Enthralled Magic (The Circle Series Book 1)
Page 22
“Really,” Jane tilted his chin, making him meet her black eyes. She greeted his unsure gaze with detached confidence. She’d never had to convince anyone to sleep with her before. Her meals always caved to her will and tactile persuasion. But this guy was immune, and Jane found the challenge very exciting.
“I…I don’t know.”
“Shush, let’s just see what happens, OK?”
“Right here, in the alley?”
The alley they stood in was directly off the traffic circle the city was named for, the center of which was the largest convergence of magic on the eastern seaboard.
It was the reason Jane was here.
“Yup.” Jane stretched to kiss him. Slow and deliberate - the last thing she needed was to move too fast and scare him off. When he didn’t back away, she let their lips meet, soft and easy, without any of the fierce need that roiled and rumbled just under her surface.
Eric was a nervous and sloppy kisser, and he tasted like coffee. But Jane had worked with worse. She’d had to. About to let her magic loose, a strange thought occurred to Jane.
“I can make this the best sex you’ve ever had. Is that OK?” Never before had she asked a target’s permission.
Eric pulled away and gave her a questioning look. Jane held his gaze, saying nothing. He closed his eyes. After a moment, Eric gave her a slow nod, his eyes now filled with the darkness of lust.
Jane smiled and opened her chi. The moment the first note of magic touched him, Eric was brought to full arousal - as Jane knew it would.
Jane hadn’t used that coercion tactic since she first needed to hunt. She’d forgotten how effective it was. Eric had her pinned to the brick wall, scenting her neck, and was that…did he just growl in her ear?
The length of his body slammed into hers as his hands found the waist of her pants and yanked them down.
Jane stepped out of one leg, took a quick peek around the alleyway, and pulled Eric out of his pants.
“Fuck,” she said, as she rolled on a condom. He was so hard she was actually afraid for him. Her magic amped up virility, but this seemed dangerous. Burst a blood vessel dangerous.
Eric didn’t seem to notice or care. He hooked a forearm under her knee and slid into her. He filled her just right, his strokes were exactly right. Exactly hard enough, and exactly the right angle to hit all the good places. Every stroke was an orgasm for Jane. There was no climb to the top or slow build. She was always on the edge. Jane clamped her teeth together and tried her best not to make too much noise.
Her back and shoulders scraped the bricks, but she didn’t care. She just needed to feed.
When Eric’s rhythm became choppy and irregular, Jane primed her chi to receive his energy. With one last stroke and a grunt, Eric finished and Jane siphoned off every bit of his sharp, angular energy. She corralled it within her, aiming it for the well within her.
Jane had never felt energy from an empath before.
Her proximity to all the wild, untapped magic of the circle already had her feeling a little unsteady. Add to that the nature of the empath’s energy and Jane was in for one fucked up ride.
Eric’s energy held residuals from all the people he’d come in contact with that day. Broken pieces of everyone he’d so much as glanced at filled Jane to jarring discomfort.
Jane’s head swam and whirled from the alien energies. She broke the connection and pushed Eric away. But physical distance did nothing to fix her jagged insides.
“Are you OK?” asked Eric.
“Fine,” lied Jane, as she wrapped her arms around herself. If she could just contain it, just keep it all in until her body absorbed it.
She slid down the wall and hugged her knees to her trembling chest. The tattoo on her upper arm wriggled and squirmed on her skin. Absorption had never been this uncomfortable before.
Fuck, fuck FUCK! She had no idea how to assimilate all the energy she’d taken from Eric.
“Hey, hey! Jane! Look at me.” Eric lifted her pointed chin, forcing eye contact. “I’m going to get in your head. Tell me that’s alright.”
Jane didn’t think that would help in the least.
“Tell me it’s OK!”
She nodded and instantly felt Eric’s presence mingling with all the dissonant, sharp scraps of countless other. It was too much. Her body shook in defiant rejection, eyes rolling and hands balling into fists.
Jane was having a seizure.
Isn’t this great? You stumble upon someone with energy to spare, and you can’t handle it. What kind of sorry nymph are you?
Despite the magic-overload seizure, Jane was still aware of Eric banging around her insides. He collected the errant, foreign energies but didn’t know what to do with them. He couldn’t take them back, and he couldn’t get them out of her.
Eric, you have to get out, you’re making it worse. Jane thought to him.
No, I have to help you, Eric answered silently.
You’re not helping! Get out! Jane thought and ejected him from her chi, ending her seizure.
“I have to do this on my own,” she panted and focused on collecting all the shards of noisy, unmatched energy Eric dropped. The new, strange energy didn’t want to live in her well. Not as it was. She couldn’t get rid of it, and it wouldn’t be corralled.
“How do you house it?”
“I - I don’t. What do you mean?” asked Eric.
“How do you contain opposing energies within yourself?” Jane was still panting, sweat dripping from her forehead.
“I don’t know. I just do.”
If he could do it then Jane could too. She took a breath and tried to hear the different notes of each individual energy pattern.
She couldn’t do it. They were too loud, too sharp, too chaotic.
Order. She needed to order the noise. But how do you bring harmony to a cacophony?
Jane’s own, long unused magic responded. A single note thrummed within her. Great! The one time I don’t need MORE magical energy! She tried to quell it - she couldn’t handle more noise. But the lone note of her innate magic wouldn’t be buried and continued to play despite her effort. It grew louder and soon it pulled the same notes from the choir of foreign energy Jane housed.
And then Jane got it. “Like with like,” she whispered. She pulled single notes of her own magic and let them attract the complimentary chords from the choir of energy within her.
It took some time but eventually, the energy found a homeostasis. The sharp dissonance pared itself down, and the intermingling energies balanced on their own. They slid effortlessly into their new home, and Jane’s body relaxed.
“You’re OK now?” Eric’s whole face creased with worry.
Jane, propped against the wall, air still moving through her in great heaving sighs, pulled up her pants and only nodded.
“Do you want help getting back inside?”
“No, I’m going to sit here for a minute.”
“Um, did you want me to wait with you?”
“Not really.”
“OK, if you’re sure,” he was already up and pointed in the opposite direction.
“I’m sure,” Jane said and Eric walked away.
After a few minutes, Jane felt mostly normal and headed back to the coffee shop. As much as it sucked, she had to admit it was worth it. Eric had given her so much energy, she’d be set for at least a week.
Jane the Nymph is the next in The Circle Series
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Table of Contents
/> Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
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62
Jane the Nymph
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