by Emma Dean
Ethan ran his hand through his hair with a frustrated sigh.
Mika scooted off her stool and climbed up onto his. “It’s not just her,” she said, trying to ease his discomfort. “My sister and mother were the same. I never could have introduced you and Lucien and Corbin without my mother disowning me. Kenzie had a hard time with her mates too. It even took Selene a little to get used to the idea, and her parents never approved. Even now.”
Ethan grabbed her legs and lifted her up, pulling her onto his lap so she was straddling him. “So, how are they even living in that house attached to Selene’s?”
“Matriarch overrules parents,” Mika murmured, resting her forehead against his as she breathed him in.
It was comfortable like this, just the two of them. Ethan was her calm and her rock. But he also made heat pool in her belly with the way his thumbs rhythmically stroked her thighs, with how his arms strained against his flannel shirt, and the dark curls she could never resist. His beard always did embarrassing things to her breathing too.
“I guess it’s a good thing you’re a matriarch then,” Ethan said carefully, watching her.
Mika nodded slightly. Their faces were so close she could see every color of grey he had in his eyes. “It was one of the reasons I challenged her after all – to have the freedom to be with who I love, who I choose to be with.”
They were quiet for a moment, both of them lost in their thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I know I already apologized, but you were so mad at me.”
Ethan’s grip on her tightened, but he didn’t try to interrupt or say anything reassuring. That was how Mika knew those three weeks were still bothering him.
“I’m honestly surprised you didn’t break up with me,” Mika whispered, gripping his neck tight.
Just the thought of him leaving made it difficult to breathe.
“Mika.” Ethan’s voice was gentle and kind which almost broke her. “Those three weeks were the hardest of my life, worse even than what happened with the golem in Santa Fe.”
She took a shuddering breath, trying to brace herself for whatever Ethan was going to say next.
“But love isn’t an easy thing,” he murmured, lifting her chin slightly so she had to look at him again. “And I never expected it to be. I never thought loving someone as strong and independent as you are, was going to come without bumps in the road. But it’s not really about those bumps, it’s about how we make it through them. I honestly think we’re closer than we were before, even with all this other stuff going on.”
It wasn’t what she had expected him to say and Mika stared at him in surprise. “You really think so?”
Ethan shrugged and pulled her closer, so she was pressed right up against him. His arms around her felt nice and reassuring. “Love isn’t supposed to be some perfect, never changing thing. Assuming life will not happen, that it won’t change us over time…that’s stupid and unrealistic. I plan to do everything I can to change and grow and adapt with you, but yeah, I’m not perfect either. So, sometimes I might get mad or upset, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to break up with you in some kind of temper tantrum.”
She had to blink back tears that made her throat close up. Mika couldn’t even say anything without risk of letting it all loose. She could only swallow the lump and nod.
He chuckled softly and gently kissed her lips. “I just want you to know, I’ll fight to keep what we have – not just during the difficult times, but during the easy times too. I don’t want you to get bored with me after all.”
“I love you,” she managed, hating how husky her voice was. “I know I’m not perfect. I know I’m a little crazy, and I make stupid mistakes. I know how difficult I can be to love, but somehow you make it sound so easy and I’ll never understand how I got so lucky to get someone like you. You stayed, Ethan, every time I pushed you away. You didn’t give up when I wanted nothing to do with you the first time we met. And I’ll try to keep earning that, every single day I get with you.”
“I would do anything for you,” he whispered, fingers gripping her thighs like he was afraid she might just disappear.
Mika couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. They ran down her face, leaving marks on her skin. She held him tight, ignoring the way they dripped from her face like rain. “I know you would.”
Then she kissed him.
That kiss was like falling into a storm.
Mika needed to be as close to him as she could possibly be. Her hands slid inside his shirt, needing to feel skin. Ethan yanked her closer and she could feel his hard on. Before she knew what he was doing, her shirt was on the ground and his hands were in her hair.
He tasted like rain and smelled like lightning. The hairs on her arms and legs rose as the static in the room grew, as it became more humid. Wind rustled the leaves of the plants in a room with all the doors and windows closed.
When he bent to kiss her throat she gasped, breathing in air that promised to tear the earth apart if they weren’t careful. It was the same air that created tornadoes and hurricanes and wrought destruction on so many, contained in this tiny room as a reflection of the male she loved so much.
“Ethan,” Mika murmured, surprised she wasn’t even a little bit afraid. “I will always be yours, no matter what.”
Suddenly she was in his arms as he stood. The sound of items being cleared off the table was far away, and he set her on top of it, the pink flower unharmed on the far end.
He stared into her eyes, breathing hard, curls disheveled, and shirt wrinkled. “And I will always be yours, Mika.”
It felt like more than a statement, more than a promise. It was more than declaring a truth of feelings. Mika could feel it between them, as thick and binding as a blood oath. Ethan would take that bond without hesitation and she laughed, choking on a sob at the same time.
“I think we’re a bit young for such heavy declarations,” she said, wiping away more tears. “It seems a little silly.”
