Anya’s heart broke again in that instant and tears filled her eyes, as she was momentarily robbed of breath. She had to get out of here, she had to use her powers to blink herself to another location, but the poison in the dart already made its way through her bloodstream, completely incapacitating her.
The scene of the car crash faded before her eyes as stars danced throughout her vision. A black canopy would soon settle over her.
She’d been duped by one of his mystical illusions. She should have known it was an illusion for the little old lady still stood selling her wares as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
Had a tragic crash really just happened the older woman and the little old lady would have been trying to help. She was so stupid; she had been so easily fooled.
“Curse you straight to hell, Damien. I’ll get you back for this, I swear I will.”
“I’m sure you will, my darling girl,” he murmured, collecting her into his arms. “Your revenge will have to be served cold, sweetheart, because right now, I’m taking my wife home.”
Chapter Two
Damien brushed Anya’s black hair off her forehead and waited for the car to arrive at Silver Gables. Silver Gables was a thirty-minute car flight from New Salem City. Situated in the most picturesque part of Shadow Flare County, it had its own lake and a river, extensive hunting grounds and several silver mines.
He’d purchased it for Anya after learning that Ebony once lived on a portion of the land. Her modest house, also named Silver Gables, had been built a short distance away from the stunningly beautiful lake that sparkled like the finest aquamarines during the day.
Gregory burned that house to the ground and confiscated the land during the Bloodbayne Terror. Damien purchased it after Gregory’s death, and now the entire estate was a working one where he employed hundreds of men and women.
Damien owned many other properties on Vanguard Prime including several mines that produced a variety of rare gems, not to mention the Mercia Crystal Mines. The early settlers had discovered the crystals and learned that they were an invaluable clean energy source.
One crystal could keep New Salem City powered for one year without changing it, and outside of Vanguard they fetched a bloody fortune, which made him one hell of a rich man.
In total, the estate grounds surrounding Silver Gables covered an area of about sixty thousand acres, and as such it was the largest estate in New Mercia. He held no guilt when it came to Silver Gables as he hadn’t used any Asher money to buy it, only Forsythe money, which he felt was the right thing to do. Considering the fact that the Asher fortune was ill-gotten.
Damien wanted to woo Anya back into his heart and the first step to doing that was pissing her off to no end. If he had to endure her wrath when the drug in the dart finally wore off then he’d have to go through a few minutes of temper tantrum hell.
Hopefully, the payoff would be worth the cost and he’d be able to keep her from blowing him up until the hard shell around her heart softened.
He had to give her props for the ingenuity she’d displayed by taking Stopper’s place. He hadn’t seen through her charade until lunch time when she’d brought him a meal that Stopper never would have brought him.
The man thought he should eat healthy while Anya didn’t care about his health at the moment and so therefore had brought him one of his favorite guilty pleasures—a bacon mushroom cheeseburger with ooey gooey poutine fries accompanied by a delectable butter tart for dessert.
Such a small slip-up and yet it had been her ultimate undoing. As soon as she’d brought him the absolutely delicious lunch and left his office he’d covertly set his plans in motion.
“I love you, Anya,” he murmured.
Her eyelids fluttered erratically as if she’d heard him through her deep slumber. He’d been advised that the drug in the dart would keep her under for at least an hour and that was taking in the supernatural power that ran through her blood.
The Bloodbaynes were a powerful coven of witch hunters. In fact, they were the original and oldest order of witch hunters. His grandfather, Dexter Asher, and his Great Uncle Bradley had once been prized members, as had their father, Gregory Asher before them. Unfortunately, his family tree was full of the ruddy buggers.
He knew how to make up the drug in the dart but thought he should leave it to the professionals since his witch hunting days were long behind him. As soon as he’d claimed Anya for the first time, he’d realized in that blissful instant that he could never go back to the hunt even though he only hunted those who used dark magic.
Before his death, his father had systematically gone about freeing all of the witches and warlocks his grandfather had enslaved in his heyday.
Despite the fact that Earth had finally intervened during the Bloodbayne Terror, they had not punished Dexter Asher for his misdeeds, nor had they freed the slaves. Instead they had instructed Damien’s father, Daniel Forsythe, to set everything to rights as he had been given the responsibility of leading Vanguard into a peaceful era.
An elected government now ran the planet and therefore made sure that the dreadful deeds of the past were never repeated.
Though his grandfather’s actions repulsed him deeply, it was his paternal great-grandfather who had been even worse. Gregory sired and molded his grandfather and uncle into being psychopathic witch hunters.
It still confounded him on how his great-aunt Blanche could be such a sweetheart when she’d been raised by such a vile and emotionless monster.
Gregory Asher had been a devil of a man; pure brimstone must have been in his blood for it had been he who had decided to put disobedient slaves to the stake, resurrecting an atrocity from Earth’s ancient past that never should have been visited upon one of its colonized planets.
He alone had been the driving force behind Dexter and Bradley’s evil deeds. He had been the one who had signed Ebony’s death warrant. Dexter and Bradley hadn’t wanted to kill Ebony. Instead they’d wanted her for a sex slave, so they could force her to give them pleasure while also benefiting from her strong gift over the magical arts.
