Broken Pentacle

by Eden Rivers

  Sky caught her breath as she scrambled into the wooden structure. Large, uncovered windows let in light and offered a view of the swaying, leafy branches. But what stopped her in her tracks was the satin coverlet draped over an air mattress, and the table covered with white linen, a silver ice bucket to chill the wine, crystal glasses, and plates overflowing with sliced fruit, cheeses, a loaf of crusty bread, and chocolate truffles. A large crate and pulley ropes lay piled in one corner, along with an empty backpack and a collection of Tupperware containers.

  “You must have taken all morning getting this up here.” She looked at him. “It’s beautiful.”

  Alec waved his hand over the pair of thin blue tapers, and soon the yellow glow of candlelight cast flickering shadows on the rough plank walls. As she stood staring, amazed by the care with which he’d planned this, he turned on a portable CD player. The sound of a throaty saxophone joined the birdcalls and the wind rustling through the trees.

  “This morning, I told Sorren I’d join him in policing the dark lords. I wasn’t sure at first.” Alec poured white wine into the glasses, and the tangy scent mingled with the smell of pine and old wood. “Part of me ‑‑ I just wanted to disappear and start over somewhere else. But this mess won’t go away, will it?”

  Settling on the satin-covered air mattress, Sky waited, hoping he’d finally start talking. Since she’d signed on to Sorren’s payroll and taken him up on his offer to make use of one of the guest houses, Alec seemed to have trouble getting more than a few words out when she was around.

  “Elisa ‑‑ she wasn’t a bad sort. I knew her for years. I figure if Jaimis can play off hurt and anger, recruit witches as close as Sorren’s own kin ‑‑ maybe you were right about the dark lords being the larger threat.”

  Sky sipped the glass of wine he handed her, and he moved the small table closer to the makeshift bed so they could reach the food. Alec sat close enough that his thigh brushed hers, and she found the steady warmth reassuring.

  “In any case, with witches getting bolder about revealing their magic, the ‘harm none’ ethic has broken down to the point where someone has to step in to keep rogues in line. With my concealing spell…” He glanced at Sky and frowned, then shook his head. “Same as you, I’m perfect for the job.”

  Alec’s angst bled across their bond, thick and dark. Part fear that she’d be going after dark lords with her magic still unstable, part fury that Jaimis had managed to slither deep under another rock, escaping justice. For now, at least.

  “I’m so sorry he got away, but Jaimis will crawl out of his burrow eventually, and with every law-abiding witch in North America outraged over the blood rites…” Sky touched his cheek when he winced. “He’s not for you, and I’m sorry you won’t get the closure you were looking for, but the blood he’s sown will find its way back to him. No one can slay as many witches as Jaimis has and not have someone call in the debt.”

  Silence stretched between them to the point of discomfort, and Sky sliced a wedge of cheese and popped it into her mouth, closing her eyes as the smoky flavor filled her senses. Washing the rich taste down with a sip of wine, she waited.

  “What I told you about Linda the other day, losing her… It’s going to half kill me every time you go after one of the dark lords. Each time I’ll wonder if I hadn’t shared the concealing spell, then maybe you wouldn’t be in the line of fire.”

  “Because if I hadn’t stolen your best trick, then you could wrap me in cotton and lock me away for my own safety. Get over yourself, witch.”

  Leaning over, he nipped her shoulder. “Just bear with me, okay? I’m a work in progress.”

  “We weathered the worst part and walked out alive. Sure, there’s scary shit ahead, but…”

  “Do you mind if we eat later, because if I don’t say this now, I may never…” Alec scooted into the center of the bed and pulled her with him, then curled up with her in the nest of royal blue satin. His heart pounded against her back when he spooned himself against her, cradling her in his arms. “The part you can’t remember ‑‑ the whipping, the torture, and the…rest of it ‑‑ Jaimis alternated between us, roughing one of us up and then switching to the other for a while, probably so he wouldn’t push too far and kill us before he meant to.”

  “You don’t have to do this.” Squirming around to face him, Sky pressed her fingers to his lips, but he caught her wrist and kissed her palm.

