Ram leaned over her, backlit by the rising sun. His huge shoulders, packed with bulging muscles, were rigid as he held himself utterly still. He leaned down farther and kissed her, his mouth covering hers with a gentleness that made her eyes sting. The sweetness of it contrasted with the light taps of electric energy anywhere his fingers touched her. He kept kissing and licking until she sighed.
Then he swept into her mouth, tasting and stroking, sending new waves of desire through her. He reached down between their joined bodies and feathered his fingers over her clit. Wild energy, a mix of sizzling desire and his electric energy, shot through her. She felt her womb clench in response.
Breaking the kiss, he said, “Beautiful, Ginny. That’s my girl. You’re going to let go again for me. Just let go and feel everything I give you.” He kept stroking her clit and rolling his hips to press his erection deep within her.
She was completely surrounded and overwhelmed by him. It was easy to relinquish all she was to him, to give herself fully and completely to him. Everything in her began to tighten and spiral. It was hard to keep her eyes open, but she wanted to see him. Watch Ram as he crested and came apart. “You too. Want to watch you.” She wanted what he promised—this man imprinted on her soul so deeply no one could ever take the memory, this feeling of sweet, vulnerable intimacy, from her. She tried to wring all she could from this, from Ram, enough to last her forever.
His eyes flared with raw heat. He pushed up onto one hand, the muscles and veins bulging in that arm. He pulled his hips back and slammed back into her.
Again. Over and over. With every stroke he gave her, his face tightened, his muscles bulged, and untamed need blazed in him. “Now, Ginny,” he said in a voice so rough, it scraped over her nerves.
She shattered into spirals of pleasure.
Ram clamped down on her hip, riding her hard, a loud groan ripped from him as he slammed into her a final time and released. His faced filled with hot color, his chest heaved. For a brief second she thought she saw a flash of red streak across his chest.
But then Ram let go of her hip, slid his arms under her back, and lifted her to cradle her against his chest, while he continued to pulse and jerk where he was buried deep inside her. Her body answered with aftershocks of pleasure while feeling his hard arms holding her safe against him. Even the shocks from his fingers had stopped.
And Ginny let herself feel safe and cared for. Let herself know what that felt like for this one time.
For it would be her last, she knew it deep in her soul.
Chapter Five
Ram looked down at the woman in his arms, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders and a soft glow shimmering in the air around her.
She’d surprised the hell out of him. He’d known she was sexually innocent, yet she’d responded to him with wild passion.
Even with the fucked up electrical charges running though him.
She had liked the small zaps adding a little kick to her pleasure.
His Ginny was strong, physically and mentally. And she’d come to him when he had needed her most, giving him the most pleasure, the most intense experience he’d never known. Yeah, he knew why she had done it, knew that she had engineered it. But her response to him had been as real as it gets.
How the hell was he going to let her go? There was no future for them. Destiny had saddled him with half a soul, a witch who didn’t want him, and a pissed off thunderbird tattoo.
Ram set Ginny on her feet, stepped back and forced himself not to look at her body, only her eyes. “You deserve better than this, Ginny. So much more than I can give you.” He hated that, but he wasn’t going to lie to her.
The passion glaze in her eyes, and the flush on her face faded. She turned away, scooping up her clothes and dragging them on. Once dressed, she turned back to him, her gaze churning with conflict. “You don’t have to be nice, Ram. I set this up. Forced you to need me by sending you after those witches.”
In spite of his resolve, he reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. No spark, he guessed sex had drained off the charge for a while. But he was more concerned about her and softened his voice. “I figured that out.” He couldn’t be mad at her for that, and admired her willingness to do what she had to. More importantly, he’d never regret the moments he’d spent with her in his arms. “I understand you did what you had to do to save your brother. But it’s going to be harder for us to stay away from each other now.” He forced himself to lower his hand, to stop touching her. “Harder for me, anyway.” God, how was he going to see her and not touch her?
