The Problem With Witches: An Arcane Shot Series Novel

by Joey W. Hill

  But she’d never let him bear the weight of her pain for her. As much as he loved her, that was a two-way street. She’d endure every moment of what punishments she’d earned, holding tight to the idea that, when it was over, just like this day, she’d end up in some quiet, lovely bed with him, cool sheets tangled around them as they rested in one another’s arms.

  Somewhere along the journey her life had taken, that had become the best version of the afterlife she could imagine. Or want.

  He removed his own clothes, and then bent and lifted her onto this bed, lying her back. Her eyes coursed over him. As he’d noted, they’d all cleaned up some when they first arrived back in the suite, removing the blood and dirt. He healed quickly, her Guardian, but she could see faint tracings of his wounds. She wanted to do what he’d done for her. Put her lips on every place that had been hurt. Maybe he would let her soon.

  He could take her in a variety of creative ways, but that wasn’t his mood right now, and she knew why. In this simple, emotional position, their gazes upon one another, faces inches apart, there was nowhere to hide.

  “You did well,” he said.

  “So did you,” she whispered.

  He shrugged, dismissing the praise in typical warrior fashion. His eyes were full of her, his only focus. “I look forward to getting you back to your sex demons and your bordello,” he said. “I much prefer to have you there, reasonably safe, rather than out here with me.”

  “I’d much prefer to have you there, with me, rather than out here, not reasonably safe at all,” she returned.

  His lips curved, though his eyes remained serious. “You will never be rid of me, witch. I am not that easy to shake. Or defeat.”

  She hoped so. She prayed for him every day, more so when he wasn’t with her. She didn’t know if anyone listened to a succubus witch who had a serious problem with authority, including the divine kind, but if They did, she wanted to make sure the ticket was in Their queue often enough to be noticed.

  As he came down upon her, she slid her arms around his back, palms over his shoulder blades. He didn’t let his wings come forth. Not yet. He could choose or not choose to do so, and perhaps liked the feel of her hands where they were now. She tipped her head back as his mouth found her throat, nipped and suckled, teased with kisses that she felt all the way through her breasts, cunt, toes, and back up to her accelerating heart.

  “Please,” she murmured.

  “Please…this?” He lodged the head of his substantial erection at her opening. A fight always drove up libido, as the fierce need to live, to love, surfaced more strongly than ever. “Beg, sweet witch. You know I love to hear you beg for my cock.”

  “Please…Master. Be inside me. I miss you so much.”

  She wasn’t often tender, so when she said the words in her heart, his eyes darkened, and he demanded nothing further of her, beyond the willingness of her body. He slid inside her to the root, making her draw in a deep, shuddering breath at the size and thickness of him. Her tissues spasmed around him, already preparing for climax.

  She had innumerable sexual skills, but with him, her natural sensuality came forth, making every movement a willing and eager offering of pleasure.

  “We will take this journey together,” he said. And he meant it. Sliding into her, retreating, slow, deep penetrations that had her writhing in the iron band of his arms. His eyes became living flame as her desire built. And his stillness, his absolute attention, absorbed her every reaction, taking her even higher.

  When she was so close she was begging again, he gave her what she wished, launching them off that peak together, making her cry out as his thrusts became demanding. He laid his hand on the side of her face, the other at her hip, and possessed her in all ways. He left no part of her alone or bereft. Together, they soared.

  As she’d told Marcie, Mikhael took her flying quite regularly.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Most humans might not possess the kind of magic that could levitate them or zap evil witches a hundred feet away, but Marcie would argue a whirlpool tub filled with hot, soapy water ranked right up there with the best that the paranormal world could offer.

  Especially lying in one, in Ben’s arms, after a day like today. Or night, rather, since most of the excitement had been done by dawn. Ben had spent a short amount of time on the phone with Matt, giving him an update, but the benefit of their long friendship was that a lot of words didn’t need to be exchanged. He basically said what he needed to say, put in “Marcie needs me now,” and that had ended the conversation.

