by Briar, Robin
That mean the skin on his neck might still be healing. And if it is, then he’s not immune to my spells right now.
I have him.
10. Wolf at My Gates
“You’ve been trying to keep me distracted, haven’t you?” I ask Trent, not really expecting an answer. “Keeping your back against the wall. You don’t want me to see it, do you? The tattoo on your neck.”
He shifts uncomfortably when I say that, but keeps his mouth shut.
“It hasn’t finished healing yet. Your body is too busy with the rest of your injuries. You know what that means? I don’t need this spike. I don’t need to kill you up close and personal. I can just use the same spell I did on Baldy. I can kill you with words.”
That’s when I see something in Trent’s ruby eyes for the first time. Fear. His life is in my hands. This is the man who casually ordered Mason to be crucified over the phone. He could have died for all Trent cared.
I can’t forgive that, now matter how much his power and strength inappropriately excite me. Those feelings aren’t relevant. Not in this room. Not when my survival is at stake.
“You’re right, Trent. I can’t lie to myself. You did arouse me on some perverse level, but that doesn’t matter anymore. In a battle between you and me, I choose me. You would do the same. Goodbye.”
“Wait, I have a—”
I don’t let him finish.
“Caro Tollere.”
Remove the Flesh.
Trent grimaces, waiting for the inevitable.
Nothing. And not the same nothing as the first time I cast it on Baldy and Cropped Hair, when the spell hit a wall of magical immunity.
I could feel the magic being cast that time and simply failing. Now I can’t feel anything at all. What the bloody hellions is going on here?
I reach out with my mind to the quicksilver pool, to make sure it’s still there. Blackness. I call for the tendrils of magic that normally reach for me at the same time. Gone.
Instead I’m left with a profound feeling of loss, as if a limb was amputated from my body. The only magic I can sense is the last casting of Maintain the Flesh, and it’s almost spent from protecting me after being buried alive.
Trent unclenches his eyes, looks at himself, then at me.
“My Latin is rusty, but did you just say Remove the Flesh?”
I look at him, annoyingly still alive. He should be dead. I wanted to kill him, to make the threats he presents to my life, to Mason, permanently go away, but that’s not all.
I wanted everything about him to go away, these feelings I have about him as well. This strange desire for an obviously cruel man who is unnecessarily complicating my life. A desire that—dammit—I just admitted to him.
That wasn’t my sole reason for wanting him dead, but I can’t say for certain if it didn’t shore up my convictions a second ago.
“You tried to kill me just now,” Trent says. “You didn’t hesitate. That’s cold. You’re kind of scary, aren’t you? But also more than a little arousing.”
There’s a bemused smile on his face. Definitely condescending.
“You’re insane if you find that arousing,” I spit.
“Am I? I disagree. It’s moments like that, close to death… when you look the very real possibility in the face, and then escape… that you appreciate life even more. You were the face of death for me a moment ago, Jess. Nobody has ever come that close before.”
“Don’t celebrate so quickly.”
“Oh, I’m sure, but if what I suspect about this place is true, then you won’t be able to kill me with magic. If you want me dead, you’ll have to do it yourself, with that little spike of yours. Up close and personal.”
Trent is enjoying this way too much. He’s already looking a lot healthier. The hole in his gut has grown significantly smaller since I lit the torch. He’s healing slowly, but he won’t be incapacitated for much longer, not unless I stick him with this silver spike and end him once and for all.
Trent and these troublesome feelings I have for him, the kind that don’t matter. Superficial physical feelings, I tell myself.
I’ve been with one werewolf and it was amazing. Do I really need to know if the grass is greener someplace else? Am I that much of a slave to my own libido?
The thing is, he’s right. If I can’t kill him with magic, then I have to use this spike. I have to take a stab at killing him. I owe that much to myself, and to the love I feel for Mason. Especially while I still have the last vestiges of this spell to protect me.
