by Raven Steele
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Eve asked. She sat on the couch next to her; close but not too close.
Liane fell back into the cushions and sunk deep. “It feels like decades ago, a whole other life. Sometimes I wonder if I made it all up.”
“What?”
“Boaz.” Liane swallowed. “My imprisonment. The things he made me do.”
Eve’s chest tightened. So much cruelty and violence surrounded that monster. It was nauseating to think that she had once been so blind to the evil that festered inside him.
“Boaz took me after you left,” Liane said. “Or I should say after you ‘died.’ That’s what he told me anyway, that your parents had killed you. I didn’t believe him at first. He was acting strange, almost frantic. He was going on and on about needing magic, especially now that you were gone.”
A chill, slow and cold, worked its way up Eve’s spine.
“I told him I wanted to go home, but he wouldn’t let me. He locked me in a room and every night he’d sneak in, taking more than just my magic.” Her voice cracked, and tears spilled onto her cheeks.
“What about your parents? Or William? Didn’t anyone look for you?”
Liane shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t had any contact with the outside world until two days ago.”
“How did you escape?”
“Sheer luck. Boaz hadn’t been to see me for a long time. During his absence, I was able to build up just enough magic to break the lock and sneak out. I was fortunate he wasn’t home. That’s when I went for the monastery, a place William told me about once.”
“Why not your family?”
She dropped her head back into the sofa’s plush cushions, her expression blank. “They’re dead. I tried calling them after I escaped, but the number didn’t work. After a few more calls, I finally got a hold of a distant cousin who told me the news.”
“Oh, Liane,” Eve said. “I’m so sorry! And William? Did you try and call him?”
She turned her head toward Eve, her bottom lip trembling. “I don’t know if I want to go back to my life with him. The world was so dark then, so—”
Her shoulders shook, and the tears fell more freely. Eve gathered her into her arms and let Liane cry on her shoulder. Eve knew what she was feeling: all the horrible guilt, the shame of past deeds. Eve vowed right then and there to take care of Liane, to protect her from Boaz.
After several minutes, Liane’s tears subsided. She pulled away from Eve, and asked, “Is it okay if I stay here for a while? I have nowhere else to go. Plus, I’m afraid Boaz is searching for me. I can’t go back to him. Ever. I’d rather die.”
Eve clasped Liane’s hands. “You are welcome here for as long as you want. As for Boaz, you won’t have to worry about him for long. I’m going to eliminate him once and for all.”
Chapter 17
Minutes passed by. Lucien was painfully aware of each one that Eve spent with Liane. He didn’t trust that witch. There was something in her eyes, a light missing, perhaps. Eve would say her captivity by Boaz had caused this, but Lucien wasn’t so sure.
Charlie cried out from the medical room next door. Lucien leaned forward from his chair in the small office and peered through the open door. A doctor was applying bandages to Charlie’s face.
Charlie growled, “That hurts.”
“Good,” the doctor said. “Maybe next time you won’t page me in the middle of the night. I have a life outside of here, you know. Now hold still.”
Ten minutes later, the gray-haired doctor, who was in sweats and a t-shirt, walked out. “If you plan on any more injuries like that in the future, then you need to stock that room better.”
“Thanks for your help tonight,” Lucien said. “We’ll try not to bother you again.”
The doctor mumbled something and walked away.
“Aren’t you going to come in?” Charlie called to him.
“Depends. How bad is your face?”
“Some might say it’s an improvement.”
Lucien chuckled and stood. Charlie was sitting up on an old hospital bed. Bandages covered half of his face and over his left eye.
“Where’s Eve?” he asked.
“Upstairs with Liane,” Lucien said. “What do you think of this new witch?”
Charlie reached under the lower part of the bandage and scratched his cheek. “I’m not sure. I tried reading her at the library but got nothing.”
“Like she’s blocking you?” Lucien asked, hopeful. If she had something to hide, then maybe he could convince Eve to be more careful around her.
