To Seduce a Witch's Heart

by Nadine Mutas

Merle swallowed. “She’s gone to lie down for a bit. Uh, I could wake her if you want.”

  “No, please, don’t.” Hazel shook her head. “Let her rest. She probably wouldn’t want to see me anyway…” Her voice trailed away.

  Once more, they sat in painful silence.

  “I’m sorry,” Hazel said, her magic a soft glow around her.

  Startled, Merle looked at her, unsure how to reply.

  “What Isabel did…” Closing her eyes, Hazel took a deep breath, laden with sorrow and grief. “You and Maeve, you girls have always been like daughters to me, too. What happened to Maeve—it pains me, and I am ashamed that an evil like that has come from my own family. I am so very sorry.”

  The knot of awkwardness inside Merle’s chest tightened impossibly further. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do these things to Maeve…”

  “I feel like I should have known. Isabel’s my sister, I should have—” A poignant pause. “Was. She was my sister.”

  Merle’s stomach lurched. Despite Isabel’s evil, despite Merle’s dark sense of satisfaction at the fact the Elder witch had paid with her life for torturing Maeve, Merle also felt Hazel’s grief. No matter what Isabel had done, she’d been Hazel’s sister, and if anyone understood the bond behind that, it was Merle.

  Her fingers dug into the fabric of the armchair. Torn inside, unable to bring herself to apologize for taking Isabel’s life, but ripped apart by visceral sympathy for Hazel’s loss, Merle could only stare at her in strained silence.

  “Do you love him?”

  Hazel’s sudden change of subject, her unexpected question, threw Merle off, though only for a second. Understanding immediately whom the older witch was referring to, she met her eyes, calmly said, “He’s my heart.”

  Hazel regarded her for a long moment, then nodded. “And he obviously loves you, too—to go willingly into the Shadows, for you.” Glancing down at her hands in her lap, she softly went on, “With so much death and pain around us, I think if we find love, we need to hold on to it.” She paused, looked back at Merle with those warm brown eyes. “No matter what form it takes.” Pulling out a book from her bag, she hesitated. “There is nothing I can do to right the wrong that Isabel caused. I just wish…” Hazel fell silent, swallowed, her eyes glistening as she glanced down. “If Maeve needs anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  Merle nodded, waiting for Lily and Basil’s mother to speak again, knowing she wasn’t finished.

  A heavy breath later, Hazel handed her the book. “I can’t undo Maeve’s pain. But I can do this for you.”

  Merle frowned at the small volume bound in black leather, inscribed with the title On the Laws of Witches and Their Elders. Glancing up at Hazel, she inhaled softly as realization sunk in. There had been a subtle difference in the other witch’s aura, a change from when Merle had last seen her. “You’re an Elder now.”

  Hazel nodded, rose to her feet. Merle followed suit.

  “I have claimed my place as Isabel’s successor.” Smoothing down her skirt with calm hands, she met Merle’s gaze. “It’s time for a fresh breeze, don’t you think?” She nodded at the book in Merle’s hands. Giving her a small smile, she hesitated for a second, then closed the distance and enfolded Merle in a trembling hug. When Hazel withdrew again, she surreptitiously wiped at her eyes, said her goodbyes, and left.

  Merle sank down on the armchair again, opening the book to where a mark was tucked inside. It was the section on privileges and duties of an Elder witch, and two of the paragraphs were highlighted. In between them, a small sticky note read, You have my full support.

  As Merle read the two passages, she slowly started to smile, hope blooming inside her chest.

  Chapter 25

  Darkness. So thick, it penetrated his very being, each and every cell. It coiled around him, within him, through him. The worst part about the Shadows? They were sentient, and they were hungry.

  The squirming black ate at his foundations, each bite a sharp sting spearing through him, gnawing at his soul until he wasn’t Rhun anymore.

  He was pain.

  The starvation had hit him on the heels of the pain, depleting him of all his energy, leaving but a glimmer of life inside him. Enough to feel, while refusing him the mercy of death.

  Burning anguish, gut-wrenching hunger, despair beyond hope, and still he held on to the image of sky-blue eyes and flaming hair, to the memory of a love that had broken and steeled him at the same time. Not even the most vicious darkness seeping into his mind could wrench this away from him.

