And the great room? He’d brought that gold color in on the contemporary armchairs that flanked his pale cream sofa. The cobalt blue she’d seen in the kitchen was on the walls, the color framing an incredible stainless steel and glass tile fireplace. The floors were a darker shade of cherry than the kitchen cabinets, the wooden coffee table and end tables lighter. She liked it. It was vibrant and warm, like the man himself.
Gah. She had to get out of here before she actually started liking him.
She found the phone one of the end tables, not far from where they’d been sitting on the floor. She dialed the number, knowing Grammy would somehow be expecting her call. Grammy could be a little weird that way. She always seemed to know when one of her grandchildren needed her.
She wasn’t wrong. “Hello, Alannah.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “Hi, Grammy. Do you know anything about a wizard family named Beckett?” Grammy’s gasp was answer enough. The smile fled from Lana’s face. “Am I in danger?”
“No! Don’t … don’t leave. You’re safe where you are.”
Lana pulled the phone away from her ear and studied it. That was odd. “Grams. He’s a wizard. ”
“Sweetheart, trust me. No one will protect you better than … what did you say his name was?”
“Christopher.”
“Christopher Beckett.”
“Yes. Gram, somehow I knew his name. How could I know his name?”
“I knew this day would come, just not exactly when. You see, you answered the call.”
“What call?”
“He’s coming back. Hang up the phone and settle down. Call me in the morning.”
And Grammy hung up.
Lana hung up the phone and settled back in front of the fireplace, her mind reeling.
Why was Christopher Beckett so much more trustworthy than any other wizard?
She watched him stroll into the room, two mugs cradled in his hands, and damn near whimpered. She’d never thought a man’s walk could be an act of seduction before.
Christopher’s seemed designed to remind her of what lay under those jeans.
Like she needed reminding. The sight was forever burned into her retinas. She had the feeling her last words on this earth would be something along the lines of “Ooh, naked.”
“Here you are.” He handed her a mug before settling down right next to her.
Sneaky dog. “Thank you.” She took a sip and nearly orgasmed on the spot. “Holy mama.”
His smile was smug. “Good?”
“What did you put in here, liquid sex?”
He sputtered, hot chocolate spraying all over his hands.
She pounded on his back, trying to ease him through the coughing fit. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s all right. It was just the image of how I would accomplish that.” He shook his head, picking up his discarded towel and beginning the process of cleaning up the spilled chocolate. “You have to be one of the most unusual females I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not the one who howls at the full moon, buster.” She put the mug down and hugged the blanket closer around her body. “Speaking of which, you were going to explain that to me?”
He finished wiping his hands off on the towel. “Yes, I was.”
She waved her hand at him. “So? Spill.” Give me a reason to trust you other than Grammy.
“I think we’ve had enough spills tonight.”
“Har har. Funny man.”
He sighed. “Long ago, Andrew Beckett, my ancestor, managed to piss off a witch.”
Uh-oh.
“The long story short? He’d agreed to marry her, then backed out when another, more ‘suitable’ woman appeared.” The way his fingers made little air quotations was kind of cute. “The witch, angry over being jilted, cursed the entire Beckett family.”
“Why?” His story sounded sort of familiar. Where had she heard it before?
“Who knows why witches do anything? She chose to curse the entire line, and to this day, Becketts turn into the wolf.”
“It doesn’t seem like much of a curse to me.” She took another sip of chocolate.
“Andrew ate his bride six months after she gave birth to their son.”
She made a disgusted face. “Ew.”
“His son, knowing what had happened, tried to break the curse.”
“And?”
Christopher shuddered. “Let’s just say we’re lucky he procreated first since the spell, instead of tearing the wolf from him, sort of tore his insides from his outsides.”
“Double ew.”
“His son was determined to find a way to live with the beast. He discovered that, under the right circumstances, he could control the change. Gradually, with each generation, the curse became something different until we could live together with the wolf in peace.”
“So the curse became a blessing.”
“But not without a price.”
“What kind of price?” She yawned, the warmth of the fire and the decadence of the chocolate lulling her. Even the storm, so loud an hour ago, had subsided to a pounding rain, soothing her senses.
He took the mug from her hand. “Sleep. Perhaps in the morning you’ll be ready to hear the remainder of the story.”
Sleep sounds … good…
* * *
Christopher caught her before her head hit the carpet. A simple sleeping draught mixed with the late hour and the strain she’d been under had done its work. It would be morning before she could leave his side. He just hoped whoever she called was willing to leave her in his care.
He couldn’t let her go. Not yet. Not until he’d made her his. Definitely not before he’d dealt with the threat Cole represented. He barely knew her and already he would sacrifice his own life to keep her safe. She would learn that she could trust him with her very soul.
He picked her up, marveling at the warm weight of the woman in his arms. The scent of apples was now mixed enticingly with the scent of the chocolate, calling to him, seducing him more thoroughly than he’d ever been seduced by the practiced wiles of other women.
