“There it is,” Father Bogdan said. “The demon inside you requires little provocation to strike.”
I was drenched in sweat, the seams of my clothes split.
“Calm yourself and I won’t do it again,” he said. “Tell me, what would you do if your lady told you she had no desire to copulate with you for a couple of weeks?”
“I’d respect her,” I ground out.
“You would not invade her dreams?”
“The tattoos on my arms…help me resist,” I said.
“Did you invade the dreams of other women before?”
“I…I couldn’t help it, sometimes.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Despite the tattoos, you couldn’t help it. You don’t have control. You are a monster who will steal the innocence of maidens.”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it like that. It’s just a dream.”
“It’s not ‘just a dream’ and you know that, Alec. That’s why, even if you are kept from your lady, you can dream of her and be satisfied, and she will remember every moment of it as if it was real. Any girl whom you have dreamed of has been defiled as surely as any man ever forced himself on a woman.”
This man was getting right at the heart of my own terror and shame. He was right. That was why my father didn’t want to bring me to family holidays when I was younger, why I was sent to all-boys schools, why I couldn’t play with other kids. Because I was a monster. I couldn’t help it. I made girls grow up. I corrupted minds. I tried so hard not to be a monster but I was never really safe for anyone around me.
“But Alec, it’s all right,” he said softly, as my expression cracked. “That’s why you’re here. If you are truly willing to change, we will help you.”
“She loves me as I am.”
“No, she doesn’t,” he said. “She loves Alec. She loves a man who desires her. Any woman does. She will love you more if you’re a normal warlock who desires her but will never hurt her.”
I wasn’t sure. “There’s more to my mother’s blood than just…desire,” I said. My mother was a demon. My dad never told me much about her, and she hadn’t been very nice to Charlotte. I still couldn’t help but feel that there was something in me that was a part of her, and it wasn’t just sex. It was my art too. It was the part of me that was passionate and creative in ways my father never was. I didn’t think I could just get rid of my incubus blood without losing other things.
“Do you admire your mother, Alec?”
I grimaced.
“Your training begins today,” he said. “It won’t be easy. You will suffer, and your suffering will cleanse you. You’ll emerge on the other side, a man of control and wisdom.” He whispered a poetic spell, whispering the French language, and although I was pretty good with ‘wizard French’ I only caught about half of it. My skin started crawling all over, and I felt heat rushing to my cock. I started to get hard, but as I did, the heat started to turn to pain.
“You will not make love to any other person,” Father Bogdan said. “You will not even touch yourself. You will not dream of any woman at the Haven without waking up in agony. You can trace your tattoos, but the only way to truly find relief will be to turn to the sacred spells of the warlocks and master your desires completely.”
“Gods, no, please,” I panted as I broke into a fresh sweat.
“If you can overcome this, I will bring you before the Ethereal council and allow you to come home. You will be one of the great holy warlocks,” he said. “And your father can finally be proud when he names you as his son.”
“This isn’t what I want…”
He patted my shoulder. “Deep down, you know that it is.” He walked away. To the guards, he said, “Leave him tied down until he calms himself enough to turn human again, and then bring him some new clothes.”
Chapter Twelve
Charlotte
I was worried sick about Alec when we got to dinner time and we hadn’t seen him. The food was okay, served cafeteria style with a few different options, but I didn’t have much of an appetite. We didn’t know where Daisy had gone either, but when we asked one of polite women working in her section of the rooms where she’d gone, the woman smiled, wiped her hands off on her dowdy apron, and said, “I believe they had some things for her to do this evening.”
“Damnit,” I said. “One of us should have stayed with her.”
“Man, we just need to get my car and get out of here,” Montague said, sipping blood from a wine glass. “I’m going to go hunting for the keys.”
“But don’t do anything half-cocked,” Harris warned. “We have to put up with it long enough to get a feel for where the guards are and where the weak spots might appear. I need to cast some tests to see what wards they have.”
“Like they haven’t thought of all that before,” Montague said. “Fuck! We’re going to be fucking stuck here for the next hundred years! Or in my case, until the world fucking ends!”
“Shh,” I said, because his outburst had provoked some stares. “I think the first rule of escaping is being subtle. Aren’t vampires supposed to be cool and collected?”
As I was finishing my chicken strips, Alec finally showed up.
“Did you change clothes?” I asked. I was pretty sure he’d been wearing a black t-shirt and now he was wearing a casual button-up.
He put down his bowl of beef stew, his gorgeous red-tinged eyes looking a little bloodshot.
“Alec, what happened?”
“They—“ He cut himself off. “There’s a guy here named Father Bogdan you need to watch out for. He’s with the Order of the Blessed that Piers mentioned.”
“A church?” Montague asked.
“More like a cult,” Alec said.
“What did they do to you?” Montague demanded.
“Shut up,” Alec said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Alec…” Now I was getting really worried for him. I reached for his hand and he shook me off.
“Not right now.”
My mouth fell open. Alec had never refused my touch.
“It’s not you,” he said. “I’m just going to eat this before it gets cold.” He wasn’t really eating with enthusiasm, though.
