Which Witch is Wild? (The Witches of Port Townsend Book 3)

by Kerrigan Byrne

  Ugh. Talk about reinforcing a stereotype.

  Aerin straightened, struck by the beginning of an idea. She'd been wondering all this time, why would Lucifer work at cross-purposes with her own self? She needed the four witches alive to open all the seals, and they had two left, so why, then, would she try to burn Teirra at the stake? Or talk Conquest into making Moira his very own witch kabob?

  It made no sense, unless...Lucy knew of a way to break the seals without the de Moray witch’s magic.

  Julian had warned Aerin, back before he'd betrayed her, that the zombies would be after the de Moray sisters, specifically, because if one was lucky enough to absorb her soul, they'd also acquire her powers.

  Probably, that meant that if Lucy was in control of that zombie, she'd also wield the handy elemental magic power attachment.

  Sobering thought, that.

  Aerin had to admit she would have done the same were she in Lucifer's dominatrix boots... and it was scary how similar Aerin and Lucy approached things.

  Blinking that thought away, she moved on.

  To the ugly: There was plenty ugly about this predicament. Uglier than the contents of Moira's shoe closet.

  This situation with the horsemen, for example, was one methane-infused cluster fucksplosion. Not only had War been boning Claire in the astral realm, (and no, that wasn't a euphemism for anal), Conquest and Death had been quite literally boning Moira and Tierra. Respectively, of course, like not together in some sort of twisted twin fetish or whatever.

  Not to mention this entire time Aerin had been doing her damndest to get Pestilence to throw her a bone, but they kept getting interrupted. And then he’d gone and decided that she had to die. And that was just a dick move, even if he thought he was saving the world and shit. Nothing killed a lady-boner faster than attempted murder.

  She could still see the regret swimming in his soulful eyes as he'd turned away, allowing his brothers, the other three horsemen of the apocalypse, to advance on her, their aim being her death. He'd gone all Pontius Pilot on her ass, washing his hands of her and melting into the mist. His conflicted pain almost hurt and infuriated her more than a decisive action on his part. Would that he were a tyrannical douche weasel, like Nick Kingswood, or a blood thirsty meat-head like Dru. She could have hated him less, somehow, if carnage and murder had been weaved through his blood into a tapestry of years innumerable.

  But the sheen of moist hopelessness in his gaze haunted Aerin until she about wanted to gouge out her mind's eye.

  He said he'd fallen in love with her. He’d looked at her like he somehow hoped she'd redeem herself.

  And when she hadn’t, he'd left her to die.

  Luckily, as it turned out, witches can fly on broom sticks. And that had saved her ass, if not her heart.

  At the moment, she didn't know if the organ in question hadn't just shriveled and died right there. Because she was pretty certain that was the last time she'd ever felt it beating. Now, it seemed, an empty void pulsed with a bleak chill to a familiar rhythm. And though she could still laugh, function, and fight when she needed to, she was so cold all the time.

  Aerin embraced a ray of cheerfulness stabbing through the gloom brought on by no small amount of coffee and the fact that Moira had destroyed the Horsemen's compound with a ginormous wave.

  That ought to keep them distracted from trying to kill her long enough to finish her latte at least. She hoped.

  "We have the same buns." A smooth, masculine voice sliced into her consciousness like a wire through hot wax.

  "Excuse the shit out of me?"Aerin glanced up into possibly the clearest hazel eyes she'd ever seen. They regarded her from an intensely masculine face tanned the color of her calfskin leather Jimmy Choo ankle boots.

  Damn. He was fine.

  Loose jeans slung low from lean hips, though his tight t-shirt stretched over muscles honed by physical labor. She wished the open flannel button-up revealed a little more of the swells of his chest.

  Aerin couldn't see his ass, as he was facing her, and she was pretty certain he couldn't see hers, as she was sitting on it, so she just narrowed her eyes at him, trying to arrive at the point he’d made about buns.

  His handsome mouth just lifted in a lazy grin, and a sexy dimple peeked through neat stubble as he pointed to the lush dark hair he'd secured into a messy knot at his crown. Some-fucking-how, it added to his masculinity instead of detracting from it.