  “I do. Because someone I love still can’t kindle a glow sphere, or launch a defensive spell without bringing down the roof.” He stroked her hair, and she wrapped her arms around him as if that would be enough to protect him from his memories. “If I can help fill in the holes…”

  Sky shivered as fear radiated off him, sliding through his thoughts like death itself. “Doesn’t have to be now.”

  “Most of what happened to you mirrored what he did to me, the memories he left you with when he erased the rest. But you figured out early on that he liked it when we pleaded for him to stop. So although you remember me begging him to drop the whip, to back off and leave me alone when he came at me hard and hungry over my spilled blood, you cried out, but you refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing you plead for your life.”

  Sky felt sick, and flickers of gray darted through her mind, incomplete but gaining substance.

  “You’re remembering?”

  “Some. He had a glass of wine once, after he finished whipping me. I was so thirsty. That hurt almost more than the wounds. And when he saw me looking at the glass…” No need to say the rest, Alec would remember, too, since the rogue witch hadn’t been able to erase any of his memories.

  She felt the burn of the alcohol as Jaimis spilled his wine across her bleeding back, the agony of knowing, in that moment, that she’d die there. “Enough for today, okay? Thank you. It’s horrible, but not so awful as the gaps he left when he raped my mind.”

  Alec eased back and slid his hand into his pocket. “I haven’t known how to talk to you these last few days, where to go from here. But I want to give you something.”

  Opening a slender box, he slid a gold and silver bracelet onto his open palm. A pentacle charm hung from the sparkling band. “The way the patterns in the links alternate, the flow of gold broken and spliced in with sterling, then gold again, weaving through each other…”

  When he peeled away his defenses, inviting her into his soul, she saw the two of them together, each broken, but weaving through each other, making something new.

  “Zach’s right, you think too much.” She blinked back tears as she unfastened the catch, slid the soft chain around her wrist, and secured it, completing the circle. “I don’t know what to say, how to tell you what I’m feeling.”

  But of course, with him wound up so tight in her thoughts, he already knew. Putting things into words only complicated matters. Alec smiled, his wild curls surrounding his face like a mane, and as he unfastened the top button on her blouse, she hummed under her breath, content to feel the deft movements of his fingers against her chest.

  The breeze through the windows stirred the heavy, midday air against her skin, and despite the heat, her nipples hardened as his fingers brushed her silky camisole. “What you said about you and Linda the other day, the part about her not understanding our ways, I don’t know what exactly you and I are to each other yet, but Zach…”

  Alec froze with his fingers on the clasp of her shorts. “Okay, you’ve got my attention.”

  A series of erotic images flashed through her brain, clouding her attempt to explain. They’d healed together, with Zach’s wry humor and zero tolerance for bullshit grounding them, keeping them sane. The memories they’d created, arms and legs and bodies wrapped around each other so tight there was hardly room for air, she couldn’t let that go.

  “I’m not sure what you and I have yet, but I want to find out. As for Zach, I can’t shut him out. He’s part of us.”

  The tension went out of Alec’s shoulders, and he finished unzipping h
er shorts. “Zach likes a lot of space, and he seems determined to see you and me hook up together. But you can’t imagine how relieved I am to hear you say…”

  Don’t have to. I already know.

  Alec slid her shorts past her thighs, letting his fingers brush her skin, and then lifted her feet to pull the shorts the rest of the way off. Returning for her panties, he grazed his fingers over the surface of the silky cloth before removing them.

  With shaking fingers, she pulled his black T-shirt over his head, revealing golden skin stretched over tight, lean muscle, and fumbled with his shorts. Bless it, she’d been with men in every imaginable circumstance, and none of the encounters had brought on the slightest case of nerves.

  “What am I picking up from you that’s making me so edgy?” She couldn’t name the emotion for the life of her, but something velvety and midnight still eased across their bond, and the way he stared at her made her feel more naked than she’d ever been before.

