by Michele Hauf
The warmth of Tamatha’s hands embracing him from behind settled into him like a sigh. Had he fallen in love only to stand before death’s door? He couldn’t move his fingers on his left hand to even touch her. What the hell was going on with him?
“I might not have much longer,” he said. Because he had to. He wanted to be truthful with her. “I think it’s because of the thorn. Removal brings death.”
“What makes you believe that?”
“Things my mother told me when I was younger. Tamatha, I’m not right lately. And while the black streak has moved lower on my arm, I can’t—”
“It’s not the thorn,” she said. “Your thorns and horns can regenerate. I read it in a book about demons. Unless the healing goes wrong. But you’re keeping it clean, yes? If you feel like you’re in pain or suffering, it’s because of the curse. Oh, Ed.” She moved around in front of him and hugged him tightly. “Call your mother and find your grandfather. We need to break this curse now.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t talk to Sophie now.” Might he risk Arius tracking Sophie with a mere phone call? It was possible if she had tracked him in his own home.
“But that’s the only thing that will break the curse, that will save our love.”
He turned to her and saw such hurt in her expression. Hell, he had thought he would die to give her life. What was one more sacrifice to win her love?
But his mother? He’d known Tamatha a short time. Maybe it was lust? Which didn’t explain the imprint over his heart.
Hell, he could not sacrifice his own flesh and blood for a fleeting romance. It felt wrong. And it felt like destiny.
And he didn’t want to believe in destiny.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You should leave now.”
Chapter 22
Tamatha wasn’t sure if Ed would contact his mother. He’d flat-out refused and then told her to leave. She couldn’t imagine that he was angry with her and only hoped it was residual effects from losing his thorn that was making him not nice. Because he had only just told her he loved her. He wasn’t going to change his mind so quickly, was he?
Even if he had jumped the gun with his proclamation of love for her, she could deal. It was part of the curse. Men started to lose their minds the longer they were involved with her.
They needed Rascon to break the curse.
So Tamatha came around to thinking if she could heal Ed, then he could think clearly. And what she couldn’t do without supplies was now possible with an altar and concentration.
Switching her focus to the spell before her, she closed her eyes and lured her inner senses toward her wrist where Ed’s vita connected her to him. She sat upon a velvet cushion before a small altar on the bedroom floor. Red and white candles were lit for healing. Myrrh burned in a pewter tray. And she was skyclad. She wanted to be as open as possible to anything she might tap into.
Whispering a prayer to all the men who had died or gone mad because they had deemed to love the Bellerose women through the ages, she then ended by saying Ed’s full name three times. Her soul reached out to him and she drew on the invisible tendrils that wavered through the air and soared through the city.
And when the tendrils seemed to attach and she gulped in a breath, Tamatha smiled. “Feel me,” she said. “And heal.”
* * *
Pacing the marble floor in his office, Ed paused and glanced to the items on the shelves. The genie in the bottle was quiet, the glass dark. The angel dust had been a trade from one of The Wicked, half demon–half faeries who had escaped their exile in Faery. Their irises were pink and Ed had found an elixir administered by drops to change them to innocuous brown. Many of The Wicked had found asylum in the mortal realm, and thanks to his good relations with them, he needn’t worry about policing them as well as the full-blooded demons.
And the alicorn. He paused from reaching for it. Tamatha had remarked the good vibes she felt from it and how sad that had made her. Why had he never considered that the creature might have experienced pain to give up such a thing? That it had very likely been stolen from the unicorn since, indeed, the beast was immortal.
He owned many items of magical nature and some were evil. It had never bothered him. Until now.
Tamatha made him see things differently. And that was a good thing.
He should not have been so brisk with her earlier, asking her to leave. But he’d not known what to do. To explain about his mother would have revealed his alliance with the warlock. Not really an alliance. He’d figure a way out of it. And when he did, Tamatha never had to know.
The alicorn sat upon the dusty shelf, seeming to beam out pink vibrations at him. Good, joy, all that was right. And he knew he should be honest with Tamatha. Completely.
“Damn it,” he muttered and marched away from the annoying thing. “I’ll tell her! I have to. I could be dead from that stupid family curse soon. She has to know I would do anything for her, even if it meant lying to the warlock.”
On his way out, Ed paused before the door. An overwhelming warmth spread in his heart. He clasped his left hand over his chest, then unbuttoned his shirt to reveal the Bellerose sigil over his heart glowed. And his body...hummed subtly. As if sensing an intrusion.
“What the hell?”
Then he realized he was using his gimp hand. He flexed the fingers. Without pain. Complete use had been restored to his hand. He removed the glove and drew his thorns out—all four of them. The one he’d cut off had regenerated. Just as Tamatha had said it could happen.
“What kind of magic...?”
It was magic. Had to be. And it was her magic. He knew it as he knew she was inside him, flooding his veins, healing his thorn. It was a weird intrusion, and he didn’t like it. He appreciated the healing, but he certainly didn’t want the witch to control him like this. It reminded him of that horrible time he’d almost lost his soul to a witch’s enslavement.
