Clever Witch

by Nikki Dean

  Nico flashed over to her and he grabbed her wrists, pinning them above her head as he kissed her. One knee on the bed, he knelt beside Matt and slid his other hand down her belly, below the waistband of her jeans.

  He found her soaking wet, beyond ready for both of them. Matt groaned again as Mallory gasped, arching beneath them when Nico's fingers slid inside her.

  He used his magic on her, making good use of what little space he had as he drove his fingers in an out, vibrating his palm against her clit at the same time. It only took a few seconds before she was there, her legs clenching around Matt's waist and Nico's hand as she came.

  Nico kept kissing her through her moans and only stopped when she sagged back against the wall. He gave her one last kiss before sliding his hand back out.

  "Don't move. I want you just like this when I come back," he growled.

  "Then don't take long," Matt shot back.

  Someone knocked on the door again, then called Nico's name. It was Alec.

  "Go away," Nico ordered without opening the door.

  "Can't. Look, I could just go in my side and come through the bathroom, but I wanted to make sure you're not busy," Alec replied.

  Matt swore. They heard a dull thud as Nico braced his arms against the door and took a deep breath.

  "Alec. Go. The. Fuck. Away," Nico repeated.

  Alec laughed in the hallway. Motherfucking laughed.

  "I'm going to kill him," Matt swore.

  "Good luck. It's why Everett and Damon sent him, instead of coming themselves," Nico replied.

  Mallory wrapped her arms around Matt and pulled him down for another kiss. He gave it to her, grabbing her hips as he held her against the wall. His hard cock found her center again and he rubbed against it, mimicking what he wanted to do to her. She reached down and grabbed him, stroking him over his sweatpants.

  Matt grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away with a tortured groan. "As much as I love that, Miss Magic, you're going to have to stop. Alec is about to come in here and unless you want him to sit over there and watch, we can't do this right now."

  Nico swore and opened the door. Alec grinned on the other side of it.

  "Can I come in?"

  "Go fuck yourself."

  "If I'm not mistaken, that's what you're trying to do," Alec replied. "But you can't."

  Nico made a noise not unlike a snarl of frustration.

  "Not right now, at least. Damon wants to test out Mal's mind-reading powers on our new friends. They're not giving us anything, so why not let her try before we drop them off at headquarters tonight?"

  Alec pushed his way in, walking past Nico. "Where's Matt, anyway? I didn't think you'd leave him alone so fast..." He trailed off when he turned, catching sight of them against the wall at the foot of Nico's bed. His eyes widened as he took in their intimate position, with her legs wrapped around his waist, and the bare curve of her side visible between Matt and the wall.

  "Oh. Fuck," was all Alec said. But still, he didn't stop staring.

  "You're going to be plagued by flies in your drinks for the rest of your life if you don't turn around right now," Mallory said with a glare.

  He shrugged.

  Matt kissed her again as he smoothed her shirt back down. He got up once she was decent, leaving her sitting on the end of the bed, her back braced against the wall.

  Alec kept staring. She didn't move, her legs still splayed open and her chin lifted in challenge. They locked gazes for several long seconds before he blushed and looked away. A shot of victory coiled deep in her chest.

  "Sorry. I guess. I didn't know you were all busy together," Alec finally muttered. Mallory had to resist the urge to slip into his mind to see what he really thought of the discovery. "Still. We can't keep these guys much longer. It's already been almost twelve hours."

  Twelve hours? Only twelve since we heard these assholes talking in the hallway, then Matt woke up for good and we had our moments. Then we went to the creepy office building and now this. It feels like so much longer. "That's fine." Her body clenched, reminding her how very not fine it was.

  "Come on," Matt said as he pulled his shoes back on. "The sooner we're done with this, the sooner we can be done with it. Maybe we can all have dinner together afterwards or something."

  Alec shrugged and walked through the bathroom into his and Damon's side of the dorm room. "What the fuck, cat? Get off my pillow!"