He carried her up the stairs, laying her in his bed, careful not to wake her. The last thing he wanted was her fear. He covered her carefully, kissing her forehead before heading out of the room and back down the stairs. He picked up her jeans, poncho and shirt, planning on washing them for her. She’d need something to wear in the morning.
And that reminded him. He went back upstairs and stripped the still wet underwear from her body, glad for the darkness. He wasn’t ready yet to see her completely bared for him in full light, or even pale moonlight. He wasn’t certain he’d be able to stop himself from taking her if he did. He carried them downstairs and threw them in the wash with the rest of her clothes. He leaned against the washing machine and hoped he’d done the right thing. She’d been shaking with more than cold; what he’d thought might be arousal was actually fatigue. She needed rest after her scare in the woods, and he was determined she was going to get it.
He got her purse from by the glass door and carried it into the great room. Opening it he dug out her wallet, determined to know the name of the woman fate had decreed should be his.
Alannah Evans.
The name shot through him with the force of an electrical shock.
It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be.
But there it was in black and white. Evans. Everything she’d said about wizards suddenly clicked into place.
He picked up the phone and dialed.
“’Lo?”
The sleepy voice on the other end reminded him how late it was, but this was too important to let go. He had to know if he was right. “Gareth?”
“Do you know what fucking time it is, fucktard?”
Christopher sighed. “Alannah Evans.”
There was silence for a moment. “What about Alannah Evans?”
The wary caution in Gareth Beckett’s now very awake voice was enough to drive Christopher to his feet. “I
need to know if she’s a member of the Evans family.”
“Give me a sec.” He could hear sheets rustling, knew his brother was climbing out of bed. “Right. According to The Registry, Evans … where’s she from?”
He checked her driver’s license. “Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”
There was the sound of rustling pages, then the creak of an office chair. “Dude. The Evans family practically rules Philadelphia.”
Christopher groaned. “Wonderful.”
“Hey, at least she’s not a warlock.”
“Right. I need a mate who distrusts my kind, not a mate who tries to feed me to demons.”
There was a pregnant pause. “Did you say mate?”
Christopher gritted his teeth, cursing himself silently for the slip of his tongue.
“Yes.”
“A witch.”
“Gareth.”
“You? You mated a witch? ”
Christopher hung up the phone. Gareth could laugh his ass off all by himself, thank you very much.
Chapter Three
Christopher woke to the feel of a rough tongue on his cheek. He opened one bleary eye to find Alasdair staring at him and purring.
He lifted his head. His workshop. He’d fallen asleep in his workshop. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that, and he doubted it would be the last. He looked down at the book spread out below him, The Registry of Wizards, Witches and Warlocks, and groaned.
Alannah Evans. A witch, not a wizard.
Well. That will teach me to be careful about how I phrase my summoning spells.
He’d rechecked the runes, the copy of the paper he’d burned that night a month ago, and slowly realized his error. He hadn’t specified a wizard mate, just one of an older lineage, someone who was born from power, with magic to complement his own.
Apparently the Lord and Lady had seen fit to send him a witch. Joy.
And it was beyond too late now. His wolf was completely delighted with the woman upstairs currently curled up in their den, leaving her scent behind on his sheets and pillows. He wanted to go up there and wallow in that scent, have it wash over him until he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.
And that was only the beginning. He wanted to lick every inch of her body until all he could taste, would ever taste, was her. He longed to thrust inside her, pulling climax after climax out of her until they were both limp and sated, then do all of it all over again.
He buried his head in his hands and groaned. Now what do I do? Witches and wizards tended to avoid each other, and with good reason. The precise way wizards performed magic was the antithesis of the breezy way witches performed the same tasks.
The hours spent carefully crafting spells would drive any self-respecting witch insane.
The way witches tended to pick up seemingly random objects and blithely cast a spell that garnered the same results drove wizards nuts. Add in the resentment witches felt about how wizards could do things they couldn’t do, and the contempt some wizards openly showed towards witches, and you had one hell of a mess destined to give one tired, grumpy wizard a serious migraine.
And the sad part was, just speaking to her last night had shown him he had no choice. Even if he could reverse the summoning, demand a redo from the Gods, he wouldn’t. She was just so … beautiful to him. It wasn’t her shoulder length, dark brown hair. It wasn’t those wide chocolate eyes, her strong jaw, her full lips, or the way she barely came to his chin, causing every protective instinct he had to go on high alert.
No, it was the glimpses of her he’d seen last night that sealed his fate. Funny, smart, warily cautious but following him anyway, she’d been brave, strong, resilient. His.
He’d have to woo his reluctant little witch. He smiled, remembering her reaction to him last night. If he had any doubts about whether or not he could succeed, remembering the quickly banked hunger in her face removed them.
And he’d have to deal once and for all with Cole. If Cole tried to lay a hand on Alannah again Christopher wouldn’t be able to keep from killing the son of a bitch.
Standing with a sigh, he headed back up to the kitchen, hoping a nice warm breakfast and some hot coffee would earn him a nice warm reception from the woman in his bedroom.
* * *
Lana picked up the phone next to the bed and dialed. “Hey, Grammy.”
