Troy curled his hand around the hilt of his long dagger, but he forced himself to release it. Stabbing Michael would not kill him; very little would. He also still did not know where the Templar was keeping Summer. Now was not the time to attack. When it came time, however, he would not hesitate––and if he had forced himself on Summer, he would die. Badly.
He followed Michael for several blocks until the Templar disappeared into a high-rise residential building. As the door closed behind him, Troy walked up to the white-gloved doorman.
“Do you know that man who just went inside? Does he live here?”
“We don’t give out information about the tenants,” the doorman told him, and made a rude gesture. “Move along, pal.”
Troy walked a short distance away and waited for a passing car, and flicked his fingers. A wave of watery slush from the gutter crashed over the doorman, who sputtered and swore.
“You all right?” Troy said as he walked up to the man and seized his wrist. He used the dirty water and ice saturating his uniform to channel a compulsion spell. “Tell me what I want to know.”
The doorman’s eyes emptied of all emotion as he spoke in a monotone. “I know Mr. Charbon. He lives in the penthouse.”
Of course he did. Michael and his scum Templar brotherhood had more wealth squirreled away than every drug cartel in the world combined.
“Is there a woman with him now?”
“His sister.” The doorman’s mouth curved. “Beautiful girl. She was asleep when he brought her home, so he carried her up.”
Michael eyed the top of the building, and then glanced across the street. “Forget me and what I have asked you.” He drew the slushy water out of the man’s uniform and sent it back into the gutter before he lifted the spell.
The doorman gave him a surly look. “You again? I told you, Mister, beat it.”
Troy trotted across the street and eyed the row of buildings until he spotted one with a rooftop view that offered the right vantage point. Entering that required him to bespell a bearded man carrying in two bags of groceries.
“You can get on the roof through the maintenance door on the seventh floor, and then walk up the back stairs,” the man said as he led Troy inside. “It’s a long walk up, but the service elevator’s been out of order since August.” He gave him an odd look. “You’re not planning to jump, are you? We had a jumper last year, and Mrs. O’Reilly nearly had a stroke when she saw the mess on the sidewalk.”
“I’m merely going to have a look at something.”
Troy released him from the spell before taking the elevator to seven, where he climbed ten more flights of stairs to reach the roof access door. The cold, exhaust-scented air greeted him as he stepped outside and disturbed a pair of pigeons perching on a satellite dish. Troy walked to the edge and stepped between two huge fan units to look at Michael’s floor, and saw the Templar had left the windows open, and a young man stood looking down at the street.
Troy didn’t recognize the lad, but he felt rocked to his core when he saw Michael come up behind the boy and wrap his arms around his narrow waist in what was clearly an intimate embrace. What is this? The Paladin has a boyfriend?
Michael reached down to rub his hand over the boy’s crotch. Just as Troy began to turn away light shimmered between the lovers, and the boy transformed into Summer. He expected her to struggle or even fight off the Templar, but instead she leaned back against him, her lips curving and her thighs shifting apart.
Behind Troy a water tank made an ominous bubbling sound as steam began to seep from its top vents.
Troy controlled his rage-driven ability, but he couldn’t stop watching them. Summer touched Michael’s hands, and then turned and embraced him, her slim hands curling over his shoulders as he kissed her. Troy watched Michael tug away Summer’s blouse and bra before he bent his head to nuzzle her breasts, his big hands first cupping and then squeezing the tight curves of her buttocks.
A tight throbbing in his crotch made Troy glanced down, and he was dumbfounded again to see the evidence of his own erection bulging in his pants. The hell…?
He had to brace a hand against the side of one cooling unit as need poured through him, as hot and fierce as if he were the one touching Summer. That he felt no shame or disgust stunned him as much as his arousal.
It’s Summer’s curse. It must be. When Troy glanced again at the windows across the street, he saw that Michael and Summer had disappeared.