My fist tightens around the spike. Trent can see me clear as day, my determination growing. Psyching myself up to do something I’ve never done before, something outside my comfort zone.
“Don’t keep me waiting, Jess. I’m all yours.”
He’s taunting me. Trying to seem stronger than he is right now. Trying to undermine my resolve. It doesn’t work.
I throw the torch at him.
Trent raises his hands reflexively against the burning flame spinning through the air. The light blinds him and he closes his eyes. I’m already on the move. Charging at him across this tiny room with a silver spike. Driving my hand toward his heart.
It’s doesn’t have to be pretty. I just have to get the job done.
Trent turns away from the torch and bats it aside, a natural instinct. The fear of fire. It leaves him open to my attack.
My heart is beating so quickly. I’m almost there. He fell for my simple diversion. I can do this. I can remove the complication this man has inflicted on my life. This man who invades my visions. This danger to my existence.
It feels like I’m moving in slow motion, the point of my silver spike moving ever close to his chest.
That’s when I see a single red eye open, looking in my direction. The other one is still closed, flinching against the torchlight. He sees me bearing down on him, and that’s enough.
A hand strikes out and snatches the wrist of my hand holding the spike. Trent brings my entire body to a jarring stop. The torch collides with the floor, sending a profusion of embers up into the room.
“So close,” he says.
The strength in his hand alone forces me to sit down on his lap, straddling him. Only then does Trent reach for the silver spike with his other hand. He twists out of my grip and drops it beside us. Still within reach.
“Let’s keep it interesting, agreed? Go ahead. Grab it if you can. I dare—”
I snatch the spike with my other hand and bring it up in the air to plunge down at his chest. He catches my wrist again.
“Fire and lightning. I’m impressed.”
Trent lets go of my wrist and pulls the spike out of my left hand. I use my free hand to pound on his sinewy chest. It’s ineffectual, I know, but I want to hurt him. He laughs instead, so I bring my hand across his face. Hard.
It produces a satisfying slap, but his head doesn’t move in the least. If not for the spell protecting me, I probably would have broken my hand. Trent stops laughing, but the smile doesn’t leave his face.
“Please. Don’t give up. This is so much better.”
I hate him. I hate his guts. He’s so impossibly strong, even when his guts are actually knitting themselves back together. It’s infuriating, but I refuse to give up. I refuse to admit defeat.
I can’t beat Trent with muscle and speed, but I want to beat him so badly. I want to best this wolf who has been plaguing my visions, who has underestimated me at every turn, who thought he could force me to do his bidding.
I want to beat him at something. To make this feeling of helplessness go away, if nothing else.
I want to kiss him.
It’s barely a choice. It just happens, mashing my lips against his. Reaching up into his hair with my one free hand.
The kiss catches Trent off guard as well. His entire body tenses for a moment, almost like he doesn’t know what to do. My eyes are clenched shut, refusing to look at him. I can’t. Not now. Not in this moment. I am, however, still kissing h
im with everything that I’m worth, following through with my body. Committing myself.
I kiss his mouth over and over again. His lips are parted, but he hasn’t returned the affection. His grip on my other hand, however, loosens. I pull it free and grab the other side of his head. Then I kiss Trent even more passionately.
It feels like I’m kissing a statue, but I don’t stop. Every muscle in this man has turned rigid, fixed in place. Frozen. He’s so eerily still, either unable or unwilling to respond. I need to get a read on him, so I open my eyes to look at his face.
His eyes are wide open, staring back at me. Confused—lost, even. His face is a blank slate.
That was unexpected.
I kiss him again, tenderly this time, and keep looking at him. I stare back into the well of his ruby eyes, eyes that normally look cruel, now vulnerable. My hands caress the back of his head rather than clutching him. He blinks for the first time. Speechless.
Then he kisses me back.