“I wouldn’t say that quite yet. I’ll visit with her later to see if I can sense anything. I’ll also look her up in our records.” Charlie paused. “Eve seemed eager to help her. Does that bother you?”
“Eve has a big heart. I’m afraid it might blind her to Liane’s true motives.” Lucien crossed the room. “But that’s not what’s really bothering me.”
Charlie swung his legs over the bed and sat up, swaying slightly. “You’re wondering what’s going on between Henry and Eve. I noticed it, too. There’s something they aren’t telling us.”
“And whatever it is, it’s stopping us from going after Boaz.”
Charlie lowered to his feet and slowly stood. “Well, we can’t keep waiting. We need to take action, whether it’s against the VP or Boaz.”
“Are you prepared to kill the Vice President of the country if necessary?”
Charlie sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. “I’ll need to speak to him first. Maybe none of this has been his choice, and he’s a pawn like so many of Boaz’s other acquaintances. But if he’s on Boaz’s side, I’ll take him out myself.”
“Good. He’ll need to be dealt with either way, but that’s only a temporary solution. We need to kill Boaz.”
“I agree. Give me a few hours of sleep, and then we’ll make Henry and Eve tell us what’s going on.” Charlie opened the door. “I’ll be on the couch in my office if you need me.”
He followed Charlie to his office. “Do you have headphones I can borrow?”
“Sure.” Charlie rummaged through a drawer in his desk until he removed a pair of white ear buds. He handed them to Lucien. “Don’t trust yourself not to eavesdrop on Eve and Liane?”
Lucien grabbed them and stuffed them into his pocket. “Something like that.”
He headed back upstairs, stopping in his apartment only long enough to grab a folding chair. He placed it next to Eve’s door and sat down. Now that they had captured Eve’s mother, there was a very good chance that Boaz would think Eve was alive. He could come for her at any moment.
Eve’s voice was easy to hear just beyond the door. She was talking with Liane about her aunt’s spell book. Apparently, Dimitri had given it to Eve at the monastery. There was an edge to Eve’s voice. He had felt that same sharpness when they’d kissed an hour ago. Something was holding her back from him, something that scared her.
Respecting her privacy, Lucien slipped the headphones into his ears and cranked the volume on his phone. The orchestral music playing was filled with percussion and stirring melodies, infused with Gregorian chant style vocals. It reminded him of Ireland. The music took him to another place and gave him a temporary respite from his worry for Eve.
His eyes closed. He didn’t dream, but he did remember long ago memories, and not the bad ones that involved his father’s obsessive and cruel demands or his brother Aiden’s sadistic experiments. These memories were of his mother. When he was little, he would help her in the forest gathering berries or mushrooms. She would often tell him stories of great warriors who feared nothing in the face of evil.
A soft caress brushed over his lips, warming him from the inside out. He opened his eyes.
Eve was kneeling in front of him, smiling big. She wore a long, white t-shirt, her legs and feet bare, as if she was just getting ready for bed, but by the way his body felt, it was closer to sun rise.
She kissed him again, lon
g and hard, and he savored the taste of her tongue against his. He ran his fingers up through her long hair and pulled her closer to him so she was straddling him on the chair.
Before he became too intoxicated by her, he gently pushed her back. “What’s going on?”
“I did it, Lucien. I found a way to get rid of Boaz.” Her smile grew.
“How?”
She spoke fast. “There was a spell at the end of Ellenore’s book that will put Boaz into an eternal sleep. It’s complicated, but with your and Henry’s help, I think we can do it. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but Liane recognized the spell. She even helped me finish it. I think that’s what Ellenore was working on just before Boaz killed her. He must’ve known.”
“Whoa! Slow down,” he said. “You want to put Boaz to sleep? Why don’t we just kill him?”
The smile on her face disappeared and she stood, leaving Lucien’s lap cold. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Is this the secret you and Henry have been keeping?”