Troy swore as he moved along the roof ledge, peering in each window until he saw them again. The room they had gone to was darker, but he could still make them out––and what he saw made his cock throb and his balls tighten.
The Templar had stripped to the waist, and Summer stood completely naked now. She was caressing Michael’s arms and shoulders as he fondled her breasts, kneading the soft mounds and rubbing his thumbs over her nipples. He bent his head to kiss her, and Troy could see he was giving her his tongue, filling her mouth over and over with it.
His own mouth dried as he tasted her on his own lips, and felt her touch warming his skin. He felt her hips shimmy against him, her lower belly rubbing his cock, and the faint scrape of her fingernails as she dragged them over his skin.
Even the most powerful transference spell couldn’t make him feel another man’s pleasure, not when he stood cloaked in two layers of combat body wards. Yet with each passing moment that he watched them he felt the phantom sensations growing stronger, until it was as if he held Summer in his own arms.
It took all of Troy’s strength and self-discipline to turn away, but that made no difference, and the enchantment seized him fully, taking over and flooding him with hunger and desire as it stroked his body and tugged at his cock. He staggered toward the building access door, wrenching it open as he stumbled inside and fell to his knees, his heart hammering in his chest and his hips surging forward as he groaned.
Troy knew Michael was fucking her now, his big body pinning hers to his bed as he drove his penis into her softness over and over and over. The same thing was happening to him, and caught in the trap of the enchantment, Troy had no choice but to go along for the ride. He rolled over and felt her under him as he worked his hips, feeling the sweet wetness of her caressing his rigid shaft with each thrust. In his ears he could hear her low moans, and felt Michael’s voice rumbling in his own chest.
Beauty, you’re trembling. Do you need me to suck your pretty tits again while I plow your pussy? Will that make you come hard for me? I know you want to, I can feel it on my cock. Give those sweet nipples to me…”
“…they are as lovely as roses blooming in the sunlight. Ah, Gods.” Troy clenched his teeth, but then he felt the pebble of her nipple graze his lips and he latched on, sucking her as he fucked her deeper and harder, his cock pounding into her, and felt her arch under him as she writhed on his shaft, her pussy clamping around him as she came with a low, wild cry.
Troy tore open his trousers and held his jerking cock as semen jetted from his cockhead, his thick shaft pulsing beneath his fingers as he felt Michael come, both of them grunting and thrusting into Summer’s wet tightness. When he finally emptied himself he rolled over onto his back and stared up at the dome light overhead, his body shuddered with the aftershocks of his climax.
Not mine, Troy thought as he closed his eyes. Michael’s, and Summer’s.
Sex was sacred to all Wiccans, and as an immortal Troy had been actively enjoying women for centuries. He considered the pleasures of the flesh to be natural and necessary to the enjoyment of life. He had even lain with two women on more than one occasion, and each time felt no shame, even when they had turned to pleasure each other. He recalled two witches from Sweden who had spent a long weekend showing him just how skillfully one woman could make love to another.
He had also had chances to indulge himself with other warlocks. While he liked the company of men, he never found himself aroused by the thought of having sex with a member of his own gender. Yet feeling Mi
chael’s cock as if it were his own had been the second most exciting experience of his life.
Just as being with Summer had been the first.
What had just happened to him went so far beyond anything in his experience that he didn’t know how to feel about it––or the emptiness he felt now. I should have been there with them. Part of it. Part of them.
He dragged himself to his feet, and cursed his ridiculous thoughts as he shoved his still-hard cock inside his pants and headed for the stairs.
• • • • •
Once she had come back down to earth, Summer rested her chin on Michael’s damp chest and studied his face. “You look very thoughtful for a man who just promised to take me to Tahiti.”
“I am thinking.” His green eyes closed as he looped an arm around her shoulders. “But I made no such vow.”
She kissed his right nipple, which was small and brown and puckered against her lips. “Yes, you did. Right after you said my breasts were as beautiful as roses blooming in moonlight.” Her brow furrowed. “Or was it sunlight?”
