A Bite of Magick

by Rhyannon Byrd

  And their insufferable plan was working.

  So far, only Lachlan had been bonded, but already his abilities were increasing at an exponential rate. Whereas before he could control the wind with no more than a flick of his wrist, Kieran knew that he could now call a thunderous hurricane on little more than a whim. And though his skill as a warrior had always been fierce, there was no denying that he now possessed such mastery over his powers, it was difficult for others to spar with him. Not without ending up on their asses, their bodies aching and sore for days on end.

  These powers which he and his family shared—the power to control the elements and beyond—were not to be used lightly, a fact which only worried Kieran all the more. If he found his mate—his bith-bhuan gra—and his already incredible abilities grew in strength and intensity, how would he continue to control the feral side of his nature? Would it too feel the heady increase of power? And how would he keep that primitive side of himself from abusing such power?

  It was enough to drive a man—a Warlock even—mad in the way the worry could spiral upon itself in his mind, weaving deeper and deeper into his soul like an insidious sickness.

  And to top it all, he was hornier than hell. So randy he hurt from his soles to his scalp, his body one throbbing pulse of sexual agony. A first-class case of blue balls that would have made a normal man break down and cry, begging for absolution. It was a disgusting thought, though there were times when Kieran feared he wasn’t far from it.

  He hadn’t fucked in months. Months! And this from a man—well, Warlock—who never went more than a day or so without a hot, willing Witch to satisfy his physical needs. And pumping himself did no good. Just as Lach had been unable to drive himself to orgasm with the clench of his fist, neither could Kieran. All it did was increase the agony of having a dick in dire need of a serious distraction. Saephus, his cock was so fucking primed, he felt as if he’d blow his load at the first sight of slick, wet pussy—but he hadn’t let himself be tempted to try.

  The consequences were too damn dangerous. He’d barely escaped with Susie. Would have failed to, in fact, if not for her quick thinking and vicious temper. Not that he blamed her. Hell, he’d thank her for saving them both, were it not for the vow she’d taken to see him dead before ever speaking to him again.

  And to think he’d thought Lach had had it bad. Hell, having a cursed cock was nothing compared to this.

  As if he could read his mind, his cousin’s auburn brow rose above his clear green eyes. Lach stared at him from across their corner table in The Wicked Brew, a knowing grin breaking across his rugged face. “I told ya I’d be smiling like a jackass. And before you start in with your complainin’, let’s just remember who said he’d no’ have any objections when his own turn came along.”

  A low, beastly growl rumbled from Kieran’s throat, his big hands fisting and releasing in his lap, dark eyes bright with fury. The tips of his fingers tingled with the power of the beithíoch—the beast—a fact he refused to even dignify with acknowledgement. “It isna the bloody same and you know it. At least you had a choice! I canna even try to bed a lass unless I want to see myself bloody mated to her for all eternity. Look what almost happened with Suse!”

  At the mention of the name, Lach winced. Kieran wished his reaction could be as simple. Instead, the memory of that night flooded him with bone-chilling terror. After all, that was the night he’d almost found himself mated to a bitch of a Witch for all eternity.

  Saephus save him. He shuddered, and the jackass’ smile fell back into place. “What you need, cousin, is a new outlook on life.”

  Kieran snorted. “And why do I get the feeling this is another one of your bloody ideas that I’m no’ going to like the sound of?”

  The gods only knew there’d been enough of them over the years—like the time when they were randy teens and Lach had convinced him that sneaking into Katie Green’s bedroom for a midnight visit—after the pretty little seventeen-year-old had spent the entire day making eyes at him at her sister’s Binding Ceremony—was a sound idea. With Lach waiting on the lawn below, Kieran had used his power over the wind to elevate himself to the girl’s second-story balcony, snuck into the darkened room, and created a flickering sphere of flame upon his palm to help him locate the busty, beautiful Miss Green within her bed—hoping to find her waiting for him.

