Master of Fire

by Angela Knight

  He was on his feet before she felt him move, strong hands closing around her ass to pull her off her feet with no effort at all. With an eager little gasp, Giada wrapped both arms around his neck and hooked her knees over his narrow hips.

  He impaled her in a slick and ruthless rush. They both gasped at the sensation of his big shaft driving deep into her wet sex. “God, Logan!” she managed, as he rolled his torso, pumping in farther, harder, deeper.

  “Sweet Merlin’s Cup, you’re tight!” he gritted through set fangs, shifting his grip to support her back.

  She dug her nails into his back and hooked her ankles together, then began to roll her hips. The spasm of delight that whipsawed through her had her gritting her teeth and hunching harder, seeking more, reaching deeper.

  He groaned, the sound deep and tortured in her ear, as he began to thrust with slow, exquisite care. “Let me know . . . if I go too deep,” he gasped.

  “Fine! I’m fine! More!” Close. So damn close, so damn fast. She just needed a little bit . . .

  The climax hung just beyond her grasp, hot and white behind her eyes. Giada curled her nails in and ground down on his cock, using all the power in her thighs and calves to try to wrench out that last little bit of friction she so desperately needed.

  Big hands helped, sliding under her thighs, lifting her as if she weighed nothing.

  “More, Logan!”

  He leaned forward, braced her back against the cool tile, tightened his grip on her ass, and began to hunch in a furious hammering drive that made her throw back her head in a yowl of feline delight.

  Her climax burst free like a star going nova, spilling bright sparks through her belly in hot rhythmic pulses. Her yowl spiraled into a shriek.

  Logan growled in reply, leaned forward, and put his mouth against her hammering pulse. The quick pain of his bite added a wicked additional jolt to her orgasm, kicking its fading quivers back into another ferocious convulsion. She twisted against him, screaming, only distantly aware of his answering groan and the hot pulse of his jerking cock deep inside her belly.

  When it was over, they clung together, breathless as shipwreck survivors, stunned and quivering.

  Dammit, she thought. It just keeps getting better. I am so screwed.

  And so in love.

  There was a witch outside the house.

  Amanda Devon growled softly as she reared, paws planted on the windowsill as she stared at the woods behind Sam Taylor’s house. She could feel the bitch out there, radiating magic to her Dire Wolf senses.

  “Shush, Jenny,” Sam snapped, before returning to her phone call. “Lori, I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am. If there’s anything I can do, you just ask. Mark was a damn good man, a damn good cop. We’re all just sick . . .” She paused. Amanda could hear Lori Davis crying stormily for her dead husband. “Oh, honey . . . Honey, you’re going to make yourself sick. You’ve gotta be strong for Tara . . . You want me to come over?” She sighed. “Okay, if you’re sure . . . Don’t worry, I will definitely be at the receiving tomorrow. Me and every cop in Greendale County. Everybody loved Mark . . . Okay, honey. Now, I mean it about callin’. Anytime. You need me to keep Tara, whatever. Anything. Promise me? . . . All right. Bye, sweetie.” She clicked the phone off and sighed, raking her hands through her long red hair. “I swear to God, if I find out Logan had anything to do with this, I’m gonna put a bullet in his brain.”

  Amanda ignored her, still concentrating on the witch.

  This was bad. Very bad. It meant they’d figured out what “Jenny” was. But why hadn’t they moved against her yet?

  Must be waiting for nightfall, when they could mobilize the vampires. They’d be aware that she was resistant to magic, which meant there was damned little witches could do to her.

  A hand latched onto her collar and tugged hard. “Get down off that windowsill, dog. You’re scratching the hell out of the wood.”

  Amanda turned a glare on the human, who took a step back from her snarl. “What the heck is wrong with you, Jenny?”

  I’m not in the mood to play doggy, human. And I need to get the hell out of here before the sun sets.

  She had to shift forms and escape. But she couldn’t do it in front of Taylor.

  Taylor, whom Logan considered a friend. What if Taylor, like Davis, died a hideous and bloody death? Wouldn’t that inflict a little additional pain on her enemy?

