They explored each other, too. Not just him putting his hands and mouth in interesting, luscious places. Her, too. His pants got pushed down, kicked off, shoved off the bed, and he loved that sound she made, loved it. When she touched him, undeniable appreciation of his human form echoed back to him. Good. So good, that she responded to the body his magic made possible.
She had good hands, and a fantastic mouth, and they weren’t thinking about much but finding out more about what things aped the sensations. She curled her fingers around his cock, drew his foreskin down, and got busy with her mouth. Fuck, oh, fuck. When he had his head on straight again, and she was stroking his belly, he drew a line from her right shoulder diagonally down to the curve of her backside. “Good for you?”
“God, yes.”
“Your skin is so pretty. So soft. I want to lick you everywhere.”
“I think you should.”
He kissed his way to the spot where he’d bitten her and tongued away the blood that had seeped out. She worked her hand between him, cupping his balls, sliding up, and he sank into their pleasure.
This wasn’t what sex was like for him. He was good at it, but he was never, except for those moments of coming, not in full control. Because his life without Avitas wasn’t real. When he fucked a woman that’s all it ever was.
“I want in.” Her skin was smooth and dark and with all the walking she did because she didn’t have a car, there was muscle under her flesh. His thoughts raced on, anticipating his cock in her, that shiver that came with the possibility of procreative sex. With a witch there was that plus the messed up, breathless, perverted things a demon could do with a woman who had magic.
She adjusted herself. “Yes. Now.”
“I’m not fertile in this form, you know that, right? None of us are.”
Her eyes fluttered open. “Maddy gave us the lecture.”
“Good.” He pulled himself over her, hands on the mattress above her shoulders. “You know no condom necessary, right?”
“I took notes,” she said. “Just in case.”
“You would.”
In his mind he was in his true form, and that was not safe. Not safe at all. She gave him what had to be the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen, and parted her legs, knees bent, and he slid in.
“Fuck. Wallace.” For a moment, he teetered on the edge of orgasm. “I can’t—”
She put her arms around him and moved with him, and there was no point in talking or thinking or anything but letting their reactions fill them up. Them. Moving, sliding in her, and she was soft, and warm, and he could feel her magic, too, and that was as hot as anything he’d felt in his long years of existing since Avitas died.
They ended up with him on his back, and his thoughts blanked when she swung a leg over him. She settled onto him, and his cock went deep in her, and his eyes were filled with nothing but her. The way she smiled—how had he not anticipated that? The shape of her breasts, the play of light and shadow across her body, and he had no idea why he’d ever thought she was anything but the most fuckable woman in the world. The slide to her waist and the curve of her hips. Beautiful skin. Better than anything. He touched her everywhere he could reach, and he was worried he was going to come before he was ready.
She took one of his hands, and showed him how she liked her breasts touched, and he learned, he memorized, because he wasn’t going to give her anything but what she needed. What they both needed. She matched him, mated him, fucked him with abandon. Her body moved with his, her fingers and palms and mouth, sometimes, sliding along him. Mind paired—one.
Then he reared back and nicked the side of his throat with a taloned nail. She met him at the midpoint of his offering of his blood to her. The heat when she licked away his blood opened him to her. He’d been closed off too long. She wasn’t Avitas, she wasn’t, but she lessened the emptiness of his loss.
She knew. She was there in his head with his desolation. She looped her arms around his neck and whispered, “I bear witness.” When she released him, she traced his face with her fingertips. Her magic was there. Vast. And he accepted her, and her words, and her promise to remember and honor. “I bear witness, Palla.”
He slowed his movements in her. Bereft, yet for the first time since he’d been destroyed, he found comfort. They hit another peak, and he growled and rolled so she was on her back again, and he was taking them both over the edge, and when they did, he amplified the sensations. His. Hers. Theirs. And she gave all that back to him, his fierce, beautiful, survivor.
Chapter 12
He parked downhill on Mockingbird Ridge Road so when they left they’d be able to drive away with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of speed if they were pursued. He shut off the motor and handed Wallace the extra key. She needed to be able to leave here on her own or be behind the wheel, if he couldn’t.
This wasn’t Santa Cruz, proper, but it was splitting hairs. In her purse, she had a fake driver’s license, a hundred dollars in mixed bills, and an employee ID for a startup at an address in Cupertino. Her cell phone was loaded with enough contacts, apps, files, and music to satisfy all but the most thorough review. Registration and insurance for the car was in her name with an address in Los Gatos.
He had all contingencies covered.
Jeanne’s house was in an exclusive area of multi-million dollar homes—a showplace in an enclave of mansions. Some of the magekind kept a low profile; Jeanne never had.
He was glad, now, that Wallace had insisted on dressing like she belonged here. He didn’t think her shoes were practical enough, but she wouldn’t budge on that or the jewelry or on looking like she was going to a party.
If they got separated, a brown woman in an area like this had better look like she was either the help or someone with a damn good job in the tech sector. As for him, he could dampen his own magic and make himself, for all practical purposes, invisible to any of the magekind in the area. Magehelds would no more be able to sense him than he could sense them. She registered as vanilla as possible, too. Every contingency.