  Aye, it’d been a sound plan—right up to the point where he’d found himself standing face-to-face not with the blushing little brunette, but Angus Green, the girl’s Neanderthal father, who’d obviously known a hell of lot more about protecting his daughter than they’d known about planning seductions. It’d taken Angus but moments to convince Kieran that the bonny Katie was not to be pursued by what he called “those hound dog McKendricks”, and then he’d been promptly tossed right back out the bloody window.

  Hell, to this day Kieran could still remember how sore his backside was after landing on his blasted cousin, taking them both crashing down to the dew-covered lawn. He’d been too stunned to remember to use his power to soften the fall—a fact Lach had teased him about until his hotheaded temper had gotten the better of him. Before he knew it, he and Lach had been brawling across that cold, wet grass, laughing nearly as hard as they were hitting, until Angus had finally had enough of them and called the Council to come and collect them. But by that time, they’d already turned the man’s immaculate garden into a thundering, sopping mess as their powers broke free and rained down upon their brawling bodies—all in the name of good-natured fun.

  Of course, neither of them had thought it was fun when they’d been forced to spend the next two weeks of their winter break putting everything back to rights—without the use of their Magick. It’d been a lesson that the Council had struggled to make them all understand as they grew into men—to control one’s Magick and never carelessly leak it out upon the lives of others.

  “Why do you get that feeling?” Lach repeated with a low chuckle, suddenly snagging Kieran’s attention back to the present. “Maybe because you know me so well?”

  Kieran couldn’t help it. His cousin’s look of marital enchantment was pissing him off, and he knew better than most that when he was mad, he was dangerous. It was just one of the many things that made him so good at what he did, protecting other Magicks from those who would cause his kind harm. He was well-trained and an expert soldier. Damn it, he should’ve been able to handle Lach’s teasing, but the bloody bastard had been grinning for months now, while all he wanted to do was rage at the blasted futility of his situation. “I’m going to have to tell Evan to stop loving you so well,” he all but snarled. “I swear you’re no’ fit to live with anymore.”

  Lach shook his head, his eyes sparking with mischief despite Kieran’s threatening tone. “If I dinna know better, I’d say you sound just a mite jealous.”

  Well, hell. That stung. But what Warlock in his right mind wouldn’t want what Lach had found? The kind of connection that went deeper than fantastic sex—that made you practically glow no matter if you were talking or screwing? And to have found it with a woman like Evan Hayes, McKendrick now, seemed more good fortune than a Warlock could ever hope for—no matter that the lass was mortal. Certainly more than Kieran could ever dream of having. What woman in her right mind would tie herself to him for all eternity? Hell, even Susie had been horrified by the idea.

  The night he’d spent in her bed—in her body—thundered through his mind again, and he wondered if he’d ever forget the horror of feeling so out of control. Thank Saephus her Magick had been powerful enough to stop him when he’d been in such a weakened state, the unexpected change having momentarily sapped his strength, because Kieran wasn’t entirely certain he’d have had the presence of mind to hold back. The beast had controlled him, and he’d been utterly at the mercy of its wants…its hungers.

  He couldn’t believe what they’d done to him, though it hadn’t taken a genius to figure out the finer details of the Council’s curse. Of course, he hadn’
t been in the frame of mind to reason out his shoelaces, much less a bloody nightmare come to life. His hands settled around his thick mug with a grimace, his mind replaying the events after he’d shifted, his tattered clothes blown through her room, and Susie blasting him to perdition with her virulent rage. He recalled how he’d leapt off her balcony and raced through the shadows to Lach. He’d been thankfully concealed in the blanketing darkness of the night, hidden from the eyes of the gnach, though their dogs had howled from one end of Edinburgh to the other.

  When he’d finally made his way to Lach and Evan’s rear garden, he’d tossed stones up to the second-story bedroom window, until the man had eventually opened it. His cousin’s skin had been flushed, his auburn hair sweaty around his strong features, as if he’d been reluctantly pulled away from the sybaritic pleasures of his marriage bed.

  Kieran would have never believed his cousin’s absolute devotion to one woman unless he’d seen it with his own eyes—and it was now a fact he witnessed every day of his life. As Susie had said, “that man’s cock has been staked for good.” And it had.