“Age doesn’t mean anything,” he told her, tucking her hair back, running his fingers down her neck and over her shoulder. “It means nothing when you consider how much you’ve lived in the time you’ve been on this earth.”
They’d all been through so much already.
Mika shivered when his fingers went down the side of her bra and over her waist. “I suppose you’re right. I don’t doubt what’s between us, so why wait?”
“Why should we?” Ethan murmured, studying her like she was a work of art.
He bent his head and kissed the scars on her neck from the challenge. She’d been hiding the red lines under strategic shirts and scarves, not wanting to remind everyone of what she was forced to remember every time she looked in the mirror.
“You are perfect for your imperfections,” he told her. “And I want nothing more than to be with you for the rest of my life. No matter what that looks like.” Ethan pushed her skirt up and his rough calluses on her thighs did things to her she wouldn’t ever be able to describe with words.
Mika lifted her body so he could pull her underwear off. Then she sat up, reaching for his pants with a desperation she didn’t really understand. All she knew was that she needed him right now, no matter who walked through that door – she knew she wouldn’t care, and she probably wouldn’t stop either.
That’s how badly she needed him.
Ethan was hard as a rock and just as desperate as her. His kiss was rough, tongue in her mouth with contrasting gentle strokes that made her nothing more than liquid heat.
Mika spread her legs and yanked him closer.
When he entered her, she sighed in relief.
This was exactly what she’d needed, what she’d wanted.
Ethan took her in the conservatory with his clouds above them and rain soaking the room, soaking her skin and his hair. Gusts of wind made the leaves rustle, but it wasn’t too much to rip through everything he’d built. It was just…Ethan being who he was, letting down his guard and s
howing her exactly what he was feeling.
She held on tight as he took her, biting down on his shoulder to keep from screaming and bringing everyone still in the conservatory running.
When he pulled her off the table, holding her close as he stood in the center of the room, she wasn’t expecting him to just stop. Ethan looked into her eyes, holding her like it was nothing as his cock pulsed inside her.
There were no words that he needed to say. She could already feel what it was he was feeling. She knew what it was he needed. Mika held his gaze and used her arms to hold herself up.
Then she started riding him, slow and steady while he held her. It wasn’t easy from this position but watching him slowly unravel was worth every burning muscle.
She felt her own pleasure crest and fall, rippling through her almost gently as she continued the torturous rhythm. Mika murmured his name as she clenched around him, making sure never to slow down.
It was what undid him completely. Ethan came hard when he met her stroke for stroke, falling to his knees as it ripped through him. Somehow, he kept her from falling. Somehow, he kept them upright despite how much they were both shaking.
Mika loved him. She would fight for him just as hard as he fought for her.
“No matter what,” she whispered, holding him close.
22
They only had a few more days until the next full moon.
She was acing her remaining classes, not that she really cared at the moment.
Mika stomped through the forest, glaring up at the fat moon through the leaves and branches that were slowly but surely turning to their gorgeous yellows and reds. A few more days and they still weren’t anywhere close to finding out where Aine might be hiding.
She didn’t want to wait until the next full moon. October would bring Homecoming and Samhain. Then midterms in November, and before she knew it the semester would be over.
Suddenly she found herself in the cemetery again. The moon lit up the clearing in silvers and whites. It made the gravestones glow, highlighting the ones she’d broken. Mika went to the one that was halved and knelt down, summoning a witchlight to see who she’d disturbed.
This Joe had a singing voice so lovely the undine took him, returning his bones to us.
Fitting, she supposed. Not that many could read the Old Gaelic, but Mika could, and the words felt like a dark promise of the future.
How was she supposed to find Aine? How was she supposed to free the Morrigan before Samhain?
Why did it feel like she needed to do this now?
Mika sighed and stood, leaving the gravestone sliced in half. No one really cared about the humans here anyway – their bodies were long gone, the headstones nothing but a gruesome reminder of a witch’s true nature.
These humans were already dead. Why let it go to waste?
She tapped the rubies at her neck as she wove through the headstones. At least the beasts were starting to fall in line. That was something.
Another restless night.
Mika couldn’t sleep anymore. Only a few hours at a time. Soon, Corbin would come looking for her when she didn’t return to her bed after training with Morgana.
Looking up at the nearly full moon, she didn’t know what she was even doing out here. There weren’t going to be any answers out here, the trees didn’t have any more secrets to tell. Mika was at a dead end in more ways than one.
She had no idea how to complete the spell without Aine’s blood. She couldn’t figure out who was behind the Morrigan’s capture in the first place, and what that had to do with Cassandra. Mika supposed she could go after the Head Witch and demand answers, but she’d been hoping to confront her with a few more weapons in her arsenal, not half-cocked and desperate.
Cassandra was hundreds of years old and had gotten away with the slaughter of Mika’s kind. That wasn’t a witch she wanted to go up against without every advantage she could scrounge up. But if she had to…she supposed she would.
