His skin was smooth beneath her lips, warm, and he smelled good, of soap and a faint undertone of heat. His hair, soft and warm, fell across the back of her hand. Was the rest of him this wonderful to touch? She wanted him. She couldn’t deny that his body and his beautiful eyes and his face did something fatal to her. Xia tightened his hand on her head and pulled back.
When she looked up, they were closer than she expected. Both of them kneeling, torsos touching. She was pressed against his chest. Xia didn’t let go of her head. He raised his knife, and in the shifting light, rainbows shimmered along the blade. He pulled back her head, twisting to expose the side of her neck. The sense of pressure around her head increased.
“Keep holding,” he said. He spoke softly, again using words she didn’t understand.
Their gazes met, and she blinked as she lost sight of his face. Her mind was filled with an image of her face, as if she were looking down at herself. Her body thrummed with sexual heat and Xia’s desire to penetrate. To be inside heat and damp and to feel the softness of a woman’s body. Which would be her. With Xia.
Fuck, Alexandrine.
She had no idea if the words were spoken out loud or not. She blinked again and managed to reorient herself. Xia’s eyes burned blue, flickering with something else that lived in his head. She saw the blade move toward her, then lost sight of it as he came closer. She felt the sting of the touch. Icy cold. Or burning hot. She couldn’t tell. And then his head descended.
As kisses went, well, this wasn’t. His mouth was on her throat, and he was holding her tight in his arms, and she was too dizzy to think straight. It was as if a brilliant, sizzling line connected them, and there was magic zinging along the connection. Then he was there. In her head. And he reached into her core. Through her and into her magic, where the talisman’s power had en-twined with hers.
Chapter 16
Fuck.
Xia thought the word straight into Alexandrine’s head. She was whacked out on copa, to the point where her body and mind whirled with the drug. And, man, did she feel good. Prime grade-A witch at her most compelling goodness, exactly the kind of magic the kin craved. The talisman was there, too. Enough of that magic was in her that she could long for the taste of blood as if she were one of the kin. Very unwitchlike of her, that, and one hell of a turn-on for him. Like Carson had been, only even more with Alexandrine.
One of her arms circled his waist, holding on to him for dear life. As if he wasn’t holding her tight already. Because he was. The smell and the taste and the texture of her blood had his senses on high alert. All of them. And there was the matter of her being in his head and him being in hers. They shared mental space even though she was pulling magic.
That made him vulnerable to her. Yeah, he was taking a risk. But the possibility that she’d take him mageheld was pretty damn remote.
At the moment, they were both in deep, dark trouble if he didn’t get this shit with the talisman over with soon. Part of him didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything but keeping his connection with her going. The rest of him understood he needed to act before he lost her and the talisman. He maintained a fierce grip on her head. She couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. Even with her taking up residence in his head, without a clue about what was happening to them, he was perfectly clear whose thoughts and urges belonged to whom, which he knew from bitter experience wasn’t always the case when fiends and mages went at it like this.
Swear to God, he wanted to go back to her throat for more. Her blood tasted even sweeter than it smelled. He opened his eyes. Just a little. Enough to see the top of her shoulder. She tipped her head back, and their eyes connected with an intensity that sucked the breath from him. His head went spinning, seeing through her eyes a thousand emotions, colors melding, angles refusing to coalesce into shapes. Feeling the incredible high and needing it. Wanting to be cranked higher. Already worried that she was coming down and losing her ability to pull.
He forced himself to focus on what they had to do. His hand slid down the back of her head to her shoulders, and he took his connection with her deeper yet. He found where her magic surrounded what was, for her, the alien power of the talisman. Way more power than he wanted there to be, way more. The thing had been leaking into her for months. This wasn’t going to be a slice-and-dice procedure the way he’d hoped. He couldn’t just rip away the points of contact between her magic and the talisman’s. With the way she was all tangled up with the talisman’s magic, he’d permanently damage her if he tried that, if not kill her outright.
He sent his magic into the core of hers, where the power from the talisman had settled in. All those months she’d been wearing the thing, its magic had been affecting her from the inside out. Eventually, the talisman would have completely assimilated with her, and who knew what she’d have ended up like. Dead? Or like her father? More like what had happened to Carson after her run-in with a talisman? Or something else? His money was on dead. He went to work, slipping his magic in, getting around what didn’t belong.
Because the copa in her system allowed her to pull significant magic, Alexandrine got what he was doing. She mirrored his actions where she could, retreating at times, pushing sometimes until, after what felt like a year and a half, he’d isolated as much of the talisman’s power as he could. Outside their connection, in the physical world he’d practically forgotten, he put a hand around the carved stone that had imprisoned one of the kin and cut the thong that kept it around her neck.
He drew the talisman’s magic away from her. At first, nothing budged. But they both felt the reaction in her. Power flared from the core Xia had encircled, blazing hot. He pulled again, and the talisman’s magic separated from Alexandrine. Not easily, not smoothly as he’d hoped, but in a sticky, smoky flow. Reluctant. Her magic fluctuated, focused one minute, completely unfocused the next. Fighting him, and then not. The way she seesawed between full-on mage and vanilla reminded him a lot of Carson Philips before her encounter with a different talisman. If Alexandrine shut down now, she was fucked, and he’d be afraid to try again.