“Sunlight.” Michael stroked his big hand over her rumpled hair. “You were never meant for darkness, Beauty. Although I should take you to task for calling out the name of another man while you were in my arms.”
“I know. That was terrible of me.” She laid her cheek against his heart. “Only one problem.”
“I know.” He sighed. “I said his name, too.”
It had been the strangest thing. One moment Summer had been gripping Michael as he stroked in and out of her, and the next she had felt Troy on top of her, as if he had somehow gotten between the two of them––but even that wasn’t quite right. When Michael kissed her breasts she felt Troy’s mouth, and when he sucked her nipples, it was Troy’s tongue that caressed her. Then she heard herself call his name at the exact moment Michael had muttered “Troy” against her breast.
Summer rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “Michael, while we were making love…I could feel him. I swear, I could taste him. What’s happening to us?”
“I cannot say.” He got out of bed and walked naked over to the window. “He is close. I think he has come after you––and me.”
“Oh, yes. He will definitely come after you. Damn.” Summer pressed her hands over her eyes. “Why did you take me from Silver Wood? Why didn’t you just tell us about this Emerald Tablet?”
“You were supposed to be in the shower, not listening to me and Alvis.” He glanced back at her. “How did you manage to reinstate the body alteration spell?”
“I don’t know. I just did it. Excuse me for being a little concerned about leaving you alone with the pagan-hating giant guy.” She sat up. “Let me call Troy, and I’ll explain that you had only good intentions, and that I’m okay, and that he shouldn’t try to encase you in ice the minute he sees you.”
“You don’t know anything about my intentions,” he reminded her as he walked back to the bed, and sat beside her. “I have explained nothing to you.”
She felt like slapping him again. “Michael, do you think I would have jumped in bed with you––twice––if I thought you were going to hurt me?” She slid off the side of the mattress and picked up her clothes. “First we defuse Troy, then you can tell us why you dragged me back here and what exactly this Emerald Tablet is.”
The sound of a fire alarm blasted through the apartment, and Summer shrieked as icy water sprayed over her from a sprinkler above the bed.
“It’s too late,” Michael shouted as he pulled on his trousers. “He’s here.” He ran out of the bedroom.
Summer dragged on her soggy clothes as fast as she could, and when she hurried out to the front room she found Michael standing in a cage of ice, and Troy freezing the spray from the sprinklers into thousands of sharp-looking icicles that floated around Michael on all sides as if waiting to strike.
“Troy, no.” She stopped in her tracks, afraid of taking another step and setting him off. “It’s okay. Michael didn’t hurt me.”
“I know.” Frost glittered in his black hair and furious blue eyes.
“He protected me from the Templars,” she reminded him. “He still is. He’s not the enemy.”
“He took you.” Troy’s fists bulged, and icy spikes shot out of his knuckles. “He took you from me.”
“Summer, you should go out in the hall,” Michael said quietly, never taking his eyes off Troy. “Now, please.”
She knew what would happen if she did, and stepped between her two men. “You are not fighting over me,” she told Troy. As she heard the ice shattering behind her, she turned around to face Michael. “We’re all friends here, remember?”
“Bullshit,” Troy snarled, at the same time Michael said, “He is not my friend.”
“Please.” Summer held up her hands. “Stop. Now. For me, okay? I care about both of you.”
“You mean you fucked both of us,” Troy said.
“I think it is too late for reason, Beauty.” Michael stepped out of the remains of the cage. To Troy he said, “Perhaps we should step outside to discuss our situation.”
Troy gave him an ugly smile. “Oh, yeah. Let’s chat in the hall.”
As the two men advanced on each other, Summer grabbed Troy’s arm. “There will be no discussing or chatting or dismembering.” She turned to Michael and planted her other hand in the center of his chest. “I said–”
All three of them went still as a ring of power expanded through the room. Everything froze in time, just as it had when Summer had saved Aileen from falling onto the knife.
