Veil of Thorns

by Gwen Mitchell

  He was her past and her future. Her destiny.

  Now, she understood. Like the magic that thrummed through her soul, he belonged to her, was a part of her. He’d always been there, on the other end of that line anchored to her heart, one that had been slowly reeling them together since before Bri was even born.

  She gently pushed Lucas back so she could hop down from the altar and turned her back to him. “You don’t have to be gentle with the corset–I hate the damn things.”

  The next instant, it was lying in two pieces at her feet. She giggled, unlacing the frayed remnants of her skirt to let it fall.

  Lucas made a choked sound behind her.

  She turned around, completely naked, to find him on his knees, his head at chest-level. He scooped her into his arms and buried his face between her breasts. Bri made a small yip of surprise but gasped in pleasure as his hands slid up and down, massaging her whole backside, claws gently scratching. He was careful with his fangs, and wicked with his lips and tongue.

  Lucas growled and tumbled them to the ground, rolling beneath her.

  There’s no turning back from this.

  But she wasn’t frightened. She waited for guilt or apprehension to grip her and tear her away from the moment, but she had already been swept away.

  As Lucas reclined in the bed of crimson roses–the same one she’d seen in the mirror–she only felt a sense of rightness. This had already been written in the stars. She was Fated to become immortal. Before Lucas had arrived in the clearing, she’d accepted that and decided not to avoid her destiny anymore. Now she was willing to let herself enjoy it. She savored the way the magic rippling off his body danced along her naked skin like invisible flames, how his muscles bunched beneath her fingers, and his eyes fluttered closed when she rocked her hips against him.

  Bri leaned forward and sucked on the strong column of his neck, trailed kisses up to his ear. “I want to see all of you.”

  His chest gave a pleased rumble, and his gaze darkened, the glowing red pupils narrowing to slits. The leather skirt between them disappeared.

  A gasp escaped her lips. Just like the rest of him, one glance confirmed he’d grown larger. His stomach flexed as her hand trailed between them, and he hissed when she rubbed her thumb over the moist tip of his rock-hard erection.

  “Ah, gods above and below, woman, you are killing me so sweetly.” Clawed hands tangled in the roses by her knees, and he turned his head to the side, biting his lip as she stroked up and down in a slow rhythm, luxuriating in the rich silken texture of his skin.

  She relished the sounds he made in response to every touch, the way his hands felt on her body—eager as he traced the small of her back and curve of her hips, languorous as he caressed the curves of her breasts, which grew heavy and sensitized under his attention. Her own arousal was threatening to overtake all sense, but she knew she had to be ready for him, so she rubbed herself along his throbbing length until everywhere they touched was slick and warm and swollen. He never complained or rushed her, enjoying every second of the tease and whispering roughly in demonish, the guttural words sparking the fire in her core.

  When she felt ready, she sat up, a flutter of nerves in her belly. Every hair on her body stood on end. An electric crackle filled the air, and thunder rumbled in the distance.

  As soon as the sound faded, lightning flashed, and it began to rain.

  Lucas sat up, pulling her closer. “The tent?”

  “No.” She eased him back. “Here. Just like this.”

  He relaxed into the carpet of roses, a look of awe on his face.

  Bri glanced over her shoulder. “The blade.”

  Lucas’s knife appeared on the ground by her right hand.

  She aligned their bodies, and Lucas tilted her forward to capture her lips in a kiss that was fierce and tender, desperate and reverent.

  Then, he thrust inside her with a groan.

  Bri shuddered, feeling an echo of his relief rattle through her.

  She gasped as he began to move, the feeling sharp, just shy of painful. He was slow and restrained at first, but as the rain fell harder, it seemed as if Lucas’s need matched the pressure of the storm, his thrusts quickening.

  Her pleasure built, but her magic lay dormant, just out of reach. She did not feel connected to the earth, or the sky, or even to Lucas. Something was wrong.

