by Meg Xuemei X
And a song tore through my throat naturally.
Was this my mother tongue? How did I know the song?
And I sang.
I swallowed my tears at the beauty of it.
Gabriel was mesmerized, as if I were a siren singing to a sailor who wanted to go home.
Regret, pain, longing, and relief warred in his green eyes. He didn’t want me to remove the spell, yet he needed me to lift it off him so he could carry on his duties for his race.
I kept singing, tracing the melody to my past. If I went to the end, I would remember. I would—
A curtain dropped, and the last light was gone.
The rest of the lyrics vanished from my mind without a trace.
I was lost again.
An unfinished song. A broken heart. A shattered mind.
Agony echoed in the chambers of my head.
“Fiammetta?” Gabriel called softly.
“It’s done,” I said.
“That’s it?” he asked suspiciously.
“Why don’t you wipe away the spell yourself if you’re such an expert?”
“I just thought it should be more.”
“More of what?” I asked in a harsh tone.
My bones were weary. It appeared in my eyes as well.
Gabriel studied me for a second and said, “I should feel different.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“After your singing—that was more beautiful than anything I’d ever heard—I should feel lighter, unattached, and careless, like I were before.”
Next he would demand I be responsible for his eternal happiness.
“Too bad, Gabriel, you’re on Pandemonium.”
“I’m drawn to you even more,” he grunted. “My cock is still hard, actually harder. Your song seems to have enhanced the spell.” He stared at me accusingly. “You sure it’s working? Have you really unhexed me?”
“Do you think your dick is a full balloon that deflates that easily?” I asked viciously. “But you’re right. I might have forgotten a step.”
He snarled. “What step?”
I stepped to him and pressed against him.
He opened his fists, about to wrap around me.
“No, no,” I warned. “Once you touch me, the spell will return.”
“But you’re touching me.”
“I’m the one who placed it, so I can do whatever I want. As for you, you can also do whatever you want to, but at your own peril.”
“It’s not fair.”
“Fate doesn’t play fair, Angel. Deal with it,” I said, curving a hand around his shoulder, my other hand tracing along the ridge of his wing to his silky feathers.
Tiny electric sparks shocked both of us. Such wondrous pleasure!
He shivered as he let out ragged breaths, his hardness pricking against my belly, burning into my skin. The Angel clenched his teeth as he willed all he had in him not to grind his hips against me or trap me in his arms.
He cursed profusely.
My fingers left his wing, and I pulled back, concealing a smile.
“You trembled, didn’t you?” I asked. “That was the great pain I said you’d suffer when I removed the curse.”
“Don’t you need to do more?” he asked, dark longing in his eyes.
“Like what?”
“Like touching my right wing the way you touched my left?”
“That’s unnecessary. However—” I purred.
He gazed at me brightly, waiting for another treat.
My icy gust filled with small crystals materialized and slammed onto his handsome, lust-riddled face.
“What’s that for?” he growled.
Hadn’t expected that, had he?
“I just sealed the deal and removed the spell completely,” I said.
“You sure you didn’t make it all up?”
“Are you always this suspicious, Archangel Gabriel?”
“Only since I came to this planet and met you.”
I snickered and pointed at the door. “You’re good to go now.”
He looked very much like he wanted to stay. “So the spell will wear off?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“You’ll tell me when you’re no longer interested in me or any woman.”
He gritted his teeth. “So you’re making me impotent by unhexing me? That’s another hex!”
I dipped my gaze down to his bulging erection and gestured with contempt. “Does that feel like impotence to you? Your balls look very heavy to me.”
His eyes flashed. Oh, he was thinking of pinning me down and penetrating me.
“Off you go,” I said.
If he stayed another minute, we’d end up on the floor with him mounting me from behind or me riding him.
His nostrils flared at my dismissal.
“If this doesn’t work, I’ll be back,” he said. “And there’ll be consequences for toying with an Archangel.”
“Threaten me again, winged creature,” I hissed.
He gave me a bitter, yet pining look and stormed off.
My icy wind slammed door shut behind him.
He was lucky I didn’t send my ice storm to chase him off and freeze his arrogant, insufferable ass.
But my magic couldn’t harm him anymore.
I started laughing. I giggled so hard I collapsed at the door and sprawled on the floor. I wondered if I’d ever laughed this hard in my life.
Lust spell. He thought I hexed him and made him my mindless sex slave. What could be more humiliating than that for Archangel Gabriel, greatest Captain of ThunderSong, and all-time decorated hero of something?
At his demand, I’d performed the removal for him, as if I could even remember casting the original spell.
The Angel had left with an unsatisfied appetite and a rock-hard erection, and no amount of cold water would help him with that. He would have to travel miles away, dragging his broken wings with him, to have a cold bath in a pond frequented by cannibals.
I was cruel.
I was still the Wickedest Witch.
I didn’t laugh again, despite the irony, amusement, and my own misery and his.
When I awoke tomorrow morning, I wouldn’t remember any of this.
Or my dark, delighted laughter.
