“I know what you’re thinking.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “I can see it in your eyes and feel it in your soul. You’re thinking about what we talked about in Scotland. My lifespan. And yours. It’s bothering you more than you’d like to admit.”
“Maybe a little,” I admitted. “But you’re the one who put the thought into my head.”
“It should be in your head, Zoe,” he said. “You should know what you’re getting yourself into. You and me, there’s something special here. Something rare. Something that only happens once in a lifetime, even one as long as mine. But nothing about us together is ordinary. It will be harder than a normal relationship. And we both need to be aware of that before we get in too deep.”
“Oh, Dorian,” I said with a sigh and a laugh. “I’m already in so deep that I’m practically in the ocean. There’s no stopping how I feel about you now.”
His hand gripped my neck as he pushed me up against the wall. Gasping, I wrapped my legs around his waist and clung onto his thick biceps. His lips found my neck, kissing and sucking and exploring every inch of delicate skin. Only this time, he didn’t take a bite. The tip of his teeth grazed against my earlobe, but he turned his focus onto my lips.
I curled my hands into his hair and kissed him back with a ferociousness that echoed the need that had been building up inside me for months. He grabbed at my shirt and yanked it over my head, exposing my skin to the chilly night air. Shuddering against him, I pulled off his shirt and drank in the sight of his perfectly-sculpted abs. I swallowed hard. He was so strong. So incredibly powerful. How the hell had I become so lucky to end up in these perfect arms?
“Because you’re perfect,” he whispered into my ear, sending a wave of shivers through my body. “No, I take that back. You’re beyond perfect, Zoe.”
“No, I’m not.” I shook my head and gasped as he plunged his lips lower down on my body.
“You are stubborn and impulsive and your temper can be annoying at times,” he said as his lips continued to move south. “But all of those things make you Zoe Bennett. And I wouldn’t change a damn thing.”
“So, you wouldn’t change my lifeline?” I whispered, pulling back to search his face for the truth of how he felt. “You wouldn’t want me to never age, like you?”
“Oh, Zoe. I couldn’t change that, even if I wanted to, and just so we’re clear, I don’t. I would never want you to have to live with the curse the way I do,” he said. “No more sunlight. No more chicken and french fries. Your existence would depend on your ability to find blood. And everyone you love will wither before your eyes until there’s nothing left in this world but you. And it just goes on and on and on and on without any certainty of an end.”
My heart thumped hard. “There would be one thing in this world I love that wouldn’t wither. You.”
Dorian grabbed my head in his hands and pulled me close. He bent down and nicked my ear as his fingers raked down my back. “Zoe Bennett. You’re going to be the end of me.”
His hands found my shirt, and then the buttons of my jeans, and soon I stood naked before him. In the blink of an eye, his clothes came next, and then he had me pressed hard against the wall, my legs hooked tight around his waist.
He trailed hot kisses down my neck, taking my flesh in his hands. His lips teased me, taunted me, sent delicious fire between my legs. And then he was inside me, filling me up inch by exquisite inch. Our bond yanked tight between us, filling my every thought and emotion with Dorian’s delicious scent. My fingernails dug into his back as he moved against me, his hips rocking against my thighs.
He was mine and I was his, and the emotions I felt crashing through my mind were ours combined into one exquisite crescendo of need and desire and something I didn’t dare put a name to yet. Something terrifying, the kind of emotion that drowned out everything else in the world until nothing existed but this.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” he said as he pulled back to gaze into my eyes. “You’re the blood in my veins. The soul in my chest. The warmth I haven’t felt in years. And I’d do anything for you, Zoe. Anything.”
Stars dancing in my eyes, I dropped back my head and moved in time with his motions. He filled me up, fully and completely, sending shockwaves of pleasure through my core. It was almost too much to take, and before I could catch my breath, my body shuddered with a delicious pleasure that left my mind reeling and my ears ringing. He groaned as he followed suit, his body pulsing inside of mine.
