by April Vine
She stood on the tips of her toes and touched his forehead. His skin singed her fingers. He was burning up already. She could do nothing for him now.
“You’re running a very high fever. It’s extremely dangerous.” With frantic motions she backtracked away from him and pulled clothes from her closet. “You’ll have to stay here until I get back.” She tied her hair into a knot at the top of her head as she slipped into her bathroom and turned on the hot water faucet in her shower. Her robe fell to the floor. She slipped into the shower and increased the pressure of the water. Her gaze slid over her hand. Why was she still here, whole, alive and breathing human air yet stripped of her powers? She expected to wither and vanish the instant she gave her heart over to him.
Steamy water streamed off her body, rinsing away layers of quickly applied lather, pacifying the internal shivers rampant inside her. Whatever had happened, triggered by Meralda’s sudden appearance, had changed the dynamics. To what degree exactly, she didn’t know, but she had to figure it out.
If she’d inadvertently endangered Zach’s life by giving him not only her heart but the curse of her powers too, she’d never forgive herself. But everything in magic could be reversed. She had to believe the witches would help them since this went beyond her ancient understandings of the art.
Her heart dropped as the doors opened and Zach stepped inside. The small space of the cubicle hardly provided a safe distance between her and him.
“I don’t know what’s real and what’s not anymore, but I need to know. When I was inside you, fucking you until you scratched blood out of my back, was that real?” He blocked off her water supply, jets of scorching water drenched his hair and splashed off his shoulders. She inhaled a moist breath.
“Everything is real, Zach. And it’s serious. We need help.” She turned away from him. From the first moment she laid eyes on him he corrupted her common sense and filled her body with a burning need to be touched by him. Now she wanted him as far away from her as possible if only to keep him alive. It wasn’t Meralda’s threat on his life she feared, but Nathaniel’s wrath now that she was powerless to protect both herself and Zach.
He charged toward her. One step was all it took. His hands formed an iron grip on her arms as he spun her around, the blue tiles flush against her back. “Don’t tell me that.” His roar threatened to crack the glass doors. “Nothing is real. I don’t feel real. I burned the skin off some creature just by touching her, so don’t tell me everything is real.” She flinched. Fear rode her body. He didn’t know what he harbored. She didn’t know what supernatural powers could do to his already great strength and neither did he. Her lips began to quiver. He could hurt her without intentionally meaning to and she, more than anyone, knew that magic could be deadly.
“You’re afraid of me. God, you’re afraid of me. Do you think I’ll hurt you?” His chest expanded with inhaled air. He softened the hold on her arms.
“Something happened to you, Zach. Something that shouldn’t have. I don’t know what to expect anymore.”
“Fine. But just answer the question. When I was inside, and you screamed my name, was that real?” He stepped away from her as far back as the cubicle allowed. He leaned against the tiles, his arms folded, the broad width of his shoulders heavy with tension, waiting for her answer.
“I don’t know.” She bowed her head, eluding his intense glare as she stepped out of the shower. She had to get to the witches without him in tow. She’d rather burn at the stake than have him know she gave her life and heart to him. He belonged to someone else. He’d be a married man soon enough.
Chapter Six
What the fuck was going on? He stared at his hand for the hundredth time. Last he looked he had a cock that glowed, not a hand that burned on touch. Now he had both. She knew more than she let on. He couldn’t avoid the constant tension riding up and down her body. Or that look of fear in her eyes. Whatever the hell had happened to him had scared her. He wanted to know what it was. He turned off the hot water faucet and opened the other one.
Even with the ice-cold water thundering down on his back, he still heard her soft movements in the bedroom. The thought of her fed his body. His cock became hard and throbbed as he closed his eyes and remembered the feeling of being inside her. He clasped his shaft and felt the fire that glowed within it scald his hand. She said he had a fever. He never felt better in all his life.
Was he having some side effect to the spell he caught at the witches’ house? He assumed everything unnatural about him would disintegrate once his dick became normal again. But Nikita didn’t seem the type to overreact, which meant something else had arisen. Something beyond her powers and knowledge.
He towel-dried himself and dressed, acknowledging that his movements were quick but smooth and fluid. The sound of her front doorknob turning squeaked in his ear.
“Leaving without me?” The door shut and he knew without doubt she’d never have done that herself, which left him wondering if he did it. She tried the door again. Her long, damp hair swayed against her back as she jerked at the knob. She spun around, anger glinting in her eyes.
“Open this door at once.”
Wait a minute, she thought he did that?
“I didn’t do anything.” He brushed his hair back with his fingers and on feet that didn’t feel like his own, strode toward her. “I meant what I said. You’re not leaving my sight. It’s the only way I can protect you from whoever or whatever the hell is trying to kill you.”
“I don’t need your protection.”
“I think you do at least need me to open the door for you.” He turned the knob. It slid smoothly in his grasp and clicked open. “See?”
He walked out before she did, unlocked his car parked right before her house and opened the passenger door.
“Get in.”
What the fuck was he doing, messing with a witch? She could have him bent over vomiting worms by the irate way she looked at him, so why wasn’t he? Why didn’t she use her supreme magical powers to overpower him?