  Besides, she was really sick of playing big, goofy dog . . .

  Samantha took a step back, going pale. “Jenny?”

  God, she was bored.

  Sherri Carson yawned hugely as she leaned back in the camp chair she’d conjured. She’d been on edge when she’d first replaced Smoke on guard duty, but she’d quickly realized her greatest problem was not going to be an attack from a rogue werewolf.

  It was going to be staying awake.

  Sherri was determined not to blow this. She’d been a Maja for only four months, and had spent most of that time training for magical combat. On this, her first mission, she was determined to make sure Sam Taylor didn’t disappear before Arthur’s knights showed up to take her into . . .

  A shriek rang out, shrill with terror. Sherri jolted to her feet, staring at Taylor’s house in shock. A wave of psychic agony slammed into her magical senses, and she began to run for the house, knowing even as she ran she should call for backup. But it would take too much time and magical focus to punch a spell message through to the Mageverse. And right now, Sherri knew she just didn’t have the luxury.

  A woman was dying, and Sherri was the only chance she had at survival.

  The glass door was closed and locked, but it dissolved like morning mist when Sherri’s spell blast struck it. She plunged through the opening, her heart in her throat.

  PAIN. Choking, strangling, fighting to breathe . . . Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t . . . Blood, her blood, everywhere . . . Vicious eyes glaring down into hers, triumphant and savage.

  Sherri’s stomach drew into a solid knot of terror and forced its way into her throat. Swallowing, she stopped, listened hard.

  A gasping, bubbling sound. Like someone struggling desperately to breathe. Dammit, should have called for backup, you idiot. Move. If you don’t move now, she’s dead. A healing spell could save her life.

  Gritting her teeth, she strode down a short hallway toward that pitiful sound.

  A sound that was growing steadily fainter.

  Dammit, Sherri! Quit being such a freaking puss.

  She broke into a run again, headed for the source of the dying breaths, knowing each second she delayed put the woman another instant closer to being beyond help.

  Samantha Taylor lay sprawled on her back in the bedroom, her throat a red ruin, her mouth working helplessly, her eyes going glassy even as Sherri knelt beside her.

  Oh, hell! Sherri grabbed for the Mageverse with all the power within her, calling the magic as she reached down to try to heal the woman’s shredded throat.

  A rumbling snarl sounded. She jerked her head up.

  The creature loomed over her, a towering, red-furred monster whose eyes burned gold and narrow over bared knife-sharp teeth.

  Sherri acted on pure instinct, transforming the power she’d called into a searing ball of flame that she blasted right into the Dire Wolf’s face. It roared, startled, shaking its red-maned head.

  The flames winked out.

  Oh, shi—

  A furry red hand slashed downward before she could even finish the thought.

  Arthur stared down at the empty camp chair, his hands curling into armored fists. “Where the fuck is she?”

  Giada and Logan exchanged a look. Then the whole group—Giada, Logan, Arthur, Gwen, Lancelot, and Galahad, plus their Majae wives, Grace and Caroline respectively—turned toward Samantha Taylor’s house. They were almost eerily silent in their enchanted plate armor, swords at their hips or sheathed across their backs.

  Logan drew his own blade and started for the home with long, enraged str
ides. Giada plunged after his armored back. “Dammit, Logan, let me scan!”

  “Scan, then!” he snarled.

  She sent power pouring over the house in the moonlight.

  And sensed the house still shivering with the echoes of violent death and searing agony.

  “Oh, hell!” Giada started to race past him. Logan reached out, grabbed her wrist, and jerked her around.

  “Dammit, do you want to run into an ambush?”

  “They’re dead, Logan!” she snapped. “Sam and Sherri are lying in there, dead!”

  His head rocked back, eyes narrowing in a wince of pain, before he recovered to growl, “Then getting yourself killed won’t do them any good, will it?”

  “Is the werewolf there?” Arthur demanded, his black eyes cool as he drew Excalibur.

  “She’s gone,” Gwen said. “She killed them both and vanished.”

  After a quick search of the house, the group gathered around the bodies of the two dead women.

