by Michele Hauf
Carefully and slowly, I extricated myself from the man, who was, by the minute, growing more comfortable and wanting to touch, tease and taste my skin.
This was so wrong. Thanks a lot, Universe.
By the time I sat upright, the phone had stopped ringing and I hesitated at the edge of the bed.
Reichardt stroked his fingers down my back, landing on the sensitive curve indenting my derriere. “Wasn’t so much of an emergency after all?”
Again the phone rang. And my heart sank.
I dashed for the nightstand and flicked open the cell phone. “This had better be good.”
“Testy, sister. What’s up that you didn’t answer? Twice!”
“Me and Reichardt are—”
“Oh. Then it’s a good thing I kept calling.”
“Why? What’s going on, Vika?”
“I’m at the Council Archives with Certainly right now. He has work to do, and so I thought I’d explore the library.”
Her boyfriend kept the dusty old grimoires and books of lore on all paranormal nations. “Vika, I really don’t need to hear about your boring dates with the dark witch.”
“I looked up the lore on soul bringers.”
“Oh, yeah?” I glanced to Reichardt. He sat against the pillows, his focus on me. His cock was rock hard and standing at attention, and he didn’t realize it but he had clasped the base of it. I licked my lips. Let me do that for you, big boy. “Make it quick, sis.”
“Do you know Reichardt still has most of his power?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“This book says that if a soul bringer is granted his earthbound soul, he maintains all powers of the angelic unless and until he ransoms his soul bond and his purity.”
“His soul bond? And purity? What in Herne does that mean— Oh. Wait. Do you mean...?”
“I don’t know about the soul-bond part, but you two haven’t had sex yet, have you, Libby?”
“Erm...”
“That’s what I interrupted,” Vika guessed. “I hope I’m not too late.”
“No, you’re not. And I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
I knew exactly how I felt, but I’d never actually murder my sister. My posture deflated and I turned away from my lover’s wondering gaze, granting him my backside, which elicited a growling moan from the bed.
“Seriously?” I whispered into the receiver. “But he hasn’t shown any abilities to do...whatever it was he could once do.”
“Remember when he rattled CJ’s apartment trying to get to me? He could have torn that building down had we not warded it to the nines. He’s strong, Libby. I don’t know why he hasn’t used his skills since becoming mortal. Maybe they’re trapped somehow?”
“Then how to get them out? Vika, this would mean the world to him.” I tucked my head down against the phone, glad Wynonna was still singing loud enough to muffle my voice. “He’s felt so ineffective. No strength whatsoever. He needs to feel like a man again.”
“And you were just helping him with that.”
“I was. Oh, Vika, that means we could never...”
Vika’s sigh over the line matched the fall of my heart. “I’m sorry, Libby. It’s a choice the two of you will have to make. I’ll let you get back to him. Sorry to have spoiled the evening.”
“No, I’m glad you discovered what you did. Soul bond,” I muttered, wondering what the heck that could possibly mean. “Thanks, Vika. Night.”
I turned, crossed my arms over my chest and let out a sigh that had been lingering in my heart.
“What is it?” Reichardt asked. “You don’t look happy.”
“We need to talk.”
“No more kisses?”
I shook my head. Could I ever kiss the man again without wanting to rip off his clothes and have sex with him? And if I did, would I strip away his powers?
Six
“I don’t have any powers.” Reichardt zipped up his pants, wincing because he still had an erection. He sat at the edge of the bed, looking at his hands as if he expected lightning to streak out of the fingertips. “Not yet.”
I remained by the nightstand, not trusting myself to get too close to him. I was still riding a sexual high after our intense make-out session and needed to flutter down before I could bring myself to sit beside him.
I rubbed my palms down my bare arms and paced before him, aiming for my abandoned dress to cover my ultra-sensitive skin. “Vika said you should have all your powers until...”
“Until?”
I pulled the dress over my head. Reichardt toyed with my lacy purple bra. “Until you ransom your purity.”
“What the hell does that—” He dropped the bra. “Oh.”
“Exactly.” That simple, understanding oh brought me down and I crashed into frustration and plopped onto the bed beside Reichardt. “She also mentioned something about a soul bond. Do you have any idea what that is?”
He slapped a hand over the front pocket on his jeans. “Uh, no?”
That sounded suspiciously like a lie, but I wouldn’t press. My thoughts were too scattered to focus. “It’s not fair. Just when we were both so ready for sex.”
He leaned in to kiss me, yet I couldn’t bring myself to kiss him back with any passion.
“Libby? Has this information changed the way you feel about me?”
“No.” But against my better judgment, I stood and strode to the window and pushed aside the curtain. The moon has half-full, the streets below dark. My bedroom looked over half the garden.
“I don’t want to do something that could take away any hidden powers you might have.” I shrugged a shoulder. “I remember you could move things and people with but a sweep of your hand. Sort of like the transprojectionary dislocation we witches practice, but you did it without a second thought. And your eyes would turn silver when you scrubbed Vika of the souls without even touching her.”
I hooked the sleeves up over my shoulders. The mood had been lost.
“I wish you wouldn’t cover those beautiful breasts.”
