by K. F. Breene
“Whoa, whoa.” Bria hurriedly gathered up her supplies. “That’s too personal for me. I need to get out of here.”
After she was gone, I stared at the trunk for a moment, uncertainty rolling back in. The termination of my job should’ve been a good thing, especially since I was still getting paid. I would totally take that check and nod in thanks. Who was I to say boo? I mean, Kieran was a nightmare of a boss: possessive, controlling, and he often stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong. And then there was the danger from Valens. It would be way safer to distance myself from the lot of them. I could move somewhere nice, with better weather and cleaner streets. We could start over, with the money to do it right.
So why did my chest ache like I was about to go into cardiac arrest?
“Is she here?” Kieran’s voice was quiet and thick, ringing with emotion.
I startled out of my daze, worried about what I was feeling. Worried about letting go of it.
“Yeah, sure. I mean…” I shook my head and glanced around at the empty room. “Uh…no.”
Confused, I met his eyes, recognizing the sadness there. Usually that was all it took to bring his mom floating in.
“Is there a way to call her?” he asked, his focus on me intense.
“Well…” I patted my nonexistent pockets for my tarot cards, as though I just carried them around constantly. “How do you usually call her?”
“Think of her, I guess.”
“Well…” I frowned, still confused. “Aren’t you doing that?”
He blew out a breath and shook his head before looking away. His brow furrowed, which probably mirrored my expression, and silence descended in patches as conversation rose and fell from beyond my closed door.
A few moments later, Lyra drifted through the wall, her expression sublime and her dress flowing without a breeze.
“No one usually looks that good as a ghost,” I muttered, turning toward the trunk. “It’s unnatural.”
“Is it time?” she asked, taking a seat beside her son.
“Yes,” I answered.
“I meant to ask…” She paused and I lifted my eyebrows at her. Kieran continued to stare at me, so I pointed at her. “She’s here. In case you thought I was talking to myself.”
He nodded, but his eyes didn’t leave mine. Not like there was any reason for them to, I supposed. He had to take my word for it, after all.
“As a spirit, do I have any power in this world?” she asked.
I froze for a moment, because I knew where this was going. She was asking if she could hang around and try to protect her son. Or maybe help her son in some way.
Not only was that mostly impossible, she’d probably just get captured again, and Kieran would be in the same position he just was, only Valens would hide her spirit better.
I took the super blunt approach. “Once you die, you stop being useful.”
Her stare was hard for a moment, as though trying to read me, before she nodded in understanding.
“Okay.” I closed my eyes. “Here we go.”
“Good-bye,” Kieran whispered, finality to his tone. “I’ll miss you.”
“You were the best son a mother could have,” she said, and I relayed the message as I fiddled with the spirit trap. I could crack it open like an egg, but I wondered if I could just fade out one of the little patches cobbling it together and let her spirit slip out the side. If I did it that way, maybe the originator would think he’d messed up. It was possible.
Then again, maybe the guy’s periodic visits to the government building had nothing to do with strengthening the spell. Maybe he just came there to pick up his paychecks. I couldn’t know for sure unless I checked it out...and now, according to Kieran, there would be no need.
“I love you dearly,” she said. “Please live your life to its fullest. Break Valens’s hold over you, and find happiness. Please.”
“I intend to,” Kieran said after I relayed the message.
I glanced at his face, and before his stone mask slipped over his features, I saw the lie. The uncertainty.
He planned to go up against his father, and he wasn’t sure he would win.
Which was crazy, because he always sounded so confident. So in control.
That’s how he was trained.
The ache in my middle grew, responding to my worry of what he faced, as I peeled away part of the slippery spirit trap. There really wasn’t anything to it when I embraced the power of the Line.
A gasp made me jerk my head around. Lyra laughed like a girl and jumped on the bed, putting her hands into the air in an expression of joy and bliss. A strange wetsuit looking thing drifted through the air to her, and she grabbed it and held it close. The Line pulsed above us, all around us, beckoning to her.
I described everything I saw in as much detail as I could muster—describing the Line didn’t make much sense if you couldn’t actually see and feel it.
A boyish smile crossed Kieran’s face. Relief.
Lyra hugged her skin and headed for the wall of the house.
“Wait, wait—whoa. Where are you going?” I asked.
Her smile was serene. “For a proper swim, and then to eternity. I am finally whole again.”
She disappeared through the wall, leaving silence in her wake.
“She’s gone?” Kieran asked.
I stood slowly and pushed back my hair. “Yes. She’ll probably cross over in the ocean. That seems fitting.” I turned my attention to Kieran, sitting on the bed with his hands clasped, that extreme focus on me again. Sadness creased his features and lingered in his eyes. “She was blissful. She’s finally at rest, Kieran. You gave her peace.”
“No,” he whispered, rising and stepping closer. His breath dusted my face. “You gave her peace. I gave her you.”
He grabbed my cheeks with both hands. Passion flared within me and fire licked at my core. I expected a hard kiss, like earlier, rushed and frantic. Instead, electricity jumped between us as his lips slowly grazed mine, savoring the contact.
I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, inviting him in. His tongue probed before he backed off to nibble on my bottom lip. His hands slid down my sides and hooked around my middle.
