by Leela Ash
“Anise?” the leader of the Archstone warriors gasped, recognizing the witch whom had made all their spells for the past six months. “What have you done to her? How did you know whom she was? How did you bring her here?”
“A witch’s spell is like a footprint, my good man. I can trace any witch anywhere in the world by looking at her spell. Like your Anise, for instance. I have summoned her here through her spell.”
“Forgive me my Queen,” the witch kept sobbing, as she coughed, clutching at her throat.
“You’re forgiven,” Nabradia told her. Then she looked at the Archstone warriors, glad to see suitable reverence in their expressions now, rather than stupid condescension. “Take me to your leader.”
“Okay, but she’s still bleeding,” one of the men observed, looking at where Anise was crumpled into a heap in the dust, still coughing and choking and struggling against the sure fingers of death.
“Of course she is. Tracing a witch through her spell is never easy work. Someone winds up dead,” Nabradia told him, looking him dead in the eye with a look that spoke volumes. Her meaning was clear. If he didn’t stop harping on about Anise’s fate, he could replace her in a heartbeat for all she cared.
“Forgive me,” Anise wailed some more. “Please.”
“Take comfort in the fact that when you arrive at Alabad in a few minutes, the dead witches will welcome you as the ‘forgiven witch’ Anise,” Nabradia laughed and then she was striding off.
The men fell into step beside Nabradia, leading her silently into their camp and towards where their leader was.
“I’ll announce you to Zak. He doesn’t like to be disturbed,” the leader of the warriors mumbled. “Perhaps he would be willing to see—”
“Don’t bother announcing me,” Nabradia cut in, like a vicious whip. “I’ll find my own way in.”
“But Zak—”
“Your leader will welcome this disturbance and he will like it,” Nabradia informed him with a mysterious smile that chafed on his nerves.
Then with a toss of her dark mane, she stepped over the threshold and into the hallowed halls of the home of the leader of the Archstone shifters. She lifted a hand as the men watched and effectively sealed the entrance to their leader’s home with her magic.
The room was so dark it was impossible to see, but even without her sight, Nabradia could make out the unmistakable sound and smell of sex. Witches saw best in the dark though, so Nabradia’s sight adjusted in a matter of seconds and she let her gaze drop thoughtfully to the couple entwined in the throes of passion. The woman’s legs were spread as wide as they could go as the man atop her humped away in repeated thrusts, his hips moving so fast they were almost a blur. He slapped the woman’s huge breasts hard as he fucked her even harder, making her scream —whether from pain or pleasure— and making the large breasts bounce all the more while he increased his tempo to a rough, dizzying speed.
Nabradia zeroed her third eye on the couple on the makeshift blankets, picking out their identities in a heartbeat. And then she laughed, the sound chilling and frightening.
The couple entangled on the blankets hastily detached themselves, shocked to find a witness to their coupling in the room. The woman yanked the blankets up to her shoulders with a yelp of fright and the leader of the Archstone Tribe yanked his sword from its place at his bed side.
“Rekana!” Nabradia yelled, pointing at the woman. A bright light shot from her fingers and slapped the woman against the side of the head. The force lifted her clear off the blankets, slammed her against the wall and then smashed her against the ground.
Zak’s eyes widened with terror as he stared down at her.
Then he turned to face Nabradia with a growl, “Don’t bother turning into a werebear now, Zakky Boy, she’s not dead. Just… passed out,” she said in a sing-song voice trembling with laughter. “Besides, I would break all your bones with a single hex before you had quite finished your transformation.”
He paused. “Who are you?”
“The most powerful witch this side of the world,” she offered in a calm confident tone. “The most powerful witch you’ve ever heard of.”
Awareness and incredulity lit his eyes as his gaze roved down her youthful body, smooth silken skin and arousing beauty. “Nabradia,” he breathed.
“I have come to make you an offer you cannot refuse,” she told him.
His ears perked up with interest, but he maintained an aura of calm indifference. “All offers can be refused.”
