The Witch's Dream - A Paranormal Romance (The Order of the Black Swan, BOOK TWO)

by Victoria Danann

  Litha went up on her toes for one more hug. "Dad, I..."

  Well, well. Life is full of surprises. The demon had cajoled and entertained and manipulated his way into her heart. Words caught in her throat when she realized she felt overly emotional about saying goodbye. She would probably always find it strange having a father who appeared to be thirty and it would only get stranger as she continued to age, but no one has any choice about the dads they're dealt. Maybe they aren't all demons, but none of them are perfect either.

  The road was the triple threat: narrow, hilly, and curvy. Oh. And it was also pitch black, not a street lamp in twenty miles. The fact that there was no one else out was a blessing because headlights coming at you in utter darkness can be disorienting. Litha had never been a car enthusiast, far from it, but she'd have to be in discarnate form not to appreciate the virtues of an ultimate driving machine like that: the smell, the feel of the leather, the luxurious numeral clock, and the way it drove. Talk about "handling" had never interested her before, but now her consciousness had been raised to the level of devotee. The car seemed to respond to her thoughts.

  With every mile she got closer to Storm she felt like her heart was beating a little faster. She was glad the top was up on the car because she thought she saw lightning. She had worn a sleeveless white cotton dress because she expected the air to be warm and sultry. Seeing the lightning she wondered now if she shouldn't have picked something heavier. Or brought a sweater.

  She was following the pendulum by the lights from the dashboard. It pointed straight ahead.

  Everybody had gone to bed. Storm lay on his back on top of the cotton quilt cover on the screen porch cot wearing nothing but jeans. It was too hot for a shirt and too public for underwear. He had thought sleeping semi-outdoors would help settle his mind, but his thoughts were a jumble. They were there for a happy occasion, but he felt shrouded in sadness.

  Ram and Elora were going to be parents as mind boggling as that was. And, although nothing had been said, it only stood to reason that their days as active knights were coming to an end in the very near future. Kay and Katrina would be married the day after next and Kay wasn't coming back. He knew he should be feeling happy for his friends.

  Swinging his legs around, he sat up on the side of the old iron army cot and lit a small, thin, black cigar. He sat smoking and listening for what he thought might be distant thunder. The glow of the cigar end seemed almost like company when he took a drag. And his thoughts went back to Litha. Again.

  He was thinking that what happened with Elora hadn't just left him shaken. It had left him handicapped with no confidence where women are concerned. He groaned out loud when he remembered the first time he saw Litha. The brash and beautiful witch had taken his breath away when she'd breezed in with her intoxicating scent and a field of electrical excitement that hovered in the air around her. He'd had the good fortune to attract the unlikely attention of a woman like that and how had he responded? I'm not interested in a relationship. What a douche!

  That's when it hit him like a shot to the solar plexus. His epiphany.

  The best thing that had ever happened to him was that Elora Laiken had turned him down. Here, he had spent months feeling sorry for himself only to find out that it was a blessing of the richest kind. Alone on a cot on a screen porch, he laughed out loud at his own stupidity and his own wretched timing.

  What he had felt for Elora was a suggestion of love: a protective, almost brotherly instinct. Was it a connection? Yeah. Was it chemistry? That, too. But it was a far, far cry from the cock throbbing, gut wrenching, desperate stuff of night sweats that he felt for that witch. With Elora he had never been fighting with his own hands, constantly pulling them into fists to keep from reaching out and touching. Waking Woden! The merciless, relentless need that never stopped day or night. That was, he supposed, what Ram and Elora felt for each other. And he had tried to interfere with that? Thank the gods he hadn't gotten away with it.

  Until now he hadn't even wondered why he'd never had an urgent desire to make love to Elora. Hell. He hadn't even tried to kiss her until they were on the way to meet his family and present themselves as an engaged couple. Why was he just now recognizing that there was something terribly wrong with that picture? The only thing stranger than that was that she had even considered going along with it. Eventually it would have sentenced three people to a life of unhappiness.

