* * * *
Jolene woke and immediately knew she was not in her little bed in Uncle Marshall’s cabin. Her head felt muzzy, and it took a couple of minutes to take in her surroundings, but they didn’t feel familiar. She was in another cabin, this one with knotty pine walls, one that felt newer and much larger. And the bed was enormous and soft beneath her, quite unlike her narrow, firm little bunk. She tried to sit up and found her hands tied to the headboard. Déjà vu.
“Ah, you are awake.”
Jolene squinted into the early-morning light flooding in from the large windows and made out the large shape silhouetted at the end of the bed. It was Terry. But then she surely would have known if Xander or Sulieman were close. She should have been terrified but instinctively knew Terry wasn’t going to deliberately hurt her and cause her pain. No ill will or nasty intention emanated from his body. She could sense his sexual intent however, and didn’t want to consider the ramifications of that.
“Please untie me.”
Terry sauntered around the bed to stand by the side, looming over her, staring down at her. He wore jeans and a T-shirt and appeared as rugged and buff as ever, but he also looked tired, a little worn around the edges, and sad somehow. Jolene held her tongue and waited for him to respond.
“I can’t release your hands, witch. The ancient teachings warn against that. I can’t allow your touch until we have mated. You have led me a merry chase, and I only recently sensed you, and that was a fortuitous accident. I was heading to the forest.”
“I’m not mating with you, Terry,” Jolene said quietly, wondering how a Caprine could have sensed her. “I’m not mating with anyone from your realm.”
His face darkened for an instant, and Jolene briefly wondered if she had misread him, but his next words clarified things. “So the Ipotanes have found you before now and talked to you of our realm. Or have you been there already?”
Jolene thought fast. She didn’t want to give up any advantage, and it appeared Terry was not at all impressed with the Ipotanes. She chose the answer least likely to provoke him.
“I’ve been there in another time,” she lied with impunity. “I know what you want, but it’s not me.”
“I want a witch, Jolene Phillips, and I know you are one. I figured it out after you came to get your friend Becky and succeeded in keeping us all at bay. There is no other explanation. And you don’t deny it.”
Jolene sighed. “I don’t deny it, but my magyk is at rest. I refuted it.”
Terry began to pace, his big body graceful in its movements. He turned an anguished face to her. “I don’t think it is resting, witch. I believe I sensed you because of it. But if it is only asleep, I will find a way to awaken it within you. Perhaps with pleasure. Perhaps in another manner. But I will awaken it, Jolene, because we Caprines have the same right to govern as the Ipotanes. We refuse to be subjugated any longer. The ancient words tell us of the times when some of us, maybe any of us, could mate with witches if it was destined, and I am tired of looking for mine. Perhaps you are the one. I would find this out.”
“But we aren’t destined, Terry. You must know that if you read those ancient teachings!”
He scowled at her. “What do you know about destiny? Are you destined for another? Are you mated?”
Jolene rolled her head from side to side on the pillow. “I’m not mated and never will be. I have no destiny. It has been denied. Now, please, Terry, release me. I’ll go back to my home, and we won’t speak of this again.”
For a moment, she thought she convinced him. Terry, Terach, moved to lower himself in a chair by the window and stared out of it for an indeterminate length of time. Then he turned back to her, and his words chilled her.
“I will go back to read the teachings again, but there must be a way. I have a little magyk, and it may speak to yours. Caprines aren’t supposed to have any gifts, but I have a small one. We are supposed to be content with our lot and confine our excesses to sexual pleasure and other such gratifications. But we want more. We want a place within the Council and a voice. But most of all we want to share in the magyk. Someone in my family must have had magyk to pass it down to me! I would rule our realm, but I find myself sadly lacking in followers thanks to those Ipotanes. That will all change once I have a witch and her magyk to join with mine.”
He shoved up to his feet and roamed toward the bed again. This time he sat beside her hip and leaned closer. She could smell his warmth and woodsy scent. Terach was a very attractive creature, and his eyes drew her the most. She could understand how Becky had fallen so hard for him, not to mention the impressive bulge in his jeans. Her face tightened at the thought of Becky, and Terry picked up on it.