  They heard a hiss, then gentle thumps as Dice jumped off of Alec's bed. The behemoth came back in a few seconds later, his pillow dangling from his hand. "Look at this! Your stupid cat shredded my pillow!"

  Sure enough, bits of white fluff clung to the edges of several rips in the fabric.

  "Don't you use a pillowcase?" Mallory asked.

  "Yeah. Asshole here must have taken it off before he destroyed this, since I found it on the floor with a wet spot and a hole. Like he bit it and shook it, or something."

  Mallory tried to hide her smile. Really, she did. Okay, maybe not. "Oh, look, instant karma."

  Alec scowled. "I'd agree, except that you just got started, whereas your cat has obviously been chewing on my shit for a while. So maybe getting interrupted is karma for letting Dice do whatever he wants on my side of the room."

  Mallory shrugged as she put her shoes on. "So where are we going?" she asked.

  "You'll see."

  Chapter 11

  The interrogation room was surprisingly well lit, not at all like she'd seen in movies. They all wore masks, and the two men in chairs in front of them had hoods over their faces. Mal could only assume it was to protect their own identities, but judging by the amount of blood covering the two men, they might not live long enough to tell anyone what had happened, anyway.

  "What the fuck?" she hissed. "Was this really necessary?"

  The steady dripping of blood made her feel sick. She swallowed heavily beneath her ski mask, telling herself not to lose it.

  "It wouldn't have been, if they hadn't immediately told us a bunch of other shit, too," Damon replied. They all stood together in the shadows. Matt and Nico made sure to keep her out of the prisoners' line of sight, just in case they could somehow sense her.

  "Like what?" she demanded in outrage. "What could possibly deserve this?"

  "Maybe the fact that they were connected to the lab?" Everett shot back in hushed tones. "They knew about Matt, and you and Pohler. He offered a decent little amount to anyone that brought you to him, no matter what shape you were in when you finally got to him."

  Mallory shivered at the ominous tone behind his words. "Wait, they knew about Matt? So Pohler knew Matt was down there?"

  "They've been sent to collect a few more people, too. They just happened to stop at your door, first."

  Janae. "I want to talk to them." The fear in her voice had given way to anger. These motherfuckers knew Matt was trapped down there and came to find him, plus give me to Pohler, too. Who knows what he would have done with us. Was it his fault Matt was down there in the first place?

  These questions burning in her mind, she took a step forward, only to be blocked by Alec's large frame. "Be careful, Bunny. They have magic too."

  "What is it?" she demanded.

  He shrugged. "Dunno yet. They haven't said, or demonstrated. Could be anything."

  "We need one of those fucking little discs," she snapped.

  She felt, more than saw, all of their attention focus on her.

  "What disc?" Damon asked suspiciously.

  "While we were down in the lab, Nico and I got into a fight with the security guards and they threw down a disc. It turned on and our magic disappeared. His speed, my web, just gone. I threw it down the hallway and our magic came back," she said.

  "And you didn't think, 'hey, maybe I should grab this and bring it with me to show someone'?" Everett asked in disbelief.

  "Not when it was getting our asses kicked. Nico had lost his magic. He basically ran into a brick wall, and the guards were beating him. He e
ven got tased, Everett. Tased. No way was I gonna put the fucking doom disc in my pocket and bring it along when it was preventing us from fighting back."

  He narrowed his eyes. "So what happened to it? And you?"

  "I stabbed a guard with the knife that Damon gave me, and punched another one in the temple. I tried to stomp on the disc and turn it off, but it wasn't working so I threw it as hard as I could. Luckily for us, it was far enough."

  Everett turned to Nico. "Make her throw rocks outside and see how far they go. If that disc is still down in the lab, we need it."

  Mallory threw her hands into the air. "What the fuck? He doesn't tell me what to do, and neither do you."

  "He's got a point though," Alec mused. "Something like that could be really dangerous."