  Abruptly, the Shadows roiled as if agitated. If he’d had control over his physical form, he might have frowned at that. It felt like… Something pulled at him, called him forth, and the sentient black around him receded grudgingly. The Shadows sure as hell didn’t want to release him, but they were ordered to.

  He passed through the veil between the layers of the world, and as his form solidified under the night air’s cool kiss, the Shadows let him go with waves of lingering pain. A breath—and he was free.

  Rhun’s eyes fluttered open, his vision predator sharp, homing in on the face of the witch leaning over him, the image of her branded into his heart. A single tear streaked down her cheek, her eyes a startling bright blue after the darkness he’d come from, her hair a spark of fire in the night. Color and life she was, his Merle.

  Which was why he wouldn’t allow her to be harmed in any way, least of all because of him. Fighting against the urge to hold on to this dream, he quietly said, “You know I’m going to force you to bind me again, little witch.”

  She shook her head, wiping at her damp cheek, and then held her wrist up to his mouth. “Drink.” Her other hand stroked his jaw, his temple, feathered through his hair.

  He didn’t move. “Merle.”

  Stubborn defiance in her eyes. “You’re starving. Feed. We’ll talk after.”

  When he still wouldn’t bite her, she uttered a sound of frustration—which he couldn’t help finding adorable—grabbed a knife from the bag lying next to her, and before he could stop her, she’d slit her wrist and pressed the bleeding wound against his lips.

  A trickle of warm blood slipped into his mouth, touched his tongue. He was done for. Hunger and instincts took over, and against reason and his conscience, he latched on to her wrist, bit into her skin, and drank.

  The aroma of her blood burst on his tongue like an explosion of exquisite pleasure. His body, his mind, regained strength with each deep and greedy pull on her vein. More of his senses came to life, and he breathed in her intoxicating scent, felt her aura, her power, infused with a new kind of strength. Something was different about her, a sense of completion in her magic, as if a missing piece had fallen into place.

  Rhun broke away, licked the wound closed on her wrist and held it when she wanted to press it down to his mouth again to keep him drinking. “Enough.” And damn if it didn’t take a measure of superhuman self-control to say that. He’d pat himself on the back for it later, when he’d be starving in the Shadows again. “You shouldn’t have unbound me.” For all the roughness of his words, his touch was tender as he caressed her face, traced the freckles on her cheek with his fingers. Her skin was so, so soft, and he wanted to stroke her forever. But—“Send me back. I’m not going to let you get punished, Merle.”

  “I’ve found a way around that.”

  She rose to her feet, glanced behind her, and Rhun raised himself half-up on his elbows, looking around for the first time. He was lying on the lawn behind the MacKenna residence, the darkness of night illuminated dimly by a few candles on the back porch. Close by, behind Merle, stood Lily, Basil, and their mother, Hazel.

  Further in the back, half-hidden in the shadows of the porch between the candles, lingered Maeve. One of her hands curled around a porch post, as one might hold on to someone dear, and her eyes were wary as she looked at Rhun.

  In a fluid motion, he rose to his feet, accepted the clothes Merle handed him, pulled them on, and then
turned to his witch. Before he could speak, or act on any of the numerous impulses of what he’d like to do with her, she took his hand and met his eyes, her face solemn.

  “There is a way,” she said, “to keep you here, with me. The Elders won’t be able to punish me for it, and they can’t force me to bind you again.” A small intake of breath, a delicate quiver in her aura. “If you agree.”

  His eyes narrowed. “To what?”

  She looked down on their linked hands, her fingers threaded through his, and then she glanced to her side. Rhun followed the direction of her gaze, to the charred stump a few feet away, this relic of a tree that had witnessed the destruction of a family—as well as the bonding of hearts, generation after generation. Realization dawned on him, rushed through him in waves of exhilaration, and he looked back at Merle.

  “Why, my little witch,” he said, a smile flirting with his lips, “are you proposing to me?”

  His acute hearing picked up how her heart skipped a beat then pounded at a double rate. Cheeks flushed a hot pink discernable even in the dark of night, she looked up at him, met his gaze.

