Ivy ignored the deep scent of the bayou that rolled off him, like trees and wet earth all rolled up in one man. He stood close enough to set her heart beating faster. Close enough to draw her attention toward the inexplicable attraction she felt toward him.
Fantastic. Partnered with an alpha with an ego the size of the city and what do I keep thinking about? How sexy he is. Ivy snorted. When this is over you need to get laid and get this guy out of your head.
7
Elijah’s patience grew thinner with every passing moment.
“Did you find it?” The words were little more than an agitated growl.
“How could I with you pestering me every three seconds?” Ivy shot back.
He almost smirked. He liked seeing a different side to Ivy—far more than he should. Elijah let his hands comb through his hair as he blew out a breath. Standing in her living room proved far more tempting than he’d prepared for.
Her smell was everywhere, woven into every breath of air he took. Roses, clover, and honey. It suited Ivy. Her beauty matched any flower, her magic grew from the earth’s energy like a clover path, and he’d bet she tasted sweet as honey. Don’t be a fucking poet. This is insane.
The formal sitting room was everything a southern mansion should be. Furniture fit for another decade clothed in rich velvet beige created a circle in the center around an impressive wooden table fit for royalty. Silk cream-colored curtains hung open over the floor to ceiling windows on the far side of the room, letting in enough sunlight to forgo the need for a light. Elijah turned, noting the perfect cleanliness throughout the room everywhere except the grand oak desk on the smallest wall that led to a long hallway. He’d always wondered if Ivy were neat as the pin she seemed to sit on or as messy as he was. Without his pack to remind him to clean, he could go days with clothes on the floor and mail strewn on the counter thanks to long days at work followed by longer nights as acting alpha.
The plush carpet under his feet unnerved him. Elijah had money, but the wolf in him preferred rough, harsh textures. From the ferry to Jackson Square, photographs of the city developed in sepia and black and white formed a line on all four walls. Whoever shot the photos had a great eye.
“I took those myself. I found photographs to be soothing when I lost my parents.”
Ivy Lancaster loved the city as much as he did.
“They’re quite stunning.”
“Yes, well, it’s how I see the city. It’s moody and slow in some sections and blaring with life and people in another.” She sighed. “My father showed me most of these spots.”
So she’s attractive, powerful, and likes New Orleans. He snorted. Attractive is more than enough explanation for why I want the curvaceous witch beneath me.
“I’m sorry. You make it seem as if their deaths recently happened, but if you’ve done as much poking around as I hear for time travel magic, you must miss them.” Elijah fought off his feelings for his grandfather.
“Thank you.” She returned to her search in a small wicker basket of magazines next to the setae. “It’s almost seventeen years now. It feels so much longer with how long I know I have left to live.” It was the longest sentence she’d ever spoken to him, and the most personal.
“I understand. Pack life, well, being alpha wasn’t handed to me.”
She looked up and placed her palms on her knees. “The laws are well known.” Her eyes lingered on his torso for a moment. “You’ve always struck me as a very capable man.”
Elijah liked the way her voice lowered on the word capable far too much. Much like all your feelings for the witch. “It was my grandfather’s life I had to take.”
She blinked twice. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded, not entirely sure why they were sharing the shadows of their past when they had places to be.
“My family line is expected to remain as alpha. My grandfather knew it would come one day, and he knew it would be me, not my brothers.”
“Because you can smell the alpha one another.”
He chuckled. “Something like that.”
Ivy turned away, now searching the drawer of a French-inspired gold-painted end table.
“I always have one. I can’t tell you how many of them I’ve used as the base magic trying to create my own time travel spell. They have to be here somewhere.” It appeared she spoke more to herself than him.
“When’s the last time you tried this? Time travel magic, not looking for the bottles.”
“About two months ago. At the urging of my coven and more personal defeat than I care to share I came to the conclusion that I had to accept other ways of unlocking the knowledge in my family’s grimoires.”
“You mean that knowledge isn’t, like, in your soul?”
She jerked her head, blonde hair whipping about.
“Couldn’t you, you know, brew one?”
All at once her emerald gaze locked on his from where she squatted beside an end table. “You do realize witches never show off their magic, right?”
“Pretty sure secrets are precisely what got us into this mess.” Asking a caster to share their spells was akin to a shifter changing forms before another. It suggested intimacy and trust.
“Just give me another minute.” The words came out muffled as she nearly shoved her head into the cabinet at the bottom of the end table.
Dear god if she doesn’t stop swaying. He groaned as her breasts swayed in the loose-fitting cotton shirt as she dug through her stuff. Once you capture that coward you are getting this out of your system. He paused his thought. If she is interested. He wouldn’t take her against her will, but the way Ivy Lancaster looked at him left little doubt of her attraction. No, she avoided him for the same reason he avoided her.
Lust.
A crippling lust that did not seem to understand there was a time and a place. Elijah adjusted himself, hoping to conceal just how attracted to her he was when she stood up. Glancing at his watch, his urges melted away.
“Ivy, it’s been thirty-three minutes since we got here. You realize that’s nearly fifty since Jared pulled his vanishing act.”