32
The Angel
I heard her laughing. Was this hexing business a joke to her? Had she played me? I stopped on the stairs, fuming, wanting to return to her door and break it down.
What would I do after I tore her door off its hinges? The image of her tits pricking against her thin gown before she’d put on a thick robe flashed through my mind. My cock jerked in my trousers, aching.
Maybe I should use her taunting laugh as an excuse and go back to bend her over the chair she hadn’t allowed me to sit on and thrust my cock into her heated tightness.
I would have a quick fuck.
But then, I would be under her spell forever and be her mindless sex toy for eternity.
That wouldn’t be too bad, would it?
She was still giggling, the sound rich, silvery, and sexy. I’d never heard Fiammetta truly laugh before.
She almost never smiled either. If she did, it was icy. Occasionally, she sneered.
This laughter of hers was filled with lightness, devoid of menace, burden, or loneliness. And yet, at the end of it, I felt such grief, as if that was all the happiness left to her.
Though my frustration remained, my rage dissipated.
An unexpected tenderness rose in my angelic heart that usually didn’t beat for anyone. And the Wickedest Witch was the last person in the universe who could conjure a gentle feeling.
I shook my head and continued down the stairs until I was out of the tower.
The frigid air hit me in the face, but the chill couldn’t dilute the heat in my blood. It would be another torturous night while I waited for the spell to wane and expire.
I would give her a few days. If I still felt unbearably horny in her prese
nce after that, the witch would pay.
The night deepened. A team of guards patrolled at the perimeter.
Kaara stalked toward me with her angelblade in her hand and gave me a curious, wary look. She didn’t like the chill air, but she didn’t hunch in the cold.
A gray wolf stood not far away from her, watching us. If I talked or looked wrong at his mate, Marrok would tear my throat out. He could try, and I’d like to see him try, but I liked and respected his girl, so I wasn’t going to get into a fight with him.
I gave the wolf a sharp grin, and he growled. Kaara darted him a glance, and the wolf no longer bared his fangs menacingly. He grinned at her.
They were vigilant since the vampires had breached the witch’s ward. The wolf king wanted to take his mate to his fortified compound, but Kaara refused to leave her mistress behind, and no one dared ask Fiammetta to abandon her tower and go live with the shifters.
“I’ll take it from here,” I told Kaara.
I didn’t get laid, but she shouldn’t let the night go wasted. Even though when she and her wolf were at it, it would add more misery to my condition and send me into a bitter mood.
“Did you come from her chamber?” Kaara asked. “It didn’t go well, did it?”
“It’ll go well,” I said. “I told her to remove her spell on me, and she did. She had to.”
“Spell?”
“She hexed me! Her spell made me her slave.”
Kaara’s curiosity and concern increased. “What type of slave?”
“She put a lust spell on me. I’m nearly out of my mind because of her curse.”
Kaara burst into laughter and bent over.
I hissed. “You think it’s funny? You’re just as bad as she is. And I thought you were probably the only being who still held on to a thread of decency and reason.”
The gray wolf snarled, ready to sprint toward us, and Kaara sliced a hand to stop him. But the wolf ignored her. He transformed into a man instantly, grabbed a long coat from a guard, shoved it on, and strode toward us.
“What’s going on?” he asked, placing his arm around Kaara possessively.
“Beware of the Wickedest Witch’s spell! That’s what’s going on,” I said.
Marrok sent his giggling mate a puzzled look.
Of course, Fiammetta wouldn’t target him. But if she did, I’d tear the wolf’s heart out. I had no care that he was Kaara’s mate. And then I blinked at my uncalled-for jealousy and insanity. The spell was still potent.
“Did Lady Fiammetta deny it when you mentioned the spell?” Kaara asked.
“Why would she deny it?” I said. “She’s the one who placed it.”
“Fia will never deny anything,” Kaara said, “no matter if it’s her doing or not. She doesn’t explain herself either.”
“Did she lift off the spell after you demanded she do it?” Marrok asked.
Men understood each other.
“She performed a ritual,” I said solemnly.
“Was that the half song and the giggling we heard?” Marrok asked. “Man, I didn’t know the Wicked Witch could laugh.”
The damned shifter had great hearing, too. I wondered how much he’d eavesdropped.
Kaara, however, looked sorrowful at the mention of the song. She fought back her sudden tears, but her eyes were moist. Marrok squeezed her to him, sensing her distress.
“What’s that song about?” I asked her.
“Lady Fiammetta doesn’t hex anyone. That’s not her style,” Kaara said. “If she’d bewitched you, you wouldn’t have been so grouchy. You’d be her happy puppy and do everything to please her and beg for it.” She gave me a long, meaningful look. “You don’t understand what’s happening to you, Archangel Gabriel. The sooner you figure it out, the better for you and for her. The First Seer once predicted that an Angel with black wings would come from light years away and fall onto this planet for the Wickedest Witch. And you fell.”
Her words sliced into my heartbeat like a blade of light.
Marrok laughed softly. “And I thought I was an idiot.”