“Zach, please listen to me. I have to do this alone.” He stayed on the sidewalk, refusing to move.
“Something happened to you in there too, or I wouldn’t be getting my way. Where’d your powers go, Nikita?”
He waited patiently for her to answer him. She averted his question, her body language begging him to leave her alone. She didn’t say a word to contradict his observation.
“I’m thinking I have something to do with it. Now get in the car and let’s get this sorted out. That’s your only option.”
Fury made her lip quiver and left him with the huge need to kiss her. He glanced at her sitting next to him as he drove to the Gray mansion. She remained tight-lipped and closed-off, evading his gaze, his questions, his whole bloody presence. If she sat any farther away from him in the car, she’d be out the door. He didn’t share whatever it was that worried her so severely. In fact he couldn’t conjure a single ounce of stress no matter how he tried. He felt calm, stronger than he normally did, and uniquely agile in a way completely different than what his Special Forces training had equipped him with.
“Are you going to talk to me at all?” The sound of her breath tantalized him. The natural perfume of her body tormented him, provoking a dominant urge of need that shuttled through him and refused to quiet down. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel, forcing him to keep from dragging her onto his lap and ravishing her.
He drove up the long driveway of Sebastian’s house, farther down the back toward the witches’ cottage. The red door in the middle of the stone structure sealed shut.
She alighted from the car before he did and pounded on the door. It opened of its own accord. The last time he stepped over the threshold, he came away with a light he didn’t want in an area it had no right shining. What more was going to happen to him now, surrounded by four witches, one of whom he could still smell on his fingertips and taste on his tongue?
The bubbly sound of Surtie�
��s voice traveled down the passage. “Zach, how nice to see you.” She swung her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “And Nikita, is that you?” She cupped Nikita’s cheek. Her eyes glazed with tears as she tilted her head and studied Nikita’s face. “My, you haven’t aged a bit, still the loveliest witch of all. So wonderful to see you, dear.”
Zach quietly observed their reunion. Clearly Nikita meant a lot to Surtie and he bet to Surtie’s sisters as well. “Oh, Lindie and Esmie will be so happy to see you again. Come and have some tea with us. Oh, how delightful to have you two drop in on us. Come, come.”
A charged pulse vibrated on the surface of his skin as he treaded through the witches’ home. Nothing calamitous, just a strange acknowledgement. Of what, he didn’t quite know or understand.
“Look who I found at our door, sisters mine.”
Zach experienced the same welcome Surtie had given him twice more from Esmie and Lindie and so did Nikita.”
“Now do sit down, drink your tea and tell us if Zach’s little—”
“Something happened. I don’t know how, but maybe you can help me understand it.” She sounded breathless, her smooth, sexy voice burst into life, showering the kitchen with thick urgency.
“What is it, dear?” Lindie pushed her into a chair at the table while Esmie poured tea into a gigantic cup before her. He took the chair opposite her on Surtie’s instruction.
“You sound grave, dear. Have a sip of your tea and everything will be all right.” She brought the tea to her nose. So did he.
“Don’t drink that,” she hissed at him then turned her head to the witches. “Really? I’m here not even five minutes and you try to slip a love potion into me.”
“Oh, you can’t blame us. You two look like the perfect couple. We thought you needed a little push to ease the tension between you.” He shook his head. How the devil did they decide all that without speaking a word to each other? Best he didn’t know.
“All right then, tell us about Zach’s little pecker. Did you have fun restoring him?” Three broad-smiling witches, with their hands resting comfortably on their rounded bellies, looked at him with great expectancy.
“My pecker is not—” He heard Nikita’s soft laughter under her breath. Fuck it. He’d been in situations where his life literally ticked away from him and he handled them with enough arrogance to fuck over the world. He had to get a solid grip or go mad where these witches were concerned. “That’s not why we’re here. Tell them, Nikita.”
“Can I do this privately?” She directed the plea at him. Now what was it that she didn’t want him to hear?
“No.” He felt like a bastard for refusing her but his deepest instinct told him not to leave her alone even for a second. “Go ahead.”
She fidgeted in her chair, taking three deep breaths before she started.
“Somehow or other a transfer of power has occurred. I don’t know why since it’s impossible to have happened in the first place, but it did and we need to reverse it.”
“A transfer of power?” the witches chorused.
“Yes, between Zach and I. He has my witch’s nature now.”
“Oh you fret for nothing, my dears.” Lindie immediately opened an array of cupboards.
“We’ll sort you good and fine.” Surtie gathered up bowls and wooden spoons. “We should have remembered to tell Zach this might happen.”
“What exactly is this?” he asked.
“Well, with your captain sausage still exuding residue energy and with Nikita’s witch’s force, well, let’s just say your one-eyed ogre got all happy-like and piggybacked on Nikita’s aura.” Surtie’s offered explanation needed serious censorship. How did they always make him feel as if he was five years old? One-eyed ogre?
“But—” Nikita started to say something, but her protest lost its verve in the scurry the witches stirred around themselves.
