Cara got out of the tub and slipped on a robe. She couldn’t leave things the way they were. She padded down the long hallway to Malcolm’s suite. She knocked lightly and let herself in. His sitting room was dark, but a soft light shone under the bedroom door. Cara pushed it open. Malcolm the wolf lay in the center of the bed.
His head shot up and looked at Cara. The wolf started to stretch and shift, limbs elongating and emerging from paws.
“No, stop!”
The wolf froze.
“You don’t have to shift for me.” She walked over to the bed and lay down, pulling up a blanket from the foot of the bed. Malcolm the wolf sat down, his human features melting away. “Please, I just wanted to tell you, I want you. I want to stay. We have a lot of time to figure out the details.”
The wolf lay down next to her and Cara buried her nose in his flank, smelling vetiver and basil.
AN UNCLAIMED WITCH
SOMETHING WICKED
BOOK FOUR
Liza Mitchell
Published by Feather & Bleed Press, 2019.
CHAPTER ONE
BRIANNA
"Stop! Let go of me!" Brianna tried to dig in her heels and break free from his grasp, but she just slid pathetically across the tile floor. Her size didn't help. Neither did his. She was barely tall enough to ride roller coasters, let alone break free of Ransom. "Damn it, I'm not going with you! Get the fuck off of me!"
He kept plowing forward, dragging her along. Should she grab the doorframe? Did she really need to be that dramatic? He opened the door and shoved her outside before she could even make that decision. He tore open the passenger door to his car and stopped short of throwing her inside. So he did have boundaries, somewhere.
She whipped around, glaring at him. "I'm not going to your safe house, wherever that is. I don't take orders from Malcolm. And I sure as fuck don't want to spend any more time with you." She punctuated her declaration by giving Ransom a quick shove in the chest and pushing past him.
His fingers wrapped around her arm. She tried to snatch her arm out of his grasp, but he was a fucking mountain of a man. He pulled her toward him, and his breath rolled down her neck. His voice came out in a low growl, sending shivers down her spine. "That pretty little mouth says some filthy fucking things. Stop fighting me and get in the car. Your sisters want you to be safe too."
"Fine," she spat. Then, for good measure, she added, "I fucking will, you goddamn cocksucker."
His chest rumbled and he narrowed his eyes. "Girl, learn when to stop."
"Not a girl," she said.
He scooped her up and put her into the passenger seat, then grabbed the seat belt and leaned over her lap to fasten it around her body. Her cheeks flushed as heat swept through her. Her face burned with anger and embarrassment, but her core tightened.
She'd been dealing with these conflicting reactions all day—that was part of the reason she wasn't looking forward to spending any more time alone with Ransom. But mostly, she didn't like being told what to do, and no one had asked how she felt about Ransom and his safe house. Except she did like when Ransom barked orders at her. And she liked fighting him every step of the way. Clearly, she'd been locked in that shed for way too long.
Ransom slammed the door, crossed in front of the engine, and climbed into the driver's seat. She couldn't believe that he actually fit through the door, let alone inside the car. He was enormous. His broad and muscular body absolutely towered over her. He ran his hands over his head and exhaled loudly before reaching into the back seat and picking a piece of black cloth. "Put this on."
"What is it?"
"A hood. To cover your face. Put it on."
"Fuck. No. Are you kidding me?" This guy had some balls. That was not going to happen. Although she trusted him not to murder her or something insane like that, she didn't think she could handle another moment in the dark. He’d had been sent by her sister and an Alpha wolf to find and rescue her after she'd been kidnapped by witches. She just wanted a long bath, not a panic attack triggered by this hood and PTSD.
"My safe house is safe because nobody knows where it is. That includes you. Put it on."
"This is bullshit. First of all, I'm a witch. I have magic. If I wanted to know where your fucking safe house was, I could figure it out. Secondly, I don't even want to go to this safe house. I have zero motivation to put this on."
"Put it on, or I'm taking you back to the witches."
