The Gathering

by Jennifer Ashley

  “Then why aren’t you repulsed by me?” Leda asked, tears of remorse and regret lingering in her eyes. “You have the strongest life magic I’ve ever sensed.”

  She was distressed, and her distress touched him. Hunter was a big bad Immortal warrior, and Leda feared she’d hurt him.

  He rolled onto his back, pulling Leda with him and gathering her against him. “Tell me about it, pet. Who were you trying to save?”

  Leda blinked down at him. “How do you know I was trying to save someone?”

  “Because I see how you take care of your animals, how you’d do anything to protect and help them. Demons can do wickedly powerful healing spells when they want to, and you must have run up against something that defeated even your magic. You decided to sacrifice yourself to a demon to help a person or one of your animals. Am I right?”

  “Yes.” Leda closed her eyes briefly. “I didn’t know what else to do. I summoned a groth demon—they have the best healing powers, though you have to talk fast to convince them to help you. Mostly they heal their victims only so they can torture them some more.”

  “I’m familiar with groth demons.” Hunter had killed plenty of them.

  “One answered me. He gave me the power but used me to direct the magic through me. Goddess it was horrible.” Leda shuddered, and Hunter closed his arms tighter around her.

  Groth demons fused with the witches who dared summon them, melding with them, rampaging through their minds and doing as they pleased. Demons could render even the strongest witch weak and useless, and make them dependent on further melds with the demon. They could addict their victim to demon power so much the witch could no longer function on her own.

  “And what was his price for giving you his oh-so-powerful and healing death magic?” Hunter asked, keeping his voice gentle.

  Leda glared at him. “What do you think it was?”

  Hunter knew damn well what the demon had asked of beautiful Leda. He clamped down on rage that the demon would dare touch her.

  “I didn’t have sex with him,” she said quickly.

  Hunter regarded her in surprise. “You mean, he didn’t ask for sex? They always ask for sex.”

  “He did. But he didn’t take it then. We made an appointment to meet later, in Los Angeles. He put a compulsion spell on me. I have to go to him.”

  “Ah,” Hunter said. “They like to do that—make their victims stew about what’s to come. But that’s good. When are you to meet him?”

  “At the end of this month. Why good? In what universe is that good?”

  Hunter touched a lock of her hair, sleek and warm beneath his fingers. “It’s good, because when you keep the appointment, I’ll go with you and pull the demon’s head off.” He looked forward to it.

  “You can’t,” Leda said in alarm. “If you kill the demon, the healing spell will reverse.”

  “No it won’t. I won’t let it. Tell you what, we’ll find my brother Tain. He’s a healer—it’s his special gift. He can’t heal us Immortals, but he can heal everyone else. I haven’t seen him in about seven hundred years, but he’d be handy to have around.”

  “How many brothers do you have?” Leda asked distractedly.

  She wasn’t really interested, he saw, but she needed to change the subject, to talk about anything besides her experience twining with the demon. Hunter understood that, and fortunately, his brothers were mildly entertaining.

  “Four brothers. Half brothers, really. All pains in the ass, like me. You can tell we’re related by our tattoos.”

  He rested her hand on the tattoo on his lower abdomen, the five-pointed star in the circle. The symbol represented the five elements and also the five Immortals.

  Her fingers moved, tracing the star. “You are all tattooed right here?”

  Hunter shook his head against the pillow. “Tain’s is on his cheek, Darius has one on the back of his neck. Kalen’s is on his thigh, and Adrian, my oldest brother, has his on his butt.”

  Leda started to laugh. Good, he was easing her tension.

  “I’ll kill the demon for you, love,” Hunter promised. “He’ll never touch you.”

  “Demons are dangerous. Why would you do that?”

  “Because I’m a sweetheart. And I like you. You should have summoned an Immortal in the first place, when you wanted help with healing—I thought maybe you had.”

  “I had no idea you existed,” Leda said, eyes wide. “And I wouldn’t have known how to summon you if I did.”

