“What do you say?” Poe asked Dae.
Dae frowned and said nothing.
Poe hissed through his teeth. But maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. It wasn’t like they’d ever had his back, not when it really mattered anyway.
He’d wallowed in that hole in the Tower of London for how many weeks? None of them even tried to find him.
And when his mother died, Dae just up and left him.
Well fuck them.
“You’re both assholes,” he said.
His magic swelled around him as he thought of his childhood home in Scotland and in an instant, he was gone.
Chapter 16
WILLA
Willa paced the living room of the stone cottage in Scotland. She hadn’t left the room since she’d arrived. The only thing she’d done was dress. Was Poe okay? Had Raina killed him?
If Raina killed him, Willa would...
Tears burned in her eyes. Her stomach knotted.
Please be okay.
Please be okay.
The air snapped behind her.
Willa swiveled around.
Poe stood in the living room lit by the stark daylight pouring in from the giant bay windows.
“Oh thank God!” She practically lunged at him and wrapped her arms around him. He stiffened at first, but then he nearly collapsed against her. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you,” she said. “I should have told you.”
“It’s all right, love.”
“No, it’s not.” She pulled back. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Are you okay?”
His hair was disheveled and hung over his forehead. Blood had turned his t-shirt black from the shoulder down to the hip. Willa couldn’t tell if he was still hurt.
“Healed,” he said.
“And your family?”
“Everyone is all right. Raina is gone.”
Willa let out a breath and collapsed onto the sofa. As the relief ran through her, she was surprised to realize she had been more worried about Poe than she had been about Raina.
And what exactly does that mean?
She had no idea.
“You have to tell me everything, love.” Poe sat beside her. “You have one wish remaining. Let’s make it a good one. But I need all the facts to help you choose the right course.”
Willa nodded and swiped the tears from her face. “Okay.”
“Come to the kitchen,” he said. “I’ll make us tea while you fill me in.”
Willa had been so distraught when she arrived at the cottage that she hadn’t explored the house.
A short hallway ran from the living room to the kitchen. Several windows in the cozy space let in a good amount of daylight. There was a worn worktable in the center of the room and white cabinets in an L-shape along the backside. The floor, worn stone, was cold beneath Willa’s feet as she followed Poe to the worktable.
“Have a seat,” he said.
She pulled out one of the wood stools and slid onto it.
“Where to start,” she mused as Poe filled a tea kettle at the sink.
“Start from the beginning. The demon said it was familiar with you and Raina. Has it possessed her before?”
Willa nodded. “Six years ago. Raina was just barely seventeen years old. I was still using my tarot cards at that point. I did a reading one morning because Raina had been acting strange.”
Willa looked down. “She told me she was hearing voices. I thought she was having some kind of mental breakdown. Our home life had never been a great one. We were with a foster home by that point. We’d been placed with a really nice older woman, Maggie. She made the best chocolate chip cookies and she always seemed interested in how we were doing and how our day was. We had never had anything like that.
“It felt too good to be true. Turns out it was.”
Poe set the kettle on the stove and lit the burner.
“That morning, the reading told me Raina would cause a death. I freaked out. I talked Raina into leaving, even though she really didn’t want to.”
Poe leaned into the counter behind him and propped the heels of his hands on the edge.
“We were only gone less than a day,” she whispered. “We spent the first night in a rundown motel. I didn’t sleep well. Raina didn’t sleep at all. She kept talking to the shadows. I considered taking her to the hospital, but I was worried about her having to be admitted to a mental institution. I knew something was wrong, but I was afraid of losing her. And though I had grown up surrounded by magical things, my rational side kept looking for rational excuses.
“By the next morning,” Willa shook her head, “Raina had completely changed. It was like she was high. When we left the motel, we went to a convenience store down the street and Raina terrorized the place. She was overly flirty with customers, she harassed the cashier, and she knocked down several displays creating a huge mess. I was so angry at her. I just had no clue what was happening.”
More tears burned at Willa’s eyes as she drudged up all those old memories, memories she’d tried to bury deep. She didn’t like talking about it. She didn’t like admitting that she was partially responsible for what happened next.
“The cashier called the cops after we left. They picked us up and took us back to Maggie’s. Part of me was glad we’d been caught. I was drowning and I didn’t want to do it all alone. But there was that warning in the back of my mind. I was not a powerful psychic, but the cards had never told a lie.
“I tried to talk myself into believing that I’d misinterpreted the reading.”
Steam started to hiss from the kettle, but Poe didn’t move.
“That night, I woke to screaming. I ran to Maggie’s room and found her dead. Raina—the demon—had killed her.
“‘Now we can be free,’ Raina had said. ‘Isn’t that what you wanted?’”
Willa took a deep breath as several tears escaped.
“So what did you do?” Poe asked quietly.
“When the cops came, Raina, as if by magic, convinced the officers that it was an accident.”
“Demons have the power of persuasion, but it doesn’t work on everyone.”