“Mmm. Not when it helps you get your enemy’s head,” she returned.
“Joshua! You’re here to help me kill Joshua and the Damaged Pack boys,” he exhaled heavily, rising to a kneeling position that bespoke worshipful devotion.
Obviously, Joshua had been a bigger thorn in his flesh than she knew, she mused, pursing her lips to hide her pleasure at what she had discovered.
“You’re going to hand me their heads on platters, aren’t you? You’re here to help me,” he continued, still kneeling before her.
Nabradia smiled, delighted with his position as she came closer, until she was within reach. He was in the perfect position for what she needed, literally and figuratively. She needed something a little sweet and toe-curling right now and his kneeling position made it perfect for that. She also needed an obedient servant as leader of this entire tribe and a more servile posture she couldn’t imagine!
“Not just that, I’m here to help you keep your head,” she informed him huskily.
He frowned, “What do you mean?”
Nabradia’s left eyebrow arched as she nodded towards the still prone woman, “Fucking Henry’s mate out of her mind while he’s poised at the door like your loyal servant is just wicked, isn’t it, Zak? Your faithful dog wanted to come in here by the way, but I stopped him. Think what would have happened if he had found you fucking his bitch in the coolness of your room, while he roasted under the hot sun at your command?”
Zak’s face drained of color.
Nabradia patted his cheek with a soft feminine hand and threw back her head and laughed, the sound exultant, triumphant and strangely chilling. Her other hand lifted her dress revealing inch after inch of soft, delicate, feminine skin and making the man watching her with small greedy eyes, get aroused all over again.
“Now tell me why you want to waste your time on an unappealing shifter like that! When you can have me,” she whispered, her voice raspy with the heavy undertones of desire. She spread her legs, deliberately exposing the pink lips of her soft, wet pussy to his greedy gaze. “A far tastier morsel huh?” she whispered wickedly.
His eyes rose to hers, greed and lust warring in their brown depths.
It would be very easy to break this man to her will, she decided. One taste of her, and he would be hooked for life like all the others before him.
Zak’s hands grabbed her hips and his gaze narrowed in on the soft wet flesh at the juncture of her thighs. He bent forward, hungrily sucking, stroking, and licking her clitoris and fingering her pussy until she was groaning and moaning and urging him on with soft cries of pleasure as she rode his mouth to fulfillment.
There! Something sweet and toe-curling at last! Nabradia thought, exulting inwardly, as she threw her head back in decadent enjoyment and vibrating pleasure.
2.
“I swear this town is choking the life out of me,” Jack Sivan complained, jerking at the collar of his shirt as he drove masterfully towards the church.
“Cheer up Jack, this town has a lot to offer,” Beaufort Kent—popularly called Bo— countered in absent-minded commiseration.
Jack rolled his eyes, tamping down on his shifter lion as it roared within him for wild hills, naked forests and virgin landscapes. He wouldn’t admit to himself that the tension he could feel strumming along his nerve-endings felt a lot like sexual tension… but wasn’t it a clear indication when he managed to think of forests as naked and virgin? Had he been too long without a woman, then? If this was the r
eason for his disquiet, then he was in big trouble because Weirna didn’t have a lot of juicy pickings in the female department.
“You’re useless,” he told Bo, responding now to his brother’s comment to force his thoughts away from where they had veered.
Bo grunted his agreement even more absently and Jack grinned.
It was Bo’s wedding day and Jack couldn’t be happier for the other man. Truth was, though, he wanted to leave Weirna so bad he could taste it. The memories of his past were clawing at him with such intensity, it was almost a physical pain. Every time Joshua smiled proudly at him, or Dolly Lourdes —Bo’s mother-in-law to be — fussed over him and the other four men he had come to think of as blood brothers, he was reminded of his biological parents. He hadn’t thought of them in years; he hadn’t allowed himself to.
