by Mary Hughes
Her physical eyes weren’t much better off, but she didn’t need detail to see Attila grab Noah’s arm and wrench up.
The shoulder dislocated with an awful pop. Noah made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a pained sigh.
Sophia whimpered. They weren’t just going to disable him.
They were going to kill him.
She wiped her physical eyes, clearing her sight slightly. Maybe that will work with my witch’s eye. Blood pounding in her ears, desperate for even a thread of power to fight with, she mentally wiped her third eye then opened it. Yes. There’s the crack. She braced herself—and smashed everything she had into that glass dome.
Cricks branched out like impending doom, opening everywhere. And as they opened, bolts of bright light shot out, directly into her brain. The precursor of her power, but not the power itself. She clenched her eyelids and doubled over, gasping.
Not enough. Her magic, still trapped, wasn’t going to save them. Magic’s not enough.
Like Rodolphe and the girl. Mundane authorities had come to the rescue, then. But now…
Suddenly she knew what to do. She opened her eyes, hobbled to the end table, snatched up the handset, and dialed by feel alone.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” The dispatcher was Sophia’s summer swim instructor.
Sophia grunted through her pain, “Help. They’re killing Noah.”
“Sophia? What are you…no, never mind. Where?”
“Bonnie and Clyde’s. Hurry!”
Keys clicked. “Our emergency units are on the other side of town. Five minutes. Can you hold on?”
Do we have five minutes?
She spun around, her stomach nearly evacuating. She ignored it to take count. Nameless Guy—gone. Mason—unconscious. Noah—bleeding and broken, his left arm hanging useless, against two wolves and a human.
Worse, the human was Attila—and armed. The mustachioed he-wolf scooped up Killer’s switchblade, brandishing it with a bloody smile.
Five minutes? We probably don’t even have five seconds.
That was when Noah’s gaze lanced from the kicking, biting man and wolves, and his golden eyes met Sophia’s.
Despite all his pain, he focused on her. Mouthed, “Get out of here.”
Then he shifted too.
Under the mass of anti-alphas, she couldn’t tell much about him, but Noah’s wolf was dark and he was big.
So when Clyde hit Noah’s wolf, Noah only staggered. But then Bonnie hit him mid-stagger and took him to his knees.
Attila leaped onto his back, stabbing him with the blade. “Second blood!”
Bonnie and Clyde piled onto Noah too, trying to bring him down, biting hackles and back and belly.
Sophia threw down the phone. They’re trying to kill my mate.
Fury rose in her, so vast and pure it had no name. It shoved aside pain, nausea, and even sanity. She lifted her wand and pointed it at the wolves. Years of training lifted with it, flooding her in an instant. She pressed her thumb against the wand’s metal inlays.
Silver and gold inlays, like Noah’s changing eyes. A lucky resonance, serendipity, but magic worked that way sometimes. She knew intuitively what to do the moment she touched those inlays.
“I sing silver. I sing gold.” In her hand, the wand began to hum, the metaphysical resonance becoming physical. “I sing to protect him that is silver and gold. Let my song burst forth.” The vibrations reached a fevered pitch, higher and higher and higher yet, until the glass of the first seal shattered.
Shock waves blew forth. She trapped them with her song, spinning them into her wand, where they translated into potential energy.
Magic potential that she formed into reality with a snarled, “Blast.”
A bolt shot from the tip of the wand. The air before it compressed, then expanded in a concussion wave that threw the wolves and human flying, like toy jacks. Bang-bang-bang, they smashed into the wall, cracking plaster.
For an instant, it felt so damned good. Magic hadn’t been a part of her life, it was her life. Joy welled up and burst inside her.
She’d forgotten what else she’d walled off with that first dome.
Brutal pain hit her head, a tsunami of death exploding into a thousand sharp razors that sliced her brain to confetti. She screamed. Silently. Like a nightmare, nothing came out of the rictus of her mouth. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She gasped and fell to her knees, her guts quaking until her death spewed from her depths.
