A Little Dark Magic (The Little Coven Series Book 2)

by Isabel Wroth

  “I’ll leave some tea that will help you sleep soundly and wake refreshed. Don’t try to untangle whatever mess you’ve got going on in your mind. It’ll happen naturally, or not at all. If you do try to force it, well, I expect next time you’ll be lucky to only endure a minor bout of sickness.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  After seeing Thomas and the healer out, Maksim ran a hot bath for Kerrigan and brought another bowl of icy water with plenty of cool cloths to the tub. She made a weak protest about wanting to just sleep, but he insisted.

  “You can sleep in the bath if you need to. I’ll be right here.” After that, she got quiet, allowing him to undress her, leaning on him with a soft murmur of pleasure when he stripped and got into the bath with her.

  The placement of the mirror in front of them and the soft light from the cluster of candles he’d lit in hopes it wouldn’t hurt her eyes as badly as the brightness of the overheads, reminded him of bygone eras of decadence and romance.

  Kerrigan let her head fall back on his shoulder when he draped the cold cloth across her eyes, her breasts rising just above the frothy bubbles he’d added to the water.

  There was literally nothing so beautiful as her skin, flushed with heat, kissed by candlelight. He made a valiant attempt to keep the defiant rise of his cock from prodding her in the back, but the way she pulled his arms around her and encouraged him to touch her left him reeling with lust despite his concerns.

  “I didn’t think about why I never went back, even when Austmathr asked outright,” Kerrigan whispered. “Not until Veda explained what was going on in that room with the vampire experiment.”

  Maksim turned his lips to her cheek, struggling to admit it hadn’t occurred to him either, not even with the experiment happening right before his eyes. Why would it have?

  He hadn’t seen or sensed anything that night to suggest one of his brothers was in the house when the Silver Wives captured him.

  After the blade pierced his chest and the desiccation began, the bastard would have felt safe enough to approach and lay hands on Kerrigan.

  To use the thrall to make her believe or do anything he told her to. As abhorrent as it was to think about, with her under his influence, why wouldn’t the traitorous bastard have just killed Kerrigan?

  “You heard the healer, love. No more tonight. Let your mind rest.” He felt the fine tremor that wracked her and sank down deeper into the water until she was submerged all the way up to her chin.

  “Easier said than done,” she murmured. “The night before we came to the mansion to find you, when Astrid and I did our astral travel, she found the remnants of psychic residue on what’s essentially my soul. Did I tell you that?”

  Glad for the topic change that wouldn’t trigger any repercussions of the thrall used to make her forget, Maksim shook his head, reaching down to exchange the now tepid cloth over her eyes for an icy cold one.

  “No, I don’t believe you did.”

  “It was on the left side of my face. Astrid described it as a burn infused with magic. At the time, we were running under the assumption the residue was from where Vivica slapped the tar out of me, but I think I was wrong.

  All the questions Austmathr asked me, my reaction in the kitchen, the reasons behind why I didn’t look for you…”

  Maksim grimaced in response to the spurt of boiling, lava hot rage. “One of my brother’s touched you. He made you forget, and every time you thought about me, the compulsion amplified your feelings of guilt and grief.”

  Fighting off the thrall of a vampire was impossible unless the victim already suffered from short term memory loss.

  As Thomas described, there were physical consequences to Kerrigan making any attempt to circumvent the commands implanted in her subconscious. His fury chilled to icy horror in an instant, his arms tightening around her as though his embrace could keep the answer to his next question from doing either of them any harm.

  “You didn’t ever attempt…” Maksim found himself stumbling to even speak the words aloud, but Kerrigan seemed to understand regardless.

  She sighed softly, turning on her side to rest her cheek on his shoulder. “Once. Well, several times on the same night, but I wasn’t successful because my skin kept knitting back together before any real damage was done.”

  *****

  “I felt so empty I might as well have been a ghost. I went through the motions, I said the right things, I went to class and did just enough to get by. The only reason I ate or bathed or pretended to study was so that my roommates, my best friends, wouldn’t ask questions.