  What cosmic ass the man had kissed to get such an incredible woman, Kieran would have loved to know. Hell, he’d probably be the first in line with his lips puckered up, ready to lay one on.

  That night, Lach had looked down to the pacing…monster trampling his wife’s daffodils, and immediately rushed downstairs. By the time he’d walked into the unearthly stillness of the garden, Kieran was already retaking his original shape, shivering and cold, thankful for the clothes and blanket his cousin had thought to bring along…and desperate for answers.

  He should have been able to figure it out on his own, but he’d had one hell of a night, and the changing always left him disorientated and somewhat dizzy. Thankfully his cousin had been more capable of reasoning than he.

  Lach had brought him into the warm, cozy kitchen and put on some much needed coffee. Then, at his suggestion, Kieran had explained the events in Susie’s bedroom with rough, short bursts of words spoken between his laboring breaths.

  Wearing nothing more than a well-worn pair of Levi’s, Lach had taken a moment to talk with Evan on the intercom, poured two steaming cups of the daily blend from The Wicked Brew, all the while going over the events Kieran had relayed in graphic detail. Settling his big body back in one of several wide oak chairs situated around the rectangular breakfast table, he’d finally sighed and said, “It must be the bite.”

  Kieran’s normally black eyes had still shone like liquid silver over the rim of his dark blue mug, the thick pottery betraying the slight shaking of his hands. “The bite?” he’d grunted, struggling to follow his cousin’s thinking through the sluggish, dizzying mess of his mind.

  Lach had nodded, rubbing one large palm against the rough auburn stubble covering his cheeks and chin. “Aye, the bite. You said yourself that the moment you changed you wanted to mark her. That’s never happened before.”

  Kieran had snorted. “True, but I’ve never been riding a lass when I changed before either. And it isna bloody likely I would’ve ever gone around trying to mark someone in the heat of battle, which is the only time I’ve ever made the change, now is it?”

  “Aye, but I know of others with Serena’s Lupine Blood Curse, and they manage to fuck without marking every Cailleach they come across, no pun intended. I’d say your desire to bite…to mark her, was definitely the Council’s doing.”

  “There’s just one flaw with your theory,” he’d snarled, his voice lowering to a coarse tangle of sound, “and it’s pretty easy to see, even to someone as scramble-headed as I am right now. No matter how you look at it, there’s no fucking chance in hell that Susie MacIntyre is my bith-bhuan gra! So why in the hell would I want to mark her as my mate—a life mate, for Saephus’ sake? I’d rather be bonded to a bloody collie!”

  A small twitch had twisted the corners of Lach’s mouth, but to his credit, he hadn’t smiled. A fact that had most likely saved him from a black eye…or two, so fierce had Kieran’s temper raged. Instead, Lach had taken a slow sip of his coffee, using his Magick to warm the mug between his palms as the drink began to cool, and explained his theory. “You’re assuming that the curse merely consists of a bite to your mate, but there has to be more to it than that. I think the Council has outdone itself on this one, knowing how hard we tried to break my own.”

  “So then they’ve upped the stakes, is what you’re saying. Lucky me.”

  “Well, they’ve sure as hell made it more complicated,” Lach had murmured, his sharp mind obviously working its way around a conclusion.

  “Something tells me I’m no’ going to like hearing this, but by all means, enlighten me.” Kieran had leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the gleaming surface of the table, his eyes so hot Lach had been amazed when he didn’t singe. “And then I’m going to track down those crazy old bastards and bloody well kill them, starting with my Da!”

  Lach had ignored the heated threat, recognizing its source all too well, and continued with his explanation. “We know that the curse calls upon your already existing Lupine one.”

  Kieran had slumped back in his chair with a heavy thud. “Yay for me.”

  “Sarcasm is going to get you nowhere, cousin.”

  Laying his black head back on the chair, he’d blown out a long breath of frustration. “Neither is fucking, apparently.”