“Ohmigod, my poor baby, they did something really bad to you…”
In the midst of this, Daisy came over with her own plate of chicken strips and the same honey mustard sauce packet. She pointed at the remains of mine. “Twinsies.”
She didn’t look good either. “Have they been making you use your magic?” I asked.
“They are ever-vigilant in their hunt for Sinistrals,” she said, a little sarcastically. “I found a pocket of Sinistral demons for them today, so I was off the hook fast. They all got excited. There’s a little spot in the islands off the coast of South Carolina where a small family of Sinistrals are living in a parallel. They’ll try to take the territory and kill them. So that’s fun.”
“You mean, just a family? Like the dragon shifters I stayed with in Sinistral who helped me?” Alec asked.
“Yes,” Daisy said. “A little family just like yours. Three demons and a human girl. Well, maybe they won’t kill them if they surrender peacefully. Or maybe they’ll put up enough of a fight that the council will back off. It could go either way. It always does, just fighting and fighting and no one ever winning…” She stabbed her chicken strip with a fork and shoved it in her mouth. Then she stopped and wiped her eyes. “I need the drugs, okay? I just need them if I’m going to do this.”
“Enough,” I said. “Montague is right. This all has to stop.” I stood up and quickly scanned the room, locating Mr. Coopman. He seemed like he was trying to be nice before.
“You’re being an idiot,” Harris said before me. “He’s not going to listen to you!”
I ignored him. I didn’t really know what I was going to say, I just knew I had to save my friends from misery and I couldn’t wait until we got a ‘feel’ for things.
I was running over everything I could thi
nk of in my head and when I got up to Mr. Coopman and he said, “What is it, dear?” I bit my lip and gave him my best nervous confession face.
“Can—can I tell you something?” I said. “I’m worried about Daisy. Daisy Pendleton.”
“Yes, I know who you mean,” he said.
“She’s…um…she might be pregnant.” I couldn’t believe I was doing this. But as soon as I saw his expression, I knew I was getting somewhere.
“Pregnant?”
“Yeah, so I’m really worried about the drugs she’s been taking. And all this strong magic. Daisy’s really sensitive. She acts tough but she’s not.”
“Pregnant,” he repeated. “With…Harrison?”
“No, no, no,” I whispered. “Alec.”
“Alec?”
I nodded. “Please don’t tell anyone I told you this, sir. It’s super secret. She’s afraid her grandmother won’t let her be with an incubus.”
“I thought Alec was with you. That was the information Councilman Nicolescu had passed along…”
“I’ve been pretending in order to protect her,” I said. I really hoped this didn’t backfire spectacularly. If Daisy actually laid a finger on Alec, I wasn’t going to let that stand. But—I remembered how Harris had speculated that the council might try to set them up to give Daisy a husband from a good family and redeem Alec’s name. And Daisy definitely thought Alec was hot (obviously, girl had eyeballs), and Alec could get turned on for anyone (only in a pinch, though, right?) so they could sell this lie.
“Hmm. Well. If that is true…”
“I’m just so worried about protecting her baby because they’re both like, our besties,” I said. “That’s the only reason I would ever tell you so please please keep it secret, but…go easy on her.”
“All right. I will see what I can do.”
“Oh, thank you so much.”
He smiled. “I really appreciate your honesty in protecting your friend.”
I scurried back to the table, feeling newly empowered. Level up! I thought. You have learned a new skill: Manipulating Middle-Aged Men with Girl Charm!
Ew.
“What did you do?” Harris asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Um…well…y’all are going to have to do some role playing,” I said. “And it better just be role playing.”
Chapter Thirteen
Charlotte
That night was my first night with Harris and I was nervous as hell. I knew it was too soon to try sneaking Montague and Alec into my room. Firian also seemed like a risk. I worried someone might hear his voice behind the door.
When we came in after dinner, Harris turned on a lamp and started pulling his tie loose. A casual gesture that made me feel like I’d seen him do this a thousand times already.
So why am I nervous?
I’ve already gotten as intimate with Harris as I could possibly be.
I’ve slept with him. But I haven’t…slept with him. Alone.
All those nightmares I had. Seeing him breathing slow, vulnerable in sleep. Why did it make me blush?
He glanced up. Did he know how much the shadows flattered his face in the dim light? His pale skin glowed, while his blue eyes held some inner darkness. His hair was a little longer these days, a little more messy. We’d never talked about it, but I liked it better that way, and he knew it. I just knew he did.
My heart was beating faster.
“Do you need to take a bath tonight?” he asked.
“Oh—um—do I stink?”
He gave me that tiny I-find-you-hilarious rich boy smile. “Not yet.”
I looked at the bathroom. It smelled clean, and looked clean, but it was so old that it had a very uninviting vibe. “It sucks that we don’t have a shower,” I said. “I love baths, but not so much here. I would rather not be naked in a bathroom here for long periods of time.”
“Too many ghosts?”
I nodded.
“Do you need me to protect you?”
“No!”