Panting, I curled up against his chest, holding on as tight as I could. There was so much wrong with the world. So many things to worry about and so much yet to do. But for now, it didn’t matter.
All that mattered was him.
Chapter 25
I woke up in Dorian’s arms, our limbs twisted together as if we were one person instead of two. Yawning, I smiled and sat up, staring out at the sun peeking over the horizon outside the window. Daybreak had hit, and we needed to get going if we were going to make the cut off, but all I wanted in that moment was to stay right where I was.
It wasn’t a feeling I was used to. All my life, I’d felt as if there were somewhere else I wanted to be, as if a part of me wouldn’t be satisfied unless I had my feet moving on the ground. I’d never felt settled or content. But here in Dorian’s arms, a sweet kind of satisfaction made my arms, my legs, my heart, and my soul feel soft and heavy.
All I wanted was to make that moment last forever.
“Morning,” Dorian murmured in my ear before he pushed up from the floor. He stood naked before me, a perfect specimen of man. All I could do was sit there transfixed as he grabbed his shirt and jeans from the floor, pulling them over his sculpted abs and rippling arms. “As much as I’d like round two, curfew will be over now. And we have a coven to save.”
I nodded, glancing away as a blush filled my cheeks. “Dorian, I just want to say…last night was…”
“Perfect,” he finished the sentence for me, his eyes sparkling with a lightness I’d never seen in them before. “It was perfect.”
Once we were fully dressed, we found the magic had abandoned the door. We cracked it open and stepped outside into the warmth of the morning sun, its beams beating down on our heads. No wonder the sun mages had chosen this location. With the flat land and the dusty ground, the whole world was lit up by the yellow bulb in the sky.
“There.” Dorian pointed at a large ranch-style building set back from the road down a long, straight dirt path. It was five times as large as any of the other buildings, and the rows upon rows of solar panels clustered behind it suggested that it was a base of some sort. Whether that made it an electric station or a headquarters for the council, we’d soon find out.
“Would have been helpful if we’d seen that last night,” I said as we began the trek across the desert grounds. “Might have saved us a few hours if we’d gone there first.”
Dorian’s eyebrows lifted as he shot me a look. “But then we wouldn’t have spent the night in that house. And, I don’t know about you, but I certainly wouldn’t want to change that.”
My cheeks flamed. As I opened my mouth to respond, a commotion by the door of the large building stopped me short. Mages stood on the porch, their faces harsh and angry. Several more spilled out of the building, their daggers pointed at our hearts.
“Who are you?” one of them shouted from the back.
Dorian raised his hands and stepped forward. “No need to have your weapons out. We’re friends. Not enemies.”
A woman shifted through the crowd. Older, leaner. She wore her long, blonde hair in two loose braids, and tattoos lined the base of her neck. Her lined eyes flicked down to Dorian’s belt and then mine. “Your daggers give you away as mages, but I know every face in our village. Neither one of you belongs here, which means you’re not sun mages. If you belong to either the Blood Coven or the Bone Coven, then you are our enemies. And there’s no reason two shadows would be wandering around our grounds while we’re under a siege. How
did you even get through the wall?”
“You’re right,” I said, scanning the small crowd. “We’re not from this coven, but we really do mean no harm. We’ve been sent through the wall in order to discuss a possible treaty with your Magister.”
“We have no Magister. Not anymore.”
Surprised, I glanced to Dorian who merely lifted his shoulder. This was as much news to him as it was to me.
“We did have one, but we got rid of him. When we discovered that he was in talks with your covens in order to make an agreement that none of us want, we decided that we needed a different way of handling things. An elected group of Elders who bring all big decisions to the coven to vote.”
“Great. Sounds like a winning deal to me,” I said with a nod. “Then, in that case, we’ve come to discuss a treaty with your Elders.”
“Why would they send you two?” the woman asked. “Why not send the Magister?”
