“No you don’t.”
I would never get bored of looking at him. He had the kind of masterpiece looks a girl could get lost in.
A lock from his longish brown hair that had the just got out of bed sexy look drifted over his dark brown eyes as he tilted his head to the side.
His face, all angles and planes, brightened with that wild sexual energy I felt all over my body. While the corners of his sensual mouth turned up into a smile that sent off the nest of butterflies in my stomach.
The scandalous look he gave me made my whole body come alive with the anticipation of being with him.
Knowing I wanted him, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine. Just teasing me. Teasing me with a taste of him. Teasing me with the lure of him.
I ran my tongue over his lip and he took that moment to tug on the bottom of mine.
I giggled and pulled back. “You’re a tease.”
“It’s you, baby. We have to wait until later.”
I ran my fingers across the hard walls of his abs, feeling the rigid structure through his black t-shirt.
“I don’t want to. I want you now.”
“Bad girl, give me a few hours and I’ll have you in my bedroom, on your knees screaming.”
I gazed up at him, wanting nothing more than for him to take me now. Why was he spoiling this? He’d never said no before. But, then our little meetings in this dream world had become more frequent in just this one week.
Too much sex, asleep or awake was never good for anyone.
Maybe…
Maybe I had that wrong, because I definitely felt amazing when I was with him, and I couldn’t get enough. I couldn’t get enough of him.
“I like the sound of that.”
“Knew you would.” He lowered and kissed me properly. Kissing me like he was tasting me with his hot tongue exploring my mouth.
I could feel him everywhere and I wasn’t ready for him to stop.
“See you later Princess.”
“Later.”
He backed away and as I watched him I had a good idea. I hopped off the stool and went to him.
“Tonight,” I began.
“Tonight what?” He kissed the bridge of my nose.
“Your name. I want your name.”
“Will you tell me yours?”
“Yes.” It was well past time. So far past the time.
Three months of just sex. No names. He called me Princess, or Baby and I … didn’t have a name for him other than my guilty pleasure. Mr. Everything.
“Okay you tell me…” he stopped mid-speech and looked around like he heard something.
I heard something now too. Someone was trying to wake me up.
Damn it.
“Tonight.” I promised him and as I opened my eyes pulling myself from the dream world he faded right before me.
Bright lights made me wince and shut my eyes again. When I opened them I looked about me and remembered with deep sadness where I was.
I straightened up in my bed to see Pru standing over me with a bright smile. The sunlight shone down on her making her blonde hair appear lighter.
Her smile was just as bright as the radiance that filtered into the room.
It was nice to see a friendly face, especially with all the curiosity I’d caused over the last week.
“Do you know what time it is?” Pru asked.
“I lost track of time.” That was a lie. Lately I’d found myself telling more lies than I cared to admit.
If my best friend, Ariyah, was here, she’d understand. In fact, she’d know when I was lying right off the bat.
“You haven’t eaten all day. Maybe it’s that.”
“I’m not hungry.” Another lie. I was starving but not for the food they had here. Everything here was all vegetables and not like the fantastic vegetarian dishes my adopted parents made either. It was literally vegetables picked fresh from the earth, not even cooked. I was little more than a rabbit or a cow.
Pru came closer and sat on the edge of the bed as I straightened up.
“Gabrielle, I know it’s been weird for you coming here, but I have to tell you things are going to get weirder.”
I brought my hand to my head and ran my fingers through my hair.
“I think maybe I expected too much. Like maybe I’d get all the answers overnight. Too eager I suppose.”
She slid closer and took my hand into hers. “It’s good to be eager. Just take your time.”
That’s what they all kept saying. Take my time. Take the time I needed to adjust. It was all fine to say that if you weren’t me. A witch who just found out she was a witch and not human.
Pru wiggled her fingers and in my lap appeared a large plate with a delicious looking cheeseburger and fries.
We both laughed. At least I didn’t jump out of my skin or shriek like I did on my first day here when I saw more magic being used in such a normal carefree manner.
“Something from home. You said you liked cheeseburgers and fries.”
“Thank you. I do and I appreciate it.”
“Eat up, and eat fast.” She stood up. “This meeting is important and you’re going to need your strength.”
I nodded and gave her one last smile before she went.
I sighed. I was going to need my strength for more than one reason.
Strength for this meeting sure, because while everyone had gotten worked up over it, I didn’t know what it meant.
I also needed strength to stay sane. Strength to keep my sanity in a world I never knew existed until three weeks ago.
Three weeks ago I was teasing Ariyah about her new guy who was truly perfect for her. Then one day I went to sleep, had a dream about monsters and dragons, then woke up to find they were real.
That was the first night in months that I didn’t dream about my handsome stranger. The monsters in my dream were trying to steal my soul and kill me. The dragons were protecting me.
My world literally changed the next day when I woke up to find out it was all real, and the added bonus was Ariyah’s new guy, Eric, was a dragon shifter, and he informed me that I was a high witch from the Coven of Shadows.