  That feeling of bleak emptiness when Elora chose Ram? That wasn't heartbreak. Now that it was too late, he saw it for what it was. The death of a false dream.

  He had wanted someone to share his vision of life in a romantic villa on the Sonoma Coast high above the sea. When Elora materialized out of thin air and reached out for him, he had mistaken the event as providence and latched onto the idea that she was the one. In his ignorance about life, women, relationships, everything, he had drastically oversimplified mating.

  There was an opening for a woman in his plan. So he'd tried to insert Elora into that slot. Whether she fit or not.

  Now he understood that he'd had a chance for love. He should have grabbed for it with both hands when the real thing was standing right in front of him in the form of a wonderfully quirky witch with deep green eyes and red, red lips, saying, "Pick me". Instead he pushed her away.

  Fate gave him an incomparable beauty who wanted exactly the same things from life that he did and, instead of thanking his lucky stars and embracing his good fortune with all the unfettered passion it deserved, he had been suspicious, reserved, mean, maybe even cruel. When it came to fucking himself over, it seemed he was about to be inducted to the hall of fame.

  What had he thought he was waiting for? The "girl next door"? He pushed out a breath and almost groaned out loud at his own stupidity. Since the day Sol showed up in his middle school Vice Principal's office, what in his life had ever been ordinary? It was only fitting that the women in his life be extraordinary.

  Bachelorette Number One hails from another dimension. She loves chocolate and can kick tail six ways from Sunday. Bachelorette Number Two is a breath stealing, half-demon witch who might disappear right into a wall just when a guy finally gets around to being serious about kissing.

  Come to think of it, the fact that she was a sex demon's daughter could explain a lot about the palpitations and erotic dreams, not that there’s anything wrong with being attracted to a woman who can get you hard with nothing more than a glance.

  As he was dropping the little cigar butt into a soda can, he thought he might have caught a flash of lightning out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head that direction and looked up into the night sky through the practically invisible screen, then decided it was his mind playing tricks and lay back on the cot.

  She said not even demons could keep her away. He was grateful she had included that vow in her message to him. It had given him something to hold onto. And he would hold onto that until the world looked level. He’d learned his lesson about doubting her.

  More lightning flashed in his range of vision. This time thunder followed a couple of seconds later. No mistake. A storm was coming. The temperature dropped fifteen degrees in a matter of minutes transforming the hot, still night into an event charged with excitement. Everywhere his skin was exposed it felt like static brushed over tiny body hairs lovingly, urging them to stand up at attention.

  The harbinger was a pleasant little breeze, but, before there was time to adjust to the cooler temperature, it began to gust, blowing trees and bushes into a frenzy, kicking the usually calm waters of the river into ripples that sloshed against the banks. The air filled with the potent and pungent aroma of rainstorm coming. Litha. He hoped to the gods she was safe. Wherever she was.

  He remembered what she had said the first time she ever spoke to him. There's something about the rumble of thunder that’s so primal, so carnal It’s the ultimate turn on. Add the smell of a rainstorm coming and it’s a witch’s dream.

  Litha didn't set the odometer. She
didn't know how Deliverance had managed to have the car waiting in that parking lot under a spotlight with zero miles on it, but, having seen some of his best tricks, it would take more than that to surprise her. He said thirteen miles. She didn't know exactly how far she'd gone, but she knew her pendulum was more reliable than any satellite direction-finder technology.

  The thunder was getting closer and the lightning was starting to put on a fine show. When silver white streaks forked and fired across the sky, it made the surrounding darkness look like the dark purple of magick.

  Her intuition told her it was time to slow down seconds before the pendulum took a sharp left at a white gravel driveway and almost jerked out of her hand. She turned in and eased slowly forward when the pendulum resumed pointing straight-ahead. Between claps of thunder she could hear the crush of gravel and white shells under the tires as the car ground over them.