Not voraciously. Not tentatively, either. He kisses me back hungrily. Like a man starving, as of this is what he’s wanted all along, but didn’t realize himself. That this is what he’s secretly craved, a gentle touch, but he just couldn’t admit it to himself. Not until this moment. Not until I kissed him.
My heart is racing more than I care to admit, and not in a way that I’m controlling. It’s the darkness, I tell myself. The flickering light. We can’t really see each other. That’s why I’m able to do this, to feel this way about Trent.
All lies.
I know what Trent looks like. I know what he’s capable of doing. I even know his type, or at least I thought so. This is something else, a discovery. An unknown. I’m learning something about this person who, up until now, was simply evil in my mind.
Suddenly Trent is no longer what he appears to be. There’s more going on here beneath the surface than I realized.
Trent is a wolf. I’m sure he can sense the wave of excitement washing over me from head to toe. He’ll be able to smell it. There’s no hiding anything from his kind. I don’t have the same senses that he does, but I can tell that he’s feeling it too.
This is becoming a collision of mutual desire, an unexpected chemistry. No coercion or force is needed here. Our bodies are willing.
His hands fall to the small of my back and rest there. Trent knows I want this, but he’s doesn’t go further, holding back on purpose. He wants me to want him. The bastard!
I guide his hands to where they need to go, put them on the hem of my shirt, and raise up my arms, looking down at him with contempt in my eyes the whole time. He pulls it off over my head and throws it off to one side.
I stand up, bending at the waist, and brace one arm against his meaty shoulder. I don’t want him to look away from my eyes. I don’t want his red eyes to stray from my gaze. They don’t.
I slip out of my cut-offs with one hand, one leg and then the other, then toss them aside with my shirt. Now we’re both equally naked and vulnerable.
I lower myself into his lap and kiss him again, both hands on his face. Trent closes his eyes and relaxes his mouth this time, letting his body do the same. He’s not so rigid anymore, except for the most obvious source of his arousal, saluting upward between us.
My hand falls onto his length, stroking him lightly as we keep kissing. He engorges at my touch, but my thumb and middle finger can barely reach around his girth.
Trent takes the initiative next, gripping my waist. He lifts me up, brings me down, and just like that it’s settled. As if we were always headed here, as if there was no turning back. Not from the moment we kissed, but much, much earlier.
This dance has been going on since he first appeared to me as a glimpse into my future, then again, replacing Mason in the vision that wouldn’t go away. Now that vision has come to pass.
Trent takes what he wants as if this is a foregone conclusion. He spreads open my nethers like a prophecy fulfilled. I grind against his freshly mended stomach, replaced with rippling muscles that offer all the resistance my breach craves.
Time ebbs in this oppressive heat, but most of all I’m surprised by how attentive Trent is. He takes the time to learn me by feel and touch. Angle and depth, massaging my sheath with his manhood.
I don’t have to fake a single orgasm. He uses my audible pleasure as a guide, figuring out what I like most of all, how to make me come, over and over again, and not a single vision, which is a whole separate matter I should be worried about. I should be, but I’m not.
Trent is really good at this, and he still hasn’t changed out of being human.
That’s when I realize how alone we are, the privacy of this moment between us. No spells to siphon his lust, no Candice or Saffron following along through my connection to the quicksilver pool. Trent and I truly alone, in a stone room, visible to each other only by torchlight.
A torch on the verge of guttering out. It’s all just so unexpectedly erotic.
Trent is lost inside me, rhythmically making love to my body for nobody’s pleasure but our own. Not the quicksilver pool, not my coven, and especially not Sylvia, feeling everything that Mason does.
Mason—that ignites a pang of guilt. Does their twin connection still bother me? My time with Mason has been amazing, but something definitely changed when I found out about Sylvia.
Has my time with Mason been deprived of what I’m feeling right now? This glimpse of perfect intimacy that nobody else can share?
What I know for certain is that I don’t want this moment to end. I’m enjoying it far too much, more than I ever imagined, especially as Trent has been hatching schemes about me this entire time.