  As she slid his frayed denim shorts, then his burgundy silk boxers, off his slender hips and tossed them at the foot of the mattress, Alec eyed her like an incubus evaluating his meal. Never mind that he rubbed her arm in a gesture she guessed he meant to be soothing. Goose bumps sprang up at the touch, and her belly felt so hot, she may as well be the candle wax pooling at the base of the tapers.

  “Here.” Tearing off a piece from the crusty loaf of bread, he broke off a bite-size piece and slipped it into her mouth.

  Calmed by the simple task of chewing and swallowing, she watched him lift his glass and sip some wine. Shadows from sunlight filtering through leafy branches drifted across his face, and the candlelight shone golden on his skin. Methodically, as if he were trying to tame a wild creature, he fed her bites of fruit, cheese, and bread, and held her glass for her as she drank.

  The smell of fruit evoked memories of their first encounter, with her coated with sticky juice as she lay in the warm bath, and Alec hard and hungry but determined not to spook her. “Why are you making me so nervous? Why today?”

  With his tousled hair and amber brown eyes, his body dappled with leafy shadows and as hard and hungry as a satyr dancing through the forest, he could have been the Green Man himself, part of the woods that surrounded them.

  “Because this is where we start.” Moving slowly, Alec brushed his hand over the curve of her breast. “No one trying to kill us ‑‑ for the moment, anyway. No ritual or purpose other than our feelings for each other, and simple pleasure. And no Zach to get us over the rough spots with his keen wit and general intolerance of bullshit.”

  Right. When he put it like that, the midnight-velvet feelings rising off of him made some kind of sense. Passion, apprehension, and either new beginnings, or a precipitous end. He reached behind her to untie her scarf, and her hair cascaded down her back. When he moved his hands up to her face, letting the silky fabric brush her cheek, she inhaled sharply.

  “I can’t.”

  “What if I just do this?” he said softly. Stroking his thumbs down over her eyelids, he smoothed them closed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The warmth of Alec’s hands on her face eased her fears, and his familiar salty scent soothed away her anxiety. When he balled up the scarf and stroked her neck with the fabric, she shivered, but she didn’t protest when he shifted his hands and held the scarf up to her eyes.

  “Still okay?”

  “So far.”

  “Because I think today is the day we start talking about trust. Before, that wasn’t for keeps, so it didn’t matter that neither of us was ready. But if we’re going to make a go of this, you and me, then the one thing we both have trouble giving becomes what it’s all about.”

  Still holding the cluster of silk against her eyes, he leaned forward, and a moment later, he touched her lips with a cool slice of melon. As he fed her, she shifted and relaxed into the warmth of his chest, her spine pressed tight against him. He had an uncanny knack for alternating flavors, following sharp cheese with red, ripe strawberries. Sweet berries with dry wine. And always the comfort of the freshly baked bread.

  When he’d sated her appetite for food, he pulled her farther back onto the mattress, the smooth satin coverlet rippling beneath her bottom and thighs. “Keep your eyes closed for me.”

  Sky did as he asked, and the silk scarf brushed against her belly as he folded it into a thin strip. She knew from his thoughts what he intended, but the meal had soothed her, and his heartbeat against her back ‑‑ not to mention his stone-hard cock nestled close to her skin ‑‑ spread flutters of warmth through her belly, crowding out fear.

  Tilting her head back, she kept her eyes closed as he placed the band of silk across the bridge of her nose, pressing against her cheekbones on the bottom, and her forehead above. Rather than knotting the cloth, he held it in place as he hummed something vaguely Celtic, and she listened to the sound of branches scraping the wood plank walls.

  With her eyes covered, the smell of the woods flooded her senses, joined by the scent of wine and fruit. Alec’s thoughts felt as gentle as his fingers stroking her face around the unfastened blindfold, warm and safe. Nonetheless, when he moved to connect the loose ends of the scarf and tied a simple knot, her shoulders tensed, and air hissed through her clenched teeth.

