Hidden Mage (Dragon Enchanted Book 1)

by Sophie Stern

  “Like this?”

  He teased the tip of his cock just past her folds. He gave her the slightest little bit of himself, and then he pulled back out. She growled in frustration.

  “No, not like that,” she snapped.

  She wanted more.

  Needed more.

  She wanted all of him deep inside of her. Her legs were still wrapped around him, and she wiggled, trying to reach his cock herself.

  She wanted more.

  “Patience,” he chuckled. He was amused with her. She could tell. Fuck, she couldn’t remember the last time someone had been amused with her.

  Usually, when she fucked someone, it was just to scratch an itch. Sometimes she slept with vampires, like Storm, but even that was more because she needed something from them. She wouldn’t call it using, per say, but there was an exchange.

  Right now, this was unlike anything she’d experienced before.

  Nobody had ever laughed at her the way he was. He wasn’t being mean. Not at all. He was just having fun with her. He was playing with her like a little toy, and she was embarrassed and surprised to find that she liked it.

  She enjoyed it.

  “I don’t want to be patient.”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  “I want your cock inside of me,” she whispered. Then, remembering the debacle from a moment ago, she added, “more. I want more of it. I want the whole thing. Please,” she whispered.

  “So polite.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Tell me,” he teased the head of his cock past her pussy lips once more, gently sliding it inside just the tiniest bit.

  “Tell you what?”

  “How badly do you want my cock, little witch?”

  “So badly.”

  “Beg me for it,” he whispered, purring in her ear. He nipped at her skin, and she realized for the very first time that she would.

  She would beg him.

  Humiliation washed over her as she realized the true position she was in now. In the past, she’d been in charge. Always. Even with Storm, she’d been in control of the situation.

  Not now, though.

  She was on his land, in his cave, in his arms, and she wanted his cock.

  If he required her to beg him for it, then she’d have to.

  Tabitha didn’t have much of a choice.

  “Please.”

  “Oh,” he clucked his tongue and pulled his cock out a little. “You can do better than that.”

  “Yes, please, I can,” she said urgently. Her voice held so much need that she almost didn’t recognize herself. She was still there against the wall, and he was holding her up like she weighed nothing.

  “Beg.”

  “Please, sir, give me your cock. I need it,” she whispered.

  “That’s a good start,” Felix nodded, slightly appeased.

  “I’m so fucking wet,” she kept whispering to him, unable to bring herself to speak at her regular volume or tone of voice. “I need you inside of me. I need your cock right now.”

  He gave in a little bit, edging his dick inside of her.

  Even the little bit he was offering was enough to take her breath away. He was girthy, and it had been awhile since she’d been with a man. She was nervous not about the sensations that would arrive once they actually starting fucking, but about her heart.

  She had a feeling it was on the verge of being his.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to offer her heart to him. That was weird, and uncomfortable, and it wasn’t something she had ever said or done before. She choked back the urge to promise to stay with him.

  She was here on a mission to kill Ursula. That was it. She wasn’t here to fall in love. She certainly wasn’t here to fall for this stranger.

  But she did want him now.

  “I’m going to die if you don’t fuck me,” Tabitha told him, and she believed it.

  That seemed to be enough for him because Felix shoved his cock forward, burying it deep inside of her, and she cried out at the intrusion. He grabbed her mouth, covering it with his hand, silencing her as he fucked her hard and fast against the wall.

  “Fuck,” she yelled, but her word was muffled against his hand.

  She’d never been taken like this.

  Not roughly.

  Not quickly.

  Not like this.

  She came apart quickly. The orgasm that claimed her rushed over her like a damn wave. It seemed to last for hours as her pussy pulsed with the greatest pleasure it had ever known. When she finished, her muscles felt sore and tired and gooey, but he kept sliding into her, forcing her into a second orgasm.

  “That’s a good witch,” he murmured quietly.

  Then Felix came, too, filling her with his seed, holding her there against the wall until he had finished entirely. She kept her legs wrapped around him tightly, holding onto him for dear life because Tabitha had a feeling that the moment she let go of him, she’d wither away into nothingness.

  She closed her eyes, thinking about what they’d done, about what he’d said. A deep sense of satisfaction filled her as she thought about the powerful orgasm she’d been able to enjoy. He’d had his own pleasure, too, but there was something he’d said that bothered her, and she wondered if she should set the record straight.

  He thought she was a good witch.

  Chapter 8

  “What is this place?”

  “We’ve already talked about that,” Felix murmured, stroking Tabitha’s soft skin. He traced little lines on her tummy as they rested on the mattress. The fire was dying out, but he didn’t care. He could still see her perfectly well even in the darkness, and besides, the room was hot now.

  It was almost too hot.

  That had been the best damn sex of his life. He wanted to ask if it had been good for her, too, but he knew it. He could tell by the way she’d come so hard for him and by the way that she looked at him after.

  She looked at him like he was some sort of hero to her.