“Sophia, oh, no.” Shaking hands gathered her head to a hard wall of chest that pumped like bellows. A cheek pressed the crown of her head, confining the pain. A heart beat fast and furious under her ear.
The caressing hands, the thudding heart, caught her attention. Like being in a womb, they soothed her. Absorbed some of the pain, drew it out.
“Sophia.” The voice resonated deep. “Love, please be all right.”
Love. At the word she felt a click, and the worst of the pain, that jagged shard of death magic just…disappeared.
From the doorway, a slow clapping started. Sophia cracked a physical eye.
Nameless Guy, in human form, lounged against the jamb. “Very nice.”
Noah released her to stalk over to Nameless Guy—and punched his jaw so fast she only saw his head jerk. Noah snarled, “Why didn’t you get Sophia to safety?”
Nameless Guy only smiled.
And then, to Sophia’s utter shock, Noah whirled his fury on her. “What the fuck did you think you were doing? Why didn’t you leave?”
“You…” She rose to her feet, but the death magic, though no longer killing her, had mauled her insides like dough hooks. She staggered, managed to rasp out, “You were hurt. Dying!”
“I don’t care! Those anti-alphas were primed for blood. They’d have turned on you next. Next time I say get out, you get out, hear?” He swept her off her feet. Carrying her, he stalked past Nameless Guy.
She was impressed by his concern and furious at his caveman way of showing it. “You can’t order me around.”
He stopped on the sidewalk and gently set her on her feet, only to grab her shoulders and whirl her to face him. Nose-to-nose, he growled at her, “Let’s get one thing straight, Miss Hereditary Witch Princess. I can, and I will. For as long as the hex binds us together, you are my mate. I’m alpha. That means when it comes to pack safety, your safety, you listen to me.”
Now was a fine time to finally acknowledge their mating. She met his fury with cold anger. “Then I guess it’s even more important that we get that hex canceled out.”
His pupils constricted abruptly, as if a killing pain had hit him. He didn’t move any other way, could have been a statue.
“Fine.” He released her.
Took two steps away.
Spun back and grabbed her by both arms. “No. You will listen to me, Sophia. I will not be in that position again, you in danger and me scared shitless that you’re going get hurt or do something stupidly brave and die…I will not go through that again, do you hear?”
She seized his face. “I was scared too! You were bleeding and they were ganging up on you—”
“I’m not important. If anything happened to you—”
“The fuck you’re not important. I’ll show you how important you are.” She grabbed his head and kissed him.
A shocked instant. Then he wrapped her in powerful arms and kissed her back, his mouth desperate on hers. He kissed her so fiercely her very bones melted.
“Sophia,” he groaned. “Don’t ever leave me. I couldn’t stand it. You’re my life, sweetheart.”
He said it in the heat of the moment, and he probably hadn’t meant it literally. But magic didn’t care about that. When Noah, his arms wrapped in a warm cocoon around her, said the word life, she felt a second distinct click.
Her pain from breaking the death seal just…disappeared.
Opening her third eye, she gingerly poked her insides. The other two funeral domes were intact. But th
e first, the one she’d shattered, was gone. Nothing remained, no cracked rim, no razor-sharp debris.
Somehow, he’d swept death away. All with one unintentional word.
She gazed up at him in wonder. “What are you?”
His cheeks flagged with color. “Sophia…I haven’t told you everything.”
Whooping sirens interrupted him as the emergency crew arrived.
An ambulance and a squad car squealed to the curb. The patrol officer popping from the car was young, human, and inclined to arrest everyone on sight. Since Killer and Ivan were already gone, Nameless Guy had melted away, Mason was still unconscious, and Sophia had obvious defensive wounds, the officer slapped cuffs on the shifters remaining—including Noah, who made things worse when he refused to open his eyes fully for the booking camera.
Sophia tried to explain that the other guys started it and pressed the officer to release Noah, but the more she argued the more defensive the young human got. When it became obvious she was only making things worse, she shut up.