  "Clearly. The hallway couldn't have been more than twenty or thirty feet long. It didn't go that far," she retorted. "I'm not stupid."

  "And you apparently can't throw for shit, either," Damon replied.

  She punched his arm. His eyes crinkled around the edges and she could have sworn he was about to smile before he turned away.

  "So what are we doing here?" she asked. "Because I don't want to be here all night and this isn't doing any good. Ask these assholes your questions so I can see if they're lying to you or not."

  Damon nodded. The others, except Everett, did too.

  "I'll ask questions, you stand behind them and feel them out, or whatever you need to do," Damon said. "Don't freak out about my voice, I have an audio changer to handle that." He lifted a little box and shook it.

  Mallory nodded. "Show them a picture of something first. An image I can match and access their minds with."

  "Is that how it works?" Damon mused. "I'm going to constantly add in something you don't know about in my head then. Just to keep you out."

  "Oh, don't worry," she replied with a smirk. "The longer I'm around someone, the easier it is. I don't even have to try with Nico and Matt anymore. It just happens whenever I let it."

  No sooner than she said the words, a delightful shot of need hit her in the back of the head from Nico's place on her web. She turned back to see him stretching, his hands casually linked behind his head.

  A ghostly touch rubbed against her clit, there and then gone again, and her head whirled toward Matt. He was turned away from the group, but she knew.

  Oh, she knew.

  They were dead.

  Just as soon as she figured out how to turn the tables on them, her guys would regret ever teasing her during an interrogation, of all times.

  "You okay?" Damon asked. "You spacing out on us again?"

  "Nope, I'm fi-ne." She couldn't help it if the last bit of the word was a little strangled. Her nipples hardened as it felt like they were being tweaked from the inside, a sure sign that the pleasure was from Nico's piercings. Sure enough, he had gone to stand beside Matt and their heads were together as they plotted.

  "What's wrong with you?" Everett demanded. "You don't sound right."

  Sensation hit her again, from both her nipples and her clit at once as Nico and Matt laughed. She had to bite her lip beneath the ski mask to keep from moaning out loud.

  A flare of suspicion lit up on Everett's portion of the web. He waited a second, then grabbed her hand.

  Just in time to feel the echo of Matt's grip on tightening on his cock, rubbing her ever closer to the most humiliating orgasm she'd ever experienced.

  His power washed over her, blocking her magic and cutting off the stimulation. She nearly groaned again, but for a different reason as her body was hit with the equivalent of a cold shower.

  The solitude offered by Everett's magic was nothing if not effective.

  He wasn't so lucky.

  He sucked in his breath as her magic momentarily transferred to him and he experienced the pleasure she'd been fighting against. Darkness shot out from his figure and roiled around them, pulling her right up against him.

  Their bodies slammed together, nearly equally matched. Everyone else froze.

  Everett shook as he grabbed her other arm, his fingers biting into her flesh. He clenched his jaw, glaring at her. Regret instantly flooded her and she tried to pull away.

  He held on.

  Anger flared in his eyes, so deep that it took her breath away.

  "Oh, no. You felt it, didn’t you?" she whispered. He was so close that she knew he heard, even over the strange vibration echoing through the air around them.

  Is he growling? No. I've never heard a human make that kind of noise before. It intensified as the tendrils of shadow converged around them, blocking her view of the rest of the room. Everett came impossibly closer.

  "What the fuck, Mallory?" he hissed. His voice was low, tight with fury. “What are they doing to you?”

  "Never mind them. Why don't you have your gloves on?" she demanded. “And what are you doing grabbing my hand?”

  “It was obvious that you weren’t paying attention. Something was happening to you.”

  “So you thought you’d just barge inside my head and see? You deserve everything you just got for invading my privacy.”

  “I was making sure you were okay. We don’t know what kind of magic these assholes have.”

  “Oh.” She felt a little guilty. It dissipated as his hand tightened on her arm. He was still way too close, their shadow magic coiling around them to create a little cocoon of icy coldness.