“You still are. Let’s go to bed,” said Kaara.
Their fingers twined around each other’s and they jogged together toward the tower to spend the rest of the night fucking.
I glared at their retreating figures.
The wolves howled not far from the witch’s territory to signal they were staying on guard.
33
The Angel
I waited for Fiammetta to come down from her chamber in the morning.
She entered the Assembly Hall after Kaara, a pool of darkness rippling under her feet. Her presence punched my heart immediately, and my cock jerked.
I still wanted her. I wanted her more than ever, more than I’d wanted anyone.
Kaara Nightshades’ words last night had been the light of a blade slicing between my heartbeats.
High Prince Seth had once told me how he’d recognized his Fey mate when he’d first met her on Earth. He’d thought she’d cursed him, for she’d awoken him from his millennia of celibacy and broken the seal. He’d never wanted any woman the way he wanted her, and the mating fever burned him hotter than anything he could endure.
This was exactly what was happening to me—the mating frenzy.
Only my true mate could make my blood boil like that and my cock harder than granite.
Fiammetta had never put the spell on me.
The Wickedest Witch was my fated mate.
Kaara had known it before my ship had crashed.
She’d been waiting for me to fall for her mistress.
The First Seer of the Death Valley galaxy had never been wrong. She’d predicted that Seth, as the Sky Power, would find his mate on Earth and end his father’s reign. She’d foretold I would fall to Pandemonium for my mate.
I, Archangel Gabriel, had crossed light years and fallen into the past for the Wickedest Witch—my destined mate. After an eon of wandering in deep space and crossing one universe after another, I’d finally found her.
But she didn’t know.
And even if she knew, she’d forget me all over again.
My eyes traced her every movement in the hall.
Fiammetta wore her three pieces—breastplates that barely covered half of her bountiful breasts and a pair of leather shorts draped only a few inches down her gorgeous ass. Her boots were high to the thighs, but those few inches of skin would still conjure unwanted attention from males.
I would talk to her about this outfit. I knew she dressed like that in order to distract when she struck and killed, but there were other ways to do that effectively. I would teach her, and I would kill and strike anyone on her behalf.
I did not like any man looking at her with lewd thoughts. I would kill those vermin.
She planned to venture out to the jungle when she dressed like that.
On her way to her throne, her piercing gray eyes involuntarily fell on me and the intoxicating electricity whipped the air between us.
Her irises widened, which indicated that she didn’t recognize me.
Though this time, she didn’t seem to be surprised by my presence. She’d found a way to alert herself about me, probably through her runes and glyphs.
As her gaze flicked to my wings, she sucked in a subtle breath. She ripped her gaze from me, looking beyond me and pretending she hadn’t specifically noticed me, and swept her glance across the room before she settled in her seat.
An electric current connected us in a fever pitch. Unseen lightning struck in the room.
I now knew it was the manifestation of the mating call. The more we pushed it back, the stronger it got. It would drive us mad with its endless, potent force, until we caved in.
But Fiammetta had no idea, despite being a powerful witch.
She shifted on her throne, an alarmed look flitting over her eyes. Icy dust emerged and coated her skin. She breathed frost. That was how she shielded herself against an unknown outside force.
Bu
t the mating call wasn’t something to be brushed aside.
She was now fighting the mating fever I’d been fighting and would no longer want to resist.
She sat still as steel. And somehow, there was vulnerability beneath her icy exterior.
She’d forgotten all about our last night and every day before that.
She’d forgotten about the laugh she’d had after she’d pretended to lift the spell from me that had never been there. That laughter had tugged at my angelic hard heart.
I’d tested her last night. I’d told her how we had fucked on the floor when it had never transpired. I’d told her how I’d driven into her with her being wrapped in my broken wings on the windowsill, and she’d believed it. Her eyes had sparkled like stars and her darkness had receded. She’d been so hungry to know all of the missing pieces in her life.
She’d also forgotten how I’d made her come again and again.
Her memories were lost to her, as was I in them.
For three years, my mate had to go through this every morning, alone and afraid. Not knowing her heritage and struggling to keep her amnesia concealed in order to survive.
She’d kept her secret well guarded, until now.
Now Kaara knew, the vampire Dark Prince knew, and I knew.
Who else?
I would kill the Dark Prince, but before I erased him, I had to find out what he knew. Fiammetta wouldn’t tell me, and she didn’t know about herself anyway. My mate was more enigmatic to me than ever.
What had happened to her? A trauma or a head injury could make a person suffer from amnesia, but neither would wipe a person’s memory every morning.
Someone had done this to her.
My rage was so immense it blinded me. I would find whoever had eviscerated my female’s mind and make them pay!
I had to make her remember first.
I wouldn’t allow her to wipe me clean from her memories every morning. I had to find a way to make her remember me and how perfect we were in bed.
“Marrok’s intelligence noticed that the vampires have been unusually quiet this week,” Kaara said. “They barely move out of their tower. We have a reason to believe they’re planning something worse.”