This is why we were brought together, Summer thought, her mind filled with a serene clarity. Why I must bind them to me now. We cannot survive apart.
Time snapped back into motion. The icicles still hovering around them were melted instantly and rained down onto the carpet with a tremendous splash. Troy uttered a low, confused sound and Michael murmured something in French.
Summer paid no attention to them. For the first time since she had woken up in the park she felt whole and safe and powerful.
“Yes,” she whispered, and her voice rang out around them as if she had shouted the word through a mansion filled with crystal bells. “My sentinels.”
Power poured through her and into the two men, who stared at her, their eyes filled with green light. She slid her hand up to Troy’s cool cheek, and pressed her fingers over Michael’s hammering heart, drawing the strength and feeling she needed from both of them. She could feel every nuance of their desire for her, and returned it with her hunger for them. She felt herself go utterly, completely wet and knew they were swelling and hardening for her.
“Thou art mine, Troy, Michele,” she heard herself say in a language only she understood before the room began to dim. “My lovers. My defenders. My mates.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“IF YOU’RE HAPPY and you know it, clap your hands.” Gideon sang the cheerful tune with great gusto, as it suited his mood to perfection. He paused only to roll down the van window and spit the shredded remains of his last cigar out the window at a young mother pushing a stroller along Fifth Avenue. As she flinched away he chuckled. “Or stick that in your poxy quim, you filthy whore.”
“Master Edmunds, please,” Augustin begged from the back of the stolen florist’s van, where Gideon had left him shackled beside the driver whose skull he had bashed in and several dozen of the sweetest bouquets of flowers this side of a cemetery. “If you would return to the Abbey, I know Master Harper will do everything in his power–”
“To slay me,” Gideon finished for him, roaring the words along with a hearty laugh. “Of course he will, Colbert. It is after all, the proper thing to do when a noble Templar knight goes mad. I am mad, you do realize that? If you’re happy and you know it, I mean.”
“You are ill,” Augustin said softly, insistently. “It is not your fault.”
“Aye, that’s the truth of it.” Gideon checked the streets signs before he made a turn and cut off a
taxi. When the driver rolled down his window to shout obscenities, Gideon aimed for his face and fired the Beretta. “What was that?” He called out before he fired a second time. “I’m the son of a what, my good fellow?”
Gideon kept firing, and the taxi’s windshield sprouted several crackled holes as it veered away and struck a parked car.
“When you covet eternity, you also court madness, Colbert. They will not tell you that when you are made immortal. If you’re happy and you know it…” He paused in his singing to check the rearview mirror, and scowled when he saw the driver emerge from the taxi, his face gleaming with broken glass and bloody scratches. “Fuck me, how could I miss such a fat head?”
Augustin crawled toward the front of the van until he huddled against the back of the center console. “I wish only to live to serve the order.”
“Wrong, wrong, wrong.” Gideon slapped him in the back of the head. “You wish only to serve yourself and live forever. It’s what I wanted, and look at me now. Crazed from a hundred years of holding off immortality sickness. That’s also known as fucked five ways to Hades, in the event you were wondering. And if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”
Aside from the constant mouth tic and a few itchy sensations on the inside of his skull Gideon actually felt very good. His prospects were looking up now that he had money and weapons and a mortal hostage and a van filled with pretty flowers; all he needed was Charbon to tell him where to find the witch who had hidden the Emerald Tablet. Once he caught the grubby slut he would rape her until she told him where it was, and use it to cure himself. Then he would go back and rape her a few more times. He might even put her on a leash and make a pet of her, like every bitch should be kept.
He had told all of this to Augustin several times, but it pleased him to tell him again, and to sing to him a few more choruses of his happy tune. The clergy aide sniveled again about going back to Nathaniel, but several cheerful blows of Gideon’s fist put a stop to that.
Stolen (Book Two of the Silver Wood Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel Page 4