Damien knew Anya secretly wondered if he could be capable of such vile deeds and he only hoped to convince her that he would never dream of casting that much suffering upon innocents.
He would seduce the fight out of her and prove to her through his lovemaking that she’d wed a prince, and not a monster of a man who cared only for his own selfish gain.
His father had cemented their financial security by falling in love with his mother—at the time, he hadn’t realized she was an heiress from Earth. When he married her, she’d convinced him to give all of the Asher fortune to those who had suffered so cruelly at their hands.
Damien could only pray that he could make both of his parents proud by continuing their good deeds and therefore cleansing the bad karma that his great-grandfather’s actions caused his descendants by doing all he could for the families who had suffered at the tyrannical hands of the Asher family.
Damien prayed that Anya would welcome him back into his heart and that together they could rid the universe of the witch hunters who went after witches and warlocks like Anya, instead of going after those who darkly twisted the craft to cause agony to others and so therefore deserved the wrath of the witch hunters.
As his chauffeur pulled up to the enchanting plantation house he’d called Silver Gables, he got out of the limo and reached back in for his lady love.
She was still in a comatose state and he had about ten minutes before she awoke like a raving she-devil. She had the temper of a demoness when she was riled but inside she had the heart of an angel. He desperately wanted that angel’s bliss again. He’d had enough of the she-devil’s burning wrath, for when her temper was up and her powers were on fire her eyes lit with garnet-colored flames that could only be compared to the flames of hell.
He sometimes wondered if that was what she was, if she’d been sent by a divine force to stand against those who would do evil t
hings to the people who could not or would not fight back against their oppressors.
He cradled her lovingly in his arms and proceeded to walk up the steps to the front door. Having her in his arms made him all the more certain of his actions up to this point. He couldn’t exist without her. He couldn’t live his life without her in it. From the first moment they’d met, he’d known she was his only reason for being. When she regained consciousness he would have one hell of an angry witch on his hands and while most men wouldn’t be looking forward to that, he anticipated it greatly. Watching Anya with her anger riled and her magic activated made his heart thrill.
The staff he kept at Silver Gables could be trusted for their discretion, and he knew that whatever kind of hell Anya unleashed it would never leave the hallowed halls of the house he’d built for his beloved bride.
His butler whisked the door open and gave him his usual brusque greeting. The stern and anxious gaze he cast toward his mistress caused Damien the slightest bit of alarm. He hoped that Reeves didn’t try to help Anya. He didn’t need him to complicate an already convoluted state of affairs!
“No matter what the house staff hears, Reeves, I want complete and utter privacy until we ring for someone, is that clear?”
“Crystal clear, sir. I will make sure that everyone minds their own business. In fact, I’ll keep them busy cleaning out the entire downstairs until it’s time to retire to bed. As none of us are charmed in the ways of magic like you and the missus it will take them a mighty long time to get everything cleaned to my and Mrs. Reeves’ standards.”
“Very good, Reeves, wish me luck,” he said, winking at his butler he walked up the winding flight of steps to the massive master suite.
Anya started stirring in his arms before he got the bedroom door shut. She fluttered her eyelids open and looked at him with a slightly woozy look in her dark eyes. Gradually, he watched her become fully alert. Confusion in her gaze turned to all-out holy hell ferocity.
He was in for it now!
* * * * *
Anya’s stomach did a nosedive as pent-up rage sliced through her body like a knife. The anger was so powerful it literally caused her bodily pain. She stared up at him, and struggled to decide whether she should go into a full-out rampage against him or simmer slowly until the time was right for her to boil over.
As she wasn’t one to take her time to do anything she only had one true option, she had to do him a solid and show him that he never should have kept things from her—he should have told her he had Asher blood running through him when they first met on that cold rainy day one year ago.
“I thought we’d have our wedding night you denied me here instead of on the planet you originally wanted to visit for our honeymoon.” His voice was calm almost as if he was attempting to ignore everything that had gone on between them in the months since their wedding day.
She almost got lulled along with him into his make-believe reality. His deep, melodious voice always had that power over her. Since the day she’d met him he’d been able to mesmerize her just by opening his mouth.
“Put me down,” she ordered, her voice quivering with emotion. She clamped her mouth shut and fought uselessly against grinding her teeth together in frustration.
“If I put you down, will you act like a grown-up instead of behaving like the petulant child you’ve been acting like for the last few months?”
Anger shot through her in a renewed hot flash. How dare he call her a child! Did he think she was acting out because she hadn’t been happy with her overly extravagant wedding?
The kind of grand affair she’d railed against. The kind of affair she’d begged him not to throw for her. Instead he’d gone against her wishes and lavished her with everything any bride’s heart could ever desire. The only problem was she wasn’t any bride. She’d been taught the true meaning of what really mattered in life.
Her mother had stressed to her that it wasn’t the materialistic things in life they needed but the people—and by people, she had meant family. Growing into a woman without her mother, father and grandfather put that in perspective for Angelica.
