Rebel Reborn (The Witch's Rebels Book 6)

by Sarah Piper

  And then, as she shuddered beneath me, my name no more than a sigh on her breath, I finally lost the tenuous hold on my own control.

  I kissed her, everything inside me exploding in pure, white-hot pleasure as the world crashed out of orbit, sending me spiraling into another galaxy, another time, another universe.

  And through it all, we looked deeply into each other’s eyes, a connection so deep and intimate it stole my breath.

  There were tears in her eyes, and when she looked up at me and smiled, my heart was utterly full.

  “How do you feel?” she asked later. Minutes, hours, I could not have said. In those precious moments in her arms, time had lost all meaning for me.

  “It’s not an exaggeration to say that I now understand why humans have gone to war for such a thing.”

  Gray laughed softly, a sound that made my heart sing. “Hmm. And this was just our first time.”

  “You mean… We get to do that again?”

  Now, her laugh turned hearty, so full it made our bed tremble. “I love you, Liam Colebrook. You know that, right?”

  “You’ve left no doubts, little witch.” I cupped her breast, stroking her nipple with my thumb. In the span of a single heartbeat, I was hard for her again.

  “About that whole ‘doing it again’ bit,” I said, pulling her on top of me, “do you think we might…”

  “Yes, Liam.” She lowered her head, her lips alighting on mine as the dragonfly alights upon the lotus. Then, with a wicked gleam in her eye, she smiled and said, “I think we might.”

  Twenty-Three

  RONAN

  In all the time I’ve been with Gray, from the moment I was assigned as her guardian to this moment right now, I’d been dreaming of the day when I’d have leverage over Sebastian—just enough to break his hold on Gray. Just enough to loosen the binds of her contract. Just enough to let us find that final, indisputable loophole.

  All the fucking wishes and dreams in the world, yet in my mind, they’d always ended the same way.

  Sebastian, laughing me out of his office, reminding me to remember my place.

  Sebastian, threatening me with eternal banishment, with harming Gray, with assigning her a new guardian, with finding crueler and more heartbreaking ways to keep us apart.

  He was a monster, and we were his prey.

  Until tonight.

  “What is so urgent,” Sebastian demanded, “that I had to take time away from running my operations to come see you in person?”

  It was the night after our walk on the beach, and one hour after our agreed-upon meeting time, he’d simply appeared at the kitchen table, where he now sat with his arms folded across his chest, his face pinched in annoyance.

  I glanced at Gray, who was standing next to me, and she nodded once.

  I tossed a paper bag onto the table in front of him.

  “What’s this?” he asked, barely glancing at it.

  “A new deal,” Gray said.

  The D-word piqued his interest, as it always had. Keeping his eyes locked on Gray, he opened up the bag, fishing out the chunk of hair she’d yanked from Trinity’s head, along with the passports we’d discovered in her crypt office.

  Sebastian’s eyes glowed red with rage.

  I took a step closer to Gray.

  “How did you come by this?” he demanded, pressing the hair to his nose and taking a deep whiff. “Answer me!”

  As it had so many times before, Sebastian’s total lack of emotional restraint gave him away, and for the first time since I’d traded away the ability to touch the woman I loved for a chance at keeping her safe, a spark of hope flickered to life inside my gut.

  Hope that the Prince of Hell might actually agree to this.

  Hope that tonight, rather than sleeping next to Ash as he touched her, rather than listening to her soft moans and Darius and Emilio brought her to the edge, rather than seeing her shy smile and swollen lips as she crept out of Liam’s bedroom just before sunrise, rather than dousing myself with icy showers as I replayed the images she’d implanted in my mind, I might be able to share her bed again without burning her alive.

  “How we came by it is irrelevant,” Gray said. “What’s important is what we’re offering—if you’re willing to negotiate.”

  Sebastian placed the items back inside the bag and set it on the table, feigning indifference, but it was too late for that. He couldn’t hide the desperate desire smoldering in his eyes.