"You son of a bitch. Take me back to Malcolm and Cara."
He put the car in gear and rolled away from Malcolm's house. "Hood or witches. Malcolm gave me instructions to get you to safety. And Cara agreed."
"Fuck, fine." She took the hood.
"Good girl." Ransom almost purred, apparently so pleased with her obedience that he ignored her swearing. That purr made her skin tingle. She needed to get to this safe house and lock herself in the bedroom.
It was pitch black and completely disorienting inside the hood; light didn't seep in through the fabric or up from the bottom. She tried riding with her eyes open and closed, but there truly was no difference. Hoping to ground herself, she held onto the shoulder strap of her seatbelt with both hands. She felt the road turn from rough dirt to smooth pavement and relaxed her arms a little.
This was absolutely ridiculous. She was willingly going to a secret location with a complete stranger, yet that seemed like the best decision given her situation. It was either Ransom or the Wildwood coven—who'd spent the better part of the last month kidnapping and killing witches. Well, first they used humans as puppets to merely beat witches so badly they ended up in the hospital. Then they decided to kidnap and kill them. She’d been lucky enough to be rescued before Claudia, the High Priestess of the coven, got around to killing her. So, yeah, maybe she'd stick with Ransom, despite the…
Brianna lurched forward suddenly; her torso slammed into something solid and bounced against the back of her seat. "Oh shit!" she yelled. Ransom must have slammed on the brakes, and she was thrown around like a rag doll because the damn hood made it impossible for her to have known to brace herself. "Let me take this off!" Her hands scrambled with the hem, but Ransom's fingers closed over hers as he forced her hands down.
"Stop. You're fine," he said as he pressed her hands to her lap.
Brianna hissed through her teeth. She tried to move her hands. Ransom just pushed harder, forcing her hands into the crease between her legs. She shifted in her seat as the car started moving again. He loosened his grip, and she felt patches of rough, calloused skin on his hands. Her stomach fluttered.
They turned a corner, and Ransom's bicep grazed against her nipple. She wasn't wearing a bra. She rarely did. Her nipple hardened, and the peak skipped along his arm. She pressed her thighs together. And her breath quickened as she drank in all of the sensations. She could not focus while his hands were on her—the distraction was almost a welcome one at this point.
"Good girls don't do that to strangers." Ransom's tease slid out of his mouth like honey. She pressed herself again the back of the seat, moving away from his outstretched arm. Fuck.
Thankfully, just a few minutes later she felt the car rolling to a stop. A garage door opened, and the SUV crept inside. Ransom let go of her hands, and Brianna tore the hood off of her head.
"If you ever put me in that fucking thing again, I will—" Her mind scrabbled for a credible threat. Really, anything would sound shallow and empty. “Curse your dick to fall off!"
The wolf just stared at her and raised an eyebrow. "You're going to magically castrate me? Man, I'd hate to see what the Three Fold Law throws back at you for that. Your clit’s gone for sure, don't really have any tits to take so…"
Brianna scoffed and threw her seat belt over her shoulder. "Fuck you. I like my tits."
"Careful, girl. Now I know what to use to punish you."
Brianna climbed out of the car. "Not a girl!" she threw over her shoulder, not even bothering to check to see if he was listening.
> They were in an attached garage, and Brianna walked directly to the door that should lead to the house. She didn't want to wait for Ransom, but she quickly discovered that the door was locked. Of course. Now her dramatic exit was ruined.
"You need to wait for me to get the grand tour." He stood just behind her, and his deep voice vibrated in her ribs. She wanted to lean back and press herself against his chest. She huffed, unsure of who was more frustrating; Ransom or her traitorous imagination. She waved a hand over her shoulder like she was swatting away a fly and stepped to the side so that he could unlock the door.
He stepped inside the house and motioned for her to follow. Strike that. This was not a house—it was a one-room cabin. She turned in a slow circle to make sure she hadn't missed anything. Nope. It was essentially a top-of-the-line studio apartment, with a back yard and a garage.