They’d memorized the layout of the house and practiced getting in and out, and they were as prepared as they could be. Jeanne was supposed to be home tonight. She had to be, or they ran the risk of her having the talisman with her.
Well before they reached the driveway, Palla felt the shiver of Jeanne’s power. Wallace put a hand on the back of his shoulder. She felt it, too. If this went south, he had no doubt he’d end up dead. He was fine with that. He brought Wallace into the dampening effect he already had on his magic just to be sure.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
“All right then.”
He made a low level link with her, two-way so they wouldn’t need to talk. She’d know when he’d located the talisman, and through her, he’d have advance notice of magehelds who were drawing on magic. A lot of the wards on the outside of the house were sloppy and easily disengaged; the work of magehelds after every possible act of defiance. Lights were on in most rooms of the house. They found the side door without trouble, and he had the wards, and the physical alarms and locks disabled in ten seconds.
Jeanne’s power was a familiar miasma. Sickening. Stronger than she’d been before, though. Significantly. He concentrated on his link with Wallace and between them located the magehelds. At least twenty. If Nikodemus didn’t have his hands full dealing with things up north, Jeanne and her twenty slaves would have been a prime target. Palla would have volunteered to lead the team sent to liberate her magehelds and reclaim the lives of the demons she’d trapped.
Five more steps into the house, and a familiar echo of power rocked to him to his core. Avitas. He froze in plain sight of anyone who might show up, stunned and thrown half back in his old life, his lost life.
She was here.
Not alive, but not gone. The air quivered with her familiar energy, so real he felt he might walk back in time and find her, hold her again, and she’d be there, smiling. Reaching for him,
and he would be whole again.
Instinctively, he opened himself to her and there was howling, screaming madness where there had once been his blood-twin. He dropped to his knees, sliced open, trapped in the nightmare of her suffering. The harder he tried to remake their connection so he could help her, the more broken he became.
Palla.
She needed him. They needed to be one. They had not been whole for centuries, and that terrible wound bled anew.
“Palla.”
Not Avitas. Not her touching him or saying his name. Someone else. He pushed away the manic conviction that he could have Avitas back. He couldn’t.
“Palla.”
He focused on the annoyance with an acuity of vision that meant he’d at least partially shifted. A human woman knelt in front of him—because he was on his knees, too, and she had her hands on his temples. A witch. She was a witch. Different from others in the way her magic worked. He watched, bemused, until her attempts to link with him worked. Her power flowed around him and clarity returned.
Wallace. They were in Santa Cruz, and they were going after the talisman in which Avitas was imprisoned.
“Palla? Are you with me?”
He reached for her, put his hands on either side of her face. “We have to save her.”
She rested her forehead against his and let out a breath. “We will.”
Palla curled a hand around the back of her neck and punched his chest with a fist and Avitas’s screams echoed in his head. “She’s still dying. All this time, she’s been dying, and I haven’t been able to help her.”
Her fingers curled around his upper arms, and she tugged upward, urging him to stand. “We are going to make this right.”
“Still dying.” Her wails were killing him. Killing him.
“I understand.”
He raised his face to hers. So serious, the witch Wallace Jackson. He’d made an oath to protect her. Why?
Then she dead dropped him.
His thoughts cleared. The screams were gone, and so was all but the faintest echo of Avitas. Wallace was unperturbed. Matter-of-fact. In control of her worry that things were going wrong so quickly.
“She’s set a trap, Palla.”
“Who?” The fog of the last few minutes thinned. He hooked into a link with her. Yes. “Jeanne. Fucking witch.”
“Yeah. I think she tied the talisman to a ward, and it triggered when we came in.”
His stomach churned. He concentrated on Wallace because the trap hadn’t affected her. Her odd, inverted magic kept her safe from the maelstrom, and right now it was keeping him safe, too. He didn’t like not being able to touch his magic, but if he broke free of her, he’d be vulnerable to whatever Jeanne had done. “I can’t protect you without my magic. Not in this house. It’s not safe here.”
“No joke.” She grabbed him by the arms again, and they got to their feet. “We are not leaving here without that talisman.”
He drew back, and she whirled on him, urgency in the way she set her shoulders. He leaned close. “There are going to be magehelds after us, and you can bet they’ll all have been given a kill order.”
“Then we better move fast. She tugged on his hand again. “I need your help, Palla.”
“Then stop what you’re doing.” He shrugged. “If I go off, dead drop me again.”
She nodded, and a moment later, his magic was back. The screams started again, everything tainted by all that was left of Avitas. He remade a connection with Wallace, hooking in deep, concentrating on her and her serenity. She was his lifeline, a silver of sanity.
They took the stairs, sharing their mental map of the house. Madness twisted through him, compelling. Alluring. Avitas was here. So close. Soon they would be together. When he found her, he would contain her madness, give her respite, and make them one.
“Palla,” said another voice. Not hers. “Palla, snap out of it.”
Other. Not demonkind; magekind.