Willa nodded. “It never did work on me. Raina has tried and failed.” She laughed, even though there was nothing funny about it. “I guess that’s the one bright side.
“After Maggie’s, we were placed with another foster family, but then I turned eighteen and was kicked out. Which was fine, that place was almost worse than our mother’s. We ran away again, and Raina was very good at getting us exactly what we needed. It took me a while, but I finally figured out what was possessing her. Then I did my research. I learned everything I could about demons, most important of which was how to expel them.”
“You exorcised the demon?”
The kettle let out a shrill whistle. Poe shut the burner off and poured water into two teacups.
“I did.”
“Impressive.”
She shrugged. “It was just a band-aid.”
While the tea steeped, Poe brought the cups to the worktable and took the stool beside Willa.
“So you exorcised the demon. And then?”
“Well, we moved around a lot. I was always looking for the right place for us. Somewhere where we’d fit in, you know? Somewhere with a community of supernatural people. Using her magic seemed to help Raina for a time. I heard someone talking about Blackwater at an occult store three years ago. When we moved here, I thought for sure we’d found our place.
“And then we met Caleb Corvin. At first I thought he could guide Raina. Caleb seems like he has his shit together on the surface, but behind closed doors, he’s as much an addict as Raina is.”
Poe removed the tea infuser from each mug and set them aside. “How do you like your tea?”
“Honey and milk.”
He snapped his fingers. For a brief moment, that piney scent of his magic outweighed the earthy smell of the black tea.
When Willa looked down at her teacup, it was just the right shade
of milky.
“I love that trick.”
“I have many more,” Poe said.
She slowly took a sip. “Perfect.”
“So last night, you and the demon got into a fight and you took the collar?” Poe asked.
“Yes. That is the whole truth.”
“And your first thought was to come to me?”
“It was the only place I knew of that I would be safe.”
“You were right.”
Willa sighed. “I don’t feel like that. Especially not after seeing you stabbed multiple times by my demon-possessed sister.”
“Did you already forget the story I shared with you of being burned alive? Or someone trying to lop my head off? I assure you, a minor stabbing is nothing. It’s not even the worst thing I’ve endured.”
He smiled. “And besides, it makes a good story. One we will tell again and again.”
Willa met his eyes. He was staring at her, watching her. Her skin warmed beneath his attention. Hearing him talk like they would continue to be friends even after this...
Should I tell him?
Maybe she could have him.
Maybe she could fix her sister and have all this, too.
Poe wanted his caeli and Willa could give it to him.
She could finally have a place she belonged that she no longer had to run from.
If anyone could keep Raina safe, it was the Blackwell family.
And Poe knew the truth now and he hadn’t tossed her out on her ass.
“You have one wish left,” Poe said. “And you plan to use it to save your sister?”
“Yes.”
“That will be difficult.”
“I know.”
“Have you considered doing a reading?”
Willa shook her head. “Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“Because...because I don’t want to know what horrors might be around the corner. When I did that reading and it told me Raina would harm someone, I took her away from home. It was away from home that she first opened herself up to that demon. She didn’t want to leave Maggie’s. I made her. I keep asking myself if I hadn’t done that reading, and we’d stayed at Maggie’s, would Raina be okay? Would Maggie still be alive?”
“Fate doesn’t work like that, love. Maggie would be dead either way, whether you used the cards or not. Being psychic does not mean you get to see the future and try to stop it from happening. The gift is called foresight for a reason. To prepare you.”
“Then what is the point of it?” Willa set her teacup down with a thud. “If the only thing I can do with the so-called gift is to see the future, then I don’t want it. I’d rather not know.”
Poe moved her cup aside and hunched closer. “By denying yourself the gift you were born with, you deny half of who you are.”
“I’m okay with that.”
With a sigh, he straightened again. “Well if you won’t do a reading, then we’ll have to operate simply off what we know. We can kill the demon with the collar.”
“What? No! The only way to do that is to kill the host!”
“I know that. We just need to persuade the demon there’s a better host.”
“That still means someone will have to die.” The thought made Willa want to vomit. She could still see Maggie’s unseeing eyes and her unmoving corpse. Death was not what she had thought it would be. It had left an indelible mark on her. Like a stain she couldn’t wipe off.
“If we don’t kill it, it will keep coming back,” Poe said.
Willa closed her eyes and inhaled. There had to be something. Something to save her sister that didn’t result in someone’s death.
She didn’t want to fight this fight any longer. She wanted to be done with it. She wanted to move on with her life and fucking live it.
“I think I need some fresh air,” she said. “It’ll help me think.”
Poe stood up and offered her his hand. “That is one thing we can easily remedy.”
Willa stood next to him and slid her hand into his. She liked how solid and steady he was. Like a rock. Like he could envelope her in his arms and nothing bad would ever touch her.
All her life, she’d never felt safe. Until now.
“I know a place,” Poe said. “Whenever I visit it, I am changed. Again and again.”
