by C. M. Owens
Kane glowers at Gage's contact with me, but the dark user doesn't acknowledge him.
"What was her name?" I ask, looking to Dray for the answer.
"Whose name?"
"The witch they slaughtered."
"Oh. It was Sylvia. The most tragic part of it all, she wasn't even the witch they thought she was. At most, she would have been as strong as a medium-level light user."
"What?" I gasp.
"Unfortunately it's true. They later traced her bloodlines to learn that it wasn't her. They only thought she was the child from the lost daughter of Estella. The light secretly wanted to keep her safe in case the lost child of Dragona and Damon came to power one day."
My head is hurting again for a whole new set of reasons.
"Estella? Dragona? Damon?"
"They really don't teach you much about tragic history, do they?" Gage asks while kissing the side of my head.
"That's another story for another time. We need to focus on the witch who is after you and Kane, and then we'll go back to the light alliance connected to Isolis," Dray continues, his paternal tone ringing out.
"So, do I at least get to stay in the house now?" Dice asks, his old English accent becoming more pronounced.
Everyone chuckles lightly at that.
"Sure. I'll even let you have my room. I don't want to be in that bed anymore."
I shiver at how close I came to being touched by the hands of the night stalker still dead on my floor.
"What? What happened on the bed?" Kane and Gage both ask in unison.
Crap. I didn't mean to bring that part up.
"Nothing. He didn't do anything. It's just a creepy room with a creepy tale now. Dice got there before he could touch me."
"Fuck," Kane gripes before slapping the table.
"I'll get rid of our rotting corpses," Dray says while standing. "I've got the perfect dumping ground."
"I'm going to bed," Dice chimes in.
The room fills up with a black fog as Dray disappears, carrying Isolis's body with him. I don't know where Dice left the body of the dreamer, but I'm sure Dray will find it, too.
"I'm going to crash as well," Zee chirps, offering Kane a wink before heading up the stairs.
It's after three now. I'm tired, but now that I know my barricade isn't as safe as I once thought, I don't want to go to sleep.
"You can take my bed," Kane says softly. "I'll sleep on the couch."
"No. I'll stay on the couch," I sigh out while walking over to the stack of books Gage brought back from Drackus's.
They're all on spirits and rituals for calling spirits.
"Alyssa, take a bed. You can have either of ours," Gage grumbles while leaning up and resting his elbows on his knees.
"I'll be fine. I want to stay awake anyway. A bed will do me no good."
They both look so amazing, their eyes showing me their sincere concern. Kane stands and walks over to brush my hair from my face.
"Do you want to stay awake because you're scared? If so, I'll stay up and keep an eye out. A dreamer can't knock us out if we're awake. You can get some sleep."
A dreamer has nothing to do with it. Too much shit happens when my eyes are closed.
"Dreamers are a rarity, and I thought they were all on our side - light I mean. I'm just worried about the other four stones out there. Plus, I want to see if I can figure out which spirit this blond imposter is trying to summon."
"That's impossible," Gage sighs out. "All lives can turn into spirits unless sentenced to purgatory. They become trapped in the plane of the undead until called upon by someone. What we need to focus on are the powerful immortal spirits that can be summoned via three sacrificial slayings. That still doesn't narrow it down, but we can at least get a feel for what kind of immortal spirit we'll be facing. Each spirit has to be killed a different way. The body they possess is mortal, but the spirit keeps it immortal, offering it an undead life."
Undead life? That's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one.
"How do we know it's a three- killing-ritual?" I ask while sitting down on the chair.
Kane answers. "Because of the way Thad was killed. Each ritual requires the deaths to be done in a certain way."
Massaging my temples, I use my magic to open the book in my lap.
"Give it to me," Kane says while taking the book away. "I'll go through the book. You go get some sleep."
"No. I want to go through it. I don't want to sleep."
Kane huffs out, groaning as he grips his head; but he nods. "Fine. If anything else happens tonight, make sure you wake my ass up before a dreamer gets to me."
I half smile, the forced feeling not giving him much comfort. He kisses my forehead before walking away, reluctantly leaving me with Gage.
"Can I stay up with you?" he asks, giving me his best seductive smile.
"No. Don't make me have the same argument with you that I just had with Kane."
He frowns, but doesn't say anything else. He starts to leave when Dice emerges from above, walking back down the stairs.
"So much for sleeping. The energy buzzing in my veins is apparently like drinking fourteen pots of coffee. Anyone up for a game?"
He switches on the game system Zee bought, and Gage narrows his eyes before pulling my hand in his.
"You're sleeping in my room. I'm not leaving you alone with him."
Dice laughs. "Chill out. She's immune to my charms, and I did just save her life."
He saved more than my life.
"I still don't trust you," Gage grumbles.
Before I can argue, Gage's arms are around me, vaporizing me before materializing us in his new room.
"Gage, Dice isn't going to touch me."
"Damn right he's not. Just get in bed. You need sleep. Dice is staying up, so he'll be ready and on alert."
I sigh out, realizing how sleepy I truly am the more I come down from my adrenaline high.
"Fine, but stay on your side."