“What is it?”
Jolene threw caution to the winds, reverting back to her old self in the blink of an eye, remembering her promise to Arion to spoil Terach’s day if he hurt Becky. “You used my friend, you jerk,” she accused him. “You used her and broke her heart.”
To her surprise, Terry pulled back from her as if stung. He set his mouth and narrowed his eyes, but not before Jolene saw something else on his face. It looked like regret and not a hint of pain. She thought she should push him further. “She still hasn’t recovered, and she blamed me! How could I tell her you didn’t really want me, that you wanted a witch?”
Terry muttered a few incomprehensible things and focused on her again. “How did you know I wanted a witch?”
Oh boy. Terach wasn’t a dumb goat guy. How did she know he wanted a witch?
“I just guessed,” she said hopefully. “I mean, why else would you want me when you had Becky?”
For a moment, Terach, better remember to call him Terry, softened. He smiled at her. “Becky was special indeed, Jolene, and you are a good friend to her. I sincerely regret having to, uh, blow her off. But it was necessary for the greater plan. And you shortchange yourself. I can see the very real attraction in you.”
He lifted his hand to his throat, and Jolene saw the heavy links of a gold chain supporting a pale stone. Even as she watched, it appeared to pulse with a faint light, and Terry closed his hand around it, becoming visibly calmer. She could see through the masking spell now, and she closed her eyes lest he read her.
“I will leave you now and return as soon as I am able, Jolene. I will know then what it is I must do.”
Jolene’s eyes popped open, and she sputtered. “You can’t just leave me here, tethered to the bed! What if there’s a fire? What if something happens to you and you don’t come back? My uncle will be frantic! And I have to use the bathroom!”
She was truly panicked. While she felt her magyk, it was still distant, and if it didn’t awaken fully and if Terry didn’t return…well, Jolene was damned if she was going to wither away and die tied to a bed!
Terry stared at her with those remarkable eyes, and Jolene felt a frisson of arousal despite herself. No wonder Becky became so distraught after being with him and connecting with him. The feeling faded almost as quickly as it had come, and Jolene wondered if it was actually arousal or if his magyk had connected with hers. And that piece of information just popped into her head like some kind of fantasy trivial pursuit!
He pulled a bandana out of his back pocket, and Jolene flinched as he reached down and tied it around her head. She was immediately disoriented and understood his intent. If she couldn’t see him, she couldn’t touch him, and if she couldn’t touch him, he would hold the advantage. She next felt him wrapping something around her wrists and realized it was duct tape or something like it from the rasping tearing sounds. Her hands were freed from the headboard but tied in such a way she couldn’t turn the palms out and away from the other. Terach seemed to know a considerable amount about her abilities. When he pulled her up and stood her on her feet, Jolene swayed, both from the disorientation and from the pins and needles immediately filling her lower extremities. That, and her head ached. He must have drugged her.
A gentle
push between her shoulder blades guided her, and she felt the difference in floor coverings beneath the soles of her feet as she took baby steps. It felt like tile, so she was probably in the bathroom, and his next actions confirmed it. He tugged her panties down to her knees and then told her to turn and lower herself to the toilet. Jolene felt her T-shirt hover comfortingly around her thighs and hoped he hadn’t taken a cheap peek. She cautiously lowered herself onto the commode as it bumped the back of her legs, and she heard the door shut. She reached for the improvised blindfold and clumsily pushed it from her face. Terry had given her some privacy, and with a sigh she emptied her bladder. She awkwardly pawed some tissue onto her fingertips in order to wipe, although it was at best a clumsy job.
Terry’s voice came through the door. “Are you finished?”
Jolene looked around quickly, trying to find something to cut her binds with, but there was nothing but soap and towels at her level, and the medicine cabinet was well beyond her reach. She fumed and then answered in the affirmative, struggling to her feet. Her panties slithered to the floor, and she was in the process of bending over to try and pull them back up when Terry opened the door. He reached in and turned her to face away from him, clearly wishing to avoid any possibility of her touch. He stepped her backward, and she felt her panties slip from her ankles.