"Do you live here?" This wasn’t real. She couldn't spend the next god-knows-how-long in a one-room cabin with Ransom. They would tear each other apart.
"No. I have a home. Three beds, one and a half baths, picket fence, dishwasher. This is my safe house, necessities only."
"Fuck me. Where's the bathroom?"
Ransom pointed to a door that Brianna hadn't even noticed. "There're towels and bins with clothes labeled by size. Nothing fancy, just t-shirts and sweats. Take a shower. Go to bed."
She stared at him and ground her teeth. Why the fuck did she like that so much? It must be part of some white knight syndrome or something. No one had ever spoken to her like that before, and she was pretty sure she would have put them in their place if they did. Maybe it was his size or his age, but she was pretty sure she would do almost anything if he told her to.
He lowered his lips to her ears. "If you don't stop daydreaming and get into the shower, I am going to give you a bath." Her heart raced. If only he knew just how tempting that was.
She exhaled slowly as she walked across the apartment toward the bathroom. She refused to show any response to his threat. She closed the door and let out a long exhaled. They had only been alone for five minutes. How was she going to survive five days? Or five months!
She stripped off her clothes and turned on the shower, adjusting the temperature to just-below-scalding. The water rolled over her face and turned her skin bright pink. Perfection. She closed her eyes, washing off the chaos of the last seventy-two hours.
She hadn't even had time to process everything that had happened to her. And, to be honest, she didn't really remember much. Trauma does weird things to the brain, or at least that's what true crime shows taught her.
She'd walked home from a party sometime after midnight, something she did all the time. Wildwood was a small and safe town. She'd never had any reason to be nervous about walking home alone. Literally, nothing bad ever happened there, until recently. She'd had a few beers and a few hits off of a joint, nothing crazy, but enough to slow her down when she felt someone grab her from behind. She remembered fighting and kicking, but she never saw her attackers. Definitely plural. There'd been more than one voice. But that was just a flash in her memory. Mostly, she remembered an explosion in her head, and the next thing she knew, she was in the dark.
Brianna ran her hand through her hair. No blood, but she winced when her fingers skimmed over a significant bump on the crown of her head. Of course there wasn't blood—Cara would have flipped if Brianna's pale hair had been matted with dried, rust-colored blood. She looked over the rest of her body taking inventory of her injuries. There was nothing major—no cuts, some bruises.
She had no idea how long she was unconscious, but she'd immediately panicked when she woke up. Obviously. She’d tried to free her arms from the seemingly weak bindings, but they wouldn't budge. That's when she figured out the damned witches were to blame. She tried to use magic to free herself too, but whatever curse they had used to bind her was stronger than anything she could come up with on the fly. The witches had kept her in a shed in the middle of a state forest just outside of Wildwood. They probably could have held her there months if Ransom hadn't found her—the state forest was basically no-man's-land if you went deep enough. It was so vast that there was no way the forest service could pass down every two track and makeshift road.
When Ransom found her, she was two days into her captivity and giving up hope. He'd busted down the door of her shed, sending shards of wood in every direction and scaring the ever-loving shit out of her. And Brianna, who had always used sarcasm to deal with stress, reacted by saying, "Fuck Rambo. Can't you just pick a lock?"
Ransom had squatted down, bringing his face inches from hers and coolly answered, "Watch your mouth, girl."
Brianna opened her eyes, water blurring her vision. Heat teased through her body just thinking about that moment with Ransom. Her pussy had hummed in that shed and basically hadn’t stopped for the last twelve hours. Why the fuck did that make her so hot? And why did she feel so ashamed by it? She wasn't some Puritanical virgin, but she had never been treated this way, and a fucking self-empowered woman shouldn't get off of on that. Should she?
CHAPTER TWO
BRIANNA
Brianna jerked awake, pulled from a deep sleep by the sharp screeching of an alarm clock. She rolled over, her hand flapping wildly, trying to silence the noise. When the fuck had she changed the alarms on her phone, anyway?