She shook her head. “My brother? Yeah, maybe that was the final straw. But I wanted you. I still want you.” She took a breath and said, “I don’t think I’ll ever stop wanting you.” Her gaze slid down, then froze on his chest. She reached out and gripped his arm. “Ram. Look.”
He dropped his gaze to the ink on his chest. He saw the familiar bronzed-colored thunderbird with his wings spread high and his eyes closed.
But the streak of lightning was new, hadn’t been there when he stripped down and dove into the pool. What the hell?
Ginny looked up at him. “I’ve seen your tat several times when you spar with Eli.” Looking back at the bird, she added, “This wasn’t there before we had sex.” She reached out, her slim finger touching the short, jagged red lines shooting out from one of the bird’s closed eyes.
He instinctively reached for her hand, not wanting her touching the new markings.
Ram heard a sizzle.
Ginny frowned, pulling her hand away.
Ram saw that where his fingers made contact with her skin, there were now faint black marks. They vanished a couple seconds later, but he recognized electrical burns when he saw them. “Damn it. I touched you a minute ago with no shock. The electricity recharged.” Faster and stronger than before.
“Look,” she said. “My hand is fine.” She held it up for him to inspect.
He saw the newly healed pink skin.
“But what about the lightning mark?” She gestured again to the red streak next to one closed eye of the tat. “What does it mean?”
A blast of hot anger sheered through his body. He ground his jaw, stepping back to keep from touching Ginny again. Glancing down again, he glared at the tat, at the loss of control over his body. His life. Hell, maybe even his soul. “The bird is waking. Getting stronger.”
“Oh Ram.” She lifted her gaze, her eyes filled with worry, and something else that was deeper than friendship. “Did I do that to you? Cause this thing to get worse?”
The way she looked at him, with such compassion, worry, caring, it all made him want her again. More than ever. She was addictive to him. Had been from the first time he saw her.
He remembered that day vividly; he’d arrived at her house, which was littered with the bodies of rogues Phoenix had killed. Eli had been shot in both thighs. Ginny was kneeling over him with a knife and tweezers. Her shirt had been sliced open, and she’d tied the loose tails together—, concerned about getting the bullets out of Eli’s thighs before the other hunter’s supersized healing ability closed up around them—not modesty.
Ram had walked over, put his hand on her shoulder and told her he’d take care of Eli’s wounds. She could go change and grab some clothes as he was taking them to a safe house.
She never hesitated as she worked, but just said, Either help keep Eli still or get out of my way. She finished the job of digging out both bullets, then she cleaned and wrapped the wounds. She wouldn’t let Eli so much as twitch until she was satisfied he would recover.
Seeing her like that—the mental toughness, her bloody shirt tied out of her way, not giving a shit about modesty or gore, but focused on the mission of saving Eli.
She’d been so damned hot.
And now she stood there wondering if she had hurt him? After fulfilling his greatest wish, his hottest fantasy since he’d met her? And left him craving more?
He shook his head. “Not you, Ginny. Never you.” He su
cked in a breath. “It’s the tattoo waking. The witches had said this would get worse, and it is.” He was turning into a human lightning rod. He’d given her what she needed to save her brother and she’d given him the best moments of his life. Now he had to end this.
Both for her safety from the increasing electrical currents running through him and because Ram had to stay in control more than ever now. Ginny was a threat to that, always had been, always would be. She made him feel, made him want more than he had a right to.
In his clearest voice, he added, “This is why there’s no future for us.”
She stared at him with misery clouding her eyes, then turned to walk to the edge of the pool, looking down into the still water. “It doesn’t matter. I know you have to go find your mate.”
Go after a witch who didn’t want him and beg her to mate with him? Assuming he didn’t lose control of the curse and kill her before he convinced her? Yeah, he’d get right on that just as soon as he amputated his own balls with a plastic knife. But more important to him at the moment was the sadness radiating from Ginny. He grabbed his shorts and tugged them on. Then he moved to her, reaching out to put his hands on her shoulders. Saw the sparks leap from his fingers and jerked his hands back. He used words instead of his touch. “Ginny, you’re the woman I would choose if I could. I wish I could give you a future, promise you a life like the other hunters have given their mates.”
