The COMPLETE Witching Pen Series, Boxed Set

by Dianna Hardy

  Elena attempted an optimistic smile, and was pretty sure she failed. This was bad. “What exactly do you remember?”

  “Everything, Elena.” Her tone was hushed. “I remember Elizabeth’s excitement at moving to Scotland; her missing London, but being so happy to be starting out somewhere new. It was like a great big adventure. I remember hiking – we both loved hiking – but he was crap at navigating, so I was always the one with the map. I remember our wedding day…” Her voice trailed off. “And before then. We were childhood sweet … er, friends. We were at school together. We were fifteen when World War II peaked, and so terrified we’d get evacuated and separated. Luckily, it never happened. We got married at eighteen. So young…”

  Elena wondered if Amy was aware that ‘Elizabeth’ had become ‘I’ and ‘we’. Oh, boy. No wonder she had been bordering on crazy over the past week – this was beyond insane.

  The woman knitted her eyebrows together, and shook her head, her blonde hair swishing from side to side. “The only thing I don’t remember, is killing myself.”

  Elena shivered. “Okay, I know you’re identifying, but if you could not speak of Elizabeth killing herself in the first person, I’d be grateful.”

  Her mouth quirked up in a sad smile. “Kinda fucked up, huh?”

  “Kinda.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  “I feel like I’m grieving.”

  “You sort of are. You said these memories are as if they happened yesterday?”

  Amy nodded. “I suppose because I’ve just got them, they seem so fresh. I feel like I’ve just lost him,” she whispered, then looked guiltily at Elena.

  “It’s okay. After everything you’ve just said, I guess you have technically lost a husband. The good news is that grief doesn’t last forever, right? So maybe you just need to go through a period of mourning before coming out the other side.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And in the meantime, just take things slowly with Pueblo. He’s not going anywhere, and he’s crazy about you.”

  “Slowly? Isn’t the world supposed to be ending within the next three months?”

  “Oh, yeah. Guess you’re fucked then.”

  Amy snorted, and both women laughed.

  “Thanks, Elena. I do feel better having talked about it.”

  “Any time. Are you going to tell Pueblo about this?”

  “I want to. I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to mention it.”

  “Hmmm, don’t do it in this house – Karl values his antiques.”

  “Elena, try not to be too hard on him.”

  “Pueblo?”

  “Your grandfather.”

  She couldn’t stop her entire body stiffening in response. “I can’t forgive him for anything, Amy. He wanted me wiped off the face of the earth.”

  “He was different before I … er, Elizabeth died. Completely different. Imagine the love of your life dying in your arms, only to be brought back to life… Bloody hell, Elena, you’ve been there, and you almost destroyed the world.”

  She crossed her arms in defiance, but said nothing.

  “Now imagine, if the minute you got Karl back, he was suddenly taken from you again, but by some means you thought couldn’t even be real – that in order to understand how you lost him, you had to believe in the impossible.”

  “All right, I get your point,” she snapped. “But getting it is a giant leap from being all okay with it.”

  “I’ll never be okay with it. Forgiving him doesn’t justify his actions, but it does mean you can work past it … it means you can heal … and … love.”

  She looked at her quizzically. Is she talking about me or herself? “Are you in love with him?”

  Amy started.

  Karl strode into the kitchen with his mobile phone. “Pueblo’s just texted. He’s on his way—ooh.” He stopped mid-track and stared at them apologetically. “I’ve walked in on something, haven’t I?”

  “Nope,” smiled Amy, “we’re done. Thanks, Elena.”

  “No problem.” Although I’m not convinced this is over.

  She turned to her soulmate as Amy walked out of the room.

  “Everything okay?” asked Karl.

  “Is it ever?”

  He threw her a wry grin, and kissed her on the top of her head. “Point well made, darling.”

  Chapter Six

  She’d never thought it was actually possible to drown in someone’s kisses – it was just a figure of speech. Only, it turned out that that wasn’t true – sort of like her entire existence really.

  Mary’s body was wound as tight as a coil. She was either going to snap or spring. Amid the tussle of tongues and grasping hands (and she had no idea whose hands belonged to whom anymore), she was aware that every inch of her was buzzing with arousal. She had too many cuts, too many nicks and grazes, too many welts and scratches, all vying for attention, and they did for her what a vibrator might do for anyone else. Far too focused on her survival, she hadn’t realised that her body had been seeking some kind of release. Of course, now that the promise of release was present – so suddenly and ferociously – she couldn’t damn well control it. She could feel herself spiralling.

  “Gwain…” She tried to pull back, but he gripped her under her knees and tugged upwards, before his demanding mouth found hers again.

  Her legs fastened around his waist. He hoisted her up a bit, then pressed her further into the wall, all her weight now on him. Behind his jeans, his erection pinned her between her open thighs, teasing her with the rough denim, and she swore she could feel the cool metal of the zip right on her clit. A sound erupted from her – something between a whimper and a moan.

  He positioned his hips so her legs were forced wider apart, then his teeth scraped the cut on her lip.