“My underwear,” she protested.
Terry didn’t reply, simply hurried her back to the bedroom in an awkward, backward gait, where he used the momentum to roll her onto the bed. He took a coil of rope to snag her hands, and Jolene once again felt herself tied to the head of the bed. Only this time she felt far more vulnerable and exposed. Her T-shirt barely covered her sex, and she daren’t move for fear the fabric would climb higher. Terry stared down at her, and his golden gaze smoldered with lust. He trailed a hand over her belly and across her mound before yanking his hand away and pulling a light cover over her.
He held a bottle of water to her lips and gave her tiny sips until she had consumed perhaps half, and recapped it. He set it on the bedside table and smiled. “I’ll be back in a few hours, witch,” he informed her. “You will be all right until then.”
“But my uncle,” Jolene said, trying to appeal to him.
“The horse steward is fine, Jolene. I drugged him as well, so he will have awakened around the same time you did, if not before. He will not have to worry about your absence for long. If you are not to be my mate, then I will free you. If you are, then once it is done you will be allowed to so advise him. Be patient. I must determine if there is a way to reawaken your magyk and join it with mine.”
Jolene watched balefully as Terach left the room, shutting the door quietly. For a moment, she wanted to wish him straight to hell for drugging her uncle and drugging and stealing her, but she couldn’t make herself do it. If her magyk wasn’t napping, then she might actually kill Terach, and it wasn’t something she could do. At least not yet. And if she wasn’t able to awaken it, if it was just a faint shadow of its former self, then she could be in very real trouble. Because Terach was a fanatic and she doubted a little thing like an unwilling witch would stop him from trying to awaken her magyk with sexual pleasure. Her stomach churned at the thought. She strained at her bindings but couldn’t budge them, and her magyk only flickered when she asked it to help. The blanket made her feel a little more secure, so she resigned herself to waiting. She hadn’t missed his reference to her Uncle Marshall being a horse steward either, whatever that was. The coincidences just kept piling up, and she thought perhaps her uncle had withheld some things from her after all.
Chapter Eighteen
The canvassing of Jolene’s neighbors got them exactly nothing. No one knew where she had gone, and no one knew where her family lived. A few of the women confirmed a big, handsome man with strangely colored eyes came around looking for Jolene approximately three months ago. He’d made such an impression the females were still able to describe him quite accurately.
Sulieman struggled with his frustration. His brother was focused on the hunt, and because it was his job, he was better at managing the disappointment. Sulieman somehow believed they would immediately find some information to lead them to Jolene. His technical skills did not serve him well here.
“Patience, Brother.” Xander’s voice was calm. “We have yet to check the other options. Come, we’ll go to her friend Becky’s.”
Becky was next to no help at all. She hadn’t heard from Jolene since the day she left Sacramento, and while she initially worried something had happened to her friend, the fact that her parents were so circumspect when she called them had hurt her and made her suspicious. Becky told them in an angry, clipped tone that Jolene was obviously involved with a man and had no time for her friends. Further empathetic questions from Sulie, accompanied by soulful looks and lots of charm, determined Becky suspected Jolene of having an affair with her former boyfriend, Terry. Sulieman could only hope Becky’s suspicions were unfounded, although it would hardly be an affair. He personally would kill the Caprine in as painful manner as he could devise, and Xander would help him hide the body. All of his pacifist beliefs had gone by the wayside when it came to protecting their intended. They extricated themselves from Becky’s now-tearful reminiscences and went to the dance studio. Sulie remembered how Jolene felt in his arms when he’d had the privilege of comforting her in the shower. She was possessed of such honor, such ethics. He knew she was out there. He could feel her, and his cock nodded agreement, immediately echoed by the swelling of his heart. He led the way over to the dance instructor, and Xander willingly gave the lead to him.