  “There’s a spell—the Calling—obvious name. It’s been a while since I’ve been summoned, but someone must know the spell. Maybe your coven of witches.” Hunter frowned as a thought struck him. “Maybe one of them called me, and I ended up here by accident. You could ask them for me. You have email?”

  Hunter asked more to prompt her to tell him why she’d left the coven, but she shook her head. “I don’t have much contact with the mainland except through the radio. No phone lines, no cable, no Internet, no routers. I don’t have the equipment to set up through satellite. Too expensive.”

  “Never mind. We’ll call when we go back to the mainland, then.”

  She blinked. “What do you mean when we go back to the mainland?”

  “To meet your demon, remember? I’ll kill him, we’ll find out what’s going on and then enjoy ourselves.”

  “Right,” Leda said without conviction.

  Hunter rolled onto her again, pushing her down into the yielding mattress. “I want to make love to you now,” he said softly.

  “You only met me this morning,” Leda said, though her voice had gone shaky. “And I shot you with a tranquilizer.”

  Hunter brushed back a lock of her hair. “And I woke up in your bed, thinking how sexy you were.”

  Leda blushed. “Sexy?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  Losing himself in a woman was a good way for Hunter to let go of the world, the pain, to forget himself and not come out for a while. For a long while.

  He could linger with Leda in this place away from the world, making love to her in the sunshine. He didn’t mind helping her solve her demon problem in return for days of oblivion.

  Leda’s braid had come unraveled in the wind, and he lifted the weight of her hair as he pressed a kiss to her throat. Another kiss in the heated space between her breasts, then to her abdomen, his tongue teasing the indentation of her navel.

  “What are you doing?” Leda asked, breathless.

  “Getting to know you better.”

  She half laughed, half gasped as his lips traveled past her navel to her lower abdomen. Hunter licked her, liking her taste of salt and spice.

  Leda’s hand rested on his hair. “I’ve never done this before,” she whispered.

  “No?” Hunter pressed a kiss to the place where her honey-colored hair lay in a delicate whorl. “You said you’re divorced, which means you were married and presumably had sex. Or maybe that’s why you got divorced—he wouldn’t give you sex. Or wasn’t good at it.”

  Another light caress to his hair. “I mean I’ve never gone to bed with a stranger, especially only a few hours after meeting him.”

  “You shot me and dragged me into your house. I ran off the bad men and saved us from a demon attack. You told me about you—not everything, but most things. And I told you about me. We aren’t strangers anymore.”

  “Did you tell me everything about you?” Her voice was soft, hesitant, but curious.

  “Most of it. Not much to tell.”

  Leda shivered as his mouth came down on her. “I have a feeling there’s a lot more to you than you’re letting on.”

  “Not really.” Hunter dipped his tongue inside her, tasting the honey that flowed with her excitement.

  “Goddess,” she breathed. “What are you doing to me?”

  Hunter didn’t bother answering, losing himself in tasting her. He could stay with her for years, and why not? If the world was going to hell, why not ride it out with her? The Immortals were fo
rgotten, unheeded. So many people got off on letting vampires suck their blood or demons suck their souls, and they didn’t want to be rescued anymore. Hunter would rescue Leda from her groth demon, then they could retreat here and lie together in the sunshine.

  “I’d kill every demon in the world for you,” he whispered against her.

  Hunter enjoyed killing demons—sometimes, for fun, he’d go to a demon bar and wipe them out to the last one standing. Sure, demons had rules and codes, and there was the paranormal police to make certain they followed the rules, but demons were still demons. No human cried very much to find them slaughtered in the morning.

  “But right now,” Hunter finished, raising his head, “I want to make you come.”

  Leda gave an unsteady laugh. “You’re crazy, do you know that?”

  “I do.” Hunter licked the taste of her from his lips, savoring every drop. “Leda,” he said, “do you want me to show you how to get rid of the death magic inside you?”

  She stilled. “Is that possible?”

  “Yes.”