  On either side of the drive tall oleanders bloomed profusely with white flowers. The wind was whipping them back and forth so that some of the blooms gave way. After a minute the oleanders opened up to an expanse of lawn and a white, two-story house. She immediately killed the car lights.

  She had no idea what she was walking into. It could be a relative's house. It could even be a girlfriend's place. She tried to set it aside as pesky, self-sabotaging imagination. The house was completely dark, but that wasn't going to stop her. Nothing would. That very night she was letting him know that she was back in Loti Dimension and still hot for him. Only him. No matter what. He could run from Edinburgh to Siena to the Texas Hill Country. Until she had reason to believe that she would never stand a chance with him, she was all in.

  Just as she turned the car off raindrops started to hit the windshield. She had taken her shoes off for the drive and decided to just run for it as she was. She was pelted by big drops as she bypassed the front door. For whatever reason, intuition probably, the back door felt like a better option. She ran across the St. Augustine grass barefoot, around the silent house, rain falling harder with every step. She grabbed her hair away from her eyes where it was being blown and tangled so that she could see where she was going. The screen porch door was unlocked. It squeaked when she opened it and stepped onto the threshold.

  Her eyes had adjusted to the dark and she could see well enough to make out the figure sprawled on top of the cot, but, even if she couldn't see him, she would have known he was there. Her spirit was drawn to his essence like creation had calibrated them to be magnetic to each other.

  Storm hadn’t heard her approach because of the noise of the storm, but the squeaky hinge worked as well as an electronic alert. He turned his head to see who might be trying to enter, uninvited so far as he knew, in the middle of the night. There, framed in the doorway with a series of lightning flashes behind her, stood a wild and beautiful witch wearing a romantic, white dress just damp enough to cling to every curve. It was a vision no fantasy could ever hope to match. Storm held his breath, marveling at the complexity of the mind and the torturous nature of the tricks it can play. Even though his heart could barely stand looking at the vision, at the same time he was afraid to blink because it might vanish with the tiniest movement.

  She took a step toward him, away from the door. "Do you want me here?" She asked her question and now stood motionless, heart beating fast, but not breathing - waiting for his answer.

  The instant he heard her voice he knew it was no dream. Litha had no idea how fast a Black Swan knight in his prime can move. Before she had time to register that he was coming for her, Storm had her in his arms, smothering her mouth in a kiss that said, "I learned my lesson. Mountains may crumble. Seas may go dry. But I will never let you go again." She moaned against his mouth as her body went soft against him. He responded by tightening his arms and pulling her upward until she could wrap herself around him.

  The feel of his bare skin under her hands was heaven, just as she'd known it would be. The heat of the witch's damp body, molded to his own, escalated his arousal to a frenzy of desire he hadn't known was possible as both of them were discovering that waking sex with each other was a hundred times more potent than nightwalking. He said her name against her lips like he was reassuring himself that she was real, then renewed the fervor of his silent pledge to kiss her mindless.

  A near deafening crack of thunder shook the house. The wind whipped up making trees bend and shake while windchimes danced hysterically and almost flew off their hangers. The steady rain turned into a driving downpour that sounded like a tropical storm. The lovers paused when they heard noise coming from the house. It was hard to place because it sounded like a stampede.

  Kay's sisters pounded down the wooden stairs each trying to be first. They hit the screen door without stopping, as they had countless times as children. It didn't occur to any of them that it might be latched and it wasn't. It swung open in immediate surrender. They ran out into the night laughing, exhilarated by the cool rain and the exuberance of youth, without ever noticing Litha entangled in Storm’s strong arms, wrapped firmly around her waist while her legs wrapped firmly around his.

  In seconds the girls were drenched to the bone, still determined to get the lawn furniture cushions in out of the rain even though it was far too late to rescue them.