  “Wait.” Bri slowed his urgent pace, kissing him to get his attention. She held his face in her hands. “I need–”

  He stopped her mid-thought with a swirl of his hips that made her head fall back.

  “Anything,” he said, lightly scraping his claws over her nipples.

  Bri hissed and pressed him to the ground, pinning his wrists by his head. “I can’t feel my magic.”

  He blinked, seeming to come back to himself from far away. “I am holding mine back.”

  “Don’t.” She let go of him and flipped her wet hair over one shoulder. “I need to feel it.”

  “Yes, mon coeur,” he answered with a wicked grin, throbbing inside of her, “you shall have all of me.”

  Thinking it may help, Bri blinked into her Second Sight. There was a wolf-shaped demon of grey smoke underneath her for a heartbeat, complete with snout and ears. With his next thrust, there was a flash of light, and the vision caught fire, sparkling as bright as a hundred tiny stars exploding at once. Like watching the birth of the universe.

  Bri’s magic answered his, flaring with red and green and blue fire over her skin, filling her whole body with a charge, as if she might shoot into the sky like a comet.

  She let Lucas take control. He braced her hips in his hands as he guided her up and down. Where their bodies joined, firecracker sparks of purple magic wheeled through the air. Bri lost awareness of her breath, her heartbeat, the dirt under her knees, the rain on her skin. She felt only the building pressure of the storm of light–of power–brewing between, above, and below them.

  Lucas stared up at her with eyes that were the golden moons of the wolf, the fiery suns of the demon, the grey storm clouds of the man, all eclipsed. His claws dug into her hips and he drove deeper, his power spiraling deeper still. Into her core, into the yawning pit where she kept her power locked behind a thick wall of grief and regret.

  He sat up, wrapping her in his arms and dropping kisses along her collarbone as he crooned, “You must let me in, Briana.”

  She whimpered, half from pleasure, half from fear.

  What if she couldn’t control it? What if the thing waiting in that pit rose up and consumed her? Snuffed her out? What if she ceased to be who she was and became someone, something else entirely? What if she–Bri–fell into that bottomless hole and kept falling forever? Out of time and memory. Lost.

  This was the fear she had never let herself face, and now, standing on the precipice, she had no choice but to take a leap of faith.

  “Do not be afraid, mon coeur.” Clawed fingers gently brushed her face. “I will not let go of you.”

  Bri nodded and picked up the blade.

  Lucas kissed her and surrendered to his need, grinding and bucking wildly beneath her. Bri’s pleasure chased after his, quickly unraveling towards release, and she was glad for the spell that kept him in demon form, for her Second Sight, for this vision of him that was new and different–so different from any of Vivianne’s—one that was hers to keep. Hers alone. Hers.

  Mine.

  She scored her palm and began the incantation, taking the final leap into that well of power, trusting the cord of magic binding her to Lucas to catch like a bungee cord and spring her back to reality. She laid her hand over the cut she sliced across his chest and spoke the final words of the ritual.

  Lucas! She cried out his name silently as she felt her entire being split apart.

  ***

  She had found the mirror. It had come to her. She should be able to use it whenever she wanted, Vivianne thought as she crawled into the tiny space behind a stack of kegs at the back of the pantry th
at she’d claimed as her own secret nook.

  Sigma Juliette didn’t understand.

  The mirror called to her. She had heard it by the river that day. No one else had. It was meant to be hers. She should be able to take it with her if she was to be married off to some rotten old mundane. That way she could still see how things were at the Guild, how her coven sisters and brothers fared.

  Vivianne sat on the floor beside her small table and lit the candle with a snap of her fingers. She replaced the dried flowers with fresh and laid out the rest of her ritual tools. She moved her scrying bowl to the floor and drew the mirror from her pouch and unwrapped the oilskin, setting it in the center of her altar.

  The marriage was only a contract. A formality. Ensuring the safety of her coven by securing a bond to a local lord with a big title and little funds. All of this, and her duty, had been explained to her. Though she was only fourteen and had just gotten her first moon, she was not a child. She understood well enough. She was an orphan of no important lineage and no great magic–she would marry for duty, not love.