  Now that she'd registered it, she realized that they did, indeed, sport similar hairdos.

  "That's great." She hadn't meant to sound entirely as bitchy as that had come out, but she was under a lot of pressure what with the world ending and all, and frankly, he wasn't really her type.

  She turned her back to him, sipping on her coffee and fixed her eyes on the gathering clouds.

  "The coffee's pretty decent here, isn't it?" he asked as he settled onto the stool next to her with the slack-limbed ease of the confident alpha male.

  So he obviously didn't get hints, either. Sometimes the pretty ones didn’t have to be smart.

  Aerin closed her eyes and got right with the Lord before turning to bite his head off. One show of her inner bitch and he'd be out the door faster than you could say "Timberland Boots."

  "Look, Brodie or Jake, or whatever you name is--"

  "It's Brock." There was that fucking dimple again. Damn she was a sucker for those.

  "Of course it's Brock," she snarked, blaming the flip-flops for letting this blue collar mud puddle think he even had a chance. Had she been wearing couture, he would have known she was not his type and moved right along. "I'm sure you're great and all, but I have--"

  "You have hair that reminds me of a blood moon I saw once when I spent the summer working coffee bean farms in Colombia," he said with a bit of dramatic nostalgia. "We all just sat and stared up at the sky knowing we'd never see something that beautiful again, but here you are."

  Wha? Aerin stared at him dumbly, using her empathetic abilities to read him. He wasn't a liar, and yet, he wasn't being honest.

  Intrigued, she leaned closer.

  "Your eyes are just as silver,” he continued. “Your skin as velvety smooth as the espresso we sipped in our hammocks.” He cast his eyes down as though he'd suddenly become shy. "I haven't been able think straight since you walked in. In times like these, I love that you remind me of that summer."

  "Speaking of smooth, Brrrrock, you surprise me." She drew out his name, unconsciously throwing sex into her sarcasm. Damn but it had been too long since she'd gotten laid.

  "What's your name?" he asked, flashing her another slow half smile that made her abruptly glad she was sitting down as her knees were not exactly stable at the moment.

  "I'm...Tierra?" She went with it, as she promised she wouldn’t give away her identity to anyone.

  "Is that a question?" he chuckled.

  "Tell you the truth, I don't feel like myself these days," she admitted into her mug.

  "These days are dark," he remarked, meeting her solemnity with some of his own. Looking into his eyes without the crinkle of a good-natured smile, Aerin thought he might be older than she'd initially assumed. He looked harder. Wiser. With a sad sort of anticipation vibrating in his aura. "You looked like you were thinking heavy thoughts, just now," he continued. "I wanted to make you smile."

  She flashed him a smile without any teeth. "Is that all you wanted, Brock?"

  He looked at her for a long time with a storm darkening his eyes from hazel to grey. "No," he answered. And again, he was telling the truth.

  But not quite.

  "What else do you want from me?" she asked.

  He leaned in closer and took her hand from where it rested on her lap. His palms were calloused, rough like a man used to swinging an axe or a sledgehammer. Their rasp against her perfectly moisturized skin sent a thrill through her that hardened her nipples to the point that even the silky inside of her bra felt abrasive.

  "I wouldn't generally say t
his so soon," he admitted with a sexy, coy smirk. "And if I wasn't afraid that the world was about to end, I'd take longer to get to know you. But what I really want is to get you out of here, and bang you up against the brick wall until you scream."

  All moisture deserted Aerin's mouth and headed for her panties. She considered the frank, clear face of the solid hunk in front of her as her body woke up and paid attention for what seemed like the first time since... well since He-who-shall-remain-nameless, and fuckless, had last touched her.

  Why not? She asked herself. Claire was taking out her anger with Dru on her zombie ex-boyfriend, Tommy. Why the hell not grudge-fuck a hippie? Surely, it was the lesser crime. Brock was the antithesis of Jul--that pecker head she wasn't thinking about. Inelegant, inarticulate, rough edges and bulky brawn. Maybe a decent wall-banging by a hot, hard, somewhat dangerous stranger would do her some good.