  Hunter slid up her until they lay face-to-face, body to body, his cock resting between them, not yet in her.

  Leda’s eyes shut him out. She said sadly, “When witches dabble in death magic, it never leaves them, does it? The death magic gets inside the witch and starts to eat her soul. She thinks, before she begins, that she can handle it, but she can’t.”

  Hunter kissed her forehead. “That’s because she didn’t have an Immortal to help her.”

  “Really? Sorry, that wasn’t in the witches’ manual.”

  “It’s not in the manuals, because Immortals have been forgotten.”

  She focused on him again. “I was joking.”

  “I wasn’t,” Hunter said.

  Her eyes held so much sorrow—Leda believed she was doomed. It was true that witches who dabbled in death magic became more susceptible to demon attack, vampire seduction, and enslavement by death-magic creatures. Death magic seduced as much as vampires did, making the witch crave more and more of it.

  Leda had known the danger, yet she’d gone ahead with it. The groth demon had taken advantage of her desperation, finding her an easy target. For that, Hunter would kill him.

  “I can take it from you,” Hunter said, touching her cheek. “Will you let me show you how?”

  Leda looked worried. “Will it hurt you? The death magic?”

  “Not a bit.”

  Leda watched him, not reassured. Hunter touched her thighs, parting them with a strong hand.

  “Let me in,” he said quietly, “and I’ll fix everything.”

  Chapter Five

  Leda should have known his “cure” would involve sex. Hunter had been trying to seduce her since he’d walked out of her lion’s enclosure, and now she was blithely letting him.

  The weight of his body on hers, his heat blanketing her, made her feel wild and excited for the first time in a long, long time. After her divorce, and the terrible events that had led to it, she’d been emotionally numb. She hadn’t been able to respond to any man. She’d been able only to think of the day, one year after she’d summoned him, that she’d have to pay the groth demon’s price.

  Then this stranger had dropped onto her island from nowhere, and Leda found herself letting him carry her to bed, undress her, and taste her. She was so needy for him, wanted his touch, his kisses, his skill.

  In a few short hours this man with the amazing green eyes had stripped away Leda’s every defense, every wall she’d built between herself and the rest of the world. She wanted Hunter, his utterly gorgeous, raw-muscled body, his hot kisses, his cocky smile, his casual disregard of terrible things.

  Hunter continued to watch her, waiting for her answer. Leda laced her arms around his neck and tugged him down to her.

  Hunter’s eyes went dark as he slid inside her, huge and hard. Leda bit back a groan, and Hunter said, “Goddess, you feel good.”

  Leda smiled and ran her fingers down his back, liking how strong and heavy he felt on her. He kissed her for a time, not moving, letting her get used to him.

  “Do you want to get rid of the dark magic, Leda?”

  Leda struggled to find her voice. “Yes.”

  Hunter held her gaze, not letting her look away. “You have to want to let it go before I can show you how.”

  “I do want to,” Leda said softly.

  Hunter kissed the corner of her mouth, his lips warm and heavy. “Then open yourself to me.”

  Leda couldn’t help smiling, he was inside her so hard. “I thought I already had.”

  “I mean open all of you. Not just your body—your heart and spirit.”

  Leda’s heart beat faster. “How?”

  Hunter brushed fingertips over her forehead. “You know of the chakras?”

  “The energy centers?”

  “You’re going to open them to me. One at a time.”

  “Like in tantric?”

  Hunter’s eyes lit in interest. “You do tantric?”

  “I know the theory,” Leda said lightly. “Never had the pleasure.”

  She was acquainted with witches who used tantric rituals to perform spells, aligning energy with their partners’ and then directing it in an orgasmic burst to create incredible magic. In a group this was guided by one person who gathered the magic energy and channeled it into whatever spell was being attempted.

  Or so she’d heard. Her ex-husband wasn’t a witch, and had always been hesitant about trying “that magic stuff.”

  “It is pleasure,” Hunter said. “Believe me.”

  Leda’s already thumping heart gained speed. “I’m not sure what to do.”