I sighed. “Not like I’m the only naked woman you’ve ever seen.”
“What?”
“You have seen Vika naked.”
“I have?”
With another sigh, I shook my head. “Sorry. I forgot you don’t remember that. She had to get naked for you to scrub her of souls.”
He looked aside, gaping with the new knowledge of that explicit information. I’d said the wrong thing. The man didn’t need my doubts charging to the surface right now—he needed my support.
Reichardt’s hands caressed my arms. I hadn’t heard him stand and approach me. I let my head fall back against his chest and closed my eyes. The only place I wanted to stand was in his arms.
So why must it change?
“I already love you, Reichardt,” I whispered. “And I know you don’t understand love so that might be hard for you to grasp, but this changes things between us. We can’t have sex.”
“Why should that change things?”
“It’ll take away your powers.”
“I know that. And you want to have sex with me because that will mean we are in love.”
“Oh, no, sweetie. Sex is not love. Sex is a great part of love, but it’s not the be-all and end-all.” Even I wasn’t that sexually depraved. I knew the difference between booty-call sex and the real, emotional kind of making love.
“So you would be okay with us never having sex? So long as I had my powers?”
He sounded so hopeful. As if he were on board with the idea of it already. How could I speak the truth? That I didn’t care about any stupid powers. All I wanted was to have him in my life, sex or not. Though who was I kidding? I wanted the man’s sexy cock between my legs. As often as I could get it.
“You haven’t tried to use these supposed powers. Maybe all you need is to purposely try? If you could access your powers, then voilà! Strong man. And we could make love.”
“Perhaps. Maybe it requires powerful
magic to bring them up? Libby, what if I knew someone who could bring up my powers?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You want me to be the man I once was and not this new mortal person I’m trying to figure out, so I feel like I need to get back my powers.”
“I like you just fine mortal, Reichardt. I just don’t want to be the woman who denies you your full potential.”
“But you don’t want to sacrifice sex for me getting back my strength.”
A wince betrayed what I could not speak.
“So sex is that important to you?”
“It shouldn’t be. It’s not. A little. Oh. I need to think about this. I’m going out to the garden to be alone and maybe pluck some chamomile blossoms to calm me. Why don’t you...try to move something with your mind? Please don’t be angry with me?”
“I’m not angry, Libby. I just can’t figure you out.”
I offered him a small grin. There were days even I didn’t have my funky ole self figured out. “I’m a woman. You’re not supposed to figure me out.”
I kissed him on the cheek, then left him alone in the bedroom while I sought sanctity amid the fragrant night blossoms in the garden.
* * *
I peered out the window. Below, the garden frothed with every flower in the world, or at least, a small part of the world. Libby always smelled like a treat after coming in from the garden. She brought that air with her and swirled it into my psyche.
Now she knelt before a ruffled white flower and as she put out her fingers, I witnessed the flower head bend to meet her touch.
I felt like that flower. I wanted to bend to meet every touch she would give me. Yet right now I felt as though she’d rejected me. All because of a phone call.
She wanted me to have powers, yet she wanted me in the carnal sense, as well. That should sound perfect, but she couldn’t have both.
I looked at my hands. They looked normal, kind of long, thick fingers, and the fist I clenched could put down any man. But what could I do with them beyond touch a woman and knock out a man?
Spreading my fingers, I gestured toward the bed. Nothing. Another flick of my fingers—and this time I thought about pulling back the covers—but still nothing. I pointed to the chrome floor lamp. Not even a wobble. Looking out the window, I directed stiff fingers toward Libby.
“Look at me,” I murmured. Bending my fingers and curling them up as if to command her attention, I waited.
Libby turned away from me to study a yellow rose.
Shoulders falling, I shook my head. “If I could control things with but a gesture, that would be amazing. But is it worth gaining that power to sacrifice what I want from Libby? To sacrifice my soul?”
I tugged out the blue feather from a pocket and stroked the liquid vanes. I should have told her when she’d asked about the soul bond, yet this was the only part of the former me I still owned. The thing that tied my earthbound soul to this mortal body.
I had intended to return to the faery this evening to ransom my soul by handing over this feather. I had one more day before the forty-eight-hour deadline expired.
Was sex all that I expected it to be? Sex wasn’t love? Then what was the purpose beyond pleasure? Albeit amazing pleasure, or so I guessed from the few times we’d gotten close to making love. When Libby touched my erection it had felt amazing. All my senses had focused there, in my core and at my cock. The woman could control me with that touch, and I had not minded that control.
Or perhaps I should sacrifice for some greater skills and good I could utilize? Could I do good in this world? My immediate goals were learning about love and buying a sports car. Didn’t sound very selfless. Did I need to be selfless?
From below, the beautiful redhead looked up. With a white flower pressed to the corner of her lips, she smiled at me. And my heart beat soundly in favor of loving Libby.
I studied the feather. Could I do it?
Seven
With this new information about Reichardt and his latent powers, I wasn’t sure how to feel. Talk about the universe throwing a whammy at me. Actually, the universe had aimed at Reichardt, but he was just too naive to notice. No, that was wrong. He did notice, and apparently he wanted back those powers. So much so that the idea of never making love to a woman didn’t bother him terribly much.