  Like he was someone special or wonderful.

  He wasn’t.

  He was just an ordinary person who had been offered a rather unordinary life. Parts of it had been interesting. Mostly, it had been lonely and sad.

  “I know you said you decorated it,” Tabitha said carefully, propping herself up on one elbow.

  “I did.”

  “Why, though? How long have you been on this island?”

  He couldn’t exactly tell her he’d lived here since he was very small or that Ursula had kidnapped him and brought him to this place. No, he couldn’t do that, could he? Tabitha would think he was a total freak. Instead, he settled for a half-truth.

  “A long time.”

  “Well, it’s a nice cave. Do you have a house, too?”

  “Sort-of.”

  “Sort-of?”

  “Not really.”

  He mostly slept on the beach or in the cave. After being locked up for years by Ursula, he had almost no interest on indoor living. He wasn’t sure if he would ever want to set foot in a house again. If he did, it wouldn’t be for a very, very long time.

  “Weird,” she whispered.

  “What is?”

  “You just seem so...”

  So what?

  “Normal,” she finally said.

  For some reason, Felix found that to be really, really funny.

  “Normal?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about me is normal?”

  He was living on a rock, for dragon’s sake. The island was a place that had held him captive his entire life. No matter how hard he’d tried to escape, no matter how many people he’d bribed or secret beach paths he’d found, he’d never been able to escape from the island.

  He was a captive.

  He was a secret, hidden captive, and he hated it.

  But she was a secret mage, and that was interesting, too.

  She was a hidden mage. For some reason, Tabitha hadn’t been very forthcoming about her
abilities. He knew she had them. He wanted to know more about that. What was so special about her?

  Why was she on this quest to find the witch?

  And why did he care?

  Oh yeah.

  Because she’d given him the best damn sex of his life, and he wanted more. Out of all of the women Felix had bedded, he’d never been interested in a second go, but with Tabitha, he wanted more.

  A lot more.

  Was that so wrong to want?

  “You just don’t seem like a crazy psycho,” she finally said. “You know, for someone who lives on an island ruled by a witch.”

  “How do you know so much about her, anyway?” Felix asked, curious. Ursula had always kept to herself. Despite the fact that she had guests to the island from time to time or that she hosted elaborate parties, she’d never been particularly open about what it was that she did.

  “I have my ways,” Tabitha said noncommittally.

  That wasn’t going to be good enough, though.

  “Tell me.”

  “Why? What good will come from talking about her?”

  “You want to kill her,” Felix said. His voice held just a hint of accusation. It didn’t really matter. Ursula was already dead. Eventually, Tabitha was going to realize that.

  “Yeah, I want to kill her,” Tabitha sighed.

  “Why?”

  “Have you ever killed anyone?” Tabitha asked, surprising him.

  His honesty surprised him even more.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know that sometimes, there are very good reasons for killing people, Felix.”

  “You’re assuming I killed for a good reason.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  Yes, he had.

  The witch had stolen everything from him. Everything. She’d taken his childhood and his past. She’d taken his heritage. She’d taken everything she could, and then she’d taken a little bit more. She’d kept him locked up like a little pet she could take out and prance around whenever she wanted to entertain her company.

  She even had a pet name for him.

  Dragon.

  Felix hated it.

  He’d never understood why she called him that or why her guests did. It was strange, really. It was just such a random sort of thing. He’d tried to ask her about it before, but she’d never been willing to talk about it, and so the secret had died with her.

  “Yes,” he finally said.

  “Well, I have a good reason, too.”

  “Will you tell me?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Curiosity,” he murmured.

  That was about as close to the truth as he was willing to get.

  Curiosity.

  It wasn’t a lie. Not really. It wasn’t completely truthful, either, of course, but it wasn’t a lie. Not at all.

  “Curiosity,” she repeated. “Right. Well...”

  This was it.

  She was going to tell him.

  It was going to be the first real story he’d heard...well, maybe ever.

  No, that wasn’t quite true. Was it? Suddenly, something flashed in Felix’s brain. A memory, perhaps. Something lost. Something long forgotten.

  A woman sits in a chair holding a book. She looks down at the little boy in her arms and smiles. She rubs her belly, which is big and swollen.

  “This is the story of the littlest dragon,” she says.

  “What’s it about?”

  “Why, a little dragon, of course?”

  She smiles at the boy, and he laughs. He’s safe with her. She’s his mother, his mama, and she’s going to make sure that nothing happens to him.

  “What’s wrong? Felix? Are you okay?”

  Felix looked over sharply. Tabitha was no longer relaxed or calm. She was afraid, he realized instantly. Something was wrong.

  “Nothing’s wrong. You’re safe,” he said.

  “You looked afraid. You had a strange look on your face.”

  “I was...remembering something...from long ago. Something I’d thought I’d forgotten.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. I want to know why you want to kill Ursula.”