  She drifted some. It was hard to know how to feel, so she didn’t direct her feelings much. She just rolled slowly over the whole terrain. Things were coming back she didn’t want to remember. The cries of despairing souls, prisoners of Elagra for so long. Their voices could still make her shudder, burrow deeper into Ben’s embrace to try and not remember. But then she’d remembered that lightness of feeling, the spreading of heat energy. The souls torn loose, the removal of the nails pinning them to their despair. Somehow, they’d been directed where they needed to go, free to find the peace they sorely needed.

  She’d watched The Little Mermaid with her younger sister Cherry. She remembered the scene when all the prisoners were freed from Ursula the sea witch. She also recalled the scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, when all the kids came home, running joyously up the hill.

  Those had been moments of celebration. This was, but it wasn’t, as well.

  It didn’t erase the horror they’d had to experience for so long, but it did ease her heart to know that suffering was at an end. She wasn’t sure if she could have lived knowing it was otherwise, which made her want to be absolutely sure, ask Raina and Ruby later if those souls would now, truly, be okay.

  Another part of her was afraid to ask, since there might be nothing she could do if they’d simply engineered a spell to protect her from the truth.

  The whole amazing sequence replayed in her mind like a movie, the things she’d only briefly seen coming in flashes. Mikhael and Derek, fighting the demon’s minions in the sky. Ruby and Ramona, wrapping up Bonnie, taking her out of harm’s way. Ben up there soothing her, helping her stay calm.

  Then there’d been Raina and her, fighting Elagra. That huge wall of water, coming down. Or that explosion, when Raina’s magic hit Elagra. Marcie remembered realizing, in an oddly detached way, that this could be it. The end.

  The death of those she loved; that was something she worried about. Her dying? She worried about the impact on those she loved, especially Ben. But for herself…she didn’t know why, but the death part itself, she didn’t really think about, especially when she was in the middle of something like that, where she had an objective. The objective became the important thing.

  Which was probably good, because without an objective, situations like that could be downright terrifying.

  “What was it like?” she murmured. “Going where they took her. Passing into a different world, a different place.”

  “It was…” Ben paused, as if gathering his thoughts. His hands slid over her soapy curves, caressing idly, a Master enjoying his sub as he wished, touching her whenever he desired. Her nipples hardened against his palms, responding to it. Though she expected he would be exceptionally gentle about it, he would have her before long. Unless he was dead, Ben was pretty much a daily sex kind of guy, even in exhausting circumstances like these. On the less tiring days, well…she stocked up on energy drinks. But right now, he just ran his hands over her, and appeared to be thinking about her question.

  “The trip there was like going down a slide,” he said. “The last part of it. I think Ramona engineered it that way, to make it whimsical. First, we went through these different tunnels, but they were open, so you could see things on either side. Like how the gondolas were in Venice, going under the bridges at night.”

  She nodded, remembering their honeymoon. All the lights along either side of the canals, the canopied rest
aurants, the clink of glassware and soft music as people drank wine, ate and talked. The colorful facades of the buildings facing the canals, there for so many centuries. She’d thought of them like the spirits of indulgent ancestors, still solid and there, the reassuring power of the past mixed with the vitality of the present.

  They’d spent some of their honeymoon days tangled in the sheets of their suite, the double doors open to the scents and sounds of the ancient city, but the nights were spent in those gondolas. When he’d realized her favorite part of the many wonderful memories of the trip were those nighttime rides, her leaning up against him as they were poled along the waterways, he’d dedicated one night to it. The gondolier had taken them up and down the waterways at a dreamy, leisurely pace for hours.

  “Then it opened up, and we slid down into this grassy field,” he continued. “Softest grass I’ve ever felt. It reminded me of your hair, when it blew against me, while we were sitting in the gondola together.”

  “That’s nice,” she said softly, thinking he might be saying it to make her feel included in a moment she hadn’t been able to share directly with him.

