Seduced by Magic

by Stephanie Julian

  Damn, he’d never realized that before. He just hadn’t made the connection in his child’s mind. But now, twenty years later, it made perfect sense. His dad hadn’t wanted to pollute the purity of the mountain.

  Scarlata’s brows drew together for one brief second before he continued. “How long have you lived here on this mountain?”

  He wasn’t sure she’d answer until she took a deep breath. “I came to America over two hundred years ago. This mountain has been my home since then, for the most part. However, the more people come to the mountain, the more I tend to retreat to the shadows, those places where humans aren’t likely to go.”

  “Are there others like you who live here? Others that my dad might have seen. Or met?” Had his father had an encounter with another folletta like the one he’d just had? That would certainly explain why his parents’ marriage had fallen apart.

  Scarlata looked away but she blinked and he had his answer.

  “There are, aren’t there?” Even he heard the wonder in his voice. “Others like you.”

  She shook her head but didn’t answer. Then again, she didn’t need to.

  He wanted to pump his fist in victory but couldn’t seem to rouse the energy. Plus, he didn’t want to scare her. Whatever mojo she’d thrown at him earlier had stuck, at least for a little while. He didn’t want to find out what else she could do to him.

  “A lot more?” he asked.

  She shrugged, the movement causing her breasts to jiggle under the shirt and his cock to leap to attention. Down, boy.

  Damn, he needed to get a grip. He’d never been this horny before. Then again, he’d never met the embodiment of his wet dreams before.

  “I do not know what you would consider a lot.”

  Rising, she gathered their plates and glasses and turned to place them in the sink. She stood there for several seconds, staring out the small window.

  Did she ever leave this forest? If she did, where’d she go? Obviously she could hide her wings. How had she gotten from Italy to America two hundred years ago? Did she live in a little house out there in the woods? In the trees? What about the other Fata she’d talked about? Did they have a little village out there somewhere? What about the Enu she’d mentioned?

  So many questions. And yet, he was so freaking excited.

  His dad had been right.

  But that brought up another question. If his dad had known about these beings all along, then who else knew?

  Fear gathered like a tight ache in his chest. Only the fear wasn’t for himself.

  It was for her.

  Scarlata knew he watched her as she washed their dirty dishes with the little sponge by the sink.

  Though she’d not lived around eteri for a very long time, she did know they didn’t leave their dishes sitting around and the menial chore gave her a chance to think. She took her time, soaping each item thoroughly then rinsing them with the same care.

  She had planned to have sex with Justin again, enough sex to power a spell that she would use to wipe his memories of their time together.

  Though she’d believed she could take his life when this night had first started, she no longer thought she could. The man was too…alive. She couldn’t bring herself to take that life.

  Still, he couldn’t leave here with knowledge of her. It went against everything her parents had taught her. Of course they hadn’t taken their own advice and they’d been killed in the Purge by the barbarian villagers who’d once called themselves their friends. After their deaths, she’d turned her back on her homeland and moved here to start fresh.

  She’d tried to blend at first. To live among the eteri. But their greed and sloth and the filth of their cities had caused her to retreat farther into the woods. Instead of hiding among the eteri, now she hid in the forest.

  And now Justin…

  Strangely enough, she believed his story. All of it. She’d seen no deception in his aura while he spoke. It was…unsettling.

  She squeezed the sponge until the last drops of water fell into the sink then set it on the drain board.

  She couldn’t bring herself to harm him. Every time she thought about it, her stomach twisted in on itself.

  Turning, she allowed herself to look at him. There was fear in his aura, fear that ripped at her. She did not want him to fear her. She wanted to return to his bed and let him take her mind off all this—mess. And it was a mess.

  Mostly of her own making.

  “This was a mistake.” She sighed. “I should never have come.”

  He shook his head. “There’s no way in hell this was a mistake. It’s too good. We’re too good together.”

  Rising from the chair, he made his way to her, his expression a hard mask of lust. No one had looked at her like that in the past one hundred years. Maybe longer.

  It made her feel desired. A long-forgotten warmth spread through her entire body. She missed being close to a male, missed the heat of a male’s need.

  She wanted more time with him, wanted more of him.

  The hard decisions could wait until morning. And that was at least three hours away.

  More than enough time.

  She waited until he stood directly in front of her, frozen in place by the blaze of his blue eyes. She held his gaze until she thought she’d internally combust then let her own gaze drop to his lips, a tight, straight line she wanted to kiss. From there, it was a short trip to his lightly haired chest that rose and fell at a steadily increasing pace. His shorts hung on his hips, low enough that the plum-red tip of his cock had escaped the waistband.

  He stood only inches from her for several long seconds, his erection straining under her gaze. The tip had already begun to weep.

  She wanted to fall to her knees and take him in her mouth, taste him. Before she could, Justin grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. Her hands slapped on the counter.

  “Wha—”

  Before she could protest, he clapped a hand over her mouth. At the same time, he pressed his rigid cock into the crease of her ass. Sharp desire tightened her sex and cramped her stomach.