He knew the woman. Wallace Jackson, and he would have fucking killed her for being a witch—The center of his body turned to fire. He stumbled. He’d made a blood oath to protect a witch? Why the hell had he done that when he wasn’t her mageheld? He moved up the stairs, the witch he was bound to protect behind him, steady, and yes, there was that oddness about her. There was a solidity to her, a stillness that puzzled him and drew him along the link he had with her. Not a normal witch.
So he couldn’t let her die. His long years as a mageheld had taught him there were thousands of ways for an enslaved demon to follow the letter of an order without carrying out the spirit of it. He’d find a way if he could, and if not, well then. Better if Avitas ended up bound by that oath than to do nothing.
“Palla. Slow down. Slow down. There are magehelds coming. Jesus. Stop.”
Here. In this room. The door was locked, and he drew on his power, more, more of it because Avitas was here. He blew away the door. Vanished every molecule in his way. He walked in, heedless, because Avitas was calling for him, still dying endlessly.
He crossed the bedroom and at the last minute the witch lunged and got between him and box that held the talisman. He snarled, and his oath to her whipped through him and took him to his knees. She bent over him—ready to kill him—and then there was blessed calm. Then silence. The world slammed back.
She shoved the box in her purse and released her dead drop of him. “You okay?”
“Yes.”
“They’re coming. They know you’re here. We have to get out. Now.”
“Well, well, well.”
Palla turned, his mind clear, his power on tap. His oath to Wallace burned through him. “Fucking witch.”
Five magehelds flanked her. They were big, and judging from appearances, strong enough to pose a challenge. Two of them were pulling enough magic through them to have turned their eyes unnatural colors. He couldn’t feel a mageheld’s magic, but Wallace could, and there was enough of their link still going that he sensed the echo of the magehelds.
“Palla. Isn’t that right?” Jeanne had a cigarette in one hand, hand-rolled, because it wasn’t tobacco, but copa, a substance the kin used to relax. The effect on the magekind was different. Copa boosted their power, and it addicted them. Continued use burned out their magic. Keep using, as most of the addicted magekind did, and copa was fatal. Most magekind who’d been hopping their magic with copa for half as long as Jeanne had been alive were either burned out, dead, or fast approaching the point where the drug would kill them.
“You know who I am.”
Jeanne drew on her copa and let out a stream of smoke. Faded blue letters were tattooed on her hands and fingers, words of power—an affectation of the old French mages. Christophe had done the same. From the too bright blue of her eyes, she’d been dosing herself before he and Wallace arrived. “I thought you belonged to dit Menart.”
“Dead.”
“I heard of that.” She let another stream of smoke from her lips and spoke in Irish. “Was it you killed him?”
“No.”
“Your friend?” She waved a hand and switched to English. “If you brought her here for me, I can tell you, I am not interested in any human with so little power. Neither are they.” She gestured to the magehelds behind her. After these hundreds of years lived beyond a natural life spam, she remained youthful. Her presence on this earth, no more her unaged body, meant she had been ritually murdering demons.
The magehelds who’d come in with her arranged themselves in front of the door Palla had disintegrated. The largest two blocked the way. As if he didn’t get Jeanne wasn’t going to let them go anywhere. He could take them, but he needed to wait until they were someplace where Wallace could escape to the car.
Wallace slipped her arm around his waist. She could kill with her magic. With one stroke, she could take down everyone. She would never do it. He would without a single regret, but she wouldn’t. “You have such a beautiful house. I told Palla I wanted to see the place.”
The
flow of her magic shaped the chaos at the edges of the void that everyone mistook for the locus of her magic. None of them realized what she was doing. Three of the magehelds lost their severe expressions. She leaned against him. “It’s okay, isn’t it, that we’re looking around? There wasn’t anyone at the door when we came in.”
“No, dear child. No, it is not all right.”
“I am so sorry. It’s my fault. He told me I was being an idiot, but I just never listen.”
They did not know, Jeanne or her magehelds, that she was taking away their hostility. The magehelds in the doorway relaxed, and Jeanne sent a sharp look in their direction, but she, too, was not as angry as she had been. She’d smoked her copa down to a butt too small to continue. She peeled open the paper and extracted the rest of the copa. She placed it, ashes, ember, and all, in her mouth. “Whatever you are doing, demon, cease immediately.”
He lifted his hands. “No can do.”
“You swore to protect her? Why?” She studied them. “Have you taken her to bed?”
“Blew my mind.”
“I do not approve.”
“Demons fuck witches all the time.”
She gave Wallace a long look. “Some things are just not done.”
“Times have changed.” If he could get them past the damned door, then he could get Wallace out of here. Safely away.
Wallace’s magic flowed through the room like smoke, and it was nothing like what he was used to. “Palla, sweetie, I think we need to be going.”
“What is this?” Jeanne focused on Wallace, and her eyes narrowed. “An indwell of some kind?”
Wallace smiled at Jeanne full on. “Thank you for letting us have a look around your spectacular house.”
“You are welcome, naturally.”
“It’s so beautiful.” She took Palla’s hand and walked to the doorway. “Did you decorate yourself?”
“This room, yes.”
“You must love living here.”
“I do.”
“You’ll walk us to the door won’t you? I love your staircase. The marble’s from Italy, am I right?”