I can bend for him, Anju.”
“It’s all right,” Thorne muttered.
Anjali’s green eyes glistened, her features softening as she looked at him.
Hazel picked up the magically enhanced shackles in the cell, fastening them around Lydia’s wrists and ankles before Thorne and Madhuri laid her down on a cot. The manacles would sap her powers, make sure she wouldn’t be able to break through the wards enclosing the cell.
“Okay,” Merle said when Hazel locked the door after stepping out, “so we’ll start interrogating her when she wakes.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Madhuri said, retying her mahogany hair, “we might not need to use force on her at all.”
Merle frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Why not offer a prisoner exchange? Juneau has one of ours, we have one of hers. Let’s propose an exchange, and if she agrees, we won’t even have to storm into wherever they keep Rhun. This all could go down without resorting to unnecessary violence.”
Merle crossed her arms, chewed on her lip as she considered. “I will still burn her to a crisp at the first chance I get.”
“Of course,” Anjali chimed in. “She has that one coming. But I think I see what Madhuri is trying to say. If we get Rhun back first, we can attack her at a time of our choosing, with our ranks closed and at full strength, instead of scrambling to free him and maybe having to hold back because we don’t want to risk harming him during the attack.”
“She’s got a point.” Hazel nodded, her dark hair sliding over her shoulders.
Merle heaved a deep breath. “All right. Let’s send a note to that bitch.”
And hope to the gods she’ll agree, and soon. Every hour Rhun spent in the woman’s clutches cut another slice off Merle’s very soul, the faint echoes of his pain along the mating bond—which wasn’t enough to trace him with, dammit—raking claws over her heart.
Chapter 22
Arawn somehow found himself sitting on the couch in Maeve’s cabin while she cleaned the few of his injuries from the fight with the griffin that hadn’t yet healed. Completely unnecessary, seeing as those wounds—really, they were barely more than scratches; none of his internal organs hung out, and he wouldn’t even have to regenerate a limb—would close and disappear within the hour.
But he’d be damned if he told her not to put her hands on him.
Well, more damned than he already was…
So he sat, patiently, choosing wisely not to remind her how fast he healed. Instead he watched her face while she dabbed at the scratches with a cotton ball dunked in hydrogen peroxide. Studied her lips, pressed together in concentration. Counted the freckles sprinkled over her nose and cheeks. And those lashes… Unable to resist, he reached up and brushed a finger over them.
She stilled in her ministrations but didn’t draw back. “What is it with your fascination with my eyelashes?”
“They are copper-colored.”
A twitch of her lips. “I can’t be the first redhead you’ve met.” Her voice became deliberately casual. Too deliberately. “I’m sure you must have come close to a lot of gingers’ lashes over time.”
“None of them were yours.”
Her cheeks blushed rose. Those mesmerizing coppery lashes lowered, lifted again, revealed eyes of liquid fire woven with tendrils of smoke. “I thought you dangerous before,” she murmured, laying her free hand on his shoulder while she disinfected another scratch on his chest, “but for wholly different reasons than I do now.”
“Oh?”
Her throat muscles worked as she swallowed, and he had to lock his entire body in order to fight the impulse to lean forward and lick over that creamy skin.
“I had no idea,” she continued, “how much of a threat you’d be to a woman’s senses.”
He allowed himself a self-satisfied smile.
She tilted her head. “You heal fast, don’t you?”
“Yes. But this serious wound here needs your attention.” He tapped a scrape on his abdomen.
There was that almost-smile again, lighting up her eyes. “Well,” she said, her voice a tad huskier than usual, “I certainly don’t want to ignore your needs.”
And then she knelt in front of him, in between his legs, to dab at that negligible, blessed scratch. Every single muscle in his body tensed to the point of pain, his powers writhing under his skin. Her fiery hair teased him, invited his fingers to tangle in the strands…to tug and hold fast. He curled his hand to a fist instead, added this position and the erotic embellishment of the fantasy that went along with it to the list of things he would do with her. Later.
“I think,” he said, releasing the stranglehold he had on his powers just enough to twirl a dark vine of his energy arou
nd her, “you are as much of a threat as I am.”
She looked up at him, and the impact of that eye contact, in that position, nearly made him growl with sensual hunger. Not breaking that searing connection until the last second, she leaned forward…and kissed the scrape.
The touch of her lips on his skin, the heat of her breath, sent a bolt of molten lust straight to his groin. His hardened cock twitched against the fabric of his pants. Breath coming unsteady now, he allowed himself to stroke that hair of silken flames when she drew back—and he made sure she saw his hand before he touched her, knew it was him. Her lids half lowered as he caressed her hair, running his fingers over her scalp in sinuous moves.
Still, her posture held a whisper of tension, of apprehension, as she regarded him from between his knees.
“In time,” he murmured.
She nodded at the reminder, her shoulders relaxing.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” she said after a moment, her voice a little shaky from his caress. “The bobcat…it healed so fast. I do, too—even though not quite as quickly as the cat—and I was wondering if maybe that’s because I got some of your healing power when I bound myself to you, and I transferred it to the bobcat? I’m not sure, but I think my blood dropped on its open wounds when it scratched me.”
He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. “My blood needs to be ingested to catalyze any self-healing of the body. Mixing it with someone’s blood is not enough.”
“But…” She frowned. “I didn’t drink your blood.”
He inclined his head. “Whatever healing power you have is your own.”
“Huh.” Her brows shot up. “Fancy that.”
“I believe,” he said with silken sensuality, “there is another brutal gash on my back.” More like a bruise, probably, but who was he to split hairs?
She pursed her lips, humor glinting in her eyes. “Of course there is.”
Picking up her cleaning and disinfecting supplies, she stepped onto the couch, kneeling behind him as he scooted forward. Her hands slid over his back, and he closed his eyes for a moment, his magic humming inside him.