“Then take me there.”
He wove his arm around her and pulled her in. A lock of his hair fell forward as his eyes glowed green. “Hold on tightly, love, and don’t let go.”
Chapter 17
POE
When they reappeared at Poe’s favorite spot, the wind whipped in cold and wet and salty. Willa yelped in his arms. He had to tighten his hold on her to keep her from spilling over the edge of a cliff.
Poe laughed. “I did warn you.”
“Oh my God.” Her voice was nearly swallowed by the wind. “Where are we?”
“The Cliffs of Moher.”
Once she’d found her balance, Poe let her go and she turned to face the Atlantic Ocean. Far below, the water crashed against the rocks. A relentless churning and pounding of the surf.
Poe breathed in the salt air as he neared the cliff’s edge, just enough so he could see Willa in profile.
Her eyes were closed.
Her cinnamon hair whipped around her face.
She spread her arms out and the sun broke free of the clouds, limning her in golden light.
A chill raced up Poe’s spine. Not from the cold. Or the ocean mist.
From something else.
Something sublime.
Poe loved the Cliffs of Moher. He loved the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean spreading out in every direction. He loved the vibrant green grass that reminded him of the color of his own magic. He loved the birds alight on the wind and the taste of the sea air in the back of his throat.
But right now, he could look at nothing else other than Willa.
He could look at nothing else other than the parting of her lips, the swell of her chest as she inhaled.
All of their problems seemed to melt away.
And they were their problems.
Because Poe would not let her face them alone.
When Willa opened her eyes and turned to him, a smile lit her eyes.
The pounding echo of the waves beat in his chest in time with his heart.
He closed the distance between them, brushed the hair from her face, and then he kissed her.
He was gentle at first.
Did she feel the way he did right now? Like his life had been lived only for this moment?
And then she was melting into him, her lips pressed hard against his. Her tongue flicked out catching Poe off guard and his cock hardened.
The wind shifted and Willa’s hair tossed and turned around Poe, bringing with it Willa’s heady floral scent.
He wanted more of her. He wanted every part of her.
She trembled in his grasp.
He should stop. He should snap his fingers and manifest her a coat. He should pull away and tell her he was sorry, that he didn’t mean to complicate things.
The whole reason he was in this deal was because he wanted his caeli, his Fated, his soul mate. But now? Now all he wanted was Willa and her skin on his.
He did not care about power or fate or anything other than this, now, her.
He pulled Willa to him and left the cliffs behind. He vaded them back to the stone cottage in Scotland to his room at the back of the house.
Willa didn’t pause to adjust. She pulled her shirt over her head as Poe’s pulsing need for her swelled.
Willa must have sensed this in his answering gaze, because she dropped her arms and the silky black straps of her bra slid from her shoulders. Then she reached behind her and undid the hook.
When her bra fell to the floor, baring her, Poe inhaled a sharp breath.
She was insanely beautiful, and he felt insane with the hunger for her, to claim her as his.
He went to her and wound his arm around he
r waist. She arched into him as he took her nipple in his mouth. When his tongue teased at her, she exhaled, her grip tightening around his bicep.
Poe’s fingertips traced a feather touch from her hip to her ribs until he was at her other breast, her nipple trapped between his thumb and forefinger.
Willa whimpered.
His cock strained against his pants.
Feeling his arousal, Willa wriggled against him and undid the button on his pants.
When she slipped her hand inside to stroke him, his world came apart.
“Good gods, love,” he said and closed his eyes. Her touch was fire in his veins. It burned away the one thought that had been driving him for centuries.
He did not need his caeli if he had Willa.
He yanked at her jeans, tearing them and her panties from her body. She matched his fervor, helping him from his boxers so that his cock was unburdened and bulging between them.
Her hand wrapped around him and stroked slowly from base to head. When she cupped his balls with her other hand, he growled deep from within his chest. “Get on your knees,” he said.
She lowered herself to the floor and blinked up at him from beneath his shaft as her tongue flicked out, painting the underside of him with her wetness.
Poe threaded his hand through her hair and tightened his hold, directing her mouth to his head. She opened wide for him and he drove inside of her. She moaned around him, the hum vibrating through his length all the way down to his balls.
She moaned again as he picked up his pace, his cock sliding in and out of her. He came to the razor’s edge of spending himself down her throat. It took everything he had to stop and clamp down on his arousal.
He was almost disappointed in the swiftness of his building arousal. Had he ever come this close to the edge this quickly with any other woman before? Absolutely not. Poe had always prided himself on being the commander in any and all sexual encounters. Women trembled at his touch. They quivered at the precipice of their orgasm, nearly insane with their lust for him.
Never, in his hundreds of years, had Poe felt maddeningly overcome with desire.
Not until now.
Not now that his cock was inside Will’s mouth and she was purring against him.
Two Deals: a Djinn Paranormal Romance (Blackwell Djinn) Page 9