  Moaning into his hand, she opened her mouth to lick at his salty skin.

  More, she wanted more.

  “Oh Christ.” Justin’s voice sounded like a growl. “I want you. I’ve gotta—don’t move. I don’t want to hurt you but I’ve gotta—just tell me if I hurt you.”

  She felt his hand working between their bodies, heard the metallic rasp of his zipper.

  Then he pulled away and, seconds later, his thick cock plunged deep into her sex.

  She moaned at the sensation of being spread so quickly and almost to the point of pain. A good pain.

  Wanting him to move, she wriggled her ass against him, a firestorm of lust and emotion threatened to make her head spin.

  What had happened to her in such a short time that she desired him so much? She’d never felt like this before, never lost control so completely that reasoning became impossible…unwanted even.

  She bent further over the counter, increasing his access, whimpering for him to withdraw and plunge again.

  His hands fell to her waist and he did exactly what she wanted. Pulling out, he paused, only the tip of his cock still in contact with her labia.

  Then, with a low groan, he shoved so far inside, she thought she could feel him in her womb.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you.” He whispered the words into her ear where they tumbled around her dazed brain for a few seconds. She felt his flesh thicken further inside her. “Christ, you’re so tight and hot. I could die right here and not regret a damn thing.”

  But she would, she realized, as he withdrew inch by inch only to drive into her again with enough force to have the edge of the counter cut into her stomach. She bit her lip to stop the gasp of pain from escaping, not wanting him to stop. Not when he made the whole world spin around her. Definitely not when she liked it as much as she did.

  Unaccustomed tears sprang to her eyes,
having nothing to do with the counter pressing into her middle. A sob caught her just as he thrust. He froze, his hands flexing into her hips.

  “Damn, are you okay? I don’t wanna hurt you.”

  “I’m not hurt.” Though her heart might just break later. “Don’t stop. Not now.”

  His fingers released her hips.

  “No!” She reached for his hands. “Don’t stop.”

  “I’m not.” He spoke quietly into her ear as he wrapped one arm around her hips, cushioning them against the counter’s sharp edge. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  To prove his point, he ground his hips against her ass cheeks, pressing his cock even farther inside her.

  “Come on, baby. Lean forward…just a little more.” He placed a hand on the back of her neck and showed her what he wanted.

  That was all it took for her to surrender.

  And to realize she liked it.

  Chapter Five

  Justin came so hard he swore he shook his spine out of alignment.

  And all it took was her surrender. She bent her forehead to the counter, her hair spilling over her shoulders, baring her neck.

  He lost it then, exploded in a flash of heat that fried his brain and made his heart pound so hard he thought he might be having a heart attack.

  When he finally stopped shaking, he realized she hadn’t moved. He pulled away slightly.

  He didn’t even know if she’d come this time.

  “Red, are you okay?”

  “If I wasn’t, you would have been the first to know.”

  Her voice, muffled against the counter where she still rested her head, sounded tired. The clock on the stove to the left read 3:08 a.m.

  Like a bulldozer, his own weariness hit him and he laid his head against her back. Directly over the place her wings should be.

  “That’s just too weird,” he mumbled.

  She flinched and he tightened his arm around her waist while he rubbed the back of her neck. He slipped out of her as her muscles began to ease.

  She gasped, just a tiny intake of breath. “What are you talking about?”

  Damn, he must have said that loud enough for her to hear. “Your wings. Where’d they go?”

  “Oh.” Was that relief he heard in her tone? “They’re still there. Just…stored for the moment.”

  “Is that how you’ve managed to live here all these years without anyone knowing about you?”

  She moved and, though he didn’t want to release her, he did so she could turn around. But when she continued to move away from him, he set both hands on either side of her on the counter, trapping her in his embrace.

  Her chin tilted and her head lifted so she could glare into his eyes. But she quickly looked away.

  “There are some of us who live among the eteri. I chose not to. I don’t care to blend.” She made the last word sound like a curse.

  “And you wouldn’t.” Reaching for the strand of hair that curled over her shoulder, he rubbed the smooth, fiery red lock between his fingers. “You’re just too beautiful, Red. People would be drawn to you. Men, especially.”

  Her gaze shot back to his, eyes round and her mouth parted as if he’d said something that shocked her. Hell, it shouldn’t come as any surprise to her that he thought she was beautiful. He’d told her so many times already. Still…

  “You are, you know. Beautiful.”

  Her expression softened and a small smile tilted the corners of her mouth. Then she shook her head and the smile faded.

  “You do know I can’t let you leave here with the knowledge you now possess?” she said.

  Yeah, he knew that. And it satisfied some part of him that she struggled with the decision. She had to be struggling otherwise he’d probably be dead by now. But to come this close to proving decades of research correct—more importantly, vindicating his father—and have it slip away was devastating.

  He released her and turned to the refrigerator. He needed a drink, something to wipe away the taste of her, the scent of the sex they’d just had, so he could think.