“Surtie is absolutely right. We should have lined a sock with hinder herbs and had your Mr. Willy Whatnot wear it when you were asleep. It was the only way to prevent it from stealing Nikita’s powers, naughty Willy Whatnot. Now Henry—where’s that damn cat—ah, there you are. We’re going to need another witch, quickly. A quad is what we need.”
Henry the cat squealed in delight, wiggled his fat backside and transformed into a pumpkin dressed as a witch.
“Oh, that will have to do.” Exasperation laced Surtie’s voice.
“Now all we do is whack Nikita’s powers out of your wicked wizard with this—”
“Stop.” Nikita rose from the chair, trembling from head to toe. This was some serious shit going on here by the look of franticness on her face. “I’m in the Eleventh Realm,” she blurted. Zach tossed his gaze between the stunned witches and her. What the heck did the Eleventh Realm mean?
The sound of crockery crashing to the floor exploded in Nikita’s ears. In the midst of loud gasps and startled expressions, she slowly turned her gaze to Zach. He leaned back in his chair, his arms folded, a calm, expectant look on his face. He wasn’t going to go away. He’d sit there and refuse to budge until he heard her confessions and secrets. And then he’d know.
The witches’ heads bounced between the two of them, staring at him, while he remained fixed on her, then back at her.
“Oh dear.” Surtie balanced herself against the countertop.
“Oh dear.” Lindie dropped the spoon she held in her hand.
“Oh dear.” Surtie collapsed into a chair, clutching her heart.
“Want to tell me what’s going on now?” His icy question slid through her veins and froze her.
“I…” She swallowed to moisten her throat then waited as Henry shook pumpkin seeds off the fur on his back.
“I’m listening.” He wasn’t going to cut her any slack.
“I should be dead.”
“You told me you’re as old as time and cursed with endless life.”
“That’s true. But…” She glanced out the window and glimpsed the rising sun seducing the night sky. “But last night I gave up my existence.”
“When last night?”
“When we were together.”
“Is that the only way it can be done?”
“Yes.”
“Let me get this straight. You knew you could have ended up dead to this world if you let me touch you but still went ahead and allowed it?” The careless ease with which he asked for clarification underscored the fierce fury riddling his gaze.
“Yes.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Because I was tired of living here.” She looked pleadingly at the witches not to contradict her answer. They knew intimate details about the Eleventh Realm. They knew how it worked and what it required in order to work.
“I see.” He dismissed her from his view. “Can you fix this?” he asked the witches.
“Err…” They stuttered in unison. Each clambering for the end of the kitchen table where the manipulation of a gadget parted the wood and revealed a tome nestled inside. They flicked through the pages, their lips moving as they murmured what they read. Minutes later they looked up and again began the gaze swinging between her and Zach.
“There is nothing to be done to reverse the consequences.”
“We will need to consult with the great priestess.”
“In the meantime, there is only one way to preserve Nikita’s life in this realm.”
“How?” he asked. Did the desperation he asked the question with mean he wanted a chance to kill her with his bare hands for conniving against him in such a manner? Yes, that would be the case.
“We need to form a bind. Since you have her powers, it stands to reason the two of you stick together. You have become her life source. Without you she will disappear in body and spirit from this dimension.”
He rose from his chair. Her heart raced around in her chest, kicking at her ribs when he closed the distance between them. She trembled as he towered over her. The feminine weakness he evoked in her now became a hindrance. If sh
e could escape him, she might still be able to save her sister before it was too late.
He curled his large hand around her waist, as if sensing her thoughts of sprinting away from him.
“You don’t understand. I need to go back down.”
“Do whatever needs to be done to ensure her safety.” He spoke over her head, discounting her demands as if they meant nothing.
“Nikita, you know we can’t willingly let you go. That would be tantamount to…well, we just won’t. The priestess will advise us on this matter,” Lindie said.
Tantamount to murder. That’s what Esmie couldn’t complete saying. She had the perfect plan and now it all went everywhere but where she needed it to go—to hell. There had to be a way out. She had to think hard because outsmarting Zach would take every ounce of her mental capacity.
“Like I said, I’m not letting you out of my sight. Not ever.”
“You’re interfering in something that has nothing to do with you. I came here because I wanted to know that you’d be okay. Now I know I shouldn’t have cared one way or the other.”
She was trapped, practically handcuffed to a man she’d stupidly fallen in love with.
Chapter Seven
The first thing he’d learned about being in the Secret Service was control. No matter what, control, first, middle and last. But nothing could have prepared him for the voracious storm brewing inside him. He paced the ground, his bare feet hit the earth hard and forceful. He wanted to kill her, god help him he wanted to strangle her.
“This has nothing to do with you. Release me this instant. You have no right to do this to me.” She circled him, taunting him with every word she spoke. The scent of her body drove him insane, even in the outside air it stayed potent and alluring. He wanted her. The ache in his cock clouded his thinking. And it came as no surprise to him he could feel that his whole shaft had lit up again. He was through questioning the paranormal when it came to his dick.
“You stopped having rights the minute you decided to appoint me your personal assassinator without doing me the courtesy of informing me.” He dragged his hands through his hair and looked up at the morning sky. Of all the places the witches could have confined them to each other they chose a patch of land in the middle of the Gray estate, smack in the open.