“I don’t have a future, Ram,” she said quietly.
He froze at her words. “What do you mean?” A feeling he barely recognized, hadn’t felt since he was a teenager, rippled in his gut. This was about her father. He knew it. The fucker had ‘punished’ her. What else did he have in mind?
Something was wrong, very wrong. Moving closer, he kept his hands away from her but wrapped his arms around her waist and tugged her back against his chest. The snapping tension inside him eased with the feel her body pressed against his. “What then?” Would she tell him? He folded his arms around her as if he could protect her from whatever it was that threatened her future.
She rested her arms on his, her fingers stroking his wrists. “That night we kissed in the bar—I wanted you. I think I wanted you from the moment you strode into our house and tried to take over getting the bullets out of Eli.”
He assumed she was answering his question in her own way, so he gave her the space. “You had it under control.”
She tilted her head back, looking up at him. “Exactly. So you held his legs still and asked him questions to divert his attention from what I was doing. No one else sees me like you do, Ram.”
“Hot? Capable? Beautiful? Sexy?” Able to bring him to his knees like no other woman? Yeah, he kept that last thought to himself.
Her smile was bittersweet. “I wanted you, but I knew if I had sex with you, I’d fall for you.”
Regret stabbed him again. “Ginny, I don’t want to hurt you. I never wanted that.”
She dropped her gaze back to the pool. “Just listen. You asked me and I’m telling you. There is no future because having sex with you will set me onto the road to my destiny. When I’ve acquired enough of what my father wants from me, I’ll be pulled from this realm into his. Forever.”
Ram tightened his arms around her involuntarily. Deep in his chest, a hot emptiness spread, eating at his ability to even breathe. She’d be gone. He stared over her head at the water. Even though they weren’t destined to be together, the thought of never seeing her again nearly brought him to his knees.
What was her father that he could do this? Threaten this?
“Is there any way out? Can you stop him from taking you?” From him. Even though she wasn’t his. But that hadn’t stopped him from taking her body, had it?
He could blame the bloodlust. But the truth was simple. Ginny was the one he wanted.
The one who mattered.
Ginny took a deep breath. “No. He’ll destroy Eli. So I’ll give him what he wants.”
Ram dropped his face to press his cheek against her soft hair. “What does your father want?” He felt her shiver in his arms. He tried to steel himself for her answer.
“My emotions,” she said flatly. “Once I ascend, he will take every feeling I’ve ever had from me and assume them.”
“Take?” He had seen all kinds of sick shit in his life, including torture so cruel it shattered the victim’s mind. But this? “As in gone? Like all your memories wiped?”
“I’ll have my memory, just not the emotions attached to them. So…I’ll know Eli is my brother, that we shared the same mother. But I won’t feel it,” she said in a hollow voice. “I won’t love him anymore. He won’t matter.”
From the time he was fifteen, Ram had used discipline to control his emotions. Always. He made decisions based on information and facts, not his feelings. Losing control of his emotions meant losing control of the animal inside him. That’s what he’d believed.
But to have his emotionsstripped away?
The horror of it chilled him to the bone. He thought of his grandfather, the ex-military man who had been the constant in his life. His mom had come and gone, more dedicated to the Marines than her son. But the old man had been there. And when Ram had felt the first surge of the curse and gone after that witch with the knife in his hand, it had been his grandfather’s epic anger mixed with heartbroken disappointment that snapped Ram out of the bloodlust. Then it had been his tough love that helped Ram cope and find a way to control the monster inside him.
If he couldn’t feel those emotions anymore…
He’d be a monster.
Lifting his arms from around Ginny, he turned her to face him. “No. You can’t let him. He’ll destroy the very thing that makes you who you are.” It was her willingness to care so much that made Ginny so fucking special. He tried a new tactic. “Eli wouldn’t want you to do this, Ginny.”