Warmth spread through me from deep down as I sunk into the feeling of his arms wrapped around me. Of his strength and power. Of his gentle touch. He was what I’d always longed for in my quietest moments—the rush of desire wrapped up in a blanket of safety.
In that moment I knew…I had to ride the train of terrible ideas one more time. Just once more to thoroughly get him out of my system. Right after that, I’d go back to being a logical adult who didn’t get mixed up with dangerous men filled with all the strength and power of a god.
Just one more time.
Toot, toot.
I slid my hands down his front and stopped at the base of his T-shirt before slipping inside and putting my palms flush with his hot skin. His thumbs stroked my chin as he deepened our kiss. I pushed my hands up and the shirt with it, grabbing the ends in fistfuls when I reached his shoulders.
He leaned back, his eyes liquid and opened up all the way down to his soul. Without thinking, I reached into his chest, only needing a trickle of the Line power to do so this time, and stroked the edge of that hard plate protecting his essence. He sucked in a breath and tensed, but didn’t fight it. Instead, he lifted his arms so I could pull off the shirt, and then looked down at me again.
“It’s terrifying when you do that,” he said softly, the corners of his lips tweaking upward into a sheepish grin. “It’s one of the rare times I feel completely vulnerable. I know one heart-stopping moment of thinking I can’t protect myself before I feel my magic build. It’s so primal, the response. I can see why people with your magic have been feared through the centuries.”
Doubt bled through me and heat prickled my eyes. But before I could pull back, he shook his head and gripped my upper arms. His smile melted and eyes grew serious.
“I wasn’t trying to
make you feel badly just then, Alexis,” he said, putting one warm hand to the side of my neck, and using the other to capture my hand and place it on his heart. “I’m in awe of you. There is only one other thing that makes me feel that sort of vulnerability. It speaks of your power, and your rare gift. It’s a treasure. You’re a treasure. I trust you implicitly.”
“You didn’t trust me so well when you blasted me with your magic in your bedroom.” My voice quavered, a result of remembering the horror I could become. Amazingly, however, I didn’t lift my chin to offset it. I didn’t reach for anger to cover the moment. He’d admitted to a vulnerability, and so I let him see mine.
His lips quirked upward again. “Usually I can control my reaction. That time I couldn’t. You blindsided me, what can I say? In more ways than one.”
I leaned forward, wanting to steal a little more of his heat. “Where’s the other place you feel vulnerable?”
His eyes dulled and his smile melted away for the second time. “When I’m at sea with my father.”
30
Alexis
I’d been right. Kieran was unsure if he could handle what his father would throw at him.
“Then why will you challenge him?” I asked, worry rising. I slid the fingers of my free hand over his slight raven stubble. “Your mother is free. Why not leave it at that? He can’t know it was you.”
Kieran shook his head, and a sudden burst of his magic sizzled across my skin and booted me out of his middle. “My father won’t let something like that go. If he figures out what happened, he won’t rest until he knows who was responsible. Until he punishes them. Look at what he did to my mother. He won’t be any easier on his son.”
I let my hand fall until my fingertips were digging into his shoulder, my aggression matching the feeling of his magic. “It just so happens that you have a holy terror working for you, one that can clear a room in ten seconds flat. A whole room. Ten seconds. As soon as she learns her magic, she might be useful.”
The mood shifted and his tone deepened. “You will stay as far away from this as humanly possible, is that clear?” Shivers crawled up my skin and fear made my legs quake. Talk about a primal reaction. “You will go nowhere near this. You’ve done what I needed you to do. You found my mother’s skin and set her free. She is no longer a liability, and neither will you be. I’ll take it from here.”
I frowned and took a step back. “Okay, but what about all those other trapped spirits?”
“I have the information you found, and I have Bria to help lock down the person who did this. I’ll find whoever it is, and I’ll make him disappear. His magic should be ripped away with him. Worst case, it’ll seep away in time. My father will lose that asset, and with it, his access to the captured souls.”
“Bria—” I clenched my jaw in outrage. “You can’t involve her and not me. I helped bring all this around.”
“Lexi,” he whispered, and his eyes softened. The warmth in my middle expanded a little more with the sound of my nickname on his tongue. He lightly trailed his fingertips down my cheek. “Please. Bria has lived this life for years. She’s hardened to it. Trained for it. And if she is caught, she can’t be scrambled and turned into a war machine. You could be.” He traced a thumb across my lips before leaning in and touching his lips to mine. “Please, let me protect you. I brought you into all of this. I shattered your peaceful, quiet life. Let me try to restore a little of that. Please do me the favor of letting this go. Of going back to hiding yourself from the magical world.” He paused, staring at me with pleading eyes. “For me.”
I read his concern clearly, his worry that something might happen to me. This was what his mom had meant when she’d told me to listen to him.
My heart squished, and before I knew what was happening, I was nodding at him. “Okay.”