  “So you’re going to—what? Erase my memories? Or just kill me?” He laughed bitterly, a brief exhalation of air. “After tonight, I might die a happy man. But I’ll fight you all the way. I want more than one night with you.”

  She didn’t say anything and, damn him for being a coward, he almost didn’t want to hear what she might say.

  Popping the cap off the Yuengling lager he pulled from the fridge, he tipped it back and let the cool liquid slide done his throat. He gulped nearly half of it before he babbled, “Hey, you want a drink? I’ve got another beer. But if you’re going to off me, I think I’d like to drink it myself. I’ve got some amaretto in the cabinet. That’s probably more your style, huh?”

  Hell, this was completely screwed. He wouldn’t remember her, wouldn’t remember any of this and it felt like she was tearing his guts out.

  “Justin,” she said calmly.

  He opened two cabinet doors before he found the squat, square bottle of ruby-colored liquor. He’d had the bottle for nearly a year, kept it around to toss a shot in his Coke sometimes.

  “Would you give up everything to be with me?” she asked.

  Her voice made him ache to touch her again. Carefully he set the amaretto bottle on the counter. Then he nodded.

  “Would you believe me if I said yes?” He reached for a glass from the next cabinet and poured her two fingers. “My dad believed in the existence of magic and of…people like you. Ever since I can remember, he’d tell me stories about fairies. Not fairytales but his own experiences with them. For the longest time, I thought he was making them up. I was a teenager by the time I realized he wasn’t. Then I thought he was a freak. Just like everyone else did.”

  His chest contracted painfully when he remembered the things he’d said to his dad at the time.

  “When my parents’ marriage broke up, I went to a local college but I lived with my mom. I didn’t talk to my dad for a few years. My mom was really broken up about the divorce and I blamed him for it. I didn’t even know he was sick until it was too late.”

  His dad had forgiven him. Too bad he couldn’t forgive himself.

  “He had just enough time to tell me about his research.”

  “Justin.” Her voice held a plea.

  He heard her but ignored it, lost in memories he couldn’t shake off. Memories that continued to haunt him.

  “I believed for so long that he was crazy that, by the time I knew he was telling me the truth, I still didn’t want to believe him.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “What did your father know about the Fata?”

  “He’d been documenting contact, collecting evidence. Talking to people who said they’d met or seen…your kind. He told me about humans who’d been seduced by beautiful females with wings or men with horns and tails. Magical creatures no one would believe existed. My father believed,” he paused, inhaling deeply, “because he’d lived with them for years.”

  Scarlata had heard tales of Fata taking eteri.

  She’d even heard that some willingly became blood-bound to them. The ancient tradition of tying one life to another by mingling blood during sex was not to be taken lightly. It tied their fates, allowing their souls to find one another through each new life. And that could be a very long time, if you chose wrong.

  Mostly eteri were playthings or pawns in petty wars, a dangerous game that occasionally backfired and led to messy consequences, witch trials, the occasional capture and, sometimes, to the horrible purges, like the one that had led to her parents’ deaths.

  Though she’d taken the occasional etera lover, she’d never considered keeping one for any length of time. And she’d never revealed her true self to them.

  Justin stared at her, arms crossed over his chest. Waiting.

  When she didn’t speak, he sighed and shook his head. “You’re not surprised, are you?”

  “No, I am not surprised. All stories of contact between our
kinds usually have some kernel of truth in them. But you didn’t believe your father, did you?”

  He shook his head again and the gleam from the light overhead sparkled in his hair, making her fingers itch to run through the silky softness.

  “Not until I read through his diaries and realized he’d made a pretty damn strong case. By that time, he was dead. I was in my last year of college, planned to get my degree in English then be a professional student until I got my doctorate and could teach on the college level.

  “Instead, I changed my major to environmental sciences. Figured I’d get a government job and let them pay me to do my own research on the side. But I got hired out of college by BD Enterprises. They recruited me, offered me more money than the government and more opportunity for fieldwork, which was what I wanted.”

  Pain settled into his eyes, a pain she wanted to ease. Her arms ached to hold him but she restrained herself, clenching her hands into fists.

  Containment. Right now, all she should be worrying about was his containment.

  “So you could search for your fairies.” She didn’t bother to make it a question.

  He nodded. Then the corners of his lips twitched until he had a full grin on his face. “And, damn, but I did good.”

  He smiled and she melted.

  She’d never had much interest in the eteri, had always thought they possessed little intelligence.

  This man intrigued her.

  She couldn’t kill him. She had feelings for him, feelings she’d never had for an etera before. Of course she’d never been this intimate with one of them before either. Before this, sex with an etera had been purely physical. There hadn’t been much discussion. Especially not about what she was.

  “Justin.” She paused, wondering how to say what she wanted. “If I asked you to destroy your notes, all the material you’ve collected over the years, the information your father made his life’s work… Would you do it? For me?”

  Justin’s smile froze then faded until he simply stared at her. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until he turned and walked to the front door. He opened the door then raised his arms above his head. Gripping the molding, he stretched his long, lean body in a way that made her mouth water.