  But you are mine, she thought, gazing into the mirror.

  It glowed back at her, and she smiled, scoring her thumb with her athame and squeezing out three drops of blood into the center of the black disk. As long as she had the mirror, she could always find her way to her heart’s desires.

  She would have it all.

  “Show me my true love,” she whispered.

  The surface of the mirror rippled like black water and then flashed with white light. Vivianne leaned over and gazed in.

  There was a woman looking back at her, with wild red curls twisted with leafy rose vines.

  My true love is a woman? she wondered in surprise. A goddess? But the woman mirrored her expression, blinked when she blinked, flinched when she flinched.

  The hair on her forearms stood on end.

  Is this…the older me? It couldn’t be. Aside from Vivianne’s hair being straight and black, her mouth was small and her nose large. The woman in the mirror had a pert, upturned nose and large, full lips.

  The edge of the mirror glowed.

  Show me my true love, she thought again, and finally, the woman’s face disappeared.

  She saw a wolf in a clearing, nearly as tall as she, eyes glowing like a Hunter’s Moon. She rubbed her hand down his velvety snout, unafraid.

  The vision flashed, and he was there again, but a man. A handsome man–tall and broad and powerful astride a grey horse. Like the prince of her dreams come to life!

  The mirror began flashing images at her faster and faster, until she could barely make sense of them. Sometimes it was a grey steed, sometimes a roaring metal beast. Sometimes it was her–an older version of her, sometimes the woman with the red hair. But always, he was there. Her prince. Her wolf.

  So…you are to be mine as well.

  She closed her eyes, memorizing his face, and smiled.

  The mirror flashed with light again, and she saw hands soaked in blood, a still-beating heart in one, a blade in the other.

  Flash.

  She walked through a forest of statues, the handsome prince at her side. As they walked, the forest crumbled to dust around them.

  Flash.

  An island fortress wreathed in mist, dark spires reaching impossibly high.

  Flash.

  A giant, gaping abyss, swirling with an emptiness deeper than a starless night.

  Flash.

  A million stars whizzing by as she placed a sparkling crystal crown atop her head. She gazed over to see her wolf prince at her side.

  We will show you the way, said a voice that was many braided together. It was not inside or outside of her head but vibrating through every fiber of her being.

  You can have everything you ever wanted… if you are willing to pay the price.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lucas woke to the first rays of dawn, when Hedvika’s spell released him and he returned to his human form. He sighed, relaxing back into their dewy bed of roses. Bri lay on her side a few inches away, using his curled arm as a pillow. She shivered, and he scooted closer, conjuring a fur quilt and sliding it up over them. He carefully wrapped her in his other arm, his heart swelling at the rightness of having her there.

  He felt like he’d awoken from a centuries-long dream. The bands of tightness constricting his chest and heaviness in his bones, which he had carried so long they had become another piece of his armor, were gone.

  He was stripped bare, washed clean, reborn into a new world. And everywhere was Briana. She was an absolute wonder to him. Full of so many surprises. He couldn’t wait to stumble upon another. Bri nuzzled her backside against him, making him grow even harder than he already was. Her skin, her smell, the green fire in her eyes as she’d sealed their bond…

  His witch. His mate. His, at last.

  Did she see things differently now? Would she accept him fully–body, heart, and soul? Because, as he suspected, completing the bond had not slaked his wanting of her. It had only grown.

  She brushed against him again, humming in pleasure.

  His chest rumbled in response.

  Bri’s body jolted and tensed, and he sensed she was awake.

  He froze, not even breathing, though his heart hammered in his chest and his cock throbbed in time. She must feel his arousal pressed against her.

  She finally relaxed and slowly arched her back, pressing into him as she reached behind her head to clasp his hand.

  “Briana.” He groaned and kissed her neck, gently nibbling as his hand stroked up the front of her body.

  “Lucas,” she said on an exhale.