The Damaged Pack and Joshua had become his family and that was why he would go to the very ends of the earth to protect them from any danger. It was also why it almost seemed to him as though the wedding were some sort of delaying detour extending the time they could have used to go find and destroy that evil queen of the Salem witches, Nabradia, for good before she came after the lot of them.
After the stunt Bo and Joshua had pulled with the Tiara of Oistrophe, by changing the crystals and taking away its powers, Nabradia had gone missing for two whole weeks in what Joshua called an “angry sulk”. In that time, everyone in the Damaged Pack had seemed content to plan Bo’s wedding to Jeanine and think of nothing else.
Jack, it seemed, was the only one who sometimes remembered the powerful, vengeful witch and wondered when the other shoe would drop. He didn’t think she was sulking; he was certain she was strategizing and regrouping. Nabradia had wanted desperately to get her hands on the powerful Tiara of Oistrophe in order to increase her power and help her unleash Alabad — the place of afterlife for witches — on earth.
Thanks to Joshua and the Damaged Pack, she had been unable to do that and Jack silently worried that she wouldn’t let that slide.
Jack threw a quick glance in the rearview mirror. Bo was in the backseat, head thrown back and grinning like a damn idiot as he chatted with Jeanine on WhatsApp. For the love of God, they were just two minutes away from the damned wedding hall, which meant the crazy kids could fall all over each other soon and yet they couldn’t bear to be away from each other for a nanosecond!
Disgusting, Jack thought with a fond, inward chuckle.
Regardless of his petty thoughts, he was sincerely happy for Bo. Bo was one of those people who deserved a whole lot more love than they demanded. Bo was a terrific guy and one of Jack’s favorite people on earth, although Jack hardly let on how he felt.
Jack grinned now as he took a corner so fast the car was practically standing on two wheels. His thoughts had turned to the five friends who made up the Damaged Pack; Derek, Bo, Luke, Drake and him. They were all shifters with varied abilities and yet they were closer than most natural brothers.
“Everything okay back there?” Jack called, his amber-colored eyes locking on Bo in the rearview mirror.
Bo grunted, not bothering to look up as he typed some more words to send to Jeanine.
Jack sighed as he pulled into the parking lot. He was happy for Bo, and Derek, too. They had both found love in the darnedest circumstances even though no one had seen that coming. The only bad thing about it, as far as he was concerned, was that his brothers’ surrender to love had put some false hope in their father-figure, Joshua. The old man had been throwing sly, hopeful looks at Jack, Drake and Luke all week. It didn’t take a savant to figure out that he was hoping that since Derek and Bo had been bitten by the love bug, the rest of the Pack would too.
Well, hell had a better chance of freezing over first, Jack thought with ill humor, as he shifted into Park, in front of the wedding hall. He hadn’t been in any long-term relationship with any woman in ten freaking years and he liked it just fine like that. Besides, his job as a firefighter in California hadn’t given him much time to work up the willpower to date a woman for any period of time.
He wasn’t a monk though. At just thirty, he knew he had bedded enough women to make Casanova envious. He liked women alright. Heck, it sometimes seemed as though he liked them a little too much. What wasn’t to like about soft, silken bodies, quivering slender limbs, and eager breathless moans in his ear as he hammered away at an even softer pussy?
Women were the spice of life as far as he was concerned. He liked to have them around him, so long as their existence in his sphere was temporary. He didn’t do permanence. He had never dated any woman for more than six months at a time and some seemed to think that made him a playboy even though he’d never been one to double dip. He just didn’t envy the idea of losing his heart to any one because women were also stone-cold bitches when it suited them. He still had the scars to prove it too.
And lately he got bored stiff after a mere two months with any woman.
“We’re here, old man,” he called, looking over his shoulder at his brother.
“Yes!” Bo cried, as he tossed his phone aside and bounded from the Lamborghini with the eagerness of a little child heading for a candy shop.