Oh, Libby, how you’ve failed to teach the man!
I’d stopped by his apartment, using the excuse that I wanted to see his new chair that sat in the corner by the window. Because it felt wrong to say, “Hey, I want to crush you up against me and inhale you!”
That would only make his decision all the harder, I felt sure.
As I swept a palm over the brown velvet I held back a sigh. I could imagine us curled up on this oversize chair, wrapped in each other’s arms, kissing, touching, giggling over conversation—making love.
But if he wanted to get back his powers it seemed he could never have sex. How to know if any soul bringer–like power existed within him?
I wandered through his apartment while he was in the shower. The man had greeted me with tousled hair and a sleepy smile. His bedroom was coming together nicely. The king-size platform bed was low and the black velvet spread was also another of my picks. As was the black marble vanity and the black leather ottoman.
Perhaps I should allow him some freedom of choice? Did I coddle him too much? Had I claimed him as my own and now he was resisting that claim by inadvertently suggesting we never have sex?
Could be a subtle way of rebelling against my control. But what man could live without sex?
Only a man who had never experienced it to know what he was missing.
Oh, Libby, what to do?
I strolled my fingers over the glossy marble vanity top, touching the silk tie I’d picked out to go with his black shirts. The price tag dangled over my hand. That purchase may have been pushing it. Reichardt was more muscleman than business suit and a tie. The heavy biker boots he wore were très sexy.
Beside the tie lay the blue feather I’d given him after his transformation from soul bringer to mortal. When an angel died or became human, their wings shattered to dust—CJ had collected Reichardt’s angel dust and now kept that with his magical supplies—and what remained had been a feather. An angel’s real wings were not composed of feathers, but rather, fashioned from their talent or skill. Steel, wire, vapor, wheat, even binary code were the stuff of angelic wings. I recalled Reichardt’s wings had been bold blue and like smoke. I wasn’t sure what substance they had been made from, so I couldn’t be sure what his skill had been.
To judge from the seven-dot sigil on his chest, I’d got no clue to his origins.
My heart stuttered now to recall seeing him in all his glory those brief moments before he had grasped mortality, wings spread and halo glowing atop his head. The ultimate form of male, a warrior with a higher purpose who had been exiled to endlessly ferry souls.
Did I want that in my life? Or would I be happier with a mortal who could fulfill me sexually?
Don’t answer that, Libby.
Beside the feather sat a tiny vial, half-filled with a sparkly black substance. I pulled out the cork stopper and the sweet aroma tickled my nose with a familiar tang. Vika had once shown me the same and explained its use.
“Goddess, this is faery ointment. Why does he have this stuff?”
As I spoke, Reichardt strolled into the bedroom, a black towel wrapped about his wide hips. The tight Adonis arcs that formed a V down his torso and toward his main shaft drew my eye.
He saw me holding the vial and his mouth dropped open. “You weren’t supposed to know about that.”
So quickly he had learned to conceal truths. I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing—because the art of lying made him merely human—or sad.
“Why do you have an ointment that allows you to see faeries? Wait. This is none of my business. This is one secret I’ll have to let stand. I have to stop being so controlling, so insistent I know ever
ything you do. That’s what is pushing you away from me.”
“Libby, you’re not pushing me away.”
“Then why would you not want to make love with me?” Yikes, that had come out a bit more shrieky than I’d intended. “Just for some stupid powers?” I asked, softening my tone. “What do you think you’ll do with them?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I can...help others?”
I nodded, reluctantly agreeing. “That would be noble of you. Although the few powers I saw you wield were rather dangerous and dark, I’m sure you can use them for good. But a superhero can never have a girlfriend. Conflicts, don’t you know.”
“I don’t want to be a superhero. Don’t they wear capes? I don’t think I could work a cape.”
“Oh, sweetie, I love you so much. But you’re a big boy. You know what you want, and it’s not me.”
“Libby.” He swept me into his arms and kissed me so soundly I felt sure he’d been practicing on other women, but I knew he had not been because he was honorable like that. Truly, a superhero to a woman’s heart.
“I do want you,” he said, smoothing the hair from my lashes. “And no other woman.”
“Really? But you don’t know what’s out there. There could be an amazing—”
He pressed a finger to my mouth, silencing foolish protests. “You are the amazing woman. No other woman changes my air as you do.”
“What does that mean?”
“Since I’ve been mortal the air is...not right upon my skin. It feels cumbersome and stale. Like when I move it’s slower and unnatural. But you...”
“Me?”
“When you are near me, Libby, the air around me changes. You bring sunshine to my life. The air lightens and I can breathe freely.” He hugged me against his big, powerful chest. “I need you to lighten my air.”
“Wow.” I closed my eyes and listened to his steady heartbeats. “I didn’t think I possessed such magic.”
He traced a finger along my décolletage. “I want to swim in the magic of Libby St. Charles.”
“But what about your powers?” I looked up into his gaze. “Immortality? I know you crave it. It’s that something missing you want to get back. I don’t want to be the one to deny you that desire.”