  The young Maja lay over Samantha Taylor’s body, her head at an unnatural angle. “Oh, child.” Guinevere reached out and closed Sherri’s staring brown eyes. “Why didn’t you call for help?”

  “She sensed Sam dying,” Giada said. “She was so desperate to save Taylor, she walked right into the Dire Wolf’s ambush.”

  “At least she got off a spell blast.” Arthur gestured toward a blackened area high on the wall. The center of the area was white, forming the outline of a non-human head.

  “That’s a Dire Wolf, all right.” Gwen raised the visor of her helmet to study the burn more closely. It was almost seven feet off the ground. “Female, by the size. A male would be even bigger.”

  Giada threw her a wild look. “Bigger?”

  “And immune to magic.” Grace studied the outline. “Sherri hit it hard. Anything but a Dire Wolf would have burned like a torch.”

  Arthur crouched to breathe in deeply, using his acute vampire sense of smell. “The creature was in dog form when she attacked Sam. Then she transformed to Dire Wolf to attack the Maja.” He rubbed his knuckles thoughtfully over his bearded jaw.

  “Jenny,” Logan snarled. “She was the fucking K-9 all along.”

  Gwen fisted her hands on her hips. “Why didn’t Smoke realize the Dire Wolf was the dog, not Sam?”

  Lancelot shrugged his broad shoulders. “The mortal handled the animal so often, its scent was all over her. And hers was on it.”

  “Smoke wasn’t the only one the Dire Wolf fooled.” Giada looked down at the bodies, feeling battered by her own profound failure. “I didn’t sense it either. Why the heck did Merlin give these werewolves so much power?”

  “When he visited during the Dragon War, he told me he’d feared the Magekind would misuse their abilities and begin abusing mankind.” Arthur rose to his feet again, his expression weary. “Apparently it had happened before with some of the other guardians Merlin’s people created on other planets.”

  “But if they watch us, who watches them?” Giada asked.

  “They’re supposed to police themselves, apparently.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re doing a piss-poor job,” Logan growled. His armored glove creaked as he curled one hand into a fist. “So are we going to call them in on this or what?”

  “I already contacted the man they named as their ambassador. Devon said they would look into it.” Arthur frowned, brushing his thumb over his lower lip.

  “Devon?” Lance looked up sharply. “The same Devon who was the father of that fucking Dire Wolf serial killer?”

  “That’s the one.” Arthur shook his head. “I talked to the head of their council about the man, but he cut me off at the knees. Informed me George Devon is one of their aristocracy, the Chosen. He swears Devon’s from an ancient family, completely beyond reproach.”

  “Wait—Dire Wolf serial killer?” Caroline looked at Lancelot. “The one who killed Kat’s sister? He had an odd name—Trey or Tip or something.”

  “That’s the one.” Lancelot nodded. “His real name was George Devon III, which is where the Trey came from.”

  Giada remembered the story all too well. Trey had been torturing and killing blond mortal women for years. One of his victims was the half sister of Lance’s daughter, Kat. When Kat became a Maja, she tracked Trey down, just in time to prevent another murder. It took Kat, Lancelot, and Kat’s lover, Ridge, to save the girl and kill the Dire Wolf.

  Arthur’s eyes narrowed in calculation. “As I recall, Trey’s father, George Devon Jr., was not particularly pleased when we informed him his son was dead.”

  Logan met his gaze and knew they were thinking the same thing. “ ‘Not pleased’ enough to seek revenge?”

  “He made all the appropriate noises of horror and contrition, but I could smell his rage.” Arthur rubbed a hand over his bearded chin. “I thought at the time he was furious at his murdering son, but what if it was me he was angry at? It would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?”

  “As in, ‘You killed my son, so I’ll kill yours’?” Lance asked.

  A pause slid by, hot with growing anger. When Arthur finally spoke, fangs showed in his snarl. “I think I need to have a word of prayer with that manicured little fucker.”

  “Before you whip out Excalibur,” Gwen pointed out, “remember this is a female Dire Wolf we’re dealing with.”

  “So I’ll give him a minute to explain before I cut off his fucking head.”

  “Arthur . . .”