  "Which you didn’t think of because you were too busy fucking around to pay attention to your surroundings? As usual?" he bit out.

  She fought against him in her head, trying to wrestle control of her magic back from whatever invisible hold he had on it. The wall came up in her mind and she desperately tried to put it in its place, to block him like she had before.

  It was useless.

  Everett bent his head, his face so close to her throat. Mallory froze, unable to put a name to the feeling she had.

  It wasn't desire. Or want. Even need. It was... hunger. Like he'd eat her alive if he could, and maybe not in a good way.

  A hand grabbed her wrist and pulled it away from Everett's hold. The shadows cleared a little to reveal Matt standing in their midst. The tendrils swirled around him, trying to envelop him, but he didn't pay them any attention.

  "Come on," he urged. "It's getting late, and we should get this over with."

  Mallory allowed him to pull her backwards, away from Everett's punishing grip. Nico was at her other side, all sense of joking around gone as he set one hand on Everett's shoulder. The shadows had parted for him, too.

  "I'm sorry," Mallory said, even though she wasn't altogether sure why. He'd grabbed her hand, after all. Everett didn't answer as he let go and her magic snapped back into place.

  Fear took her breath away, but it wasn't her own. It was Matt's. Nico's. Alec's and Damon's.

  Everett's.

  Why are they afraid? This doesn't make any sense.

  Beneath the fear was Everett's debilitating loneliness, coupled with his anger at the idea that she'd been messing around on purpose, jeopardizing their objective yet again. Even though it had been him that grabbed her. Used his magic on her without consent. Took the pleasure that she'd been experiencing, even if it was a huge distraction and entirely inappropriate.

  "What are you so afraid of?" she whispered. "All of you. Right now."

  She knew they heard her. All five men closed off from her almost as one, yanking their emotions back behind their own walls, burying it deep.

  "No one's afraid of anything, except maybe messing this up," Alec replied. "We need information. Can you help?"

  They're hiding something again. Dammit, I thought we were past that.

  "Now's not the time to talk about it, Bunny," Nico whispered into her ear. "Let's get this over with."

  "Promise you'll tell me later?" she demanded.

  "Promise."

  Somehow, she doubted it.

  Chapter 12

  Questioning the captives was easy. Too
easy. Insanely easy, if she was being honest with herself.

  Mallory stood behind them, out of sight as Damon showed them a picture of her dorm room door, then started asking what they were doing there. How they knew Pohler, what he wanted with her, who had fixed her room door and why. What they wanted from inside.

  It was too easy to visualize the exact picture that Damon had shown them and slip into their minds on her mental web, feeling for any threads of deceit while they answered.

  They each gave simple yes or no answers, and claimed ignorance on everything else.

  They were lying. Of course.

  Mallory plucked details from their minds, fragments of thoughts about their own homes, families, conversations with Twatwaffle himself and wrote them down. Nico passed the relevant information along to Damon and he used it accordingly, prodding both would-be burglars until they talked.

  It didn't take long, especially when they found out they were both dating the same girl. Apparently sharing wasn't a normal thing in the world of petty criminals, and they were both pissed.

  And had both been set up by Pohler, himself. Small world.

  From there it was easy. They each had their own suspicions about Pohler's integrity and Mallory stoked that, trying her best to feed the discord in their minds whenever they thought of him. Unfortunately, neither had much intel of value.

  "They don't know anything," Mallory hissed. "Nothing important that I can tell. They've both received emails from him, and he told them to bring me to Fitzam's office, where he'd take me in personally. Matt, too, if they could find him. Why would he tell them to take me there? It doesn't make any sense if he's on leave."

  "So he can take you from there and get you to a secondary location," Damon retorted.

  "But why there?" she whispered again. "Someone could see and ask questions."

  "Plus the cameras," Everett said. "They would have been caught on camera transferring a student against her will. He's setting them up."

  "You think?" Mallory asked in surprise. She wasn't sure why it hadn't occurred to her. "But why?"