  “You’re bargaining with me, Silversbane?” he asked.

  “There’s nothing in my contract that prevents it,” she said. “Besides, aren’t you the king of the deal?”

  “Get to the point.”

  “Ronan and I share a deep love you couldn’t even begin to understand,” she said, surprising me. I hadn’t expected her to get so personal there, but Gray was on a mission, and wherever the hell she was going with this, I trusted her. “You had no right to take that from us.”

  “Oh, but I did,” Sebastian said, condescension dripping from his voice. “It’s all there in black and white. Ronan agreed to my terms, no tricks, no take-backs.”

  “You left him no other options, and you did it all for sport,” she said. “You gain absolutely nothing by keeping us apart—nothing but your own sick amusement.”

  “What you call ‘sick amusement,’ Silversbane, I call managing my assets, which I’m free to do as I see fit.” Sebastian folded his hands over his belly, offering a smug grin, assuming he’d gotten the upper hand.

  But Gray wasn’t done yet. Not even close.

  “When I first met you,” she continued, “I thought you’d never loved anyone in your life. How else could you be so cruel? So casual about destroying our love?”

  Sebastian rolled his eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, girl, I’m the Prince of Hell. Love is not my primary motivator.”

  “It was once though, wasn’t it?” she asked, her tone softening. “A young witch at the crossroads, a favor here, a favor there, and before you realized it, you’d given away your heart.”

  Bullseye.

  I’d never seen the Prince of Hell turn so white. Gray had hit him right where it hurt.

  Sebastian exploded, jumping to his feet in a rage. “I didn’t come here to be manipulated and cajoled by—”

  “Ronan and I know of Trinity’s whereabouts,” Gray deadpanned, once again hitting her target.

  Sebastian’s mouth dropped open. He tried to recover, reclaiming his seat and smoothing his hands over his pants, but once again, she’d tricked him into showing his hand.

  “We know where she’s been hiding,” Gray continued. “We know who’s been protecting her, we know who’s given her an army, and we know about her plans for a major power grab that—if successful—will leave you unemployed and homeless.”

  “Are you suggesting she has the power to claim hell?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Oh, I’m not suggesting it, Sebastian. I’m straight-up telling you. But if you’d rather bury your head in the sand and pretend your power and position come with an immortal guarantee, be my guest.”

  I coughed into my hand to hide my damn smile.

  Fucking Desario. She had him by the balls, and all three of us knew it. I’d never been so proud of her.

  When he didn’t respond, she pressed on.

  “My team and I intend to capture Trinity, decimate her army, and return her to your care, at which time you may deal with her as you wish.”

  He narrowed his eyes, but it was clear Gray wasn’t bluffing, and he damn well knew it.

  “And in exchange?” he asked.

  “It’s simple,” Gray said. “I want to be able to touch the man I love. To take him in my arms—in my bed—whenever I damn well please. I want you to break that wretched curse, and I want you to do it right now.”

  “Now? But how do I know you’ll uphold your end of the bargain? How do I know you’ll succeed?”

  “You don’t, but those are my terms.” Gray leaned acro
ss the table until her face was just inches from Sebastian’s, her blue eyes blazing like midnight fire. “Stop interfering in our relationship, demon. We both know you have bigger things to focus on, as do we.”

  He glared right back at her, but just when I thought he’d explode in another fit, his gaze softened. It was only for a split second, but I saw it—a brief flicker of humanity in his otherwise cunning, cutting eyes.

  “You remind me of her,” he said to Gray, his voice so soft and tender I actually thought his vessel had been possessed by some other demon.

  For her part, Gray looked absolutely stricken. “Trinity? I’m nothing like—”

  “No—your grandmother,” Sebastian corrected. “Deirdre.”

  If Gray felt one way or another about the comparison, she didn’t show it. “And?”

  “And,” he said, “I haven’t yet decided if that’s endearing… or a liability.”

  “Maybe a little of both,” she said.

  “Maybe.” A crooked smile touched the bastard’s greasy lips. “Don’t disappoint me, Silversbane.”