  "All right, Brock," she purred before she slammed the rest of her coffee that had barely cooled enough to not blister her throat. Setting the mug aside she slid off her seat. "Let's get out of here."

  The alley between the coffee shop and the bookstore next to it was so narrow Brock had to turn sideways to fit through. Aerin followed, her hand tucked into his as the chilly wind tunneled through the space, whistling with an intensity that seem to be fueled by their wild, reckless intentions.

  The black and charcoal pebbled beach made a chalky sound against their frantic movement as it shifted unsteadily beneath her flimsy foot attire. The rocky beach stretched to the north behind the long wall of Victorian buildings that comprised downtown Water Street. The water, a mere two yards away, tossed against a long and empty pier by gusts that seemed to mirror the surge and wane of her excitement.

  Windows adorned a great deal of the coffee shop's rear exterior, but the bookstore was solid brick, and so that became the spot where Aerin found herself trapped between a Brock and a hard place.

  His rough hands conveyed none of the careful worship or veneration of... that one guy she wasn't thinking about while seconds away from shagging someone else. She wrapped her arms around the man who'd trapped her against the wall and went in for hot, slippery kiss.

  Seizing her wrists and thrusting his leg between hers, he imprisoned her hands over her head, which added a jolt of delicious anxiety to her arousal.

  Rough ardor became pain, and then shocking violence. He kept both her wrists prisoner in one hand as something light and leather slipped over her head, and a cold stone settled at the hollow of her throat.

  The wind abruptly calmed.

  What the holy fuck?

  Brock's voice changed from silk to steel as he glared down at her, eyes glowing with victorious hatred. "Gotcha, bitch."

  Chapter Four

  The sudden change left Aerin frozen with astonishment for the precious second it took to process the fact that when he'd told her the truth about wanting to bang her up against the wall, he'd not meant that in the sexy way, but the murdery way.

  "Can't a bitch get laid around here without the man trying to kill her?" she lamented, struggling against his hold.

  His heavy brows flinched in a way that told her she'd surprised him with the vehemence of, in her opinion, a very valid gripe.

  "No, Brock, you most certainly do not 'got' me, you grunge-wannabe mud-swilling shit stain," she said from between teeth clenched with a dark, dark rage. "I'm Aerin de Moray, modern druid priestess and elemental air witch. I'm one with the wind, mother fucker, and I'm out of here."

  She made to teleport away from the danger as specters of several men darkened the already gloomy beach with sinister shadows. A scream escaped her throat as whatever he'd slipped over her head sent a shock of hot pain from her chest right into her veins. It was as though her very soul, the source of her power, was singed by whatever amulet branded the delicate skin in between her clavicles.

  Stowing her magic instantly, Aerin sagged against the bricks and would have crumpled had Brock not been holding her upright.

  A chuckle rippled through the men who had spilled from a few narrow alleys and began to close in. How a laugh could be smug and ominous at the same time beat the shit out of her, but Aerin didn't have time to be pissed. She fought her spasming lungs for gasping breaths, trying to form a plan. She counted maybe eight men through her vision blurred with pain. Nausea roiled in her gut, mixing with a dark and acid hatred that seemed to pulse from whatever talisman at her neck held her hostage.

  "Who?" she wheezed, rather pathetically she was mortified to note. "Why?" She gave a few feeble efforts against the hand that still held her wrists, but yielded no result.

  A man separated himself from the approaching enemies and drew up behind Brock. Next to her muscular captor, he seemed small, thin, and unthreatening. But his aura pulsed with strength, and Aerin was struck by the force of his charisma a full second before she was struck by the back of his hand.

  "Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after witches, to be defiled by them." The cadence of his voice hailed from an American South a great deal more genteel and civilized than Moira's backwater Parish. Dressed in a sober linen suit only a few shades darker than his silver/gold hair, he clutched a book that seemed only a few centuries newer than their own Grimoire.

