The Spell

by Heather Killough-Walden

Cole apparently couldn’t let that go. “You offering, luv?” he asked. Lucas tensed. Daniel Kane was less than ten feet away. He’s either insane or very brave, Lucas thought. Probably it was a little bit of both. After all, he’d just killed Gabriel Phelan and the blood lust was no doubt still riding his body hard. He had yet to force his wolf to heel.

  For her part, Lily had blanched a little, but the gold fire sparked to life in her eyes and she narrowed her gaze. “In your dreams, Cole.”

  “It’s Malcolm, sweetheart. Will you never learn?”

  “Enough,” Daniel said between gritted teeth. He stepped between them, turning his back to Cole in order to give his wife a warning look. Lucas was impressed. The alpha werewolf looked bored and impatient, if anything. Maybe the cop in him was clicking into place. Or maybe he’d just gotten used to this kind of shit from his wife and Malcolm Cole. The past often had a hard time laying down to die.

  “You’ll drink from us,” said one of the enforcers. He was huge, as was normal for an enforcer, and he looked as though he wasn’t going to accept any arguments from anyone in the clearing. Lucas had no idea who he was and he didn’t care. Alberich had taken Danny, and Lucas needed blood. He leaned against a nearby tree as the enforcer rolled up his sleeve and approached him. His partner approached Cole and shrugged off his sports coat so that the alpha could drink from his as well.

  Lucas hoped to God that no humans were looking in on the scene because if they were, rumors of vampires were going to spread through the community of Oregon like a tidal wave.

  Chapter Sixteen: “The Turn”

  “I want you to.”

  The words had barely been spoken before Jason’s hand slid to the nape of her neck and grasped the hair there. Danny hissed as he yanked her head back, exposing her throat. He smiled down at her. His lips were a mere hair’s breadth from her own. “Fight me, Danny. Give me an excuse to tie you to my bed.”

  He claimed her lips with his own and Danny’s breath was sucked from her lungs. His grip on her hair tightened and his other arm slid around her waist to pull her hard up against his chest. At once, she was overwhelmed by him. Her mind screamed for her to use her magic, but her body was no longer under her control. Jason’s warlock power subjugated it, taking it prisoner.

  His lips parted her own and his tongue delved deep. He tasted like ice that burned her tongue. Like alcohol. And she was getting drunk. Heat was spreading across her neck, her chest, and lower. Need awoke and uncoiled deep within, responding to his dark ministrations with perfect precision.

  No, she thought. This isn’t happening. But it was.

  Until it wasn’t, because Jason was suddenly yanked away from her and thrown across the stone chamber. Danny’s eyes flew open in time to follow his black clad form where it hit the opposite wall amidst a low, reverberating growl and a flash of light. She blinked and stumbled, falling onto the bed behind her as a massive black wolf with red glowing eyes slowly stalked the warlock.

  Jason got to his feet and stared at the wolf, disbelieving. His broad chest rose and fell with quick, angry breaths and his head lowered in a wrathful glare. He speared the oncoming wolf with green eyes that began to glow, calling to mind the sun on an iceberg. “Caige,” he hissed at last. “Using the seer’s necklace. It’s the only thing that could have made it past my wards. Smart wolf.”

  Danny frowned. Lucas was using Lily’s necklace – the one that Danny had made for her months ago? It carried with it Danny’s own magic and was linked to her. That was how Lucas had made it past the shielded walls and found his way to her. The necklace had simply known where to go.

  Just in time, she thought guiltily and with more than a touch of terror. She’d almost given in to Jason. She’d almost lost herself in all that he was. She gripped the soft velvet sheets beneath her fingers and looked down. Black bed clothes. She swallowed hard. The darkness, however delicious, was still darkness.

  Across the room, the wolf sprang toward Jason and Jason evaded his giant form, dropping and rolling and coming to his feet once more. A ball of fire erupted in the space between them and shot toward the wolf, but Lucas was too fast in his wolfen form and easily dodged the oncoming blaze.