  “That depends,” she said, her voice shaky, “on your answer.” Her aura trembled with uncertainty, with fear.

  He stared at her for a long moment, anger boiling inside him.

  Then he lowered his shields.

  The force of Rhun’s mind pulled on Merle’s, and she staggered, stumbled into his arms. Wrapping his power around her, he took her in, allowed her to see, feel, taste everything of him, nothing held back.

  Gesturing for Basil and Lily to stand down when they made a move toward them, clearly worried about her, Merle held on to Rhun for support, gasped at the emotions crashing upon her.

  At the depth of his love.

  Beneath it, hot and raw, pulsed anger, formed into a snarled question. “How could you ever doubt what my answer would be, witch volcano?”

  Smiling against his chest, where he held her pressed in a crushing hug, she couldn’t help teasing him. “So that’s a yes?”

  His mind, body, and soul quaked with his growl, and she sent her smile straight into his mind.

  “How can this work?” he asked, stroking her back, his other hand curving possessively, cherishingly over her hip.

  “I’ve claimed my place among the Elders,” Merle said, and in the small pause that followed, the surge of Rhun’s pride and approval warmed her heart, “and one of my prerogatives is unbinding any demon from the Shadows, if I have the backing of another Elder.”

  “Isabel’s sister.” Understanding unfurled in his mind.

  “Yes. She will also act as the one Elder necessary to marry another witch. As my husband—the husband of an Elder witch—you’ll be protected from any hostilities by other witches, and they cannot force me to bind you again unless you are caught red-handed breaking our laws.” She paused for a moment, gut knotted tight with unease. “Rhun,” she then said, her mental voice as serious as her heart, because she needed to be sure, needed him to understand, “it’s a binding commitment. I don’t want to force you into this…”

  A rush of deep, lasting affection against her senses, not a single trace of hesitation, of doubt in his mind. “I don’t want to make anyone else’s toes curl, little witch. Only yours. And I want to annoy you every day for the rest of my life.”

  “That is a crappy way of saying I love you,” she whispered even as her heart burst with joy, her mind drunk on the warmth of his emotions for her.

  “All right,” he said, his breath hot on her ear, his arms tightening around her, “how about this? When I was back in the Shadows, it was the thought of you that kept the pain at bay. It was the thought of you being safe and unhurt. And I’d go back into the Shadows any time, for as long as it takes, to keep you safe and unhurt, little witch of mine.” A kiss on her hair, his aura enfolding her. “I love you.”

  She’d already seen the truth of it in his mind, had felt it rush over her in a caress of raw devotion, but to hear him put it in words, say it out loud, it undid her. Rising up on tiptoes, she wound her arms around his neck, pulled him down and kissed the living daylights out of him.

  Well, at least she did so until he took over the kiss and threw her world off balance. Held upright only by Rhun’s hands, she came back to her senses when Basil and Lily simultaneously cleared their throats.

  “Right,” Merle muttered and stepped back from her viciously talented demon, her lips tingling, her pulse shot up through the skies, her skin on fire. “Right. Um. Hazel?”

  The Elder witch stepped forward with barely concealed amusement in her eyes, took Merle’s left hand and then looked at Rhun, indicating him to give her his hand as well. He complied, his eyes never leaving Merle’s. Hazel pulled out a scarf of soft silk and wrapped it around their joined hands.

  “Speak your vows,” Hazel said, her one hand resting on top of the scarf.

  A slight drizzle of rain fell, feathering down on Merle and Rhun. His fingers closed around hers as he brushed her mind with his power, caressed her so most intimately.

  “There you go, little witch. You’ve always wanted it to rain at your wedding, haven’t you?”

  Merle looked into eyes of palest green-blue, her soul going peacefully quiet in a way that breathed magic, yet had nothing to do with her powers. “You remembered.” What she’d told her father, right here on the lawn, this little piece of her heart she’d pulled out, laid down in the open at a moment that had pained her so much. And just like that, Rhun had given it back to her, and, impossibly, soothed a part of this bittersweet ache.

  “Of course,” he said, his mental voice stroking her senses.