“Ms. Minagre?” The elderly woman’s name was etched on the glass in the door of the dance studio, and Sulieman believed in making an immediate personal connection if at all possible. The tall, still-striking figure turned gracefully toward him, and the elegant, fine features dominated by a pair of snapping black eyes gave him her total attention.
“Yes?”
“My name is Sulieman Ahearn. This is my brother, Xander. We, that is, I am looking for Jolene Phillips.” Sulieman felt Xander’s mental protest at being relegated to the singular use of the pronoun, but they didn’t need to overwhelm this dance instructor.
“Jolene doesn’t dance here anymore, and I would hardly be comfortable in sharing personal information with you in any event.”
Sulieman turned on the charm, although far more subtly than with Becky. Ms. Minagre had lived much longer and was clearly the wiser for it.
“I appreciate your caution. I have no way of assuring you I mean Jolene no harm, but I confess I am in love with her and she with me. We had a falling out, a misunderstanding, and I would apologize to her.”
Xander’s sharp intake of breath nearly made him turn to look at his twin, but then he realized he’d simply paraphrased what Xander had been thinking and feeling all along. He smiled at Ms. Minagre and waited patiently. She looked him over from head to toe and made her assessment. Then she disappointed him.
“I have no idea of where Jolene went. She told me there was a family emergency and really couldn’t spare the time to talk. Now, if you will excuse me?”
“A family emergency?” Sulie put just enough question and concern into his voice to get her attention again. “Her parents?”
Ms. Minagre shrugged. “She didn’t say. She had to cut our conversation short and leave because her uncle was there to pick her up.”
Sulie hid his elation and thanked her gravely. He and Xander nearly ran from the building to the car, and Sulie powered up the laptop. This was where he excelled. No one had considered anyone other than very immediate family and friends. Jolene would have gone to someone who would support her, perhaps one who was also gifted. If only they had shared more time together to talk about their families and learn one another’s histories. But theirs was such a whirlwind romance, much too short for Sulieman’s taste, and he briefly thought of punching Xander, choking off the thought before his twin picked up
on it.
“I have found several male relatives. They live everywhere in this realm. How are we to rule them out?”
“Arion.”
Sulieman should have thought of Arion himself. He pulled out his cell and texted the elder. The reply took just minutes, but it felt like an eternity to them both. Contained in the text was a name and GPS coordinates. Sulie punched them in and closed the laptop while Xander cranked their vehicle over and pulled into traffic with perhaps more of a flourish than was necessary. The disembodied voice of the GPS unit calculated, and Xander pushed hard for a place near a town with a name sounding more of their world. Yreka.
The miles fell behind them, and once again there was no real need for speech. The pink line on the GPS unraveled swiftly on the tiny screen, yet the minutes crawled by.
“I feel her more strongly, Sulie.” Xander’s quiet comment was at odds with his intense focus on the road, and the tension fairly vibrated from his body. Sulieman was also anxious, but he knew Xander was now really looking ahead and recognizing what he personally would need to do when they came face-to-face with their witch. Sulieman didn’t envy Xander, although looked forward to the fringe benefits of their inevitable reunion. It would be magnificent. He had never lost faith despite the hiatus, and it was a measure of the enormity of the resulting separation Xander never felt it from him.
Sulieman reopened the laptop and scanned the information on Jolene’s Uncle Marshall yet again. The man was in his late eighties, and Arion knew of him, if only through fragmented stories. This realm’s Internet was an interesting phenomenon, if much of the information needed to be taken with a grain of salt. Still, Jolene’s relative had a very revealing history, and a close affinity with all animals, but especially with horses. Uncle Marshall Faulkner was a farrier in his distant past and now lived in what appeared to be isolation. Sulie wondered if he was one of those who could speak to the animals and subsequently found their company to be far more palatable than humans. He looked forward to meeting Uncle Marshall and hoped he might help the rest of her relatives understand if Jolene wasn’t amenable to using magyk to provide an explanation for their relationship. He cut his eyes to the GPS and noted that there was perhaps another two hours to go, although at the speed Xander was traveling, it was more likely they would arrive well ahead of schedule.
Riding Magyk Page 13