He kissed me deeply, and the room fell away. The uncertainty of my magic and my future vanished. All I knew was his lips moving against mine, his hands slowly drifting down my body.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured against my lips. “When I first saw you, I thought you were trying to disguise your beauty with the rough clothing. Trying to blend into your surroundings. It seemed so daft. A creature like you was not made to fit in, you were made to stand out. To draw notice. Your angelic face, your easy confidence, your incredible magic—you are one in a million, and it pains me that you have to be hidden away from admiring eyes.”
My body felt as light as air. I hadn’t thought my heart could swell any more, but he’d just proven me wrong.
I unbuckled his jeans, not able to stand it. Needing him with a fire I could barely understand.
Clearly sensing my urgency, he pulled my shirt over my head, ripping a clasp when it got caught, and threw it to the floor. I pushed down his pants as he took two fistfuls of mine and ripped them apart. Fabric screeched and a zipper tore before he spun me around and backed me against my bed. He wrapped a strong arm around me before kneeling onto the mattress and lowering me to my back.
I reached for his hard length, only to miss as he pulled my pants off the rest of the way. He stepped out of his without ceremony, and I took a second to feast on the marvel that was his body. Thick shoulders and cut pecs reduced down into an almost eight-pack before ending on that large cock straining for me.
I pushed the blankets back and scooted more thoroughly onto the bed, feeling a jolt of anticipation when he crawled after me slowly, passion burning in his stormy eyes. He pushed a knee to the side and bent over me. I gasped, arching as his hot tongue licked up my center. He swirled around my clit and then sucked it in, sending my eyes rolling to the back of my head.
“Hmm, Kieran.” I dragged my fingers through his unruly black hair. A finger plunged into my wetness, followed by a second, and his mouth created a pulsing suction to match the pace of his fingers. “Holy—shit.” I gyrated upward into his mouth. Sensations coursed through me so hard and fast I wasn’t ready for them. “Holy crap, no. Yes. Oh God.”
His dark chuckle spoke of sex and fire and writhing bodies. “Do we need a safe word?”
“I don’t LIKE—oh! Pain. No PAIN—hmm.” I closed my eyes as his sexy magic rolled over me, kissing every inch of my skin. “Oh yes…”
“There is pain, and then there is being right on the edge of the precipice, begging to come, and not being allowed to.”
“Too many words. Stop with all the WORDS—holy shiii—”
He stroked my clit with his tongue in a way I hadn’t even known was possible. Pleasure pounded through my body, making my jaw clench shut for a moment. He worked with his fingers, then sucked again, before going back with his tongue. If oral sex was an art, Kieran’s rendition would be priceless.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. My back arched and my whole body tensed, drowning in ecstasy. I hit a wall before he switched it up, and then I blasted through it. Climbing past heights I’d never before reached, and rocketing higher still.
Sounds with no shape exited my mouth. Moans increased in pitch. The waves of pure pleasure increased in intensity.
“Please, no,” I begged, strung out. At that edge he’d warned me about. Needing to jump off. “Please, yes!”
Without warning, the suction stopped and his fingers disappeared. My sex pounded so hard I couldn’t think straight. I ached with wanting.
His body slid over mine, my skin so sensitive that it felt like a thousand little electric shocks of pleasure. I moaned and slid my hands down his muscular back, marveling at the definition. His large cock prodded my opening, and my body jumped out of my skin.
“You should’ve picked out that safe word when you had the chance,” he said softly, his voice silky smooth, his magic mixing with mine in an exquisite cocktail.
“Please,” I begged, my body burning me alive from the inside out. I deepened the kiss, wild now. Desperate.
“Hmm.” He pushed up onto his elbows and reached in to grab his cock by the base before running it along my slit, getting everythi
ng wet. His body lowered onto mine before he dragged his tip against my slit and stopped at my opening.
I braced, and without meaning to, reached into his middle with my magic. When I felt that hard plate this time, I didn’t try to push through. I soaked into it, easing down into him like I envisioned his cock easing down into me.
He gasped right before his magic slammed into me, flaying me open. Strangely, it didn’t hurt. He wasn’t forcing me out. He was allowing me in.
I finished burrowing through that inner wall and there it was—his most sacred possession, the very essence of him. I stroked it with a feather-light touch, marveling at its pureness and beauty.
He gasped again and grabbed the bed to either side of me. I slid my legs up his sides, not sure what I was doing, but knowing it felt right, and dragged him back down on top of me.
He didn’t hesitate this time. He didn’t have the ability.
He thrust into me with everything he had, filling me to the point of pain and making me call out his name. I grabbed his shoulders and opened myself up in a way I hadn’t before, not to anyone, connecting his middle to mine in a straight line, soul to soul. Whatever I’d done to his soul, he would in turn do to mine.
His magic slid across my body before soaking in, a million pricks of lava buffered by his sexy magic. I groaned, the feeling just on this side of pleasure, heightening the experience. Our magics mixed together before converging on the line connecting our souls, strengthening the bond.
He pumped harder, animalistic. I met each thrust with a wild upswing of my hips, taking him deep. Pleasure pounded. My body wound tighter. Thoughts fled and nothing existed but the connection between us. The little tugs of our connection sent glorious shivers through my body, pumped higher by the sensation of him moving inside of me.
“Oh God, Kieran,” I said through clenched teeth, unable to stand it. “I can’t. I…can’t.”