Except for refusing to open his eyes, Noah went quietly, a testimony to his self-control. The other wolves weren’t anywhere near as disciplined. The town would be paying for a lot of bandages and disinfectant tonight.
After running back inside for her shoes, Sophia followed along to the jail. She could have used magic to get Noah released but wasn’t completely sure how much she had freed—or if, after four years, she could wield it skillfully enough to modify behavior. Better to try to get him out the mundane way. She did manage to remember her swim instructor’s name and used it ruthlessly to get Noah a separate cell from the other wolves.
“I called the hospital.” Noah stalked around his cell, the only cell in the basement, basically a cot and uncovered toilet in a concrete and steel-bar box. “Mason’s fine, and coming to collect you. When he gets here, go home and get some sleep.”
“After everything that’s happened?” She watched him pace, aware that she’d gotten used to his glass-lake stillness. It took a lot to rumple his emotions. “If you can’t sleep, what makes you think I can?”
He thumbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. “I’m being a thoughtless dick.” He used two fingers to wave her closer. “Turn.”
“What?” She turned, keeping eye contact over her shoulder. “Why?”
“This.” He dug fingers into the knotted muscles of her shoulders.
It wrung a groan from her. “That’s so good. I didn’t know how much I was hurting until now.”
“Shh. Relax.” He continued kneading out the knots until she was limp against the bars. He massaged down the sides of her spine. She rested her head against the bars in bliss. He continued to work her back muscles down to her waistband. A tug and zip and the skirt went slack against her hips.
“Wha…?”
“Shh,” he said again. “I’m just loosening anything that constricts blood flow.”
“Oh.” She closed her eyes and relaxed again against the bars, giving herself over to his soothing massage.
So it was a complete shock when a breeze played over her nipples.
Her eyes flew open. “Hey!” She glanced down. She was naked but for her panties, thigh high stockings and pumps, her clothes heaped around her ankles. She must have been worse off than she’d thought, because she hadn’t noticed anything but his magic fingers. Hopefully her magical aura would confuse the security camera, because otherwise someone was getting quite a show.
He blew again on her nipples. She turned. He’d wedged his face between the bars. His tongue mimed licking her.
Her nipples furled just from the sight. Desire curled into her pelvis.
It had been a long, frustrating, frightening night. Daringly she grabbed two bars, high, and leaned one breast into his open mouth.
He latched onto her nipple and suckled. Lust sprang hot and heavy between her legs. He reached through the bars and cupped her breasts as he continued to suckle. The globes swelled with aching need. He hefted them gently, pressing her need higher.
Moaning, she arched into the bars. She lifted one leg, bending it to rub her tender inner thigh against cool metal. His nostrils flared and he sucked harder. She lifted her thigh higher, turning her knee out until her lace-covered mound rubbed against the bar.
“I’d like to rub against something else.” She gazed hungrily at him.
With a growl he stood and got rid of his clothes with a quick zip, a few plucked buttons, and a couple shrugs.
Then he stood there, naked and gorgeous, his muscles rippling in all sorts of interesting ways just from breathing.
Her foot dropped to the floor. She leaned into the bars and moaned.
Slotting his arms through the bars, he grabbed her hips and pulled her into him.
Her sensitized flesh pressed equally against cool bars and hot male. She scrubbed herself up and down, purring her pleasure. Her skin slid easily along the metal but burred with the friction of his hair-rumpled flesh.
He clamped her hips to the bars, pinning them with one hand while he ran the other up her body to twine fingers in her hair. He pressed her head gently forward.
Their mouths met in a kiss, all the hotter for the fact that they couldn’t mesh completely because of the bars. When he sucked her tongue to hold her in place, frissons of deep need shuddered along her entire body. She thought about disappearing the bars then got a better idea.
Breaking the kiss, she wiggled out of his hold. His eyes flared a bright gold. He wrapped hands around the bars and stared hungrily at her. She stood just out of his reach and smiled naughtily.
“Come here.” The wolf was in his voice.
“In a minute.”
His powerful body was framed and highlighted by hard steel. She looked her fill. His cock, already jutting toward her, rose eagerly at that.