“Are you sure?” He stepped into the space between my back and the bed, curling a hand around my upper arm as he leaned close to me from behind. “I’m good at keeping ghosts away. My childhood home is full of them. Or maybe I need to get you dirty before I clean you up.”
“We…we should probably sleep.”
“Is that what you want? Just to sleep? No, I’ve been waiting a long time for you. And I’m not satisfied yet.” He reached a hand down my underwear and slid his fingers along my slick folds. “Seems like you aren’t either.”
“You don’t get to just—stick your hand down my panties any time you want,” I gasped.
“Don’t I? What are you going to do? Wave that wand of yours and fight me off, and go right to sleep, when you’re this wet for me?”
“I’m not wet for you,” I said, which was probably the biggest lie I’d ever told.
“You’re just wet, generally? What a naughty little witch.” He kissed my ear and followed the kiss with the slightest nip. My senses were stirred by the masculine scent of him under a faint veneer of expensive cologne, my nerves set aflame.
“What’s this scent you always wear, anyway?” I asked. “From the corporate raider line? You smell like a big fancy grownup.”
“I am a big fancy grownup. And you smell like my naughty…little…witch.” His voice was a whisper in my ear as he fucked me with his hand again. I tried to stop him because I remembered the last time when he gave me an orgasm with his hand and then fucked me, got himself off, got me turned back on again, and didn’t bother to give me a second release. Asshole. I grappled his hand out of my clothes. He finally kissed me on the mouth and I was into it. He pressed me into the bed and we made out like our tongues were arguing the way our words usually did.
Soon I was leaning my pelvis into him, silently urging him to get on with it already, as he unhooked my bra.
“We have to be careful,” he said.
“Oh…right. Birth control,” I said. “I can’t believe this.”
“Like I said…we’ll work around that,” he said. “If you think I’m staying in a room with you and not getting what I want…” He lifted my shirt off my arms and pulled me against him, my back to his front, his cock teasing my back entrance.
“Why are you blushing?” he said. “This is no virgin ass.”
It’s the way you talk to me, I thought. Like you’re just going to take whatever you want.
But I wasn’t going to say that, because I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of saying that I liked it.
Even though I did.
I felt his hands moving down his shirt, unbuttoning. The unzip of his pants followed. Now, his length pressing against me with nothing between us.
“Stand there,” he said.
I heard the squirt of a container of lube, and I trembled with anticipation knowing he was stroking his hand over his cock, readying himself for me. His hands spread around the top of my thighs, and he drew us back to the edge of the bed, sitting down and urging me down with him.
“Sit here.”
Stand there. Sit here. I was reduced to following a string of orders, his hands forcing me down onto his hard shaft. His fingers flicked between my legs before reaching inside, urging me back up, and then down again, up and down, working his shaft while he just chilled out on the bed.
“You’re making me do all the work!”
“What are you going to do about it?” he said, now drawing his fingers out to slide back and forth across my clit. He didn’t have to say a word. His fingers were a demand. Wriggle for me, Chosen One. Do as I say. Back and forth, up and down, whatever I demand.
As I did, I was rewarded by a growl of pleasure from him that I’m not sure he meant to make.
Just about as I was getting pretty turned on by this whole thing we had going on, Firian appeared, casually naked.
“Hey,” he said, raising his brows. “You look busy.”
“Hwaah!” I barked, as both of us sort of spasm
ed in surprise, but Firian put a hand on my shoulder.
“Calm down,” he said. “I just got my human body back and this is how you repay me? Where was my invitation?”
“You’re the one who ‘showed up’. Please. I don’t have time for two annoying men at once.”
“Please?” Firian said. “I’ll show you ‘please’.” He kissed me and of course I just melted like a half-eaten chocolate bar left on a sunny windowsill by someone who got kind of involved in the novel they were reading. (How do I know that? Am I the idiot who left a chocolate bar in the hot southern sun? Shut up.)
“Mmm…”
“How much have you missed me? A lot.” I guess he was just going to answer his own question. “And you left a slot open for a two player game, huh?” He slid a finger between my pussy lips and hooked his finger inside.
“Go right ahead,” Harris said. “I can’t fuck her. No birth control.”
“Firian…you’re terrible,” I panted. “Harris must be a bad…” I didn’t even get to finish. Firian started kissing me again, slinking closer, wiggling his finger inside me, and Harris pushed me toward him.
Holy smokes. They were getting too good at this. I never guessed they would be so comfortable with each other. I thought this would be awkward for years. Instead, they were knitting together around me, like this wasn’t just me and each of them, it was all of us. Reading each other’s signals. Knowing when they could play off each other to drive me crazy with lust.
Firian slid his hands up to the small of my back, the space between Harris and me. He growled low as his cock nudged me, Harris sort of…guiding me in for a landing.
I was almost crying, but in a good way, as I sank onto Firian’s shaft, feeling them both inside me, getting along so well. Firian fell back on the bed, his smile sly and fox-like, pleased with himself, as I immediately started riding him. I could hardly help it. I needed to feel things.
Battle of the Hexes Page 8