He smiles while pulling his shirt off, revealing his perfect upper body. The numerous symbols tattooed on him remind me the dangers of his affiliation with the Somage. The rippled, lean-muscled, toned perfection of his body leaves my mouth watering like a fool with no self-control.
He smirks when he catches my wandering eyes, and then he lies down on the far side of the bed.
"I promise I won't touch you."
He pulls the sheet over him, stopping it at his waist, and then he stares up at the ceiling while placing his hands behind his head. I get in beside him, careful to leave a substantial amount of space between us.
"Gage?"
He looks at me, possibly fearful of what I might say, and murmurs, "Yeah?"
I sigh out heavily, the weight of the night pressing down on me.
"What happens when they find out where I'm from and how powerful I'm meant to become? Will they panic the way they did with Sylvia?"
His eyes soften, genuine compassion seeping out.
"I won't let anything happen. You'd be surprised to find out how powerful I actually am. Don't worry about stuff like that."
"Why were they so freaked out? What did they think she could do?" I ask, still worried, despite him telling me not to be.
He sighs out, a burden tainting his breath. "They thought her to be more than a witch. Something completely different they didn't know how to respond to."
Something more than a witch?
"What did they think she was?"
"A new but old creature. A long time ago, there were some entities that roamed the earth with more power than they could rightfully control. Without control, you have power-mad beings capable of mass destruction with no remorse.
"Freya - the strongest of these creatures - did have control. She also had two daughters - two witches. One was Estella and one was Dragona. Estella was pure light, and Dragona was pure dark. As you've learned, just because your energy is dark, it doesn't mean you're dark. Until Dragona met Damon, she was as sweet a person as one could
imagine.
"After meeting Damon, she lost herself to the darkness of his heart. A self-proclaimed imperialist, Damon went after the throne. Only one who controlled all pieces of magic could be entitled to the throne. Freya was that sort of power. The throne was hers until Damon used Dragona to overthrow her. Freya wouldn't fight back against her own child and Dragona slay her mother in the very castle she and Damon seized control of.
"Long story short, Dragona and Damon ruled with fear until Estella was forced to fight against her own sister in a battle that most of the immortal world will never forget. She managed to kill Dragona and Damon, and she bound their spirits to purgatory for all time. The very act killed Estella as well. She was so light, that the dark act of killing her sister killed her.
"Both Dragona and Estella were said to have borne children. The daughter of Dragona was said to have been killed long ago during a witch hunt - no pun intended. The daughter of Estella was... misplaced.
"The light went to grave lengths to keep her safe in case Dragona's daughter wasn't truly dead. Only two of the light community members knew her identity, and they cast a powerful spell that shadowed her from the world until she was an adult."
I sit there soaking it all in, trying to understand, but I can't. "If she was pure light, then why would the dark be so willing to kill her unless they want a dark way of life?"
He rises up on his elbow, his eyes falling on my slinky gown for a second too long, and then he flops back down on his back.
"Because the daughter of Estella was foreseen as strong, but she's not the one they fear. It's the daughter she was prophesied to create - a daughter far more powerful than we've seen in a while. It was said that if her light was ever tainted in any way, she would bear a daughter who wields all magic just as Freya did. But unlike Freya, this girl's light and dark halves will be equal. No one knows which magic will overcome the other."
Sheesh. What a bedtime story.
"Well that's not scary at all," I grumble, crossing my arms while lying back.
He laughs a little while shrugging, keeping his hands behind his head. "It's just a prophecy. They get distorted, changed, and edited all the time. We don't know what's really going to happen or if anything at all is going to happen. Don't worry about it."
I sigh out, rolling over on my side, but Gage clears his throat to speak before I try to shut my eyes.
"It wasn't the same."
Question marks pop up inside my head as I turn back over.
"What wasn't?"
He comes to face me, careful not to touch me, as we lie there eye to eye.
"You said I looked at her the way I do you. But I didn't. I know that because I've never looked at anyone the way I look at you."
Tears brim my lids, and I look down when the eye contact becomes too much.
"I know you don't understand, but it hurt to see you with her. I couldn't breathe for a second. I thought we had something special, and now... now it feels broken."
He lets out a heavy breath, and then his hand comes to almost touch my cheek before he closes his fingers to make a fist and withdraws.
"I'm sorry. I suppose I never thought about it hurting you because it's nothing special to me to kiss someone. It's kissing someone special that changes everything. I never thought it a betrayal because you're the only girl who has ever made me feel that draw, that need, and that sort of desire that fuels something deeper."
It's probably because of the intense night that I lose myself to weakness, but I need to feel his touch right now. I throw my arms around his neck, but he remains still. I start kissing him only to feel his body rigid.
"Alyssa, I promised I wouldn't touch you," he says with a small smile.
"Break your promise," I murmur against his lips, and his hands become as needy as mine when he jerks me on top of his body.
His lips taste so perfect on mine. His tongue quickly finds the part between my lips, and his arms grip me to him like he'll never let me go again. My legs slide higher around his waist as the gown rises, and he pulls me to him that much more passionately.
"This doesn't change anything," I mutter through the kiss. "We're not back together."