The Coven of Shadows. The oldest coven of witchcraft, old as time itself and as such were keepers of all things sacred to magic. They were the ones in charge. The ones who called the shots, and I was a part of them.
Me, Gabrielle Donovan.
Back in my teens I decided I was going to follow the wicca ways. I loved anything with witchcraft and went about my daily life pretending I had powers.
Now I wondered if I did.
Thinking back, there were times when I made something happen and I chalked it up to coincidence or just a case of the strange and mysterious. Maybe with the powers of my true self I really did do them.
And here I was, in my new bedroom in the castle that belonged to the coven. Deep in a strange land, a realm, The Woodland Realm, that coexisted with the human realm.
I couldn’t believe I was thinking that now.
On a map I was somewhere between Chicago and Michigan. I’d left LA with Ariyah and Eric, and followed the instructions to get to the train station at Fort Wayne. Pru picked me up from there and we literally walked through a door and came out on the bridge that led across a pink lake that took us straight inside the castle.
That was my first day here.
My first step in testing this magical world out.
My first step into the unknown that was still quite uncomfortable for me.
I was here and the new girl. The new girl that everyone was talking about because no one could work out where I’d suddenly come from, and why they never knew about me.
All I knew and they knew, was that I had two dragon shifter guardians protecting me and that meant something.
That and the fact that I came with a very powerful magical stone. A stone Eric handed over to Pru.
It was called the etherstone and possessed powers to control dark magic and dark essence.
Even with my desire to be a witch, that story would have sounded like a load of bullshit from the planet bongo bongo if anyone told it to me.
The whole damn thing would have, but it was real and this meeting was about me.
Me and the stone would be the subject of discussion amongst the members of the Realms Council.
Pru described them as similar to the United Nations council, but for magical creatures and beings from the shadow world.
Quickly I ate my food then got dressed.
Much as I would have preferred to go back to sleep and back to my dream man, I was curious to see what this meeting was going to be like.
I was also mindful of not being late.
Nothing would have been worse than that. Being the new person and arriving to an official meeting late would have been bad.
Pru, Juliana and Claire were already inside the grand hall.
They sat at the head of the table. The very long wooden table that looked like a hundred people could have fit around it.
Juliana was Pru’s sister. She couldn’t stand me. She never said it but I felt it. she’d never welcomed me like Pru did and I suspected some element of jealousy on her part because I’d been the center of attention.
Claire was their mother, but she looked like she could have been their sister.
All three women had blonde hair. And all had that youthful appearance so you couldn’t guess their ages. I was told the women from this coven stopped aging when they reached the age of forty. They would just look the same until they died.
Pru was thirty, Juliana twenty nine, a year older than me, and Claire was three hundred years old.
Claire put her arms out to me and beckoned me to sit next to her.
She’d been the nicest person ever to me, but being the wife to the head of the coven I got the impression that if you crossed her she’d give as much as she got. That and the fact that she was a mage. Mages were witches but they used more arcane magic.
I sat next to her, which meant when Abram, her husband got here I’d be sitting next to him.
It was fine.
I could do this.
“You look beautiful,” Claire said to me reaching out to brush back a wisp of hair that had come away from my ponytail.
“I wasn’t sure what to wear.” I looked down at my dress. It was a simple brown summer dress. Casual in appearance, but also had that simplicity that would have been okay for the office. I’d worn it many times to work.
Well, my former work as an advertiser.
So many things to get used to. I wasn’t that anymore.
“It’s perfect.” Pru said. she’d changed out of her t shirt and jeans to a black pants suit. Juliana had on something similar. They looked dressed for business.
“Perfect for the market.” Juliana cut in, frowning. “Troll or goblin market on a Saturday.”
I took that to mean a bad thing. Maybe I’d dressed a little too casual.
“Juliana darling, please.” Claire gave her a sharp stare that made her back down.
I groaned inwardly, preferring to be told I wasn’t dressed properly than being pampered. I guess not the way Juliana said it though.
Troll or goblin market. What a bitch.
“I can go change quickly,” I offered. I had an even better idea. I’d go back to my room and go right the hell back to sleep.
Why did I have to be at this meeting? It wasn’t as if I could answer any questions. I’d be the new fascinating thing everyone would be looking at and talking about. Just like that past week. I was the one who came here for answers but questions were thrown at me. It was exhausting, and disappointing since I really did expect someone to sit me down and go over everything with me. But no, I felt like a lab rat.
I hated any attention on me at the best of times, so why volunteer for it?
“No,” Claire shook her head. “There’s nothing wrong with your dress. Besides,” she looked ahead of us to the door and worry filled her eyes. “The guests have started to arrive.”
I looked at the door and couldn’t see nor feel anything. Definitely not what they could see or feel.
Pru straightened up and stared with anticipation. Juliana got a really mischievous look on her face and Claire looked even more uncomfortable.