Frowning, I glanced at Dorian. If we explained to these mages that our Magister needed to be back in Boston just in case the blood mages decided they wanted to launch an attack, they might not allow us to see their Elders, and we didn’t have a lot of time to waste.
“We’re Enforcers, and Magister Salvatore trusts us to negotiate the terms of peace,” Dorian said. “We know that you’re in desperate need of food and water. Zoe and I have brought some along as a show of faith. All we want to do is end this thing so that you all can go back to living your normal lives. And that includes not creating any Nosferatu.”
At that, Dorian gave me a nod, and I pulled out the cans of food and bottles of water I’d smuggled in through my bag. It wasn’t much, but I could tell by the wild glint in their eyes that it was enough to convince them to let us speak to the Elders.
The woman in front gave a nod and passed the cans out to a few of the other mages around her. “Give these to the hungriest children and spread word that a vote is incoming.”
“A vote?” I asked when she turned her attention back to us.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “Once you tell us exactly what you’re proposing, we’ll bring it before the entire coven. That’s how we handle things now. If the people don’t like what you have to say, then they have the chance to say no. You’ll need one hundred percent for this thing to pass.”
“Right,” I said slowly. “And what’s the likelihood your coven will unanimously vote yes to the treaty with ours?”
She looked me square in the eye. “Slim to none.”
Chapter 26
We were led into the large building where several older men and women were waiting in an expansive, homey living room. The woman who had met us on the front steps motioned for us to sit on a leather sofa as if we were guests, but it didn't escape my notice that two Enforcer-like guards hovered just behind us.
“Elder Arthur. These two mages snuck onto the property. Said they're here about making some kind of deal with their coven. I was going to suggest we lock them up, but they brought some food along, so I thought it might be worth for us to hear what they have to say. They’re from the Bone Coven.”
“From the Bone Coven,” Elder Arthur repeated as he rubbed a lined face that was surrounded by wisps of white hair. “I see. Thank you for bringing them here, Elder Sarah, though I can't for the life of me understand what they think they're doing.”
“We came to discuss an end to the siege,” I said. “Through an agreement between our covens.”
“An alliance,” the woman said with a tense look in her eye. "Like the one they have with the vampire-creating blood mages."
“We wouldn’t call it an alliance,” Dorian said quickly. "It's more of a truce."
“Of course you wouldn’t call it an alliance,” Elder Arthur said. “You’d be idiots to use that word around us, but we both know that’s exactly what it would be. I hate to tell you kids, but you've come here for nothing. We refuse to ally with the very same people who have cut us off from food and water for the past few weeks. The very same mages who want to force us to send our people off to fight for them and create vampires for them.”
“You know what? I totally agree with you there,” I said, ignoring the sharp look from Dorian. He didn’t understand the way these mages thought, but I did, because I’d been there, done that, and gotten the t-shirt. I knew what it was like to distrust the coven and to feel the need to rebel against their wishes. If we were going to get through to them, we needed to acknowledge how they felt.
Elder Arthur raised his eyebrows. “If you agree, then why are you here?”
“Because I believe that what they’re doing is wrong, and I want to stop it before anyone else gets hurt. At least hear us out.”
The Elders regarded me for a long and silent moment before Arthur finally gave a nod. Sarah hesitated, but she followed suit as well. The few other Elders surrounding them murmured with unease, but they also gave their nods. My breath whooshed out of me in relief. For a moment there, I thought it might all be over before we’d even had a chance to state our case.
“Right,” I said. “No reason to beat around the bush. The Bone Coven doesn’t agree with forcing you to create vampires or forcing you to fight, so we’re taking that completely off the table. They'd love for you to join them, of course, but it's your own decision. Instead, we'd like the Witch’s Blade. It’ll help in the fight against the demons when Professor Ivan Wagner finally makes his move. If you give us that, we’ll end the siege, and we’ll deal with the Blood Coven ourselves. Sounds like a win win for everyone, don’t you think?”