  And then he was gone.

  Twenty-Four

  GRAY

  I dropped into a kitchen chair and blew out a breath, the relief instant. Sebastian’s presence had sucked up all the air in the room.

  “Gray.” Ronan knelt before me, his eyes glazed with emotion. “Did he…?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. My heart hammered in my chest, my magic tingling inside.

  Tentatively, Ronan reached for my face, stopping just short of touching me.

  “Well, there’s only one way to find out.” He sighed, but didn’t move any closer. “I don’t want it to hurt.”

  “It’s not too bad if it’s just a quick burn,” I said.

  Ronan closed his eyes. “It’s not the burn I’m worried about.”

  He was right. A burn would be nothing compared to the agony we’d feel if Sebastian had walked without granting my request. And so we hesitated, floating together inside this fragile, bubble-thin moment where hope still existed, where there was still a chance.

  “You have to touch me,” I finally whispered, the words aching in my throat. “We have to know.”

  Opening his eyes, Ronan sighed again, his warm breath teasing my skin. Slowly, he brought his fingers close to my lips.

  “I love you,” he whispered. “No matter what.”

  And then, swallowing hard, he touched me.

  Quickly at first, then again, and then once more to be certain. This last touch lingered, and he held his breath as we both waited for the sizzle that never came.

  Beneath his fingers, my lips stretched into a grin, tears spilling down my cheeks.

  Ronan pulled back and glanced at his fingers, a gasp escaping his throat. He looked back at me for half-a-second, his beautiful leaves-in-autumn eyes the last thing I saw clearly before he crashed against my mouth.

  Our kiss was endless, all-consuming, a vortex of relief and laughter and passion and love into which I gladly fell. Ronan could barely breathe, so intent was he on keeping his mouth on me at all times.

  “Just so you know,” I finally managed, panting between his increasingly demanding kisses, “if you ever… make another deal with him… like that again… I’ll…”

  “I know.”

  “We have to find other ways… to protect… each other. Ways that don’t involve...”

  “I know.”

  He scooped me into his arms and got to his feet, lifting me with him, still devouring me with kisses.

  “And Ronan, you can’t—”

  “I know, Gray. I know.” He shut me up for good with a searing kiss that I felt all the way in my toes, igniting a fire inside me that—for the first time in far too long—had nothing to do with hell’s curses.

  Ignoring the glances of everyone in the common room as Ronan carried me past, we headed upstairs and locked ourselves away in my bedroom, giving ourselves permission to forget the rest of the world for just a little while.

  Still kissing, we stripped out of our clothes and tumbled onto the bed, touching each other everywhere at once, skin on skin, lips on lips, our breath mingling as we entwined beneath the sheets.

  Ronan pushed the hair from my face and kissed my forehead, my eyelids, my cheeks, the tip of my nose. His eager mouth finally found its way back to mine, and there he lingered, his tongue exploring every soft curve of my mouth as if he were experiencing it all for the first time.

  In so many ways, he was.

  “I missed the taste of you,” he finally breathed.

  A tear slid down my cheek, and I pulled back, taking his face between my hands. The touch of his beard tickled my palms, and I closed my eyes and memorized the feeling, the shape, the texture. “I missed the everything of you.”

  “Nothing will ever come between us again,” he said. A proclamation. A promise. “I mean it, Desario. The whole fucking world can burn for all I care, as long as you’re still with me—you and the guys. That’s who matters now. Call me selfish, but there it is.”

  I wouldn’t—couldn’t—call him selfish, because I felt the exact same way. My rebels and I were soul mates in the truest sense of the word, a single bright soul divided into six beings, always meant to find our way to one another, always meant to be together, in this realm and the next.

  With no more promises to be made, I parted my thighs and pulled him on top of me, arching my hips up to meet him as he sank blissfully inside me.

  Beneath my touch, the muscles in his shoulders and back rippled, and Ronan shivered, rolling his hips and sliding in deeper, filling me completely.