“Thank you for your astute recap of time, Mr. Vikander.” She snarled as effortlessly as any wolf.
“You’re a bit . . . feisty . . . aren’t you?”
She popped her head up. “Excuse me?”
“Well, you come and go from meetings with your button-down blouses, and your hair pulled into a bun or ponytail with your rules and big vocabulary for a reason. You want to give off the element of control.” He took three very dangerous steps closer, leaving a mere foot between them. “But you’re covering up a part of yourself to… fit in?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do. You’re fairly young by witch years, and you found yourself with all eyes on you not once, but twice. And the second time it encompassed the entire world looking on to see how Ivy Lancaster led the witches.”
She swallowed and dropped a stack of books, likely aiming for the desk, but missing. “It doesn’t matter who I was before.”
“I think it does. I think you’re quite a lot like your friend, Lita. You used to party. To dress up in shimmering, short dresses and do shots until a man took you home.”
Every ounce of control slipped away. Tugging her into his arms was the first mistake. She didn’t fight the way their bodies fit together like a perfect mold. Her soft curves against his hard body shouldn’t work, but God did it.
“There isn’t time for this.” He growled as he used two fingers to tip her chin up just a little bit to meet his lips as they slanted over hers.
He’d been right. A sweet honey-like taste seemed to slide over his tongue as he deepened the kiss before it ever even truly started. Her soft lips glided against his with ease. Her tongue rolled over his, matching him stroke for stroke. It was Ivy who let her hands cup his face and pull him the slightest bit closer. She invaded his senses, stroked his desire too high with every thrust of her tongue ag
ainst his. The room spun into a dizzying sway of colors and Elijah couldn’t tell up from down his mind was so encompassed on the woman in his arms.
He rolled his hips against her and drew Ivy closer. One small step and he could have laid her on the couch and given into what his wolf demanded he take. One little movement and he could have stripped her bare and ended the maddening desire. Elijah wanted Ivy, and with every press of her body against his, he knew Ivy’s hunger matched his.
But you have somewhere to be, and she’s a witch. The words in his mind sounded like his grandfather’s voice. With a groan, he pulled back and allowed his eyes to open. Her lips were puffy and red from their kiss. Exactly how a woman ought to look after kissing a man.
After a moment, she opened her eyes. Panic quickly removed the clouds of passion in her eyes, and she jerked away, knocking against the desk and almost losing her balance.
“That can’t happen again.”
Elijah growled and resisted the urge to lean in close and smell her desire. “That will happen again when this mess is behind us. I cannot keep attending these meetings if all I can focus on is fucking you.”
She swallowed, a challenge on her lips. Instead, she allowed her hand to snake down his chest.
“Fuck,” he groaned, hoping her hand would stop where he needed it to. The world could wait five minutes if his crass talk truly pushed her over the edge.
Instead, her hand stopped just on top of his belt buckle. “You are attractive and an amazing kisser.” She pulled her hand away. “But you are also a wolf, a brute, and not my type.”
“Darlin’, you don’t need a type to roll in the sack.”
“Yes, well,” she straightened her shirt, tugging it to the side and causing one of the buttons to slip open and show off the top of her creamy breast. “We have something far more important to do, and when it’s all over, and we don’t have to be near one another, we can mark this off as a crisis-induced sensation.”
Elijah growled. Women shot him down all the time. For every one who wanted to climb on him and fuck a muscular, powerful, alpha, three more wanted nothing to do with his foul mood and the politics of being with him.
Still, Ivy’s quick attack stung. And it shouldn’t. Except his cock was raging hard against his work slacks and he had absolutely no time to ease himself. So, he focused his attention back on what actually mattered.
“Brew it. I’ll go to another room if you want.”
With a snort, she walked to the hall, placed one hand on the wall and turned to look back at him over her shoulder. “You’re a wolf, and almost every witch in the world knows this potion.”
“Then why did you -”
Ivy sauntered off down the hall before he could finish snapping at her.
“My god, that is why you don’t get involved with a witch. Find a beautiful djinn or even a god damn human who doesn’t mind that you’ve got an animalistic side to you.” He groaned as an image flashed of Ivy’s hand continuing the path down his body and undoing his belt buckle.
Elijah bit his cheek until blood spurted into his mouth. Still, despite the taste and the twinge of pain, he wanted Ivy. “She’s going to be the death of me.”
“I can hear you.” Ivy called amusingly from the other end of the hall. When she got closer, he realized she held a box.
He took it without asking, and she didn’t thank him.
Instead, she opened the flaps and began to pull items out. She didn’t speak, but Elijah took stock.
A white-sand hourglass. Black sand that probably came from another hourglass. An amethyst shard as long as her forearm and then she placed the thin onyx athame she always carried at meetings from her pocket.
Still silent as snowfall, she began to draw with the black sand, shaking it out onto the floor to draw quarters. He’d seen a witch do it before, but she’d spoken out loud. “How –”
Ivy glowered at him, holding a hand up to silence him.
Okay, then.
The shard went into the center of the circle, and she finally began to speak. “Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, I invite thee to my circle. Bring your strengths, lend me your hands.”