She nodded and walked a few steps down the hall before turning back around. “When I confronted Sable the other day, she confirmed something Anne had said about Boaz.”
“Which was?”
“Boaz can’t be killed until his magic is made whole.” She grimaced as if speaking those words hurt her mouth.
Lucien stood up next to her. “What does that mean?”
“The necklace he made me wear. It holds all his powers, a piece of him. And as long as it exists, Boaz can’t die.”
“Then we’ll destroy the necklace.”
“I already tried many times, but it’s indestructible.”
Lucien paced the hall, thinking hard, but his thoughts refused to go where Eve was trying to guide them.
“What are you saying?” he asked, at length.
Eve took hold of his hands. “Boaz will need that trapped part of him restored before anyone could ever kill him, and the only way for that to happen is for a powerful witch to wear the necklace, access those powers, and return them back to Boaz.”
His legs nearly buckled. “But that would mean—”
“I would have to be that witch,” Eve whispered.
He grabbed her arms fiercely. “You can’t!”
“And that’s why I’ve been avoiding you.” She looked up at him, eyes pleading. “If it meant saving lives, then I’d have to go to Boaz and restore his powers. My only hope is that you and Henry would then be able to save me and together we could kill Boaz.”
She sucked in a ragged breath. “I knew you would never let me do this, so I kept it from you. But things have changed now. We don’t need to kill Boaz, just put him to sleep, then bury him for all time. It will work. It has to!”
Lucien stared down at her, breathing hard. He could’ve lost her again. He pulled her into a tight embrace. She was right. He would never have let her go.
“Are you sure about this spell?” Lucien asked.
“Yes. It really is good. We’ll need some supplies, like the untainted blood from a few animals, but those shouldn’t be too hard to obtain. The hardest part of all of this will be convincing Henry that it will work.”
Lucien’s body tensed when he thought of Henry, and how he had kept this information from him. But even worse was the fact that he’d let Eve go to Boaz. He and Henry were going to have to come to an understanding.
Eve reached up and touched his cheek with her warm palm. His eyes went to hers. “We can do this. I promise, and once it’s over, there will be nothing left standing between us. We can live our lives. Go anywhere we want. Do anything.”
“Let’s go find Henry and convince him right now.”
Eve lifted on her tiptoes and traced kisses along his jaw line. He closed his eyes and parted his lips at the contact. Her lips felt so good, so right on his skin.
“We can do that soon,” she said, “but right now, we need to make up for lost time. ”
Lucien’s body came alive, and a growl rumbled in his chest.
She hooked her fingers into the top of his jeans and flicked the top button open with magic. The heat from it ignited his insides, and his stiffening member strained to break free.
She leaned up and whispered in his ear, “I’m going to make it up—”
An instinctual desire to possess her crashed through him, and he scooped her up. His whole world was right here in his arms, fragile and yet unbreakable. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for this woman. In less than a second, he was in his apartment, pulling Eve with him onto the sofa, her legs parted on each side of him. His mouth found hers, and he devoured her lips, his tongue demanding, urging.
Eve slid a hand behind his neck as if to ground her, as she drove her pelvis into his, whimpering and moaning.
This felt right, being with her. Touching her. Pleasing her.
Lucien lowered his hands to the side of her thighs and slid them up around to her ass. But when they reached there, he startled and broke away from her. “You’re not wearing anything.”
She grinned at him mischievously beneath thick eyelashes. “For you.”
He inhaled, taking in her sweet scent. He’d been so caught up with her mouth against his, that he hadn’t noticed before. But now it was there. Filling his body with raw desire.
Her hands lowered to the top of his shirt, and one by one, she undid the buttons while his palms worked her ass. He wanted to take his time, memorize everything about her body with his fingers, every curve, every grove and dip. Before they were finished, he vowed to have everything about her engrained into his soul.