  My body took over, and I matched his stride, eager for more. Harder. Faster.

  “No,” he said, stilling inside me, rubbing his thumb across my lower lip. “We’ve got all night, Gray, and I intend to take advantage of every last minute of it.”

  “But the training, and the others—”

  “Can wait.” He flashed the crooked grin I’d fallen in love with. “World burning, selfish demon, misses his woman—remember?”

  Laughing, I gave in to his demands, relaxing my muscles, both of us easing our way back in.

  Ronan kissed my shoulder, my collarbone, slowly making his way to my breasts. Each brush of his lips set my skin ablaze, and though we’d both agreed to take things slow, the physical sensations proved too much, too intense, too perfect.

  I felt him trying his best to hold back, to make this reunion last, but it was a losing battle for us both.

  “Ronan,” I breathed, sliding my hands into his silky hair, “we don’t need all night. We’ve got the rest of eternity now.”

  He nodded, running his nose down along my neck, tracing a new path with his tongue as his hips rocked forward, his body brushing my clit. He pulled out slowly, then slid back inside, and that was all it took to unravel the very last of my control. I dug my nails into his shoulders and arched my back to meet his final thrust, taking him in fully, sending him over the edge. He came in a white-hot rush as my own orgasm exploded inside me, and I cried out in pleasure, in relief, in bliss.

  In that moment, the world very well could have burned, and neither of us would’ve known about it until we walked outside later and saw the ashes.

  Ronan rolled onto his back, pulling me on top of him, my head nestling against his chest. I found the familiar, steady beat of his heart and followed it home, back to where he and I had begun, and a sense of rightness wrapped around us like a warm blanket,

  We were meant for this love, this passion, this friendship. We were meant for this moment, and everything that had come before, and everything that would come after.

  “Welcome back, Ronan Vacarro,” I whispered, and he ran his hand down my bare back and sighed, content and happy.

  I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the night in his arms, but the truth was, the world really was in danger of burning down, and we really did have a responsibility to try to prevent it. So, after another slow, lingeri
ng session, we reluctantly showered and headed back downstairs to see what else needed to be done, who else needed help, what other potions could be mixed, which weapons could be sharpened, what intel could be pieced together.

  But as we descended the stairs, our fingers interlaced, our smiles still firmly in place, the sight in the common room stopped me dead in my tracks.

  “Jael!” I bolted down the remaining stairs and basically launched myself at him, yanking him into an impossibly tight hug. I hadn’t seen him since the night I’d been turned, and seeing him here tonight, safe, knowing he’d risked so much to protect my soul… I didn’t have the words for the emotion suddenly swirling inside.

  “It’s so good to see you,” I said, pulling back to meet his cat-like yellow eyes.

  Jael offered a thin but genuine smile, the skin around his eyes crinkling, those fine lines a bit deeper than I’d remembered. “You as well, Gray.” Then, glancing at Ronan, he gave a brief nod. “Both of you.”

  “Thank you for… With the moonglass,” I said, not sure what exactly to say. He’d saved my soul, risking his own life in the process.

  “Seeing you healthy and well is all the thanks I need,” he said. “Vampire looks good on you.”

  “Thanks. I’m still getting used to it.” I watched him a moment longer before I finally realized Ronan and I had interrupted a meeting already in progress. Verona, McKenna, and several of the other witches had gathered around the couches, with Elena and Emilio standing beside the fire.

  No one was smiling.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “What did we miss?”

  Jael clasped his hands in front of his body, the last vestiges of his smile finally fading. “My sister was able to get a message to me last night,” he said. “I’m here with news from home.”

  “Good news?” I asked, but deep down, I already knew the answer. I could see it in the way the witches sat hunched, knees drawn to chests. I could read it in the bend of Emilio’s shoulders, in the heavy sadness on Elena’s sigh.

  Jael shook his head, looking at me with the pale, haunted eyes of a man who’d seen the future and witnessed the very end of our days. “Blackmoon Bay is burning, Gray.”