  “If I didn’t feel anything, then I could get through another day without you. I was doing pretty good until I woke up and saw those meddling witches had decked out our room in Gothic chic sometime during the night.”

  Kerrigan choked out a laugh, remembering the swaths of black lace, the skulls dripping with candle wax, the bats made of shadows that flew around the ceiling, and the golden fireworks that went off as soon as the girls started singing Happy Birthday.

  It had taken everything Kerrigan had to smile and pretend the facade she’d put up around herself wasn’t shattering like broken glass.

  “I hadn’t told any of them what happened, but they knew something was wrong. They went all out to cheer me up on my nineteenth birthday. I got cake for breakfast, and when it was time for class, the girls all put on these huge black Victorian gowns, went full savage with veils, and surrounded me like an honor guard, wailing the whole way. It was so dramatic and over the top; it had to be Juliet’s idea.”

  “It sounds like an amazing birthday,” Maksim told her warmly. His fingers slid into her hair to hold her in place as he bent his knees to surround her as much as possible.

  “I wanted to die,” she confessed. Maks wheezed her name and clutched her even tighter, like he couldn’t believe the words had come out of her mouth.

  She genuinely felt ashamed for the attempt she’d made back then, but knowing now that a vampire messed with her mind, Kerrigan felt a deeper burn of anger. Underneath the searing resentment, though, there was relief.

  She hadn’t been herself. Her emotions had been tampered with, keeping her mired in a swamp of unending agony, struggling minute by minute for one breath of air that wasn’t saturated with pain, betrayal, and unfathomable grief.

  “That night, I said I was going into the school cemetery for a project, and at the time, I didn’t feel bad about lying to them. It was a nice night, cold. Foggy, too. I could see the outlines of all the ghosts who wandered around out there, and they didn’t pay attention to me until I’d cut into my arm.

  “Then they were everywhere, waiting for the inevitable, but right before my eyes, my skin started to knit back together before more than a few teaspoons of blood escaped my vein. I tried again, and again, but I just kept healing. By that time, it hurt bad enough to make the scalpel shake in my hand.

  “I sat there, completely confused, pissed off, silently raging at the universe for refusing to let me go, and this… whisper moved across my cheek. Like a tendril of fog or ghostly fingers reaching out to me.”

  Kerrigan lifted her hand to her face, able to remember the cool kiss on her skin so vividly, her cheek tingled.

  “It was cold and distracting, flirting around in my peripheral, and the more I looked for what it was, the less I saw. So, I closed my eyes, opened myself to whatever was trying to communicate with me, and… I heard your voice.

  “All you said was my name, but I heard you. Suddenly I was convinced you were a ghost out there somewhere, and finding you became more important than giving in to the grief.

  "Looking back, I never really went through the stages of grieving, either. I felt mired in anger and deep depression all the time, and I honestly don’t know what I would have done without my little coven of sisters and the mission hearing your voice brought on.”

  Maksim turned his lips to her forehead, painting her brow with kisses. She felt his love and his sorrow in e
very tender press, heard his fear and relief in the hoarse murmur he gave.

  “I’m glad you had them to keep you safe, Kerrigan. Whichever one of my brothers violated your mind with such cruelty underestimated how deeply, obstinately stubborn you are when it comes to going the distance for the people you love.”

  She took that as the compliment it was meant to be. It didn’t feel right to confess to him that until finding him in the dungeon of the Silver Wives summer house, Kerrigan had battled the urge to lay down and die every day for the last twelve years.

  Even in the quiet moments alone since freeing Maks, the insidious whisper was still there. Softer, not so present in her mind, but it wasn’t gone.

  It was sheer stubbornness on her part to constantly feed the part of her that needed answers. To relentlessly hunt down any and all information she could find on where vampires went after they died, no matter how obscure.

  Yes, hearing Maksim’s ghostly voice spurred her forward, but someone else came out of the fog that night.