  He rolled them over until she was on her back beneath him, atop the fur. Her damp hair was a wild mass of red curls, her hands and feet and knees caked in mud, as were his. She smelled of earth and lightning and blood and roses. She smelled of sex.

  Bri stared back at him, a soft smile curling her lips as she stroked her finger down the bridge of his nose. “You’re you again.”

  He slid his thigh between hers, and she opened for him.

  A very pleasant surprise.

  He poised at her entrance, gazing into the bottomless green pools of her eyes, and found himself utterly bewitched. She had claimed the wolf, conquered the demon…would she also give herself to the man?

  Nails scored his arms as she lifted her hips and sealed their bodies together.

  With a groan he rocked into her, never breaking eye contact. He braced on his elbows and buried his fingers in her hair as she drew him deeper and deeper under her spell. Every place their bodies touched felt like lapping waves of pure magic colliding, combining into a greater wave. But beyond that, there were her sounds of pleasure, the unflinching rawness of her gaze, and the swelling in his chest, like a storm about to break.

  The biggest surprise of all.

  He had never expected to love another as much as he had loved Vivianne.

  He loved Briana more.

  Soon, he was on the brink of release. He tried to pull back, draw out their pleasure, but Bri would not let him. She hooked her ankles around his legs and locked her arms around his neck, pressing every inch of their naked, sweat-slicked skin together, gripping and squeezing, wrapping them in tendrils of her magic. With each rock of his hips, she ground into him with equal desperation, until finally she cried out his name.

  That sound sent him plummeting over the edge of ecstasy.

  “Briana.” Tears spilled from his eyes. He did not know if he was lost or found. “I love you. I love you…Briana.”

  ***

  Bri fell back asleep in Lucas’s arms and woke again when the morning sun was climbing towards midday. The ground was dry, the roses beneath them wilted, leaves crisping in the heat. She tossed the covers off, and Lucas stirred, reaching for her.

  She sat up, tucking her knees to her chest as the memories of the night shuffled through her brain and spread out before her like a tarot reading.

  The High Priestes
s.

  Betrayal.

  The Scales.

  Fate.

  The Lovers…

  Lucas rose beside her and leaned in to kiss her face.

  Bri turned away, unable to look at him now, in the full light of day. Last night had seemed so unreal, full of magic and spells and demon ale. Even he had been different. Not demon or man or wolf, but all three. Something other. Something out of a dream. It had been almost too easy to give in to the pull between them, because she hardly felt like herself either.

  When he’d awoken her before sunrise, she’d still been half-lost in the haze of dreams and the moon’s potent charge, but her body responded to his instinctually. She’d been so happy to see him human again, and the raw need in his eyes had burned away all her reason.

  No turning back.

  It was finally sinking in. Everything had changed, yet nothing had. She still loved Kean. She still wanted Lucas. She wanted him again now, just thinking about it, and her face flushed with guilt.

  “Everything alright?”

  She nodded and cleared her throat. “Fine. Do you have any extra clothes for me?”

  Lucas hesitated but said, “Of course.”

  He conjured clothes, a camp shower, and a breakfast of Gatorade and Pop Tarts. She smiled at the gesture, joining him at the obsidian table, clean and dressed in workout attire.

  Welcome to the awkward morning after.

  Only, there would be no I’ll call you and a goodbye kiss full of sweet maybes. It was clear this wolf wasn’t going anywhere. Even if she wanted him to. Which–she had to admit–she didn’t. Sending Lucas away, even if he would go, would feel like cutting off her arm now.

  So much for the ritual making things easier.

  He reclined against the altar, dressed in jeans, black t-shirt, and sunglasses, and looking more relaxed than he’d been since they left North Wake. It reminded her of when they’d first met in this life, how he’d been nonchalant about nosing into her business, and how she’d been disarmed by his aloof humor. Despite being bereft and in unfamiliar territory, he’d made her feel at ease. She’d wanted to confess her deepest, darkest secrets to him.