  Hunter touched the very top of her head. “We’ll start here, with the crown chakra. Open that. Imagine a spinning white light.”

  Leda closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She focused on his touch, picturing a light where Hunter’s fingers traced.

  “Now the forehead,” Hunter said. “That one is dark blue.”

  Leda knew that, having studied the chakras. The second one was what witches called the third eye, a focus of power. Hunter touched her there, above the bridge of her nose, and a blue light joined the white. Leda began to relax.

  “The throat,” Hunter said, his voice soft.

  A lighter blue light, moving and spinning where Leda felt his fingers. Hunter moved his hand between her breasts, over her heart, and began the green light there.

  Next, her navel. Hunter traced a pattern while Leda called up her fifth chakra, a yellow light.

  “Open your eyes, Leda.”

  Leda blinked, and then gasped. What she’d pictured inside her head had manifested—white and colored lights hovered on her body, bright even in the sunny room.

  Hunter pressed her abdomen. “Now this one.”

  Orange. The glow seeped out from between their bodies, and Leda felt open and warm.

  “Last one,” Hunter said. His cock moved inside her, touching her where his hand couldn’t. “Red.”

  Leda let out a cry as she sent the red light spinning, a concentrated heat where he penetrated.

  “That’s it,” Hunter said, voice gentle. “Open all the way to me.”

  It was wild and strange, Leda lying with her legs spread, this incredible man inside her. The lights warmed her, their pressing energy invigorating. She wanted to come already, and he’d barely moved.

  “My beautiful Leda,” Hunter said, as he slid almost all the way out of her then in again in a slow thrust. “Zeus can eat his heart out.”

  Leda bit back a scream. His hot magic poured inside her, welling through her body via the energy points she’d opened.

  Hunter’s chakras began to align with hers, their combined energy fusing and twining. The room crackled with power and swirled with light—orange, red, green, yellow, blue, white.

  Hunter thrust inside again. Leda moved against him, her body greedy for his. He fit perfectly against her, his hips beginning to rock.

  His magi
c was immense, greater than anything she’d ever experienced—she’d not known anything like it from demons, or even from the most powerful witches of the Coven of Light. The idea that he’d be hurt by her death magic seemed innocent now.

  Hunter was in a class by himself—an Immortal, he’d called himself. A god? She’d asked him. Not quite, he’d said.

  “Hunter,” she said, frantic.

  “Don’t come yet,” he said, voice hard. “Hold it back.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Hold it in. Don’t release it until I tell you.”

  Leda knew how to build energy to release into a spell—powerful magic—but it had never before felt like this. The orgasm throbbed and built inside her, its release imminent. She clenched her fists, tensing every muscle, while her body begged her to give herself over to the pleasure. Tightening herself only made the feeling more intense, her need screaming for release.

  “Leda.” Hunter’s smile was warm and sweet, as though she was the only woman he’d ever smiled for. He placed his hand over her heart, and pulsing emerald light leaked through his fingers. “Now!”

  Leda let go. The release that spilled from her washed her away on a black wave of incredible pleasure. It tossed and pounded her like the breakers on the beach, and she realized through the rush that she’d never truly had an orgasm, not like this one. She heard screams come from her throat, every thought spinning away before she could touch it.

  Hunter kept thrusting, making powerful love to her, his body slick with sweat. Leda clutched at him, pulling him down as he touched places inside her no one ever had.

  Hunter lifted his hand, tendrils of black twining around his fingers like thick smoke. He was pulling it from her heart, she realized. The death magic. Leda screamed as it left her, the pain as intense as the pleasure that cushioned her.

  Hunter gathered the darkness into his hand. He worked his fingers, melding the death magic into a sticky ball. It grew smaller and smaller under his touch, its power diminishing. As the final dregs streamed from Leda’s heart, the orgasm built, her own life magic rushing to heal spaces the death magic had scarred.

  Hunter rubbed his fingertips together, smiling a little smile, and the darkness vanished.