  Reluctantly Storm let Litha slide down his body until her feet could touch the floor, but he did not relinquish the hold he had on her.

  When the Norns had dashed out of the bunkroom to gather lawn cushions, Katrina had set out to close all the windows open to the north, the direction the rain was coming from. The four women had passed by Ram and Elora.

  Thirty minutes earlier Ram had walked Elora to the door of the bunk room holding her hand, then set about giving her a goodnight kiss that would make her remember why sleeping without him was a dumb idea. Half an hour later they were still standing there necking like teenagers on dormitory steps with him alternately kissing and whispering in her ear what he would do to her if she came back to his room.

  "Phone sex in person, Ram?" She put her lips to his ear and whispered back. "I like it. It could be a new trend."

  "You know, should you change your mind, I'll be in that room there." He pointed across the hall. "And I would no' mind wakin' to find you crawlin' into my bed in the middle of the night."

  The voices of the Norns carried up the stairs as they were shrieking and laughing about being wet through and through. Then, abruptly, everything went quiet. Katrina came out into the hall and looked at Ram and Elora. Something about the sudden silence was alarming. Kay must have thought so, too. He opened his door. "What's happened?"

  The four of them hurried downstairs and out onto the now-crowded screen porch.

  When Katrina saw Litha she let out a sob and rushed to throw her arms around the witch.

  Elora turned to Kay's sisters. "Go change now before you cool off too much. I'll make you some nice chocolate tea." The sisters were torn between their curiosity and their shivering. Plus, they were used to giving the orders, not taking them. To the relief of all Order personnel present for the homecoming, the three sisters seemed to telepathically agree that they could ask questions later and silently withdrew to find towels and dry clothes.

  When they were gone, Elora whispered, "We have five minutes to come up with a cover story." Then to Litha, Elora said, "We're all so glad to see you. And it just so happens we have an extra bed."

  At Ram's suggestion, they agreed on an explanation and nominated Ram to tell it. He told Kay's sisters that Litha had helped Katrina get through her emotional trauma after she was returned and that Katrina had invited her to come to the wedding if she could. They were satisfied by that explanation. And, truthfully, he was so convincing Elora almost believed it herself.

  She told him privately that it concerned her how easily he came up with an extemporaneous story that was a completely manufactured lie, not to mention the aplomb with which he told it. Ram just laughed and said, "I was no' born the day we met, you know."

&nbs
p; Litha borrowed something to sleep in because it was raining too hard to retrieve her Gucci luggage from the car.

  After disgusting chocolate tea and a celebration cigar, Storm went back to the cot on the porch to sleep alone, or stay awake alone, his heart swollen almost to the size of the erection he was still packing.

  As he thought about how quickly things can change those thoughts turned to the future and what might be on the next page after Kay's wedding.

  He confronted the fact that his feelings of loss were only partially about Kay leaving The Order. The truth was that he was on a collision course with anachronism - a vampire slayer with no vampires to slay. He didn't know how long it would take Baka's task force to eradicate the virus, but it was coming. Soon. The sooner the better.

  He had been there to help usher in a new age and that was really something. Something to tell grandchildren if his work was common knowledge by then. Fact remains, a wise person knows when it's time to turn the page.

  He'd spent more than half his life saving to buy a vineyard while, at the same time, never really picturing himself as anything but a Black Swan knight. Thank providence that sometimes fate has a way of arranging change for you when you're too dumb to find the path on your own.

  He didn't know what he'd done to deserve a gorgeous witch who wanted to make love to him, make wine with him, and make a life with him, but, now when he turned the next page, he saw himself sharing a bed in a Sonoma Coast villa with a green eyed, demon's daughter. And this time he knew he'd got it right.

  In the darkness, lying on his back on a screen porch cot, listening to the rain that had turned into a quiet, soothing drizzle, he smiled at the ceiling.

  Life is good. Strange. But good.

  Sweet delicious Litha.