Carla sucked in a breath, and her hand went damp with worry in his.
Wing Slayer’s wings lightened to a gossamer gold. “But you are soul mirrors. Your love has created a soul magic that has bonded your souls as surely as Darcy and Axel are bonded.”
He was stunned to silence.
“We’re soul mirrors?” Carla asked. “But how? Keri—” Wing Slayer didn’t seem to mind her questions. “Sutton and Keri were soul mirrors. When Sutton touched your blood, he was touching your sister’s blood, too. Then when you touched his blood, Keri touched it as well and the eagle stirred to life, sensing the soul-mirror bond.”
“The twin bond,” Carla said quietly.
Sutton rubbed his thumb over Carla’s wrist. “You told me over and over, but I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t. I fell for you.”
She turned to him, her eyes blooming yellow. “But if you’d seen Keri—”
He shook his head. “I did see her. Right here, when I had to break our bond. Carly, I saw her, but to me, she’s just your sister. It’s you I love.”
“He’s correct, Carla. He did fall in love with you, and so did his eagle tattoo. Enough so that the both of them forced out wings when they should not have had the magic to do so.”
“I’m not doubting you, Sutton. Not ever,” she said softly. “I know you love me.”
He turned to Wing Slayer. “She forgave me for breaking our bond.”
Wing Slayer shook his head. “Your bond didn’t break. But you caused her such tremendous pain that the bond retracted. And Carla, in her pain, did what she’d done all her life, reached for her twin sister, Keri. That moment of pure desperation for Carla pulled Keri from the knife.”
Sutton looked up at his god. “She told me you weren’t being cruel. That you had commanded me to do it for a reason. She told me to have faith in you.”
His wings lifted behind him. “Your faith invoked enough of my god powers to restore Carla’s life. We can’t say exactly how, but your love and the twin bond created soul magic. You and Carla are true soul mirrors.”
Carla asked softly, “Will Keri find her own soul magic?”
Wing Slayer smiled at her. “She knows how much you love her, and she willingly gave you the eagle. You know that, do you not?”
Carla’s witch-shimmer softened and tinged with pink. “Yes. Keri didn’t love him. She instantly recognized that I did.”
He gazed at her with a surprising gentleness. “She’ll find her way, Carla. You and Keri are very special. That the two of you could keep her soul alive for two years while trapped in a knife is a miracle. Do not worry for Keri’s happiness, it’s our job to look after her now.”
Grateful, Sutton bowed his head. “Both of us thank you and the Ancestors. Carly’s heart will be at peace knowing her sister is okay now.”
“Lift your joined hands,” Wing Slayer thundered out in his gut-trembling bass.
Sutton looked up and saw a knife appear in the god’s hand. He recognized it as his own. Without hesitation, he lifted their joined hands.
The god drifted forward, filling the air with the scent of metal and flowers. Then the knife flashed and a perfect ring of blood welled up around the base of both their thumbs.
Sutton stared at it. He felt the pain of the cut, but he knew Carla did not. He knew it because he felt Carla’s pain, too, as he should. But what robbed him of thought was the significance of the cuts.
Immortality. Wing Slayer was granting them immortality. His god found him worthy enough of Carla and immortality. Carla would be his to love and protect for eternity.
Wing Slayer’s voice rang out once more. “Carla, your Ancestors are here, do you feel them?”
She closed her eyes and Sutton felt her power swell as she opened her chakras. “Yes.” She opened her eyes. “They’re here.”
Sutton was stunned when he saw the picture in his mind. Bundles of incredible light floated around their joined hands. Carla was showing him what the Ancestors looked like. She was in his head. The joy was unbearable.
Wing Slayer wrapped his hand around their joined ones. The touch of his god sent a bolt of electricity through him. It raced from his hand through all his cells and then back to his hand. It was so strong, he saw Carla’s long hair lift in a static reaction.
Wing Slayer pronounced, “We claim you as soul mirrors. May you reflect the faith, courage, honor, strength, and cunning to fight the curse and protect the innocent. We give you the gift of time to aid you.”
There was a flash of light that exploded into billions of colored fragments like they’d been thrown into a kaleidoscope. When the colors faded out and the astral plane reappeared with the huge rock waterfall ahead of them, Wing Slayer was gone.
“Thank you,” Sutton said, knowing now that Wing Slayer heard him.
“He left your knife,” Carla said.
Keeping his fingers intertwined with hers, he used his free hand to pick his knife up off the ground and held it up for her to see. “Wings. He impressed the hilt with wings.” He couldn’t take in all that had happened.
Carla touched her finger to the hilt. “You’re important to Wing Slayer. He has marked you to show the world.”
Sutton slid his knife into its sheath and lifted both her hands in his to look at the ring around each of their thumbs. “He marked us. Immortal thumb rings.” She was his for eternity. The eagle spread his wings in happiness inside the tattoo, while Sutton stroked the perfectly healed ring around both her thumbs. Realizing they were both still kneeling on the pavers, he stood, then tugged her to her feet. Just the feel of her hands in his slammed into his groin, filling him with the heat to have her.
“I’m not taking us back. Not yet.”
Oh, yeah. “No?”
She let go of one of his hands and turned toward the waterfall.