  “I sat on the ground in the graveyard all night, staring at the scalpel and trying to rationalize what had happened. It was harder than I care to admit to get up, but just before dawn, my Headmistress appeared out of nowhere.

  “She just stood there, staring down at me in a way that made me feel like a bug, not saying a word. She held out her hand, and I remember thinking how skeletal her fingers looked in the darkness. I was embarrassed for having been caught, but I gave her the blade and stood up. She said something to me I will never forget.”

  Her throat worked even as her eyes burned with unshed tears, wishing she could go back and tell Headmistress Le Doux how grateful she was for what felt like such an unkind moment.

  Knowing what she did now, Kerrigan could see the genuine care behind the facade of a nasty old hag.

  “What did she say?” Maks prompted gently.

  “She said, ‘I understand you are not the same person who left my school several months ago, but I urge you to consider how those closest to you will feel, knowing you chose to leave them behind rather than accept their love and use it to bolster you in times where it seems as though you can’t go on a moment longer.

  “In choosing death, you’ve admitted whatever or whoever has driven you to this is more powerful than you are, Miss Gray. That you’ve been defeated. If that’s true, you’re not half the witch I believed you to be. I assure you, it is much more satisfying to live in spite of those who would wish you dead.”

  “That seems overly harsh considering how she came upon you.” Maksim’s disapproval made Kerrigan smile.

  “No, it was the right thing to do. If I’d succeeded, Vivica and your brother would have taken everything I had. They would have won. Le Doux was a hardass, and I regret never telling her how grateful I was for caring about me enough to be harsh.”

  Maks gave a murmur of understanding, rubbing his whiskery cheek against hers.

  “You chose to live, Kerrigan. She knew.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  For the first time since they’d been reunited, Maksim woke up before her. The press of his lips at her low back woke her; a decadent chill raced up her spine and spread all the way down her arms and into her fingertips. He kissed each vertebra on his way up, his palm following the curve of her hip and over her belly, up higher to caress the underside of her breasts.

  Kerrigan moaned, torn between arching into his palms and leaning into the touch of his mouth on her back.

  Hazy from her deep sleep, Kerrigan made another sound of disappointment when instead of continuing to thumb her nipples, Maksim took his hand away and reached down to her thigh.

  “Good evening, my love,” he murmured, feeling him smile against her shoulder. “How are you feeling?”

  “Horny as a toad!” she gasped, pushing back with her butt to feel the hard length of his cock press between her cheeks.

  He gave a throaty growl of approval, lifting her thigh up over his.

  “Is that so? You’re not tired? Suffering a headache or any remnants of pain from last night?”

  Desire was a thick, warm coat of honey swirling throughout her insides.

  “Yes, no, and no. I’m good!”

  “Hmm,” he rumbled, touching a light kiss to the back of her neck as he rocked his hips forward, sending his shaft shuttling back and forth in an easy rhythm through the arousal starting to drip from inside her.

  Maks seemed to enjoy teasing her in precisely that way, stimulating her clit, rubbing his cock between the outer lips of her sex, allowing the head to just barely catch at her opening before pulling away.

  His chuckle vibrated along her back when she whined in protest, evading her attempt to impale herself on him.

  “You certainly feel good. I love waking up each night with you in my arms. You’re so warm,” he whispered in her ear, sliding one arm beneath her shoulders, reaching up and around to trap her arms to her chest, pulling her thigh higher. “So warm, and soft, and mine.”

  Maks stopped teasing her, sliding deep in one, slow glide. Kerrigan lost the ability to breathe, to think, focused only on how it felt to be sound and unable to move while he lavished her with pleasure.

  He thrust and retreated, slow and hard, squeezing her tighter when she struggled to help him find the spot at the front wall of her pussy that made her eyes roll back.

  “Now, now, love. Don’t rush me. Let me savor you. Breathe for me, Kerrigan. Let me make this last forever.”

  With a low moan, Kerrigan did what he asked and time did seem to slow down, the sensation coursing through her body humming in every cell—every pore.