The atmosphere in the room changed. All at once the room grew hot and a breath of air rolled across the circle, shifting the black sand. Elijah noticed her words were different than he’d heard previously and figured casting could be unique to the caster.
She flipped over the hourglass and quickly sliced the palm of her hand.
“Ten seconds be, ten seconds be gone. Ten seconds be, ten seconds be gone. Twist the fates, bend them back. Twist the fates, bend the back. Ten. Seconds. Flat.”
He couldn’t help but be impressed as she switched the athame into her left hand, sliced it over her right and chanted again.
Elijah let out a low whistle as the sand in the hourglass turned to a white milk-like liquid. She thanked the elements, but all he could focus on was watching the sand in the hourglass change.
“Jesus, even knowing magic exists, it’s a doozy watching it sometimes.”
“Okay then,” Ivy swirled, then capped, the vial in her hand that Elijah didn’t even see her make from the hourglass liquid before dropping walking to her purse by the door. With a grin, she dropped it in. Her expression went grim, “This goes back ten seconds. Just enough time to undo a fatal mistake. If you need to use it, drink it. I can’t brew anything to go back further with the supplies I have on hand.”
“Drink it, got it. Let’s go,” Elijah jerked the door open before he’d finished speaking and nearly moaned as Ivy deliberately walked too close to him.
“You go. I’ll meet you at the Bell and Jinx Bar.”
He raised a brow as he stepped outside. “Why are we splitting up?”
“Because, you have wolves to go get and I need a change of clothes if I’m going to be of any use getting info on Jared’s whereabouts.” She smirked, wiggled her fingers in his direction and the door slammed shut in his face.
“And that is why you don’t get involved with a witch.”
8
Elijah couldn’t help but stare at Ivy—even a gay man would’ve looked at her. Gone was the stuffy woman he already found sexy as sin. In her place stood a woman on the prowl. Ivy Lancaster was without a doubt the sexiest woman he’d laid eyes on in his almost one thousand years of life. Her usually stick-straight hair boasted voluptuous curls that seemed to dance as she walked, giving off an air of fun and freedom. The sheer button-down and gray slacks she typically wore hid her body far more than he’d realized, even after holding her against him. Curves meant for a man to wrap his arms around left his erection at near painful level after thirty minutes. You never should’ve fucking kissed her. Now you’ve got her taste on your lips and want more.
If he didn’t put some distance between them, he was going to end up tugging her against him and finishing what they started right here on the damned street, thirty freaking steps from the bar they were supposed to be going. She chewed her lower lip as she flicked her wrist counterclockwise and everyone—human, vampire, whatever—separated to allow them to walk through the crowd.
“Neat party trick.”
“It comes in handy when you’re in a rush. Which I think we are.” She sounded utterly unaffected by the way he looked at her.
She probably spelled herself to be able to move on. He snorted. You should ask her to do the same to you so you can focus on anything but her outfit.
Black fishnet stockings clung to muscular legs most women spent a lifetime in the gym for. Her black leather mini left very little to the imagination as she moved. Six times in the five minutes they’d stood together he’d snarled at men and women for glancing her way—attention she didn’t seem to notice. It wasn’t jealousy. It was the need to get on with the show and stop the psychopath from destroying history, or so he kept telling himself.
Her pebbled nipples showed through the ridiculously thin white crop top she’d designated as a shirt. The black leather jacket fit her like a s
econd skin, and Elijah found it seductive as hell. He liked women a little rough around the edges, and damn if Ivy didn’t look like she had a past to tell in that outfit. If his men so much as glanced her way, he’d kill them.
Top off some jealousy with a shattering kiss, and you’re screwed harder than a crawfish in a trap. He groaned.
“Everything okay?” Ivy glanced at him, the tip of her tongue flicking out over the sinful red lipstick that drew his eyes to her mouth every time her lips moved.
“Yup, just dandy. Mind telling me exactly why you’re dressed like that?” He did his best not to let his eyes linger longer than necessary to make a point.
“We came here looking for a rat. Who would talk to me if I looked like Ivy Lancaster, High Priestess, and Witch Elect?”
“Good point,” Tonna, a Cajun wolf with a nose unlike any other wolf Elijah knew, chimed in.
“Tonna, do me a favor. Stick to using your nose, not your mouth.”
“Someone is a bit testy.” Joseph, his security head, chuckled. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say some of that outfit was to push your buttons.”
“Perceptive.”
“I can hear you,” Ivy responded in a sing-song voice without so much as turning her head. “We’re going around back.”
Elijah whirled to face the two wolves he’d thought best suited for the task at hand. “Enough. It’s bad enough I’ve let myself be distracted by a witch. You’re here to help us stop a killer—potentially a mass murderer based on his rants. You want to make snide comments, save them for later. I plan on finding this cracked-out warlock and being long gone from Miss Lancaster’s side before morning.”
Tonna had enough sense to look down, Joseph smirked.
“We’ll do our part. Why don’t you go keep tabs on your witch? We’ll head a street over where they’ll be fewer people and shift No sense causing a riot.”
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