“Well?”
Lana frowned. She pulled the aqua colored sheet farther up her body and wondered yet again when her underwear had disappeared. Tricky dog. “Well what?”
“Did you do the dirty?”
“Grammy!”
“Well, sweetheart, I looked him up in The Registry. I must say, he’s … exquisite.
And a Beckett, a very powerful family.” Grammy paused. “Are you saying you told him no?”
She doesn’t have to make it sound like I’d be insane not to do the horizontal bunny hop with the man. “I didn’t get the chance.” Lana slapped her hand over her mouth, horrified. “I mean, we talked. Just talked.”
“Well, look him up, dear. I think you’ll be surprised.”
“Grammy, something … odd, is going on.”
“Which odd, dear?”
“He turns into a dog. A wolf, actually.”
“Of course he does. He’s a Beckett.”
Lana gritted her teeth. “You told me shapeshifters were a myth.”
“No I didn’t. I told you natural shapeshifters are a myth. Cursed shapeshifters actually exist.”
Lana resisted the urge to bang her head against the wooden headboard until the pain of this conversation stopped. “There’s a difference?”
“Worlds of difference, sweetheart.”
“Oh. Of course.” She remembered what he’d told her the night before. “What happened to the witch that cursed them?”
Grammy was silent for a moment. “Have you ever heard of Theresa Langhorn?”
“Theresa Langhorn? Isn’t she the one who—”
“Yes.”
Lana shuddered. Damn. Just, damn. “I’d say she paid.”
“Threefold, dear. Threefold.”
The threefold rule: whatsoever you sent out into the world would return to you threefold. It was the one major check on the power of a witch or wizard that whatever you did would be done to you in triplicate. If you sent out love, peace and happiness, that would return to you. But if you sent out hatred, pain and degradation…
No one was quite sure how warlocks got around that little impediment, and no true witch or wizard was willing to find out. Grammy liked to say they were probably on a deferred payment plan.
But every now and then a witch lost her temper enough, or a wizard became enraged enough, to show the rest of the magical community why they followed the threefold rule.
Theresa Langhorn was a perfect, shining example. “Does she still have people in to comb the fur between her toes?”
“Now, dear, we don’t speak ill of the stupid.”
Lana grinned.
“One last thing before your young man brings you breakfast.”
He’s making me breakfast? A small part of Lana’s heart warmed towards him. It would have been bigger, but just then the sheet slipped, reminding her of her underwear-less state. Tricky dog. “What’s that, Grammy?”
“Trust your instincts.”
“Want to be a great-grandma that badly, huh?” Lana slapped her hand back over her mouth. What the hell is wrong with me? She never, ever hopped into bed with strange men, let alone strange wolf-man wizard hybrids!
Okay, so, she was kind of already in the bed, but that was all his fault. So was her nakedness. And she had no idea where the bathroom was.
That was all his fault, too.
She ignored her grandmother’s laughter, listening for the sound of Christopher’s footfalls on the stairs. “I think he’s coming.”
“Not yet he isn’t.”
“Grammy!”
“Good bye, sweetheart. Oh, and remember, he’ll protect you no mat
ter what.”
“No matter what what?”
But Grammy didn’t answer. She’d already hung up the phone.
“And the award for most cryptic comment goes to Annabelle Evans.” Lana hung up the phone and wondered which door lead to the bathroom. There were three of them in this ultra-modern, masculine bedroom. The only feminine detail she could see was the ebony stained bed. It was a four-poster, with rails up top for soft gauzy curtains that Christopher hadn’t bothered to hang. The comforter was a dark teal, the sheets aqua. The walls were a darker gold than the kitchen, warming the room up. There were three doors, all closed. She had to assume the one across from the bed was the door that led out of the room. One of the others had to lead to the bathroom.
God, she hoped one of them led to the bathroom. She felt like she was about to explode.
* * *
“Bathroom!”
Christopher plastered himself up against the wall just in time. The naked nymph rushed by him, slamming the door shut behind her.
“Fuck. By the way, nice suit. Is it Armani?”
He manfully swallowed his laugh. “Yes, it is and it is. The master bath is through the other door.”
“Thanks!”
She opened the door and streaked past him, the jacket of his suit wrapped around her.
He turned, sighing in disappointment when she slammed into the correct room. He almost choked on the laugh at her groan of relief.
When she stepped back into the bedroom, he had himself under control. “Feeling better?” He turned, stopping when he caught sight of her. The charcoal gray jacket hung on her, covering her from neck to mid thigh, the vee of the jacket revealing the tempting swell of her breasts. “Good morning.”
She bit her lip. “Good morning.” One of her delicate toes dug into his carpet. “Where are my clothes?”
“Clothes?” The way she was digging her toe in the carpet had her knee pushing back and forth, back and forth, swinging open the bottom edge of the jacket ever so slightly.
Christopher could feel the saliva pooling in his mouth, the bare glimpse of thigh she kept giving him mesmerizing. If she didn’t stop soon, his cock was going to burst right out of his jeans.
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