  It built slowly, like water filling a cup, and from one drop to the next, everything she felt spilled over in a hot, beautiful rush.

  All she could do was lie there and shudder in ecstasy. It took her a few moments to realize Maks hadn’t come with her.

  He was still hard, and he hadn’t fed. The knowledge that they weren’t finished sent another shock of excitement rippling through her.

  The thought no sooner crossed her mind, and Maks pulled away, shushing her with a gentle laugh when she made small noises of protest.

  “Don’t leave me.”

  She was on her back so fast her head spun, her thighs spread wide with a push of Maksim’s hands. He shoved inside, hissing when she arched her back and eagerly cried out.

  He planted his elbows on either side of her head, digging in with his arms for leverage to push deeper, harder, rocking into her with a ferocity completely at odds with the gentle way he brushed his lips across hers.

  “Never. I’ll never leave you.”

  *****

  Maksim dropped a kiss on her throat, right over the spot he’d bit down on not long ago, sending a cascade of shivers throughout her body. It baffled her that even after a dozen unbelievable orgasms, one kiss still had the power to turn her knees to jelly and make her thighs quiver.

  He slipped the collar of her dressing gown back up her shoulders, his hand sliding down to play in the feathery lace around the wide bell cuffs.

  “What would you like to eat?”

  Kerrigan leaned back into his embrace with a sigh, closing her eyes as she turned her cheek to his shoulder.

  “A fat stack of gingersnap pancakes with vanilla syrup.”

  Maks captured her hand and twirled her around to face him, swaying with her in a slow, intimate dance. He kept her hand and curled it over his heart, bending to nuzzle his nose against hers.

  “A little outside my wheelhouse, but I’ll get dressed and call down to have one of the chefs come up.” She’d been joking, planning on having some toast and yogurt. She said so, and Maksim scoffed. “If you want pancakes, my love, then you shall have them.”

  “You’re spoiling me,” she sang softly, unable to wipe the smile off her face.

  “You deserve it,” he told her, touching a butterfly kiss to the corner of her eye. “Would you do another one of those fancy knots in my tie?”

  Ma
ks had already chosen a suit for the night ahead, the dark red both decadent and modern. The snowy white shirt seemed so bright and clean in comparison, and the tie draped over the coat rack was black with tiny little skulls on it. How Gothic.

  “I think this is my new favorite outfit of yours,” she teased as she slipped the tie over his head and started the knot.

  Maksim gave her a lazy wink, his hands sliding down to fondle her backside.

  “I recall purchasing the entire set because I thought you would approve.”

  Finished with the knot, she buttoned up the sexy double-breasted vest and scooped up the tie pin and cufflinks from the tray on his valet stand, unable to withhold her laugh to see they were adorned with a skull and crossbones.

  “Oh, I do. You’re the most well-dressed vampire I’ve ever known.”

  Maks kissed her as a reward for her compliment.

  “I put out something for you in your side of the closet. Take your time.”

  Since they’d been here, clothes just kept appearing in her closet. So many clothes. From silky formal wear to delicate lingerie and everything in between.

  Excited to see what he’d picked out, Kerrigan pecked his cheek and dashed across the sitting room, finding a long-sleeved sweater dress—black, of course—meant to cling to her every curve hanging from her own valet stand.

  Maks clearly had been up long before her, as he’d chosen some seriously sexy calf-high lace-up boots, petite fishnet stockings, jewelry, and a scrap of silk that appeared to be her only underwear.

  Until Kerrigan pulled the sweater dress over her head, she’d thought it demure compared to his sexy red suit. But once she’d pushed her head through the high collar and pulled the material down over her butt, she noticed the diamond shaped cutout that left her back bare from just beneath her shoulder blades, all the way down to the point between the dimples of her low back.

  The lack of a bra combined with the cutout made her feel incredibly sexy, which likely was what Maksim had been going for.

  She put her face on and pulled her hair up into a high pony, finding she felt like strutting as she left the closet.