She shot out of bed and found herself standing in the middle of an unfamiliar room.
"Oh, shit." She exhaled, pressing a palm to her forehead. She'd completely forgotten where she was. It was Ransom's phone that was making that horrendous noise. She moved to the edge of the bed and watched him blindly reach for the phone and turn of the alarm.
"Don't you own any bras?" Ransom grumbled. "I'd never let my girl out of the house like that."
Brianna looked down. Her nipples were pebbled and hard, showing through her loose white t-shirt. She straightened up, refusing to let him shame her. "I decide how I leave the house."
"Good thing you can't leave this place, because I wouldn't let you." He stood up from the couch and started making coffee in the kitchen. "I have jobs to do today. You will stay here. You will stay inside. I have alarms. I have cameras. Do. Not. Leave."
"Goddamn, you just went from zero to sixty, and I haven't had any fucking coffee." She stretched, grinning slightly when she caught Ransom looking at her.
"Girl, you're a tease. Someone needs to teach you how to behave." He leaned against the kitchen island, glaring at her.
She squeezed by him to fill a mug with coffee. "Not a girl," she said dismissively. She walked to the couch and added, "Not a tease either," as she sank into the couch and looked at Ransom.
He had turned around to face her, resting his arms on the island's countertop. "You're not a tease?"
She stared at him over the top of her coffee cup and shook her head. Her brain was screaming at her to come up with a flippant remark, to stop flirting with this controlling stranger. But her body was a traitor. Fuck, just his low, silky voice made her wet. She leaned forward and set her mug on the coffee table. "I'm not."
He narrowed his eyes, crow’s feet gathering at their corners. "Take your shirt off."
Brianna stood. She hesitated for a moment. She shouldn't do this. It should feel wrong. But it was fun and exciting, and she wanted him, despite all of the cries from her rational brain. Her heart started beating rapidly as she stood in front of the sofa and pulled her t-shirt over her head. Her blond hair fell in waves over her shoulders and covered her breasts. She sat back down and stared him.
"Move your hair."
She flipped her hair behind her shoulders. The seconds dragged on as he gazed at her. She knew her excitement was obvious—she was breathing heavily as she shifted around on the sofa wanting so badly to do something.
"Sit still," he said quietly, but she snapped to attention as if he had barked the order. "Do you want to touch yourself?"She nodded.
"Good girls don't touch their cunts."
"No
t a girl," Brianna whispered as she slid her hand under the waistband of her sweats. She parted her lips and dabbled in the wet pool that had gathered there. She rested her heels against the edge of the coffee table, sinking deeper into the couch. She opened her legs, and Ransom slammed his palm on the counter, but she didn't stop.
Her eyes never left Ransom's. Her vision grew heavy and unfocused as she trailed her fingers up to her clit. Ransom's eyes burned through her. His fire went straight to her core. She couldn't tell if he wanted to punish her or fuck her. Right now, she would have eagerly taken either one. Pressure grew deep inside her. She'd wanted to last longer, but, fuck—she'd had basically twenty-four hours of foreplay building in her pussy.
Every time he'd barked an order at her, her body responded. Every time she'd challenged him and he'd given her a sharp glare, silencing her without using any words, her heart pounded. Every time he'd raked his eyes over her and scolded her, her core tightened. And now she had his full attention, and he knew just what he did to her.
Ransom was leaning on the counter, swaying back and forth, his eyes almost black. She moaned, and her legs started to shake. She had two fingers on her clit, and she began to urgently rub its peak, knowing that she was close. A buzz was building inside her, and had her body tensed, anticipating the release.
"Brianna. Don't come."
She tore her hands from her cunt. Suddenly feeling empty and alone, she leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling, closing her eyes, willing herself to calm down and breathe regularly… Which was almost impossible since Ransom's instruction just made her hotter.
"Put on a sweater. We're leaving." Ransom walked to the door, acting as if nothing had happened.
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