  Again and again this happened and the air in the chamber began to heat up with magic and a slight dip in oxygen. Finally, Lucas’s stance changed. He crouched low and Danny tensed. The attack came fast – a blur of midnight colored fur. But Jason knew well that it had been coming. A column of fire erupted around his boots and shot toward the ceiling, engulfing him in its crackling, roaring flames. It was only there for a second – split and gone.

  When the flames evaporated, the space where Jason had stood was empty.

  Lucas landed on the other side of the empty space and spun, flashing back into his human form. His eyes still glowed red. He looked like a demon standing there, dressed in black leather and dried blood, his fangs pronounced, sharp and deadly, his eyes burning like the fires of hell. Danny found herself involuntarily scooting back on the bed.

  Lucas caught the movement and his eyes were instantly on her, scorching her to the mattress upon which she sat. He seemed to gaze at her forever like that, burning her up inside and out. And then he raised his head, just a touch, and asked, “Did he hurt you?” His voice was harsh and grated, roughened by the wolf he no doubt barely held in check.

  Danny quickly shook her head. “I’m okay,” she assured him. Sort of.

  “No you’re not,” he told her simply. He took a step toward her and once more, the sound of a stalking boot echoed in the warlock’s chamber. Danny’s breath hitched. “You’re vulnerable,” he said. “You’re prey.”

  “W-what?” she asked, suddenly feeling a little angry. Prey? Her? She was the Healer! She was magic incarnate! Imani had even told her so!

  “You can’t fight fire with fire, little witch,” Lucas told her, lowering his head to sear her with his smoldering gaze once more. Another step. “Jason Alberich has known you your entire life. He knows how you think. He knows every power you possess. He’s been watching your every move for two decades.” Two more slow, calculated steps. “You can’t defend yourself against him, Danny,” he assured her with a small shake of his handsome head. “Not yet.”

  A chord of hard, scary anticipation thrummed through Danny, roaring in her ears. She felt heavy suddenly, and a little numb. She could have asked him what he meant. She could have feigned innocence. But she knew all too well what he was talking about. She might not be able to fight Jason’s magic with her own. But she might have a better chance at defending herself… as a wolf.

  And once she was turned, Jason might back off. She doubted it, but stranger things had happened.

  Lucas took another step and closed the distance between them. He stood beside the bed, his towering, terrifying form staring down at her with relentless determination. Danny couldn’t move when he slowly bent over the bed, a predator caging her in, and placed his hands on either side of her against the mattress.

  She could hear her own ragged breaths now; there was no controlling them. She knew what was coming and she wanted it. It scared the hell out of her and it thrilled her and there was nothing else in the world in that moment but Lucas Caige and the thought of what he was about to do to her. Do with her.

  His knee came up next, taking his weight. He was moving over her, a cat prowling across the bed. She moved back; an instinctive reflex that wound up centering her in the bed with Lucas right above her, a wolf fresh from the fight – eyes on fire.

  She could barely believe this was happening. Here? In this room?

  But of course here. Because as far as the wolf in Lucas was concerned, it sent the ultimate message. He was taking his mate in his enemy’s bed. There could be no stronger meaning than that.

  “I’ll let you have one last chance, witch,” he told her, speaking expertly around fangs that promised wicked pain – and pleasure. “Kill me now,” he said, repeating what he had told her when he’d marked her. “Because if you do
n’t, I’m gonna to do bad things to you.”

  But it was obvious that he never intended to give her one last chance. Not at all. Instead, he supported his weight on one hand, the muscles in his arms flexing in a way that hypnotized Danny. He cupped her chin with the other hand and lowered his lips to an inch above her own. “You’re mine, Danny. You always will be.”

  He imprisoned her with his gaze, holding her fast beneath him as if he’d wrapped her in chains. She couldn’t look away. “I know,” she whispered back.

  And then he was very gently, very softly kissing her and Danny felt his fangs against her lips. He was tender, and his teeth belied that tenderness. It was one of the most intensely erotic dichotomies she had ever experienced. He was an animal, a monster, her lover – he could have ripped her to shreds in seconds. He had killed men. Who knew how many? And he was trapping her here now, on this bed, and there was no escape for her. But he was gentle.