  “I, Merle MacKenna, take thee, Rhun…” She suddenly faltered, frowning.

  “Ap Owain,” Rhun offered with a smirk that stole her heart again. “My last name’s ap Owain.”

  She gave him a smile from the depth of her soul. “I take thee, Rhun ap Owain, to my wedded husband, ’til death us depart.”

  His thumb caressed the back of her hand. “I, Rhun ap Owain, take thee, Merle MacKenna, to my wedded wife, ’til death us depart.”

  None of the weddings she’d witnessed could have ever prepared Merle for the sheer bliss of this moment, for the soaring joy that stole her breath. Hazel tied the ends of the scarf together, spoke the words that would seal the bond, but Merle didn’t hear her anymore. Everything else faded away as her world centered on the demon who held her heart, her soul, who enveloped her mind in a blinding embrace of love.

  Holding on to his hand, joined with hers in a scarf that would remain knotted for as long they both lived, she rose to meet his kiss—and groaned as Rhun snuck his other hand up to the back of her head, massaged her scalp and damn straight made her toes curl.

  “Damn sneaky demon.” A whisper against his lips.

  But she could give as well as she took, and she grinned broadly when the circle pattern she scratched on his chest made Rhun’s eyes cross and his thoughts dissolve into a puddle of goo inside his mind.

  “Tricky little witch.”

  “Ahem.” Lily’s tap on her shoulder had Merle snapping back into the here and now.

  Taking the knotted scarf in one hand, Merle turned to her best friend, who pulled her into a rib-threatening hug.

  “Congratulations,” Lily whispered in her ear. “I’m so happy for you, Merle.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered back, squeezing Lily hard.

  When she released Merle, Lily eyed Rhun for a moment, then extended her hand. “If you don’t treat her right,” she said as Rhun took it, “I will rip off your balls and feed them to the brownies in our backyard.”

  “Lil!” Merle gaped at her in shock.

  Rhun’s eyes, though, glinted with amusement. “Fair enough.”

  Before Merle could berate Lily any more, Basil stepped up to her, hugged her and kissed her hair. “I hope he’ll make you happy, sweetie.”

  “He already does.” Merle gave him a peck on his cheek as he released her,
ignoring Rhun’s low growl.

  Basil’s warm brown eyes, so much like his mother’s, focused on Rhun then, turned cold. “Hurt her, and your balls won’t be the only thing I’ll rip off your body.”

  Rhun held his gaze, gave the other male a grim nod of understanding. His mind still open to Merle, she could see Rhun wasn’t piqued by her friends’ threats—if anything, his opinion of Basil and Lily had risen. Protectiveness, he understood all too well.

  Basil took a breath, nodded, and then shook Rhun’s hand. “Her favorite flowers are tulips. Remember that for when you screw up.”

  “Appreciated.” He let go of Basil’s hand, looked at Hazel and inclined his head in thanks.

  The Elder witch nodded, then turned to Merle. “Cherish each other.”

  “We will.”

  Merle looked at Rhun, his dark hair wet from the rain, his gaze heated as it centered on her, and her heart was too small for what she felt for him. It would burst, she was sure, burst into a thousand tiny pieces, and each one would bear his name.

  “Now that’s just cheesy,” he said, his mental voice affectionately teasing.

  Merle gasped, realization sinking in with amazement—she’d opened her mind to him without thinking. Sneaky demon that he was, he’d read her thoughts and now grinned at her in the way that made her want to smack him over the head. When she narrowed her eyes at him, he simply laughed and pulled her in for a kiss she had no will to fight, not when she sensed the devastating depth of his love for her behind his teasing. She just melted, and, damn, it felt good.

  “All right,” Rhun said as he released her, glancing from Basil and Lily to Hazel, shooting a quick look at Maeve, “you might want to leave now.” He made shooing gestures, sighed with annoyance when nobody moved. “I promised my witch I wouldn’t embarrass her in front of her friends anymore, so you need to get going.”

  When Merle took a step back and looked at him quizzically, opened her mouth to ask him, he cut her off.

  “You really don’t want them to see this,” he said for her ears only, dark heat in his eyes. He smirked when she tried to pick his intention from his mind and failed because he shielded it.