Sadness filled her eyes as she stepped out of his hold. “He can’t stop it, Ram. Even if I refused and Eli is destroyed, my father can take me anytime he wants. I don’t have the power to prevent him. So I’ll give him what he wants and find a way to free Eli from his clutches.”
He stood there with empty rage filling his head as he tried to grasp the situation. “How can he do anything to Eli? Wing Slayer is Eli’s god.”
Her mouth tightened, then she said, “Wing Slayer’s not strong enough to stop him.” Ginny turned and walked toward the gate.
She was leaving. Ram didn’t think, he just asked, “Who the hell is your father?”
She glanced back. Her eyes began to glow with that internal light that turned her eyes to fiery emerald green. “An old and very powerful angel.”
Chapter Six
Ram slammed his fist into Linc Dillinger’s pretty face. They were sparring in the gym area of the warehouse that served as the headquarters of the Wing Slayer Hunters.
The other witch hunter reared back with the punch, spun with the momentum and thrust his elbow into Ram’s side.
He grunted as two ribs cracked. Shit, that hurt. He leapt, moving so fast he hit Linc with his body and pinned him to the mat before the other hunter reacted. Ram shoved his forearm against Linc’s throat. Sparks jumped from his fingertips, landing on the mat. The scent of burnt rubber mixed with their sweat. “Where did you disappear to last night?” Ram was in charge of sending out the full-fledged Wing Slayer Hunters, as well as the recruits to hunt for rogues. Linc had texted he was unavailable.
Ram didn’t go for that bullshit.
Linc’s light brown eyes took on a lion-amber tinge. “Fuck off, asshole.” He caught Ram’s legs in a scissor hold and flipped him. Followed that up with a fist to his jaw.
Ram ignored the pain radiating up his jaw and bouncing in his head and threw the man off him. Jack-knifing to his feet, he whipped around. “I can smell the sex pheromones pouring off you.” Witch hunters had cranked up sex drives thanks to the curse. Fortunately, they also had pheromones that attracted women. Since sex helped control the lust for w
itch blood, that was a good thing.
Normally.
But Linc had been soaked in witch blood a bit over two months ago and it had taken a massive amount of Roxy’s sex magic to save him from the bloodlust. But that slam of sex magic had left Linc a walking boner that no amount of sex eased for long.
Ram was the one who had recruited Linc. He’d trained the hunter, had been there when Wing Slayer finished the tattoo of the falcon on Linc’s back as their god accepted him. Ram wasn’t losing him now.
Snap. Crackle. His fingertips shed blue sparks. A thin wisp of smoke curled up from the mat.
Linc circled him, his eyes narrowing, his too-handsome face shifting into feral lines. “What’s that saying? The bigger the spark, the limper the dick?” Linc spun into a roundhouse kick.
Ram dropped into a crouch and kicked Linc’s anchor leg out from under the man.
Linc slammed down on his back.
Ram saw all the downed man’s muscles contract to shoot up to his feet and fight. Linc oozed money and charm until he fought. Then the James Bond veneer shattered, revealing the street fighter beneath. Linc would get up every damned time until death stopped him.
But Ram was a highly trained killing machine. He’d come up through the Navy SEALs, then retired into a branch of military so secret, even Sutton West’s hacking skills couldn’t find it.
Ram put his entire two hundred and fifteen pounds into a knee-drop right onto Linc’s solar plexus.
The other man managed a half grunt until every nerve in his body got the message and seized. He lay there frozen. Except for his eyes.
Ram saw death in Linc’s eyes. The man didn’t care if it was someone else’s death or his own. But Ram cared. He leaned in and said, “Sex isn’t a problem for me. But losing a friend? Not. Happening. I’m not going to let you get yourself killed or lose your soul.” He calculated about five more seconds before all Linc’s nerves came back online and he went into kill mode. “I’ll find out where you’re disappearing to and what you’re doing. And I’ll make damned sure your back is protected.” Time was up, so Ram threw himself back.
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