So she had to. She really did. She knelt in front of the cage, grabbed him by the hip muscles, yanked him flush with the bars and licked him from stem to stern. He hissed, his cock growing longer. She began to lick that thick, bobbing erection in earnest. She was rough lapping him, but his flinch was accompanied by guttural groans of pleasure.
Drawing him into her mouth, she sucked. A growl tore from his throat. Encouragement to bob her head along his length. His hand fisted in her hair. She hummed her approval against his flesh. He actually cried out at that, brief, throttled, pained—but good pain, because his hand clenched tighter in her hair. She began to swirl her tongue as she stroked over him, making sure to tickle the sensitive spot just below the eye.
“Enough.” He grabbed her face with both hands and urged her to her feet. “I want to fill you.”
Fill me. She groaned but managed to come to her feet and dance a couple steps away. “How are you going to do that?” She turned her back to him, glanced coyly over her shoulder, and waggled her butt at him.
He wasn’t having any of that. With a snarl he reached through the bars.
She continued to wiggle enticingly—until he seized her hips. He had a longer reach than she thought.
Yanking her naked buttocks against the bars, he tilted her to expose her sex, and plowed into her.
She felt every inch of that thick cock sink in. Gasped, long and loud.
He started thrusting, a hard, steady rhythm. A clang of metal accompanied each thwack of flesh. His hot thrusts, the bang of cold bars against her bottom, was a symphony of sensation. Her flesh sang with rising urgency.
“More.” She closed her eyes and drank in the sensations. “Faster.”
He slotted his arm though the bars and belted her hips, holding her in place for a pummeling. As he drove himself deeper and deeper into her wet, yielding sheath, he reached with the other hand to rub her groove, burnishing her clit until it was hard and ready to burst.
She arched into the cage, head and shoulders banging metal, a duet with his hip bones as his cock drove in and out with increasing insistence. He stroked her clit faster. She pressed back against him so hard the iron dented her f
lesh.
His breath billowed against her shoulder. His teeth opened over her flesh, his human’s, but the action was his wolf. His incisors were sharp on her skin, and his growls dominated over groans. His human was in control, but not by much.
She didn’t care. She wanted him, all of him, wild and free. “Do it.” She howled too, her animal calling to his.
He snarled. His teeth closed gently on the edge of her trapezius. Holding her with his arm and strangely gentle bite, he took one last long thrust. She was so wet he slid in to the hilt.
She screamed. He roared. They came together in a tumult of heat and wet and cries of pleasure.
She shuddered an eternity. Then she went limp in his arm. His strength held her upright, his breath rasping in her ear.
“That was…” He swallowed. “Sophia, I think I’m—”
“Noah?” Mason’s voice came from the stairwell door.
Noah swore. “Just a minute, Mason.” His bellow held an alpha’s command.
Sophia tore herself from Noah’s grasp. She snatched up her clothes and tried to put them on. Her muscles didn’t work quite right and the spandex tank wouldn’t go past her shoulders.
With a sympathetic tsk, Noah waved her over. Cautiously, she came. Taking the tank from her he winched it into a loop, lassoed her head then slid the material down her ribs like a sleeve. He took special care to settle her breasts in the cups, gently adjusting them.
Her heart beat a little harder. The big bad alpha was tender and caring and just as wonderful helping her dress as undress. She knew some human guys who could take lessons.
And here he was, stuck in a cage. “I have to go. Be careful, okay?”
“Always.” His eyes were a burnished gold. “Stay safe with Mason.”
“Of course. I’ll be back in the morning to get you out.”
He looked around the cell. “I’ll be here. Or King will be.”
Chapter Nineteen
Sophia left the jail with Mason. Now that, thanks to both Noah’s massage and their sex, her tension was entirely gone, she realized how exhausted she was. She walked the blocks stumbling asleep on her feet, and the moment she got to her aunt’s, she checked that the wards were up, locked the door, then fell into bed to snatch a few hours of rest.