He smiles behind the kiss and flips me to be on my back in one swift motion. He slides his body between my legs as his lips start trailing down my neck to my chest.
"This changes everything. You just don't want to fall for me."
I already did fall for him, and it hurt when I was crushed for being so foolish. Right now I don't care about that though. There's an aching in my core that needs to be sated, and Gage is here. There are only two men I trust with my body, and Kane hurt me worse than Gage.
"Are you sure about this?" Gage asks as he halts his kissing descent.
"Are you sure you want to ask me that?"
He laughs lightly, drawing my gown up higher as my fingers run through his hair. I stare into his blue eyes, uncertain about my true intentions here.
"That was quite a flip. You went from telling me to leave you alone to-"
"Then stop. We don't have to do this."
He frowns but then presses his lips to my lower abdomen as his breath heats my skin.
"We don't have to do this?" he asks while kissing lower, just above my most intimate area.
My breath hitches, my body stiffens, and then I shake my head. "No."
His lips go lower, grazing my sex before kissing the highest point of my inner thigh.
"Or this?"
"No," I shakily release, my hands tangling in his hair.
I feel his smile against my inner thigh and then he finally pushes his scandalous lips against that spot of my body he commands too well.
"Or this?"
My back arches as his daring tongue begins to own me, claiming me its victim. My hands tangle tighter in his hair as I feel the glorious expert going to work. The bar in his tongue becomes a tool of ecstasy as he continues to twist and turn it in all the right ways. My grip on his hair tightens with one hand while my other clutches the sheet beneath me.
Instead of answering his rhetorical question, I moan softly, making his pace quicken as he grips my hips to steady my convulsing reaction. He swirls his tongue in a way that forces my head to pop up and then flop back down. My whole body reacts to his touch, silently screaming out in erotic pleasure.
My legs slide up, but he keeps my hips pinned beneath his hold, forcing me to revel in his divine touch. I lose my grip on his hair when I use both to grip the sheet beneath me, hearing the fabric tear in my grasp.
It fuels his rhythm, his possessive touch only burning more as I become his for the moment. Powerless to move, I'm forced to endure the ecstasy to the point it almost hurts in the best possible way.
I cry out when it becomes too much, and then his wet kisses stroll back up, finding my breasts and teasing them lightly before he comes to rest his bare body against mine. I'm not sure when his pants came off, but I'm glad they're gone.
I reach for the part of him I want to feel the most, but he pulls back, a devilish smile quirking up. I reach again, this time connecting, and his eyes shut as he moans lightly, enjoying my touch as I slide my hand up and down.
His lips find mine as my amateur skills go to work. That glorious tongue explores my mouth the way it did my lower half, and then he jerks my hand away before surging into me with a powerful thrust.
A pathetic cry hoarsely escapes through my lips from the suddenness of his attack, and he thrusts in harder in response.
He pins my hands above my head as he becomes a dominant force - one I can't help but feel erotically drawn to. He holds my two hands in his one, and his free hand grips me under my rear to jerk me against his violently sublime rhythm.
His lower lip and ring slide between his teeth as he closes his eyes, absorbing the moment of divinity. I let him own me, desiring more, and he jerks me over to land on my knees. I'm momentarily stunned until he pushes into me from behind, and a gasp rings out as one hand finds that sensitive
spot on my body, massaging it as his thrusts press on, finding an angle I've never felt before.
His free hand holds my left hip, slamming me into his center. Each stroke feels too perfect, each breath comes out more rattled, and every bit of me wants to scream out.
I hold it in though. I don't want the whole house knowing what I'm doing in here. I don't even know what the hell I'm doing.
His low, sexy grunts almost become my undoing as he nears that incredible peak. There's a tightening in my stomach as euphoria rushes me without mercy. He jerks me to him harder and harder until I let out a painfully subdued cry, and my whole body goes limp in his hands upon finding that overwhelming release.
He thrusts in twice more, holding himself at the deepest point inside me, and then he collapses to my back, letting his weight pin me beneath him. He kisses my head through my hair before rolling to his side, dragging me with him and keeping me tightly wound in his arms.
"That was fucking perfect," he pants out, making me laugh lightly.
"It was."
I roll over to face him, wiggling in closer, and he kisses my head as my exhausted body gives in to the sleepy tug. I yawn lightly, closing my eyes, and I feel his lips barely gracing mine before the unrelenting need for rest claims me.
Chapter 19
The Taste of Confusion
I already regret what happened last night, so I pretend to still be asleep, hoping Gage lets me go and heads downstairs. What I did wasn't out of love or need - it was out of slutty desire. He cheated on me, and I went ahead and fucked him like it was a reward for his betrayal.
Since when do I fall prey to every carnal desire? I denied my hormonal urges just fine until I met Kane. Since then, I've barely kept myself in check. I'm starting to worry something is wrong with me.
Gage's hand slides up and down my back very slowly, proving he's awake and waiting on me to wake up. I'm not ready to face this awkwardness, so I keep my eyes closed and my heartbeat steady.
He leans over, letting his breath find my ear before whispering to the girl he thinks is asleep.