Denying who and what she was, hiding it – it was starting to take its toll. Mika knew Jessica was right. She couldn’t keep denying who she was if she wanted to regain control. Accepting that part of her meant she couldn’t hide it anymore.
But without setting the Morrigan free, she would have one less, very powerful, ally.
Mika focused on her normal magic, concentrating on the buds in the ground she could sense. A few words and the right sigils with her fingers had the entire cemetery blooming with moonflowers.
A stark contrast to the one she couldn’t manage last semester.
Mika sighed and breathed in the sweet scent.
She wasn’t alone, and she wasn’t powerless anymore. If freeing the Morrigan had to wait, she would be okay – no matter how much the prickle at the back of her neck warned her not to wait a second longer.
Twigs cracked, and this time Mika was ready.
She whipped around, sealing the area with a careful circle she’d drawn that morning. All it took was one word to create the prison for her and whatever it was that had been stalking her.
“You’re trapped,” she murmured, searching the shadows. “The circle is drawn in blood. It won’t drop unless you kill me first, or I dispel it.”
There, the shadows were darker than the rest of them, thicker and sentient.
A dark chuckle made goosebumps rise up on her arms and legs. Mika grabbed the biggest ruby, ready to release the blood beast if necessary.
“I was wondering how long it would take you to notice,” a deep voice whispered from seemingly everywhere. “Clever witch.” He spoke a few more words, but in a rolling, guttural language she’d only ever heard a few times before.
What the hell had she trapped in this circle with her?
As it stepped out of that dark shadow, her eyes focused, but Mika couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
A hellhound with those glowing hellfire eyes, just as massive and terrifying as the first one. With each step he shifted, the black skin turning to a human color – a lovely light brown. Mika was frozen in place as he walked toward her, turning from beast to man, the pure black receding with veins of hellfire all while his eyes continued to glow with it.
Until he was standing before her, totally naked.
His skin was a soft brown from what she could see in the moonlight, a touch lighter than Malachi’s. Somehow, he was bigger than both Malachi and Corbin. He glared down at her, making the air between them feel thin as she tried not to panic – tried not to eye him from head to toe.
“You’re the new hellhound,” she whispered, fighting the urge to step back. “Are you going to kill me?”
Where was Corbin, or Armad? If Armad was the one watching over her he would fly to Corbin first and warn him. That meant she had to survive the next few moments alone.
Her grip tightened on the ruby as she waited for his response.
“Lucifer wouldn’t allow it,” the hellhound finally said. “Even though you killed one of my brothers.”
“He tried to kill me first,” she snapped, wincing at her attitude.
Mika wished she could just get her shit together for once in her life and stop provoking deadly things.
“There is that,” the hellhound murmured.
He took up so much space. Mika didn’t know where to look, so she kept her eyes on his collarbone. It was neutral and safest. She didn’t dare look up into his eyes and the infernal heat that was coming off of him in the cool night was distracting.
“I’ve been watching you,” the hellhound growled.
Mika couldn’t hide her flinch. “I know.”
“I’m glad the raven got to you in time.” He turned without warning and went to inspect her circle, hissing when it shocked him.
She snuck a look. Yup, his ass was definitely as tight and round as she thought it’d be. Mika looked up at the moon through the glittering red circle and prayed to the Fates he hadn’t noticed.
“What do you mean, the raven got to me in time?” she asked, b
reathing in and out as slowly as she could to ease the pounding of her heart.
“I called him when those demon witches took you.” The hellhound sounded so matter of fact she blinked in confusion.
“Wait, what?” Forgoing all common sense, she stomped across the cemetery and grabbed his arm. “What do you mean, you called him?”
“Someone called him to warn him where you were.” The hellhound raised one thick, gorgeous eyebrow at her. How was he so fucking beautiful? Did Lucifer do it on purpose, making sure his subjects were irresistible instead of horrifying to trick mortals into making stupid decisions?
“Morgana mentioned that,” Mika managed. Suddenly she realized how close she was to his naked body. Mika stepped back and tripped over one of the broken gravestones.
The hellhound grabbed her arm before she could hit the ground. Mika stared up at him, breathing hard, one ruby still clutched in her hand. “What do you want from me?”
Slowly he helped her stand and then released her. “Lucifer asked me to watch over you.”
“How are you even here?” she asked, reaching out to steady herself on one of the gravestones. “Jessica and Lucifer can’t step foot on Morgana’s island.”
“It seems there’s a bit of a loophole with hellhounds, not to mention the Council made a deal with the devil to use us to guard the seals to hell on this plane.”
His deep, gravelly voice made the very air vibrate and Mika felt it in her bones and blood.
“Release this circle, I have somewhere I need to take you,” the hellhound demanded.
“I don’t even know your name, even though you apparently know everything about me,” Mika protested. “Since you’ve been stalking me for months.”
Those brown eyes burst with the flames of hell and she refused to back down, baring her teeth at him. “I took down one hellhound before I knew what I was doing. Don’t test me.”