Shit. This had to be finished.
Alexandrine shook with the effort of keeping control of her magic. Through the haze of the magic he was pulling through them both, he reached for her physically. Her skin was clammy, and her pupils were pinprick small, her pulse thin and erratic, all classic signs of a mage about to bottom out. Worse, he was getting a lot of interference now, because the copa was fading from her system and she was having trouble holding the magic she had. If this went on much longer, she’d crack apart before he finished; give her more copa, and he was pushing her that much closer to addiction.
Rock and a hard place. Did he do nothing and wait for her to die, or did he give her more copa, get the talisman out of her, and then hope to hell he hadn’t overdosed her? He didn’t see that he had much choice.
He flipped open the box and fished out another pill. “Come on, baby. Almost finished. One more, and we’re done.”
She looked at him with her golden eyes fading to brown. “I don’t feel so good. I used to feel good. I don’t now.”
“You need to take this.” He held out the pill. “You’re going to shut down otherwise, and I need you able to pull.”
”More magic,” she said. “Sure.” She smiled, but it was a smile that broke something inside him. “Why not?”
Goddamn if his heart wasn’t ready to shrivel into dust. And for a witch. She couldn’t check out on him. No way. He wouldn’t let her. “If you can’t keep pulling, Alexandrine, this is going to fail, and you’ll die.”
She nodded and took the pill he gave her.
The copa had an immediate effect. Her eyes went back to pure gold. Not the adulterated crap they called gold today, but the rich, deep true gold from hundreds of generations past. She stopped cycling high and low. Her magic went hot and stayed there, and that left his way to the talisman clear. He wanted to take a swim in all that power.
He went back to
work. Alexandrine pulled so much magic that the air around them sparked. But she had the balls to keep all that power on tap despite knowing he was going to sever her from the talisman. He was well aware that if she let go of that much power, the backwash could kill them both. He sliced his palm with his knife and took the talisman in his hand. The power inside needed an easy path into him, and blood was the perfect conductor.
No time to waste. He started jimmying the rest of the talisman’s magic loose. Heat seared the palm of his hand, hotter and hotter until a raw scream teetered at the top of his throat. Alexandrine’s body bowed away from him, and she gasped. Magic surged from her, but she held it back. A rainbow of electric light flashed over them. He gathered himself and punched in hard, taking over her and her magic to prevent her natural inclination to fight this. Sweat stung his eyes. He wanted to stay here, en-folded in her magic and her. But he didn’t.
The talisman’s magic came loose all at once, rushing into the stone that had imprisoned it, and when he felt the magic looking for a way out, he pulled so hard he thought his body would explode. His blood provided the conduit between the prison of the carved panther and him. Fire ripped through his veins as the foreign magic burst from the carving and shot into him—magic of the kin, old, un-focused, and full of the pain, rage and despair that had attended the last moments of the living fiend’s physical existence. His scream erupted.
Assimilation took time; that’s what he’d always heard. Hours or even days before the process was either complete or failed. But this… this was everything at once. Total cohesion, propelled in part by the push of Alexandrine’s magic and the pull of his. The world crashed into him, and he shattered.
When it was over and he was back in his mind and body, Xia sat back, barely able to keep himself upright. Alexandrine was on her knees, and she stayed there, head down, hands hanging at her side. Still flying high from the copa and yet spent. His hand flamed with pain. His heart beat triple time while he struggled to maintain control of his physical body. He was disoriented from the ride and not sure he was in the clear yet. One thing was for sure, though—he wasn’t dead. It didn’t hurt to be dead.
Alexandrine reached for his hand. The leather thong that had held the talisman was nothing but a pile of oily ash on the floor between them, scattered on his thighs and the lower front of her T-shirt. Gently, she pried his fingers open. Transparent sand was all that was left of the carved panther that had imprisoned an ancient fiend’s life and magic.
“It’s gone,” she whispered. He caught the edge of grief in her voice and wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her everything was going to be all right now. “It’s really gone.”
Xia extended his hand over the oil in the brazier. His arm shook as he let the material cascade down. For several minutes afterward, tiny flashes of black light glittered over the oil. The smell was pleasantly bland.
“Yeah,” he whispered back. “It’s gone.” He took a breath. “You all right?”
“No.” Her copa-altered eyes were bleak.
She knew, he realized. She’d known all along that she’d come out of this totally messed up. Not because of the talisman, but because of the copa. He should have seen that himself, what she was putting on the line for him. With the amount she’d pulled and held close, how was she going to give that up?
“You?”
“No.” Xia stroked a hand along her face and around to the back of her neck. He wanted to hold her, but what if she didn’t want that from him?
“What happens now?”
“We wait and see if I assimilate with the talisman or if it kills me. Could go either way right now.” He frowned because she was looking like she was about to bust out bawling or something. “Hey,” he said. “You’re not crying, are you?”