  “It’s truth,” he said, and his hand tightened on her breast, so that she tipped her head to look into his face. He stared hard into it, studying every feature. “Everything connects to you, brat. Everything. I’m sorry for that.”

  She swallowed and turned toward him, rising up in the water to straddle him. He let her, arms curling around her hips, palms sliding up the center of her back, molding to the contours beneath her shoulder blades. She cupped his face, her wet hair falling forward and brushing his jaw as she brought trembling lips to his.

  “The only sorry you ever have to say to me, Ben O’Callahan,” she said, “is for believing, even for a second, that you had to live without me.”

  His lips curved, his green eyes warming as he coiled his hand in her hair, drew her an inch from him, teasing her with the proximity of his mouth. “We took care of that in the wedding vows. I promised to be a selfish bastard, refusing to give you up ever. Or something like that. They figured out a nicer way to word it.”

  She coiled her arms around his head as he lifted her, put his mouth on her breast. She dropped her head back with a shuddering sigh as he suckled the nipple. Slow and easy, taking his time. He could be cruel and demanding, but not when her body was weak. He was in no rush and, just as she expected, he would be gentle with her. He would still demand everything from her, but in this loving, inexorable way that took her over just the same.

  He rubbed his face against her, tightened his arms over her back. “I wanted to be with you, but the time with her, it still seemed too short. I climbed down, dropped into that grass. When I did, she had her head lifted, was looking around. She made this curious sound, a questioning noise. I didn’t know if it was for me or everything around her, so I just said what came into my head. ‘This is home. This is where you’re supposed to be. It’s going to be okay.’ She gave me this look. She had fifteen eyes, did you notice?”

  She’d noticed multiple eyes, but not how many, so she shook her head. She threaded her fingers into his thick, wet hair, her jaw resting on top of his skull, elbows pressed into his broad shoulders. “I caught a couple glimpses of her, but she was so large, and so much was happening…”

  “Damn, should have taken a picture. I had my phone. Well, had. Somewhere in the river now. Two gone in two days.”

  She smiled, but something tight in his voice kept her quiet. After a moment, he spoke against her flesh again.

  “She was…she looked like this mud creature I made when I was in Elagra’s tunnels, when I was a kid. I used rhinestones from a stolen purse to make those eyes.”

  She closed her eyes, held him closer. He was here. A man grown, and she reminded him of it, of his victory over that dark time, with her touch on his broad back, tracing the tense lines of muscle there, though she kept her touch light over some of that terrain. He’d claimed to be fine, but he was as much a mess of cuts and bruises as any of them.

  He’d undressed her to put her in the tub, which meant she’d had the chance to watch him remove his own clothes. A couple of the deeper slices on his abdomen and side had given her a bad moment, but nothing was bleeding anymore, and he’d reiterated that all he needed was to soak with her.

  Since he was moving okay, she’d accepted that, but it still made her want to hold him even tighter, thinking how much worse it could have gone for all of them.

  “I’m glad you took her home,” she said softly. “I’m glad they brought you back to me. One day, I bet we’ll see her again. At this point, it’s hard for me to say we’ll never travel to a different world, since we have new friends who can do that. And who run a bordello of sex demons.”

  He chuckled. “Don’t forget the gun shop. I know you’re already plotting how to get that assault rifle from Ruby.”

  “I admit nothing, counselor,” she said. “I have it on good authority the best thing to do under oath is keep it to short, one-word answers.”

  She drew back as his arms loosened. He brought her down more firmly on his lap, his hands lifting to frame her face, run wet thumbs over her lips. “That mouth,” he murmured. “I’m fucking hungry for it.”