Anya only wished that Damien could understand that. Maybe he just couldn’t fathom the kind of deep love that drove Ebony to sacrifice herself for Angelica…and if that was the case, he could never love Anya the way she yearned to be loved.
If he simply thought of her as his possession, their marriage could never work even if she could reconcile herself to the prospect of being married to a man with Asher blood running through his veins.
And yet, she hadn’t been angry with him for going against her wishes concerning their wedding. She’d instead taken it in her stride, thinking he wanted her to have a gushy reaction. She gave him the reaction he’d wanted because she thought it was important for him to have a huge shindig, instead of a nice small intimate affair.
Only when she’d discovered that his grandfather was the infamous Dexter Asher and had been one half of the Asher Brothers had she lost it totally and completely.
If they hadn’t already been declared husband and wife and witch and warlock, she would have left him at the altar. As it was, she left him at the reception because she couldn’t bear to look at his Auntie Blanche. She still bore the surname of Asher despite being a widow.
According to Damien, when his father married his mother he took his mother’s maiden name as his own, turning them into Forsythes instead of Ashers in a bid to cleanse the family karma.
Regardless, Damien seemed all too fond of his great-aunt and that unsettled her deeply. He had muttered something about his aunt not being like the rest of her family, and he claimed to have a cousin who wasn’t a bad egg as well even if she too, still bear the Asher name.
She supposed he meant Blanche had been a black sheep and maybe she had been the one who had steered the family back to the side of good—she hadn’t waited long enough for Damien to get to that part, so she filled in the gaps the way she wished it to be.
Her mother survived the hysteria concerning the witches and warlocks on Vanguard thanks to Ebony’s sacrifice, and eventually she’d escaped the Colony for the peaceful haven of Earth.
It had been a tough journey for her and she’d almost been sold once again into the slave trade—this time, however, she would have been a pleasure slave instead of a labor slave.
Once Anya had been old enough to hear it, Angelica had told her about the sexual abuse she’d endured as a house slave on a Vanguard Plantation, and that no matter what she could not go back to that kind of life.
Her saving grace came in the form of Anya’s father. He’d been a smuggler and though his morals were twisted slightly, he had never supported the Black Market Intergalactic Slave Trade, and when he’d found her mother hiding on his ship, he’d done all in his power to keep her safe and disable the collar on her neck that had kept her powers inactive.
Angelica fell madly in love with Alexander Redgrave because, as she’d told Anya, he was unlike any other man she’d ever encountered. He didn’t want to use her for her body. Instead, he was quite happy with getting to know who she was as a person first.
Moreover, he wasn’t threatened by the prospect of her being a witch with the freedom to use her powers as she saw fit. He’d even done all he could to get the collar off her. Once he’d freed her of the vile article, he’d stepped back and allowed her to have free range as a witch.
She’d told Anya he sometimes didn’t understand her abilities. And at times they’d caused him some grief, but he’d never wanted her to change for him and that was what she wanted Anya to find, a man who could accept her for who and what she was with no resentment or inhibitions.
Once her mother’s powers were released, no man could ever do her harm again. She’d changed in the years she’d spent as a powerless slave and emerged a much more cynical and bitter person when it came to the outside world.
The only men she’d ever trusted were Anya’s father and his brother. Anya often wondered how he
r mother would react to Damien if she and her father hadn’t been swept away into the wild and unchartered sector of space known as the Badlands six years ago.
“You are the one who should be down on your knees before me, Damien. You made me fall in love with you while knowing that I would never be able to continue loving the person you truly are.”
Her voice broke with emotion, hot tears were going to start streaming down her face any minute now and she couldn’t hold them back no matter how hard she tried. She’d been afraid of this. She knew she had the possibility of losing it this way—her mother had always told her she was too much like her father. She’d told her that her emotions ruled her judgment and that in order to see things clearly, she had to control her heart and use only her brain.
Anya inherited her father’s lust for adventure and his uneven temper, which included having devilish mood swings and wearing her heart on her sleeve. Her mother, bless her, tried to steer her away from being a mercurial creature and she’d insisted that Anya be raised with her feet firmly on Earth’s soil until she’d reached the age of sixteen.
When she’d turned sixteen, her father whisked both her and her mother away to the stars and he’d showed Anya his world. In doing so, he’d opened her heart to another life. Still, she preferred the existence her mother crafted for her and she would pick a life on solid ground over artificial gravity any day.
Fortunately for her, her father’s hand in her life taught her how to be fleet of foot, sleight of hand, and eagle eyed, while also being crafty when it came to knowing how to evade anyone pursuing her. Her mother’s influence gave her the magical ability to be an independent woman as she was able to defend herself against any bodily threat.
Feeling Damien’s piercing gaze, she returned her attention to him. He hadn’t stopped looking at her with love in his eyes. Why couldn’t he be as angry as she was…he’d drugged her, god dammit!
“My darling wife, if you want me on my knees in front of you, just give me the word. I would love to pleasure you with my mouth. Your sweet pussy pleases me greatly.”
Warlock's Charm Page 3