  “Yeah, and thanks to the curse, you’re going to shift when you fuck, whether you want to or not. That’s the first part. The second, no doubt deals with the bite. In your Lupine shape, you’re going to be compelled…driven…to bite the woman beneath you, whoever she may be, marking her for life.”

  “So what the bloody hell does this have to do with my soul mate? Shit, I nearly marked Suse!”

  Lach had shaken his head. “No…I dinna think it would have come to that. Suse was, in a way, just a warning. I wouldna be surprised if they chose to introduce the curse tonight with her, knowing her Magick would be strong enough to fight you off long enough to allow her escape. Did Iain know you were going to see her tonight?”

  Kieran’s look had been so hostile, it would have cowered a lesser Warlock. “Aye, he knew. The miserable, cock-sucking asshole!”

  A slow smile had lifted Lach’s lips. “That’s no way to be talking about your own father.”

  “Then cover your ears, cousin, because it’s about to get worse.”

  “Och, you’ve time to curse him plenty later. Right now, you need to think about the one element of this situation you’ve yet to figure out.”

  Kieran’s shoulders had slumped. “Considering the rest of it, I dinna think I want to know.”

  “You already do.”

  Kieran had lifted a questioning brow.

  “You said it yourself, Suse is no’ the one.”

  “Aye,” Kieran had slowly replied, wondering where his cousin was going with this.

  “So, man, the logical conclusion is that you’ve got to find her.”

  “Her?”

  Lach had leaned forward. “Before you sink back inside a woman, you sure as hell better make sure you’ve got the right one.”

  “So then this whole fucking curse nonsense is just a way to ensure I dinna fuck anyone until I find her? I’ve got to be bloody faithful to a woman I dinna even know?”

  “Not yet anyway, but I think that’s the gist of it. They’re probably hoping that the break in your endless line of meaningless affairs will give you the chance to notice her once you finally find her.”

  “Shit.”

  “And there’s still one more thing you’ve yet to think about.”

  “Christ, what’s that?”

  The corner of Lach’s mouth had twitched again. “When you find her, you sure as hell better hope she likes her men with fangs and fur.”

  At his cousin’s words, Kieran had deflated in his chair once more, looking as if the world had just been pulled out from beneath his feet. “Well, hell.”

  “Aye, cousin. I im
agine it will be.”

  That was how he found himself here, three months later, cursing the miserable day he’d been born. And it was all such a depressing, useless waste of time. Whatever his family’s hopes, Kieran knew there was going to be no happily ever after waiting around the corner for him. Not unless it had four legs and peed in the woods.

  A sudden, surprising chuckle escaped his lips, and he shook his head of black hair, wondering how he could find humor in such a morbid situation. Hell, maybe Lach was right. Maybe he really was stark raving mad. At this point, it wouldn’t surprise him.

  Shit, nothing would surprise him.

  Or so he thought, until he caught a scent in the air that had his head spinning, the blood in his veins suddenly pumping in a hot, heavy rhythm, like the sensual beat of a heavy jungle drum. Boom. Boom. Boom. The air in his lungs felt thick as well, as if he breathed through a veil of fog, and he could have sworn mist formed around the edges of his vision. His skin burned, alive with sensation, and he shivered as beads of sweat snaked down his spine.

  What…the…fuck…was…that?

  He turned, and it felt as if the bottom of his world fell out, only to be replaced with something so spellbinding, it hurt just to look at it. Through the haze in his mind, he could hear Lach talking to him, but the words were nothing more than an unwanted commotion—a graffiti of sound that threatened to shatter the pure perfection of the moment.

  “Shut up,” he growled, and Lach’s sharp laugh echoed back in response.

  “You might want to shut your mouth before you start panting,” his cousin drawled behind him, clearly amused by the situation. “It’s generally considered impolite to drool on women—unless, of course, you’re in the midst of something that requires a bit of skilled drooling.”

  “I’m no’ bloody drooling on her,” he managed to grunt, completely unable to drag his black gaze away from the vision on the other side of the bustling café.

  The door had only just pulled shut behind her, its heavy weight ensuring that it never remained open to allow the warm heat to escape from within the cozy confines of the store.