Reacting to that sudden anger, he thrust out his palm, as if to shove someone away from him.
* * *
Tamatha’s body was thrust away from the altar by an invisible force. She landed on the end of the bed and tumbled off to sprawl on the floor. “Ouch!”
A silken spill of a sheer red shawl fell over her shoulders, which she clutched about her. Blowing aside the hair from her face, she saw the candles had ignited the altar. With a forceful breath of air magic, she extinguished the flames. Black ash sifted into the air and seemed to take flight...as if ravens.
“Did he do that?”
No. She considered the line on her wrist. They were bonded. If she could send him healing vibes, perhaps he could do the same. But he wasn’t a healer, so instead what had he sent? It had felt violent.
“CJ was right.” Ed could control her. And he’d been so rough with her. Had he felt her intrusion and shoved her away? If he loved her, why wouldn’t he embrace her?
“I’m not going to make an assumption. I did just control him with the healing.”
She’d try something else. Like a simple kiss. Something he should welcome...
This time Tamatha’s body slid across the floor and crashed up against the window. The glass cracked but didn’t break. Maybe she had tapped into the wrong demon?
When a flock of dark birds battered against the cracked window, she turned and stood, putting up her hands in defense. A little air magic would send them off—
“Ravens?” Was it Ed?
Unwilling to use repulsive magic against her lover, she rushed to the unbroken window and opened the sash. The conspiracy flooded in and flocked about her, their wings hitting her hair and forcing her to pull up the shawl as a shield in defense. When she stumbled and landed on the bed, the ravens shifted.
Ed formed over her, his hands pinning
her wrists to the bed, trapping her. “What the hell, witch?”
* * *
Her demon lover loomed before her, his gray irises edged in red. He was angry? But she had only tried to heal him. How dare he react so cruelly?
“Get off me!”
Ed stood back, shifting his shoulders to stand tall and defiantly over her.
Tamatha almost cast a repulsion spell, but relented at the last moment. “I was testing the connection. And apparently, you can control me, as CJ said.”
“Is that so? CJ told you this? You didn’t mention it to me.”
“Yes, I...” Didn’t she?
“You were the one inside me, witch.”
She cringed at the tone he used to call her witch.
“What were you trying to do? You have no right! This goes way beyond the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing. I will not have you fucking around inside my head.”
“I wasn’t in your head,” she argued as loudly as he did. Tugging the sheer red wrap about her did not alleviate her vulnerability. “I wanted to give our bond a try and thought you could use some tender care. I was healing your hand. And I see you’ve got control of it again.” He wiggled his fingers, then curled them into a fist and punched his opposite palm. “You’re welcome.”
“If you would have let me know you were going to do this, maybe I wouldn’t have been taken by surprise. But if you believe you have a right to just jump inside me, no matter the reason—” He swept his hand before her and his black smoky magic soared toward her.
Reacting to the threat, Tamatha repulsed it with air magic, following with a frill of fire on the end.
Ed dodged the fizzling flame. “Is that so?”
“You’re forcing me to defend myself!”
“And with such flare. I’ll see your flame.” He snapped his fingers and a swarm of small black-winged creatures soared toward Tamatha. “And raise you an unkindness.”
The miniature flock of ravens dive-bombed Tamatha’s hair. She shouted, “Expulsus!” And the creatures misted to nothing. “Ed, stop!” She held up a palm to deflect his next move. “This argument is ridiculous. We should both be focused on the more important reason we are together right now.”
He gripped her by the shoulders and squeezed not too gently. “You were the one freaked about my being able to possibly control you. And then you go ahead and do the same? Tamatha, I trusted you.”
She exhaled. Yes, he had. And she hadn’t thought of the implications when she’d prepared the altar to send her healing magic. She’d only wanted to help him. But he was right. She should have asked or, at the very least, let him know what she was doing.
“Sorry.” She bowed her head. “I was wrong. You are right.”
“No, I don’t want to be—”
At that moment the cracked glass in the window cracked even more and fell inward. Ed grabbed her about the waist and charged into the living room to avoid the flying shards.
“What the hell?” he muttered against her hair. “What is going on?”
“You flung me against the window with your reactionary magic. It cracked.”
“Shit. I’m sorry. I—I could have hurt you. You could have been cut by glass. I didn’t want that. I wanted you out of me.” He clutched her against him as if clinging would make her safe. “I love you. But that scares me. That’s why I reacted so strongly. What are we doing to one another? I threw magic at you.”
“I’ll never do it again. I promise. I wanted to heal you.”
“Thank you. It worked. I love you for that. I shouldn’t have reacted.”
“I should have told you what I wanted to do.”
“Let’s make a vow to never use our bond with one another.”
“What if it can help the other?”
He shook his head. “Never. Please, Tamatha—it’s wrong.”