  She caught her breath as he dropped a hand beneath the water to find her, rub his knowledgeable fingertips between her labia, finding the lubrication he needed to guide his cock there, ease his penetration past the less slippery bath water. The powers-that-be really should have thought about making water a better lubricant, but Ben O’Callahan would let nothing deter him when he had his mind—and his cock—set on a goal. He’d already added bath beads to the water that made it soft and slippery to the skin, with oils that would also soothe sore muscles. He coiled his hand back in her hair, his other hand on her buttock as he adjusted his hips and started to bring her down on him.

  When she bit her bottom lip, focused on the effort of coming together, his gaze latched onto it. “There’s my brat,” he said huskily. “Take every inch.”

  “Take me the way you want to do it,” she said, a plea in her voice. “Don’t be careful. I need to feel how much you need me. We came so close…”

  Maybe because of what their coming together always unlocked within her, the most terrifying parts of it all flooded her now. She had been fading, going away, buried under those desolate souls, far beyond where she could even feel him, the fierce love he had for her.

  She tightened her muscles, never mind the pain that shot through every bone as she pushed herself down on him. She took every glorious inch in one fast slide, filling herself with him. Her hands, gripping his shoulders, turned into claws, digging in, telling him what she needed.

  His expression changed, the green eyes glittering, his jaw setting, but her Master chose to be demanding in his own way. He gripped her hip, held her in place, with him deep inside her.

  “I’m right here, brat. Always.” His gaze flickered, that penetrating look that devoured every feature, every inch of her. “Always yours. No matter what would have happened, I would have found you, brought you back. Or gone to where you were.”

  “I was so lost,” she said. “It was…oh God, Ben, it was so awful, feeling all of them, all those souls she hurt. And knowing you went through that…”

  He shook his head, captured her lips, the kiss taking away everything but what he wanted from her, right now, in this moment. He lifted and lowered her, drove in deeper, swallowed her cries. “I’m here with you now,” he muttered. “Show me how much you want to please your Master. That’s all that matters right now.”

  She could do that. Or she thought she could. Her energy failed her, quickly. At one time she would have worried about that, worried that she couldn’t keep up with how insatiable her husband was, but he’d cured her of that fear. Everything he felt for her was in his eyes, and it wasn’t just desire. If possible, that might have been the least of it. The love was everything.

  He slowed her down, the hands that
had taken the life from Elagra, that had held Marcie with such ruthless power a blink ago now gentle once more. He made her go slow, easy, taking all control from her, so she simply followed his movements. She met his mouth, again and again, endless kisses until she was crying and smiling, holding his face to her throat as he found his climax and took her into a shimmering glide right with him.

  It was rare that Ben slept so deeply that she could slip from the bed without waking him, but the underlying exhaustion she’d detected in him had finally caught up. Her own body was still gripped by the lassitude that came in the aftermath of a night like they’d had, but her mind was oddly awake. So, after she went to the bathroom, Marcie put on her robe and went into the main room of the suite.

  She didn’t see Mikhael or Derek, but she found Raina, Ramona and Ruby sitting out on the spacious balcony. Ruby turned around almost as soon as she emerged, and then the other two looked. Marcie had an unsettling feeling that they’d been waiting for her. Had they woken her specifically to come to them at this moment? Or made Ben sleep more heavily, in order to talk to her alone?

  Probably not. Though they hadn’t said it outright, they seemed reluctant to do things that interfered with people’s will, unless it was absolutely necessary.

  Even so, as she stepped out onto the balcony, she felt a frisson of nervousness, studying the serious faces. “If you tell me that New Orleans is facing another crisis, I’m going to suggest we head for the Bahamas and let someone else handle it.”

  A ghost of a smile flitted around Ruby’s mouth, helping Marcie feel better. However, her hazel eyes stayed serious. “We need to tell you the full story of what happened on the docks.”

  “Well, you saved my life. And Ben’s. It’d be hard for me to object to the method. Unless you slaughtered a litter of puppies to make it happen.”

  Ramona blanched. “Oh Goddess, no. We’d never do that. Even if the universe depended upon it. It wouldn’t be worth saving if that was what was required.”