  She jolted against him, her senses going haywire, and this time it was his turn to moan, although his moan sounded more like the rumble of an avalanche. It resonated throughout her entire being. Oh, God, she was going to lose it.

  His hand moved from the curve of her bottom to her very wet and aching sex.

  She caught his wrist. “Too fast.”

  “Fast is good,” he mumbled hoarsely.

  “Because we have to get out of here?” She quivered, fighting her building climax.

  “No.” His eyes met hers, and all her defences fell to ground at the unbridled need she saw in them. “Because I’ve waited a hundred centuries for you – don’t make me wait any longer.”

  He drove his fingers deep inside her.

  “Christ!” she cried out, immediately tightening around him. “I can’t—”

  He stilled.

  She almost died on the spot; almost clawed at his face again, this time in anger and frustration.

  “Ymari,” he whispered. And everything stopped at the utterance of her name – everything. “Beidhein tu bleden a’iama?”

  The silence rang heavy around the cave, as if every creature, living or dead, awaited her reply. His words were in some archaic language she assumed was the Old Tongue, and yet something inside her had come to a halt at their intonation. Something inside her had come alive. And she wasn’t surprised that that something also knew exactly what he’d just said. Will you bleed for me? translated the all-knowing voice in her head. And it hit her hard, that it was the first time anyone had asked her permission. She had always been the one who offered, asked, begged, pleaded, and mutilated herself. Although she’d never bled against her will – at least not until Satan’s little performance – she’d also never considered it her free choice to cut herself; not when her sanity hung in the balance.

  And here Gwain was, asking her permission.

  His eyes held hers in a voiceless plea – steel grey forging with tropical blue. When she opened her mouth, she knew the ‘something’ inside her that knew what was going on, would speak for her, so she let it, her voice seeming to come from some other dimension, just as
it had earlier when she’d gone into her alpha state.

  “Isa,” she uttered. Yes.

  Whoa.

  She briefly wondered if she’d just got married, then his lips were crushing hers once more, and he was thrusting his fingers inside her, adeptly, and furiously fast, somehow managing to find sensitised sweet spots no one had before – so fucking sweet…

  Without warning, he bit her wound, and he bit it hard, breaking skin quickly and cleanly.

  She wailed in momentary agony, then her body trembled, and her orgasm took her over. The fiery bliss ricocheted throughout her, intensified only by the painful pull on her lip as Gwain drank her blood. The sounds he was making suggested he was in his own ecstatic place … and then she saw it through her lust-hazed eyes. The glow. He glowed. Bright white. She couldn’t tell where on his person the light emanated from, but she could see that his wings were mending. Charred skin fell, new tissue formed, new feathers grew, and then the oddest thing happened.

  As if she’d become her own blood cells, she felt herself pulled and jerked, and then suddenly, she was completely in Gwain’s body. She could feel his wings growing and healing as if they were her own, and damn it if she didn’t feel she was the one healing. That was all she had time to take in before the sensation ended and she was back in her own form, coming down from her almighty climax.

  Holy fuck! That had not happened when Abaddon had drunk her blood.

  Gwain still had her fastened to the wall with his weight; still moved inside her.

  Despite her release, a burdening longing grew from within. She tugged at his belt buckle. “I need you. I need to taste you.”

  He lapped up the last of the blood that her tortured lip offered, and gently licked the wound before placing a final kiss on it. “Not here; not now.”

  “No fair.”

  “I know.”

  She pressed her hand into his abdomen, then slipped it inside the waistband of his jeans.

  He let out a throaty sound as she found his rock hard cock, and ran her hand along the length of it.

  And what a mighty impressive length, Jesus Christ.

  “I want this inside me,” she said as she gripped him.

  His head fell against the crook of her neck as he sucked in his breath between his teeth. “Mary, stop.”

  She had half a mind not to, but it was a rebuff, and it wasn’t the first time he’d done it.

  That all too familiar sense of rejection snaked its way into her system, and she released him. “Maybe you’d better remove your hand too,” she stated, surprised and annoyed at how hurt she felt.

  Instead, he dug himself deeper inside her, making her gasp. His eyes blazed with frustration. “God damn it, don’t you do this. You have no idea how badly I want you right now. I’d love nothing more than to bury myself inside you, and feel you lose yourself around me as you scream my name; the very idea of fucking the woman I love, finally, after ten thousand years – of having you feel just what it is you mean to me – is so hard to bear I’m all but fallen at your feet. But I’ll be damned if it happens here of all places. I’m not going to screw you in Hell, Mary. I gave in and took your blood, and God knows you have the power to bring me to my knees, but when I love-fuck you, I want to do it in my home. So do you think you could humour me just a little longer?”

  She gaped at him. “Did you just say, ‘love-fuck’?”

  His mouth quirked upwards, his smile growing wider, until it was a full-on grin that bordered on boyish, and just like that, he was back to his dry, Cockney self, as if the last hour – or however long they’d been here – had never happened. “Yeah. It’s a term I made up just for you.”

  Give me strength – I’m going to need a bungee rope to keep up with his moods.

  He finally did remove his hand, and her body screamed at the loss.

  A bored sounding sigh came from somewhere behind him.