Elder Sarah let out a light laugh and shook her head, the opposite reaction I’d been expecting. “That’s more of a lose lose, my dear. For both covens.”
Confusion rippled through me. “I don’t understand.”
“Do you know what the Witch’s Blade does?” Elder Arthur asked, leaning forward in his rocking chair. “Did your Magister explain that to you before sending you on this idiotic mission? By the confused looks on your faces, I'm thinking not. Typical.”
Frowning, I glanced at Dorian. His face had gone tense, and his shoulders were tight. I could tell he was worried about what the Elders were about to tell us next because I had a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn’t paint our coven in a good light. Again. The revelations had been wave after wave after wave these past few days, and Dorian’s faith in the Magister was ready to crack. I knew he desperately wanted to believe that he’d been fighting for the right side all this time. It mattered to him in a way I’d never realized, not until he shared his past with me.
By working as an upstanding Enforcer of the coven, he was atoning for his sins, in a way. And now he was learning that he might not have been so much atoning as he had been adding to them.
“The Witch's Blade is a weapon that was specifically created to be used against the demons,” Dorian said in a low voice. “The Magister was very clear about that. Are you trying to tell us that he's wrong?”
“He's not wrong. The blade is capable of destroying large swaths of demons,” Elder Arthur said. “It destroys their bodies in a similar way that Nosferatu fangs do. One stab with the end, and the demons are gone, usually many at once.”
“Then, what’s the problem?” I asked. “Don’t you want demons destroyed? You can’t possibly tell me that you don’t want us to have the best possible chance at defeating them.”
“Of course not,” the Elder snapped. “But it has much more power than that. It can cut holes in the veil, releasing demons into this world at a greater rate than normal. If used enough, the blade could destroy the veil completely. We’ve been keeping it all this time, protecting it, as a way to stop it from falling into the wrong hands. Giving it up now could be suicide.”
Dread soared through my veins as I stared at the Elder’s face. His eyes flashed with anger, though it wasn’t directed at me. Some long-held resentment, something from his past. It had all built up over time, spilling out now when the conflicts between our covens were finally coming to a head.
“The strange thing,” he said, continuing, “is why your coven wants it now after all this time ignoring its existence. They knew we had it. So, what's reignited their interest in it?”
A few murmurs went through the group of Elders as they nodded along. Two Elders pressed their foreheads together and whispered something too low for me to hear. This was odd, to say the least. If this guy was telling the truth, the Witch's Blade could be used for far more terrible things than good.
“I’m sorry,” I said, finally speaking up to break the strange tension in the air. “Could you please explain what you mean by that?”
“You know, I don't believe I got either of your names,” Elder Sarah said as she perched on the edge of an armchair, her gaze intent on my face.
Okay, that was also strange. What did that have to do with anything? Dorian shifted by my side and cleared his throat. “I’m Dorian Kostas, Enforcer for the Bone Coven. This is my partner-in-training, Zoe Bennett.”
Elder Arthur raised his eyebrows and glanced at the woman by his side. She murmured something into his ear and nodded. When he returned his gaze to us, his lips were curled into a knowing smile. “Ah, yes. Dorian Kostas, the Unbound hybrid. I shouldn’t be surprised they’d send you to the negotiation. A powerful addition to their team, no doubt.”
Shock flittered across Dorian’s face. Dorian’s vampire nature wasn’t public knowledge amongst mages. Or, at least, we hadn’t thought it was. The Magister knew what he was, as well as several council members and some Enforcers, but he’d kept the matter secret beyond that. Many mages wouldn’t understand. They would use the curse against him. They wouldn’t trust him, and they certainly wouldn’t work with him.
“Don’t look so surprised,” Elder Sarah said. “We may look like we keep to ourselves out here, but we make it a priority to know what’s going on in the supernatural world. It is in our best interest to understand what we’re up against. Which brings us to you, the witch in training.”
Witch's Blade Page 15