Jack shook his head, retrieving the phone and tucking it into his breast pocket. He slammed the door on the driver’s side shut and adjusted his tux as he turned to head towards the wedding hall. An ear-shattering cacophony erupted behind him, forcing him to pause mid-stride. A loud crash, followed by the unmistakable crunch of metal-on-metal told its own story even before he had finished swiveling around.
A small red car had embedded itself onto the rear of his Lamborghini!
Several curse words sprang to his lips as he raced over to the cars. A beautiful blonde with straight long hair, classic baby-blues and a slim, svelte frame was just climbing out, unhurt, from behind the driver’s side of the red car that had pummeled into his. Her lips parted in a soft ‘oh’ as she looked down at the damage she had caused and clutched the open door of her car as though to steady herself.
Then she looked up at him with a wry grin as she jerked a thumb in the direction of the severely-dented Lamborghini. “That yours? Nice wheels.”
Jack was so furious, he could have sworn he could feel steam coming out of his ears as he glared down at her.
“Is that really all you’re going to say?” he demanded, incredulity stamped onto his features.
She had the grace to look chagrined as she stared up at him with flyaway wisps of her blonde hair falling into her eyes. “You’re right. I guess I’m just a little in shock. Listen, I didn’t do this on purpose okay? My brakes failed.”
Jack turned his thoughtful gaze towards the small car, his anger fading at her explanation. Then he swung his gaze back to her. “Are you alright?”
“I’m a bit shaken up, that’s all,” she said with a wry smile.
Jack offered her his hand. She placed her small hand in his and he drew in a sharp breath as he felt an inexplicable tingle of electricity sweep up his arm in a dizzying rush. He snatched his hand back at the exact same time she did and they both stared at each other in charged silence.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he offered, “Would you like to seat down?
She nodded and let him lead her towards some benches off to the side of the wedding hall.
Jack’s eyes were drawn to the straight length of her long slim legs as she sat and crossed her legs at the knees. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, he thought, and felt his manhood stir with interest. She had a pair of electric baby-blue eyes, firm breasts so pointed he was almost certain they were at a perfect ninety-degree angle, and skin that looked like fine silk. It made a man want to run his fingers over it in a gentle caress just to find out if it was as soft as it looked.
She was pretty as a picture but for some weird reason, she didn’t smile. She seemed the somber, serious type despite her Barbie doll looks.
It was true he had been separated from Bo and others for over fifteen years and they all just
got back together in Weirna, but he was willing to bet this woman wasn’t a friend of Bo’s. Jeanine was pretty and cute enough, but this woman did some serious number on a guy’s equilibrium. He was willing to bet Bo hadn’t known her before he’d gone and fallen in love with Jeanine otherwise, he might have chosen a different bride.
He took a stab. “Are you a friend of the Bride’s?”
She gave a start of surprise and then she pursed her impossibly red lips as though holding back a smile as she said with surprising coyness, “We’ve been friends sometimes. Same with the groom,” she added, as though she had read his thoughts.
Amazing. Bo had known her before he married Jeanine. Bo was obviously crazy in love then, he thought.
Her vague response almost had him sitting on the edge of the seat. “That’s a rather mysterious answer,” he pointed out.
“Maybe I’m a rather mysterious lady,” she tossed back.
The words were alive with hidden meaning and Jack’s gaze bored into hers. Her eyes were laughing up at him with feminine confidence etched into their turquoise depths and Jack’s blood started a slow boil as he realized she was flirting with him! This incredible, delicious, two-legged package was flirting with him! Which must mean she found him attractive, huh?
At six-three with a long aquiline nose, firm granite jaw, even white teeth, a hard, sinewy frame, and shoulders as broad as Texas, he was ruggedly male. He had curly chestnut hair and sleepy amber eyes that never failed to stop women in their tracks. That ensemble was topped off with the most ridiculous pair of deep-set dimples and lashes so long they were almost effeminate. Those two features were his least favorite because he thought they were too feminine, but most women seemed to positively drool over them. One ex had even told him she thought he looked like some blond Adonis.