The pragmatic side of my personality is starting to kick in, counting the seconds and waiting for the torch to extinguish. To deliver Trent and I back into the darkness. Passing the time with pleasure and waiting to take advantage of that blindness.
It’s possible Trent is waiting as well, but for a different reason.
The flame dies out, and he growls in the dark for the first time. That’s when I feel him swell inside of me. It would normally be too much to take.
The formidable girth of him causes the last vestiges of my Maintain the Flesh spell to expire as he widens inside me. No sooner has that protection ended than the heat of this place slams into me like a wall.
How is Trent able to endure this oppressive temperature? Surely he’s been here before, but even so, this heat is unnatural. No matter—I have more pressing matters to worry about.
If Trent is anything like Mason, he could transform at any point now. He could shift into a half-man, half wolf when he releases, and I can’t cast Maintain the Flesh anymore. Not in this place, at any rate. If Trent shifts, even a little bit, he’s likely to split me open.
I need to remember that now, to remind myself that he’s the enemy. It’s a question of survival, I tell myself, silently picking up the silver spike where Trent dropped it beside us.
I still need to beat him, to drive this weapon into his heart. I can do it easily while he’s on the verge of release. Not on his terms, with speed and strength, but on mine, with seduction.
I raise the spike up in the darkness, as if stretching in pleasure, tighten my grip with both hands, and then hope my aim is true in this darkness.
11. Caught in the Act
A loud, grating sound fills the room, worse than nails on a chalkboard. Stone grinding on stone. An outline of light appears against the wall. I hide the spike behind my back.
The outline grows brighter as a portion of the wall recedes. It’s not a door. More like a slab. It must weigh hundreds of pounds, but somebody is pulling it out from the other side. When light finally does stream into the room, it’s blinding.
I can barely make out the silhouette of a man. Whoever is moving this massive section of wall is doing it by hand. The person sets the slab aside easily as my eyes adjust. I’m expecting to see the giant of a man. I’m surprised by the reality. It’s just the opposite.
<
br /> He’s slender and slightly built across the shoulders. Not tall, but not short either. I’d say my height exactly. I smell him before I can see his face. Cologne. Something scented with juniper and lemon. It saturates the room. He steps through the slab entranceway without ducking.
When my eyes finally adjust, I realize that I’ve seen him before. His face is handsome, if not boyish. He looks young, maybe eighteen years old like me, but I know better. The man has thick auburn hair, worn in his face like a teenager, but can’t be said to be wearing much else.
An old iron key is against his hairless chest, suspended from a metal chain, and he’s wearing a pair of old-fashioned boxers, for modesty.
His eyes remove all questions as to who this is standing before me. The golden eyes of a lion. I know this man all too well.
Felix Eichmann.
This is the man who seduced Trixie, Saffron’s daughter, and drained her potential.
I’m still straddling Trent with a silver spike behind my back. Felix can see it clearly, causing him to smile with amusement.
“If it’s not too much trouble, could you refrain from killing Trent? I still have use for him.”
His voice is neither high nor deep, but full of playful arrogance. The first and last time I met this man was memorable. I was casting a protective ward to keep Felix away from Trixie with Candice and Saffron. It worked, and he was driven back, but that was five years ago.
Candice and Saffron never explained why Felix has designs on Trixie, but what I do know is that he waited until she turned eighteen. That’s when he offered her a job at his multinational corporation. A placed called The Vault, the most secure storage facility in the world.
Felix and Trixie had a relationship during her employment, or something resembling a relationship. It was mostly Felix having his way with her at his convenience. It had been going on for a while before I found out and told Candice and Saffron.
When Saffron found what Felix had done to Trixie, she was furious, angrier than I’ve ever seen her before or since. Saffron stormed off in a murderous rage, but Candice talked her down, which was tense. Rather than killing him, they decided to hex him.