  Mary let out a little squeal and tried to cover herself up, cursing herself for having forgotten they weren’t alone, although the demon had wandered off. Where had she gone? Oh, my God, did she hear us?

  Her own mind laughed at her. Everything heard you, Mary.

  Gwain released her legs and put her down. “Relax. She’s thousands of years old.”

  “And even if she looked thousands of years old, I wouldn’t want her to see me like this,” she threw back.

  “You mean, sexed up with me between your legs? You look beautiful.”

  She threw him an angry glare, which only served to broaden his grin. She wondered if she preferred grumpy Gwain.

  “Oh, good! You have wings,” cut in Sophia. She crossed her arms, and waited for them to straighten themselves with a very nonchalant expression on her face. She stared at Mary, and Mary felt the heat build in her cheeks as she pulled Gwain’s shirt down as far as it would go. Nonsensical really, since she’d been stark naked when she’d carried her out of the Hell-fire.

  “I don’t give two monkeys about sex, you know. None of the Totilemi do. We want to spread knowledge, not babies and STDs.”

  “Angels aren’t fertile, and we don’t carry STDs,” muttered Gwain.

  “Shhh! Can you not say the S-word?” snapped Mary.

  Sophia’s eyebrows rose a fraction of a centimetre. “STD?”

  “Sex. You’re eight.”

  “I’m eight thousand.”

  “Well you look and sound like you’re eight.”

  “And isn’t that the fucking bane of my existence.”

  “My God, don’t say the F-word either!”

  Sophia rolled her eyes, then looked at Gwain. “Can we go now?”

  He nodded.

  “No!”

  They both turned to Mary, who was staring at Gwain’s throat.

  “Oh, no, no … it’s gone. My necklace.”

  His hand went up to his bare neck.

  “You had it on during the fight; I saw it. It must have come off after. I need to find it.”

  Gwain nodded reluctantly. “Let’s be quick.”

  “I’m not going back in there,” squeaked Sophia, gesturing to the main chamber, fear swimming all over her face.

  “Gwain, stay here with her. I’ll just be a second.”

  “She can look after herself.”

  “She’s terrified of Abaddon, for goodness sake. Stay with her.”

  “I don’t want you in there alone with him,” he growled.

  “You pulverised him. What do you think he’s gonna do – turn himself into a smoothie and make me drink him through a straw?”

  He shot her a baffled look, but let her go. “Be quick,” he emphasised to her disappearing back.

  She restrained herself from smart-mouthing back at him. Did he actually think she wanted to linger? Did he think he was talking to a child? Pompous git.

  “I love you too, by the way,” he called after her, dryly.

  She frowned. Had she spoken aloud?

  All thoughts left her mind as the sight of Abaddon’s disembodiment greeted her once more. Gwain had done that with his bare hands – the same hands that had just brought her to a screaming orgasm. She shivered. Life was so messed up.

  Okay … necklace, where are you? She scanned the ground in hopes of seeing a glimmer from the gold pendant. She found it so quickly, she almost didn’t believe it at first, but there it was – right next to Abaddon’s severed head. Great.

  She made her way there gingerly, avoiding the pools of blood with her bare feet as much as she could. Gross. It’s a miracle I’m not certified insane.

  She hesitated when she got to the necklace. With a wary look at the head, she reached down and picked up the chain, then turned to leave without wasting another second.

  “Ymari.”

  Really … she shouldn’t have been surprised that the head was talking to her. It would happen in a horror movie, why on earth would it not happen in real life?

  Gwain’s sarcastic nature is rubbing of on you, Mary, goaded her subconscious.

 
She sighed and turned to face Abaddon.

  “You were supposed to be my bride,” he croaked out, his voice barely a whisper.

  “I don’t look good in white.”

  “Quips and jests… You don’t know what you are.”

  “An angel of darkness, you said.”

  “More … so much more.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “To some you are a demon; to some you are an angel … but every being must succumb to what came before … even God, I fear. They’ll come after you. Ymari…” The head coughed, and spluttered up blood and spit.

  What came before? Did he mean chaos? She needed more clarification. “What did come before?”

  He merely looked at her, resignation in his eyes. “His scent … I now know why our bond broke … why you ran to him … why I could not contain you – why no one can contain either of you. Ymari…”

  She got on her knees and leaned in closer – he was obviously struggling to speak. “Gwain said you wouldn’t die.”

  “I will not – just need to rest. Ymari … remember, that when at rock bottom, there’s only one way left to go.”

  Mary bit back her frustration. He was making no sense. “Wait, no … go back. You mentioned ‘what came before’. What did you mean?”

  His eyelids fluttered shut.

  She slapped his face to wake him up, and the head sort of rolled to the right and grunted.

  For God’s sake, this is ridiculous.

  “What. Came. Before?” she repeated through gritted teeth.

  He coughed again, although his eyes didn’t open. “What you are … Na-nog…”

  Silence.

  “Hey!” She prodded his cheek.

  Nothing.

  Shit. Na-what? Nog? The only ‘nog’ she knew was eggnog.

  “You having fun down there?” came the low voice, which she could tell was laced with enmity and … jealousy.