  “I’d never hurt you, Skylark. And I trust you’ll never hurt me. Your senses are sharper like this. I can feel that through you. The forest sounds. How my hands tingle against your skin. The scent of fruit and wine. The shivers of sensation when a breeze comes through the windows, drying the thin sheen of sweat on your skin. How your hair slides across your back, making you shiver even though the temperature’s pushing ninety.”

  “Your voice should be illegal. Makes me want to do all sort of things against my better judgment.”

  Tension sloughed away under the influence of his throaty laughter, and she reached down to tease her hand along his swollen cock. He groaned as she tickled her fingers across his skin, then captured him in her fist, stroking from base to head and back again, applying just the right amount of pressure to make him wild.

  “Enough, witch.” Gently, he held her wrist and moved her hand away. “My plan involves a long, leisurely afternoon up here. Not five minutes of frantic groping and a quick roll on the sheets.”

  “And here I thought witches had better self-control than other men.”

  “Not when it comes to you.” Sliding his arms around her, he lifted her and eased her down onto her back.

  When she crossed her legs at the ankles, he chuckled and nudged them so far apart, she felt as if he’d put her on display, a visual feast he planned to savor. The erotic images flitting through his mind did little to disabuse her of the notion. Through his eyes, she saw her pink folds spread like orchid petals before him, her triangle of wispy dark curls a stark contrast to her pale skin. Her breasts flushed pink in the heat, and her nipples puckered into tight little points.

  “Someday…” Alec stroked his palm along her side. “I may even get used to you stealing into my thoughts like that.”

  “Hotter than hell, seeing myself the way you do.” Warmth eased across her body, radiating from her clit and nipples in waves of melted honey, and he’d hardly touched her yet.

  “Mmm, now you see why I wouldn’t let you keep stroking my dick. You make me wild, Skylark.”

  The endearment caught her off guard, and she swallowed back a lump in her throat. “No one did that before, either. Never had a pillow name until you, though Zach does borrow it some.”

  “Long as it’s just Zach.”

  The impact of that statement sizzled through her, and she took a minute to decide whether to feel caged by the unexpected streak of possessiveness or touched that he wanted some sort of commitment between them. Thinking of him with another witch set her teeth on edge. But…

  “I’m sorry.” He stroked lazy circles around her stomach with his palms, and she wished she could see his face. “I didn’t mean to blurt that out yet. Figured we
could talk about the rest later on, after we ‑‑”

  “Shh.” Grabbing for his hand, she gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You’re right. Later, okay?”

  For now, something inside her ached to see this through. To explore what they could do together given a bit of solitude and safety. To find out how he planned to ask her to trust him, and how she could pay him back in kind.

  When he bent down beside her and his mouth found her nipple, she gasped at the liquid warmth as his tongue caressed her flesh. “So good.”

  Each pull of suction sent darts of sensation over to the opposite breast, and for a moment, she wished they had Zach there to cover her with his mouth, a matched pair. But then Alec teased his hand down her belly, through her curls, and over her clit. She sighed in satisfaction as he slid one finger, then another, into her soaking wet sheath.

  With the blindfold stealing her sight, every stroke of his hand seemed magnified, more intimate than any of her past erotic adventures. She wanted to roll him onto his back, climb on top of him, swallow him deep inside her, and rise and fall to milk every ounce of passion from him.

  After pulling away from her breast, he nipped the side of her neck. “Gods, you keep thinking like that, and I’m going to abandon my resolve to take this slow.”

  Sky laughed when he buried his face between her breasts and blew a raspberry against her chest. “Right, that’ll kill off any erotic intentions I might have been entertaining.”

  “Then this should get things back on track.”

  Ever so slowly, he wiggled a third finger into her swollen pussy and stroked upward until she mewed and her spine turned to liquid as he stroked her sweet spot. Settling with his head on her belly, he toyed with the nipple of her left breast, tugging in the same rhythm he stroked her deep inside.

  Behind the blindfold, she could detect light and shadow, but the world remained hidden to her. As the heat closed in, magnified by the proximity of Alec’s body and the fire inside her, time seemed to shrink and buckle in on itself, as if that single stroke deep inside lasted hours. And all the hours of the day folded into this moment.