With his chest exposed, Eve ran her fingers over his pecs and abs, as if she too were memorizing everything about him. Her gaze dipped lower, and she licked her lips.
To see that desire on her face, her want, nearly undid him.
Keeping one hand gripping her ass, he slid his other up her thigh and in between her legs. He resisted the urge to move too fast, too urgent. Instead, he worked her slowly, his gaze never leaving hers. He didn’t want to miss a second of her pleasure.
Her hips ground into his hand and fingers, and a moan slipped past her lips. He captured it with a deep kiss, not wanting anything to escape him.
“Lucien,” she moaned into his mouth.
He could feel her body begin to tremble, but before she fell over the edge, she reached a hand down between them and stopped him.
She searched his eyes with a heated gaze. “I want to give you something else,” she paused. “And please don’t deny me.”
The pleading tone of her voice, stilled him. “Anything you want, and it’s yours, Eve.”
Reaching to the hem of her long t-shirt, she removed it over her head, leaving her completely naked on his lap. A guttural sound left his throat at the site of her perfect breasts and hard nipples. She tilted her head to the side, and brushed her hair over to one shoulder, exposing her long and slender neck.
His body tensed, and he frowned. He hadn’t expected this.
She sensed his reservations, and quickly said, “I want to share everything with you, be with you in every way possible. Become one with me, Lucien.”
With her fully exposed body over him, her beseeching gaze burning into his, he couldn’t deny her. He slid his hand up her bare back and pressed her to him, while he kissed her slowly, savoring her taste. While lifting her slightly, his other hand assisted him in removing his pants.
He settled beneath her and slowly eased her hips onto his hard member. She cupped his face in her palms and stared at him, mouth open, as she shifted slightly to adjust for him. Her eyes widened and she gasped in pleasure.
Clenching his jaw, he moaned at how good it felt sliding into her. It undid him, flayed his heart open, and left his soul raw. He’d never felt so vulnerable in all his life.
Eve began to rock against him, finding a rhythm. She arched into him, her chest heaving upward. He kissed her breasts, then trailed his mouth up her neck, his fingers digging into her skin on her hips. He
paused at the throbbing artery on her throat and pressed his tongue to it. The sensual beat spoke to his most primal instincts.
He paused, flickering his gaze up to Eve. “Are you sure?”
“Yessssss,” she moaned, her body bobbing up and down in slow and deliberate movements.
He released a hungry growl and allowed his eye teeth to grow long. He grazed their sharp tips along her skin, making her shiver and move faster against him.
His heart beat loud and violently within his chest at what she was about to give him. Never did he think fate would allow him to have such a precious gift as Eve. He gripped her tightly, trying to still her, for what came next. He pierced hard and fast into the side of her tender throat so she would avoid the initial sting of his entry.
She jumped but then relaxed into him, her head lowering to the side of his. Warm, sweet blood, the flavor of raw honey touched by the sun, coated his tongue. He gripped her tightly to him, the muscles in his body flexing, as he slowly drew her blood into him just a little bit at a time. It was warm and life-giving and flooded him with what felt like the power of the moon and stars. And like him, Eve would also be experiencing some kind of euphoric feeling from his venom.
“This feels sooo good,” she breathed, her voice sounding distant. “More … ”
Hearing her beg, feeling her body’s need, brought every last primal instinct to the surface. With his arms around her upper torso, he held her tightly to make sure his teeth stayed firmly within her, then began to pump his hips, thrusting deep inside her.
He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, only feel. And he felt everything.
To ensure she did too, he slid one of his hands down between her legs and rubbed his thumb over her swollen clit. She gasped and her whole body began to tremble. Her breathing became ragged, each breath expelling pleasure.
Seeing her like this, coming undone at his touch, her sweet blood pooling on his tongue, brought him to the edge. They tumbled over it together in one powerful wave. He unlatched from her neck and sucked in a great breath, while his body continued to spasm inside her.