  She felt herself go wet with her helplessness. The mark on her arm heated up, sending waves of anticipatory pleasure up her arm and across her chest. Her nipples hardened under the sensation, drawing a gasp from her that Lucas swallowed as he deepened the kiss, pressing in, taking more.

  His hand left her chin, trailed down her throat, and squeezed gently before moving to the collar of her shirt. His fingers curled over the delicate collar. He broke the kiss, pulling away to capture her gaze in his once more. A beat passed between them. She held her breath.

  And Lucas ripped the shirt open. Again Danny gasped, arching her back under the assault, but Caige was there, his long, hard body meeting her and lowering her back down onto the mattress. His lips claimed hers once more, this time prying her open with determined hunger and delving deep. She felt a growl move through him, a vibration of thunder, and the heat from her chest coiled and shot down through the rest of her body.

  She felt warm air caress her breasts and knew they were bare. She was exposed to him and he wasn’t stopping there. He pressed harder, devouring her with his kiss as his hand made its way to the waistband of her jeans and grasped it tight. His genteness was leaking away, making room for his wolf.

  For a heartbeat, she feared he would rip them open – that would hurt. But he seemed to possess some remnant of sense as he opened her up before him. With a care that seemed in stark opposition to the animal that raged just beneath his fevered skin, Lucas popped the button and unzipped the jeans. Danny was drowning in the sensations flooding her. Her skin prickled and tingled and felt hot. Her core ached and throbbed, slick with need. Her lungs drew in quick breaths over and over. Her heart raced like a rabbit’s and her throat let loose a cry of surprise and longing as Lucas’s hand slid into her jeans and under the elastic band of her underwear.

  So hot! she thought with a moan of pleasure-pain. Lucas’s fingers were like embers, searing her, branding her where they pressed in heated trails through the curls over her mound to the silken juncture of her legs. Her hands curled into the soft sheets beneath her, gripping them tight as if she needed to hold on for dear life. He slid lower, pushing her jeans over her hips as he went, bearing her to him completely and shamelessly. With practiced ease, he rose without breaking the kiss and the brands of his fingers were momentarily lifted. She missed them at once as air rushed in and chilled her tender flesh. She moaned against his lips, a small sound of longing, and he growled a nearly heartless chuckle in response.

  Distantly, she heard something hit the stone floor beside the bed and she knew it was her clothes. She was stripped, laid bare before him.

  She cried out against his lips when the heat of his hand was suddenly back on her. He pressed, parted the curls once more, and his fingers brushed her clitoris. She bucked beneath him and he ate her cry, as his fingers moved on until they slid over the slick opening beneath. Some ancient, old-brain instinct puppeted her body and she tried to move away, to escape the probing insistence of his searing, expert hand. She closed her legs and he laughed darkly, deep in his chest. It rumbled through him just like his growl and she gasped as she felt his strong knee press between her thighs, prying them apart.

  The rough material of his jeans scraped her skin, tempting and taunting her with the fact that she was naked beneath him and he was still fully clothed. She desperately wanted to remedy that. She thought of how she had dreamed of him and fantasized about him – Lucas Caige, the biker, the werewolf, the rebel – and there was no way in hell she was going to deny herself every inch of him here and now.

  As Lucas got her legs apart, Danny put her hands on his chest and pushed hard, almost slamming her hands against him. The zipper and hard angles of the leather armor hurt a little against her delicate palms and Lucas paused above her, clearly concerned that she was in pain and not the good kind.

  Danny took the opening and caught him slightly off guard. She shoved again, just enough to finally break the kiss and allow her to clear her head. Lucas pulled back with a snarl of warning, and Danny shut her eyes tight. If she looked up into his burning red irises, she would be gone for good. She forced herself to ignore him and his overriding dominance and instead concentrated on her own body – on her magic.

  With a whisper that shook slightly through her swollen lips, she willed his clothes away. It was such a small spell. It was all she wanted.

  The atmosphere above the bed changed, growing thicker and hotter and Danny opened her eyes, half afraid of what she would find when Lucas realized she’d just used magic on him. Again.