  “Because she slaughtered my people,” the woman finally said. Tabitha spoke quietly, and her voice trembled just a little. That made Felix’s heart hurt.

  “What happened?”

  “I was in the Mages Guild. Do you know what that is?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a group of powerful witches and wizards. We protect things. We protect people. Sometimes a mage or a group of mages are assigned to watch over someone important, or to watch over a special place.”

  “What happened?”

  It sounded like an important job. It must have been hard for Ursula to kill these people.

  “My parents were mages, too. I grew up on one of the smaller islands: Kunzite.”

  “That sounds like a pretty island.”

  “It was. Everyone there was a magical being, and that was where the Mages Guild trained. My parents were both instructors there. They were proud when I was accepted to the guild. I was one of the youngest witches to ever be trained there.”

  “You must be very powerful.”

  “I thought so,” she said sadly.

  “Ursula must have thought so, too.”

  “Ursula used to belong to the guild. She was cast out for practicing dark magic. Besides, people knew she’d been stealing paranormals.”

  “Paranormals?”

  “You know: people with special abilities.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like shapeshifters,” Tabitha explained. “Have you ever met one?”

  “No.”

  Then again, he wasn’t quite sure if that was true. Something tugged at the back of his mind: a memory, perhaps. Two memories in one day? That was something that had never happened.

  Although, since Ursula died, Felix had found more and more that he’d been remembering bits and pieces of who he’d been before she’d taken him.

  “Well, a shapeshifter is someone who looks human, but they have another side of themselves. They can change into an animal, too.”

  “An animal?”

  “Usually something big, like a lion or a tiger. Sometimes there are shapeshifters who are smaller, though.”

  “What about something bigger?”

  “Bigger than a lion?”

  “Like a...”

  “Dragon?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know if she ever stole a dragon, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Dragons are sketchy and hard to capture. They’re well aware of their poaching appeal.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dragons are different from most shifters. They can heal things. Their blood is a powerful antidote for most poisons, and they can lick wounds to heal them. It’s actually pretty cool.”

  Felix felt something twist inside of him. He felt like this was knowledge he should have already had, but he wasn’t sure why.

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “I learned it at the guild.”

  “What did Ursula do to your people, Tabitha?”

  “She came and demanded to be let back in. When my mother refused to allow her to rejoin us, she brought a horde of shapeshifters to slaughter us.”

  Chapter 9

  It wasn’t something Tabitha wanted to think about.

  “I can still remember so much about that day.”

  “Why couldn’t they fight back?”

  “There had been a big celebration the day before,” Tabitha said. “It was my birthday, and the witches and mages were celebrating my graduation and my birthday at the same time. They were all so happy and pleased that I’d finished my training. They knew I was going to be very powerful and very strong.”

  “So, they used their energy stores.”

  “Yes.”

  “And it’s hard to refill.”

  “It can be,” Tabitha
nodded. “Time helps. Some witches do things like meditate, and they believe that restores their energy.”

  “What about kunzite itself?”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “Mages can harvest energy from the gem, but it wasn’t exactly a secret that our island was running low, and kunzite isn’t exactly easy to find. At least, not in the quantities that witches need to recharge.”

  “So, she waited until their energy was drained, and then she took advantage.”

  “In the night,” Tabitha nodded. She tried not to tear up, but it was impossible. She missed her family. She missed her mom and her dad, and she missed everything they’d stood for. “I was asleep when it started, but I woke to their screams. Everything was on fire. There were shapeshifters everywhere. They were literally tearing mages apart, and despite the magic we had, it was no comparison to Ursula. She was standing in the center of the island, and she was casting fire everywhere.”

  “You escaped,” he whispered.

  “I escaped.”

  That was probably the most horrible thing about it all. She hadn’t planned on living. She hadn’t planned on escaping, yet she had.

  “My mother brought me to a canoe and shoved me inside. I tried to fight my way out, but she used the last of her magic to conceal me. She pushed me out to sea, and I was the only one who survived.”

  Tabitha had watched from the water as the smoke and flames engulfed Kunzite.

  “I’m sorry,” Felix told her.

  “Me too.”

  “She does deserve to die for that,” he said.

  “She used all of her power,” Tabitha said. “There’s no way she had any strength left after that. It would have taken her a long time to heal back and regain her power. I don’t know if she ever would.”

  “When did this happen?” A strange look crossed Felix’s face, and Tabitha wondered what he was thinking.

  “About six months ago.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve been tracking her down ever since then.”

  “It wasn’t easy.”

  “Why not? You knew who she was, apparently.”

  “Yeah, well, Ursula kept her location pretty well hidden.”

  “Tell me more about that.”

  “You sound like my therapist,” Tabitha pointed out.

  “You have a therapist.”

  Sort-of. Storm moonlighted as a therapist, but she had done plenty of talking with Tabitha over the last few months. Tabitha didn’t want to tell Felix that she slept with a vampire in her spare time, so she just nodded.