“Who’s here?” I lowered my voice.
“Don’t worry yourself, and don’t answer any questions your uncomfortable with,” Pru replied.
I looked at Claire though and took note of how tense she’d become.
“Can’t feel them can you?” Juliana taunted looking me over with disdain.
I couldn’t answer her because I couldn’t feel shit. She was loving the fact that I was nothing more than a fledgling amongst the big fish and she had no intention of showing me the ropes.
“Juliana shut up,” Pru hissed under her breath.
Footsteps sounded on the concrete floor outside the door. I tried to feel something but didn’t. Couldn’t.
Voices came next. Men. Abram was one of them.
The large oak wood door opened and I straightened gearing myself up to see who else was with him.
He came in first then two really tall, seriously hot guys. I understood now why Juliana looked the way she did and got lost in the staring as they walked in.
That was when I felt something. A tingle in my soul. A tingle like someone was reminding me of something, like a memory of something I forgot but couldn’t remember. But, it wasn’t them that made me feel that way.
The feeling turned my gaze back to the door just as he walked in and I froze.
I literally froze right up and nearly had that jump-out-of-my-skin sensation as I beheld the man that stood at the door. The man that zeroed in on me and froze too.
I couldn’t believe it.
It really was him.
Mr. Everything from my dreams. The man who’d plagued my dreams for the last three months. The man who not one hour ago promised to have me on my knees screaming.
It was actually him. Him in real life. Not a dream.
Not a dream I made up.
It was him and he was looking at me like he knew me too.
How could that be if I’d only met him in my dreams?
2
Gabrielle
Be still my soul.
Be still…
Be still my racing heart. I wished I could at least cast some spell on myself to calm me down.
What was the good of being a witch if I couldn’t do anything like that to calm myself right the hell down.
Then again the type of shock I’d just received warranted something a little stronger than a spell.
Maybe a bottle of vodka and rum. A bottle of each, all of it.
It didn’t help me any that Abram had taken his seat next to me and Mr. Everything sat next to him along with the other two guys Abram introduced as his brothers from the Order of Raphael.
I didn’t hear anything else. Not a damn thing because Mr. Everything –I really needed to stop calling him that – was right in my line of sight and he’d made it his duty to look right at me and didn’t take his eyes off me.
Him staring at me, practically staring me down was so obvious that everyone around us would have to be blind not to see him.
Hot, and faint. That was how I felt, but I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself.
The hall started filling up almost immediately with all manner of people and creatures I didn’t know.
I was trying hard to focus on what Abram was saying as each new person was seated but those piercing brown eyes prevented me from doing anything.
“Stare much,” Pru snapped.
It was only then that he stopped staring at me and switched his focus to her. His very sharp focus.
People who’d been seated looked on curiously.
“How dare you speak to me?” Mr. Everything asked, narrowing his eyes at her.
Pru straightened up and suddenly her eyes blazed with actual fire. Fire like the fire I
’d seen in Eric’s eyes, except his was blue flames. Hers was scorching red hot flames that made its way all over her body.
It never escaped me that she’d come by herself to pick me up from the station last week when Eric and Ariyah dropped me off. With the fuss he’d made over me and the etherstone I’d expected an envoy of powerful magical beings and was definitely shocked to see a little woman no bigger than me in height and stature. Five feet four just like me and petite. Clearly, no mere being though because I’d never seen her look so pissed.
Mr. Everything laughed and simply snapped his fingers. In the palms of his hand came a ball of fire similar to Pru’s flame.
“Dear Prudence, testy much.”
His voice…
It sounded the same as in my dreams.
He smiled revealing long sharp fangs that grew longer the harder he stared. My eyes widened and I swallowed hard.
He was a vampire!
Jesus.
What the hell was going on?
What the hell was this?
He was an actual vampire…
“You forget I’m the kind of Vamp who loves all kinds of fire. Sunlight’s my favorite thing.”
“Order please.” Abram stood.
On his word Pru put out her flames and so did Mr. Everything.
While Pru focused on Abram, Mr. Everything resumed his staring at me.
It was a dream. Only a dream.
I must have the power of… something where I could dream up a person I’d never seen before. had to be that. I just couldn’t figure out the part of why he was looking at me like he recognized me. He was looking at me like he actually knew me.
The same look of curiosity he’d given me that first night we met, in the dream. Except with a harder stare.
“Thank you all for coming,” Abram boomed. He had the kind of voice that commanded instant respect and he did.
Everyone looked to him as he spoke and he regarded them before him.
He looked like a leader in his tweed suit, white hair neatly cut, beard trimmed to perfection, and blue eyes framed with glasses that added to his intellectual appearance.
“The Coven of Shadows has always been upfront and open with each and every one of you. I take great pride in that, and the continual upholding of the laws and respect we hold dear. It is with that respect that we come before you to day in this meeting we organized outside of our monthly gettogethers to inform you of something of great importance.”
Shadows and Sorcery: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 183