  “Look, we can fight over who does what to whom later,” Logan interrupted. “I need to call 911 to report Sam’s death.”

  His father stared at him. “Logan, this is a magical murder. We cannot afford to have your detectives investigate this.”

  “They’re not going to realize magic was involved, Dad. The autopsy will say she was killed by a dog bite. They’re going to assume Jenny went nuts and attacked her—which is basically what happened.”

  “What about Sherri?” Arthur jerked a thumb at the burn mark on the wall. “Not to mention the outline of the seven-foot-tall monster on the wall?”

  “We can remove that.” Gwen eyed the mark thoughtfully. “Along with all signs of Sherri and her blood.”

  Grace nodded. “And the glass door she blew open.”

  “Probably need to create some way the dog could have escaped,” Giada said thoughtfully.

  “That’s simple enough,” Logan said. “We could just say the door was standing open when we drove up.”

  Arthur frowned. “According to Smoke, Taylor told your lieutenant she thought you killed Davis. They’re going to wonder what you’re doing here.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll just tell ’em I dropped by to talk. It’s still early enough for a visit. It’ll be pretty damned obvious I didn’t kill her.” Logan looked down at Sam’s body, his expression brooding. “No human did that.”

  “Technically speaking, you don’t have to get involved with this at all,” Arthur pointed out.

  Logan glowered at him. “She’s one of my squad mates. I’m damned if I’m going to leave her here to rot.”

  “Of course not. But we could make an anonymous call to 911. When the officer arrived to check out the call, he would discover her.”

  “That would only raise more questions. She’s obviously been dead awhile, which means it’s too late for a passerby to call because she heard screams. Which would make detectives wonder if the killer made the call. Since the killer is supposed to have four legs and a tail—not a good plan.”

  “Logan, I could call the cops,” Giada pointed out. “You could go with Arthur to hunt the killer.”

  He hesitated a moment, then shook his head. “What if the Dire Wolf came back after we left?”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Why did she kill Sam? She’s nuts.”

  “Logan’s right—he should stay with you. I don’t want to end up with another dead Maja.” Arthur looked at his knights. “In the meantime, let’s pay a visit to Trey’s dear old dad and find ou
t what he knows about this mess.”

  “I’ll stay with Logan,” Giada said. “We’ll go get his car, drive up as though we just got here.”

  “I will take Sherri home and prepare her for her death ceremony.” Grace looked down at the Maja’s twisted body, sadness in her eyes. “Such a bloody, stupid waste.”

  Arthur’s lip curled. “And someone is damned well going to pay.”

  Gwen turned to Logan and extended her hand. Magic sparked in her palm, solidifying into a cell phone. “If you get separated from Giada, use this.”

  He lifted a brow as he took it. “I gather it’s not really a CrackBerry?”

  “Nope. Magic. It’ll connect you right to me, and Arthur and I will come running.”

  Logan clipped it onto his belt. “I just hope we won’t need it.”

  “Believe me, kid—so do I.”

  “You got trouble,” Charlie Myers said in his smoker’s rasp. “I told Arthur your husband had nothing to do with this mess, but I don’t think he believed me. Suspicious bastard—begging your pardon, ma’am.”

  “That’s quite all right.” Joan Devon gripped the phone in a white-knuckled grip, ignoring the pain of her wounds. A savage joy rose in her as she listened to the Southern Clans chieftain.

  This was just the opening she needed.

  “I told him no Chosen would have anything to do with killin’ Latents,” Myers continued, “especially not a Devon.”

  “Well, given that my son murdered all those human women, one can see how Arthur might have found your assurances a bit hollow.”

  “Ah.” Myers sounded taken aback. “Yeah, but Trey was . . . well, begging your pardon, ma’am, but Trey was crazy.”

  And so is my husband. Why do you think Trey went mad? Joan did not say so out loud, however. That was not a fact to share with the likes of Charlie Myers. She did have her pride, after all. “Thank you for your concern, Mr. Myers. I will deal with the situation.”

  “You’ll let your husband know?”

  “Of course,” she lied. “Good-bye, Mr. Myers.”