  Brock shifted to the side with obvious deference to the older, smaller man, his hold on her intensifying painfully as though protecting him from her.

  The man brandished the book at her with both hands, and the gold inlay cross on the cover told her exactly from which book he quoted. "The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."

  Brimstone. The word permeated the throbbing in her cheek. Was that what they'd slipped around her neck? It wouldn't be the first time she'd tangled with it. But before, it had made her stronger.

  Before… when she used dark magic.

  The darkness she felt glowing from the amulet…that was familiar.

  "Second death?" she parroted him hoarsely, biding her time until she could figure out what to do. "I think you're confused there, General Lee, I haven't even died a first time, but I could point you in the direction of a few people who have, and are just begging for a second death. Have you not noticed the hordes of undead?"

  He leaned close so Aerin could clearly read the pious disgust oozing from eyes as hard and dark as marbles. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." He enunciated every word with abject clarity.

  Panic threatened to gallop away with her wits like a herd of stampeding horses. Aerin fought black spots in her periphery as she struggled against hyperventilation.

  She couldn’t control her breath.

  She couldn't control the air.

  Without her magic, she was damn near helpless.

  "You have done well, Brother Brock." Placing a hand on her would-be lover's shoulder, the obvious leader of this band of misfit toys doled out some positive affirmations from the brainwashing handbook (Vol. 1) before turning back to her with a look so acerbic, she fought a backwash of coffee-flavored bile.

  "Do you know who I am?" he queried with a self-importance that would have made Kanye West super proud.

  She blinked. "Colonel Sanders?" She wasn't being particularly snarky, as the dead were rising, and he might be a bit sore that Moira made better fried chicken. He did look like the guy on the bucket.

  "Shut your whore mouth, witch." Brock ground his elbow against her throat, cutting off her oxygen supply.

  "I am the Reverend Bill Blanding. My ancestors have been hunting and killing your kind since before the Romans, the Greeks, even the Macedonians."

  That he spoke these words with an unhurried air was made even more disturbing due to the fact that Aerin's lizard brain was doing its utmost to survive by flailing her limbs and bending her spine in unnatural angles. Searching for air. For power. For any hope of escape or su
rvival.

  One of Moira's flip-flops flew off with a powerful kick and smacked one of the men in the face, and she was too panicked to even enjoy it.

  Bill Blanding. Hadn’t Moira mentioned she’d seen something about him in the papers? Would Aerin die regretting the fact that she read nothing but the financial section?

  "You can breathe your last breath safe in the knowledge that your sisters will be following you to the grave in short order." He visibly savored this fact like a glass of sweet tea on a hot Louisiana afternoon. "I will make sure that they—"

  "I say, you fellows!" A top hat peeked around the alley, followed by mild, mustachioed features and a familiar impeccable suit. "I hate to barrage you with harsh language, but I must insist that you cease this most ungentlemanly conduct forthwith, and with all subsequent alacrity, before I am forced to call you to answer for your crimes against this lady."

  Aerin screamed in a breath as Brock's forearm relaxed one millisecond away from completely crushing her windpipe. "Get lost," he ordered. "This isn't your affair."

  "That's the thing." Sir Barriston's eyes danced with good-humored regret as he took a few sure steps forward, simultaneously drawing his foil from its scabbard. "My honor will not permit me to allow you to continue on your current course of action."

  The Reverend stepped toward him and said in a voice like corn silk, "She is in league with the devil, and per our Lord's good word, must be destroyed. We have no quarrel with you, and ask that you move on."

  "Not...working...with...Devil," Aerin managed to pant. "She's...a thunder....cunt."

  Blanding shot her a look of pure hatred. "I assure you, sir, that this woman and her kin are responsible for these biblical scourges now threatening our very existence."

  "Nevertheless, she is a lady—though I’ll admit she doesn't speak like one—and my gentleman's code will not permit me to allow such behavior. And so you leave me no choice." Sir Barriston bent his knees and assumed a very Musketeer-like stance, one hand behind his back and the other, the one with the sword, pointing directly at the Reverend.