Her magic sparked inside of him, and in the next instant, they were both naked. God, he loved her magic! She tugged on his hand, heading to the soft grass at the edge of the waterfall.
He let her lead, lagging behind to see the scenery; her long straight hair sliding over the small of her back that flared into her butt. His hands itched to cup her ass, to feel her … He stopped. “Carla, your scar.”
Her hair swung as she turned her head, clearly showing him the scar.
Sutton lifted his eyes. “It’s a perfect crescent moon and it glows silver.”
“Moon Witch,” she said. “I felt the scar burst and bleed when I freed Keri, and I guess the Ancestors used the scar to mark me when I was in Summerland.”
Did she have any idea how amazing she was? He pulled her to him. “You’re beautiful. All of you.” She was his, a witch so special it took a man and a bird to care for her. He kissed down her cheek to the corner of her mouth.
His need for her pounded, his dick ached and his balls tightened with lust. The eagle shifted restlessly, wanting to touch her, scent her, feel her.
She lifted her head, her eyes full of color. Let him loose, Sutton. Let the eagle out.
She was in his head and he loved it. The eagle bounced, wanting out, as desperate as he was for her. But Sutton didn’t know how. “Uh, I don’t know how it works. Last time, there was a lot of blood.” Carly had a disturbing habit of healing him and taking his pain.
Her witch-shimmer took on more gold. “That’s a problem. I’m afraid we’re going to have to change our plans.” She drew her small hand over his ribs, down his stomach and then, with maddening slowness, along the length of his cock.
“What?” He knew she was teasing him, but her fingers were wrapped around his dick, leaving him unable to think. Then she used the very tips of two fingers to stroke his balls. Her magic vibrated softly and he thrust against her, trying to get more.
“This will be working sex.”
“Huh?” He’d do anything. She wanted him to work for it? He’d lay her down on the grass and lick all of her, taking the most time with her sensitive nipples, and the folds between her legs. He’d—
“To bring out your wings.” Her breath was hot where she touched her lips to his chest, then drew her tongue over his nipple.
He shuddered like a teenager.
“Got to bring those wings out.” She slipped down to her knees. “We’re going to push you until you sprout wings.” She leaned forward.
Sutton sucked in a breath and watched her. So beautiful it made his chest hurt. Her white-blond hair spilling around her and sliding against the coarser hair on his thighs. Her back curved forward so he could see her narrow waist and the swell of her hips. And her face, so expressive and elegant. She parted her lips, and her tongue darted out and touched the slit at the end of his cock.
His blood raced, his heart pounded, and he reached down, stroking his hands over her silky hair.
She traced the aching head with her tongue, her fingers squeezing his hips, pulling him in tighter … until she sucked him into her hot little mouth.
He saw stars, bright snaps of light. He tried not to thrust, not to give her more than she could take.
Give me your magic, Sutton, your wings.
He would give her anything. He gathered her hair in his hand, gently tugging her head back so that she released him. He loved the frown that built between her eyebrows. She liked tasting him as much as he loved lapping at her center. I need to be inside you. He dropped to his knees and swept her up in his arms to lay her on the soft grass. He shifted so that he knelt between her legs. He stroked the soft skin of her inner thighs, then he pressed her legs apart to look at her. Her flesh was damp and infused with gold, telling him how much she wanted him.
The eagle cried out something, he didn’t know what, but it made him shudder once, as a force inside of him released, and the wings exploded from his back. No pain, just a pure magic.
Carla arched into the touch, her eyes closing as she gave in to the pleasure.
Sutton could feel her with his wings, feel her slick folds, her tight, aching clit, her need. “Carly,” he said in a hoarse voice, and he leaned over her.
The wings pulled back, quivering with the same deep desire.
She opened her eyes and wrapped her legs around his hips. You’re majestic and you’re mine.
He lost control, lost any thread of himself as separate from her, and he thrust into her, sealing them together.
She moaned, lifting her hips to take more.
Sutton felt Carly around him, her magic tingling and clutching while her folds swelled and pulsed and he thrust again and again, driving them both higher, higher than they ever dared go before.
Because now they had wings.
Carla cried out, throwing her head back, her long hair framing her as the orgasm took her and she soared.
Sutton roared with his own release, soaring high with his witch. Feeling the wings keep their pleasure going until they were wrung dry and they drifted back to the astral plane. Panting, he braced himself on his arms over her and looked down at her, his Carly, his golden witch.
His gaze drifted to her silver armband. “Carly?”
“Hmm?” She looked up at him. “Your wings are sexy.”
“They aren’t just my wings,” he said, feeling the joy. “What do you mean?”
“Your armband.” He shifted his weight to one arm and lifted his hand to trace the silver that had re-formed from the elegant infinity loops to a pair of intricate eagle wings wrapped around her biceps and overlapping as if they hugged her tightly. “It’s beautiful, like you.”
She looked over at the silver wings, then back to him. Her autumn-colored eyes were tinged with the thin blue ring. “You have your own magic, Sutton. I didn’t do it and the Wing Slayer didn’t either.”
He loved her so much. But she still didn’t understand. He leaned down to kiss her, then he said, “Carly, you are my magic.”
Soul Magic is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2009 Ballantine Books Mass Market Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Apodaca
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51671-8
www.ballantinebooks.com
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