  But when she looked into his gorgeous face and saw him smiling a sinful and nefarious grin, sharp white fangs and all, her fears disappeared. Emboldened, she allowed her gaze to trail across his strong, perfect features – his cheek bones, his lips, his teeth, his chin, his neck….

  Danny stopped breathing and went still beneath him. No dream could have done him justice.

  Lucas rose slightly up and shoved one hand between her back and the bed. Goddess, she thought as she took in the corded muscles of his upper arms, his shoulders and his sculpted chest. They tapered to a hard, trim waist replete with six pack. Holy fuck….

  She wanted to touch it.

  So she did. The ridges of his body rose and fell between her traveling fingertips. He felt like steel thinly encased in velvet.

  Lucas rose again, pulling her up with him, and sat back on his legs, pulling her flush with his body. The shredded remains of her shirt cascaded to the bed, leaving the tanned expanses of her flesh to glow beneath the fire light from the torches.

  At once, the heat rolling off of him enveloped her. Her legs, he had parted so that he now sat between them. And she realized her mistake. With no clothing left between them to protect her any longer, the thick, hot evidence of his lust pressed against her slick opening. Her eyes went wide as his heat seared her. But when she tried to retreat, he reacted, moving with determined and relentless speed. His hands wrapped around her wrists, holding her fast, and his gaze narrowed.

  She could hear her own ragged breathing in the warm, quiet air of the torch-lit chamber. She could hear her heart hammering at her ribs. And she could hear his own thunderous rumble, low and long as he lowered his head, scorched her with his red eyes, and smiled. “Play with fire, little witch,” he warned her. He yanked hard and fast and she slid forward so that the tip of his manhood slipped past her defenses. She gasped, cried out, and he lowered his head to her collarbone. “You get burned.”

  She felt his fangs scrape along the skin over her bone and then nibble threateningly at her throat. He released her wrists then and wrapped one arm around her waist. With his other hand, he grasped the hair at the nape of her neck, and bent her back to once more claim her lips in his own.

  This kiss was mean – and wonderful. He drank and took and claimed and gave nothing back. She became a vessel, an instrument beneath him, trapped by him in blissful surrender. One of his threatening fangs finally managed to pierce her lip and she tasted blood. It burst across her tongue, heated iron and magic. Lucas went still above her, a
rock of a man almost humming with unspent energy. She had half a second to think coherently.

  And then he was rolling with her, grasping her around the waist so that he was on his back beneath her and she sat on top of him, a sacrificial goddess on an altar of solidified fire. Slowly – so slowly – he broke the kiss. Danny gazed down at the slight red tinge to his lips; she was transfixed, stunned, burning up.

  He laid back then and gazed up at her with unspoken command. His eyes held her there above him, moved her, and forced her to slide deeper onto him as if he’d spoken the order aloud. She was chained, captured in that gaze, and she did as she was told, relishing in the sensation of near pain that he caused as he slipped slowly into her, stretching her inch by inch, little by little.

  An eternity later, he was inside of her, filling her completely, and she was afraid to breathe. But he would allow her no respite. She felt his hands on her slim hips, gripping tight, once more branding her inside and out. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back as he lifted her – and lowered her…. Again.

  And again.

  A thin sheen of sweat covered both of their bodies by the time he rose, hard and hungry as ever, and kissed her again. He released her hips, hugged her close and turned with her once more. Danny felt the sheet beneath her back and made a helpless sound as Lucas lowered himself over her and let his weight sink fully into her, going deeper than she would have thought possible. It hurt. He was so big…. And she wanted more.

  Danny was so lost in the feeling of him within her, riding her slow and strong and steady, she barely registered the fact that he’d turned her head to the side, exposing the long column of her throat. She was pliant beneath him, a slave to his every touch, every whim, ever skilled manipulation.

  And then his lips were at her ear and his hand was cupping her breast, his thumb brushing the taut nipple so that she arched against him. “Little witch,” he murmured, seemingly as lost in what he was doing as she was. Again, his fingers teased her nipple, harder this time. She gasped and he drove into her, meeting her movements and forcing her into the bed beneath her. “My little witch.”