“Absolutely not.” She managed to look offended, so maybe she was telling him the truth. “I never cry.”
But when he brushed the side of his thumb underneath her eye, his skin came away wet. “Hey,” he said.
“I don’t want you to die, Xia.”
“Don’t go crying over me. I thought you hated me, anyway.”
“I do. I swear I do.”
He curled his hand around the back of her neck. “Good,” he said. He liked the way she didn’t pull back from him. “We’re in total agreement, because I don’t want me to die, either.”
“God, you’re an asshole, Xia.” She wound her arms around his neck, and the next thing he knew, she was kissing him without it being his idea. And she was good at this. Butterflies exploded in his stomach. Her tongue came into his mouth, and they went into overdrive.
He curled his fingers behind her neck and pulled her to him. His butterflies turned into liquid heat. The copa augmented her magic in a way that was totally turning him on, but hell, she’d turned him on before the copa. Witch magic. The spice that made sex kinky hot. He couldn’t wait to know what she was like. Hot. All soft and sweet. Curves where he needed them to be. He kissed her with everything he had in him; he didn’t want her to change her mind, and he was losing it over her. He wanted her to be as wild for this as he was, to be desperate for the physical and mental connection.
She worked a hand between them and went straight for his groin. He reacted, hell yes. Hard as a rock, balls tight, spine getting the heat from the sexual tension that happened between mages and fiends. She got her fingers on the top button of his jeans. Her presence in his head flared hot. Totally shared, baby. Totally hot.
She popped the button.
Sparks rained down on them, and she turned her face to the ceiling. With eyes closed, she let them land on her skin. She didn’t have any idea what she was doing, but he felt the magic in the sparks that hit him. “So beautiful,” she murmured.
He was hard. Really, really uncomfortably hard. But he didn’t want to rush through this. Not if she needed something different from him after what she’d been through for him. She got his zipper down and her hand around him, her body shifting under his the way a woman did when she wanted more contact. He lost his ability to focus on anything but the certainty he was about to get what he wanted, which was hot, hard sex with Alexandrine Marit.
“Fuck,” he said on an indrawn breath.
“Xia, you read my mind,” she said.
“You know how it has to be.” Jaysus, her fingers were doing some magic all their own.
“I understand.” She gripped him harder on the up stroke.
“Alexandrine…” Whatever else he was going to say got lost as she closed the distance between them, and they were kissing again, only this time she didn’t hold anything back. She was a talented woman. And, sure, he knew she was maybe a little vulnerable right now, but he was vulnerable, too, come to think of it. With every second that passed, he was that much closer to knowing which way the assimilation was going to go. Wasn’t that a reason to let things happen? Hell, they might both be dead in a couple of hours.
They were on the floor, with the fire warming one side of them, his body sprawled over hers, and he was kissing her and touching her and trying to get closer. He had a hand on her ass by the time they came up for air, and then her thighs parted and his hand went between her legs, and his fingers did what he wanted his cock to do. Hell, he was brainless with lust. Lust for sex with Alexandrine and a lust to touch her magic with her there to mirror him the way she had when he was separating her from the talisman. She looked at him with copa-enhanced eyes and just about made him come with the heat he found there.
He slid his free hand around her waist and brought her to him while he got up close and personal with her magic. She was still holding, and, damn, it was a rush. He could also feel the remnants of the talisman in her, too, and he liked that even better. Witch with a hint of fiend. She put her hand down his pants and cupped his balls while her thumb stroked up and down.
“For one of the magekind,” he said, “you’re not so bad.”
She laughed, a low, sexy sound he liked a lot. “For a whatever the hell you
are, you’re not so bad yourself. And,” she said, stroking him until his eyes rolled back in his head, “for a witch hater, you’re a fantastic kisser.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“What would it be like if you didn’t hate me?”
“A lot like this, I think.” He kissed her again, long and slow, and by the end, he had both arms around her, his clenched fist pressed into the small of her back while his other hand went everywhere else. He stayed in her head, and they kissed some more. Just when he was sure he was going to lose his mind if he didn’t get inside her, she moved over him, straddling him and reaching for his fly all in the same movement. He took control of her magic, and she tensed a bit. They waited to see how this went down. Because the totally crazy thing was he didn’t want this if she wasn’t okay with him holding her magic.
She took a deep breath and moved her hand. He prepared himself for bringing this to an end. But then she found his fly. Oh, yeah. All the way unzipped. He caught her hand. “You sure you’re okay with this?”
“Xia, don’t you dare ruin this.” Her eyes were bright with tears. “Don’t you dare.”
He groaned, loud and long, when she took him in. He knew even in his human form he was bigger than most men, but she didn’t have any trouble with him. She was wet. Totally wet and hot for him. A perfect fit. What a lucky bastard he was. All she had on was his T-shirt. His insides clenched when he got a hand under her shirt and over her breast. She grabbed the bottom of her shirt, pulled it off, and flung it away. Holy hell, she was gorgeous. He nearly, but not quite, forgot about her magic.
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