Much as she didn’t agree, because if she could help him and vice versa, she would never neglect that power, she nodded. “Agreed.”
With a gesture of her hand and a whispered “Resolvo,” the glass window re-formed and fitted back into the wood sill. “Was that our first fight?”
“I think so.”
“Wait. That time you had me kidnapped—”
He kissed her. Because he didn’t want to bring up the bad stuff. He was glad she was safe, not cut by glass, and hell—she’d attempted to heal him and had succeeded. Not a thing about the two of them warranted further argument. Only falling into this kiss mattered now.
His hands glided over the silky fabric draped about her shoulders. “You’re not wearing much. What is it with witches and the whole skyclad thing?”
“It opens us to the full potential the universe is willing to offer. I needed it to reach you with my healing vibrations. Does it bother you?”
“Does this bother you?” He lashed his tongue over her nipple.
She arched her back, lifting her breast higher. “Nope. But maybe you should check the other one. See if that one bothers me.”
His mouth closed over her ruched nipple and she clung to his shoulders, wanting to pull him into her, but not wanting to lose the delicious sensation at her breast. “Mmm, yes.”
He lifted her onto the couch and licked down her stomach and didn’t stop until his tongue found her clit. His hands glided down her thighs and hiked her legs up over his shoulders.
If fighting led to makeup sex like this, Tamatha could do with the occasional argument. What the man could do with his tongue. Her body shivered and she ran her hands through his hair, making a point of gliding slowly and circling his horn nubs.
He growled against her and the vibration of his voice teased her closer to climax. Gripping his hair, she pulled gently but insistently. Right there. Yes, he went deep and followed with his fingers.
“This is the only way I want to be inside you,” he said and lashed his tongue over her skin. “You like that?”
“You’ve got a magical touch,” she said on a rising note, and then she gasped out an exalted cry as the orgasm rocked her world.
* * *
In the morning, Ed sat up on the bed and grabbed his ringing cell phone. After his argument with Tamatha he’d rethought his priorities. He would do anything to protect his mother, but that meant he needed to keep her in the loop. He’d called Sophie last night and explained his need for her to stay out of sight and also for contact with his grandfather. His mother must have given Rascon his number.
“Uh, hey, Grandfather. This is a little weird, but there’s a situation going on in town that needs your involvement.”
“I’m delighted to help my grandson. Can we meet?”
“Yes, soon. But I’m afraid there’s no time for getting to know one another.”
“If what you need me for is so important, I understand. I’ll take you out on the town after the problem has been solved. So what is going on?”
“Do you recall a witch lover from the eighteenth century?”
“I, uh... Why do you ask?”
“It seems that after the two of you parted ways, a curse was fashioned. That very curse is now affecting my lover and me. And a warlock has gotten involved, as well. The warlock has been killing the progeny of your former Libre denizen.”
“That sounds like a mess. But why the interest in my lover?”
“You remember her?”
“Yes. The witch, Lysia Bellerose.”
“You two were in love?”
“What do you need, Edamite? Tell me.”
“I need you to apologize to Lysia for accusing her and sending her to the stake.”
Silence reigned on the other end of the line. Ed assumed Rascon was sorting through memories. They must have loved fiercely. Surely he would want to make amends by explaining his reason for siding with his denizen a
nd accusing her so cruelly.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you with that one,” Rascon said.
“I don’t understand. You must have been forced to accuse Les Douze by your denizen.”
“No. No force involved. You see, I was the one who led the denizen in accusing those heinous witches.”
Chapter 23
The look Ed gave Tamatha made her sit upright on the bed and press a hand over the sigil on his chest. His heartbeats thundered beneath her touch. So much so that her heartbeats sped up. “What is it?”
“Rascon, please,” he said to the caller. “Meet me and let’s talk about this.” He tossed the phone aside. “My grandfather hung up on me.”
“Why? You didn’t say a thing about Lysia being a zombie. I don’t understand.”
“We suspected that Rascon was forced to go along with his denizen in accusing the witches?”
She nodded.
“He was the one who led them in the accusation. He doesn’t want anything to do with apologizing to Lysia. So I guess that’s that with breaking the curse. At least we can still try to take out the warlock. Because you know, we’re so powerful and have all the skills to do that.”
His sarcasm set her back. Tamatha clutched the pillow to her chest and watched as he dressed. They had to break the curse. More than stopping Les Douze, she wanted the curse broken. So she could have Ed. For longer than most. And if that was being greedy, then sign her up for the trophy. She’d take the greed award and wave it proudly.
“What’s the plan for the warlock?” he asked as he buttoned up his black shirt and tucked it in his pants. “Are you witchy foursome working on something?”
“Vika and Libby are digging deep into their family grimoire and Verity is trying to contact Ian Grim. Supposedly the warlock owes her one.”
His manner was curt and she sensed he was ready to give up on it all. But he didn’t seem like the kind of man who could do that. Otherwise he would be some witch’s slave right now.
